Konami Cab Project and first words

Restoration/upgrades/fixes/fabrication of pins and vids
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mah
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Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:10 am

Konami Cab Project and first words

Post by mah »

Hi everyone,

I've been stalking maaca for several years, but never commited to join because.... well I never had any cabinet or pinball of any sort, even if I always wanted to.. So I was feeling a bit imposter :P
But this is about to change and I thought it would be about time to jump in and say hi everyone!

I'm super excited to join you and your community look dope!

To quickly introduce myself, I'm the father of two awesome kids, 4 and 5, I am making games for a living and started my own studio almost two years ago
and my childs start to be old enough so I cam school them the real roots of gaming by building a 80s Konami 4 player cab :P

This project has been a dream I carried for a really long time, but I never wanted to come up with a sketchy cabinet but to do it with respect.
To sum up I finally managed to secure what I think to be a decent budget to start with and build as clean and complete as I can my own cabinet.

So I thought I could post my project here and share my updates etc. and keep those who may be interested updated about my process; from neophyte to amateur cab builder :P
AND, let's be honest, I don't really know what, I'm about to jump in so I guess I'm seeking for a cool place share this passion I never really had the chance to,
seek advices, tips tricks and reality check from time to time :) !

I guess I'm far from being the first one to attempt that and you probably saw dozen similarpost but just to put in perspective, I know it will be though, take time and patience but I'm ready to face it haha

This project really bring me back to the day we bought our old 1860 house and we decided to jump and renovate it from the bottom to the ceiling..
today I have almost the same skill set (none) but in the end, it took about 3 years... I'm quite proud of my achievement and I think I did a decent job!

Anyway! at first I just wanted to say hi, introduce myself and give some of the highlights of my project! (which I barely did)

So here's what I am trying to achieve!

TMNT 4 players Konami cab,

everything as functionnal and accurate as I can on the exterior (still debating on the side art though, tmnt does not have the prettyest one)

and under the hood, a mame machine running hyperspin on an arcade monitor dedicated to my childhood generation 80s,90s and 2000s era

so yeah! that's about it!

Cheers all

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cap
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Re: Konami Cab Project and first words

Post by cap »

Welcome to maaca.
That looks like a cool project.
Judge Dredd, Road Show, Last Action Hero, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Stargate, F14 Tomcat

mah
MAACA New Contributor
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:10 am

Re: Konami Cab Project and first words

Post by mah »

Thanks Cap!

Started the easy part over the week-end, spending money :P

I got the chance to land on a WG K7000 27" mostly all rebuilt, I'm really excited to plug that old piece!
I honestly thought I would take ages to find a proper arcade monitor the exact same size and model there was in the TMNT cab!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F8hdf ... XE7UOhfhiE

So my next step is to hook it on the pc.

I ordered some connectors, an isolation transfomer and I am still trying to find some info onto how I should convert the signal to a vga cable I am not 100% sure how to do it..

I found out some folks are using J-Pac to convert the crt signal from pc vga 1volt to 5 like the old monitors and then connect it to an arcadeVGA card
but those card or wherther too expensice or out of stock and unless I grab a more modern model, I might not be able to play some more ''modern'' games like crazy taxi, or other 3d stuff..

I'll keep working on it and give more insight as it goes!

mah
MAACA New Contributor
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:10 am

Re: Konami Cab Project and first words

Post by mah »

Sup!

Happy new year everyone, end of 2018 was pretty hectic but the project progressed anyway.
during christmas time, I got ( I think so...) pretty lucky. I landed on this cabinet https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TwoaI ... xfXz8xQLMk
It is exactly the same cab I was about to build so it made the project progress a lot in a single shot!
Beside the control panel, the esthetic isnt that bad so it shouldnt be too much of an issue to clean up

On the aetsthetic side, I was thinking on patch the holes with some putty, redoing entirely the t- Molding and and restore the side panels by putting an arborite sheet. ( don't hesite to tell me if the arborite is a bad idea..) at the moment, the cab seems to be on an extremely thin sheet of arborite/melamine but its filled of scratch and holes and some of the corners are in pretty bad shapes...

The cabinet was already prepped to receive a computer so it also helped. but in the end, I think it was more fun for the fact I've been able to plug it fast enough to try couple games in the same day I got it! :lol: everything is going to be stripped out..

I finally got an arcadeVGA card and migrated my library into groovymame. along with their auto switchres feature, it apparently is the best version of mame to play old games on arcade crts in order to replicate as close as possible the original image. I'm definitely not THE reference but I still must say, it does a great job at it! the pixel isnt stretched anymore and is way sharper/more 1:1 than before since the emulation isnt trying to squash the pixels anymore.

Now, it is time to clean up the cab, order the parts to rebuild the control panel and change the screen.

even though the cab is running on what seems to be a polo 25'' and an RCA tube monitor thing.. no effin clue if its a good monitor or not but it is a bitch to adjust!! :evil:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IRpHZ ... kE7QWx2xr
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-YuVk ... oh6biVWhVf
if any of you knows more about that monitor, please let me know!

I still want to try the wells gardner k7000 and compare which one seems best... I really need to know more about arcade monitors..

From what I've got by digging on the internet, WG seems a better choice and I think this was also the monitor that was originaly in the TMNT monitor and! it fits like a charm on the cab's bezel while the polo have a nasty gap offsets on the top and the sides..

so yeah, I think that's about it!

cheers!

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