I recently got a Sanwa CHS-TS2 JAMMA VS Harness from tops: https://www.tops-game.jp/products/detail.php?product_id=2620 It's basically designed for 2 player CPS2/3 games for head to head cabinets. They list it as a JVS link but it really isn't. The JVS example is with a Sega JVS JAMMA I/O. (IMO if you're looking to link JVS games, just link them with a VGA splitter, USB cable, and RCA splitters and cables.)
The first thing I did was remove the sound amp since all my cabinets have amps. All that I really did to do that was cut a zip tie. I'm just going to run a long RCA cable along with the harness and use some y splitters on the board. JAMMA audio is still passed through.
Next, the kick button wiring is designed to run directly to the buttons. All of my cabinets have Sega 10 pin auxiliary button harnesses. I cut the wires shorter and replaced the quick disconnects with 10 pin amp connectors. Now that 2 player was "improved" I moved on to making it work for 4 players.
First I wanted to reuse the kick button wiring for player 4 on the remote cabinet. To do this I replaced the 6 pin female with a 10 pin female connector. I then populated it through the loom with 6 additional wires. Then I soldered a pigtail onto the player 2 side of the JAMMA fingerboard with a 10 pin female Amp connector. The pinout I used is nothing standard, I just kept the first 3 buttons and ground on pin 1-4, mimicking the normal kick harness for no particular reason other than some semblance of consistency. I just filled in the rest of the pins as needed for button 4, up, down, left, right, and start.
Then I just did the same thing for player 3 on the main cabinet fingerboard.
And finally I made a 4 player CPS2 loom with separate 10 pin amp connectors for player 3 and 4. Player 3 plugs into the pigtail on the main cabinet fingerboard, and player 4 plugs into the 10 pin that runs across to the other cabinet.
So now if you want 2 players, hook up the kick harness running the extra button harnesses to the cabinet auxiliary harness, and if you want 4 players, use the 4 player harness and connect the extra button harness to the fingerboards. Player 1 and 3 are on the main cab, 2 and 4 are on the remote. (technically I kept the wiring the same so you could do 1/4, 2/3 but who really cares.)
If I did it again I might just run 10 new wires using 12 pin connectors to possibly make it a little less confusing but honestly I didn't want to spend the wire on it when there would otherwise be perfectly good unused wires. You could also use the extra space in one of the other existing connectors, combined with the original 6 pin, but that felt messy. Also you could probably get away with way less connectors than I used but I wanted to make sure it was as modular as possible.
Hopefully this inspires someone to finally make 3 friends.
Also this harness is just wires. There's no load on the remote cabinet power supply, which can be a problem for some. There's also no isolation of any kind, so you're effectively tying the two cabinets together as one. This will cause grounding problems if you link dissimilar setups. I tried connecting my New Astro (which has the monitor ungrounded, and logic ground separate from earth) to my Super Neo 29 Type II (which has the monitor grounded and logic ground tied to earth). This resulted in a terrible picture with tons of interference. Linking my New Astro to my OK Baby (which has an MS9 and I've totally rewired like to be like a Sega cabinet with the monitor floating) looked perfect.
So far I've tested it with CPS3 for vs, CPS2 for 4 player, and a Mister JAMMIX for 4 player. Works great! (ignore the mess)
The first thing I did was remove the sound amp since all my cabinets have amps. All that I really did to do that was cut a zip tie. I'm just going to run a long RCA cable along with the harness and use some y splitters on the board. JAMMA audio is still passed through.
Next, the kick button wiring is designed to run directly to the buttons. All of my cabinets have Sega 10 pin auxiliary button harnesses. I cut the wires shorter and replaced the quick disconnects with 10 pin amp connectors. Now that 2 player was "improved" I moved on to making it work for 4 players.
First I wanted to reuse the kick button wiring for player 4 on the remote cabinet. To do this I replaced the 6 pin female with a 10 pin female connector. I then populated it through the loom with 6 additional wires. Then I soldered a pigtail onto the player 2 side of the JAMMA fingerboard with a 10 pin female Amp connector. The pinout I used is nothing standard, I just kept the first 3 buttons and ground on pin 1-4, mimicking the normal kick harness for no particular reason other than some semblance of consistency. I just filled in the rest of the pins as needed for button 4, up, down, left, right, and start.
Then I just did the same thing for player 3 on the main cabinet fingerboard.
And finally I made a 4 player CPS2 loom with separate 10 pin amp connectors for player 3 and 4. Player 3 plugs into the pigtail on the main cabinet fingerboard, and player 4 plugs into the 10 pin that runs across to the other cabinet.
So now if you want 2 players, hook up the kick harness running the extra button harnesses to the cabinet auxiliary harness, and if you want 4 players, use the 4 player harness and connect the extra button harness to the fingerboards. Player 1 and 3 are on the main cab, 2 and 4 are on the remote. (technically I kept the wiring the same so you could do 1/4, 2/3 but who really cares.)
If I did it again I might just run 10 new wires using 12 pin connectors to possibly make it a little less confusing but honestly I didn't want to spend the wire on it when there would otherwise be perfectly good unused wires. You could also use the extra space in one of the other existing connectors, combined with the original 6 pin, but that felt messy. Also you could probably get away with way less connectors than I used but I wanted to make sure it was as modular as possible.
Hopefully this inspires someone to finally make 3 friends.
Also this harness is just wires. There's no load on the remote cabinet power supply, which can be a problem for some. There's also no isolation of any kind, so you're effectively tying the two cabinets together as one. This will cause grounding problems if you link dissimilar setups. I tried connecting my New Astro (which has the monitor ungrounded, and logic ground separate from earth) to my Super Neo 29 Type II (which has the monitor grounded and logic ground tied to earth). This resulted in a terrible picture with tons of interference. Linking my New Astro to my OK Baby (which has an MS9 and I've totally rewired like to be like a Sega cabinet with the monitor floating) looked perfect.
So far I've tested it with CPS3 for vs, CPS2 for 4 player, and a Mister JAMMIX for 4 player. Works great! (ignore the mess)
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