Sega Astro City

Console to JAMMA testing

This has been on my list of “things to do” for some time. I wanted a EASY way to hook up various consoles to my Sega Astro City cab and play vertical shooters. Many of the console based vertical shooters have a screen rotate option in the settings menus which makes the arcade experience ever more real at home.

Hardware I used:

  • JAMMA fingerboard
  • Ultracade Universal Video Converter
  • Akishop PS360+ multi-console PCB

This is my test setup, once I verify it working (which I did) I will make a more permanent solution. I am working on a wire harness to really clean this up.

I used to have just a Sega Dreamcast in my cabinet but now I can use many others due to the PS360+ console compatibility.

Xbox 360 to JAMA

I am in the process of making a dedicated Xbox 360 that will reside in my Astro Cab. This Xbox 360 will be JTAGed and will have a 1TB HDD internal for game storage. I am still trying to figure out what front end I will use and would like to see if I can get a vertical theme since all games I will be playing will be tate.

Hardware Needed:

  • Multi-Console Cthulhu (DONE)
  • Small Stereo Audio Amp
  • VGA to JAMMA Board (DONE)

More to come.

 

 

Where have I been?

I have not been working on any gaming related projects for almost a year other than actually playing games. I have tried to juggle my gaming projects and my music electronic projects and its just did not work out. So what got me here today? I am in need of some shmups playing real bad.. I miss it so much and really wanted to get my Xbox 360 hooked up to my Astro Cab to play some tate shmups. I will post my notes as I build this and hope it will help me keep my thoughts together.

Amp & Speakers

I got a temporary amp to test the stock 3″ speakers that came with the Sega Astro City and I was not impressed at all. In fact, it sounded terrible. So I decided to find some inexpensive replacements and turned to Parts-Express for that. Here are a few different models I am looking at.

The amp I got to drive these speakers is a Sega Naomi Amp.
I know the replacements need to be at the least 3″ and 4 Ohm. The stock speakers are 15 Watt RMS speakers.

Tang Band W3-881SI 3″ Speaker

Peerless 830986 3″ Full Range Woofer

 

Sega Naomi Audio Amp Install

Copped this from the Neo-Geo forums.

[spoiler title=”Tutorial” open=”0″ style=”1″]

first step, the amp

2, connect the transformer as shown in the pic.

3, connect this white, black, and green cables to the cable that comes out of the transformer.

4, this are the ends of the white, black, and green cables. Those ends need to be connected to your arcade PSU.

Today I needed to test the AMP, so I had to connect the white and the black cables to a regular AC plug to power the amp.

5, connect the Audio Left (white) and right (red) cables to the amp

6, and then to the PCB board

7, then connect the volume pot molex to the amp. (left hand side next to the audio plugs). volume pot not pictured, I forgot.

8, connect the audio left and right molex to the amp. (right hand side white and red molex)

9. there are 4 end cables from the 2 audio molex, 2 from the white molex (left audio) and 2 from the red molex (right audio) they need to be connected to your cab Stereo plug, in my case was the “F” molex in my Egret II. this one
picture of the cables and the molex:

this is a diagram of the Egret II connector (got the pic from some of Kernow post, thanks!)

and the ends of the red and white audio molex are as follow: WHITE (left audio) Grey is L+ and Orange is L-, and RED (right audio) Grey is R+ and Orange is R-

10, next thing you need to do is go to your ARcade pcb setting and set it to stereo, and make sure you put YOUR CAB in stero, (there should be a switch, at least mine has one switch for Mono and Stereo)

I think thats about it. Power on your cab, if the amp is connected to your cab PSU, it should turn on automatically and be ready to work. Hope it helps.

[/spoiler]

I just wanted to archive this incase is ever removed.

AMP / Tyco UP (Universal Power) Connectors

I am so tired of looking for these AMP UP connectors for my Sega Astro City control panel. I finally found a good USA resource for them. Here are the part numbers for the connectors used in the control panel.

Use this site to search for part numbers
http://octopart.com

http://www.onlinecomponents.com
11125 S. Eastern Ave. Ste 120
Henderson, NV 89052 USA

Speaker male: 4 Pin
Part Number: 176273-1 (Order)

Speaker female:
Part Number: 176294-1 (Order)

Player 1 male: 12 Pin
Part Number: 176278-1 (Order)

Player 1 female: 
Part Number: 176299-1 (Order)

Optional / Kick Harness male: 10 Pin
Part Number: 176277-1 (Order)

Optional / Kick Harness female: 
Part Number: 176298-1 (Order)

Ground male: 2 Pin
Part Number:  176271-1 (Order)

Ground female:
Part Number: 176292-1 (Order)

Male Pins:
Part Number: 175152-1 (Order) (Digikey)

Female Pins:
Part Number: 175150-1 (Order) (Digikey)

 

PC to JAMMA

I finally got my PC to JAMMA converter tested. Next I will get it mounted on a proper piece of wood an clean up the wires. Here is a shot of it.

20120113-105601.jpg

Here is the parts list:

  • JAMMA Fingerboard (link)
  • MC Cthulhu from Godlike Controls (link)
  • UltraCade uVC Universal Video Converter (link)

Everything connects to a Dell Quad Core PC.

Here is a shot of everything running in 15khz on my Sega Astro City.

20120113-105949.jpg