low_budget
Student
Several years ago I bought a Makvision 25" tri sync flatscreen CRT monitor to make an arcade cabinet. With the help of a welder I knew, I designed a lightweight cabinet out of aluminum and he fabricated it. After the fabrication and welding was done, there was still a lot of work to do, and I'm still far from finished with the project. Right now I'm working on redoing the wiring, then I will work on cutting / mounting diamond plate aluminum panels to cover the rest of the exterior.
While originally wired with a standard JAMMA harness, I decided to make a dedicated PCB that will accommodate all the features I want the cabinet to have. This PCB has connectors for power, A/V, controllers, kick harness, coin door so all components can be easily disconnected. By using Neo Geo controller ports, there is only 2 cables going to the control panel instead of 24 individual wires. The control panel will have a breakout board for the controller cables mounted to it so it can be easily removed.
The PCB I made is a lot like a supergun, actually. The biggest difference is the RGB video is a straight pass through to a VGA connector without any video conversion or buffering. It has a voltmeter with selectable 5v or 12v measurement, LEDs indicators for the 3 voltages, stereo / mono sound switch with speaker to line out converter circuit, connector for kick harness, switches for JAMMA button 4-6 connection, and coin door buttons and connector.
I do have about 12 of these PCBs left if anyone has a similar arcade setup and thinks this would be useful.
I'm using an automotive style 20W stereo amplifier with it's own 12 power supply connected to a pair of 2 way 4x6 speakers. That's why I needed the speaker level to line level converter. I like having an easy to access volume knob rather than adjusting the potentiometer on the JAMMA arcade game board.
While originally wired with a standard JAMMA harness, I decided to make a dedicated PCB that will accommodate all the features I want the cabinet to have. This PCB has connectors for power, A/V, controllers, kick harness, coin door so all components can be easily disconnected. By using Neo Geo controller ports, there is only 2 cables going to the control panel instead of 24 individual wires. The control panel will have a breakout board for the controller cables mounted to it so it can be easily removed.
The PCB I made is a lot like a supergun, actually. The biggest difference is the RGB video is a straight pass through to a VGA connector without any video conversion or buffering. It has a voltmeter with selectable 5v or 12v measurement, LEDs indicators for the 3 voltages, stereo / mono sound switch with speaker to line out converter circuit, connector for kick harness, switches for JAMMA button 4-6 connection, and coin door buttons and connector.
I do have about 12 of these PCBs left if anyone has a similar arcade setup and thinks this would be useful.
I'm using an automotive style 20W stereo amplifier with it's own 12 power supply connected to a pair of 2 way 4x6 speakers. That's why I needed the speaker level to line level converter. I like having an easy to access volume knob rather than adjusting the potentiometer on the JAMMA arcade game board.