Arcade Otaku - アーケード オタク

Yeah, it seems there's not a cheap solution to the lack of space of the Astro cab. Maybe I'll run my SF3S tourney on the CPS3 emulator, or, sigh, the Dreamcast. blech. The problem is the DC does require a powered VGA splitter (as I learned by bitter experience last night at the tourney).

I know the Capcom Impress panel had DC ports - someone was selling one here recently without the wiring harness... crap.

shaktazuki wrote:I know the Capcom Impress panel had DC ports - someone was selling one here recently without the wiring harness... crap.

That panel doesn't do what you appear to be thinking it does. It only provides an interface for the DC pads (even then, its mostly just for the VMUs) and Naomi. It doesn't link to the Jamma loom, nor does it actually work with a dreamcast. It's pretty much useless in this application.

That's what I just figured out on S-N. Well, back to the jamma splitter...

Got Andy/CPS2's jamma splitter working, it was a schoolboy error on my part.

But hey, it was a good learning experience. Available once again for order from my sales thread (waiting on more parts though).

Pics below, and also, a quicktime movie with my dulcet tones providing mumbly commentary. Excuse the mess...

Devil Soundwave wrote:Got Andy/CPS2's jamma splitter working, it was a schoolboy error on my part.

I'm probably gonna end up making some for myself eventually, what's the error you made?

Mr. Soundwave, how much dost thou charge for one of those? Or art thou willing to part with directions?

TX!

Celestein wrote:

Devil Soundwave wrote:Got Andy/CPS2's jamma splitter working, it was a schoolboy error on my part.

I'm probably gonna end up making some for myself eventually, what's the error you made?

Don't follow common sense and connect say pin one to pin 1, pin a to pin a etc.

You have to sit back and consider HOW the signal flow's throuygh the harness.

My recommendation? Solder the P1 edge connector on, then attach a duff board so when you connect the other end you can see at a glance which way round the edge connector has to be and to which pins you have to solder etc.

shaktazuki wrote:Mr. Soundwave, how much dost thou charge for one of those? Or art thou willing to part with directions?

TX!

Well the first one was in the region of £50 which includes worldwide shipping. It's better looking and better quality than the River Service one which is £65 *before* shipping from Japan.Also, mine has a CPS2 kick harness built in which other harnesses don't have.

All that said, it was the prototype so I *may* revise my pricing.

In any case, I offer discounts for multiple purchases as per usual.

As for how to build, there is no great secret here, it's just cumbersome and a pain in the balls!

All you do is solder an edge connector directly to a fingerboard and that connects to the P1 machine harness, plusa the game board.

Then, you run wires from all the signals you want to duplicate (all video, sound, coin, test and P2 controls), to another edge connector, wang a fingerboard in and jobs a goodun.

Easy in theory, full of potential pitfalls in practice.

Go on, add something in that'll provide a load to the second PSU

cools wrote:Go on, add something in that'll provide a load to the second PSU

Suggestions? Big **** resistors maybe?

Just wondering if Devil Soundwave's cable works for CPS2,3 setup with extra kick harness?

Time for some epic thread resurrection!

I found this after searching on info about connecting 2 cabs via a jamma loom. I made my own custom one, and it works well (sometimes). I'm using it to link two Dino King cabinets, each that have 1L6B controls.
Sound and colours are all good, controls from cab 2 are sent over to cab 1 as 'player 2'.

The issue that I'm getting is that depending on what's onscreen, I get horizontal distortion 'wibble' at various points down the screen. Some games, like Bubble Bobble, Caveman Ninja, Tetris are pretty much rock solid. Other games with a lot of changeable graphics such as Street Fighter 2 and others have a lot of distortion.
I've tried with actual game boards, and pandoras box.
I was looking to see if anyone else had seen this problem before, and cured it with better ground / sync wiring, or a video amp or tweaking monitors..

Any advice appreciated.

This has been on my mind recently. I think one problem is that since you're plugging the board into two monitors, you're effectively halving the Vpp which can / will lead to issues?

What's a cheap amp that could be placed inline?

Same thing for sound as well.

Yep I have no idea on inline amps. What I do know is that VGA style splitters are not cheap, so I'm looking to avoid that route

Video Amp explained with circuits:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/eviltim/ ... ga2arc.htm

Ultimarc video amp:
http://www.ultimarc.com/vidamp.html

These are for amplifying VGA signals to arcade monitors. I suppose the principle would be similar.

Thanks for the links. Any idea which one of those wiring diags on the first link would be most suited for jamma RGB + combined sync?

I've been using a couple of different looms to connect 2 and 3 cabinets together. I can't say that I've ever seen distortion like you're seeing. I've not used them a large amount, but I definitley remember a whole day playing various games with Pubjoe using a FrancoB loom to connect two cabs. I've also used a loom of unknown origin to link three cabs together and play AvP for a few hours. Again, no visible distortion on any screens, and neither of the looms have an amp.
What part of Surrey do you live in? If it's close to Crawley, I could pop on round one eve for a cup of tea with my two looms and see if the same distortion occurs?

Pics below, for a reference.
Franco Loom





Unknown Loom

Many thanks for posting up those pics.
From what I can see it does look like we're using the same wiring. Vid ground -> Vid Ground, and Vid Sync -> Vid Sync on the loom yeah?
* Although what's going on with pins around 25/26 there? Seems a ton of wires connected. Mine are just player buttons on those.

At least I can see we're using similar guage wire and similar layout. My ground connections are probably the most different thing there I suppose (now I've connected vid ground to normal ground 1/2, given there's no vid ground connection from my monitors to the jamma edges anyway - it all goes to the normal ground directly).

The unknown loom suprised me in that is has power going over too.
Pretty sure that would be a 'bad thing' for me as I still have the switching psu running in the slave cab (it has a bit of 12v load as there are lights, credit board + mech etc..)

Giving your looms a go over a cup of tea sounds like a blinding idea!
Unfortunately I'm in the **** end of Surrey really - right on the Hampshire border sadly! (so pretty much as far from Crawley as you can be in Surrey!).

Flinnster wrote: The unknown loom suprised me in that is has power going over too.
Pretty sure that would be a 'bad thing' for me as I still have the switching psu running in the slave cab (it has a bit of 12v load as there are lights, credit board + mech etc..)

Ah, I forgot to add the other end of that loom pix! It's slightly different - rather than a pass through jamma connector for the cab --> game, it's a 'Y' shaped cable. Game connects to the female jamma connector, and then splits off to cab 1 and cab2. Cab 1 has power passing out for the game board. Pics of the 'Cab2' connector below that are just video and controls.
Shame you live the other side of Surrey, it's a pretty bloomin large county! Hopefully you can get it working nicely

Just wondering if you ever got your loom sorted?
I fudged up another loom recently, but kept it to a minimum purely for Video as the audio/controls were already taken care of.
Picture looked good with no distortion, running on an MS8.