Could somebody please explain whats needed, and what I would need to know to setup and play a pcb?
Any help is much appreciated, thanks.
Guide to PCBs
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MovingTarget
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Guide to PCBs
Know thy enemy attack pattern.
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PC Engine Fan X!
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If you decide to go the Supergun route...
For Moving Target,
If you decide to go the Supergun route, then a Supergun with analog RGB output to an analog RGB monitor (i.e -- Commodore Amiga monitor) + a built-in transcoder that converts RGB signal to Composite Video & S-Video outputs is a plus.
Fuses placed on the 12 volt & 5 volt lines will protect the respective Jamma compatible PCB that you wish to play/boot up.
A pair of 8 ohms rated at 100 watts is the maximum when hooking up one or two speakers from RCA audio output jacks. Sound output is presented in mono only. Of course there are some exceptions, some arcade motherboards such as the Sega Titan ST-V, Taito G-Net, Neo-Geo MV-1, Capcom's CPS-2 & CPS-3, Seibu Kaihatsu's SP1 all provide seperate stereo outputs for better sound.
A dummy in-line filter is needed if you want hook up the PCB's sound output to a pair of headphones or stereo amp...otherwise, the sound & background music is already amplified on a an arcade PCB via an adjustable "volume" pot. Some stereo arcade motherboards provide two seperate volume pots which is the case on an SP1 motherboard.
A true arcade power supply is essential for operating some older Jamma based arcade PCBs...otherwise, one'll run into problems. An adjustable 5 volt pot is necessary as some arcade PCBs need more juice (voltage) to operate properly (i.e -- the Sega ST-V motherboard is infamous for freezing up if it doesn't get enough juice to power it up properly).
Some Superguns are powered by a PC power supply instead. There are pros and cons going this particular route though.
Some Superguns have special transcoder that outputs in Component Video besides RCA Composite Video & S-Video.
The Japanese produced Sigma Supergun is considered the Rolls Royce of Superguns and the MAK (Multi Arcade Konsole) Supergun is the smallest Supergun ever made (since it's powered by a seperate power supply unit).
Prices vary depending on what various options you want on a custom produced Supergun setup if someone builds one for you. Some are content with a bare-bones Supergun setup and others want a more fully featured Supergun with all the "bells & whistles" for complete customized needs (such as being able to interface with a Japanese produced Microcom upscan converter such as the XRGB-2 using a 21-pin Japanese RGB cable setup or a European Scart cable setup).
A built-up static electrity discharge can ruin a perfectly 100% working arcade PCB, so wearing an anti-static wriststrap (they can be bought at your local Radio Shack or computer shop) will save your senses & sanity. Arcade PCBs aren't cheap and is a very expensive hobby, and lastly, should treated as such. I've had a $350.00 USD Taito G-Net motherboard go up in smoke because of static electricilty discharge and that's no laughing matter. If that static discharge were to happen to a rare arcade shmup PCB such as Namco's 1998 Tenkomori Shooting PCB, then it could cause a grown man to cry. And it's not that easy to replace such rare arcade PCBs such as the above listed Tenkomori PCB anyways.
Check under subject of "Jamma" on eBay.com and you'll find some arcade cabinets + Superguns up for sale. You could also check on craigslist.com and scour for some arcade cabinets & the occasional Supergun as well.
Some Superguns have a slotted key so that one can't accidentally insert a Jamma PCB in backwards (and cause some serious instant irrepairable damage to the PCB if that were to happen), other Superguns don't have the slotted key, so extreme caution is necessary as to not insert a PCB backwards. Some bootlegged Jamma PCBs from Hong Kong and elsewhere don't have the Jamma edge connector "keyed", so by taking out the "key" on a 52-pin Jamma harness that's connected to a Supergun setup, one can play/boot up the "bootlegged" PCB. It is recommended to buy original arcade PCBs and not bootleged ones. Why? The original arcade PCB is superior to the inferior bootlegged PCB anyways -- better sound output, no missing sprites, etc.
Hope this basic Supergun info helps you out... ^_~
PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
If you decide to go the Supergun route, then a Supergun with analog RGB output to an analog RGB monitor (i.e -- Commodore Amiga monitor) + a built-in transcoder that converts RGB signal to Composite Video & S-Video outputs is a plus.
Fuses placed on the 12 volt & 5 volt lines will protect the respective Jamma compatible PCB that you wish to play/boot up.
A pair of 8 ohms rated at 100 watts is the maximum when hooking up one or two speakers from RCA audio output jacks. Sound output is presented in mono only. Of course there are some exceptions, some arcade motherboards such as the Sega Titan ST-V, Taito G-Net, Neo-Geo MV-1, Capcom's CPS-2 & CPS-3, Seibu Kaihatsu's SP1 all provide seperate stereo outputs for better sound.
A dummy in-line filter is needed if you want hook up the PCB's sound output to a pair of headphones or stereo amp...otherwise, the sound & background music is already amplified on a an arcade PCB via an adjustable "volume" pot. Some stereo arcade motherboards provide two seperate volume pots which is the case on an SP1 motherboard.
A true arcade power supply is essential for operating some older Jamma based arcade PCBs...otherwise, one'll run into problems. An adjustable 5 volt pot is necessary as some arcade PCBs need more juice (voltage) to operate properly (i.e -- the Sega ST-V motherboard is infamous for freezing up if it doesn't get enough juice to power it up properly).
Some Superguns are powered by a PC power supply instead. There are pros and cons going this particular route though.
Some Superguns have special transcoder that outputs in Component Video besides RCA Composite Video & S-Video.
The Japanese produced Sigma Supergun is considered the Rolls Royce of Superguns and the MAK (Multi Arcade Konsole) Supergun is the smallest Supergun ever made (since it's powered by a seperate power supply unit).
Prices vary depending on what various options you want on a custom produced Supergun setup if someone builds one for you. Some are content with a bare-bones Supergun setup and others want a more fully featured Supergun with all the "bells & whistles" for complete customized needs (such as being able to interface with a Japanese produced Microcom upscan converter such as the XRGB-2 using a 21-pin Japanese RGB cable setup or a European Scart cable setup).
A built-up static electrity discharge can ruin a perfectly 100% working arcade PCB, so wearing an anti-static wriststrap (they can be bought at your local Radio Shack or computer shop) will save your senses & sanity. Arcade PCBs aren't cheap and is a very expensive hobby, and lastly, should treated as such. I've had a $350.00 USD Taito G-Net motherboard go up in smoke because of static electricilty discharge and that's no laughing matter. If that static discharge were to happen to a rare arcade shmup PCB such as Namco's 1998 Tenkomori Shooting PCB, then it could cause a grown man to cry. And it's not that easy to replace such rare arcade PCBs such as the above listed Tenkomori PCB anyways.
Check under subject of "Jamma" on eBay.com and you'll find some arcade cabinets + Superguns up for sale. You could also check on craigslist.com and scour for some arcade cabinets & the occasional Supergun as well.
Some Superguns have a slotted key so that one can't accidentally insert a Jamma PCB in backwards (and cause some serious instant irrepairable damage to the PCB if that were to happen), other Superguns don't have the slotted key, so extreme caution is necessary as to not insert a PCB backwards. Some bootlegged Jamma PCBs from Hong Kong and elsewhere don't have the Jamma edge connector "keyed", so by taking out the "key" on a 52-pin Jamma harness that's connected to a Supergun setup, one can play/boot up the "bootlegged" PCB. It is recommended to buy original arcade PCBs and not bootleged ones. Why? The original arcade PCB is superior to the inferior bootlegged PCB anyways -- better sound output, no missing sprites, etc.
Hope this basic Supergun info helps you out... ^_~
PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
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MovingTarget
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- Location: Scotland
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MovingTarget
- Posts: 911
- Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:44 pm
- Location: Scotland
Would the jamma supergun on this page http://www.consolepassion.co.uk/jamma-a ... erguns.htm
be suitable to run pcbs such as esprade and guwange etc?
be suitable to run pcbs such as esprade and guwange etc?
Know thy enemy attack pattern.
Any supergun will play any board, within reason - but take note of all the stuff PCE said above. You don't necessarily get what you pay for - some of the best superguns are just the guts of an arcade cab with chopped wiring nailed to a piece of wood.
Few additional notes or corrections:
Video - you don't need a transcoder if you live in Europe and plan to use a TV, or you have a good RGB monitor. However, at least with the TV you will need RGB pulldown resistors - preferably as adjustment pots, because the JAMMA colour voltage is outside of SCART input spec - resulting in colour bleed and so on.
Audio - it should be mentioned that TVs are another thing you shouldn't plug amped sound into. Also, for the speakers - I'd say 100W is too high, the vast majority of JAMMA boards will struggle to even push a 40W speaker hard unless you're burning the amp up at max. For example, Espgaluda II only has a 20W amp. Get one with decent sensitivity and you won't need to crank your PCBs up much at all.
As for your LCD screen - who can say. I'd expect it to have problems with anything that isn't perfectly on 60hz sync. Maybe others here can help - but you're better off with a CRT.
That supergun you linked to is confirmed as rubbish by the way - friend of mine bought one out of curiosity, for £68, with two PCBs. I can't remember the full list of bad things, but among them was having to use a PC power supply, and the stress put on the connector with the weight of all the stuff plugged into it.
The MAK ones look pretty, but I'd still be wary of one where the entire unit connects to the JAMMA board - it's just not cool. You /could/ buy/make a small extension cable though. Also there's no +5 adjust on the PSU supplied with them.
Few additional notes or corrections:
Video - you don't need a transcoder if you live in Europe and plan to use a TV, or you have a good RGB monitor. However, at least with the TV you will need RGB pulldown resistors - preferably as adjustment pots, because the JAMMA colour voltage is outside of SCART input spec - resulting in colour bleed and so on.
Audio - it should be mentioned that TVs are another thing you shouldn't plug amped sound into. Also, for the speakers - I'd say 100W is too high, the vast majority of JAMMA boards will struggle to even push a 40W speaker hard unless you're burning the amp up at max. For example, Espgaluda II only has a 20W amp. Get one with decent sensitivity and you won't need to crank your PCBs up much at all.
As for your LCD screen - who can say. I'd expect it to have problems with anything that isn't perfectly on 60hz sync. Maybe others here can help - but you're better off with a CRT.
That supergun you linked to is confirmed as rubbish by the way - friend of mine bought one out of curiosity, for £68, with two PCBs. I can't remember the full list of bad things, but among them was having to use a PC power supply, and the stress put on the connector with the weight of all the stuff plugged into it.
The MAK ones look pretty, but I'd still be wary of one where the entire unit connects to the JAMMA board - it's just not cool. You /could/ buy/make a small extension cable though. Also there's no +5 adjust on the PSU supplied with them.
System11's random blog, with things - and stuff!
http://blog.system11.org
http://blog.system11.org
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MovingTarget
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cigsthecat
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MovingTarget
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That particular supergun will cost about £20 off eBay and you can provide your own ATX power supply, SCART lead, megadrive controller and passive speaker.MovingTarget wrote:Would the jamma supergun on this page http://www.consolepassion.co.uk/jamma-a ... erguns.htm
be suitable to run pcbs such as esprade and guwange etc?
Edit: I really don't like that Console Passion site.
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MovingTarget
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- Location: Scotland
So I can either buy an expensive but reliable supergun off videogameimports.com and just buy a power adapator, plus the right cable to monitor and thats it?
Or buy a basic supergun off of ebay plus an ATX power supply, SCART lead, megadrive controller and passive speaker as a cheaper option?
What pc engine fan mentioned about fuses, the adjustable 5 volt pot and static discharges has confused me quite a bit though...
Also if I wanted to use a sub woofer, would I just find the right adapter for the cable? "A dummy in-line filter is needed if you want hook up the PCB's sound output to a pair of headphones or stereo amp" this has confused me a bit too.
I want to make sure I get all the right kit, I especially dont want a pcb burning out on me!
Or buy a basic supergun off of ebay plus an ATX power supply, SCART lead, megadrive controller and passive speaker as a cheaper option?
What pc engine fan mentioned about fuses, the adjustable 5 volt pot and static discharges has confused me quite a bit though...
Also if I wanted to use a sub woofer, would I just find the right adapter for the cable? "A dummy in-line filter is needed if you want hook up the PCB's sound output to a pair of headphones or stereo amp" this has confused me a bit too.
I want to make sure I get all the right kit, I especially dont want a pcb burning out on me!
Know thy enemy attack pattern.
If you're happy with your soldering skills, then you could always try this:
http://www.chadsarcade.co.uk/oldsite/Su ... nIndex.htm
It's what I used to build my own supergun, and it worked first time. However, I chose to use a proper aracde power supply for reasons explained elsewhere on the forum.
Sure, it takes a little time to make, but it's not difficult, and you can't beat the feeling of satisfaction when completed.
http://www.chadsarcade.co.uk/oldsite/Su ... nIndex.htm
It's what I used to build my own supergun, and it worked first time. However, I chose to use a proper aracde power supply for reasons explained elsewhere on the forum.
Sure, it takes a little time to make, but it's not difficult, and you can't beat the feeling of satisfaction when completed.
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neorichieb1971
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This is a good schematic of a supergun for video/audio. The middle lower section is not required if your in Europe since SCART does not require an NTSC decoder from RGB. You can wire the RGB straight to a SCART lead and into a TV.
Also, if using SCART you can reroute the audio to the scart socket.
Between this schematic and Chavs link above you should be able to figure it all out. The joystick/buttons configuration is self explanatory from Jamma. You just wire each pin to each joystick/button position and do a ground loop connecting all the 2nd pins together, then back to the joystick controller port via its ground pin. If that sounds complicated, just buy one from someone here.
D_lite on the neo-geo forums sells really good superguns. They are expensive but they should work with any TV since he puts component, svideo and composite on them. You could even request one that just does RGB and take a good $100 off the price since the video circuitry to convert to NTSC is the most expensive component. D-Lites guns all use the DB15 neo geo standard. So for any shooter, just plug in any neo geo controller (stick or pad) and your basically ready to rocknroll.
If you don't get one with arcade PSU, it most likely will not support -5v. But 90% of Jamma boards don't use it and none of the more recent (last 3 years or so) use it at all.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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MovingTarget
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About that red PCB supergun. If you want to use a genuine arcade power supply instead of an ATX power supply then you could do so fairly easily, by buying some wire and connecting the arcade supply's outputs to the right places on an ATX plug. You could buy the wire and ATX plug from, say, www.maplin.co.uk
Those red PCB superguns are appearing a lot these days so whether they're any good will soon become clear.
Those red PCB superguns are appearing a lot these days so whether they're any good will soon become clear.
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neorichieb1971
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MovingTarget wrote:many thanks again for all the help, I think I'll have to buy one though. It looks a bit too confusing
Is it easy enough setting the pcbs up once its all plugged in? ie screen rotation parameters etc... What with Japanese being tricky to interpret and all
Once you buy a supergun and connect the harness to the PCB its practically plug and play.
Pressing the test button will bring up the PCB options, just set it to freeplay, set the amount of lives etc, then select "EXIT" or whatever the option is at the bottom and you will be back in the game. Its no harder than setting options in console games.
Dlites website has the superguns he builds listed -
http://www.multimods.com/
Just select "supergun models" from the left hand side menu.
I would just ask him to build you an RGB enabled supergun with neo geo AV output so you can use a SNK Neo geo scart lead. I don't think he would charge more than $170 for that.
you would have to buy your own sticks though. You could build your own, its only a matter of connecting about 15 wires to each button and joystick position.
http://www.blackdown.org/hwb/connector/ ... stick.html
Just connect a DB15 to any joystick and 3 buttons to the relevant pins. Connect all the grounds together in a loop then back to pin 1. Then you have a working joystick. Or just buy a neo geo joystick and copy it by opening it up.. its really simple.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
About controllers, if you're concerned about price, you can also make your own from gamepads too.
Personally I find that Genesis 6-button controllers are great for the job. The feel is almost the same as a Saturn pad, but they are much cheaper and readily available (at least in my parts). I've made 5 or 6 controllers like this in the past year, but also a number of console joysticks hacked to a DB-15 output too. Just so you know you don't have to build controllers completely from scratch.
If you don't have a RGB monitor or TV and don't want to spend a lot of money buying a NTSC convertor, you can also make your own. There's a thread here with some info on building a cheap RGB encoder.
Personally I find that Genesis 6-button controllers are great for the job. The feel is almost the same as a Saturn pad, but they are much cheaper and readily available (at least in my parts). I've made 5 or 6 controllers like this in the past year, but also a number of console joysticks hacked to a DB-15 output too. Just so you know you don't have to build controllers completely from scratch.
If you don't have a RGB monitor or TV and don't want to spend a lot of money buying a NTSC convertor, you can also make your own. There's a thread here with some info on building a cheap RGB encoder.