My little Pony, Skinny and Boney

o1s1n

Okay so the horror has now passed, I now have the demo screen looping on Raiden II, the light box is beaming, all is good

Decided to take it a part a little and take some photos.



Glass bezel on.

[IMG][/img]

Glass off. Doesn't have a front lifting hood like the SNK one. The glass just slides off like on my old Leisure 2000.

It has a very similar, very brittle plastic surround that my other cab has. No idea how these lasted 20 years. The underside of it was absolutely black with dust.

You'll notice the speaker just under the control panel too. It's really class as it vibrates the CP a little when it's high. (ooh err matron!)



Under the CP. The moment I pressed the buttons I got a shock - Sanwa! argh nooo! .

Will probably be replacing the buttons and ball tops with other colours. I like the way the green goes with the big booming green 'VIDOEGAME' on the light box, but have seen some other really cool colour combos.



And check it out, monitor rotation handles!





Finally, pots where I can actually bloody reach them!



Harness sits in a completely different place to my other cab. On that it's really free moving all over the place. This only really extends to the wooden board. Like it wants you to mount vertical shmups on the side!

o1s1n

Here's where the fun begins. Boxes of completely, never before played vertical boards! :eek:

TechnoFreek

Very nice dude but we really don't need to know anything about your skinny boner.

TechnoFreek

o1s1n wrote: »

Here's where the fun begins. Boxes of completely, never before played vertical boards! :eek:

Do I spot a box with Raiden 1 in there?

o1s1n

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Do I spot a box with Raiden 1 in there?

You do indeed! Another one I haven't played yet. I'm going to use it in a sec to see if this cab does -5v . If there's sound it does. No sound and I need an adapter.

First game to test, castle of shikigami



I turn it on and get this. Mr Driller 2. :pac:

Must have gotten them mixed up as they look similar.



Dug out this beauty instead



Yes!!! Now this is another dream come true!

Myrddin

Quality man, hardcore hardware porn

o1s1n

Cheers man.

Every board I'm throwing at it works flawlessly. The other cab is a bit finnicky with some.

Have the GNET in it now. Looks unreal.

Retr0gamer

Toothpaste laser goodness!

o1s1n

Here's part of the reason I am crazy about Japanese cabs. They're just so well thought out.

I couldn't figure out how to close down the CP, there was something blocking it. Then I noticed it was a lever to lock it down.

'Okay, but how do you get to the lever? Through the tiny door at the front where the PCBs go?'

Nope! Welcome to the land of secret compartments. Just found this. There's a lock under the CP. Unlock it, and this hidden drawer folds down. (with all the pots too, dead handy)



This then lets you reach in under to get that lever! Genius. It's on a spring, so you have to push it up. Close down the CP, release the lever and the thing springs locked.

Andrew76

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Toothpaste laser goodness!

Weapon of choice for the Raiden apprentice. :P

o1s1n did you get sound with Raiden?

o1s1n

Andrew76 wrote: »

Weapon of choice for the Raiden apprentice. :P

o1s1n did you get sound with Raiden?

Couldn't get the fecking board to fit!

It's so big it barely fits in. Nightmare to get the harness connected as there isn't any slack.

Will try to give it a go later. Actually, I did have an extension harness somewhere!

Casey120

Awesome Cab , congrats !

unky chop chop

F****ckin B4stardo..Congrats , really jealous

That little compartment under CP is a novel idea..Never heard of that before.Deadly
I really like to here/feel the speaker under the control panel..all in all a great little unique cab.
Whats with the tate mech..can you just grab those handles and whip her around or do you have to disconnect a few bits and bobs first?

o1s1n

Yeah I was playing Raiden II there and whenever I dropped a bomb the control panel vibrated. It's almost makes it like a dual shock pad

Not sure about the rotation. The handles would make you think you just whip it around - but I just had a peak inside it and it looks like the chassis is mounted to the cab itself.

Something like the Atomiswave chassis, but due to the crazy angle of the monitor it's attached to the front of the cab and not the back.

TechnoFreek

So -5v isn't an issue? Also is the glass pane over the monitor optional as such or meant to be left in place all the time?

Pyongyang

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVMKQP0K3a0

Jack burton

Fantastic looks machine!

Well done good sir!

o1s1n

TechnoFreek wrote: »

So -5v isn't an issue? Also is the glass pane over the monitor optional as such or meant to be left in place all the time?

I managed to get Raiden in and the harness connected - we have sound!

Looks absolutely stunning too.

Glass always over it. Looks much better

The Last Bandit

Looks class Oisin, so you'll be selling other one cheap then

o1s1n

Sure you can have all my hori boards with it too if you want :pac:

chopperbyrne

Purple toothpaste is awful.

Everyone knows maxed out Red/M is where it's at.

o1s1n

The toothpaste laser is impossible to get going with sanwa buttons. You'd give yourself RSI after any use.

I think what I'm going to do with this is get eight seimitsu buttons (not sure of the colour combo yet, have seen a few really nice combinations for this cab - green/pink and yellow/purple, pink/purple all look great) and three button plugs.

4th button plug I'm going to get on to FrancoB to make up one of those headphone jacks.

So it'll look like the one on the right

o1s1n

Okay so I definitely need new buttons. The sanwas nearly broke my hand playing Raiden. The sticks also feel like sanwas. They're way more loose than I'm used to.

So, colour combos, what ye think?

Few options. I think I'm still erring towards the pink and purple. Although I really love all of the below...and the all green too!

Andrew76

If it was me I'd go with green and pink - they both look well against the grey overlay on the cp and the green also matches the "Video Game" sign. Purple would just remind me of an Egret. Yellow should only be a Start button (if anything) on a cab although they look tasty on a Namco stick, but that's just because they're original. All imo of course (done a lot of button swapping in my time :pac:), you're the one who has to live with it so go with whatever you like best.

Casey120

I'd personally would go with green and Blue Seimitsu's to match the Jaleco display and the small player select buttons white .

Envy green would also be an option for me right now :mad:

o1s1n

I was thinking green/blue to match the light box alright. In theory it sounds like a good idea, however I don't think they match too well on the CP! -



I'm thinking green and pink then might be the best solution as per Andrew76's suggestion..Tie it in with the light box, but bring a bit of extra colour in. I've always had a soft spot for pink sticks and buttons, don't know why!

Andrew76

If your getting new buttons I'd go the whole hog and get new sticks too. I'd definitely recommend the LS-56 if your main focus is shmups. I have the LS-56-01 variant as it comes with the 5-pin connection but that would be no use to you.



Note the LS-56 comes with a flat mounting plate by default, bit hard to tell from your pics above whether your current sticks also have a flat plate or the SS plate. Either way, if you're getting new sticks just bear in mind the mounting plates.

Not sure what other places sell them but I got mine from http://www.akihabarashop.jp/.

o1s1n

Thanks man! I'm replacing the sticks alright, they're sanwa and really don't suit the cab (the one on the right isn't in the best shape anyway)

I actually meant to send you a PM just asking if there was anything to consider when buying a stick or if they were all modular. Will look that up when I get home

o1s1n

By the way Andrew76 - I spent absolutely ages playing Raiden last night. Such a fantastic game. I'm beginning to doubt my 'Raiden 2 is better' stance. This is more enjoyable. Can't quite put my finger on why.

Can only manage to 1cc a bit into level three. (I blame that on the evils of Sanwa! :pac:..). Going to invest a lot of time in this one. Plan on rewatching your video back over the weekend for some tips

Andrew76

o1s1n wrote: »

By the way Andrew76 - I spent absolutely ages playing Raiden last night. Such a fantastic game. I'm beginning to doubt my 'Raiden 2 is better' stance. This is more enjoyable. Can't quite put my finger on why.

Imo Raiden 2 is just a re-hash of the first with nicer graphical effects/enhanced sound but doesn't really add much to the formula. Pink laser may aswell not be there for all it's use. Raiden is simple, pure shmuppery. No bullet hell boll0x or complicated rank sh1te to worry about etc. Just stay alive and don't bomb.
DX is a different beast however, that's a class package.

o1s1n wrote: »

Can only manage to 1cc a bit into level three. (I blame that on the evils of Sanwa! :pac:..). Going to invest a lot of time in this one. Plan on rewatching your video back over the weekend for some tips

That's not bad at all, least you're playing with a stick and buttons rather than a laptop keyboard. My vid is really only helpful for the first 2 and half levels, as soon as I died it goes to pot as far as score is concerned. See how your lvl1 and lvl2 scores compare to mine - not that mine are out of this world or anything, average I would say.
Must put it back in the cab sometime, Raiden Fighters in there atm although I'm not getting much cab time at all recently anyway.

Use the blue ship btw.

o1s1n

What I really love about it is the level of difficulty when compared to the simplicity.

It's not an easy game (those damn tanks!!). But to look at it you'd think it was easy...kind of the complete opposite if a lot of bullet hell games

Regarding the blue ship, I think you said it moved quicker on the horizontal and the red on the vertical?

Will definitely be looking to pick up DX sometime in the near future. I've a list of boards now which seems to be growing daily. Same vertical shmups are so damned expensive.

Andrew76

o1s1n wrote: »

Regarding the blue ship, I think you said it moved quicker on the horizontal and the red on the vertical?

Yeah I think that's how it works. You definitely getting a lesser amounts of enemy ships on the first level when playing as the Blue ship - so it makes it a little harder to get as high a score. Anything around 130k for level 1 is pretty good iirc.

o1s1n

Cool, will check that out now in a sec

Bought 4 green and four pink Seimitsu buttons. Four plugs too.

Held off on the sticks for the moment, I need to look into that more to understand what's going on. I think my cab has SS plates? Here's a pic of under someone elses CP

Andrew76

No actually, looks like you need flat mounting plates that sit across those pieces welded to the cp (mounts?). Take the balltop off one and unscrew the stick from the cp. Measure the distance in mm between the screw holes on the mount (center to center). The stock picture of the 56-1 stick looks like it comes with a VF mounting plate which is no use to you - it only has 2 holes to attach it to a cp.

There is an option to select the MS base plate in the second drop down list, if it fits your measurements, or else you can just buy other plates in their accessory section here.

MS plate, the central 4 holes obv screw the plate to the base of the stick itself, outer holes screw to the cp mounts (40mm x 84mm).



Just had a look back at my last order when I got 56-01 and 58-01-X sticks, I remember asking for the MS plates specifically as they exactly matched the mounts welded to my 1P CP. SS plates are on my 2P CP.

tl:dr: Get the plates to match your measurements and all will be fine.

TechnoFreek

Yeah, like Andrew I'm not 100% sure SS plates are right here. Can you easily take a photo of the existing sticks and plates.

Gremlin solutions and or the AO wiki have diagrams of all the plates for reference to be sure to be sure

o1s1n

Thanks dudes! Was having a good gawk at the sticks this evening and they're Seimitsus. The player 2 stick is really crazy loose (leading me to believe it was a sanwa! )

The player 1 stick is fine. I guess p2 is ruined as it's bang in the middle of the CP so people would have been using it more. So that'll definitely need to be replaced.