First Time Cabinet..Restore or Convert?

ParadiseCS

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Hello and thank you for accepting me here. I've been a computer/network tech for 30 years and have always wanted to get an arcade cabinet for home. Well now is the time and after much research here and other places I'm more confused than when I knew nothing.


I was just given two cabinets, all it cost was a $30 trailer rental to move them. Maybe someone here can give me some info on what these were and where to look for parts to restore them or convert them.


Cabinet 1 is a Mortal Kombat II cabinet with a working Turkey Shooting USA in it. (The kids love it).


Cabinet 2 is a Bally Sente SAC1b cabinet, SN#934, that had War Final Assualt in it. The monitor has issues, the roms seem to boot (switched the vegas board to VGA to test),sound works, but the Hard Drive doesn't seem to load, just clicks like any bad ide hard drive.


Both cabinets have the typical wood grain veneer on the sides and both are in excelent condition both inside and out. Very few scuff marks and no gouges anywhere. The coin slots all work.


Ultimately there a few games I'd like to track PCBs down for and be able to do a multi cabinet in some way but I'm not sure where to start with that project.


Anyone have any thoughts? I've read a lot on these forums and other places but I can't seem to come to any conclusions on my own.
 
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Cabinet 1 is a Mortal Kombat II cabinet with a working Turkey Shooting USA in it. (The kids love it).

Cabinet 2 is a Bally Sente SAC1b cabinet, SN#934, that had War Final Assualt in it. The monitor has issues, the roms seem to boot (switched the vegas board to VGA to test),sound works, but the Hard Drive doesn't seem to load, just clicks like any bad ide hard drive.

My vote would be to preserve the SAC-1B ahead of the MK2, but then I'm biased towards Golden Era games. It also depends on how heavily-converted both cabinets are, and how reversible that may be.

There's usually someone looking for an MK2, but people who want MK2 cabinets that need to be deconverted back to the original game are typically thinner on the ground. Either way, if you decide to let one or the other go, it'll probably be the easier one to sell. The Sente cabinets are kinda neat, but not terribly exciting or sought-after. That said, they are interesting from an historical perspective.

War: Final Assault's HDD is fixable by converting to Compact Flash, by the way. See this link for an off-the-shelf example, or roll your own - IIRC, all you need is a CF to IDE adapter and a reimage of the card from CHD.

Both cabinets have the typical wood grain veneer on the sides and both are in excelent condition both inside and out. Very few scuff marks and no gouges anywhere. The coin slots all work.

The SAC-1B you have is woodgrain? I've only ever seen them in black with a diagonal stripe containing the word 'SENTE' on the side. Doesn't necessarily mean that some didn't come that way, but it just seems unusual to me.

Ultimately there a few games I'd like to track PCBs down for and be able to do a multi cabinet in some way but I'm not sure where to start with that project.

Fix War: Final Assault, sell the PCBs, use the proceeds to start the multigame project. House that in the SAC-1B, and dump the MK2 for extra funds. Or, if the MK2 has been butchered into conversion hell, use it for the multigame. You'll have a lot more control panel to work with, and, if you need multiple types of controls, will have a better starting point for adding them compared to the SAC-1B's control panel.

Anyone have any thoughts? I've read a lot on these forums and other places but I can't seem to come to any conclusions on my own.

Your call as they're your cabinets, but I'd start by figuring out their respective overall conditions, how easily-restorable back to stock they would be, and how badly you want to keep either of the games in them now as well as how badly you would want to play them if they were deconverted. Once you know this it may be easier to reach a decision.
 
Welcome to KLOV!

It's a great place if you have thick skin...

:D

Here's my advice for a first timer.

Don't go overboard. Learn about the hobby first. Think about where you want to go and what games you would like to own. Imagine getting your first car. You don't care which car it is as long as you get one. After driving it around and spending money to fix it up you realize that you really want a different car. So you sell it for a loss and get the car you really want to fix up.

Same with this hobby. Use those two (uninspiring) cabs to learn all you can. Then you will have the proper perspective to decide what to ultimately do with them.

One of the first things you can do if the MKII is jamma wired (it should be) is to buy and swap out other jamma boards so you can use that cab as a sort of generic arcade cab that plays many different games (I.E. not dedicated).

Have fun and ask questions. That's what this place is for.

:D

Brent
 
Thanks for the advice. I was thinking of doing exactly that with the MKII cabinet since it's bigger. Is there anyway to look up what might have been in the Sente cabinet to begin with, just for curiosity and no desire to play any of the Sente games.
 
Welcome. If you want to get into fixing these things you have a couple to learn on (monitor, final assult hard drive, etc).

If you just want to play, keep the MK2 cab, kids love the game in it so that is a good start. Put in different gun games when that one gets old or swap in jamma pcbs and play those.
 
Personally I don't think either cabinet is a good restoration candidate for a beginner. The sente cab will need parts that may be tough to source, the mkII will need a lot of control panel work if it is a gun game now. Both are "doable" but you really need to figure what your budget is for it. Restorations have a habit of exceeding the value of the game.
 
Sente SAC1B War Final Assault Pictures

Here is how it came to me:
 

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And here is the board out of the cabinet
 

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MKII Cabinet with Turkey Hunting USA

Here is how it sits after tweaking the monitor pots a bit. Screen shakes if bumped but overall works great:

Not sure why pictures changed to landscape.
 

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Plenty of room inside the mk2 cab for a multi jamma set up. Control panel doesn't looked to be hacked up at all from what I can tell. I'm running a 6 in 1 jamma switcher with mk1,2 and 3 along with a golden tee. I also have a cpu inside for all my emulators, quickly swappable control panels that can be changed in about 3 minutes.
 
That kind of what I was thinking. I'm working the other cabinet now since the Turkey one gets used. Long term though the MKII cabinet has way more room, bigger screen, and the original control panel is there with the Turkey Shooting USA sticker overlay on top of it so that is a big bonus. Now I just need to figure out a control layout for both cabinets.

Any recommendations on a jamma switcher? I've read lots of post on the forums here but it seems all the links I follow to find them are old and dead.
 
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