Finally got a cab!

Coin-operated games and arcades.
Nimerino
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Finally got a cab!

Post by Nimerino »

Hey guys, long-time lurker here. I'm a noob (so be gentle), but as of last week, I'm a noob with a Super Megalo 2! Been looking for ages, and almost gave up on finding a decent sit-down cab here in Sweden; arcades were never plentiful here even 20 years ago. But somehow, I managed to get a hold of a gentleman across the country who had purchased a multi-storey building which housed 4 arcade games on the top floor. I'm not even making this up. After enlisting the services of a transport company the thing finally arrived at my doorstep the other day. It's in need of some love, and I haven't connected it after transport (hoping to do so tonight) but prior to being sent here it worked flawlessly and the image looked aligned and reasonably sharp.

My dream has always been to have a cabinet like it, loaded with a CPS-III board and running some version of Street Fighter 3. It's absolutely enormous, much bigger than I thought it would be, but that only adds to the charm, I reckon.

When I bought it, it was loaded with a Bomberman board (haven't identified which one), so I'm hoping it's JAMMA already. The panel even has the dummy points for the kick buttons already. I'm going to give it a look-over and then clean it up properly before deciding how best to restore it to its former glories. Been following the SM2 restoration posts on here, and am looking for a CPS-III board now.

Hope to be here for a long while. Seems a very pleasant place with lots of helpful people!

Some pictures. First three are from before I got the cab, the last one is it nestled in my garage with the neighbour's kid, who currently thinks I'm the coolest person in the world.
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I'll try to get some more pictures up soon!
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nem
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by nem »

Nice!

You should have picked up the Ridge Racer 2 while you were at it. That garage has plenty of space!
Nimerino
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Nimerino »

Haha! I wish there was enough space. Unfortunately, the picture neatly hides the fact that the little beauty below had to be moved out to accommodate the cab being put into its spot. Besides, I do enough fast driving IRL that Ridge Racer wouldn't do it for me. Fighting? Not so much :lol:

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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by sombetzki »

Congrats on your Megalo!

And awesome car you've got! I drive it's slower brother ;)
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Dream of having a GTI someday, but they're getting more and more expensive over here. Can't find a 205 GTI for less than 3000 euro's (for a bad one), most are between 5k and 8k... :(
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Moonwalker »

:-o :-o :-o :-o :-o Niiiiiiice!!!!
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Stompp »

Hey Nimerino!

The Megalo is a big a$$ cab! :O Congrats on the pick up :awe:
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by ssephi »

I thought I was crazy getting a Naomi Universal as my first cab! A Megalo is insane!! Well done though it looks epic!
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by NoAffinity »

Awesome cab, and congrats! Welcome to the owner's club, fellow new member. :D

The manual for that beast is here: http://hard--candy.com/uploads/SuperMeg ... Manual.pdf

The manual and other references confirm that the native wiring is JAMMA. Hopefully the wiring in the cab is true to this.
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by NoAffinity »

Hey mate, can't tell if you've already got 6 buttons per player on the control panels, but from the picture, it looks like it's only 3 per player. If you need replacement CP's, I just came across this on ebay...NOS!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-MEGALO-can ... 1498832434

A bit pricey, I would say, but I don't imagine these are readily available part. Then again, maybe they are. then again, maybe yours are already 6-button...can't tell. :oops:
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Nimerino »

Thanks guys!

First things first: yeah, it's massive. I don't know if I really envisioned the size of it, but who dares wins, right? Once the transport was sorted it wasn't really that big a deal, it can be disassembled into three parts so us two lads were able to haul it off the transport without any real issues. Managed to nab a CPS-III board, and going to set up SFIII:3S post-haste.

As for the control panels, incredibly they are 6 buttons! The kick buttons are blanked out with black plates, and the pushbuttons all need to be replaced, but the fact that they will simply pop in makes life so much easier. Speaking of which, where would people recommend I buy my Sanwa parts here in Europe? Need to replace both sticks and all the buttons. Thanks for the link to the manual, NoAffinity, I had actually managed to find it before buying the cab. And even then, a quoted weight of 326 kg couldn't scare me off.

And finally the cars: I love them. I managed to nab the 205 GTi 1.9 (a Le Mans limited edition of which only 84 were released here in Sweden back in 1991) about a year ago. It shares garage space with big brother (which can be seen in the picture) and a new Golf R that I got about a month ago. And just to make sometzki jealous, the GTi cost me a grand total of 12 000 kr. I won't rub salt in the wound by converting that to Euros :lol:
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by zak »

Congrats on the cab! :) :thumbup:

It looks like you have a Benjamin Button problem in this pic? ;)
Nimerino wrote:

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Last edited by zak on March 7th, 2017, 2:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Nimerino »

Haha! I thought arcade machines were a thing of the past, but the neighbour's son literally pushed past me to run to it and press the buttons. His disappointment when he realised that I would not be firing it up, was palpable :lol:
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by LEGENOARYNINLIA »

Nice! Looks like it's running Neo Bomberman so there's an MVS motherboard inside it. Time to get some KOF carts! :)
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Shadolf »

Really nice cab, bro!
In picture 3 you can see that there is a MVS card in it, so yeah you have a MVS-Board.
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Nimerino »

That's amazing! :-o
And the weirdest thing is I've been looking for MV1 boards to run NG games!

So, anyone have a complete KOF98, Last Blade 2 or Garou kit they suddenly don't feel like owning? :lolno:
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by ssephi »

There are a few sources for Sanwa parts in Europe - No need to import them from Japan. I use Arcadeworlduk but they're UK based so I'm not sure if they'll ship to you for a reasonable amount.
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by denson »

http://www.arcadeinvaders.com/index.php ... 8c81pfm266

Ive used them a couple of times for buttons and balltops ;)
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Nimerino »

Right guys!

Finally managed to get out to hte cab today, hook it up and assess it a bit. As people had correctly pointed out, there is indeed an MVS board connected at the moment, by the looks of it a 1F. Looks to be in decent condition, but strangely the instruction text comes up in Spanish. I think this is board-dependent, or perhaps there is a dipswitch setting?

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The insides look decent, but could use a blower to get some of the dust off and a general clean-up. As a noob, the wiring looks confusing. I think I need a kick harness to make the CPS-3 board function properly, I assume that's what the "Board B" designation is for.

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The insides of the RP monitor look decent, and generally unharmed by the bumpy transport. It's in surprisingly good condition, in fact. Going to gently clean around the PCBs and try to get rid of some of the dust in the hopes of extending the life of the RP screen. Unfortunately I have the Toshiba model which requires a remote to set the alignment. Does anyone have the IR codes for that remote, or any idea where to find one?

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A bit of unevenness in the sheet makes the top of the image look distorted at the top. In real life it's nearly unnoticeable. In a brightly lit room, the screen is terrible. In the dark, once it's warmed up, it looks really good, with good colour saturation and sharpness. Actually really happy about this. Obviously it doesn't come across in the photos.

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Next stop is to buy a whole new set of sticks, balltops and buttons. Then I need a kick harness. And then I'm going to have a think about how best to restore the cab. There is buckled metal, some exposed wood etc. At the moment I'm leaning towards keeping it as original at possible and only restoring it if necessary. I think a thorough clean will do wonders for it.
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by NoAffinity »

Man, that is some piece of amazing arcade tech there!

Have you opened up the control panels to see if there is wiring for the extra buttons already there? From the looks of things, and assuming the 6-button control panels came from the factory, I would be surprised if the 6-button wiring wasn't also already there.

What does the video chassis look like? Is it the 2 boards on either side of the necks? I don't envy you for the cap job that would require, although I do envy you for the package as a whole. :awe:
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Re: Finally got a cab!

Post by Stompp »

Nimerino wrote:...but strangely the instruction text comes up in Spanish. I think this is board-dependent, or perhaps there is a dipswitch setting?
MVS's are region dependent and the region is controlled by the BIOS so I'd say you've got a EU mobo (Neo Bomberman's in Spanish on EU mobo's).
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This right here is so much p0rn :pointup: :awe:
Next stop is to buy a whole new set of sticks, balltops and buttons. Then I need a kick harness. And then I'm going to have a think about how best to restore the cab. There is buckled metal, some exposed wood etc. At the moment I'm leaning towards keeping it as original at possible and only restoring it if necessary. I think a thorough clean will do wonders for it.
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