LeMans 24 JP Driving Cabinet

[PaulWoodpross3r]

So in August, I have a chance to pick up half of a twin Japanese LeMans 24 driving cabinet locally from a fellow friend. He got the cabinet complete in 2020 from a warehouse cleanout in Western North Carolina, and I believe this may have been routed on location in a hotel in NC (looking through old photos on the interwez...). We will likely have the cab in the storage room of our house in a 50" corner that's wall to wall, if all goes to agreement. The even cooler part is that this model uses the drive board from Scud Race/Daytona 2, 4 view buttons instead of two, and the KETZ Sega wheel. I believe the more common, older model used the FFB motor from Indy 500 (M2B).

This would be my first ever official arcade cabinet, though I have had success playing the boards fully with a few modded PC wheels and there are great ones out there you can mod if you don't mind having no force feedback. Well I kinda want the force feedback now, and eventually want to pursue a career fixing and being able to maintain arcade machines, so I need the experience...

Would this be a great cabinet to start with? I do have plans of wiring up the Deith Leisure Sega "4-to-2way" shifter board to the cabinet, with an extended harness that plugs into CN2 on the filter board with multiple JST NH connectors. I want to easily toggle between playing manual in 2-way and 4-way games by wiring a DPDT switch, but I absolutely do not want to cut or hack wires together. Does the original factory harness for LeMans or other M3 racers have empty VCC/GND pins populated by CN14 (output connector)? I think that would be a great spot to wire that to.

In theory by powering all the necessary equipment like the DSB1/2 and shifter board, I have a total of possibly 7-8 driving games I can play fully in this cabinet -- this was my goal. I already have 4 other M3 racers on PCB, so I'm locked and loaded there. I wouldn't want to own a cabinet that only plays one game as I would grow bored of it & eventually want to sell it. I think with the PCB collecting and the electrical experience I have already, this is a great next chapter of the Model 3 collecting journey.

Anyone else who owns this same cabinet, or just half of some other M3 sit-down cabinet? Are they great for space-saving purposes? What was the experience moving the cabinet like? The room I want to put it in has about a 27" doorway which is pretty narrow if you ask me. I was told it comes in pieces, which is the upside of the JP cabinets over our ugly US wooden ones
(This photo is my friend's actual unit; I took this pic 2 years ago. Hello @GeekMan1222 )

 

[PaulWoodpross3r]

Little update on the cabinet. So far we have:
- Replaced the old front speakers since they were blown and rotted. They're generic 3x5 oval speakers you see in radios, cars and old TVs. The current ones don't sound great but maybe I can change them out with better ones in the future as I've heard better ones of the same kind in other cabinets.
- Swapped a few parts out from the other cabinet including the shifter (which was gummed up inside), and I think one of the amps, which literally all of the other amplifiers are knackered. Every single one of them. There were a bunch of bad capacitors on each. I cannot get full stereo sound unless I turn the pot up halfway.
- Ordered a new power supply harness for the JVS PSU inside, which was swapped out from the crappy original JQA supplies that are notorious for killing the boards. I use the Sun PSU at home on M3 and they are stable but quite demanding for these with the 3.3v power.
- Installed new locks for the coin box and fastened the service panel back on.

Edit: forgot to mention the Force Feedback is WORKING

To-do:
- Adjust the brake pedal gear. The brake currently doesn't go to the optimal maximum range. How does one adjust the gear on this pedal assembly? I'm very new to owning actual arcade cabinets but I did hear the pedals are not too difficult to open in these driving cabs. They are going from about 2EH when released and when fully stepped on they're going to around the 9xH range like in the photo attached. It needs to be around B0-C0, at least for Scud Race from my experience.
- The foam on the seat does need to be reupholstered. Would be worthwhile to take to a fab shop but for right now I'm not too worried about it.
- Either replace or recap the amp for the front speakers
- Recap monitor chassis as it has been mentioned that two caps are bad.

Planned mods (NO HACKING/CUTTING):
- Install harness on the power connector that plugs to the Model 3 for the sound board. The connector in the pics below have some empty free pins that I could use for the sound board with two 5V, two GND, and one 12V wire. I saw a picture of the Scud Race cabinet wires online and noticed this is what was used for the DSB1 board on it, though the DSB2 uses twice the wiring and the power connector is polarized. I label connectors like this so I don't fry anything
- Splice pins 13 and 14 from CN2 using depenning tweezers and run them to either the shifter board or the two switches directly to the filter board, using multiple 2-pin and 3-pin connectors. No cutting. I will also use a 10-pin JST NH connector that plugs to the shifter board and possibly sticky it to the Model 3 cage using non-conductive adhesive material.

The only other roadblock is figuring out how I will able to get the cabinet in the house. The doorway in my living room is almost 35" which I reckon could easily get the cabinet through the doorway with the coin tower removed.
And the room I plan to put it in has about a 27" doorway, and I was told the monitor and side plastics would need to be removed. Anybody have experience moving these; or at least Daytona 2 or another Model 3 racer? Would a dolly suffice?

 

[nem]

The cabs pull apart really easily. Take off the dash, the monitor, side plastics and then you can remove the monitor base.

How does one adjust the gear on this pedal assembly?

You pull off the pot, then rotate until you have the correct range. Make sure the gear tracks correctly before you tighten everything down.

@outrun2 sells (used to sell?) beautiful red and black replacements for the cushions. Are the originals black?

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/f-zero-ax-seat-cushion-repair.21487/#post-328475

 

[PaulWoodpross3r]

The cabs pull apart really easily. Take off the dash, the monitor, side plastics and then you can remove the monitor base.

Have you done all this by yourself btw? And by monitor base, do you mean the monitor cabinet and the bracket that attaches to the base where all the boards are? I saw somebody do that with a US Daytona 2 cab. I would also need to remove the coin tower as the main doorway of my house is just over 32-33" wide.
I'm super lucky on this cabinet. The more common US ones are nearly all wood and the monitor is framed behind a sheet of plexiglass making for a considerably worse picture. After playing DUSA2 at an arcade in that same style cab, I can definitely say I don't want one.

You pull off the pot, then rotate until you have the correct range. Make sure the gear tracks correctly before you tighten everything down.

I don't need to fully remove the pedals to do this, right? Both sides had the brakes adjusted like that so I'm sure it's something the operator did.

Are the originals black?

Yes, they are.

 

[nem]

Have you done all this by yourself btw?

Yes, I have.

And by monitor base, do you mean the monitor cabinet and the bracket that attaches to the base where all the boards are?

That's the one. It's one piece.

I don't need to fully remove the pedals to do this, right? Both sides had the brakes adjusted like that so I'm sure it's something the operator did.

You can just remove the lid. However, it's pretty awkward adjusting the pots when the pedal set is bolted down. Removing the pedal set is like 5 minutes. It's four bolts and a wiring harness.