XYXZYZ
01-18-2007, 01:59 PM
After a month of work and frustration, my new MAME cabinet is finished!
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/MAMEcab.jpg
It was born as a dedicated Killer Instinct, and got converted to a Street Fighter EX 2 eventually. I bought it at an arcade auction, it had sticky controls and a damaged monitor. (It was blurry as hell and the picture would jump when the game displays a bright screen) I ended up replacing all the electrolytic capacitors and replaced the flyback transformer. It still has some convergance and retrace lines, but it's good enough for me.
The guts of the thing is a modded Xbox, perfect for a MAME cab as it can run MAME and Xbox games like SF3-Third Strike, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, etc. Not to mention Beats of Rage and Xmugen! (I've still got to work on that MUGEN setup.) To get the video working with an arcade monitor, I ordered a video adapter/sync separator from www.ultimarc.com, that thing really did the trick.
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/SC2.jpg
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/xbox.jpg
My next problem was sound; the video adapter has a mini audio-out, so I bought a set of Creative powered PC speakers, gutted the amp, and kept the subwoofer. It was hard as hell to take the damn thing apart,and I ended up breaking the volume pot on the amplifier board. I couldn't find a suitable stereo volume pot, and shorting the L and R signals together didn't work, so I went with a single 100K pot (I need to change that to a 10K or 50K, the 100K sucks) and ran the two 8 ohm arcade speakers in series off one channel on the amplifier, which was designed for a 4 ohm load. I know you're probably thinking it sounds like crap, but it actually sounds quite good. I ended up hanging the subwoofer under the control panel, works good for me! So, this cabinet has some really nice sound to it.
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/subwoofer.jpg
Xbox controllers wired into a JAMMA harness, note the subwoofer.
The controls were a little worn and the wrong color, so I replaced everything. The Xbox button signals are wired onto the connector plug of a JAMMA harness, so I didni't have to mess with new wires and quick connects. The coin switches, test switch and whatnot are all wired to the Capcom kick harness, because I was running out of wire and wasn't using it for anything else. What really messed me up was that one controller uses two different grounds, which I didn't realize until I had everything set up. I didn't feel like tearing it all down and rewiring it, so I just got a little creative with some alligator clips.
And to top it all off I had mamemarquees.com print me up a new marquee and control panel. Sow she looks good and ready to go, plays like a dream. All my fight gaming has moved to the cabinet entirely, so I don't have to worry about digging out those cumbersome arcade joysticks for the consoles.
Oh, and I finally have something to do with this keychain-
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/coindoor.jpg
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/MAMEcab.jpg
It was born as a dedicated Killer Instinct, and got converted to a Street Fighter EX 2 eventually. I bought it at an arcade auction, it had sticky controls and a damaged monitor. (It was blurry as hell and the picture would jump when the game displays a bright screen) I ended up replacing all the electrolytic capacitors and replaced the flyback transformer. It still has some convergance and retrace lines, but it's good enough for me.
The guts of the thing is a modded Xbox, perfect for a MAME cab as it can run MAME and Xbox games like SF3-Third Strike, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, etc. Not to mention Beats of Rage and Xmugen! (I've still got to work on that MUGEN setup.) To get the video working with an arcade monitor, I ordered a video adapter/sync separator from www.ultimarc.com, that thing really did the trick.
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/SC2.jpg
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/xbox.jpg
My next problem was sound; the video adapter has a mini audio-out, so I bought a set of Creative powered PC speakers, gutted the amp, and kept the subwoofer. It was hard as hell to take the damn thing apart,and I ended up breaking the volume pot on the amplifier board. I couldn't find a suitable stereo volume pot, and shorting the L and R signals together didn't work, so I went with a single 100K pot (I need to change that to a 10K or 50K, the 100K sucks) and ran the two 8 ohm arcade speakers in series off one channel on the amplifier, which was designed for a 4 ohm load. I know you're probably thinking it sounds like crap, but it actually sounds quite good. I ended up hanging the subwoofer under the control panel, works good for me! So, this cabinet has some really nice sound to it.
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/subwoofer.jpg
Xbox controllers wired into a JAMMA harness, note the subwoofer.
The controls were a little worn and the wrong color, so I replaced everything. The Xbox button signals are wired onto the connector plug of a JAMMA harness, so I didni't have to mess with new wires and quick connects. The coin switches, test switch and whatnot are all wired to the Capcom kick harness, because I was running out of wire and wasn't using it for anything else. What really messed me up was that one controller uses two different grounds, which I didn't realize until I had everything set up. I didn't feel like tearing it all down and rewiring it, so I just got a little creative with some alligator clips.
And to top it all off I had mamemarquees.com print me up a new marquee and control panel. Sow she looks good and ready to go, plays like a dream. All my fight gaming has moved to the cabinet entirely, so I don't have to worry about digging out those cumbersome arcade joysticks for the consoles.
Oh, and I finally have something to do with this keychain-
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/w/swarwick1/files/room/coindoor.jpg