Jamma Cabinet wiring tutorial from A to Z

tigerstyle

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Anyone knows a good site that explain how to wire an arcade cab from A to Z? Bob Robert's page on this has plenty of infos (even if the presentation is a bit messy) but as an IT guy, I like to have alternate sources of infos just in case.. Sometimes other sources will cover little infos or give you tips that can save you a lot of time.

I know this makes me sounds like a complete newbie even if I own 5 cabs right now and did quite a lot of maintenance on them, but still, I never had the chance to wire a full cab. It's probably not as complicated as it looks.

I bought a bartop cabinet kit from someone online. It's basically a mini arcade cabinet. I will be using a 4:3 lcd monitor as a display. I will be running either my atomiswave board (that can output to vga) or a classic era game with a vga output adapter perhaps. I just want the setup to be as modular and easy to maintain as possible, hence why I want to look at different ways of doing this.

This will be a learning experience!
 
I don't know how "tutorial-worthy" it is... I mean, you just follow the Jamma pinout and connect the wires to their appropriate places. You can bundle or run the wires however you want, but it makes sense to bundle all the power wires together, all the control panel wires together, all the video wires together, etc. Just go by the pinout of the Jamma connector, and connect it up. The actual mechanics of where to bundle wires, what connectors to use, etc - will all vary wildly between cabinets, and how you want to install it. I'd suggest using some kind of break plug at the control panel so you can remove it easily, but you don't have to.

-Ian
 
Anyone knows a good site that explain how to wire an arcade cab from A to Z? Bob Robert's page on this has plenty of infos (even if the presentation is a bit messy) but as an IT guy, I like to have alternate sources of infos just in case.. Sometimes other sources will cover little infos or give you tips that can save you a lot of time.

I know this makes me sounds like a complete newbie even if I own 5 cabs right now and did quite a lot of maintenance on them, but still, I never had the chance to wire a full cab. It's probably not as complicated as it looks.

I bought a bartop cabinet kit from someone online. It's basically a mini arcade cabinet. I will be using a 4:3 lcd monitor as a display. I will be running either my atomiswave board (that can output to vga) or a classic era game with a vga output adapter perhaps. I just want the setup to be as modular and easy to maintain as possible, hence why I want to look at different ways of doing this.

This will be a learning experience!

It's not that hard. I used one of those cheap, pre-made harnesses that already have the connectors on them from ebay. I made sure I had a single sheet of paper on hand that had the pin-outs (showing what wire on the connector goes to what). If you take each wire one at a time, it's a no-brainer. It takes a bit of time, but it's pretty straightforward. Before I wired everything up though, I grouped the wires together that went to each seperate part of the cab. Then I took each section one wire at a time, and everything went smooth (but slow).

Anyway I know you wanted a guide, but I figured I'd let you now that a complete novice like me figured it out with just the diagram. Maybe it'll give you a little confidence.
 
The actual A-B wiring is the easy part.

Laying it out in a Cab so it isn't hanging or too short takes experience.
 
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