A noobs adventures in cab ownership!

[thegreathopper]

Screw ins should be fine, they tend to a mm or 2 smaller than snap ins.

[ChrisBEANS]

Soooo…

Simply used a Stanley to shave off the nubs. Everything fits perfectly now.

Added a few decals, and added an NV RAM module the the motherboard too.

E9DDEBB2-2398-428D-8A82-C834CC64E1F7.jpeg

1DA93514-ABCE-4EB9-AE71-699C775B1856.jpeg

Still got quite a bit left to do, but it’s much closer to finished now.

[pubjoe]

Superb

[thegreathopper]

Excellent

[yosai]

[geldra]

Love it.

[ChrisBEANS]

Next up, a few mods to the light box/mini marquee holder…

[FrancoB]

Looks great Chris. You can rack some lines up whilst you're playing now too

[ChrisBEANS]

Rather unexcitingly… I’d much rather have a cuppa…

[geotrig]

Just keep the cuppa's off the polished chrome , looks superb not 100% on the chrome buttons but not the worst

[ChrisBEANS]

Just keep the cuppa's off the polished chrome , looks superb not 100% on the chrome buttons but not the worst

Fair… but the OG colour scheme is asymmetric and it offends me.

Straight white maybe??

[geotrig]

yeah i think white suite its ,maybe white and yellow for select , what colour are the buttons dark hai ?

[cools]

Button plug P2 start

[thegreathopper]

Next up, a few mods to the light box/mini marquee holder…

Don’t get carried away, what ever you do no hidden LED’s.

[ChrisBEANS]

Nothing wacky. The big fluorescent bulb is too bright, and there’s a ton of light bleed.

I think I’m going to add an inline switch to the bulb, and install some EL panels…

Just need to work out how to attach the panels…

[wigsplitta]

Good effort Mr Beans, that cab is looking really nice

[Neo'nate]

Looks great buddy, CP & Surround are amazing

[ChrisBEANS]

Ok, so the U4 does not use EL panels.

It uses a fluorescent bulb inside the light box behind the mini marquees.

Unfortunately, it's too bright, occasionally has a hum associated with fluorescent tubes, and there's not only a ton of light bleed at the edges of the enclosure, but it also highlights all of the knocks and scratches that the mini marquee cover has taken through years of real world use that just looks crap.



So I decided to grab some EL panels from www.neogeoledmarquee.info

http://www.neogeoledmarquee.info/produc ... universal/

However, this cab is original, and is in largely good shape, so I'm not looking to do anything destructive, nor am I wiling to take the old bulb out and store it as it'll certainly get damaged and that will end up being unintentionally destructive.

I thought about simply unplugging the bulb, but that's hardly an elegant solution, so instead I opted to add an inline switch...







Next was to establish a way to fit the EL panels onto a cabinet that doesn't use them, and to also keep the original mini marquee holder.

Turns out that was an obvious and dead simple solution. Adhesive strips, cut to size.



Was pretty straight forward to carefully place them in front of the bulb, and although it was a pretty close fit, they all went in perfectly across the width of the mini marquee holder.



Sadly, the wires from the EL panels were not quite long enough to mount the control PCB inside the cabinet, so I needed to find a place inside the light box and still have access to the buttons and the potentiometer on the PCB itself. Again, tight, but perfectly adequate. (The feet of the PCB are also held to the cab with trimmed down adhesive strips)



It's very simple and self explanatory to wire up, and the cable between the PCB and the MVS motherboard was plenty long enough.



As I said above, very straight forward to wire up, so I was actually worried that if it didn't work when I switched it on, it was unlikely to be a simple fix but more likely a problem with either the PCB or even the motherboard. No need to worry...



Quick double check on the bulb...

Safe and sound.



And I think I'm done for the day.

[ChrisBEANS]

Actually, very quick last thing...

This cab was obviously broken into back in the day.



While I'm not fussed enough to get the whole thing straightened out and powder coated, and in fact I'm actually quite pleased to have a cab that reflects the life it's lead, I'd still like to tidy that mess up.

As I have the adhesive pads out...



Added a frame I ordered for it months ago.

Now, I'm just about done with messing with the U4 I think...

Bit's I haven't bothered to document are the addition of both a memory module and a memory card PCB. Can't plug both in at once of course, so it's much neater to have the memory dealt with on the memory module that sits descretely on the motherboard, and the then use the memory card PCB just for the headphone sockets.



Do I need some subtle lighting for those shelves?? I'm starting to think so...

[FrancoB]

Lovely looking setup there Chris