Commando to Ghost n Goblins

orion3311

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Commando to Ghost n Goblins Conversion

Well this may or may not pan out, for now, given that I have about a million things going on, summer quickly approaching, and a car to work on, I decided to just leave the cab as-is for the time being, however, since it has a nice removable panel inside for the guts, make it so the cab could be torn down in very little time/effort if I do get bored one summer day and decide to repaint.

Anyhow, the Commando cab is a fairly close match to the original GnG (definitely different though). Width-wise its a perfect match and the marquee and bezel drop right in place. The control panel will not work as the original GnG panel would stick out too far on this cab. (It would probably bolt up though). If one were good with woodworking, and could extend the sides out a couple inches, the panel would fit.

Anyhow to start, I had to find out if I could even make it a horizontal cab, so I took a bunch of measurements from a K7000, transferred them to the cab, and started sawing.
 

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With the weather crappy I can't wheel out my motorcycle to work at the garage, so I decided to work on the guts at home instead. The cab has a vertical board that mounts in the center right behind where the coin door goes. The board locks into a groove on the bottom and is held in by 2 bolts w/wing nuts for easy removal. Because of this, I'll use a couple molex connectors if I can help it to make sure it's easily removable.

Wired up the AC portion, then mounted the switcher and board. Its not complete yet, I forgot to bring home my green wire for ground wiring, and have to figure out where I put the ISO I had for it. I'm re-using the factory wiring harness but going to probably replace the +5v and ground wiring to the edge connector since it got pretty warm when I tested it.

Note: The interesting 1/4" QD splitters I found with some electrical supplies at a thrift shop! They worked out awesome, and the black and white wire came from the same place. It was seperate black and white wire that I hand twisted.
 

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To prove this is a ground-up build, I'm even including pics of the monitor repair! The monitor was a K7000 with a busted tube, and it turned out once I swapped the tube with a TV tube, even the chassis was shot (blows fuses). I took another K7000 chassis I had, swapped out a couple pots from one to the other, replaced a backwards cap, and got it working. I also managed to really screw up the adjustment tabs on the back of the tube by accident (it has a locking mechanism I "accidentally" discovered), so I also learned how to line those up too!

So basically the only thing leftover from the original monitor was the degausser coil, dag ground wire, and the frame :)
 

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The Commando control panel is practically the exact same layout as GnG, so I can actually use the original control panel. Unfortunately mine was a bit hacked up since someone converted this to a 2 player cab. With the help of WarLordAG I was able to determine which of the dozen holes were the original ones, and plug some buttons and a joystick in for testing purposes. Eventually I'll use different buttons and maybe get a repro CPO from Mamemarquees, but I'll have to see how well the button labels will line up to the Commando control panel. I also believe the original GnG CPO has the buttons and joystick lined up (centered vertically), whereas the Commando buttons are a little higher than the joystick. I may put our graphics designer intern at work to use to correct that :)

EDIT: If anyone has the art files for the CPO, please let me know!
 

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Tonight I finished up the wiring on the board by adding the ground wires, the ISO, a fuse, and making a harness from the iso to the monitor. If you notice there's no provision for switching, thats because I'm going to do all the switching before the power supply. There will be a DPDT interlock switch on the back, and then a DPDT on/off switch inside the coin door.

I clip leaded a cord to the rig and fired it up for its maiden run tonight, even using the monitor that will go into the cab. So far so good, no smoke, no flames, just games! I set up the dip switches and called it a night.

NOTE: The dip switch settings on Mike's Arcade page for Ghosts N Goblins is backwards, he has the banks reversed. His 1a settings are for bank 2a and vice-versa.
 

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No pics at the moment but furthur progress - got the rig/board installed in the cab, finished all the AC wiring and for the most part everything worked. Have a flaky power plug on the monitor to fix, and for some reason, the marquee lamp must be shorted or something, it seems to be blowing out bulbs. I tried a different starter and same thing. I'll swap that out with another one.

Next gotta wire up a coin door.
 
GnG cabinet paint code

GnG cabinet paint code:

Base: 3300-BEHR Premium Plus Interior Semi-Gloss Enamel

CLRNT B E KX V
OZ 0 2 0 0
384th 171 39 98 77
 
Sucks you won't be making this a minty Commando. :p
I like Commando but it's a really hard game, but I guess the same can be said about Ghosts and Goblins

Good luck with this.
 
Well take solace in that I didn't hack up this cab that bad as far as the horiz monitor mount - it could easily be made vertical again if someone wanted to. That was the only actual mod done, almost everything else is identical to the orig GnG cab so its been just coming together nicely.

Some sorta updated pics attached. Crappy phone pics - once I find my camera charger I'll get some good ones, but the game isn't much to look at yet anyway (at least from the front).

BTW This is proof I've learned a LOT about working on these things over the past couple years I've been poking around here. I never thought I'd be caring about what the wiring looks like, or making molex plugs, etc etc. Now I'm like OOH IT NEEDS A MOLEX HERE.
 

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Considering how nice its coming out, I think so. I gotta do this one right. At the moment though I have a classic car that needs some attention for the season, and plus I'm not really set up to do painting where my games are at, so it would sorta be a pain. I'd have to truck the cab home but I don't have any good place to stash it while it dries (no garage).

Once I find a house (with a nice garage) - I'll be a paintin' fool!
 
Little more progress...fixed the marquee light, and hooked up the coin door. Then ran into a problem..while the marquee fits ok for the most part, vertically its about a half inch shorter, so while it would fit the cab ok, it wont work sitting on the bracket thats supposed to hold it in. I was able to use a couple tiny screws to hold it up, but they wont fit well under the marquee bracket. I looked around and found an asteroids deluxe marquee bracket, that had a longer edge to it. Tried it and it fit pretty well, and covered up the screws. Its about 3/16ths too short but not enough that most people would notice. After making sure the holes for that bracket could later be covered by the factory bracket if need be, i put it on and all is well. The fix is a little ghetto but honestly youd never know unless i showed you.

Then played a few games and made up some curse words :)
 
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