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Console JAMMAizer! Easily connect home consoles to your JAMMA arcade cabinet.

Nice, glad the MCC pic swap worked!

I’m thrilled this design uses that pin header to connect controller pcbs, it makes it so flexible.
 
ekorz said:
Nice, glad the MCC pic swap worked!

I’m thrilled this design uses that pin header to connect controller pcbs, it makes it so flexible.
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Yeap, implementing the 2x10 MC header is a godsend. Ensures wide console compatibility and reduced cost to the user. And we can still use them in our fight sticks. Winner winner, chicken dinner! I am also happy Arthimus took in feedback and designed the EXT_IN port. Not only does this open up JAMMAizer's market to MAME (Which is huge. MAME folks can keep their cabs JAMMA standard, so they can still use it for real arcade PCB's, consoles, and MAME) but, the the future is going to allow interfacing to Raspberry Pi, MiSTer, really old consoles and PC's.

I think we got lucky here. Arthrimus says he isn't an engineer. That isn't a slight at all and turns out it's a huge advantage for us. He is an end user with the skills to produce this. So what we are getting suits the end user's needs to the proverbial tee.
 
acblunden2 said:
Money saving tip for Dreamcast owners that have VGA adapters



If 1) you plan on getting the optional VGA hat, and 2) your Dreamcast VGA adapter is capable of 15khz output, you don't need to buy a SCART cable for the Dreamcast. Set your VGA adapter to 15khz output and connect your VGA adapater with a standard VGA cable to the VGA hat and away you go.

Saves you a little dough. Wish I knew this because I just bought a Dreamcast SCART cable from retro-access to replace my cheap Chinese cable and don't need either cable now :/
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To add on to this, if you have a Beharbros Toro box, both HD15 and SCART outputs support 15khz and 31khz. There is a switch on the device to set the output mode. Haven't tested 15khz via standard VGA cable (looks like you did successfully, which is great) but I have tested via generic male to male SCART to my RGB setup. The output is very clean, to the point where I'll likely never bother using a DC specific SCART cable again.
 
Yeap, Behar Bros' Toro is all you will ever need for Dreamcast. Retro-access.com's Fortraflex Dreamcast SCART cable is super high quality. It' is by a landslide, my finest SCART cable. But it's a $40 expense I didn't even need. Learn from my mistep and save your dough my bruthaz.

On the flip side of that same note, if hooking up an Xbox 360, I believe that the only way to get native 15khz out of the 360 is to use a SCART cable. The VGA cable won't output 15khz, AFAIK. The good news is genuine Microsoft SCART Xbox 360 cables are $20 bucks new on Amazon. Less if you go used. So Go-Go-Gadget-credit-card them while you can. Be warned though, 1) controls requires you to buy the Brook UFB (~$100), pad hacks, or Akishops PS360+. It is worth it though, Xbox 360 is known to have one of the finest lineup of shmups of any console. 2) Even I feel a bit silly about hooking up an HD-capable console to play games at 15khz........them scanlines though.
 
@acblunden2 Not sure if I saw it in your testing notes but have you tried og Xbox via SCART on this device? I have it going this way on my Jammacon to a Astro City monitor, with decent results. Not a deal breaker either way, since I'm definitely getting this anyway. Just curious if it's been tested and how it looks.
 
I didn't test it. No desire to connect the OG Xbox to a cab.

Convince me otherwise, please. What would be a arcade-style game worthy of the effort and investment?
 
Nah, I'm definitely looking to replace my Jammacon. Have not had good luck with the controller interface. Jammaizer just seems better all the way around, especially with the 20-pin controller hookup integration. No more need to rely on proprietary solutions or to rewire a Jamma setup. Thank god.

All of the other test results are also very encouraging. I'm pumped to get my hands on this thing, hopefully soon! Will effectively be a drop in replacement for my current RGB setup, with plenty of upgrades to boot. Even the VGA hat is something I'll probably utilize in some form.

re: og Xbox, there are lots of arcade ports on this console and arcade-type games, if that makes sense. Outrun 2, Crazy Taxi 3 and Burnout 3 immediately come to mind. Plenty of fighting games and of course the emulation capabilities are worth exploring IMO.
 
BroadwayJose said:
Nah, I'm definitely looking to replace my Jammacon. Have not had good luck with the controller interface. Jammaizer just seems better all the way around, especially with the 20-pin controller hookup integration. No more need to rely on proprietary solutions or to rewire a Jamma setup. Thank god.
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Excactly. I tried explaining this to TheLastBandit (maker of JAMMAcon). But he said controls is part of the enjoyment for him. I can see how that is the case. But the end user is left holding the bag. viletim expressed the same thing to me via email. Here was TheLastBandit's response on the controls subject:

TheLastBandit said:
acblunden2 said:
I feel devs for these Console-2-Jamma boards should skip trying to interface console controls
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Nope. Part of the enjoyment of designing these is figuring out everything including the console controls. For a mass market product, ya if there is a cheap plug-in module that does the job the absolutely go for it.Also for support issues, its much easier if your the owner of the whole product.
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BroadwayJose said:
All of the other test results are also very encouraging. I'm pumped to get my hands on this thing, hopefully soon! Will effectively be a drop in replacement for my current RGB setup, with plenty of upgrades to boot. Even the VGA hat is something I'll probably utilize in some form.

re: og Xbox, there are lots of arcade ports on this console and arcade-type games, if that makes sense. Outrun 2, Crazy Taxi 3 and Burnout 3 immediately come to mind. Plenty of fighting games and of course the emulation capabilities are worth exploring IMO.
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Of all the features of JAMMAizer, the feature that is going to allow for the biggest latent possibilities is the VGA hat/EXT_IN port. Mark my words on that. TheLastBandit felt otherwise (see below).

As far as those titles go, they all require analogue controls to experience the true arcade feel, don't they? Unless there is a way to interface console analogue controls on arcade driving hardware. That would be cool. The fighting games are available on other consoles. And for emulation, nothing beats a PC. So yeah, you didn't convince me about the OG Xbox :). That is cool though. Won't hold it against you.
TheLastBandit said:
acblunden2 said:
I am going to hold out and see what Lemony comes up with. I really like the Jammacon w/the Pad hack board. Would suit my needs almost perfectly. My only gripe is that all video must be passed thru SCART to get to JAMMA 15khz standard via the edge connector. Wish he had a secondary connection for video sources that already output perfectly to the JAMMA standard (Dreamcast and a MAME PC for example) that would simply allow pass thru to the JAMMA connection.
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Its not more complicated to wire a cable with a SCART plug than to a other connector type and SCART also allows for audio input and are available for every console capable of outputting RGB. I think there are already better solutions for hooking up PC's to cabs.
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JAMMAizer takes care of a 15khz video and stereo SCART signals gooooooood. Should handle the OG Xbox's SCART signal no sweat. You need not worry about AV.

Controls are another matter and are out of the hands of Arthrimus. Never used PS360+ or MCC for the OG XBox, so I can't level set expectations for you there. Perhaps @djsheep can chime in on his experiences, if any, with MC PCB's and the OG XBox, or someone else even. Perhaps find some old reviews of PS360+'s performance with the OG XBox. The same for the MCC and Brook Retro. Then get the MC PCB most appropriate for you.
 
What was that game that came out recently that had a ton of hype but turned out to be just a technology demo? Ahhh yeah, No Man's Sky.

Yeah man, sometimes engineers can lose focus of the user as they are engineering the solution. Working in IT, I see that often. The biggest production flops are when the user is ignored. We see that in the movie industry all the time. Marvel kept to the source material that made the comics popular for so long. DC decided to get cute and now they are rebooting. I mention this because, yeap, Arthrimus is the hero we need.

With that said, I have a couple of simple things unrelated to JAMMAizer I want to pitch to him. But I'll wait till this effort is wrapped up.
 
Just wanted to take a moment to update everyone on the status of the project. First of all I've got yet another revision of prototype PCB in my hands. This one is so close to final I can almost taste it. There are just a couple of component substitutions that have been made since I ordered these so other than that nothing else has changed. I am still waiting for the arrival of the button mapping chip to confirm that everything works as expected, but once that's been tested I think that will be the greenlight to move into the production phase. There are a lot of cool features that I will take the time to detail in a video soon.
qoQjf81h.jpg


I also got a stack of the Padhack PCBs made and I'm going to assemble and test a couple of those soon too.
6HQK4Qjh.jpg


That is all for now.
 
Well that happened faster than expected. I got the sample buttom remapping and rapid fire ICs from @RGB yesterday and put them through their paces. Everything is working flawlessly. The final adjustments have been made to the PCB so I am ready to go into production. As such I am announcing pre orders. This is going to be by far the most costly project I've ever brought to market, and as such I can't shoulder the burden of the inital run myself, so I am taking pre-orders which will pay for PCB production and building an inventory of components so I can produce these more steadily in the long run. The base price for the console JAMMAizer landed right at the $150 mark. Optional upgrades can be added to the base PCB such as the VGA hat for $20 and the button remapping and rapid fire chip for $25. I have updated the first post with all the new information.

The timeline for production is looking like this:
  1. Pre-orders open today
  2. I order a sample of the FINAL pcb design to make sure nothing got messed up with the last few edits
  3. Pre-orders close on September 29th
  4. I order PCBs from the board house, components from Digikey, and some of the more elusive components from overseas. I estimate one month to receive all of those items.
  5. Assembly begins. Depending on how many orders are in the first run this could take a couple of weeks.
  6. Testing and shipping. This will occur on a rolling basis as I complete each order.
I am limiting the first run to 25 PCBs. We'll see where demand is after that and probably do a round 2 of pre-orders.

PREORDER HERE!

Here is the final overview and demonstration video for the Console JAMMAizer!

Huge thanks to everyone who has encouraged and helped me throughout the development of this project. Especially @RGB for his technical insights, and my testers @acblunden2 and @djsheep who provided valuable feedback and helped influence the design.
 
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