Blitz/Mame Hybrid Cab

[itnick]

Hello everyone I've been reading through the forums for awhile now and wanted to show off what I've been up to. My brother and I picked up this nice Blitz machine for $75 at a local minigolf place that was going out of buisness. It was only missing a monitor and bezel, and the back panel of the machine is missing. Pretty nice find though IMHO.



For the past few weeks we've been accumulating the parts to get this baby back up and running: We picked up a new monitor, a Neotech NT2702 VGA monitor and a CGA/EGA-VGA upconvertor to convert the EGA signal to VGA (http://tinyurl.com/cpqsza).

 After hours of work this weekend we got the monitor mounted, this involved moving the bottom monitor brackets down an inch and redrilling the mounting holes. It came out rather nicely I think. Then came the wiring, this was the tough part as we had to wire up the power and the RGB signal to the upconvertor. After that I had to stop by Radio Shack to get a power adapter for the board, I wasnt too happy as the only one that would work was $46  I bit the bullet and it ended up working well. The monitor and the machine powered up and after some fighting with changing the language and resolution of the convertor we have a picture!
 


My plan is to get the machine working like it used to, the reason I went with a VGA monitor is so that I can install a PC running Mame and using a KVM switch switch between the Arcade board and the computer. I am planning on building a secondary control panel that can be used when playing Mame and then removed to play Blitz.

Now to get the original controls working...

[bgspot]

Man you scored a sweet cab. I'm still trying to figure out how i'm gonna incorporate blitz in my cab. I'll either use a real pcb like you, or get a dreamcast.

[foleykoontz]

Man you scored a sweet cab. I'm still trying to figure out how i'm gonna incorporate blitz in my cab. I'll either use a real pcb like you, or get a dreamcast.

Get a dreamcast so you can play gauntlet legends with that setup too.

[itnick]

Just wanted to make a quick update. We have been working on this off and on for the last few months and it is turning out quite nicely. We decided to go ahead and strip the PCB and make it exclusively a Mame machine as the KVM switch idea did work but after switching to the PCB the screen would wash out and turn pink so we decided to scrap it and go to Mame, not what we initially wanted but that's ok.



The rear door was missing so we picked up some wood and installed a hinged door, this part took longer then expected as we wanted the hinges to be inside the machine, after messing with it for a few hours we said screw it and put the hinges on the outside. I thought I had a pic but this is all I could find. There were also some holes in the sides from where presumably the memory card reader was installed, we found some nice plastic caps at Lowes that cleaned them up quite nicely. We also replaced the original speakers with amplified car speakers that we had laying around to boost the sound a bit.




Update: found the pic

This is where we are at the moment, the bezel has been cut and mounted and so has the glass. We are having a new control panel cut at the moment and have decided to make it a two player Capcom layout with a trackball in the middle.

So that's where we are now, we are planning to scan the graphics from the orignal control panel and reprint them to fit our layout as well as add some new t-molding, and also wire the coin door lights, more pics to come in the coming weeks.

[cmoses]

Love that Midway cabinet, it is what I have for my MAME project.  Great to work with and lots of room.  I am doing a 2 player control panel with trackball and possibly 2 spinners.  Still a work in progress.  I wish mine had that nice side art yours does.  Mine was originally a Mortal Kombat II that had a NFL Blitz '99 kit installed, but they did not do the side art, just painted it black.

Looks good, keep up the good work.

[spOOf]

I'm in the same boat.  I also have an NFL Blitz/NBA Showtime cab.  I wish my artwork was as nice as yours.  If it was, I would've just gone with a football theme most likely.  Good luck! 

[Pinball Wizard]

Hmmm.... The KVM issue sounds like the monitor is running PAL/NTSC and NFL Blitz was running the other. Still a pristine cabinet. Most NFL Blitz I see are destroyed and in no shape to be salvaged.

[itnick]

Our step brother finished cutting the new control panel so I decided to head down to my bros and do some work this weekend. The panel turned out really well.



After about 2 hours of wiring we got the buttons and joysticks plugged in and working, albiet the one and two player setups need to be switched   , but we left that for another day, it works so thats whats important.




Our plan now is to scan the current Blitz control panel, do some Adobe Illustrator work to match it to our new layout and get it printed on some type of cardstock. To finish up well get some plexi type plastic cut and drilled to overlay the graphics and finish it off with some tmolding to match the molding of the rest of the cabinet.

[Pinball Wizard]

Do you still have the Blitz boards? If so how much do you want for them? Your project is really turning out nicely, doing everything very thoroughly as it should be done.

[itnick]

Thanks  Ill shoot you a PM with a price

[cmoses]

Looks very good, but I have a couple of questions.

With all the control panel real estate you pushed it all together in the middle, so it looks a little squished.  Also you mounted the P1 and P2 buttons right above the spinner. 

Are you using all shifted buttons for Admin buttons?

[itnick]

We are planning on adding 2 admin buttons to the right and to the left of the 1p and 2p buttons, why squish it together? Well I dont know, I didnt think a 4 player layout was necessary.