Multi-Lightgun JAMMA 6 Switcher

bimm25i

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Hey AIM/KLOVers

First and foremost I popped another cherry today and did my first cap kit on my Sanyo 20EZ it looks freaking awesome now the Bros havent looked this good since 1983!

I've got an even bigger project coming down the pipes and as the parts start to arrive I realize that these theories have to become plans, I want to use this thread to post pictures of the progress and maybe people can benefit from my screwups somehow


I have a Lethal Enforcers cabinet thats been turned into a Point Blank 2 red and blue monster!
it has the Wells Gardner K7000 chassis ona Zenith 25(6?)" tube in a mirrored cabinet.

It has the Point Blank recoil (blowback) guns - the recoil is currently out but im working on creative solutions (particularly finding a cheap solenoid and wiring it to power on + trigger but thats another thread)

My goal is to buy a 6 way JAMMA switch and get 6 lightgun games rocking in this bad boy but like any journey there are challenges to overcome, ive figured out (i hope) a wiring harness I can use for the guns, ill need to add diodes to ensure voltage doesnt come back to the non powered boards, as their singals won't be transferred through the JAMMA harness.

The cabinet is also hard wired for Point Blank 2, meaning I dont have a JAMMA harness ready to go, the board IS JAMMA compatible, but because I have the special guns, all of my cabinet wiring goes directly to a point blank "gun power card" (not to be confused with an NRA membership ID).

I have purchased an Area 51 PCB and HDD, It showed up today and I REALLY can't wait to fire it up but...

The next step will be wiring a JAMMA harness into my Point Blank 2 Cabinet... Its already in the mail.


Ill post pictures of what i have done already tomorrow.

Any input/advice in any of this is greatly appreciated



original thread -> http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?p=2411267#post2411267
 
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Progress!!

So My cabinet started as a Lethal Enforcers, and was converted to a NAMCO Point Blank 2. Point Blank 2 is JAMMA but not inherently. The cabinet is wired up differently and does not leave the owner with a nice JAMMA hookup. I am not going to post the little details about wiring a JAMMA harness into a cabinet because I would hope thats information that is readily available eslewhere.


So once I got the JAMMA harness wired in the trick was handling the 4 gun control (well 4 for p1 and 4 for p2), I worked off of player 1's gun and came up with the following rule of thumb for making harnesses (using the cable colors coming out of the gun)


blue - Trigger (microswitch)
white - Optical Sensor
red - 5V for Opt Sensor
black - GND


I then used heatshrink on female pins at the other end of the harness to make a very rag tag connector, i'll buy a plastic one as soon as i can find the right one.


I had to split the ground and trigger signal into 2 leads to connect to the area 51 board, I did this by splicing about 5 inches of wire into the cable about 3-4 inches above the end -

Then, Area 51 wants the P1 gun hooked up accordingly

Pin 1 - 5v (Red)
Pin 2 - Trigger (Blue)
Pin 3 - GND (Black)
Pin 4 - Optical Sensor (White)
Pin 5 - GND (Black 2)

Pin 7 - Trigger (Blue)

By simply matching this setup on the Player 2 pins, both guns were working swimmingly, thats right I got a NAMCO RECOIL LIGHTGUN to work on AREA 51 without any optic modification, that means the optic from the NAmco gun uses the same signal as the HAPP universal kits.



More to follow - particularly, hooking the guns to Point Blank 2 again without the filter board.
 
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thanks for the input on this... i have a 6in1 board that i'm wanting to use multiple shooting games on it...

Keep an eye on this thread then I hope it will be a multi-lightgun mecca by the time I get finished
 
Alright Excellent News KLov'ers!

I was successful in routing the 4 LightGun cables through the JAMMA harness.

At this time the game is wired for Point Blank 2 , Area 51, and Lord of Gun and although I don't have a 6 way switch yet, I am able to simply plug my Cabinets JAMMA hookup into each board and it works without any further configuration!

The secret of my success lies in JAMMA extender harnesses, These will prove critical for getting all of your boards working properly through the 6 way switch.


Since a LightGun game (or at least the ones I'll be dealing with) don't use joysticks, P1 Up Down Left Right and P2 Up Down Left and Right were obvious choices, I had another idea since Point Blank actually uses P1 Button 1 and P2 Button 1 as the triggers I ended up skipping Down(orange) and hooking the following connections
FROM my cabinets' harness - TO my lightgun

P1 B1 (Blue) - Trigger P1 (Blue)
P2 B1 (Blue) - Trigger P2 (Blue)
P1 Up (red) - +5VDC P1 (Red)
P2 Up (red) - +5VDC P2 (Red)
P1 Left (Yellow) - Optic Signal P1 (White) - which connects to pin 5 on J3 on the board
P2 Left (Yellow) - Optic Signal P2 (White) - which connects to pin 9 on J3 on the board
P1 Right (Green) - GND (Black)
P2 Right (Green) - GND (Black)



Then the trick is to get ONE JAMMA extender harness for each game, you will be cutting the cables from the female side of the harness so that they are still attached to the male (exposed circuit board) side. You then route these wires to the appropriate jumpers on EACH board

for Example, Point Blank only needs the optic signals routed the the pins on J3, the 5VDC and the GND are taken from common, and the trigger stays connected on Button 1 for both players 1 and 2.
- the result is a bridged ground to p1 and p2 Right (green), a bridged +5VDC to P1 and P2 Up (Red), P1 and P2 button 1 are left untouched on the JAMMA Extender, and there is a single lead for each player controlling the optic circuit connected to J3 on the appropriate pins.

Example 2 - area 51
all 4 pins hookup to the jumper on the board, P1 and P2; Up, Left, Right and Button 1 are all cut from the female side of the extender and connect onto the jumper on the PCB in the appropriate places on the jumpers J G1 and J G2 respectively. Keep in mind the Ground (Blk/Grn)and Trigger (Blu) signal are bridged on Area 51 because they each plug into 2 positions

J G1 Pin# - Harness Cut Wires - NAMCO/HAPP style harness

1 - P1 Up (Red) - +5VDC (Red)
2 - P1 Button 1 (Blue) - Trigger (Blue)
3 - P1 Right (Green) - GND (Black)
4 - P1 Left (Yellow) - Optical Sensor (White)
5 - Bridge from P1 Right(Green) - GND (Black 2)

7 - Bridge from P1 Btn1 (Blue) - Trigger (Blue)

Rinse and repeat for player 2, Tip: I put 1 zip tie on the end of the Player 1 connectors and 2 zip ties on Player 2, it came in handy a couple times with quickly identifying what player was what when I was under my cabinet.


With this setup you can leave the extenders plugged into each board (particularly the pins part which is more annoying to connect/disconnect than then JAMMA harness, the extenders then form a 1:1 connection to the cabinet's jamma harness, with each being customized for each game.



I fully recommend this to anyone looking to switch PCB's in the same cab - this writeup is only for lightgun dedicated cabinets though as hacking into the jamma harness when you have joysticks and buttons could break your stuff.


Remember that the extender harnesses are super cheap and to avoid voltage drop another +5VDC, -5VDC, 2 grounds, and a +12V should all be run on these once you get them, also they will need a video ground, and power, and grounds should be bridged as they would be if the adapter wasn't so cheap.
 

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Put "Lord of Gun" in a few days ago. If there was a way to calibrate the guns it would be perfect but as it stands they are a little off center, simply used the Lord of Gun manual (google.com) and another Extender Harness cut to my specifications and it worked like a charm!


Only needed the 4 pins for L O G

trg
+5
GND
Opt


be careful when reading the manual because one of the GND's is labeled GUN (player 1's i believe) not a lot of proofreading when into this manual so just look carefully and you can figure out what they meant.
 
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Just recently joined IAM/KLOV as I have purchased a Point Blank cab and have had interest in turning this into a 6-1 lightgun cab.

I have seen this post previously and have a few questions which will come into play as I start work on my own project.

Currently I just wish to know from those that have done this, what lightgun/shooting games have you managed to get setup in the cab? (this will assist me in looking for potential games to add in and ones that have been confirmed to work in a 6-1 JAMMA style setup)

My games list/current games are as follow:
Point Blank (currently in)
Point Blank 2 (ready to go)
Area51/Max Force (ready to go)
Time Crisis 2 (I believe I am missing some required boards)
Time Crisis 3 (just won auction)

I have been investigating various JAMMA wiring methods and have bought a few fingerboards and JAMMA cables to rewire, but ATM I am awaiting a CAP replacement to be completed on my screen (vertical collapse issue)

The main JAMMA boards I believe will have no major issue in adapting and getting running, but the TimeCrisis series may give me some hassle to convert.

This is my first post, so sorry if it appears in length. I will more than likely proof read this later and create my own forum thread for my project and add images.
 
Just recently joined IAM/KLOV as I have purchased a Point Blank cab and have had interest in turning this into a 6-1 lightgun cab.

I have seen this post previously and have a few questions which will come into play as I start work on my own project.

Currently I just wish to know from those that have done this, what lightgun/shooting games have you managed to get setup in the cab? (this will assist me in looking for potential games to add in and ones that have been confirmed to work in a 6-1 JAMMA style setup)

My games list/current games are as follow:
Point Blank (currently in)
Point Blank 2 (ready to go)
Area51/Max Force (ready to go)
Time Crisis 2 (I believe I am missing some required boards)
Time Crisis 3 (just won auction)

I have been investigating various JAMMA wiring methods and have bought a few fingerboards and JAMMA cables to rewire, but ATM I am awaiting a CAP replacement to be completed on my screen (vertical collapse issue)

The main JAMMA boards I believe will have no major issue in adapting and getting running, but the TimeCrisis series may give me some hassle to convert.

This is my first post, so sorry if it appears in length. I will more than likely proof read this later and create my own forum thread for my project and add images.



In the cab, presently im running

Point Blank 2
Area 51
Lethal Enforcers
Lord of Gun


My cabinet started as a point blank 2 and unfortunately, I had to remove the existing harness and install a standard JAMMA one, you might need to do this to get Area 51/Max Force to work and you will definitely need to do it to get the 6 way JAMMA switch working.


I just won an auction for Point Blank 1 but it doesn't have the filter board so Im having trouble figuring out how to create a jamma adapter for just the motherboard and position PCB. (maybe you could help me back with some pictures ;) unless you ARE using the filter board ) > http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=277004


I have hit a lot of stumbling points in my efforts and there are definitely some things to keep in mind - particularly, looking at your list, monitor resolution - I know Point Blank and Point Blank 2 are CGA and I don't know about TC3 but I would fear it might be a higher resolution.

I included a picture of the Lord of Gun harness. I think this is one of the simpler approaches to the problem. I am using those cheap JAMMA extenders and cutting leads on the FEMALE side. I have cut the leads for P1 and P2 Up Down Left and Button 1 and wired my cabinets JAMMA harness cables for U D L B1 to the 4 wires required to run the gun. I chose B1 because Point Blank uses B1 as the trigger so on the Point Blank harness I didnt need to cut the P1 B1 or P2 B1 leads. This will allow me to plug into a 6 in 1 switch and have ALL circuitry "switched" by the switch.

For Recoil, I am foregoing the NAMCO system and creating my own system that will be compatible with EVERY GAME and run independently of the switch, Im going to work it off of trigger pulls when the game is on so yes, you will get feedback when you reload in Area 51, LE and LoG but thats better than zero feedback to me.

I removed the filter board from Point Blank 2 and worked off of the JAMMA and the J3 jumper to get everything hooked up. The other 3 games are the same way, they hookup with the JAMMA slot and then I run the gun wires to where they need to do on the pcb. This is why I have tried to shop for boards that are compatible with HAPP guns, they tend to have these jumpers available.


I want to put one of the time crisis games in as my 6th game, but I know the foot pedal will need to be added as well. I agree with your remark that Time Crisis might be a bear to "JAMMAtize" but good luck and definately post progress.


the attachments are

)the Area 51 board hooked up to the JAMMA extender (I dont know if it was necessary but the instructions advised jumping some pins so i did.)
)the Jumper on A51 closeup
) the harness I made for Lord of Gun detached from the MoBo
 

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Great to see you post bimm25i, I had hoped you would see this and speak up :D

From basic investigation on my current PB1 setup, I do believe it is running from a JAMMA harness. (i'll confirm tonight and take a picture or two for your reference)

I have thought of the issue with recoil/gun compatibility between games, I have 2x Namco guns from the PB1 machine, but have also purchased replacements which are direct replicas but are "Named" brand. These are yet to be fitted.

My initial plan is to mount my 6-1 in the bottom of the cab and build a few slide out shelves, I will then run JAMMA harnesses from each game mounted on the shelf to a fingerboard that I can they wire up correctly for each game (this will be somewhat trial and error, but mostly checking schematics and testing), this will allow the game boards to sit nicely and not be jammed together in the 6-1 (it will also be easier to change wiring for JAMMA)

My plans with the TC series are unknown, these do not appear as JAMMA so I will have to figure out their input/output wiring and customize a harness/fingerboard. (this will be looked at later). My main issue with the TC series is knowing which boards I require (if anyone knows much about the TC series, please chime in), it seems the TC2 I purchased is missing the AMP board and V185 I/O board for the guns, the TC3 which Im still awaiting delivery looked to have all boards and plugs to allow me to convert to JAMMA from the picture but wont know till I actually have it.

Ive seen some info about the different resolutions and I am not sure of which my monitor supports other than the one that PB1 runs on, this means I maybe looking at a multisync monitor later if that is required.

My current games list has been generated based on information Ive seen on various posts about people attempting this in the past and from the arcade information for machines in this sites library and have attempted to keep them all to a similiar style (yet I do realise the TC series runs completely different with its CPS? system)

Update from the guy I got my CAB from and its getting picked up this Wed and I was told it should be a 24/48h job at max. Hoping to get it back before this weekend so I can spend my next 2weeks off work to gut the machine and play around with wiring. I will post initial pics of the work and boards and progress.

I have attached a picture of my CAB for interest and If anyone can tell me what CAB this was converted from, I would also be appreciative. Another lengthy one I apologize, but alot on my mind about this project and want to get it done right :D
 

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That's a cool looking cabinet, no clue what it could be - another fun pitfall I got to learn the hard way; with those NAMCO recoil guns you have, that the optic sensor sits about 2" below the "iron" sights... make sure the games you're looking to buy have a calibration capability to combat this - lord of gun and lethal enforcers don't and its really lame to have to aim so high. It SERIOUSLY hurts my scores in Point Blank 2 to play right after the uncalibratable games.


I would definitely appreciate those pictures, closeups on how J101, J1, J2 and J4 are all interconnected would be particularly helpful.
 
Damn, I did not know that about the gun calib.

PB1/2 both have gun calib in the settings from what I have seen on mine and in manuals, but I will have to keep my eye out now.

That will definately factor into which other games I will be looking at getting.

When you swap between and it messes with your aiming, is this due to the fact you aim from the ironsight? As I dont use ironsights to aim and aim by hand/eye coord and somewhat snap aim.

This project is my first and will be a learning project, my plan after is to custom build a CAB with a mate and kit it out myself. There is still debate if I will run this as a 2p/4p MAME box with possible lightguns in a switching setup, or if this will be using a different (aimtrak or equivilent style) through MAME. This allows me to use an LCD which should look abit better and be easier/cheaper for me to work with than hunting down and mounting an old CRT.

I currently have a mates TC1 sitting next to mine and will probable attempt to convert it to JAMMA for testing, from what I have seen the TC1/2 and 3 board input/output plugs all appear similiar, so if I can work out how to convert TC1, then TC2/3 shouldnt be too hard either.

I have so far tried to keep my shooting choices to NAMCO gun style games, but I may look at some shotgun style games once I get my head around all the connections/switching and gun variation.

Pictures of various boards and the PB1 current wiring setup will go up tonight and will start work on my machine this weekend. Cant wait :D
 
Its not like I'm constantly looking down the iron sight while playing but it just feels wrong.

If you want to get a feel for it play a game of PB on insane, then recailbrate and shoot 2 inches high, and play a few stages in insane again. Should be easy to notice how much it throws the guns natural "point" off. The good news is more lightgun games have calibration than not but definitely read the manual BEFORE sniping that next PCB on ebay ;)
 
Took a few pics of stuff waiting to go and the current setup.

The way its setup atm makes it hard to really follow the cables or get a good pic, hope this is what you are needing tho. My machine is getting picked up for its monitor repair tomorrow so wont be able to get any more pics or look into it further till weekend.
 

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I finally got Point Blank 1 hooked up my problem was that I didnt have the viedo sync plugged into the gun position board. No worries though I just customized the JAMMA extender and bridged from the JAMMA sync on the female side of the harness.

I have included a picture of the current harenss hookups for Point Blank 1 - NOTE: trigger and start are carried through "button 1" and "start" respectively ont he jamma harness.






Good news, is I am now 1 step closer to being able to work with my TC2.

Just saw this advertised and snapped one up :D
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NAMCO-I-O-V...aultDomain_0&hash=item232b6cab3b#ht_324wt_820

Be wary if looking for TC2 that it comes with one ;p


Good look, i think i'll end up with TC2 in this beast. Im interested to see YOUR results ;)
 

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just got this PM figured I'd post the reply here:

NCCML said:
Hello!

I have been reading your thread here for a month or so trying to wrap my brain around how this stuff works. I am new to arcade machines, just bought a 33" showcase cabinet with Area 51 in it. I am going to use your thread as a template and basically do the same thing you did to create a multi jamma gun cabinet.

I think I understand a large portion of what you're saying here in this thread. There are a couple of things in your posts that I don't follow. At the bottom of one of your posts you added a comment about running an extra 5v and ground. I don't know what this means. Also, I am about to purchase and install a replacement power supply for my cabinet. The current one is just caked in junk and I was getting a voltage error on the board (it was adjustable, and the error went away, but I'd still like to replace). If this cabinet is going to become a multi jamma gun game, would you recommend a larger power supply? Or does it not really matter since only 1 game is working at a time?

Thanks for any help you can give!

I hope you don't mind if I bounce questions off of you throughout the process. So far just reading your thread has explained a ton.

Thanks again!

****


hey no sweat glad to help, of my cabinets the multi-gun is definitely my favorite, I' already jealous that you got a showcase I think that's the best platform for one of these.

-You can just get a standard power supply because you're right, only one game is powered at a time. Since Area 51 has a Hard drive you need to make sure it has a -5 VDC output though to power the hard drive.

- the "extra 5v and ground" is referring to these jamma extenders >

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jamma-Exten...024?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b42df380

they are very useful from a "inside the cabinet real estate" perspective, also I've been hacking them up to make the required custom adapter for each game (you will probably end up doing this as well). but they are quite cheaply made. You need to "beef them up" by adding additional cables for the ground and +5v, these connections would normally be made if you plugged into a jamma harness directly but with the extenders you will need to add them yourselves.


I cant find it right now but there is a guide on these forums for doing it. Maybe another member can link it here for us.
 
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I think I follow you.

So do you mean that since the harnesses you are purchasing are a really low cost harness, they aren't fully wired?

And if I decided to buy a full harness I might not need to add these wires? Which might be worth the extra cost to not have to mess with adding wires.

My cabinet is a little different than yours. I am starting with an Area 51 cabinet, which has a gun connector with 6 wires on it at the Jamma board. I am assuming that since you jumped a 4 wire gun harness into a 6 wire setup, I can probably simply take the 6 wires and only use 4 of them for the Lethal Enforcers board?

Thanks again for the help on this.
 
I think I follow you.

So do you mean that since the harnesses you are purchasing are a really low cost harness, they aren't fully wired?

Essentially, yes. I bought the low cost harnesses because Im actually cutting them up to make the necessary adapters, and because im a cheap bastard. I would actually reccommend doing the same thing, especially if youre planning on buying one of the 6 way jamma switches. This will elliminate the need for a self-built complicated secondary switcher just to handle the guns. If you route the gun cables through the player button positions on the jamma extenders (by cutting the extender on its female side and plugging directly into the board, leaving the male side alone) you can switch them with the jamma switcher and save yourself a good bit of technical work.

And if I decided to buy a full harness I might not need to add these wires? Which might be worth the extra cost to not have to mess with adding wires.

Yes if you get the jamma harness from therealbobroberts.com you wont need to add/bridge the +5VDC, -5VDC, and GND connections because Bob Roberts doesn't sell cheap junky stuff. You will still be cutting them though if you follow my guide


Keep in mind you'll need to wire your guns directly to your cabinet's JAMMA hookup to make this all work cleanly. In my notes I reccommend using the P1/P2 button section, particularly up, down, left, right since Im not going to be adding joysticks to my cabinet. I used P1 button 1 to carry the trigger singal however because the point blank pcb's use button 1 as trigger.



My cabinet is a little different than yours. I am starting with an Area 51 cabinet, which has a gun connector with 6 wires on it at the Jamma board. I am assuming that since you jumped a 4 wire gun harness into a 6 wire setup, I can probably simply take the 6 wires and only use 4 of them for the Lethal Enforcers board?

Your gun has 6 cables but they are actually only 4 different things. There are 2 grounds and 2 trigger button cables, they could be bridged and you wouldnt notice. You are correct in your assumption.
 
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Very cool.

I will definitely be using your setup as described here as far as hooking the guns up to the cabinets Jamma harness and then simply using extenders to go from the 6in1 to each board. I think that's an excellent solution.

I have another question for you. This is in regards to the actual Jamma switcher.

I have planned on just using the 6in1 board that seems to be fairly readily available. In reading some posts/websites and watching a couple 6in1 modding videos on youtube, I have some concerns about this switcher that hopefully you can help shed some light on.

It appears as if the 6in1 does not actually switch the -5v or the test switch to each game pcb. This bothers me, since the test switch is fairly important, and not having the -5v will just bug the crap out of me, even if it isn't used.

What is your opinion on these 2 issues?

I think that Clay Cowgills MultiJamma looks like a great alternative for this setup. Correct me if I'm wrong but it appears that you could use the exact same process and create the same gun switching Jamma setup that you have described in this post with his Multijamma as well. My concern is that I am not even sure if he builds these things anymore. His website appears to still be taking orders, but he also says on the home page that he isn't building any more, dated 2007.

What's your opinion on using another switcher, the -5v and test switch.

Thanks again!
 
and the student becomes the master... I haven't really put a lot of thought into that yet to be honest. I was planning on the ebay 6 way jamma switcher to be decent enough to fit my needs. I was aware of the -5VDC problem but I think the only game I have with a HDD is A51, so I'll just do something specifically for that game.

Clay's switcher certainly looks like a superior product and seems to solve the -5VDC and test switch problems. But I can't confrim that personally.


I wasn't aware of there being a problem with the test switch through these... isnt that the one that just adds a credit without flipping the coin counter? Im not really concerned about that being easily functional, at least I dont think its something i'll need to worry about... I guess if its something you need you could re-route it through one of the player buttons that still available on the harness. like I know I didnt touch button 3 on P1 or P2. I wouldn't reccommend (though someone else might) routing the -5VDc through a player button though as I can't say those circuits were designed to carry that much voltage or not.


You have left my bubble of expertise, I can tell you whats up with the lightgun but I haven't gotten my hands on a switch yet. Im spending my extra money on boards still.
 
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