Custom mini-Bally/Sente cab project

Tornadoboy

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Messages
9,112
Reaction score
1,412
Location
North Attleboro, Massachusetts
I'm trying to design and build a custom mini-Bally/Sente cab and figured I'd start a thread to get peoples thoughts, the attached pic is a mock-up of what I have in mind, modeled after the large plastic-sided cabs used but Hat Trick, Snake Pit and such.

I already have a full set of guts from a Mini-Golf cab, including the board rack, populated control panel and marquee so I have something to design the cab around. The main board is missing a bank of memory chips, the main processors and most importantly a custom PAL chip so I have to get that working first.

So here's the to-do list as I see it:

- Get the guts working so at least I have something to start with, it will probably be just as easy to find a populated main board than find replacement chips, especially that dreaded PAL.

- Round up needed parts: Coin door, T-molding, leg levelers...

- Test the set up on the monitors I have to see whether 13 or 19" works best. I'm leaning towards a 19" since I'm already planning to make the cab wide enough for the control panel.

- Figure out what is considered comfortable heights/angles for the position of the monitor and controls. Also figure out how/if I want to make custom multi-control panels or just use swappable originals. Games like Mini-Golf, Spiker, Street Football, Snacks 'N' Jaxson and Goalie Ghost all use simular trackball oriented panels so it should be possible to combine things, oddballs like Night Stocker, Snake Pit and Hat Trick might be difficult.

- Design the cab for those measurements, as well as those to accommodate the PCBs and power supply, keeping in mind easy access to the ROM card as well as of course appearance considerations.

- Build build build.

- Pain paint paint.

- If all looks good, design a new marquee, some side art then have it printed.

- Put the thing in my living room, pat myself on the back, get hammered and play the thing silly.

- Figure out how to make custom and/or multi ROM cards so as to reproduce some of the impossibly rare and prototype games, perhaps even including Gridlee which I guess used the original Sente hardware design. However for a noob like me this may not be possible as clearly the ROM cards used some kind of protection chip, probably those conspicuous looking PALs, which likely did something like play around with the memory addresses. And best I can tell there are no dumps of those chips available so I'm guessing the MAME driver has some kind of work around built in, but maybe I can figure out some kind of hardware work around.

- Gloat and start on something else, I've got no shortage of projects and ideas.
 

Attachments

  • sente project.JPG
    sente project.JPG
    11.4 KB · Views: 25
Last edited:
FYI, there are a few different versions of the exterior stuff (marquee and bezel in particular).

I'm not sure where you got your stuff, but something to bear in mind since you are building a custom cabinet.
 
Why reinvent the wheel? Just pick up a bally sente cab and customize it. Building a cab from scratch is a costly, time consuming process. Spend your time playing. Just a thought.
 
Why reinvent the wheel? Just pick up a bally sente cab and customize it. Building a cab from scratch is a costly, time consuming process. Spend your time playing. Just a thought.

True but I've always wanted to make my own cab, and I intend to make it smaller than a full size as to save room.
 
Well as of 2 minutes ago I am now the proud owner of another set of Sente boards, this one has all the chips on the main and a Stocker ROM card, and that in itself was worth what I paid, so now with the other set of parts in theory I have all the electronics I need and with a little luck this main will be ready to use.

I have a spare Monaco GP mini steering wheel setup so I might see if I can make that work with Stocker, and being small that would allow me to include the shifter and Night Stocker's light gun on the same panel.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom