Gutted EGII To Mame

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Lettuce
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Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

Thought id repost this thread from Killercabs, as some people where asking about it.....

Grab a gutted Taito Egret 2 cab from a Pen over at the killercabs forum, complete with rotating monitor mech :notworthy:
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The components im looking at using on this project are:

29" Pentranic MultiSynce Monitor -awaiting email back regarding prices Ordered, £270.25
Motherboard - Ordered,Gigabyte S775 Intel P35 ATX Audio Lan DDRII FSB133, £54.95
2.4Ghz or great Dual Core CPU - Ordered, Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53GHz, £82.85
2 GB Ram - Ordered, Corsair Memory TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2x1GB 240-Pin DIMM XMS2-6400 CL4, £35.20
Harddisk - Ordered, Samsung Spinpoint 500GB 7200RPM 16MB SATA300, £44.87
ArcadeVGA2 PCI-E - Ordered, Not buying a ArcadeVGA2 card anymore!. Nvidia Geforce 7600GT 512MB PCI-E, £39.99
PSU - Ordered, OCZ Technology 500W STEALTHXSTREAM POWER SUPPLY, £36.91
DVD Drive - Ordered, LiteOn DVD-ROM 16x48x Internal SATA Black, £12.94

I-PAC - still to buy
LED-Wiz - still to buy
Windows XP
Running Mala FE
MAME
NullDC (Dreamcast Emulator)

Right got my Pentranics Monitor today, only 4 days after ordering really good service. Anyway heres some pics....

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Happy with the picture bright and vibrant...

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But have notice a strange display problem on the righthand side of the screen, it seems to be 'sqwished'....

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Have stripped the cab down and used wet and dry to get a 'key' on the surface and added primer...

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Prior to priming i used a heat gun to remove the side art, by the looks of it it has had a fair few coats of paint on before...

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I then had to get some plastic primer for the control panel and the monitor housing, as the primer i used for the cabinet wasnt adhering to the plastic.....

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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

Got my Order from Ultimarc (thanks Andy) this morning. 2 U360 sticks with, 2 sets of harder springs, longer shafts etc....

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Also got round to spraying the first coat of top coat this morning, wasnt too sure if i would like the colour i selected to start of with, but i think it suits the cab?......

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Now im undecided weather to go with a 2 tone colour scheme, im thinking of having the doors at the front, speaker grills and inner or outer section of the control panel either, black or white, not sure which would go best with that shade of blue

Got around to putting the 2nd coat on the main cab and the first coat on the CP and cab lid...

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Some slight progress, have now painted the inside of the cab white....

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this afternoon finished spray the main cab and doors too...

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Now im in 2 minds weather to leave the plastic bezel dark grey, or spry that white too which i think would finish the cab of nicely
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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

Got my PC parts a few days ago, from dabs.com, based here in the UK...

Gigabyte S775 Intel P35 ATX Audio Lan DDRII FSB133, £54.95
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53GHz, £82.85
Corsair Memory TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2x1GB 240-Pin DIMM XMS2-6400 CL4, £35.20
Samsung Spinpoint 500GB 7200RPM 16MB SATA300, £44.87
Nvidia Geforce 7600GT 512MB PCI-E, £39.99
OCZ Technology 500W STEALTHXSTREAM POWER SUPPLY, £36.91
LiteOn DVD-ROM 16x48x Internal SATA Black, £12.94

Have attached the components to a 1/2 inch mdf board which will fit inside the cab and slide in and out, just like the PCB board would do..
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Wont be keeping the DVD drive attached to the mobo so havent screw it to the board, will upload any files to this PC, via my network after installing windows. Just need to decide either Windows XP 64 or Vista 64 ???

So today i got hold of a scrap bit of 2-3mm sheet metal, and used a template to draw an out line of the CP on the bit of metal....

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After a bit of filing down the edges it fits perfectly....

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Now the original CP top is a little worse for wear...

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Any suggestions on how to fix this, they seem too deep to be able to sand out :cry:
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yosai
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by yosai »

Thanks, I like reading through stuff like this. :awe:

How did you remove the Taito badge from the front? Mine seems to be stuck fast.
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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

Got round to sticking the stick and button stenceis to the metal CP and used 2 types (24mm & 30mm) of Q-Max metal sheet punchers, quality bits of kit....
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Stripped the rotary mech, sanded it down and gave it a coat of vanish, shall grease the wheels up and reassemble...
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Sanded down the CP housing and used filler on the chunks and scrapes, sanded down again and the primed the CP, looks good ;D.....
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I reassembled the monitor mounting plate and fitted it back in the cab..
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then greased up the wheels and rotary mech and place in back on the mounting plate

Right now for the bit of the project i was dreading the most.....
We shall be putting this...
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Into this cab...
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To achieve this...
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First of we have to discharge the tube, now most modern Monitors discharge themselves but you never know so its best to be safe than sorry.

To do this you need a flat head screw driver with a rubber handle if possible, a high conductive bit of wire about 2 feet long and 2 croc clips, attach the 2 clips to either end of the wire. Now attach one clip to the earthing strap on the rear of the tube of the monitor and the other clip to any metal part of the screw drive and a maybe a rubber glove...well i did..
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Now only every use one hand when working on monitors place you free hand behind your back or in your pocket. Place the screw driver under the red anode cap (looks like a suction cap).....
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and push towards the center of the anode cap where 2 pins are, you'll either hear a crack sound or like i did nothing, do this a few time just to make sure the tube is properly discharged, once done it should now be safe to remove the cap.

Pull the rubber/plastic bit of the suction cup back to expose the 2 pins, pinch the pins together so you can release the cap from the tube, you may need to add quite a bit of pressure. Once removed you can breath a sigh of relief...
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now remove any other wires from the PCB to the tube to get to this..
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Now time to fit the tube into the rotary device of the Egret II, as lucky would have it no modding to the tube or rotary device is need :applaud: its a straight fit....
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Now the bit where this falls down slightly, the plastic screen bezel doesnt quite fit the radius of the monitor :angry: ....
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While the bezel was still against the screen, i placed a penicl against the screen and drawed on the beezl in the 4 corners where it was press against the screen....
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I then took a dremel to the bezel...
[imghttp://img149.imageshack.us/img149/8144/img0188rs7.jpg][/img]
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After shaving the corners with the demel and placing the bezel back in the cab again, going back to the work bench, rinse and repeat a few times i got to this stage...
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But alas the top of the bezel i could not get as close as the rest of the sides no matter how much i shaved from the corners :-\ ....
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But i can live with the small gap

As you can see there is just enough space at the rear of the tube for the anode cap to go back on, thew :shock: .....
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I had to cut the cable ties on the wires on the PCB as they were not long enough, i had to place the PCB on a box on the floor of the cab, as with it mounted in the cab there wasnt enough space to get my big head inside the cab as well to see where the wires had to plug in :( , i only had to chop one wire as it wasnt long enough, one of the black ground wires, you can probably see the chocolate block in the picture....
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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

Havent worked on this project for about a week cos the weathers been **** here in the UK, but today was nice so i cracked on.

My father kindly made me up some 'L' shaped brackets for my joysticks to screw to so there wouldnt be any bolt or screw head on the top side of the CP showng...
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The 'L' shaped brackets are screwed from the underneith upwards and then the ends of the screws that protrude above the CP are sanded down and then the whole top surface of the CP with be sanded with an orbital sander, hopefully with a couble of coats of paint you wont notice the screws...
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Decided to replace the standard speakers, as one of the speakers sounded slightly distorted so i got a Logitech X-210 2.1 system, worked out ok as it means i dont have to get an amp to power the standard speakers for use with my PC...
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Had to drill a hole in the rear of the speaker case so i could mount it to the speaker bracket inside the cab, stuck some heavy duty padding tape to the rear of the speaker case to cut out any vibration from sound that may occur...
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Seems to fit rather well i think....
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I slight upgrade on the PC side, decided to overclock the CPU so need a 'larger' heatsink and fan, so got a Xigmatek HDT-S1283. Have overclocked my 2.55ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 to 3.8ghz and stress tested for over 8 hours without a hitch with 1.37500 vcore and temps never going about 53c underload for each core 8) ....
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Almost finished my CP now, put the last coat on this morning....

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And then later on this afternoon installed the buttons and sticks....

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Shall be putting a sheet of paper in the instruction marquee bit of the CP sprayed the same blue as the rest of the cab, also the dust covers for the stick shall be sprayed white and the coin cover shall be blue also
Last edited by Lettuce on September 17th, 2008, 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

Well the day has finally come, got round to placing everything in the cab and wiring it up, and everything works together
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Things i still need to do:

1. Replace the stick dust covers
2. Replace the coin shot cover
3. Place the blue sheet of paper in the instruction marquee
4. Get a fancy push button for the power button at the front
5. Get soft15khz program working with Windows XP 64
6. Find a way of fixing the marquee to the cab, any ideas?, glue i guess!?
7. Probably loads off other stuff :?

I am really happy with the way this project has turned out so far, took longer that i was expecting but has been worth it :cheers:

Finished assembling all parts of the CP, might be adding LED to the buttons not sure yet...

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Might rename this cab to, 'The Blue Whale'
Last edited by Lettuce on September 17th, 2008, 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

yosai wrote:Thanks, I like reading through stuff like this. :awe:

How did you remove the Taito badge from the front? Mine seems to be stuck fast.
I unscrewed the 2 screws, and as you said it was pritty well stuck down. All i did was got a small flat bladed scraper, and wedged it carefully under one corner and slowly prised it from the cab itself, you cant help but crease the badge as your doing this, but once i had it removed i placed it in a bit of kitchen roll and then sandwiched it between to bits of mdf via a clap to flatten it out, and left it like that until i had finished spraying the cab
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grantspain
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by grantspain »

what type of paint did you use for each of the materials and did you use a laquer to finish :?:
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j69
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by j69 »

Thats awesome mate, wasnt sure about the colours but they look good all put together!!!

Screen looks ace too!
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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

grantspain wrote:what type of paint did you use for each of the materials and did you use a laquer to finish :?:
Cheers! I used plasti-kote spray paint for the primer, light blue for the blue, and brilliant white for the white, and then sealer for the top coat
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chubsta
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by chubsta »

Beautiful job, just what a proper mame cab should look like rather than those abortions you see all over the net.
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Flazh

Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Flazh »

The sides look a bit bare. I reckon it would probably look brilliant with some custom artwork made up in the form of the original Egret II stickers, but in a white and probably dark blue colour scheme.

Anyway, good job :)
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NipRing
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by NipRing »

Fantastic rebuild!
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chubsta
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by chubsta »

How are you getting along with the pc - is it fast enough to run everything? im just about to start buying compnents o put in my Astro so want something that plays everything except the chd games fine, but dnt want to spend a fortune if the extra power isnt really needed?
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bitkid
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by bitkid »

So for the video output you just wired a typical video card to the monitor and then used the Soft15kHz program? Or are you using the ArcadeVGA card?
I'm surprised at how authentic 3rd Strike looks on there when running off of that PC.
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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

chubsta wrote:How are you getting along with the pc - is it fast enough to run everything? im just about to start buying compnents o put in my Astro so want something that plays everything except the chd games fine, but dnt want to spend a fortune if the extra power isnt really needed?
Yeah seems to be, runs everything i through at it fine, even Gauntlet Legends!
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Lettuce
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by Lettuce »

bitkid wrote:So for the video output you just wired a typical video card to the monitor and then used the Soft15kHz program? Or are you using the ArcadeVGA card?
I'm surprised at how authentic 3rd Strike looks on there when running off of that PC.
Yeah the Pentranic Monitor excepts a normal VGA connection! Im using a Nvidia 7600 GT card using the soft15khz program, so Sf3 is running in its native resolution
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DandySephy
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by DandySephy »

Amazing job :)
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skykid
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Re: Gutted EGII To Mame

Post by skykid »

Really, really beautiful job mate. I'm incredibly impressed. I'd like my regular E2 restored to new condition with the original colours etc, and this has given me some hope. But unlike you, I have no skills (or tools...or space) to do this kind of work. :(
Makes me wish I did though.

Fancy doing my E2 shell for me for a fee? :mrgreen:
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