Hantarex 9000 questions

[blackmoor]

So I bought Jaleco Big Run Rally upright cabinet, which has Hantarex 9000 E display. Everything works, I 'm going to put mame computer inside the cabinet. I would like to maintain the ability to play the original game.

I was thinking of installing On-Off-On switch to the control panel, under the steering wheel. One side is for the original game, other side for the mame computer. Both sides of the switches would turn on the arcade monitor.

I'm going to order Ultimarcs video amplifier for connecting the arcade monitor to my mame pc (which will have GeForce 8400 GS (has been replaced by) ATI Radeon X600 ) and install CRT-EMudriver 6.2 with soft15Khz modes. I have done this with mille miglia cabinet, and it worked after tinkering with it

Question: Can I start the monitor and mame computer at the same time, or will it ruin the Hantarex 9000 E? With my mille miglia, it was not a problem, I powered both simultaneusly, and monitor showed garbage from about 15 seconds. After that, 15 khz display, but it did not damage the display unit. Can I do the same and not risk damaging the hantarex? If not, what is the proper way to power up the monitor? Somekind timed relay?

Also the cabinet has a "Hantarex switched mode power supply 300" which powers everything, the lights, the arcade pcb:s AND monitor. Monitor has 4 power lines, which according by the hantarex handbook, are 120 V for power and 240 for degaus. The switched mode power supple is connected to mains via Isolation transformer. Should I take power to the MAME computer, and new sound system from mains BEFORE the isolation transformer? Also is there any damage to the "switched mode power supply" If I unplug the arcade PCB plug from it, but keep using the monitor and lights via it and mame pc and sound system via power BEFORE the Isolation transformer?

Here is the manual for the big run. http://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-videogames/B/Big%20Run.pdf

Found it inside the cab, and also the monitors manual and the switched power supplys.

[obcd]

Connect the pc and the sound system before the isolation transformer. Install an additional GND wire from the case of ypour pc to the rest of the GND wires in the cabinet. If you power your pc together with the monitor, you might receive a 640 x 480 video signal during bootup of the pc. It's the videocard it's bios that is responsable for this resolution (as the OS and it's video driver aren't operational yet) Pc monitors contain a small chip that informs the video adapter what resolutions are supported on the monitor. Arcade monitors are not having this, so the video adapter will use it's lowest resolution which is either 640x480 or 640x350. Some monitors have no problem with that, but others don't really like it. Delaying the startup of your monitor until your pc is sending out the correct video resolution is an option. PC Jamma adapters block the video signal until a proper 15khz sync is detected to protect the monitor. Some arcadevga video adapters have a modified bios that boots at a 15khz resolution.

Having both the pc and the original pcb will be difficult. You will need to switch the RGB and sync to the monitor (that's already 4 connections.)
Further, you have the steering control potmeter that get's it's power from the gameboard, and you have the gas and brake controls that are connected to the gameboard as well. (Usually those are analog and potmeters as well.) Every potmeter has 3 connections. You can leave the GND connected (if one of the potmeter pins is GND), so that still leaves 2 connections / control that need to be switched.
Assuming 2 pedals and a steering pot, these are 6 signals that need to be switched between the original board and wathever arcade interface you intend to use with your pc. This leaves us with the power supply. Some switch mode power supplies expect a minimum load on some of their power rails to operate properly. Not sure about that hantarex supply. If you disconnect the original gameboard, you will have hardly any load left on the 5V rail. Again, you will need to disconnect the game board 5V and 12V (at least), and it probably isn't a good idea to do that while the supply is operating. If I was in your situation, I would check how well the original game is emulated in mame and consider to build a mame only system. It depends how rare the original game is and how much value it is having in it's original state. Some things like steering force feedback can be an extra challenge to get them working under mame.

[blackmoor]

Thank you for the reply.

My question was if anybody knows whether the hantarex 9000 would mind the 15 seconds of "bios" 640x480 video before emudriver kicks in. Adding timed relay really seems like a hassle

I already own A-PAC leftover from previous build. The wheel has a 270 pot, with rumble motor. Start, Race (horn) and Low / High gear (simple switch on/off). The accel pedal (no brake at all) is on off switch, no pot.

The power supply has the jamma -5v, 5V, 12 V lines on a connector, which can be simply unplugged, leaving the hantarex power supply to power the display and the lights of the cab, but not the original game boards at all. So I as thinking to splice the cables to the wheel and switches (Start, Race, gear and accel) so, that they are connected to the A-PAC AND to the original board simultaneously. Same with the monitor cable: RGB, GRound and V.Sync, splice the computer vga- amplifier cables to it. That way monitor is connected both the original boards and the pc. And controllers are connected to the original boards and the pc.

And then a power on off on rotary switch. One On side is Hantarex supply only on. This would be the original game, when then multiplug is connected from the supply to the jamma boards.

The other ON side is to the Hantarex AND pc/soundsystem. On this side hantarex to jamma plug is unplugged.

The principle is that when pc is on, jamma board is off and when pc is off, jamma can be plugged on and play the original game.

BTW here is the power supply manual:

http://gros.niko.free.fr/telechargement/moniteur/hantarex/U250_U300.pdf

Although the power supply is not connected exaclty like in the picture.

[obcd]

I have no idea about the Hantarex. Blocking the sync signal when it's not a 15khz shouldn't be that difficult. (Using something like an Arduino). The RGB can stay connected. For the monitor, this situation is equal to it running without a signal connected. Assuming the switches are simply pulling some inputs to GND, you can add some diodes to have both the gameboard and A-PAC connected to them. The diodes prevent the voltage from one board to go to the other. This method should work for powering the steering potmeter as well, so you will only have the steering output voltage that should be connected to either the pc or the gameboard. A small relay, powered by the gameboard supply could be used to switch that potmeter signal to either the A-PAC or the gameboard.

[baritonomarchetto]

Blocking the sync when higher than 15.7 KHz to prevent issues to the monitor would be really interesting...