PRIMAL RAGE... (er I mean primal rage) build

[HornheaDD]

Well, shit. The guy I was talking to about the Primal Rage art has gone completely dark. Hasn't replied in nearly a week.

Guess Im back to square one on it or trying to get someone else who has the PR art to update theirs.

 

[HornheaDD]

Small update. Looks like EscapePod has come to the rescue with artwork. I got a response today that I would get some proofs for the artwork later this week. So that's nice. Hope to get something going there.

As for the actual build, I've got just about everything I need for the conversion. Got some buttons, though the yellow ones seem a little too mustardy colored than what I remember on the cab but that can be swapped out at some point in the future. Some speakers a PSU, new harness and a CGA->VGA converter. and the sacrificial toy arcade1up cab that will be gutted and replaced with a 20" dell LCD and whatnot.

Im going to try and start the JAMMA build this weekend.

 

[HornheaDD]

Had some power issues (in the tech help area) that I was helped out with, but so far Ive got video and sound working 100%. Though the image on the two LCD's I tested seems a bit washed out and saturated (especially whites). Ive tried messing with the contrast on both the monitor's side as well as the VGA converter board's side and haven't really gotten it to where I really want it. It could be the converter is crap, I'm not certain. Its the first time I've used one of these before. Regardless, it is definitely working.

I had planned to put it together to get it playable in Galaga form this weekend, but I still need to wait for a marquee and mounting kit to arrive. Once I get that I'll put it together. I was supposed to hear from EscapePod on friday with some proofs for the artwork and, I haven't gotten a peep. ScarletSprites implied they are problematic, which is worrisome.

Ah well. I can still look around at one or two other places if need be. Maybe the guy at EscapePod was really busy this week, so I'll just keep waiting for a bit.

I pulled out the stick and cheap buttons from the A1U contol panel and made a rudimentary 1player set up without really paying attention to spacing. It'll be functional to test when its put together, but I plan on either cutting a new control panel, or buying one online since they aren't that expensive.

 

[HornheaDD]

Art from Escape Pod has been ordered. I had them modify the image they have for the control panel a bit. They had start buttons, as well as the power/volume buttons, etc. Since this is a dedicated PR, I had them remove everything but the two stick holes and 8 player button holes as well as add the text. looks pretty good. I thought about asking to include the Atari logo like a real CPO but I didnt want to get carried away.

 

[XtraSmiley]

Art from Escape Pod has been ordered. I had them modify the image they have for the control panel a bit. They had start buttons, as well as the power/volume buttons, etc. Since this is a dedicated PR, I had them remove everything but the two stick holes and 8 player button holes as well as add the text. looks pretty good. I thought about asking to include the Atari logo like a real CPO but I didnt want to get carried away.

Looks good, but it’s missing the ring around the start button. Google it to see, or wait two days and I’ll snap a pic for you.

 

[HornheaDD]

Looks good, but it’s missing the ring around the start button. Google it to see, or wait two days and I’ll snap a pic for you.

Yeah I noticed that as well but at this point, I'll take it. Worst case I can just find a sticker or something down the road, or worst case I'll have another made. But after 3 places completely ghosting me, Im just happy to have SOMETHING coming in lol.

 

[HornheaDD]

A little progress:

I wired up the JAMMA harness to power, player 1 and a single speaker just to test. I thought I had blown the monitor when using a dremel to cut out some superfluous metal on the internal casing for the LCD. A good compressed air-ing and it was good to go.

Plenty of work left on it (also excuse my messy AF office).

View: https://youtu.be/kMmkZO_vkyI

 

[HornheaDD]

Some minor cable management. The anchor for harness itself will probably end up being moved a bit since that wall is where the board will be placed.

I still have to get the art and the new monitor mount (hence the missing bracket on the right side there). Once those actually come in I'll be able to start 'permanently' adding things to it inside.

I also fiddled a bit with the GBS8200 and got some better/cleaner/less intense video. Didn't take a pic but its a lot less saturated. I did see the threads about GBSControl, I'd like to try that. But if I can get this thing working fine as is, there really isn't much need for me to do the mod. But the mod itself seems easy enough to do.

I had gotten a May...flash? Mayzack? I cant remember the name but I had gotten a CGA->VGA converter alternative to this one since I thought maybe it was just crappy(er). Turns out I got a VGA to CGA converter lol. Derp. So I just returned that and came home to fiddle with the one I have now and vy-oh-lah as they say, looks better for now.

As an aside, I also have some Plexi that I got a while back to put the PR board into, but I'm not certain as to what I'll need to do for it at the moment. As I mentioned in the past, the RageCage is not present, its literally a bare PCB and kind of floppy which I was concerned about. So I just got a thin piece of wood, cut it to approximately the size of the board and placed some support foam underneath it to prevent it from wobbling and damaging traces/solder joints.

Now, since its a bare PCB, it is also missing the support screws that would have anchored it to the RageCage. Because of this, the sound board and other daughter board are basically being held on by the connectors only. This is why I want to properly support it, since it will be installed into the cab veritcally.

I need to find some long enough and thin enough bolts that can slide into the holes and then anchor those to the plexi. I'll also need to figure out how to cut a hole in the plexi to let the ginormous heat sink poke through a bit.

@XtraSmiley Is your PR board using the JAMMA edge for sound, or going straight from the sound board? There's a vid on youtube (the guy apparently didn't have any light sources anywhere in his house so its almost unwatchable) where some dude soldered some RCA jacks onto the connector for the sound board, and was able to run a cable to an amp which then fed 2 speakers and a small sub. I'm considering going that route, but its not a priority at the moment.

 

[HornheaDD]

Well, I tried soldering some wiring to the sound board according to the CAGE sheet in the manual (but its not really in the manual? I guess?). My solder joints were solid, no bridging, nothing. There have been a few people who soldered directly to the board to get sound and I did just that, but it had some weird results.

I got some sound, but one of the speakers was real low and then I noticed that the RCA cable I soldered to the sound board was pretty hot. Not too hot to touch, but it was most definitely hotter than any stereo cable I've ever touched. I also noticed the heat sink on the board was pretty damn hot too. So I went back and just removed my home made cable, then everything was fine. So I'm running mono sound right now by just connecting the other speaker to the main speaker cable that comes from the JAMMA edge at pin 10.

It works, but there's very little bass, just like the CAGE sheet mentioned. I wonder what's going on with the sound board and my soldered cable.

Ive got the board installed inside, albeit not in its acrylic case, its just secured on thin piece of plywood and screwed into the wall of the cab. Its entirely playable for one player right now.

Just need the art to come in and I'll install it along with Player 2's controls. I might wire up the service line but I'm not sure just yet. Im also becoming less and less of a fan of the 2001fp monitor I have in there. Its pretty old and its clear the the brightness - even at 100%- is still pretty dim.

 

[hoagtech]

Found a $50 home for the board for now.

It was on craigslist as non-working for a few days, and made no mention of the riser (but it was included). When I got there it turned right on, but the player 1 or 2 buttons didn't work.

I let it slip that I fiddle with arcade cabs in general (as a hobby) said that it was probably just an easy fix like swapping out a button, etc. Id already paid him and was already loaded up but I could tell his from his dropping facial expression that it hadn't dawned on him that it might be a super easy fix and he sold it too cheap. Sorry not sorry bro.

Ah well. Galaga/Galaxian were before my arcade days (90s fighters are my era) so I don't really care about the games. I dont mind Galaga/xian but I wouldn't really spend more than a few minutes on each game, its just not my thing.

As stated in the previous post, the plan is to gut the cab, slap a 20" monitor in there and convert it to a real Primal Rage JAMMA arcade cab, much like Chris from KillerArcadeGames did for his MK4.

The Primal Rage PCB I have is just sitting in my closet waiting for the loves, and it needs a home. I don't have the room for a 3rd full size cab so into the little low quality A1U shell it goes. My plan is to get a full PR graphics kit from GameonGrafix and make it a PR cab, and when I eventually hear from the engineer dude about the scaled down "real" Primal Rage blueprints, I'll put it in there and toss this on craigslist for change.

1 UPS don’t have coin mechs, Switchable PSU, monitor mounts or JAMMA for that matter. How are you going run your board in that thing?

Edit: I kept reading and saw you used an escape kit. *derp

 

[HornheaDD]

1 UPS don’t have coin mechs, Switchable PSU, monitor mounts or JAMMA for that matter. How are you going run your board in that thing?

Edit: I kept reading and saw you used an escape kit. *derp

No kits.

I just installed a JAMMA harness, larger monitor, arcade PSU, etc etc. The only thing that will be original will be the shell.

 

[HornheaDD]

Attempting some cable management. Still have some work to do obviously, but I was trying to make room to stick my fat head/arms in there to secure power supplies for the monitor and the audio amp.

I ended up just wiring L & R speakers without a sub directly to the sound board and it doesn't sound awful but it needs a sub. Also not getting hot. Not sure what was up with that.

Just need to find a sub that is:

A. very inexpensive
B. fits in the area
C. still gives a noticeable boom when using it.

Tried amazon'ing it but I kept only coming up with drivers, and not full encased subs.

 

[HornheaDD]

Tried setting up GBS-Control but following both the installation guide from the git and RetroRGB's video only presented problems and the software just didn't work. Evidently Im not the only one with the same issue. So I just gave up on it. Unfortunately, now that I've modified the 8200 I had for the GBSControl project, its useless at this point. So I had to order another one from Amazon that wont be here til Sunday. Had plans to work on it tomorrow but I guess that's out the window.

Im just gonna live with GBS8200's video. Im tired of fiddling with something that will be a minimal difference.

 

[HornheaDD]

I ended up trying a different computer with the GBS-Control thing and it decided to work. Strange as I literally made zero changes and followed the steps exactly as outlined again. It just ended up not being dumb and worked. Maybe my computer was the culprit.

Video is still a tad wavy, but I think there are some things that can be done yet that will help out the video a bit more that are not related to the GBSControl thing. For now though, the cab is wired up, I was able to get a little subwoofer and speakers, but didn't use the speakers, just the sub and it kicks nicely. I found a Logitech Z313 or some weird thing that all of the Arcade1Up modder kids use for their Retropie builds. The Logitech speakers resemble tweeters from what I can see, so maybe I can figure out a way to add tweeters to the cab at some point but I dont think that's all that important at this point.

Ended up just building a speaker cable to go from the sub connection on the sound board, and just bought an RCA male to 3.55mm female adapter. The sub for the logitech kit has an earphone jack in that you would connect to your computer/RPi, etc. So while the sound board is driving the two JVC speakers I have up top with a small Kinter Amp, the sub is just being driven by the line out from the PR board and to be frank, it sounds nice and meaty. Only thing I can't seem to figure out is I don't really think I'm getting true stereo. I'll have to fiddle w that later on, but so far, the sound works, and sounds good too. Its nice to hear the big booming sound that PR is known for.

The cab still looks like Galaga because I haven't gotten the art in from EscapePod just yet, but honestly once the art arrives, the cab will be for all intents and purposes 'done' save for a few minor things like making sure the video behaves, the sound sounds just right, and adding the new control panel and buttons. I had installed some cheapie buttons and sticks I got from an old RetroPie build just to make sure this and that works and wow - those controls suck buttholes. So I hit up FocusAttack for some Happ compys and some proper microswitches/buttons.

They feel WAY better.

Im considering adding a coin button (though I have the board on freeplay) and a test/service button just in case I need to get into the BIOS and don't want to move the cab/open it, hit the switch, put it back together, etc etc. Also, I got some extra Smart plugs and connected them up. Now I can just say "hey google, turn on primal rage" and I'm in business.

 

[HornheaDD]

Ignore the disaster that is my office.

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Tgtbt43cd8Y

 

[kinooshi823]

Ignore the disaster that is my office.

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Tgtbt43cd8Y

Can you detail how you managed to hook up a subwoofer in the cab? I want to add one to my 1up but need a how-to here.

 

[HornheaDD]

Can you detail how you managed to hook up a subwoofer in the cab? I want to add one to my 1up but need a how-to here.

For sure! Its actually not that complex.

So what I did for the standard speakers is solder some line-outs from under the connector on the sound board. I know that's pretty common but just in case you aren there yet, thats what I did. Spliced a 3.5mm jack to RCA out and soldered the + and - for both to the board, and those go into a small Kinter amp (like $15 on amazon).

For the woofer, I got a sub from the Logitech Z313 set (sub and 2 speakers). The sub on that terminates in a 3.5mm jack that you would connect to your audio out on your PC, stereo, etc etc. From there, the sub feeds the two speakers it comes with, but you don't have to connect the the speakers.

From the sound board, I used a couple of these (to avoid soldering to the board again) to get some lines to the +/- for the sub.

Just to make it easy, honestly but they aren't required. You can solder to the board if you're up to it. From there, I connected a single RCA out (i took the white one, but here's what it essentially looks like. Also I attached a female to female adapter. I just didn't have any female RCA jacks on hand and rather than order more stuff from amazon, I just nabbed one from the myriad of male ones I have.

The thing here is that the RCA obviously wont connect to the 3.5mm jack on the sub. I didn't want to splice the sub's line, so I got one of these:

Connected the sub's headphone jack to that, and I'm in business. The sub for the Logitech set is powered and has its own little volume control/power (and headphone jack). From there I just chose the volume for the sub that worked for me and that was it.

I'd take some pics of what it looks like in the cab but I'm at work and its currently buttoned up and kind of a mess inside so it wont help much lol.

Lmk if you have any questions, I'll try to explain more if needed.

 

[HornheaDD]

Also as an aside - with all the extra stuff in the A1U cab - that little bitch has gotten pretty heavy lol.

 

[HornheaDD]

Woop woop, just got notification that my art kit has shipped and should be here Thursday. May not be able to actually work on it til the weekend or even next weekend but at least things are moving.

 

[HornheaDD]

Got the art in today. For the most part it looks ok, but the control panel overlay looks like it was made too big. The image in question is one I posted above. The way its set up, it looks like P1's stick would be way too close to the edge, and P2's fierce buttons would be way too close to the edge on their side. Also the circles denoting where the buttons would go seem like they are too big. The start/quick punch ones look fine because of the way they were outlined on the real control panels. But the others look like they will also have the rings. While I'm not TOO broken up about that, I do want to have the sticks in a much better place. Im not sure as to why I didn't catch the buttons being so far up on the image before.

The rest of the artwork fits pretty nice. Ive done one side, the Marquee and the kick panel. I was going to do what is called the "J" panel (the slat that goes right between the kick panel and control panel) but decided to pause, since I'm planning on adding a coin and test buttons just for shits and giggles. I don't want to apply the art, and then drill through because I know that will just end in disaster.

Some progress pics: (as usual, please ignore the awful state of my office. And I didn't realize that bottle of 90% IPA was sitting on the floor. You can thank my cat Ahsoka Tano for that. Shes the worst ever. And I love her to pieces. Im just glad I was smart enough to actually seal the damn thing before she dropped it at some point.