8 PCB Multi Gun Cabinet. Picture Heavy.

NCCML

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So I have finally finished this project.

I was inspired by John's videos over at John's Arcade on YouTube first. I don't even know how I ended up watching them... just googled arcade games or something. I still watch all his videos. Love that dude. Absolutely excellent, very entertaining, great guests. Adam seems like a great guy. Love watching his videos. Thanks to John, I am also keenly aware that blue paint should look blue. If it looks brown, don't be fooled, no matter what angle you view it from or how many times, it stays brown. Even stirring it doesn't turn it blue. Sometimes when you buy blue paint, they give you brown. Nasty trick.

And then I was just googling different cabinets and thought "Man, wouldn't it be cool if you could put multiple light gun games in one cabinet?" and googled THAT. I ended up in Bimm25i's thread about building his multi gun cabinet using jamma extension harnesses.

That thread can be found here: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=271012&highlight=multi+gun

On the one hand John's videos showed me that working on these games was totally something I could do, and then on the other hand Bimm25i showed me that the technical side of this idea had solutions too, and that was it, I decided to take a crack at it.

I went to ebay (craigslist didn't occur to me.... like I said I've learned a lot since 2013 lol) and found an Area 51 in a showcase cabinet. Snagged it.

I should mention that this is the first cabinet I've ever owned. I am thinking it might have been a bit much to start with, but I learned a LOT.

In reading and researching different switchers, I was turned off by the major downsides that come with the chinese 6 way switcher, and stumbled onto Clay Cowgills website. I decided that his 8 way switcher was a better fit, and went ahead and ordered it.

I also quickly realized that I would need a multi sync monitor if I wanted to mix CGA and EGA games. So I grabbed a 33" D9200 to fit in this showcase. Actually over the last 4 years I was able to find 2. So I've got a backup. Cap kits on these things are no joke by the way.

After completing the cabinet once, and not liking my power distribution setup, or my solution for having so many power supplies, I pulled it all out and started over. I redesigned the power distribution system and found a better way to mount all the power supplies, and bam. Ended up where I am now. My point in this thread is two fold. I would like to share what I did from a technical standpoint, along with the pros and cons of what I ended up with, and I'd also just like to share the final result.... all the work that went into it. It was a seriously long haul, with a lot of tedious moments. So anyway, I'll get on with the pics. I'll follow up with another post comparing all the pros and cons, and my future plans.

Enjoy! I hope somebody out there is able to glean a little insight in their own project, and if I'm really lucky, maybe some of that inspiration that the guys mentioned above gave to me will rub off on somebody else.

A pic of what I started with. Wish I would have done a better job documenting the damage to the cab, but I didn't. Anyway there was a bunch. Busted corners, etc.
 

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I started by putting some rails and a metal mounting plate for the PCBs. I didn't wanna be screwing into the actual wood of the cabinet a thousand times and chew it all up, so I figured I'd mount this plate, and then as I worked things out and inevitably screwed up and moved things around, I could just punch this full of holes. Easy to change with a fresh one if I ever wanted to.

Also, I went to town with bondo and sandpaper fixing all the broken parts of the cabinet. Like I mentioned above, I really didn't document that part. My bad. The pic of the repaired corner is pretty much the only one, but you get the idea.
 

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This is the second version of the power distribution system. My first attempt was all hard wired, and poorly connected with a million ground loops. I got a book on grounding, and modeled the new setup based on recommendations in the book. It's called a star configuration, where all wires converge on one point. I used it to ground everything, as well as to supply voltage. I also made it so that each harness can be unplugged, to make it easier to work on the power box if I ever need to.

On the left is the 120, or high voltage. One plug is power coming in, and then 8 plugs are power going back out to the various power supplies, monitor, marquee, etc.

On the right is the 5v, 12v, -5v, and ground distribution, or low voltage, in from the power supplies on top, and then out to the 8 games on the right side.

I left the earth ground out of this box because I wanted the earth ground wires to all connect from source to ground without any sort of potential resistance, such as a connector. Of course that can always be modified and placed into this box if I wanted. The high voltage connectors I used are all 3 pin, so it would just be a matter of crimping a pin on it, placing it into the connector, and then wiring it up inside the box.

I also made the harnesses. This is one of the 8 required to power each game.
 

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Here is a shot of the power supplies mounted. Also, I added 3 fans to the cabinet to assist in cooling things down. Here is a shot of the top fan box, with 2 fans. Lower box has 1. Also, a shot of the power box in the cabinet with harnesses plugged in. You can see the earth ground terminal mentioned in the previous post above and left of the power box there.
 

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Now I started putting the games in place. That was a huge riddle by the way. Fitting 8 games into a slim showcase cabinet along with 6 power supplies and a box to distribute power.

First in is Star Trek Voyager. Next was Target Terror Gold. Both of these are PC based games, which have their own ATX power supply for the motherboard, on top of the power supply to run the games. They had to go in this order specifically, or they didn't fit lol.

In the angled pic you can see where I mounted the Multi Jamma Controller.
 

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Next up we have Lethal Enforcers, Lethal Enforcers 2, Area 51, and Area 51 Site 4. For some reason I forgot to take a pic of Area 51, and just skipped right to Site 4. Oops.

I forgot to mention above that I also converted ALL games from their HDD's to alternatives like compact flash drives, IDE modules, or SD adapters. Target Terror Gold and Star Trek Voyager both got an IDE module. Johnny Nero, Carnevil, and Area 51 got compact flash. I purchased the Area 51 cf replacement, because you can get the version that adds the combination Area 51/Maximum Force. That's what I installed on that one. And then I used an SD card adapter for Area 51 Site 4. This game is very problematic to convert from the HDD. Here is a thread with some other links about all that: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=367140&highlight=site+4+adapter&page=2

I just used CHDMAN for all of them and then through a bunch of trial and error cloned em all. Was a major hassle lol. But it all works now, so worth it. If I hadn't done all that, there is really just no way that all of those HDD's would fit in this cabinet. Every game except the 2 LE games used them. Mounted 6 HDD's in there with everything else would have just never fit.
 

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And then Carnevil and Johnny Nero Action Hero are the last 2, for a total of 8.

Final shot of the cabinet with all 8 boards.
 

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For anyone that is curious, the back of the cabinet. This gives you an idea of what I did with the fan boxes that I mentioned above, as well as what it looks like with the power supply panel that I made.
 

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I wired everything so that one switch turns it all on and off. Didn't want the hassle of a thousand switches. Here is a pic of that.
 

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And then some pics of the front. I added a couple of grills to the front panel of the cabinet so that it could breathe. With 6 power supplies (5 with fans) and then 3 fans for ventilation, I needed some return air.

I also added 2 little hidden coin buttons under the control panel. Can't see em, and they make it easy to leave the game in coin mode, but also have a way to coin it up without leaving the coin door open.
 

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And then last but not least, a final pic of it running.

I have a couple videos too. I can upload those to YouTube at some point and put links to them here in this thread. Probably won't be tonight.
 

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Every visible screw or bolt is stainless steel, including the cam locks. I dunno why, I just liked the look of it. Thought it looked cool. Stainless has a really slick dark kinda look to it. Even replaced the screws in the gun holsters.

Everything was painted (obviously), most of the t molding groove filled with bondo and recut on the main part of the cabinet. There was a lot of swelling to the cabinet, from what must have been exposure to water. Cabinet had a bunch of rat crap and quarters in it. I sanded down all the swelling. For paint, I just used spray paint and a lot of sanding. Would I do that again? Nope. Getting an HVLP sprayer as so many here suggest for the next go around. I got so sick of running out to buy cans of spray paint. It was ridiculous.

All of the metal components (monitor shroud, gun mounting plates and holsters, speaker grills, coin doors, plexi holders, etc) were stripped to bare metal and repainted with a textured paint. Again, I learned from that one. It's all fun and games until you go to dust textured paint.... and it's not all that durable I've noticed. Next time I'll probably just get it all powder coated, and who knows, might even remove it all again and get this stuff powder coated too. Whatever, time will tell. I'm in no rush. It looks good and works. Lol.

Guns are new. Had to get the Happ universal guns so that all the games would respond. I learned from this project that not all of the guns that would have shipped with the original games are compatible with one another. For example, LE Justifier guns will NOT work with area 51, and the guns that came with the original Area 51 game as I got it do NOT work with Lethal Enforcers, etc.

As you can see the original Area 51 marquee is still in it. And the control panel is just black. I did cut new plexi for that too. I am going to get some custom artwork made up for this thing at some point, but I need to take a break from this guy for a bit. I think I'll get a marquee made up and name the cabinet "Il Duce". If you've ever seen a movie called Boondock Saints, there is a character in it named Il Duce, and there is a scene where he shows up with 6 guns strapped to him. To me it all makes sense... multi gun cabinet.... and it's huge.. "Il Duce" means "The Duke". Just seems fitting. I'll update when that happens. Someday lol.
 
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So!

After all this, was it worth it? Am I happy with the result? Does it work?

Was it worth it? Yeah totally. I learned SO much over the years, mostly from you guys here at Klov, and John's Arcade.

Am I happy with the results? I am mixed on that one. Clay Cowgills product is great. The quality is great, and he is just a really awesome dude to work with. I think I emailed him a thousand times over the years as I put this stuff together. He always got back to me, and he took care of some issues that I had with the switcher. Great guy.

So why am I mixed on the results? I chose this switcher in part because it is able to switch the guns as well as the jamma signal. It's got a header for additional inputs, and if you wire 5v and ground to the guns straight off the power supply that handles the switcher, you can use this header to switch the trigger and optic signal to each game. Boom, gun game switcher without needing extra jamma harnesses/relays/boards/etc. Well, this switcher requires that all games are powered at once. Right away, I say to myself... why am I running 8 games when I can only play one at a time? And because of this, I need a lot of power supplies. One power supply to power the switcher, and one power supply for each group of (4) games. Since my setup has 8 games, that means 2 more power supplies in addition to the one for the switcher, putting me at a total of 3. Then, because of my choice of games, Star Trek Voyager and Target Terror Gold also have an ATX power supply each (mentioned in the posts above). This puts me at a total of 5. And then I added another 12v supply for the lighted buttons and the 3 additional fans I added to the cabinet to prevent spontaneous combustion. So a grand total of 6 power supplies. Am I happy with that? Nope.

I know that the benefit of having all games on at once is instant switching and playing. That would mean something if the games took more than 10 seconds to boot up. But they don't (Ok Target Terror does, but whatever, it's one game). So does this advantage offset all of the disadvantages of this switcher? In my opinion no. Now, I will add that before about what? A month ago? There were only a couple choices. Annnnnnnd then this guy comes along and makes something amazing:

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=408102&highlight=multi+gun

I gotta say. Now that this is available, I really don't care for my setup. In fact, when I recover from the nightmare that this was, I'm probably gonna do away with the Clay Cowgill switcher and convert over to this.

Why?

Because along with all of them being powered at once, causing me to need a billion power supplies, a custom made distribution system, harnesses, etc, etc, it ALSO causes all games to respond to inputs. What do I mean by this? Example: when I need to calibrate the guns on say Johnny Nero, and I switch the game into the service menu, ALL games go into the service menu. As I go through the Johnny Nero menu getting the guns all dialed in, I am also blindly changing settings in every other game, because even though only one game is shown on screen, THEY ARE ALL BLINDLY IN THE SERVICE MENU AND EACH BUTTON I PRESS IS CHANGING SOMETHING IN EACH GAMES SERVICE SETTINGS! And then I go to play Area 51, and lo and behold, I now need 50 German Franks to play a game... huh? Oh right, I changed the settings for every game while I calibrated the Johnny Nero guns... Oh wow, I also set Lethal Enforcers difficulty way up! Kinda cool... By the way, I am not making this up. These are actual examples of what happened as I made adjustments to various games. In addition to that, if the games are set to free play, each time you start a game, you are starting all 8 games. So you go to switch to another game and it's already in progress. Just stupid.

So mister RiddledTV comes up with a switcher that only powers one game at a time, eliminating the need to have multiple power supplies and custom harnesses, etc. He also provides a way to switch gun inputs. And stereo sound. Since one game is powered at a time, I can also go into the service menu and adjust stuff. And I can now use free play. Just so much better. I wish this would have been around 3 years ago, you would have saved me a LOT of time and money. Oh well.

Does it work? Yep. Mostly. Well yeah it works. I have noticed that Area 51 Site 4 causes some kind of funny interference in many of the other games video. Little lines that scroll through the screen. Major problem? Not really. But again, wouldn't be an issue with RiddledTV's switcher, since only one is powered at a time.

So all in all, it works and I can finally play a bunch of light gun games in one cabinet with a switcher. As a word of caution to others that are looking into making a multi light gun game, or even just multi game, very carefully compare your switchers. Clay Cowgill is a great guy, and his product is very well made, but it just has way too many strikes against it in comparison to the one by RiddledTV. If he creates a way to at least combat the fact that inputs hit all 8 games at once, it would be a heck of a lot better. But honestly even then, there is about 50x more work to get his set up compared the Riddle's.

Hope this helps somebody as they look at starting their own projects. I am gonna go back through my posts with all the pics and get into a little more detail with some of the technical stuff I briefly referenced. I was really just trying to get all the pics up quickly so that the thread was complete. I'll probably edit this summary over time as well. I am sure I've rambled on a bit.

If you've read through all this, thanks!
 
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So mister RiddledTV comes up with a switcher that only powers one game at a time, eliminating the need to have multiple power supplies and custom harnesses, etc. He also provides a way to switch gun inputs. And stereo sound. Since one game is powered at a time, I can also go into the service menu and adjust stuff. And I can now use free play. Just so much better. I wish this would have been around 3 years ago, you would have saved me a LOT of time and money. Oh well.

Thanks for the mention. I loved reading your project writeup. The quality of your installation is top notch.
 
Thanks for the mention. I loved reading your project writeup. The quality of your installation is top notch.

Thanks man. It really was a labor of love. And hate at times lol. But mostly love.

Your switcher looks awesome, and I'll definitely be buying at least a couple of them at some point. Once I'm done with another restoration I think I am gonna tackle the multi Sega light gun cabinet that I PM'd you about.
 
Love this power distribution box!

This is the second version of the power distribution system. My first attempt was all hard wired, and poorly connected with a million ground loops. I got a book on grounding, and modeled the new setup based on recommendations in the book. It's called a star configuration, where all wires converge on one point. I used it to ground everything, as well as to supply voltage. I also made it so that each harness can be unplugged, to make it easier to work on the power box if I ever need to.

On the left is the 120, or high voltage. One plug is power coming in, and then 8 plugs are power going back out to the various power supplies, monitor, marquee, etc.

On the right is the 5v, 12v, -5v, and ground distribution, or low voltage, in from the power supplies on top, and then out to the 8 games on the right side.

I left the earth ground out of this box because I wanted the earth ground wires to all connect from source to ground without any sort of potential resistance, such as a connector. Of course that can always be modified and placed into this box if I wanted. The high voltage connectors I used are all 3 pin, so it would just be a matter of crimping a pin on it, placing it into the connector, and then wiring it up inside the box.

I also made the harnesses. This is one of the 8 required to power each game.
 
Wow this is going to make my multi shooter in my target terror look like junk in comparison but good on you. That thing looks awesome. Can't wait to see some videos and updates if you go to the new switcher.
 
I'm going to dig this thread up from the dead. I picked up a LE cabinet with an Area 51 site 4 in it. The purchase was unexpected, it was cheap $100 as it wasn't working. Got it home and got it working without spending a dime. Then I started thinking of making a multi gun cabinet. Space is limited for me as I am aleady expanding my collection into another room lol so I figure why not try and make a multi switcher.

I do have some experience with switcher cabs. I built a multi mk 2 cabinet with all the mk's in it that I sold may years ago.

Then, years later, I built a UMK3 cabinet with a switcher with all the MK's in it because I missed the first one I built lol. Things were definitely a lot easier the 2nd time around because of the advancement of Riddled Tv's switcher and condenser boards.

I bought a sharpshooter PCB and and Police trainer. I plan on adding the original Area 51/max force, possibly Lethal enforcers and carnevil.

I plan on getting the Riddled switcher so they don't need all the extra power supplies. My main question I have is how do I hook the guns up to the boards? Is there some kind of condesor board like there is for MK kick harnesses or is it necessary to splice them all together with diodes?

Also why what it necessary for you to get a different monitor. Looks like every game you had was standard raster. Why did you have to change the monitor.
 
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