They Are Multiplying!

Well just when I thought I'd run out of room in the garage - I came across a guy selling his arcade collection as he was moving.
I cherry picked an Area 51 cabinet with a display problem, a GTI Club 2 Player Sitdown were player 2 doesn't get past the self-dianostic screen, and a generic Jamma Cab.

The GTI Club game is great fun, with gear stick and handbrake, speakers in the seats and force feedback steering. As mentioned player 2 doesn't work, I think it needs a new game board.





The Area51 powers up and you can hear the game play, but there's nothing on the display.


The Jamma cab appears to be working but I have no game board to test it with.

A New Baby Arrives!

I saw a bit of a bargain on ebay the other day, an A.P.B. sitdown arcade, so I set my sniping bidder and left it for the weekend while I went to work. Low and behold, I won it for £58!

Myself and Simon went all the way to Hebden Bridge in yet another Wiseman's van and it's one heavy beast I tell you that!
After rewiring the plug (it managed to get crushed during the move), powered it on and all is great. I've never played or even seen A.P.B. before, but it's my kind of game.


Think of a mix between GTA, Crazy Taxi and Crimewave.
More Info: http://www.appolo.com/collection/apb/apb.htm
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=6795



It needs a tiny amount of work, a foot is missing on the seat, a new blub for one of the coin mech, 2 blubs for the "police light" marquee and 2 replacement locks for the coin doors. I also need to replace the old style 50p coin mech with a 20p token mech, if I can find one.

Long Time No See

I've been a busy bee recently so I've not really had chance to work on the machine until today.

Too long has the machine been sitting there in a uncomplete state so I'm going to finish it as quick soon as I can. I've been trying to fix up to cabinet to perfection, however I just can't do it with the time and money I have - that'll be saved for the next project ;)

Current Costings

OK, I'm bored at work so here's another post.
I'm not sure I dare list how much I've spent to date as I'm sure it's much more then I wanted to spend.
Well here goes:

• 1x PC = £80
  
• 1x Cabinet = £20
  
• 2x Mission Guncon2 recoil Light guns = $42.80 ~ £24.00
  
• 1x I-PAC2 Interface = £32.27
  
• 1x Coin Mech = £26.45
  
• 1x TV = £5 (LOL, still gets me how cheap this was)
  
• 2x Overlay + 12x Buttons + 4 Start Buttons = £12.95
  
• 2x Joysticks = £15
  
• 1x Wiring = £1.20
  

Total = £216.87

Yep, more then I thought, having said that, take away the cost of the PC and it's not that bad.

More Bits and Bobs

After deciding I needed a new Control Panel Overlay, I had a looksie on ebay for one. I found a guy who had one (which was a bit smaller then I needed), I emailed him to ask how much to end the auction early, I also asked about some replacement buttons. He said I could have the buttons I needed (12 regular + 2 Start buttons), the overlay and another overlay he had laying about for £12.95.
Now considering buttons are usually about £1 each, I got a bit of a bargain!

As I thought, the overlay was too small width-wise and the spare overlay he sent is hideous, so I can either try to clean up the old one or chop up the old overlay and stick the new overlay on with added "bits".

So I'm going to try and fix the current overlay - basically removing all the cig burns.

Today I wired up all the buttons and ordered some replacement joysticks (£15 for 2).
The new joysticks use microswitches and old ones used leaf switches (which are better). Hopefully I can just swap the bases on the joysticks and have a nice new sticks on nice old bottoms.

The Story of the Smoking Gun

As mentioned in my previous post, i recieved my lightguns.
One of the reasons I ordered these mission guns was because they have recoil when you pull the trigger.
The recoil only works when you use a Playstation 1/2, I don't, so the recoil doesn't work for me.

Fear not! The gun comes complete with a Mains Lead passthrough for use with the PSOne so it gets the required voltage to power the solenoid.
So we (myself and the pa) have a look at what voltage the PSOne mains runs on and set a powerpack we have to that value.

After plugging the mains lead into the passthrough lead on the gun, the recoil stll doesn't work, and then....
*sniff*, *sniff*
"What's that smell?"

Yep, the smell of burning electronics was coming from the gun :(
I thought the gun was dead but it's not, and the recoil still works on my brother's PS2. Phew!

Maybe I'll research a little more before trying that again!

The Guns are Here!

Yesterday I recieved the lightguns I ordered.
Hooked one of them up to the pc and my portable TV to have a go.
I'm amazed at how well they track on the desktop, you can move the mouse around and it's really accurate!

When it comes to some of the games, the story isn't so great.
In House of the Dead 3 and MAME it is working great, however in HOTD1, HOTD2, Virtua Cop 1/2 it's all messed up.

• Virtua Cop 1/2, the cursor just skips around the edges of the screen.
  
• House of the Dead 1/2, the tracking is poor

I'm sure it's my poor set up in the games which is the problem, so I will continue fiddling.

Presenting...... The £5 TV!

Amazingly I've managed to pick up a TV for the cabinet for £5 on ebay! A 26" German brand from a lady in Doncaster.
The feeling you get in the last hour of the auction when you know something is going to go dead cheap is crazy. Hoping nobody else has noticed the auction, each refresh of the page giving a heart-stopping moment.
"Why's it so cheap?" you ask. No idea, it works great, has a S-VHS scart socket and came with a stand. Only downside was that it was pickup only - meh, nothing like a nice drive out anyway.


Note for next time: On the way home, take M62 Leeds not M62 Hull!

Gimmie All Your Money!....... if you want to play that is

Today I received my coin mech. A device that checks to see if the inserted coin is of the correct value.
The place I got it from ran out of the 'cheap' version I ordered, so they sent a mech that was almost twice the price.
£26.45 for a mech that can validate 4 coins (10p,20p,50p,£1) and arcade tokens.
It'll hook up to the credit board that was found in the cabinet, which gives the appropiate credit for the value.
20p - 1 Credit
50p - 3 Credits
£1 - 7 Credits
This rewards the player with bonus credits when they spend more money.


Mars MS115 Mech 5 Coin Validator

Day 2.... Well Not Technically

Today I finished off cleaning and began painting. I used that well known arcade machine renderer - poster paint.
Now before you all get on your high-horses, it was only for touching up and it came out really quite well. So i did the bottom "foot area" with it aswell.


The machine masked up just after painting

Having taken all the buttons and joysticks off the control panel, I sadly think that the control panel artwork will have to go - to put it bluntly, it's knackered.


Cig burns and chips are a plenty
The overlay peels off, so I shall find a replacement.

I also got a picture of the coin counter in all its 115,031 glory.

First Things First

After cleaning out Howard's garage, I get to work...


The cabinet in all its £20 Glory

Taking the cabinet apart, I found a British Penny (Dated 1998), a Danish Kroner (Dated 1982) and a nice friendly spider living in the speaker rack.

A few hours later, some Jif and a ton of elbow grease, I have a nice clean cabinet.


Stripped and Cleaned. Compare the colour of the inside to the image before!

A few things to mention:

• Speakers are intact and look ok to reuse.
  
• A Jamma credit board was found inside the coin door and shall be put to use later.
  
• The cabinet appears to have been kicked thus damaged (right of the bottom coin door), it has been repaired but the paint is a bit "off colour".
  
• I was going to repaint the cabinet, however it cleaned up really nice, so I think i'm just going to touch it up.
  
• The buttons and Joysticks are (in my 'professional' opinion) too far gone, so replacements will need to be bought.
  

There was also a coin counter, which has over 100,000 on it - at 20p a game (according to the sticker on the front of the cabinet), the machine has brought in over £20,000.
I shall be noting down the exact figure, sticking it to the counter and the counter will be put back in - continuing it's life in this arcade machine :)

Picking Up the Cabinet

Today I picked up the cabinet. Simon procured a Wiseman's van (which had a very odd smell) and picked me up - wife in toe.


Simon, Lisa and funny smelling Wiseman's Van

We got to the place in Bradford, down the bumpy road, and loaded the cabinet into the van.
After taxing the van's clutch to smoking point, we headed onto Howard's garage, where the project is taking place.

Checking Out the Cab

Myself and Simon went round to the arcade place in Bradford to have a looksie at the cabinet.
The seller had 5 of these £25 cabinets, so i picked out the best looking and offered £20, the seller accepted. I put down a £10 deposit and arranged to pick the cabinet up at a later date.

The cabinet is stored in a garage down a very pot-holed mud track, so that'll be fun getting a van down there!

Some More Bits Bought

Went and did a bit of a shopping:

• 2x Mission Guncon2 recoil Light guns = $42.80 ~ £24.00
  
• 1x I-PAC² Interface (to connect the control panel to PC) = £32.27
  

PC Bought and Received

I picked up a PC for the project from a user on The DVD Forums.
Here's the lowdown:

• AMD 2400+ (1.6GHz) CPU
  
• 512MB RAM
  
• 80GB HDD
  

I have added an old Geforce 2 MX, for TV-Out.

After a bit of messing about to get it working, it's up and running beautifully. It play the arcade games nice and smoooooth :)

The Quest Shall Begin

Here goes, I shall be attempting to build a fully working arcade machine.

I will be using an old cabinet and will retrofit it with a PC running MAME (Multi Arcade Machine Emulator), and a TV.
The player will control the game with the traditional arcade controls via a keyboard emulator to the PC.

I've found a place in Bradford that is selling empty Jamma Cabinets for £25, so I will check it out and see if I can get it a little cheaper ;)