Sega Mini Cab Conversions

[FrancoB]

I've created this thread to document converting two mini Sega cabs I have.

One of them is a Sega Love and Berry cab and the other is a Dinosaur King. There is a wiki entry for them [here]. I'll let you read the information there rather then regurgitate it here.

These are the two cabinets I have:



Both of them were stripped of the JVS/Aurora hardware before I got them. The L&B was the more complete of the two as it has nearly all the parts I need as well as a monitor. AFAIK these cabs come with two types of monitor I can't remember the two types but I'll update the info when I find it out. I do know the one I have is the lesser quality of the two. The geometry on mine wasn't brilliant and the convergence is way out in one corner so I thought I would get a replacement for it along with a monitor for the second cab as it was missing a monitor completely.

Jeff at DSD had some new 14" tri-syncs and I picked one up from him a few months ago. They are a Chungwa tube and a Rodotron CH-666A-29 chassis:



I removed the old monitor from it's frame and put the new one in and fired it up. Jeff had set up the three resolutions before sending it out to me and he's done a great job. This is a 15k MVS test grid:



There is a little side compression in 15k as I was told there would be but on the whole it's fantastic. I can't fault the convergence at all. I've not tried 31k as yet but it's meant to be 'perfect'.

I've just picked up a second monitor for the other cab as I found out Jeff was down to his last one. It's actually what's prompted me to get properly started on these.

I'm not just going to stick some monitors/looms/CPs in and call it done, I want to theme both of the cabs. They are not exactly a rare cab or desirable as L&Bs/Dinokings so I have no problem in converting them into something a bit different. These are the ideas I have for the cabs:

Cab #1: I've always been a massive fan of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and with out a doubt it was the game that took most of my 20ps back in the day. I built a MAME cab once ( ) and I had always planned on building a 'dedicated' C&D too as they were only available as a conversion kit and I thought that it's such an awesome game with great styling that really deserved it's own cab. I grew out of the MAME shizzle ages ago but I had always still wanted a C&D cab. After picking one of these up I knew I had to turn one into a 'dedicated' C&D.

So, I'm planning 1/2>3/4 sideart, custom CP art, custom bezel art and some kind of marquee. Spectre has been working on the side art for me and Stompps very talented wife has vectorised the Cadillacs Kyouryuu-Shinseiki logo for me. I have an original C&D world board but I've changed the region to JP.

I'm going to leave the monitor in the cabinet horizontal.

Cab #2: I want to do a bit more of a generic candy style of cab for this one. I'm thinking of styling it as if Sega had done it's own version of a Capcom Cute and I'm thinking of calling it a 'Sega Mini City'. I'm thinking of Sega blue/white graphics quite similar to the Aero but maybe a little more modern as it would have (theoretically) been released later than the Aero.

Once again I'm thinking side art but probably full length this time and probably the Sega logo similar to how the Capcom logo is on the Cute. CP and Bezel will have graphics too but probably I'm thinking of something generic and not too busy. The marquee will be plan apart from a Sega decal for use with normal marquees.

Normally you can't rotate the monitors in these cabs but I think it's just about going to be possible to mount one vertically although it's going to take some heavy modification. I would like to be able to mount it both horizontally and vertically which will further complicate it but I think I have it sorted and I'll get onto that later.

I've got a few photos to add but I'll get them added tomorrow along with some other info. It's Friday night = beer time

[FrancoB]

Reserved

[FrancoB]

Reserved

[FrancoB]

Reserved

[cools]

The reason I wanted a Mushi at one point was to theme it for TNZS, but that's by the way. Check the wiki for the 666 chassis btw, some important stuff there now.

[emphatic]

Awesome! I'm convinced you're gonna finish these in style!

[geotrig]

hmm no l&b love excellent stuff fran cant wait to see them finished

[opt2not]

Cool! looking forward to seeing what you do with these.

[FrancoB]

The reason I wanted a Mushi at one point was to theme it for TNZS, but that's by the way. Check the wiki for the 666 chassis btw, some important stuff there now.

Cheers mate, yeah I saw that the other day. It's definitely worth looking at/implementing for longevity and for sorting the compression out.

Cheers other d00ds too, I've really been looking forward to working on these as well. I'm most likely going to need some artwork help/critique along the way, especially from you guys if at all possible

[IDCHAPPY]

[gargoyle67]

Can't wait to see how these turn out, They'll either be great or go here> http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19"

[FrancoB]

I don't even need to click that link to know where it leads to

Lets hope it's the former

[gargoyle67]

[opt2not]

I'm most likely going to need some artwork help/critique along the way, especially from you guys if at all possible

[denson]

Great sounding projects I can't wait to see some pictures of your progress!

[FrancoB]

I took a few more pictures yesterday just to show you some more of the cabs and to help explain my plans etc.





Both cabs are in pretty decent condition. The Dino King has just started to show the tiniest bit of rust so I think I brought it in at the right time. They should both come up pretty nicely with just a good clean but one of the monitor surround/CP might need a resray as it's fairly yellow.

You can probably see that the Dino King is a bit wonky. One of the rear fixed castors has collapsed and I'll need to replace it either with an original or find a suitable replacement. The Dino King is also missing it's rear access panel and also the coin box which I'm going to need to try to find. The Dino King is missing the curved marquee/screen cover support but I have that in my car.

The artwork on them is in pretty good condition but it needs to go before I can replace it with custom art but I'm going to leave it on for now as it will help to protect the paintwork from any scrapes etc. Hopefully it should come off fairly easily with the aid of a hairdryer.

This is the front door:





The coin mech is an electronic SR3 and uses a Excell credit board similar to the Naomi ones. I quite like these electronic mechs as they are similar to the ones I used back in the day where you got bonus credits for inserting higher value coins like 50ps and £1s rather than the equivalent amount in 10p and 20ps. The Dino King needs a SR3 mech but I think I might have one somewhere. Both cabs need a credit board though as I pinched the one out of the L&B for my Naomi.

There is usually a card dispenser inside which dispensed cards (duh) out of the silver slot when playing the original games. Obviously I'm not going to need to dispense cards so I don't need this slot. Luckily it can just be unbolted and I can make a blanking panel similar to the one next to it.

You can see the speaker grill and the speaker on the inside. There is also a single speaker at the top of the cab which you'll see shortly.

You can the see from the photos that the coin box is a removable tray and the front face of it is flush with that cabinet and so doesn't have a coin door as such. I'm missing one of these so I need to try and find one of those too. I also need locks and keys for the coin boxs and the front doors, I'll probably need them for the rear access panel also.

This is inside the L&B:



and inside the Dino King:



They are both pretty much the same, the L&B has just had a few more parts removed.

The Mushiking internals are a little different:





With all of the hardware removed there is only one shelf which leaves a fair bit of space to mount a PCB vertically. The L&B and Dino King I have are a little different as they have an extra shelf in the middle that would make it harder to mount a PCB vertically, even though that shelf cab be removed.

Incidentally, I think the Dino King that I have may have been a conversion from a L&B. If you look at the Wiki entry you can see that the Dino King and Mushi King cabs are solid colours and have the speaker on the right. My Dino King has the speaker on the right and it's base colour is white, just like the L&B. I'm guessing Sega muct have converted some L&Bs to Dino Kings at some point or just repurposed some of the white shells.

This is a rear shot of the internals:



The top shelf has the service panel at the front and IIRC the game hardware sat behind it. The lower shelf has an audio amp on it. The top shelf is full size but the lower shelf is half of the cab width to allow for clearance for the the coin mech etc.

What I think I'm going to do is to remove the service panel from the top shelf and modify/mount it on the lower shelf, this would then give be the whole top shelf to mount a PCB on horizontally.

This is inside the CP. The lower CP is actually part of the cab front. As you can see there are a few connectors in there that can be repurposed.



This is the upper part of the cab with the lower CP/front off. You can see there is a single speaker at the top. I would like to get two speakers up there for stereo sound. I'll probably wire the JAMMA though an attenuation circuit and into an amp so I can control the volume for all of the boards from a single pot that I'll mount in the service board area. I think I'll mount a voltmeter in that area too and I may move the 5v pot from the PSU there too.



This is the monitor cover. I'll make a new horizontal one for the C&D cab but the 'Mini City' cab will need a vertical one as well as a horizontal one.

This leads me onto the most challenging part of the conversion. I want to be able to mount the monitor vertically as well as horizontally.

Looking at the photo below you can see the monitor is mounted to two horizontal bars:



There isn't enough distance between these two bars to mount the monitor vertically so it's going to take some fairly heavy modification to get it to fit. My plan is to cut off the mounting bars where the red lines are which would give clearance for the monitor to fit vertically. I'll then need to make a new mounting plate for the monitor to locate on. The new mounting plate will bolt onto the screw holes that are in the remaining sections of the original mounting bars. The monitor in this cab will be frameless but I'll need to make some smaller mounting plates to fit to the tube so that it's not locating on the tube mounting holes alone.

The tube/necks of these monitors are pretty long and they just fit in when the monitor is horizontal:



You can see the silver neck board cover in the middle is pretty close to the back of the cabinet. I've had a measure and I think it will just fit when vertical too. Worst case scenario, due to the design of the cab front I can actually bring the whole monitor assembly forward slightly if needs be.

This part is probably going to be the hardest and will be the part I tackle first. I'll get a mock up made in plastic at work and then if all's well I'll get a new mount etc CNC milled from some 3mm steel. I'm moving to a brand new factory/service centre with brand new machines soon and I'll not be able to do work like this and so I need to get this part done ASAP.

I think the only other point to note at the moment is that I intend to link the two cabs together for vs/co-op play. They are too small to have more than one player on each CP which is why ideally I wanted two of them. I'll only be able to play horizontal co-op/vs games but I can't really think of many multiplayer vertical games that I would want to play on them.

I'll also need to make some CPs for them but I'll get onto that in a bit.

So yes, there is a fair bit to do but hopefully it should all come out fairly nice.

[Spectre]

Interesting to see these are quite different to mushiking. From memory mushi doesn't have the speaker at the top and has a different mdf panel on the monitor which covers the whole space. The IO tray also looks different

[FrancoB]

Yeah, there are a few differences. I'm guessing the Mushi/coloured Dino is the earlier type.

[Paulie]

these are going to look amazing Fran. I can't wait to see your progress.

[KmanSweden]

Interesting indeed.