DISCLAIMER - The cabinet was stripped when i got it so i didn't ruin any of it's williams-ness.
anyways, i picked up this sinistar cab empty from ethanb last week. he originally bought it at the longmont, co superauction in november of '08. at that time, it was converted to willow. with a k7900 that had a bad tube, making it incredibly out of focus.
aside from the monitor and speaker/coin door/marquee wiring it was empty. i had a spare switcher lying around so i put that in, with a harness from jammaboards.com. i would've gone with one from bob, but cost was a factor. finally, i topped it off with combatribes, which is a pretty fun side scroller. originally planned to do all this last year but the wedding/job change got in the way.
cabinet wise - i didn't want to paint over the sinistar art but the cab was in rough shape. heavy splintering at the bottom and several delaminated areas of the wood, around the control panel and marquee edges. i pulled off what i couldn't save and clamped/glued down the rest. and then bondo'd the shit out of it. 2 coats of that plus sanding up to 200 grit to smooth out the cabinet somewhat.
i obviously (and i know it) didn't do the best job of taping around the sini art, as it was a real bitch, and i didn't want to stencil it, do to cost factor. realistically, this cabinet probably won't be a sinistar ever again (multi williams, possibly) but that art is so awesome and i didn't want to destroy it's gameless originality, so i tried to save i as best i could.
one thing i learned while doing this is wiring a jamma cab is truly a pain in the ass. it's probably much simpler to wire a cab with an actual harness that has everything cut to correct length, but going with all the wiring having a 5' length wasn't the best time. i'm not real queer about having this look like a hackjob on the inside, so i had to use extra wiring and butt connectors in places to extend what i needed, so i could route the wiring cleanly.
all in all, only a few things left. first, i need t-molding and a bezel (have tinted glass, just need a cardboard one or something, as you can see. second, i'm debating keeping the control panel stock or adding a second joystick. chime in on your thoughts on this. - i don't want to destroy the control panel, and don't really have a lot of people over to necessitate 2 player games, but it would be nice to have an extra joystick. kind of thinking about drilling holes for repositioning the present and addl joystick vs. getting another panel like robotron or joust and just adding the extra buttons to it.
finally, i'd like to get some more horizontal boards. ones i'd like right now are TMNT, the simpsons, double dragon, and the real ghostbusters. if anyone has any suggestions on good horizontal jamma games, i'm open to suggestions.
anyways, i picked up this sinistar cab empty from ethanb last week. he originally bought it at the longmont, co superauction in november of '08. at that time, it was converted to willow. with a k7900 that had a bad tube, making it incredibly out of focus.
aside from the monitor and speaker/coin door/marquee wiring it was empty. i had a spare switcher lying around so i put that in, with a harness from jammaboards.com. i would've gone with one from bob, but cost was a factor. finally, i topped it off with combatribes, which is a pretty fun side scroller. originally planned to do all this last year but the wedding/job change got in the way.
cabinet wise - i didn't want to paint over the sinistar art but the cab was in rough shape. heavy splintering at the bottom and several delaminated areas of the wood, around the control panel and marquee edges. i pulled off what i couldn't save and clamped/glued down the rest. and then bondo'd the shit out of it. 2 coats of that plus sanding up to 200 grit to smooth out the cabinet somewhat.
i obviously (and i know it) didn't do the best job of taping around the sini art, as it was a real bitch, and i didn't want to stencil it, do to cost factor. realistically, this cabinet probably won't be a sinistar ever again (multi williams, possibly) but that art is so awesome and i didn't want to destroy it's gameless originality, so i tried to save i as best i could.
one thing i learned while doing this is wiring a jamma cab is truly a pain in the ass. it's probably much simpler to wire a cab with an actual harness that has everything cut to correct length, but going with all the wiring having a 5' length wasn't the best time. i'm not real queer about having this look like a hackjob on the inside, so i had to use extra wiring and butt connectors in places to extend what i needed, so i could route the wiring cleanly.
all in all, only a few things left. first, i need t-molding and a bezel (have tinted glass, just need a cardboard one or something, as you can see. second, i'm debating keeping the control panel stock or adding a second joystick. chime in on your thoughts on this. - i don't want to destroy the control panel, and don't really have a lot of people over to necessitate 2 player games, but it would be nice to have an extra joystick. kind of thinking about drilling holes for repositioning the present and addl joystick vs. getting another panel like robotron or joust and just adding the extra buttons to it.
finally, i'd like to get some more horizontal boards. ones i'd like right now are TMNT, the simpsons, double dragon, and the real ghostbusters. if anyone has any suggestions on good horizontal jamma games, i'm open to suggestions.

