Mushiking Cab Conversion Project

[Spectre]

Picked this up from pubjoe yesterday:-



Which I plan to convert into a nice little generic JVS/JAMMA cab as others have done with these. Mine will be known as (drum roll):-

~~~~~~Miniking~~~~~~
The King of Cabinet



I'll be putting pics up here as I go! A few pics of the monitor to start with, the sanwa 14vc21s hc monitors in these cabs really are nice as others have said.

[Munchies]

Looks really cool, how much did that set you back if you don't mind me asking

[Spectre]

Day one of the conversion process, here's what I've done so far:


Plexi monitor surround removed. The good news is the mushiking specific artwork is just held on with tape! The bad news is removing it has lifted some of the printed on bezel and left some print from the marquee behind. I had considered replacing this whole piece of plexi anyway as I don't like the blue and would rather stick to the green and white on the rest of the cab, so this has swung it. For now I'm just going to flip it round and leave it on there backwards with the white side showing!


Control panel and card reader removed.


Side art removed! Some might call this sacrilege, but one side was damaged anyway. I've managed to remove the good side cleanly without stretching the vinyl too much, have now stuck this down on some paper. Will scan it at some point, then I can fiddle with the artwork and turn "Mushiking" into "Miniking" in preparation for new artwork!


Removed some mushiking-specific bits and bobs from inside the cab. There is now a massive amount of room in here, especially for such a small cab! The cab is really tidy inside and has been very well put together. I've got a riverservice JVS-to-JAMMA to go in here, for when I want to hook up something other than Naomi or Namco 246.


Here she is so far, looking a lot more "stock". I vastly prefer the look of the cab without the blue bezel and mushiking crap all over it! Next step will be the new control panel...

[Spectre]

Looks really cool, how much did that set you back if you don't mind me asking

Not at all, paid £200 for the cab including Naomi mobo. Another £30 on petrol to get it here. £50 for the JVS-JAMMA. New control panel with stick and buttons, extra wiring etc will probably run another £50ish... total bill will be around £350 before I factor in any costs involved in new plexi and artwork I should think.

[Munchies]

Can you rotate the monitor on these cabs?
Cheers
Mark

[FrancoB]

Looks like a cool 'little' project

I was tempted to pick this up myself.

What are you planning on doing CP wise?

[Spectre]

No monitor rotation without either replacing the monitor or undertaking some major bodywork. The sanwa monitor won't fit vertical due to it's frame (so I've read, haven't tried it myself).

Am in the process of sourcing a replacement panel, dj_johnnyg had some 1L6B metal panels made up to fit these cabs. I'm going with green buttons and balltop to match the cab, not sure what to do with the overlay yet...

[cools]

This = the way to do a custom.

[Munchies]

Would anyone know of a place that sells any of these?
Cheers
Mark

[Spectre]

Day two of the conversion process, tweaking the monitor and starting to take a closer look at the internals with a view to wiring in a new control panel


Pulled the middle shelf from the cab, you can see the jvs io at the front (60 pin header unplugged) with the power supply behind that, audio amp is on the shelf above. The whole cab really is beautifully put together, very tidy throughout and its a real breeze to get to everything. Looks like I'm going to need either a new 60 pin harness or some extra pins to add the rest of the player 1 controls.


Took the front of the cab off in order to get to the monitor. As you can see all the monitor adjustment pots are located at the front underneath the tube. Theres actually quite a bit of room in the top of the cab and in theory it would be possible to put a larger monitor in here or to rotate the existing monitor, would require a lot of custom work though.


Before shots of the monitor. I had a moment of minor panic when the horizontal size pot seemed to just spin and spin without adjusting the picture, however it seems you just need to turn it a really really long way to adjust the picture.


After shots of the monitor. Had a bit of trouble getting the brightness right, black seemed far too grey originally, but as soon as I turned the brightness down the overall picture was too dark. The geometry is pretty damn good, far better than the monitor I used to have in my mini woody I'll probably be tweaking the picture again as soon as I get the chance to put some play time into the cab, but it's at a decent starting point now

[Spectre]

Day three, dedicated to andygeezer without whom it would have taken me a hell of a lot longer and cost me a hell of a lot more to get this cab up and running!


Custom CNC'd 1 player 6 button panel installed, including brand new jlf! The buttons are a mish mash from my spares box, I've got all green seimitsu screw ins coming.


Under the hood! Andy replaced the 60 pin wire harness going into the jvs io for me, and added a jvs 1 player loom and extra button loom. Have now got the riverservice jvs-to-jamma adapter I bought from cadpipe in here and used some terminal blocks to hook up a cps2 kick harness (check out those funky rainbow colours). The jvs power lead is a little shorter than I'd like, so I'll try and source a replacement or an extension at some point.


Currently alternating between these two!

I'm very happy with how painless it's been to get this cab to a useable state, although again I have andy to thank for a hell of a lot! Next up will be a new plexi bezel, control panel overlay, cab artwork etc. I'm also planning to add a marquee holder at some point as it should be cinch thanks to the metal fixing bracket on top of the cab (intended for a cardboard pop for mushi).

If anyone has any input on what kind of cab art I should go for, I'm open to ideas. It's a sega cab, so I'm thinking it needs to look like a sega cab and take inspiration from the astro or aero. I'm sticking to green and white, but will introduce a third colour for lettering etc

[cools]

I still like your idea of customising the existing art.

[Spectre]

Yeah I'm still going to rejig mushiking into miniking and do a recolour, but other than that logo and the tagline "the king of cabinet" I don't have anything. I don't want to just slap the logo on a white background... I was considering employing some classic sega lines etc, maybe some choice engrish for the instruction space under the monitor

[mufunyo]

I'm sticking to green and white, but will introduce a third colour for lettering etc

Purple.

[pubjoe]

I never noticed this thread Spectre.

Glad to see it's going well. I completely agree with every choice you've made and it does look a lot nicer without the blue. It's looking like a really nice, proper mini cab now.

Tell you what. When you've finished your conversion, err, do you fancy bringing it back?!

[penrhos]

which jvs looms do you need - I'm having a clearout and may have what you need.

[emphatic]

Looks like an awesome little cabinet.

[DandySephy]

Awesome. If I bothered playing these days, i'd be tempted to switch from a Uni if a net dimm could be persuaded to fit it

[gargoyle67]

Nice job, But is your button spacing meant to be different with the first two buttons to the other 4 ? I.E the last 4 action buttons are closer together

[Parris]

Thanks for posting up so many images. It's a seriously well constructed, robust looking little cab. TBH I was tempted to get one and do precisely the same as yourself a while ago, not so much for me but the kids. The space it takes up is the clinching factor as it's so compact. I was keen to see the frame and whether the monitor could be rotated easily or not. Clearly, once gutted (all the Mushiking parts removed) there seems to be a considerable amount of space to tinker with.

Good job!