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Custom built JVS driving cabinet

winteriscoming

winteriscoming

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I currently own a single Outrun 2: Special Tours driving cabinet. This cabinet contains JVS hookups and is compatible with NAOMI, Chihiro, Triforce (and others?). I own a NAOMI 2 and Chihiro and can netboot on both for various driving games.

My goal is to scratch build a 2nd driving cabinet and eventually own duplicate main boards for head to head play.

It's crazy because I'm likely going to end up spending more piecing one of these together than it would have cost to buy a complete game, but I rarely see JVS drivers come up locally and currently have no means of transporting one without renting a vehicle.

My arcade is in my basement and is very difficult to move large cabinets into. After getting OR2SP broken down as much as possible and moved down with a huge effort, it was obvious to me that this game was never going to go back up in one piece, so I need to avoid buying these huge cabinets that I can't break down and move in pieces.

On top of that, I recently built a large CNC machine with a 4x5 foot cutting area and want to put it to good use.

So the goal is to scratch build a driving cabinet that can be broken down if needed, and to just have a 2nd driver.

So far I've purchased:
-Complete ID3 wiring harness with transformer and power supply
-Audio amp board
-Duplicate OR2SP dashboard with wheel, gears, pot and force feedback servo
-Duplicate complete OR2SP gas and brake pedal (same as used in many other drivers, afaik)
-Force Feedback board, same as in OR2SP
-ID3 service and test button panel with degausse and volume pot
-JVS I/O board (got it)
-Speakers (ordered)
-additional NAOMI 2 and Chihiro for head to head (have 2nd Chihiro now)

Still need:
-Small power supply pcb? (have to check wiring diagrams to see if necessary, but I think one comes stock in OR2SP and ID3. Not sure what they're wired to at this point.) only used for card reader in ID3, so won't need in my cab
-Seat (hoping to use aftermarket racing seat from car)
-Monitor (have a couple available, just have to decide if any are good enough)
-sheets of plywood/mdf/similar
-other stuff I haven't thought of

It'll be a while putting this thing together.
 
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Sounds like a cool project. I've seen homemade regular arcade cabinets, but never a homemade driving setup.

Make sure to post up some pics with your progress
 
I've been thinking about the seat for my cab. The one that comes stock on my OR2SP is very uncomfortable. My back hurts after any lengthy sessions. For my new cab I want to try for something much more comfortable.

I was thinking about an actual car seat, but I'd have to go to a junk yard and risk weird bug infestations since these cars are just sitting out in the open. Then I thought about office chairs or those rocking gaming chairs. There are a lot of "racing" style chairs available that I think would look great for this application.

81SUcKDPK3L._SL1500_.jpg

61RpNqtMWkL._SL1500_.jpg



Some even recline:
41BpEAdDMoL._SY400_.jpg


If I go with a swivel chair, I should be able to remove the base and screw into the holes where the base screws in for securing to the cab.

I may retrofit one of these onto my existing cab.
 
Apparently there are aftermarket racing seats for cars. Some of these even come with sliding hardware, which makes them more conducive to this application.

91MXDxrJjVL._SL1500_.jpg
 
I have received most of the guts for my new cabinet.

Unfortunately the PCB on the back of the force feedback motor got damaged in shipping. I'm working on trying to get that sorted out.

The ID3 wiring harness I received didn't have the small harness that connects to the FFB motor, so I had to order parts to fashion one of those.
 
I am very interested in this project and would love to do something similar in the far-flung future. Please lots of pics!
 
I saw a listing for a Type3 Chihiro today and went ahead and bought it. Multiplayer OR2 and WMMT, here I come!

I also ordered 2 WMMT shifters, so I'm looking forward to playing it in manual transmission mode.
 
I bought a cheap damaged JVS I/O board that I was hoping to repair. The 12v header was burned up as well as some immediately surrounding components.

I was happy to discover it's working fine without 12v plugged up. I guess I'd just be missing out on lamps?
 
This project is becoming a money pit, and all I'm doing is ordering guts for the moment! :P

I received the Chihiro I ordered today and was super disappointed to find out that the network board had been removed. That board is needed for netbooting... I'm accepting responsibility for this one. Even though the seller didn't outright disclose it, there was a blurry picture in the listing that shows there isn't a network board installed. That's what I get for jumping on what I thought was a decent deal without asking questions or investigating.

Fortunately I found someone who will sell me one of those boards. I also confirmed that the new Chihiro works the way I need it to when I swapped the network board from my other Chihiro. I'll be all set with the Chihiro once I get that board.

I have a few parts in transit still, but otherwise have all the guts needed for a JVS driver. I may end up having to build some wiring harnesses here and there. I'm hoping in my new cab to wire in a sub-woofer (not present in my OR2SP cab, and may eventually wiring one up there, too). I have the low pass amp needed for it.
 
I'm having a hard time deciding how I ultimately want the cabinet to look when finished.

I don't want it to look like a poor quality DIY job. I could model it after my existing OR2SP cab, but I won't have artwork/marquees to go along with it. I could also go with a different style cab such as ID, Crazy Taxi, WMMT, etc, but will also have the artwork issue. I'm not seeing readily available decals for these titles. If decals were available, it would be much easier to decide how to proceed.

At any rate, probably my first step is going to be mounting the guts in some kind of temporary setup while I test things out.
 
I'm ordering a couple more parts to move this project along.

I'm settling on a budget 27" 1080p monitor for now that allows for 4:3 aspect ratio. Hopefully it will sync with all the motherboards I have without any adapters. I'm going with an HD monitor since many games on the Lindbergh don't have low res versions and I won't be able to get a cheap CRT these days anyway. Locking in a monitor is important to the overall design since I'll end up building much of it around the monitor.

I ended up ordering one of the aftermarket racing seats mentioned above and have kind of temporarily retrofitted it to my OR2SP cab. I'll be coming up with a more permanent mounting solution for that cab because the seat is staying there. So much more comfortable! :D So I've ordered another seat for the new cab.

I think I'm going to go with a red theme on the custom cab. I'm not sure yet if I want to do red/blue like Mario Kart or keep it red/black like Maximum Tune or OR2.

I think I'm going to loosely base the design on this type of cab and figure out some kind of decal to put on the sides:
car-racing-games-2.jpg
 
Dude, this has been my dream as well. I bought at auction a non-functioning WMMT 2 cab just to canablize for parts. But now I feel guity about it and am thinking of restoring it back to working order and keeping as is. Which will lead me to creating a DIY driving cab with JVS hookups. I slowly began purchasing parts and it quickly became a money sink. So it's on hold for now.

Good luck with this project.
 
I settled on a cheap AOC e2752She 27" LCD monitor for my build. It's a little smaller than I was originally hoping. I might have liked a 32" more, but the price was good at $120 shipped and I think I'll be able to build the cab in such a way as to be able to mount or slide the monitor closer to the player's face.

Overall I'm happy with the monitor. I briefly tested NAOMI, Chihiro and Triforce in 4:3 mode and they all sync and look decent... and way better than on my 22" HP LCD monitor I had been using for testing. I may try to put together a cheap DIY scanline generator and see if I like that, but even if that doesn't do anything for me, I'm happy enough with the image quality as-is and think I'd get used to it vs a CRT.
 
winteriscoming said:
I settled on a cheap AOC e2752She 27" LCD monitor for my build. It's a little smaller than I was originally hoping. I might have liked a 32" more, but the price was good at $120 shipped and I think I'll be able to build the cab in such a way as to be able to mount or slide the monitor closer to the player's face.

Overall I'm happy with the monitor. I briefly tested NAOMI, Chihiro and Triforce in 4:3 mode and they all sync and look decent... and way better than on my 22" HP LCD monitor I had been using for testing. I may try to put together a cheap DIY scanline generator and see if I like that, but even if that doesn't do anything for me, I'm happy enough with the image quality as-is and think I'd get used to it vs a CRT.
Click to expand...
Good choice! For a minute there I thought I bought the same one you did but mine is only a 24". 32"s are harder to fit without getting widescreen. I did the same thing to my Max Tune cab since I am still working on the vertical scrolling issue on the CRT. I ended up just being ok with an LCD replacement and am working on covering up a gap at the bottom between the bottom of the monitor and the top of the steering wheel dash but the sides fit perfectly. Your application will be different but I found a monitor arm to be the best option to adjust the placement until you create a permanent mount for the monitor. I used this mount. There are cheaper alternatives but this one did the trick and you can mount it to the shelf within the cab. I could be guessing here but i think most cabs that house a CRT monitor have this shelf inside. I just forgot you're making a 'custom' cab so ignore my shelf comment, a monitor arm/mount would still be a good option.

As luck would have it, I bought a 24" AOC for $80 for some other reason but I tried it on here and the monitor fit almost perfectly within the Max Tune bezel (minus the bottom part).

AOC.jpg
 
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Ok, I have an update on the aftermarket racing seats. I love them!

I bought this one for my OR2SP cab from ebay seller speed_daddy:
s-l1600.jpg


I bought a red one with a different pattern for my DIY cab, but the same shape/style of seat.

At any rate, the comfort level when compared to the stock seat if off the charts! :P

I spend hours on end sitting at this cab working on projects, and even a little while spent in the plastic seat resulted in some discomfort in my back and a long time resulted in some back pain. Now with the aftermarket seat (that reclines, by the way) it's like sitting in a reclining office chair.

I highly recommend this upgrade to anyone with a driving cabinet who likes extended play sessions.

I have yet to mount the seat to OR2SP in what I consider a "finished" manner, but for now it's been adapted to the stock slider lever box by using some planks of wood since the fastening points on the new seat are spread out wider than the stock box. I think ideally there would be a custom metal or wood plate underneath to adapt it. This won't be an issue in my DIY cab since the seat comes with its own sliders and lever that I can just plan around when building the new cab.
 
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