Questions concerning the Vewlix and/or Vewlix clones.

[Namhas]

BRILLIANT ! I got them to ship to my port as well, can not wait for it to hop on a boat in 3 days and then a months wait for the delivery.......

keeping it in the garage ? or moving it inside ?

[evitagen]

Inside... I just haven't had a chance to move it yet.

I do have a question though to anyone who may be able to answer.

This Vewlix clone is Jamma, not JVS. My plan is to simply put a PS3 and a PC in this bitch so I'm thinking all I'll need is buy 2 Cthulhu boards instead of the JVSpac.

Only other question I have is the video inputs... it has 2 HMDI inputs, VGA, and I think 2 component. I won't be home for a few days to try this out, but I take it I can simply hook my PS3 up via HDMI and that would work? My only concern is the sound... Would that also enable the speakers by doing that? This cabinet is pretty much a shell for me to house my PS3 and a PC, so I'm not really concerned with the Jamma hook-ups or anything like that.

So my question, summed up, is can I simply wire my control panel to 2 Cthulhu boards and hook my PS3/PC up via HDMI and be good to go?

Thanks.

Namhas: Good luck with everything... Let me know how things go with your order. Which freight forwarder are you going to use once it gets to CA?

OH and MAKE SURE your freight forwarder knows whether or not they'll need a liftgate or not when delivering to you. The company that delivered to me came in an 18-wheeler and had no lift gate. Thankfully we were able to slide it out onto the ground without any harm, but it was still annoying not having a damn liftgate. The crate was labeled 342lbs I think. I imagine most of that was the wood, because the cabinet itself is not extremely heavy. Just make sure if you're having it sent to your home to let them know you'll need a liftgate.

[Namhas]

thanks sir, and for your questions - I think you will be able to just run your cthulhu boards + ps3 right into the HDMI with only one concern....

volume control.... I read something about the monitors not having an obvious volume adjustment nob or whatever.

If that is the case, you might have to invest in a nice receiver that will take multiple inputs and do your volume control to a set of external speakers, or the ones that are built in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meOmiYc0phM" - this is similar to what I've orderd, and I hope to have as few issues as you appear to have at the moment....

If you get a chance, just hook up the ps3 and move around in xmb and play a video or mp3 ?

[aznxtc]

Congrats on your new cab!!....If you like fightings games your really gonna enjoy it...Nothing worse than having a fight stick move around in the heat of battle.

If your monitor is HDCP compliant than you have nothing to worry about you can hook it up straight HDMI...As far as controls go there are a few options to choose from Cthulhu or Multi, ChImp, LEO PCB.

Question why are you guys having it ship to L.A and not your state port?..

[Namhas]

For him it was the closest port I think, not sure, he can answer, and mine was sorted and will be another 12 days or so to DC/Baltimore.

Yea, I was worried that it was gonna be shipped from LA, and that was gonna be expensive.

[evitagen]

This cab has volume control and is HTPC compliant, so it looks like I'll be all good. It even actually came with a remote controller to switch from input to input on the fly if needed without having to open up anything.

And yeah, Coinopexpress just ships to the closet port, which would be CA. From there you get a freight forwarder to arrange to ship to your house/business.

I'm coming home from the hospital today so I will have some pics of the actual cabinet up sometime this weekend.

Thanks for all of the help, guys. If anyone has any questions about the ordering process just let me know and I'll try and help.

Namhas, keep me updated with everything. I'd love to know that I didn't just "get lucky" with coinopexpress. I've heard horror stories about them, but my experience was just the opposite. They responded to my emails daily and always answered my questions.

[Wisepass]

Well I'm glad to hear things went well for you, its like treat a customer well gain 3 customers, treat a customer badly lose 10. Anyway i'll be really interested to see some detailed pics and see how the clone stacks up to the real thing. Seriously. I mean at the end of the day I assume the design is the same as the vewlix, so good, the LCD has to be decent, and controls / sound amp etc. You should give us a full detailed review! No one else I've seen anywhere has? Anyway hope your happy with it now just have some fun with it!

[evitagen]

I'll give a quick review soon and something more detailed once I get it set-up perfectly. Although I will say I'm mostly going to use this for a PS3 and a PC, but I can at least test the lag on the screen, quality of the screen, etc.

From the looks of it I assume they just used the same exact plans for the Vewlix to make it... I can't really find a cosmetic difference with the two, other than branding.

As for Coinopexpress, yeah I think I would easily use them again. The wire transfer seemed sketchy to me, but they received it in less than 24 hours and confirmed that for me. I let them handle the freight forwarder stuff to have it shipped to my house. Everything went pretty smoothly and I'm glad...

Also, HighwayEntertainment looks like they are robbing people charging this much: http://arcade-game-sales.com/products/p ... 516-2.html"

Before I left I checked and inspected the cabinet I received from Coinopexpress... and it includes EVERYTHING that this one does, right down to the all-white sanwa buttons. Maybe not the TV tuner, I'm not sure. But everything else is exactly the same... and I paid way less than $3000 and that included shipping to my doorstep.

I emailed with HighwayEntertainment at the same time I was emailing Coinopexpress trying to decide which company to use... HighwayEntertainment wouldn't ship to my house no matter if I told them I'd pay extra, so I dropped them. I can't believe these clones are going for $3K on their site right now. Might as well buy a Vewlix L or something.

[evitagen]

Okay, I'm home and I had maybe 10 minutes to play with it... I have one problem, that may or may not be a problem.

The control panel isn't hooked up at all... I put it in my closet until I can install some different joysticks.

So I have the cabinet without a control panel... I hooked up the PS3 via HDMI and plugged it in. Screen came up just fine and looks great, but as soon as I plug it in the speakers are crackling. I know this has an amp in it, and I will be honest and say I don't know much about it.

Anybody who is familiar with a Vewlix or just cabinets in general have any idea what is going on here? There are two knobs on what the manual says is a "stereo amp switch" but turning them does nothing to help the sound. There are volume up and down microswitches that do not make this sound any louder or quieter either. I really don't know what I'm doing wrong. All I want is for the sound to work via HDMI on the PS3.

Any suggestions? Help?

thank you!

[evitagen]

Ok. Still crackling and I cannot for the life of me figure a way to get sound working at all. I have my PS3 hooked up via HDMI and I get nothing. Just the crackle.

Very odd. The picture looks great though. I'm just stumped with this audio issue.

[Wisepass]

If the clones similar to the Vewlix then its amp and its LCD are completely separate.

i.e. I hook my LCD up via HDMI (well with HDMI to DVI cable)....

I then have a regular PS3 output cable with AUDIO and VIDEO (red/white audio and yellow s-video) cable via a 3mm connector, connected to my amp.

The PS3 also needs to be set to know to output like this in its settings too, but I believe they might default this way anyway?

That all said the internals of the clone on HighwayEntertainment's site looks very different from the Vewlix internals.

Here's a pic of where the vewlix's 3mm audio hookup is behide the just front panel



I suspect the clone might be the same, but ? where the built in TV tuner connects up etc.

Anyway good look sure it'll take some getting used to.

[evitagen]

Got it. You were right, I had to use the audio cables instead. This amp had white/red cords so I needed no adapter.

I did take the amp out and resoldered a connection to fix the crackle too. I may have initially caused it too, not sure.

All is well now!

I'll try and have pics up tomorrow. Test pics... I'm still testing everything in the garage.

Thanks again though.

[caesar]

Been watching this thread sooo closely, can't wait to find out your thoughts on this cab, as I personally would love to get myself one.

Congrats on the little one too, i'm expecting my little one to come out anytime now too (due yesterday, but hasn't come out to play just yet )

[Wisepass]

I don't really expect it'll be the same, but the PS3 seems to output its audio very loud and on the Vewlix amp some sounds will tend to make the speakers crackle on SFIV ultra's etc.

The fix is to add a volume connector into the mix and turn the input sound down a little with something like this

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2102975

It has the added effect of preserving my audio connector so I'm not pulling on it. Anyway just incase the crackles continued.

[evitagen]

Not a bad idea, Wisepass... and thanks again for the troubleshooting help.

I plan to have some actual pics of the cabinet running(sans the control panel... still working on modifying it) today. I played MvC2 on it last night and it didn't seem to have any lag from what I could tell. And it looks great.

It also either upscales to 1080p, or it's native that way. When I cut my PS3 on it reads "1080p" in the corner.

It really is quite easy to use. It has 2x HDMI ports. 1 VGA port. 2 component ports. 1 S-video port. and 1 USB port on the monitor.

Really easy to swap from input to input also. There is board of microswitches right behind the coin machine that you just press a button to change inputs. So far I'm really enjoying it and I haven't even got to put the control panel on it yet.

I think I'm going to drill two more buttons for easier navigation in MAME before I completely finish it up.

Also, the joystick height was too tall when I first got it compared to a real Vewlix... Reason why is because they used a flat mounting bracket, so I picked up 2 of the "S" mounting plates and drilled holes in them to match up to the mounting screws on the inside of the CP. Works perfectly and now the joysticks are at a perfect height.

[emphatic]

I think I'm going to drill two more buttons for easier navigation in MAME before I completely finish it up.

Please don't. Just set use the player start buttons as SHIFT instead.
Run a MAME game
Hit TAB on your keyboard
To setup a button combination just setup the extra button(s) you need ("GUI Cancel"=ESCAPE and "COIN1"=5, "COIN2"=6, "Pause"=P?) like this (or something of your own choice):

GUI Cancel = Player 1 start + Player 1 button 1 (these buttons are far from each other so this way you won't press both by accident)
COIN1 = Player 1 start + Player 1 button 4 (or which ever is nearest Player 1 start)
COIN2 = Player 2 start + Player 2 button 4 (or which ever is nearest Player 2 start)
PAUSE = Player 1 start + Player 2 start (or something that fits you better)

No need to clutter up a perfectly fine CP just for MAME.

[evitagen]

You know, that's a good idea. I knew about the SHIFT function, but I honestly didn't think about just having the start buttons for shift.

I really, really did not want to add anything. When I built my first MAME cab I tried my damndest to make a clean looking control panel:

I know most dedicated cab owners hate MAME cabs, but I did my best to not make it into some sort of Worst MAME Cab list.

The way you have showed me is even easier, so thank you for that! I mainly play modern fighting games anyway... MAME is just a side-dish.

[emphatic]

MAME is just a side-dish.

Correct! I only use my cabinet for PCBs or my Japanese 360, so ruining my CP's with extra buttons is a big no-no. In fact, if I couldn't use the shift function, I'd rather have a wireless keyboard plugged in at all times, just to not have to mess with MAME. Also, computers are no fun.

The only downside to using start buttons as shift is for credit input. It's hard to "insert coin" without starting a credit at the same time. But you could always use credit insertion. Or make sure your service/test buttons are hooked up to your Ipac or what you use and use those for coinage. Most games have free play, especially when you are into fighters, right?

[evitagen]

Thanks for the suggestion though, I am absolutely going to use your idea.

As for the Insert Coin button, I am undecided on what to do about it. Can you set the way P1 and P2 buttons work on release instead of on the press? That would solve the problem of using them for shift, I'd imagine. That way if you were to use it for shift, you could just hold it down and it wouldn't register the P1 button press because you never released it.

Am I making any sense? I don't even know if MAME can do this.

Either way though, I do have Service and Test buttons behind the coin slot I could use. Or just put a button inside of the cabinet for it.

[emphatic]

I don't even know if MAME can do this.

Me neither. I remember using some build of MAME once where this was the case, but the one I'm using now (ShmupMAME) will only work if I press both buttons at the same time without delay.

Either way though, I do have Service and Test buttons behind the coin slot I could use. Or just put a button inside of the cabinet for it.

Or just put a button inside the control panel and have it unlocked for easy access. Unless it has locks that "snaps" the panel up with a spring. Just don't drill holes.