Irish arcade machine builders

nacimroc

I built an arcade machine about a year ago and am just curious if there are many other Irish home cabinet builders on the forum.

If so, has anyone got any good links to Irish sourced materials etc. I'm half way through building my second cab, but am having trouble finding cheap laminate in Ireland.

If you did build one lets see a pic of it too.

o1s1n

Post some pics of your cab!

CathalDublin

nacimroc wrote: »

I built an arcade machine about a year ago and am just curious if there are many other Irish home cabinet builders on the forum.

If so, has anyone got any good links to Irish sourced materials etc. I'm half way through building my second cab, but am having trouble finding cheap laminate in Ireland.

If you did build one lets see a pic of it too.

The uk or the states seems to be the only place for parts.
Is it a mame, jamma or MVS cabinet you built?
What type of monitor are you using, original 15Khz arcade CRT?

LoGiE

Welcome!

There's a sticky above that has some good information. There are also a number of people that own, buy and sell cabinets and monitors that post here that should be able to help you out.

LoGiE

nacimroc

Its a MAME cab I built. Regular old CRT sony TV went into it. Was happy with the way it turned out but as I got married 3 weeks ago I had to sell it to raise some money. (Was out of work for last year)

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2725/sl270989.jpg

Thats the bad boy there!

Unfortunately alot of the cost ended up being shipping as its so hard to find stuff in Ireland. Just figured we might enlighten each other on a few places to get stuff cheap.

Having trouble finding old 25'' CRT TV's anywhere. The blurryness of the CRT makes the bad graphics of the games look better IMO so trying to stay clear of monitors and LCD's..

So, as I got a new job (wuuuuuuuuuu), I have a few quid to build myself another one.

Im looking for laminate this week, but the last time 2 sheets of 12x5 ft cost me 200 euro + 30 for glue.

Andrew76

That cab looks class! Wish I had the time and skill to build one myself.

Jack burton

I saw that cab for sale a while ago, how much did it go for in the end?

It looked to be the job now, i like the design of the cab aswell

all your own work or did you find plans online?

Dark Savior

Wow,thats a beautiful cab.I knew I should have paid attention in Woodwork:(

nacimroc

Thanks! Its losely based it on martinj's cab on arcadecontrols.com! If your debating building one or don't think you could, just start one! Its alot easier than you'd think!

Jack burton

Ah yeah I cant wait to get building one, Just need to organise a monitor forst so I would neet to change my design to fit it afterwards

mdwexford

That is awesome, nice work.

CathalDublin

Nice Cabinet, what FE where you using?
I had a 25" TV in my jamma cab before using the Scart(RGB Hack) and the quality was almost as good as my new 21" POLO arcade monitor.
Using this Diagram I got the best picture, if anyone needs help with a cable just shout.

I've
2 x Original sanwa ball top sticks with shafts for both wood and metal
1 x ultimarc mag stick plus battop top switchable 4/8way(reason i've only one is these are ideal player 2 sticks(half the price of the u360 and looks the same, the U360 being used for player 1 for obvious reasons)
4 x red buttons
4 x green
4 x blue
in the attic in anyone is interested in any of them willing to trade/etc

nacimroc

I went with the ultimarc U360's the last time. Really liked them, but other than a few playstation games, I never used the analog feature. They weren't too cheap either. I'm going with the sanwa JLW or something like that this time. With illuminated ball tops. Not sure if the clickyness will annoy me or not, but if it does i'l change the switches for silent ones. (I used them on my buttons last time and they were great)

I used Maximus arcade. When i did it hyperspin was a bit too new. I got it working, but it was a pain to set up. Maximus was easy to set up and offered all the features.

Forgot to say, if anyone is wondering what games to put on it, just put on street fighter 2! Its the only bloody game anyone ever plays when they go near it!

LoGiE

nacimroc wrote: »

Forgot to say, if anyone is wondering what games to put on it, just put on street fighter 2! Its the only bloody game anyone ever plays when they go near it!

Rubbish! Track & Field may be old but lord does it make people competitive. Puzzle Bobble 2 always gets a run out as well. Personally I play dozens of games on mine, (Then again I might be classed as a arcade fanatic) Just last weekend I played Pit Fighter and Alien Vs Predator right through. Stranger still as Pit Fighter isn't really that great a game!

That's a nice Cab you built there. If your looking for a genuine Arcade monitor for the new build you should pm Mitchomagic on boards as he should have some.

I'm seriouesly thinking about installing Maximus or Hyperspin in my 2nd cab. I'd be interested in hearing any opinions people have on the later/latest versions.

Myrddin

Seriously sweet looking cab, very nicely done man

Did you need these :cool: while playing it?

Wish I could build something like that - I'd say it cost a packet did it?


@ Logie - HS all the way man. You welcome to drop over to me and spend some time using mine if you like, give you an idea of what the finished article looks & feels like in a real world scenario.

CathalDublin

LoGiE wrote: »

Rubbish! Track & Field may be old but lord does it make people competitive. Puzzle Bobble 2 always gets a run out as well. Personally I play dozens of games on mine, (Then again I might be classed as a arcade fanatic) Just last weekend I played Pit Fighter and Alien Vs Predator right through. Stranger still as Pit Fighter isn't really that great a game!

That's a nice Cab you built there. If your looking for a genuine Arcade monitor for the new build you should pm Mitchomagic on boards as he should have some.

I'm seriouesly thinking about installing Maximus or Hyperspin in my 2nd cab. I'd be interested in hearing any opinions people have on the later/latest versions.

Hyperspin is amazing, especially the new version, make sure your using a dual core or you'll have a pain in the ass with random lag in emu's
It needs a fairly decent machine, I've used it since it was in private beta

BTW track & field rocks

CathalDublin

nacimroc wrote: »

I went with the ultimarc U360's the last time. Really liked them, but other than a few playstation games, I never used the analog feature. They weren't too cheap either. I'm going with the sanwa JLW or something like that this time. With illuminated ball tops. Not sure if the clickyness will annoy me or not, but if it does i'l change the switches for silent ones. (I used them on my buttons last time and they were great)

I used Maximus arcade. When i did it hyperspin was a bit too new. I got it working, but it was a pain to set up. Maximus was easy to set up and offered all the features.

Forgot to say, if anyone is wondering what games to put on it, just put on street fighter 2! Its the only bloody game anyone ever plays when they go near it!

I loved the JLW ones but changing from 4way to 8 way was a pain in the ass opening the coin door and fiddling underneath.
so I changed to the magstick plus but then changed player 1 to the U360.

Myrddin

CathalDublin wrote: »

Hyperspin is amazing, especially the new version, make sure your using a dual core or you'll have a pain in the ass with random lag in emu's
It needs a fairly decent machine, I've used it since it was in private beta

I think it was actually your recommendation to me about trying HS Cathal...just incase I didnt say thanks back then.....thanks Cathal!! It's SWEET :cool::p

I also then joined emumovies, to complete all my game themes with video previews - makes a SERIOUS difference to browsing your games.

LoGiE

Anyone here use a J-pac with soft 15hz? How easy did you find it to wire up?

LoGiE

Myrddin

LoGiE wrote: »

Anyone here use a J-pac with soft 15hz? How easy did you find it to wire up?

LoGiE

Thats my exact setup - incredibly easy to wire. The JPAC handles all the standard jamma inputs, the only additional wiring is the extra buttons (SF2 etc) etc. You screw in one wire for each button, & an earth wire for each player.

Be aware Soft15khz does not yet function on Vista & above. Windows XP is a MUST (I went with x64 to release my 4Gig's of ram). Its all very straight forward, and again your more than welcome to take a look at my cab with HS in action, or under the hood so you can see the JPAC etc.

LoGiE

Thanks EnterNow. Have you wired your atx power supply into your cabs power supply? I've only two extra buttons for each player to wire in and a dual core mobo sitting on my work bench so I'll go ahead and order the j-pac.

Myrddin

LoGiE wrote: »

Thanks EnterNow. Have you wired your atx power supply into your cabs power supply? I've only two extra buttons for each player to wire in and a dual core mobo sitting on my work bench so I'll go ahead and order the j-pac.

No I isolated the cabs existing power supply by disconnecting its mains input. I wouldnt leave the cabs power supply active when using a JPAC, as the jamma harness would then be running 12v & 5V into the JPAC through the harness connector (this might be ok, I just didnt wanna take the chance). This worked out great becasue the screen is not powered through the arcade power supply. I ended up putting in a way gang power block inside the cab (this powers the pc, the screen, the 2.1 speakers & the marquee light) - with just the one plug running outside the cab for ease of use.

The Jpac is powered via usb as your prob aware also.

nacimroc

EnterNow wrote: »

I ended up putting in a way gang power block inside the cab (this powers the pc, the screen, the 2.1 speakers & the marquee light) - with just the one plug running outside the cab for ease of use.

\

I assume you'ver heard of the intelliplug ? Its a multisocket that detects when a power supply is drawing power and then switches on the other sockets.

So 1 press of a button turns on everything in your cab! I had 1 12v switch turn on my PC, TV, Power supplies, Lights, Fans etc and 1 press turns them off aswell. Can't go wrong for 20 quid.

LoGiE

Right machine is built and J-pac is ordered. Now to configure Hyper Spin for a look see I'll take a few snaps to document my progress if only to help out anyone who tries this in the future.

CathalDublin

LoGiE wrote: »

Right machine is built and J-pac is ordered. Now to configure Hyper Spin for a look see I'll take a few snaps to document my progress if only to help out anyone who tries this in the future.

get posting pics
hyperspin is quite easy to configure, just alot of downloading for all the themes/videos/etceither just editing th ini files(my prefered method) or in hyperhq(gui)

LoGiE

Right so... The easy part is done and with the J-Pac not arriving till next week here are a few WIP pictures.

Obviously this is the cabinet I'm converting. It's currently running a 1069 in 1 and is clean as a whistle inside and out. I'll post a few of the cabs insides over the weekend.



The rig I'm going to install. Intel Dual Core, 2GB Ram and 2 x 250Gb Samsung Hard drives. The power supply is extremely quiet which is a bonus.



Mobo with a Nvidia NVS Quatro 290 sticking out of it. This card is pretty average but it uses a heatsink so it will reduce the noise.



Two Drives in a handy case from an old Antec case. It even has screw holes so i can screw it to the bottom of the cab!



Desktop picture. Mortal Kombat theme obviously!



Soft15khz running on the pc. It's been added to the startup so should be ready to roll.



Running hyperspin. It's working but I have to add videos and stuff when I download them.




Thats all for now!

LoGiE :pac:

Myrddin

nacimroc wrote: »

I assume you'ver heard of the intelliplug ? Its a multisocket that detects when a power supply is drawing power and then switches on the other sockets.

So 1 press of a button turns on everything in your cab! I had 1 12v switch turn on my PC, TV, Power supplies, Lights, Fans etc and 1 press turns them off aswell. Can't go wrong for 20 quid.

I already have one button to turn mine on. I wired up a black arcade button on the underside of my control panel, to the power switch pins on the motherboard. All I've to do is plug the cab in (only one exterior plug), and hit the button - everything boots up perfectly.

Logie - take your soft15 out of the startup folder. It works on a registry level, so installing it & installing the 15khz modelines will do fine - you'll only have the soft15 gui popping up on every start. Also I cant find the Quattro 290 on soft15khzs' compatability lists - although there is a Quattro (Quaddro?) 4 which is reported working. Be aware, some of the more recent Nvidia cards need an EDID dongle to work properly (incase your having trouble).

If your using XP, download & install quickres. I couldn't select 640x480@60hz from the XP controls, have to use quickres instead. Set that to start automatically too, incase you wanna make quick changes.

Gather a list of your top ten games to play on the cab first, and download each theme one at a time as there are quite a few. The theme has to be renamed to the exact rom name too (that had me stumped for a while), as does any flv video you may get for the theme. Its fairly easy to configure, and WELL worth doing.

LoGiE

Thanks for the advice EnterNow. You can bet I'll have more questions before I'm done!

I've removed soft15khz from the startup and installed quickres and change it to 640x480@60hz. I have a view different GFX cards floating about from old to modern so I'll get one of them working.

I'm very impressed with Hyperspin so far. I'm presuming I'll be blown away once I get the themes and videos sorted and running on my arcade monitor

Myrddin

Feel free to ask away

Here is the Soft15Khz megathread on BYOAC. Its really a monster, but if your having issues its well worth a search through. Also the programs author (Sailorsat - also a girl!!!) is an active participant on the forum, and has answered some tech questions I put to here no problem.

The soft15 wiki, & the confirmed adapters/driver revision thread here. Its also worth noting that the lads on Arcadeokatu are well worth their weight in gold too, when in need.

Dont forget to configure Hyperspin to display @ 640x480@60hz too, because it auto-sets its resolution once its run (I also put this in the startup folder), so if it auto-sets to a res your screen cant handle, it can be a nightmare.

Im trying to think of any other issues I had For some reason, my gfx card wouldn't sync with the JPAC unless I tried it in the second dvi port - no idea why as I thought they were the same - but they arnt. Take the required voltages from your atx supply, and feed them to the coin mechs control board (where the jamma harness would eventually connect to it), and the JPAC will work with your coin mech - I love this feature :pac:

LoGiE

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Mortal Kombat 2! What a game, can I ask how much one of them goes for?

I`d love to have one or two select games in my house.

Depends if you know the guy who's selling I bought it from Mithomagic (who I also bought my previous cab from) and it's in amazing condition. I got an excellent deal as he knew it was going to a good home!

I'm with you on the select games, I'm going to convert my older cab to a SF2 cab with some new artwork etc after this project. Then I'm holding out for an original Killer Instinct cabinet to complete my collection

o1s1n

I drool a little every time I see that MK II cab. It really is in amazing condition.

LoGiE

Yep was worth every penny! I see the killer Instinct 2 cab is back on adverts.... Now I really had my eyes on a killer Instinct one cab but I'm sorely tempted! Got confirmation today of my J-Pac being shipped so hopefully it will arrive in time for this weekend.

Myrddin

LoGiE wrote: »

Yep was worth every penny! I see the killer Instinct 2 cab is back on adverts.... Now I really had my eyes on a killer Instinct one cab but I'm sorely tempted! Got confirmation today of my J-Pac being shipped so hopefully it will arrive in time for this weekend.

Go for it man - just be done with it (thats how I justify it, well, till the next must-have item comes along). It's in Ireland, if Mitch is selling it it should be 100%, what more could you want? You might end up having to order one form overseas if this one slips the net

Looking forward to your JPAC report, did you go for the USB powered one?

LoGiE

It's not me that needs convincing! It's the other half I guess I'll see what I can do. The J-Pac I bought is the USB one alright. Going to take a few snaps of the inside of the cab especially the current power setup to see what you think.

Jack burton

Looks like somone is already after grabbing the KI2 cab

o1s1n

Oh no!

Sometimes you forget there are more people interested in these things than just posters on this forum

LoGiE

I didn't like KI2 anyway... Not to worry the search continues! The lady has been on about a pinball table recently anyway.

Myrddin

LoGiE wrote: »

I didn't like KI2 anyway... Not to worry the search continues! The lady has been on about a pinball table recently anyway.

:eek: Where does one find such a woman?

What are your thoughts on the existing PSU in the cab? Are you going to isolate it, and let the PC ATX do the work (the only extra work is powering the JPAC)? Also how is your monitor powered? Mine simply fed off a junction box that was BEFORE the psu, so I didn't affect it by isolating the power from the cabs PSU. Afaik, some screens ARE powered by the cabs PSU - so in that case, it may require some further thought.

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

. Afaik, some screens ARE powered by the cabs PSU - so in that case, it may require some further thought.

From what I know it's fairly rare though. I think in most cases it's only powering the harness.

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

From what I know it's fairly rare though. I think in most cases it's only powering the harness.

I think your right, I've only ever had two cabs and the monitor was independant in both. It's just from reading BYOAC & Okatu I had a faint recall about monitors being powered by PSU's, as you said though I think they are rare.

o1s1n

I think I remember a guy saying here that some Electrocoin cabs supplied monitors with power.

I must keep an eye out for that when I get my Electrocoin Neo Geo cabinet.

Yet, it WILL happen some day!

...

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

I think I remember a guy saying here that some Electrocoin cabs supplied monitors with power.

I must keep an eye out for that when I get my Electrocoin Neo Geo cabinet.

Yet, it WILL happen some day!

...

I hope your folks know about this little plan of yours

o1s1n

Yeah they were on at me yesterday to move that cabinet.

'I hear you took the bed out of your spare room...'

Don't want to move it though as I'll only be in the current place for another 10 months. Be a pain trying to move it back out.

I did see a five bedroom house for sale at a really good price. I'm thinking decicated arcade cabinet room....!

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

Yeah they were on at me yesterday to move that cabinet.

'I hear you took the bed out of your spare room...'

Don't want to move it though as I'll only be in the current place for another 10 months. Be a pain trying to move it back out.

I did see a five bedroom house for sale at a really good price. I'm thinking decicated arcade cabinet room....!

Man a 5 bed house? Think of the room you would have (and the costs of putting it together Not a hope your Ms would permit that)!

I think your right about not moving it, moving cabs, especially the heavy monsters can put an awful strain on them during the process. If you can swindle the next ten months outta your folks before the move, then your well set.

LoGiE

Right Jpac arrived this morning. From what I've been reading you no longer have to be concerned with the 12v frying the board.

New features are:

ESD static protection on all JAMMA inputs.
Protection against being plugged in backwards (although we would still not advise testing this feature!).
Supports 12 volt coin doors with no voltage issues.
Supports Service Switch, Tilt and Test JAMMA pins (fixed keycodes, F1, F2, F3)

So my to-do list should be...

• Install the J-pac
• MK2 Cabinet uses a Jamma + harness so remove the connetors for buttons 4&5 for players 1&2 and screw the exposed wires into the j-pac
• Wire my ATX Power supply to power on when i plug in and switch on the cab.

Like I said I'll take some snaps this evening before I begin

Myrddin

Regards the 12V coin doors, does that mean it now supplies 12V from the ATX PSU to the relevant Jamma pins?

Maybe they have changed the design of it, but here's the problem the way I see it.

Arcade PSU >>>> JPAC <<<< ATX Power (USB)

The JPAC getting powered from both sides never seemed right to me, thats why I isolated my arcade PSU ( Arcade PSU |||| JPAC <<<< ATX). I always felt if anything went wrong with the JPAC, I'd have an arcade PSU streaming down a USB wire into the pc end.

It could be me being overcautious however

Edit - I had my ATX CPU wired that way (to power on automatically) in my Jamma test rig. Green wire short to earth trick?

purplec

o1s1n wrote: »

I think I remember a guy saying here that some Electrocoin cabs supplied monitors with power.

I must keep an eye out for that when I get my Electrocoin Neo Geo cabinet.

Yet, it WILL happen some day!

...

Some electrocoins are powered using a Hantarex us250 which powers the screen at 110 volts and the jamma harness. Not really that rare to be honest

And I just gutted one 2 nights ago and it was NEOGEO wired lol


Your better off with a new 220 -240 volt screen if you can get your hands on one

LoGiE

Phew!

Having read a LOT of threads at Arcade Controls (Great builders Froum) I found thispost which seems to relate to my situation also.

My conclusions..
Basically as it stands in my cab I can stick a PCB in and away I go as it is an unmodified cabinet and will use a Jamma configuration (3 buttons per player plus the joystick and start.) If I remove the power going to the jamma harness I remove the ability to do this also.

So essentially the new J-pac allows me to plug in the jpac as if it was a pcb. (except it's a PC)

Power issue

Edit - I had my ATX CPU wired that way (to power on automatically) in my Jamma test rig. Green wire short to earth trick?

That's how it was set up in my other cab so I'll probably do the same here.

This is turning out to be a very interesting project and hopefully will be helpfull to anyone else maming a cab!

LoGiE :pac:

Myrddin

LoGiE wrote: »

Phew!

Having read a LOT of threads at Arcade Controls (Great builders Froum) I found thispost which seems to relate to my situation also.

My conclusions..
Basically as it stands in my cab I can stick a PCB in and away I go as it is an unmodified cabinet and will use a Jamma configuration (3 buttons per player plus the joystick and start.) If I remove the power going to the jamma harness I remove the ability to do this also.

So essentially the new J-pac allows me to plug in the jpac as if it was a pcb. (except it's a PC)

Power issue



That's how it was set up in my other cab so I'll probably do the same here.

This is turning out to be a very interesting project and hopefully will be helpfull to anyone else maming a cab!

LoGiE :pac:

So essentially, its completely safe to leave the existing arcade PSU running, with a JPAC connected to the harness, which in turn is being powered via pc?

If so I might just go out & restore PCB capabilities to my own cab, because as you said, the JPAC & PC essentially act as a PCB. Cool :cool:

Myrddin

purplec wrote: »

Some electrocoins are powered using a Hantarex us250 which powers the screen at 110 volts and the jamma harness. Not really that rare to be honest

And I just gutted one 2 nights ago and it was NEOGEO wired lol


Your better off with a new 220 -240 volt screen if you can get your hands on one

Gutted....Neo-Geo...you really should have put a NSFO tag on that post

(Not Suitable For o1s1n)

o1s1n

I hope you mean it was a generic cabinet that happened to be wired for Neo Geo (Which is slightly different than JAMMA)

If you mean you gutted one of these I may have to kill you.