A bit of (Vewlix Dia) blue for the lads...

[FrancoB]

Control Panels

Both of my Vewlix's came with 1L7B panels. I wanted to get a 2P panel for the hori cab and I thought I might as well replace the 1P panel in the tate cab to get rid of the card reader. After playing a few games I decided to go for 1L8B and 2L16B panels. Now, I'm not expecting to play a lot of games that need 8 buttons but some games I was playing just made sense to have four buttons on the bottom row. I contacted Alberto and ordered both panels in May 2022. The 2L16B was a stock item but he needs to make the 1L8B. The 2L16B landed in August 2022.

The quality of the panel is fantastic. Alberto warned me that the colour of the overlay wasn't 100% true to the original. In fact, it's very close when viewed directly above:



However, when viewed at an angle the colour does change and appears darker, presumably due to the metallic in the overlay:



Just to note, I'm not complaining here, Alberto warned me about this up front and I'm very happy with the panel. Since then Alberto has told me he's working on a new overlay for the Dia Blues and I'm going to get a matching 2L16B overlay to match the 1L8B when it's ready.

I have got the 2L16B panel wired up. I got a load of Seimitsu Sanwa OBSF-24/30 buttons and LS-56-01's from Aracde world:



First, I made some CP stands to make it easier to work on populated CPs:







I also made some different coloured versions for some friends:



I've always tried to do neat CP wiring and I thought I would try and improve things further over previous efforts. As part of this I printed some assemblies to fit around the buttons:



The idea being that a lot of the wiring will be hidden inside the assembly/sandwich. To keep the amount of wires down I made a common ground 'spine' to connect to the buttons:



The rest of the messy wiring is then fed through and sandwiched in the assembly:



I printed some tie wrap bases to help with the cable management:



All done:







Now that I know I'm getting a replacement CPO I'm going to need to rework some of this but I enjoy doing it so that's fine

[ChrisBEANS]

Holy crap!!! That cable management is the stuff of dreams!!!

Someone who knows how needs to post an applause gif!

Just love it

[FrancoB]

Cheers Chris... round of applause for me?






Monitor woes.....

I've got two Vewlix Dia Blues with P32L050 monitors. A few months back one of them stopped displaying an image. Power etc to the monitor is fine and it's powering on and I know it's at least getting a signal as you can see the displayed input resolution via the OSD but no image is displayed. I tried both DVI and VGA inputs with different sources and the result is the same.

As I have two cabs with identical monitors I stripped them down and swapped PCBs to narrow down where the issue lies and this pointed me towards the Toshiba V28A00122300 PCB, this fella:



I was speaking with @Monstermug and he suggested shotgunning the [THC63LVDM83D ICs] as they sounded like they could be the culprit.



I ordered some from ebay..... and this is how they arrived



I'm sure rattling around in a zip lock bag as they made their merry way to be will have done them no end of good I mean, they may be fake but at least give them a chance!

Anyway, @Monstermug kindly changed them for me but sadly this made no difference. The chips could be fake, damaged or this just isn't the issue. There is a BGA on the board which it could be. Monstermug is going to have a go at reflowing the BGA in a last ditch attempt as rescuing the PCB and monitor. I've looked around and put up a wanted ad for a replacement V28A00122300 PCB but not too surprisingly I've not had much luck.

I always knew I would upgrade the monitors at some point but I thought it would be out of choice rather than necessity. Damn this modern flaky tech! I had been looking at various monitors anyway and stumbled across a great deal on a couple of
refurbed LG 32GN550 monitors on ebay which I got for ~£190 each





I want to keep the OG monitors but I'm going to make some mounts for these so I can fit them in the original bezels. So far I've modelled up the displays and started to work on the mount design....







[Video link]

I went far too far detail wise compared to what geometry is actually needed for development but it was all good fun.

More on this to follow.....

[emphatic]

Wow, those button wiring bits are off the hook!

[slugflyer]

oh man these updates are so excellent, thanks for all of this. I always wondered if my fan noise was too high... i'll have to take a look at them! You're inspiring me to be brave

We're all sat here hoping that you give us a future solution to order a monitor panel replacement kit you know

[mirkvid]

Lol, that cable management, you're a madman!

[Pete]

OCD can help you in life

I like how in the home arcade scene you choose good monitor brands as in the industrial market we just use any old brand, Elo, Tovis, Sherwood, Alpha-display, Wei-ya ect.

[Codiene]

At a cursory glance at the back of that LG monitor (very SL1200/1210 in appearance) it might appear like you are creating a giant beatmania control panel. You got some ideas from that ‘other’ thread didn’t you