Long time lurker, first time poster. I've been patrolling these forums for ideas long enough to know that I better give credit where my design came from, so here goes:
• Knievel - NEON mame and your other works are an inspiration
• the_77x42 - Project NERD showed me that I could use stock art and have a fantastic finish, and also that black dynamo control panels don't have to be replaced to have a good final product....
• Many many others on this site...
So here goes...
I'm Canadian, I was 12 when Pac-man came out, and I come from a small town in Northern Ontario. As such, I had easy access to all sorts of old shed-based coin-ops that had gone out to pasture when their bars or arcades closed. It seems that arcade machines go north to die - after having every last drop of profitability wrung from them, the last being the hicks who have never seen Space Invaders until 1995.
By the end of the 1980's, in my parent's basement, I had collected a Big Game pin (Stern), A Nintendo punch-out, A sit-down sega Turbo (with a monitor that needed re-capping but I didn't know what that was at the time), and a Hang-on. I went away to college, and my parents decided to sell the house. Little did I know that they had already started to "get rid" of my old arcade machines - the Punch-Out was "disposed of"
, and the Turbo had been apparently converted to an ice-fishing shack. I was duly informed that the others were "on their way out". After much begging and pleading, I managed to have the two survivors pulled out of the house and put into a dirt-floor shed at a friend's house where they stayed for the next twelve years.
Fast-forward to 2004: Finally, the pinball and Hang-on were trucked out to my new house in Ottawa, where they sat unceremoniously in the garage until I could decide what to do with them. As the new father of twin boys, the coin-op fantasy basement was to remain out of reach until I had the time, money and space. And for those of you with babies know, this triad is a very scarce commodity with new kids, a new job, and lots of renos needed on the new house, none of which involved 30-year old arcade machines.
In 2006, the garage had gotten too cluttered to even drive the car into, and something had to be done. We had also taken custody of my parent's old bar fridge, and that, too was plunked into the garage. Finally, I mentioned to my wife that I needed to do *something* with the junk, and that I should see if I could get the pin fixed. She mentioned cost, and I decided to trade the Hang-on for repair costs, if at all possible.
So, I contacted a guy. You know - the Guy. That Guy who knows all about repairing old machines, and selling them on the side. That Guy. Every town has that Guy. Anyway, that Guy pointed out to me that the Big Game had some serious health issues. First off, the MPU was shot because the battery exploded. The playfield was worn to the wood. The power transformer was shot. Most of the wiring was corroded, and about 30% of the solenoids would have to be replaced. It needed new rubber. On top of that, the backglass started to do the hazing and flaking thing, and needed repainting. Total cost of repair - $500 to $600, likely. Maybe less, maybe more. I know some of you were like <darth_vader>“nooooo!!!” </darth_vader> “I could fix that for $50, give it to MEEE", but realistically, I have very little electronics experience, not much space in my house, no time, no money, and almost no WAF to work with. Yet.
(WAF= wife acceptance factor. Very important. This is a multiplier for cost, which I might share in another post, but I’m sure you guys have your own formulae...)
I saw opportunity - the chance to do something I always wanted to do - build a MAME cabinet. I found out about MacMAME from my post-university days, and at the time it was seen as more novelty than anything else. A proof-of-concept rather than an actual gaming platform. However once I had played Tempest on my old Powerbook, and I got that tingle... well, you know the rest, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. So I asked if the Guy wanted to trade the pin for a MAME-able cabinet.
Quickly, the Guy said, “excellent”, rubbed his palms, and the deal was set. I didn’t really want the Hang-on (at the time) as the monitor had issues, and it wasn’t working all that well. “I’ll throw that in, too” I said. The Guy looked at me, and said... “well, those things are like, $50 - and I can’t take it right now. Maybe later”. So that was that.
The Guy invited me to his warehouse-o-cabs to pick out a cabinet. The doors opened, and there were literally hundreds of cabs, all in various states of disrepair. Problem was, they were all jammed together so that getting one cab out would be impossible. After taking a quick scan for classics (there weren’t any.. He knows his stuff), I saw an old black Dynamo “Marvel Super Heroes” against the wall that could be accessed. It was pretty beat up - no marquee, control panel ripped off, monitor dead, some of the JAMMA wiring missing. But, it had “good bones” as they say.
For those of you unfamiliar with the HS-5 cutcorner Dynamo cab, it had a neat feature in that the metal control panel flipped out, and the particleboard holding all the electronics just slid out. (Look here:
http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=4830). The board was still there but the metal panel was missing. The Guy said he had one, it was in his garage, no problem. I asked about the 25" monitor, and the Guy said it was shot. True enough, it was missing the endcap and had a microswitch taped to some wires - I’m no expert on such things, but when he says he blew the monitor, I have no reason to doubt him.
So, about a week later, the Guy delivered the cab, and it went into the garage. He also dropped off the control panel as promised, but it was in pretty sorry shape. It had two (probably) Happ joys, 8-way, but the panel was rusty inside and out. That means it was stored moist, which also means that all the buttons may or may not work. The wiring in the cab was pretty sorry too. So, out went the monitor, out went the wiring, and the job began.
My father and I managed to wrangle the 300-pound beast downstairs, which was as close to death as I wanted to get. Our stairs, like in most typical suburban homes, go from the inside of the house, down 3 steps, turn 45 degrees, and down another 9. In retrospect, trying to do this with a $30 welfare dolly from Canadian tire would have been merely amusing, except that I still get recurring nightmares of the cab breaking loose, sliding down the stairs, and squishing me into an accordion shape as all the Looney Tunes cartoons that I have ever watched would predict.
Several deep wall dings later, the cab was downstairs. Over the next few months began the conversion.... (muah-wah-hah-hah-hah)
1) Power: The original Peter Chou looked to have been tampered with - there were several unofficial-looking holes with strange wires coming out of it. Also it was rusty. So, out it went. In it’s place went a generic computer ATX from an old PC that had died another death long ago. After shorting the jumper wire, it was good to go for powering the 12v lights in the coin mech and the sound system. All other power was supplied with a surge-protection powerstrip screwed to the back. Authenticity was important, but heck, that could come after it's built.
2) PC: All the loose box parts I had couldn’t put together a decent MAME system, so I had to go shopping. I needed a PC that was thin and flat (I’m not big on dissassembling PCs and stapling them to the particleboard in case I need the PC for something else, like work) with a DVD drive (for Dragon’s Lair and Daphne and all my ROMS were on DVD, as well as jukebox capability), and USB 2.0, and a fast network connection. I got all of that in an HP d530 USDT, 2GB ram, 40GB drive for $250 (RefurbComputers.ca). I also picked up a wireless logitech keyboard and mouse, used, for $20.
2) Sound: I trolled the forums, and there were basically two ways to go for sound systems. There was the PC speaker solution with the subwoofer in the cab, and there was the car stereo solution. Since most original cabs used paper speakers and no subwoofer, I decided to go with the car amp. Besides, the plywood on the HS-5 is two inches thick on the bottom, so any subwoofer would just heat up the cabinet, and all I would get is treble from desktop speakers. I found a 250-watt audiovox MOSFET car amp from Walmart for $50, which should deliver the nice warm old-school tone I was looking for. The speakers were 90w Jensen cheapies (but 3-way) for $10 (clearance, Wal-mart). The new speakers were bigger than the old single-pole installed ones, so I jigsawwed bigger holes under the marquee to get them to fit. The covers hid them well - I'm not a fan of big garish blue-and-chrome backlit bling-y speakers an inch away from my forehead. With the marquee in place, the plastic would act as my subwoofer (ie: passive radiator), and it won’t really vibrate the computer too much. Hooked up to the PC, the system worked, except that it was producing a godawful hum. Being an AV nerd, I recognized it for what it was - a big honking ground loop from the PC to the ATX, even though they were plugged into the same power bar. At this point, I could have taken out the cheap ATX and replaced it with a nicer non-humming ground-isolated $60 one, but a ground loop isolator from The Source (Radio Shack in Canada) was only $19. Installed, the isolator worked, except for a more distant hum from the amp. Trolling on the forums once again, it was determined that another fainter, yet annoying ~15hz hum was noise from the ATX (as one would get alternator noise from a car), so I ordered a noise filter from Crutchfield.ca. for $12. Apparently, I was their very first online customer, because Mr. Crutchfield Jr. sent me a personally-signed letter from Virginia thanking me for using their new Canadian distributor. It’s very nice letterhead. The filter didn’t work 100%, though.. But it did reduce the hum from “annoying” to “the machine is running”. I’m really happy. And the thing is stinking loud.
3) Monitor: I wanted a 25" WG to replace the blown one, but the WAF was too great. I found a used 21" NEC on Kiiji for $21. I can’t believe how cheap CRTs have become.. That thing would have cost me at least a grand in the 90's. Insane. I stuck with the PC monitor not only because of the cost, but I have read that vector games look crappy on dedicated arcade monitors. I wasn’t sure about that one. To my knowledge, the newer arcade monitors are SVGA and multisync, which I think solves this, but again, I’m still learning. I never threw away the metal bracket for the monitor so that I could unbox the NEC and bolt it somehow to the bracket to save space. That was a mistake - as soon as I unbolted the shielding (after discharging the monitor) and unscrewed the bezel, the whole thing sort of fell apart. All the wires are exactly as long as they need to be, and therefore the monitor would have all sorts of boards just hanging off it, unsecured. Quickly realizing that I was well out of my league, I hastily bolted it back together, but I left the big plastic cover off. I masked the screen, spray painted the bezel flat black., and slid it into the cabinet. Not a perfect fit, but the machine closes up just fine.
4) Control panel restoration: Ooof. The old blue vinyl crap came off easy enough, but left some sort of indestructible glue residue that took a whole day of working outside and about a gallon of solvent to take off. The rust was also Mouse-sanded down to bare metal and the whole thing got a nice coat of black Tremclad. And another. And another. Funny thing is that the Tremclad isn’t really black - it’s kind of blue-green. I was disappointed at first, but it didn’t really matter much since it would be underneath a new CPO anyway.
5) Graphics: Off-the-shelf from mamemarquees. I was going to do a custom design, and had done a couple of mockups using Illustrator, but lining up the holes and the inherent complexity of aligning the cutcorner’s rounded metal front was daunting, to say the least. Finally, after looking at how well Project NERD turned out, I decided to just get a generic design. Besides, I find naming the cab in the Marquee (SPANISHJOE’S ARCADE!!!) and such really kind of tacky. It’s bad enough I’m nerding out and building a cab, I don’t have to rub it in everyone’s face when they come in to drool over it. Besides, I wanted to make it sell-able, just in case I needed to cash it in for whatever reason... Installing the graphics was easy enough - the vinyl marquee went over the plexi cut for the marquee just fine (I couldn’t sandwich it, due to the hold bracket for the cab not being wide enough), but the CPO was a bear to install. It was recommended to use 3M spray adhesive when bending a CPO over 45 degrees. I said “Bah!” and did it anyway. Now it lifts around the buttons and there are all sots of bubbles that have appeared. I can probably fix it the next time I feel the need to take the CPO apart again with the proper spray adhesive. Word to the wise - follow instructions.
I cut plexi (Home Depot) with a dremel to make a nice CPO cover, and bought nice anodized black bolts from Lizard Lick to hold it down. Cutting plexi is another adventure, which I won’t chronicle here. Luckily it all worked out. Dremel is definitely the way to go, though. Hole saws - not so much
The marquee is backlit with a $10 florescent light from the Walmart.
5) Joys: Here’s where things got serious. The old Happ joys would have probably worked, as well as the buttons, but for how long? Not only that, but they were 8-ways, and most of my favorite games are 4-way only. I could have struggled with it, but I wanted to do it right. Not only that, but I wanted to switch from 8 to 4-way without opening the cab and screwing in a resistor plate. And I wanted
both the P1 and P2 to be switchable. That left me with just a few options - the Ultimarc Magstik plus, the ultrastik 360 (too much $$$ for 2), and the Omnistik prodigy. The latter needed a lot of metalwork on the HS-5, so Magstik it was. No room for both a trackball and a spinner, and my wife is a big Arkanoid fan, so a spinner it was. The Turbotwist2 (GGG) was chosen because it required the least amount of drilling through metal. So a turobotwist it was. All my Happ buttons and switches were ordered from Starburst Coin in T.O. And all was good.
6)Wiring and interfacing: Princess Auto provided all wire, connectors, ties and a handy little wire-stripper thingy that just snaps the ends off wires, which was totally worth the $5 it cost. No major story here - just an IPAC USB, lots of wire, ties, blue covering tubing and patience. Things I learned: coin mech switches are weird, and the NO and COM tabs are reversed, which in turn screws up the IPAC’s shift function. Also - the joystick’s switches are reversed from what you would think they would be. Up is down and right is left. It makes sense when you think about it, but not at 3am with your fingertips bleeding from a billion copper-wire pokes.
7) Software: Mamewah. CPV2. Daphne. Lots of trial-and-error (mostly error). Works. Happy. Any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them, but your best friend will be the Mamewah ArcadeOS forum.
Everything else. Paint, brackets, t-molding, screws, blood, sweat and tears.
And that’s it. I’m tempted to break a bottle of champagne over it, but an announcement in the ArcadeControls forum will have to do.
Here are pics of it, along with a pic of my mostly-restored Hang-on (another story for another day)...
All Best,
-SJ.
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Topic: Black Dynamo Redux - Start to Finish (really long post) (Read 4022 times)
