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Building a supergun
TheSonicRetard
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Earlier tonight I was fortunate enough to pick up a Sega ST-V mainboard along with a virtua fighter kids cartridge, along with a Primal Rage Jamma PCB. Though I already have 2 full cabinets - one housing a PC and the other housing an MVS, I figured I'd build a supergun instead. I purchased one of these small boards:
with the intent of modding the shitout of it and putting it into a nice custom case. Which brings me to the point of this topic - anyone else have any experience building a supergun before? I'm looking for inspiration on the design of the case. I've been googling homebuild superguns and most are ass-ugly. Mainly, no one seems to know what the hell to do with the PCB.
I'm thinking about shaping my supergun like a PS2, so you can lay the PCB ontop of the system itself. Any idea if this would cause problems? Also, is a 250w ATX power supply ample?
with the intent of modding the shitout of it and putting it into a nice custom case. Which brings me to the point of this topic - anyone else have any experience building a supergun before? I'm looking for inspiration on the design of the case. I've been googling homebuild superguns and most are ass-ugly. Mainly, no one seems to know what the hell to do with the PCB.
I'm thinking about shaping my supergun like a PS2, so you can lay the PCB ontop of the system itself. Any idea if this would cause problems? Also, is a 250w ATX power supply ample?
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No, this isn't a homebuilt cabinet, it's the opposite. See, in the old days, every arcade machine was basically custom built. An arcade machine is essentially a big wooden box with wires running through it to giant motherboards. In the 70's and early 80's, every game was pretty much custom built. There existed no standard for wiring. One game might use a monitor wired in one way, and another used one completely different. One game might use controls wiring in one fashion, and another would have them wired completely differently.
Arcade makers quickly learned that if they standardized their wiring, they could re-purpose cabinets easily, which would be attractive for arcade vendors. So they created the JAMMA standard interface, which looks like a video game cartridge slot. Arcade PCBs from that point on featured a cartridge-like pinout on one side of the PCB which would connect to a harness which would route the wiring correctly. It essentially became a standard for what an arcade machine was. The physical cabinet, I mean.
But because it's just a standard, it's possible to build it into anything, not just a full sized arcade cabinet. Which is what a supergun is - it's a jamma standard, built into something that looks like a home console. Since the wiring schematics are openly available, you can build a sick-ass arcade-console. The supergun innards I bought, pictured above, for example, accepts Neo Geo AES control sticks and pads.
That is one supergun.
This is a dedicate one for the neo geo MVS.
My plan is to build a nice, small box to house it, which would resemble a normal console, and also provide a practical means to holding the PCB. This way, I'll be able to play arcade games on a normal TV like any other game.
There is a PC inside this machine. There is Street Fighter IV on that PC. This arcade machine can play Street Fighter IV. Online.
I'm a huge collector of video games and I'm nearing the end of the road. There's not a whole lot of oddball consoles out there left to grab up, so I've begun thinking laterally lately. Built the PC cab, now I'm building a supergun. The other day, I bought a PSP Go, a cradle, some av-out cables, and a matching DS3 to build myself a PSP Go console.
You've just reminded me of this
Firing up Ebay on phone!
Alas, can't help you with building a supergun, I'm afraid. I literally came in here to figure out what one was and then there was the cabinet and, well, here we are.
Good luck TSR.
This is the next best thing though, good luck!
That's exactly what this is, man. That is called a "super gun."
in what way?
That said, home cabinets are sexy and have always been a dream of mine. One day...
What does it have to do with a "gun" that you'd call it that?
I dunno, that's just the term for this type of thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperGun
If you need any adapters, wiring harnesses, or arcade parts at all I highly recommend lizardlick.com his prices are good and shipping is fair and he was fairly active on the SRK forums when I was active, providing tons of support and advice on arcade parts.
Exquisite.
Seems I blindly made the right choice in superguns. On a few supergun forums they're describing this line as perfect for the hobbiest new to supergun construction, which is exactly what I am. I'd been interested in a supergun for a decade now, and I always dreamed of owning a MAS SuperNova, but their high price (they were like $2000 back in 99 when I first found out about them) always made me stay away. Now that I'm older, I'm confident that I can build something that matches, or exceeds their build quality.
the mas supernova, for those who are curious:
For many, many hundreds of dollars. Which I will pay.
Can't help you on the aesthetics side, mine is in a cheap radio shack project box. Once I redo it its going to go in a slightly nicer looking enclosure or a desktop case.
It's currently setup for jamma and I run a 1 slot neogeo mvs board on it.
Looking at getting into cps1/2/other jamma some time in the future, and will either setup switches or just use a convertor so i can hook up a 4 slot mvs. Switching carts is a bit annoying.
Video goes to my scart/rgb -> component convertor which I use with my other older consoles.
Control's are hooked up to db15 sockets wired to neogeo standard, something else I will change in rev2 for cps support. They then go to a separate box which converts jamma controls to psx which work with my arcade sticks.
Power is just a standard at or atx computer supply. Jamma boards really don't require much amperage so its more important to get a decent power supply if you are going that route. I have fuses on mine, 10amp on the 5v and 2amp on the 12v maybe. Could be reversed, either way they haven't popped yet so the current pull is pretty low compared to what your average pc supply puts out.
I got mine from jamma-boards.com I think. Some people like to use actual arcade supplies.
Playing arcade games in your living room is awesome, wish i had the space for an actual cab.
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
What I'm planning on doing for my supergun is keeping the neogeo standard sockets, and adding a separate db15 socket to the front which is directly wired to a CPS2 kick harness (along with an MK2-3-4 harness) and building a couple of custom controllers which have 2 plugs each. That way, if I want, I can still use an AES stick with the machine, or I can plug in a custom controller and connect the extra buttons to the db15 socket for 6-button support.
The supernova is kind of giant, but it's also a grounded platform for your PCB, so can't really complain.
FFBE: 898,311,440
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I can tell you exactly how much that cab cost minus electronics - $25. I bought a bootleg wonderboy cabinet from a place called Houston Arcade Game Repair Center, gutted it, fixed it up, and replaced pretty much every significant panel on the machine, including building a new control panel from scratch. Total, it cost maybe $80-$100. The entire machine ran me under $400.
I bought a bunch of tools in between the supergun and modding my arcade stick for rj-45. Files, dremel, hole saw, better drill bits, heat gun. Between tools and materials I was out around $200 for those projects, if i had the tools it would have been closer to $75.
Time spent on actual labor and research is probably closer to ~ 20 hours.
That being said my next supergun will probably go a lot quicker. I won't be fighting with mounting ports on a project box with pcb ridges, or adding un-needed connections and the research portion is pretty much done.
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
Is it wrong this is the first thing I thought of?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-sTHio7IAI
Regardless, that's a fine bit a work. Makes me a bit nostalgic.
I built my cab in about a week of freetime after work. Really, the hardest part was actually getting started - I bought the thing in 2002 and just kinda let it sit, untouched, for 8 years until I actually fixed it up in 2010.
Thats what it looked like when I got it. You can't see from those pics, but the woodwork was full of holes and rotten spots, which required a ton of patchwork, and is why I had to replace several large panels.
if im not mistaken, arcade-in-a-box started out selling supergun builds. which is why their name is what it is.
best I can tell, according to the BYOAC forums, is that the name "supergun" comes from a mistranslation from a chinese company who was the originator of the concept back in the early 90's.
How much of that is urban legend, I dunno.
EDIT: Oh wait, you mean that's why arcade-in-a-box is named arcade-in-a-box, lol. I'd been toying with the idea of putting the arcade innards into a joystick but I've decided against it for a couple of reasons. First - if I ever wanted to play a non-joystick game, such as the SegaSonic Arcade game I'm receiving which uses a trackball, I'd be screwed. Second, I'd have to run an av cable and power cord from the joystick to the tv/outlet, which would mean some long wires running all over my living room. And third, and finally, the types of arcade games I'm interested use removable cartridges and require you to connect a system board to the jamma harness (i.e. sega naomi games, st-v games, cps-2 games, etc.) This would be incredibly awkward if they were attached to the controller.
And one final reason which is purely cosmetic - I'd like to place this thing under my tv, next to my other consoles, and be able to point and say "yep, that's my arcade machine."
i was mostly referring to AIAB's company name comes from them originally selling superguns. I could see a botched chinese translation contributing to names though... isnt that why we have:
"You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance."
lol yeah, I figured out what you meant after I posted. I dunno how much weight the story holds, but Build Your Own Arcade Controls has been THE hobbiest website for stuff like this since about 1997. However, by the time they were up and running, the term supergun had been around for half a decade, so everything they say on the subject is largely hear-say. It undoubtedly caught on when MAS introduced the SuperNova Supergun, which is still the most recognized commercial supergun around.
I also don't know if the term "Supergun" was the chinese mistranslating something from english, like the origin of the name Donkey Kong, or if someone translated the original chinese name to "Supergun".
unfortunately the ST-V and the carts haven't arrived yet, but the Primal Rage PCB and the supergun itself are here
The supergun itself sitting on a genesis box for size comparison
NeoGeo AES controller plugged in
the primal rage PCB along with the supergun and the controller
up-close image of the connection on the primal rage PCB and the supergun itself
I'm gonna eat, then hook it all up and see if it works.
however, the fine tuning control for the green channel is EXTREMELY sensitive, to the point where getting correct colors is a chore. However, as is is name of the game with superguns, I can simply buy a better solution - a JROK RGB->NTSC converter for $60. Which I've just ordered. In the mean time, I'm gonna begin designing the casing.
How much does a pcb run? You also mentioned getting a cartridge? So to dumb it down for me, this thing accepts both pcb and neo geo style( and evidently other arcade companies) cartridges?
Ive always wanted to do a micro atx nes arcade system, but this is neat.
Oh and do you have the pissality? Is it censored in any way?