Next project: the BOX

[romshark]

My new project actually goes all the way back to before I built my cabinet.  At the time, I only had my Hanaho Hotrod joystick, my Naomi (in a portable wood setup, with an X-Arcade joystick rewired to it), and the TMNT arcade board sitting in the closet with no way to play it.
This limited me in a few ways. Of course, I had no way to play the TMNT board. The joystick on the Naomi was only wired for player 1, so I couldn't play against others. And the Hotrod only worked with ps/2 connectors, which my notebook PC lacks, and is a pain to get to on my desktop (and not enough room to leave it permanently hooked up! And before anyone points it out, ps/2 to USB connectors had some control issues for me. Tried three different types.)
I rewired both the Hotrod and X-Arcade to use a common 15-pin connection (joystick, 7 action buttons, start, coin, ground, and 1 spare). Bought a USB I-pac and wired 15 pin connectors to it. Same thing with the Naomi. I was still planning the Jamma interface (I had the JROK video encoder and an old PC power supply already), but then the opportunity to build a full-size cabinet presented itself.
By the way, my cabinet also uses the same 15 pin connectors configuration, so everything pretty much can work with everything else. Great for troubleshooting.

Fast foreward to a week or so ago. Looking through this message board, I happened across a neat little Jamma test rig by dmworking247 (topic here), which was basically a Supergun that could also be used to test boards without the need for an external controller hooked up (but could still use external controllers). Thinking this was a great little device, I decided to build my own.

Mine differs in a few interesting ways (once it's done.)
-First, mine'll have an internal LCD screen, as well as video out (composite, component, S-Video). I took the LCD from my old GameCube Mobile Monitor. Powered at 12 volts, even though it's a low quality display, it'll do for a testing rig. Besides, I'll use a TV for any actual playing. (Sometime during testing, it formed a single solid horizontal line of dead pixels in the screen. Again, a test rig, so I'm not too concerned.)
-built-in speaker. No sure if I'll get a headphone jack.
-Instead of a joystick and arcade pushbuttons on top, I'm using all Radio Shack-style pushbuttons.
-Coin counter. A switch will select which coin counter pin to connect to.

I don't have a battery checker or meter, and mine will be in a crappy wooden box I'm building instead of a nice project box. But still, it's been fun so far. I need to do more woodwork, and painting. I also have to wait until some of the parts arrive by UPS (with this many switches, ordering from Jameco was much cheaper than Radio Shack.)

Here are the pictures so far.


Base and lid cut. (Base was from an old furniture cabinet door. That's why it's grey and has a hinge hole.)


Box test assembly. Still some more holes to cut.


The lid. Needs more work. (Areas are routed for the LCD mounting brackets).