Bartop Adventures

[chakoo]

 

So i'm building a bartop (n64 cart for scale). It took a while to convince the wife on this one but I finally got the go a head a few weeks back and the wood kit arrived on monday. It will probably take me a few weeks/month to ultimately build this thing out but I thought it would be fun to post progress reports here as I go since I know a few have asked from time to time how to build a SuperGun (and in a way this will be pretty damn close to one).  So to kick things off, going to do a bit of Q & A.

 

Q: What kit did you buy?

A: It's the JAMMArCADE 2P wood kit sold by http://www.retrobuiltgames.com/ best known for the Porta-Pi arcade.

 

Q: What will it look like?

A: Subject to change but i'm considering it being a Capcom Impress style theme. So the shape of the image on the left with the theme/color/style of the right.

 

 

Q: Why not a real arcade cabinet?

A: I have one, it's a capcom impress, it's getting old (needs a full restoration) and my wife doesn't like it sitting around so it sits in my storage locker. =(

 

Q: Why so small?
A: About as big as I could get away with, even the wife found this too bulky. =|

 

Q: Why not the 1P version?

A: He no longer sells that kit and the porta kits are too small  (The Jamma ones are slightly larger inside).

 

Q: Will it be powered by a raspberry pi?

A: Oh god no. The plan is to wire this up with interchangeable harnesses for Jamma & JVS. I bought this kit over the smaller units as it will have just barely enough space to internally house a small arcade PCB (Namco 11/12 or Capcom CPS3) inside but due to a cutout in the back I can pull the harness out the back and plug in a larger board outside the kit (like a  Naomi/CPS2).

Q: What games will you put in it?
A: Undecided and it will change around. I recently picked up a Tekken 1 & Street Fighter EX board since they'll be smaller to put inside. I also think I could possibly gut down a System 256 so I could run Tekken 5, Soul Calibur 2 or Gundam Vs (I own all 3 and bunch others for that system).

 

Q: Why?

A: I'm a huge arcade fan and I get sad I can't easily play my cabinet anymore. So I want a smaller unit sitting around at home. 

 

Q: Why only 1 button or what are you missing?
A: Before I buy all stick/button parts, I wanted to wait for the kit to arrive first and check sizing. The kit is kind of built for Happs buttons and the one I have is a Sanwa which is about 1.5mm bigger but now that I have the kit I can see that slightly enlarging the button holes should be just fine. I also still need to pick a color theme for the buttons. Capcom Impress doesn't have a consistent theme for colors and will mostly use a mix of standard Sanwa button colors which is less than the color options for Happs & Seimitsu offer. As for what i'm missing, connectors (I want to keep the wiring clean), 2nd player stick and remaining buttons, 2 speakers and amp (RBG didn't have these for sell outside a full kit) some nuts & bolts. The two boxes in the picture are the LCD and a Power PCB that will keep the power wiring cleaner.

 

 

Now to slowly take my time to build this. =/

[Rodimus]

Cool project. Keep us posted. 

[chakoo]

Minor Updates.

 

1) Tekken arrived. I think this board has been sitting around for years (covered in dust).

 

2) I had a little free time yesterday so I thought I would try out the LCD panel plugged into my Namco System 246 via vga (Running Gundam Zaft 2). The game looks fantastic on it (display has a lot of settings including 16:9/4:3 options) and it's wicked bright.

 

 

 

 

[chakoo]

So since I had some free time this weekend I spent some time doing a test build, mostly to check out the size and space before starting on wiring but also the maker recommends you do this a few times before you start glueing everything together. It's actually good too because I started building the thing as whole from bottom to top which lead to some parts being hard to do and yet if I more did in sections it would be a lot easier to deal with. =/

 

Anyways on to the main point, this thing is actually very small in person, the photos will make it feel bigger then it actually is. This in general is great for space but bad in regards to arcade PCBs. It's going to be hard to fit some games inside, i'm still not entirely sure tekken is going to fit. 

 

Adult Wood Legos, lol (grabbed two blue happs buttons from another stick I have, still prefer sanwa as the button surface area is slightly bigger)

 

Test build, n64 cart for scale

 

 

Trying to see how best to mount the arcade pcb (on the bottom, on the back door, on the bottom again with no sides)

  

 

 

So I think I'm going to have to try going with it mounted on the back. Next steps are to start on the wiring. I need to hunt down some good connecters (most arcades uses AMP connectors but I'm having a hell of a time tracking down a good place to buy them). Once wiring is good I'll start the gluing process (probably in a few months). 

[Rodimus]

Coming along nicely.

[chakoo]

New Updates

 

Earlier in the week I spent a night grouping up the wires on the Jamma harness. So grouping all of Player1's wires, power, speakers, etc. It will make the cable easier to manage as I go forward.

 

On Saturday, I spent the morning soldering the power PCB block. I made a small error not realizing the green screw terminals could be slid into each other to make a larger block. So a bunch of mine on one side look kind of slanted. It will probably bother me enough in the future to desolder and resolder them back in properly but in the meantime it's flush and secure. 

 

Now today I decided to do a Jamma test. Now everything looks like a mess but that is because instead of powering my VGA PCB directly I used my old setup where I power my JVS IO which then powers the VGA board. Once start building wire connectors I'll do this properly and remove the JVS board. Yet with that said, the game runs and outputs to my monitor. The colors are off but my VGA cable is bad (need to find my other one) and I can't really get into service mode ATM to actually tune the VGA PCB color pots. 

 

Next steps, Order some AMP connectors to build out a proper harness, buy the sound amp i'm missing w/ speakers and then probably the buttons so I can get the wiring finished before gluing the cabinet together. 

 

 

 

[chakoo]

 

Skullomania arrives !!! (Street Fighter Ex)

 

I also bought some cheap 2.5" speakers that I still needed. Unpictured I also bought another Sanwa stick and some buttons (sadly not all the buttons I want since the game shop only had 2 green & 2 yellow, I need 6 of each).

 

So only outstanding parts I still need are the rest of the buttons, still waiting for my sound amp to arrive (this week) and then I just need nuts & bolts for everything.

[Rodimus]

This is exciting.

[chakoo]

 

I'm so eager to get cracking on this over the weekend. Thank goodness monday just happens to be a holiday here in canada. So I hope I can make a dent on the wiring this weekend.

[chakoo]

We have some cleaned up wiring !!! I was a little unsure about this due to how expensive the connecters ended up costing but seeing the results I'm loving it. Unpictured I have a player 1 input harness done. I know the cables look a little short but I have tons of extra length that will go into making extension cables soon. 

 

 

Here is a photo with the power block cleaned up and properly wired for DC jacks. I'm also using a USB->DC jack cable to power the 15k->31k converter. Colors still look like shit. Unsure if it's just uncalibrated or limitation due to video plugging into the CGA plug. I might have to make a conversion cable to plug into the VGA port (I've got a spare hacked VGA cable around). Just unsure how to handle Sync when VGA line has 2 and Jamma only gives 1. 

 

 

 

Some photos of me trying out the SF Ex board. Yeah I know it's stretched, I was playing with the upscaler to get the image to properly fit the display (See the offset tekken above). The LCD itself has a 4:3 mode I can turn on that will put it back to proper size. I'd rather use this setup since the upscaler won't be easily accessible but the LCD buttons will be since it mounts above the screen in the cabinet. 

 

I'm getting pretty close to the stage where I'll need to glue the shell together. Just need to wire the audio PCB next and finish off some parts for the button wiring (just holding off till I get a proper dremel bit to enlarge the button holes for Sanwa buttons (they're just slightly larger than Happs which this kit was built for).

[Rodimus]

So you are using a VGA connection? What scaler are you using? What is the Displays Native Resolution? Yeah for me stretch is a deal breaker. I'm glad the display has a 4:3 mode. This project is exciting and has my continued interest. I am considering this paired up with a Mister or like you have it actual arcade boards.

[chakoo]

7 hours ago, Rodimus said:

So you are using a VGA connection? What scaler are you using? What is the Displays Native Resolution? Yeah for me stretch is a deal breaker. I'm glad the display has a 4:3 mode. This project is exciting and has my continued interest. I am considering this paired up with a Mister or like you have it actual arcade boards.

To the LCD It's VGA but from the PCB it goes through a 15khz -> 31Khz converter. These are simple cheap ones from china that are common in arcade configurations.  This is the one I use

https://retroactivearcade.ca/products/gbs8200-cga-rgb-to-vga-converter

 

The stretch again is not a product of the converter. I can change the shape of the image but instead of configuring a bad 4:3, I'm better off having the converter give a full size pass through and let the LCD constrain that to 4:3. Once the kit is fully put together I'll probably spend more time on dialing this in to make sure it produces the best possible image quality. 

 

The display is a 10.1" LCD with a native resolution of 1280x800.

http://www.retrobuiltgames.com/diy-kits-shop/arcade-parts/10-1inch-lcd/

[chakoo]

Trying not to go too crazy with making a new post with every little update every few days. So i've held back a bunch of updates from this last week. So buckle up!

 

First up from last week, Speaker and amp test. Worked fantastically but I ran into an error on my part today. I thought I could run the Jamma audio into the amp but now realized I forgot Jamma is mono and the +/- wires are for wiring into an 8 Ohms speaker, not an amp. Now there is a solution to where I can chain my two 4 Ohms speakers to make 8 Ohms but this also does not require the amp and goes against how I was going to wire things. So I'm gonna have to give this a bit of thought on how I wish to proceed. 

 

 

Next up, I bought some dremel bits for cutting & sanding wood last week. So I was finally able to enlarge the button holes on the control panel. The holes are a little uneven but with buttons in you don't notice at all. So now the long wait for my local game shop to finally get more Green & Yellow buttons (small chance I cave and just buy two buttons of another color so I can at least have enough for player 1).  I also did some nuts & bolts shopping this weekend. I found most of what I need but oddly my local hardware store didn't cary nylon/plastic washers. Gonna try another place tomorrow.  One thing I feel like making a note of, while the initial kit parts I got were pricey, the odds & ends I'm having to pick up are actually costing a lot and due to the route I'm trying to take (clean wires and etc), I'm probably going to spend much more then if I had just went with the full kit from the site. 

 

 

Now on to the arts & craft portion. I started gluing the wood tonight, I'll hopefully have it finished by tomorrow night. I'm starting to regret not doing this a bit sooner as I think the wood warped just a smudge sitting around and I don't have enough clamps to fully compensate. Oh well in the end it should be fine.

 

Last update but photos another time. I finally scored one of the games I've been wanting to pick up before even buying this kit. I recently bought a Soul Edge kit off yahoo auctions, it's sadly a version A (not C) and end up costing me more than I wanted to spend (with shipping about 3x what they're actually worth on ebay which is normally $40-$60 US) but on the bright side it looks to be a complete kit. Years and Years ago (probably 19ish years ago), I use to have the pcb to both Soul Edge & Soul Calibur. I played the crap out of them on my cabinet back then and even now still find myself booting up Soul Blade on PS1 (or on a PSP) from time to time. 

[chakoo]

Quick update note. I've been a little quiet recently because I've been trying to figure out why I couldn't get audio working on my bartop and spent a couple of weeks trying multiple things. Well today I finally realized I'm an idiot and made a repeated mistake. When you crimp new ends, make sure to bust out the multi-meter and check that they work.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Luckily I didn't break anything but what happened was the Jamma board wasn't getting +12v so it wasn't able to power the PCB's amp. Fixed that and a broken ground wire today and gave it a spin.  So here is a quick short video of Soul Edge running. I'll post more photos of the latest cab progress this weekend.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3oXZTqZ1Zp2sACdy5

[chakoo]

So I haven't posted updates for a while. I kind of got distracted and in an attempt to get a JVS arcade board working on my bartop I broke something (heard a pop, I think my JVS Sega IO is dead) and further when trying out something else I heard another pop and could smell burning.  So I kind of shelved things for a while. I just recently picked things back up after buying a Neo Geo MVS cart and just recently got in a MVS-1B board in. So I checked all my major parts and wiring, found what I blew was my DC Buck converter (drops my 12v down to 5v since I need both). So I got a replacement and finally tracked down some DC Plugs I've been needing so I can properly wire the main input plug to the cabinet. So the system is back up and running again. I got to play some Samurai Shodown on it and had some fun. I think I'm going to need to hunt down a MVS-1C because while the 1B is super small, it's also very tall which complicates things. A 1C should fit better with the cart facing towards the joystick panel. Unsure what I will do with the 1B. I might try to consolize it for fun. 

 

Anyways here are some updated photos and a video.

 

 

 

  

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/7AvrT6Nvuw4AirfR7

(Sorry no audio because I didn't have it wired back in when I took the video, it does work and I can do an updated video if anybody is interested).

 

-edit-

I forgot to mention. I bought a small headphone audio amp because I want to add support so I can plug in headphones and turn off the speakers.