Sony Wega 24" into Nintendo Cab

[jay_red]

Hey guys, wanted to share my success with mounting a Wega CRT into my Mame cabinet. A little history, this cab was my first arcade project, bought the cab completely empty for $60 delivered to my door. I kind of repaired some damage, and painted it, but didnt do the best job out there. I threw in a computer and then needed a monitor/TV. I went through 3 different ones until I found one that I was"happy" with. It was a Phillips 20" crt with s-video and component. It worked ok, the s-video was pretty blurry, and I never tried out the component. Everyone who played the cab thought it was great, and never complained about anything, but I was always aware of the flaws, the small TV, the crappy picture.

I let it go, and called it done, and it was that way for almost a year now, then I got a Neo Geo Big red... That cab sitting next to the mame made it look so bad, the small TV was a joke next to the glorious 25 inches of arcade goodness. All the flaws were amplified to me, as I restored the Neo Geo to an almost new condition (I have a thread in the restoration section) So it was time to find the end all monitor for the Mame cab.

I wanted the biggest that could possibly fit, but with only about 22" inches of useable width, that was a major limiting factor. I stumble across a 24 inch Sony Wega on Craigslist for 20 bucks, and after the seller graciously gave me some measurements, I was off to pick it up. It was going to be a close fit, but I was confident it would fit.Took the case off, followed the proper discharge procedure and took some measurements. Mounting ear to mounting ear was 21 inches, close, but doable. I thought about what to do about a bracket, and came up with some elaborate ideas, then slapped myself and remembered to keep it simple stupid.

I grabbed some 3/4 x 4 inch pieces from home depot and screwed them into the cab. The inside width in the cab was now 19.5, the crt... 19.25 ish...a tight fit, but should still work... I get the Wife to help me with the heavy ass tube, and we lay it in to test it out (BTW the cab was on its back the whole time, this was essential!) After some creative maneuvering and a tight squeeze, it fit! The large holes on the mounts were useless, as they were half on and half off the board, so I made some ugly but perfectly functional brackets to provide as much mounting surface as possible.

After getting all 4 sides done, it was time to stand her back up, laying down it felt solid as a rock, but we would see once gravity had its say. Back on its feet and its a success! and I am totally happy with this size in the cab!
 
Damn Flash! 



Here it was when we stood it up, I immediately realized it was too straight up, so we took out some screws, and tilted it back, and now its good to go.


Here you can see the wood its mounted to, simple, simple but effective.


I was going to hook it all back up to test it out, but realized that one of the connectors is not keyed, so it can go on either way, and I have no clue which way that was. can anyone fill me in, I would hate to get it wrong and mess something up, this wire wraps around the screen. Any help would be awesome.


Sorry for the long post, just happy this worked out better than I could have expected.

[MonMotha]

Looks like that's just the degauss coil (black ring running around the outside of the tube).  It doesn't matter which way that's hooked up.

[mgb]

Hey, welcome to the forum.

The install on the monitor looks nice and clean. Nice job.

As already said above, that's probably the degaussing coil which the cable orientation doesn't matter.

Good luck with the machine

[jay_red]

Thanks for the replies guys, that was a relief knowing that the plug orientation did not matter. I got it hooked back up today and everything was a success! The picture is fine with no issues, and I was able to mount the circuit board under the monitor in almost the same fashion as when its in the case. I took the control panel off of its mounts, and flipped it around so it is accessible from the back of the cab in case I need to access the controls for any reason. Luckily the TV seems to remember previous settings when plugged in, as it automatically turns on, and goes to the proper video channel.