MVS Neo Geo Cabinet - Scratch built

[Bod2019]

Hi all, been a big fan of Neo Geo for a long time.  I originally posted this build log in the Official Neo Geo thread here on Atari Age, but as some suggested I should have created my own thread to make it easier for others to find.  The following posts are lifted from what I posted in the original thread.  I hope this is helpful to anyone wishing to follow suit, if anyone has any question, feel free to ask.

 

PS: A big thank you to Anthony (FDurso244) and all others on the Official Neo Geo Thread for their encouragement during my build, it certainly got spurred me on to finish this. 

 

AES was completely unobtainable for me as a child, so Sega Mega Drive it was.  I would look at the adverts in my gaming magazines, only to be reminded of the massive costs.

 

I only ever really got to see Neo Geo via TV shows such as GamesMaster in the UK.

 

Fast forward, I've finally picked up an MVS board, and plenty of other supplies as I've decided - at this point questionably - to build myself a US style MVS red cabinet - MVS one slot, with CRT and all.

 

It's a new project for me, something I've not really done before.  Anyway here are some pics, not much as yet, but hopefully will take shape over the next few weeks.

 

 

[Bod2019]

As a small update. I've booked off some annual leave from work, first week of November, which is when I plan to get the bulk of the cabinet done.

 

Yesterday I had a small delivery too.  I pre ordered this back in August.  A fairly fundamental piece of the Jigsaw puzzle.

 

Yossi of BeharBros has been great at communicating, highly recommended this far.  I plan to test wire everything later today hopefully and make sure all is working.

 

The Supergun is cheating (a little) for my cab, but still gets the job done.

[Bod2019]

This came last week also, and have been itching to test it, but had to wait for the Shogun and also solder some connections for my controls.

 

Hopefully also on test later today.

[Bod2019]

I managed to run a test last night, hooked everything up, including a mock up of my controls (empty shoe box optional ?).

 

Had a bit of a fright at first as it seemed my picture wouldn't sync with any of my screens.  Turned out to be a cable issue.

 

Then I encountered a graphical glitch (vertical lines through sprites) I pulled out all connections and used a pencil eraser to clean contacts.  Worked a treat.

 

Lastly one of my CRTs is suffering occasional wobble with its image, luckily the second screen appears ok, but requires a little geometry work to be perfect.

 

Some pictures attached,. Excuse the mess.

[Bod2019]

Side Panels

As you’ll be aware I had already cut out the side panels, and cut the slots for the final ’T-Moulding’ to finish.  Whilst marking out the side panels I spent a far bit of time marking out the internal geometry to help me understand where each panel would fix, and how they would interact with each other.  This included troubleshooting a hinged marquee retaining panel, as well as how the bezel, control panel and screen glass all interact and sit with one another.

In the attached pictures I have set about fixing internal mounting points aligned with all of my markings, as detailed above.  Nothing too difficult here, just ensure things are aligned with my markings and fixed secure.  The timbers are essentially just big enough to allow a ledge for the each panel to rest on and attach to.

I have tried to design my cabinet so that all fixings are internal, this is for several reasons:

1. To remove the need for filling lots of holes on any of my external panels.
2. So that I can apply paint/artwork to individual panels, making for a more manageable process/effective process.
3. Easier movement of the cabinet as it can be reconstructed in a room of choice.  If fully built this thing will weigh a tonne.

[Bod2019]

Base

For a while I wasn’t sure how to treat the base of the cabinet, I thought I just might let the bottom rest wherever I dropped the cabinet.  Then I figured wheels would be a good idea for easier movement/relocating within a room.

 

Given the weight of this unit, which I touched on before, I was particularly nervous about how to tackle having the whole weight of the cabinet, components, CRT monitor all pushing down onto four wheels.  I got to a point where I was overthinking and by the end kept it simple by increasing the bracing timber size, increasing the number of fixings, and doubling up the floor material depth side to side of the floor where the wheels are bolted to the cabinet.  Photos below are the final solution.  So far it seems robust enough for my needs.

[Bod2019]

Speaker Panel

 

This is an element of the build where my research led me nowhere.  I found little to nothing on the internet with respect the original cabinets speaker panel.  I went with a very traditional style of slotting the speaker output areas.  On paper and when designing for this I figured this would be a two minute job.  But nothing during this build has been a two minute job, unfortunately.  I had to adjust my technique for creating the slots part way though my work as I wasn’t happy with how things were looking.

 

Because I opted to use 18mm board throughout the build for all panels (mostly) I figured I wanted to route out a 9mm recess for my speakers to sit in neatly once mounted in the panel, hoping it may have a positive reflection on the sound too.

 

As the speaker panel abuts the screen bezel I had designed my panel to have a recess for the screen glass to neatly slot into to secure it in place, again I chopped out 9mm deep, by 4mm wide (the depth of my screen glass/perspex).

 

I’m not incredibly happy with how the speaker panel has come out, and might revisit this one day, but for now it will suffice with a little sprucing up prior to painting.

 

As mentioned before I wanted all panels internally fixed, and you will see in one of the pictures where I have used internal mounting with braces for for the panel to rest again, the fixings are then screwed through the brace into the rear of the speaker panel.

[Bod2019]

Screen Bezel

 

Fairly simple, the screen bezel slips just behind my speaker panel as they intersect at 90 degrees to each other.  As per my speaker panel this is fixed from the rear, using the same style bracing system, which is plenty strong enough to hold up this panel.

 

I cutout the screen aperture (I’m using a 21” CRT, a little smaller than the standard 25” usually in these cabinets, but still a CRT   ).  I added a small radius to the corners of the screen, which allowed me to run a 1/2” roundover to the finished edge to hopefully set it off a little against the screen.

[Bod2019]

Coin Door

 

Again a simple panel, with the aperture for the coin door centrally located and cutout.  The coin door (a Suzo Happ, Over/Under door) I sought out to best replicate the originals.  I would like to change my coin return from yellow to red when I get a chance, but that can wait for the minute.  At present the coin door has 25c (quarter dollar) mechs, which I think I will leave alone and keep (I’m in the UK), I’ve managed to get hold of a very small handful of quarters from eBay, but like the idea of this running of US currency (going for the historical accuracy ? ).

 

The biggest issue I had with the coin door design was how it would interact with my floor.  The wheels I added to the floor were designed to be discrete and only lift the cabinet 10mm from the floor.  Because of this there were a few careful measurements which had to be calculated to ensure the beefed up floor of the cabinet doesn’t clash with the coin bin at the base of the coin door.  Thankfully the time spent working it out was well spent as all sits nicely together.

 

The coin door is braced as per the speaker panel and bezel, at the top of the panel, and beneath the cabinet floor, I do also have interim modesty blocks further securing the panel in place.

[Bod2019]

Control Panel

 

The control panel has taken a hell of a lot of my thoughts when it has come to the design and replication.  As with all of this build I have wanted to get as close as I can to the original design of an MVS cabinet (within reason), the control panel has been no exception.

 

For those unaware the original control panels are metal, and follow a very nice set of 90 degree bends, where it returns on itself and culminates in a hinge that mounts it to a panel at the top of the coin door panel.

I have to accept my limitations on this build, I am not familiar with working with metal, so decided a wooden panel would have to suffice.  I spent a long time looking at how to build this control panel through the medium of wood, whilst creating something accurate and true to the original.

 

My design ended up consisting of four panels, which are doweled and glued together for strength (no screws - sticking to my desire not to have to fill any holes).  A fifth panel sits ontop of the coin door panel where the panel is hinged, to enable access to the MVS board, etc..,.

 

Again on paper this all seemed feasible, and within my abilities to undertake.  I repeat, on paper.  This was probably the one job I had built up in my head as being the most critical in relation to precision of cuts and routing on my part.  For several reasons:

1. I had purchased a new reproduction of an original one slot control panel overlay.  As the original panel is all flush across the top, I didn’t want to have my overlay (2mm thick) standing proud of the rest of my panel.  I had to ensure all of my cuts were square and accurate to allow the overlap to sit nicely with my control panel.
2. I have opted to use Sanwa JLF joysticks in my panel, my control panel is 18mm thick, so to enable the correct mounting height I needed to route out both a hole for the base of the Sanwa’s to drop into the panel and a10mm drop to mount the sticks at precisely 24mm to bottom balltop.  To do this I made up my own template which I cut out of some scrap material.
3. Sanwa OB30 screw in buttons, again I had to route out half the material of the panel to enable them to fit, as they are quite shallow in depth.
4. I’ve never jointed boards with dowel and glue before, so this was a critical element as accuracy of the joints needed to be fairly spot on so all of the rounded edges flowed together, I setup a jig for this purpose, thankfully all worked out.
5. With the control panel being the main point of contact/interaction from the player I wanted to ensure it felt as high a quality and feel as I could achieve, and inline with the original design.  I studied lots of pictures and to get as close as I could to make this look genuine, and going back and forth I decided to get the right flow of angles I went with a 10 degree uplift on the panel, and 1/2’ roundover for the returning edges of the panel.

The control panel is not entirely finished, aside from the paint/finish, I have yet to attach my upstand where the control panel meets the screen glass, also I am awaiting some black coach bolts to hold down the overlay to my panel.

[Bod2019]

Hinge Marguee access panel

 

Another part of the cabinet with very little information available online, I just decided to work with the space I have left after designing in the speaker panel.  I was aware of the lock location, and the fact there was a piano hinge, and that was it.

 

I managed to find a video on YouTube where an owner of a real cabinet removed the Marquee, which showed a little bit what was going on ‘behind the scenes’ so to speak.

 

I used a standard barrel lock, with piano hinge, the marquee rests in a small recess on a aluminium angle, when unlocked the panel drops down releasing the marquee so the Mini Marquee can be quickly changed without unscrewing parts of the cabinet.

 

[Bod2019]

Dry fit

All panels are now cut and tested for fit, here I have a few pictures showing everything screwed together, pretty much a complete cabinet.  Now to pull it all apart and paint.

[Bod2019]

Painting

 

After the lengthy task of cleaning up my garage in preparation for painting I finally managed to get some primer/undercoat on the panels.

 

All of the back panels and the sides of the cabinets were simply rolled with a white undercoat/primer to seal the timber ahead of a top coat, or in the case of the side panels the vinyl wrap.

 

All black panels were spray painted following numerous coats of primer, and light rubbing down between coats. A day and a half worth of painting, but generally I was happy enough with the results.

[Bod2019]

Subwoofer

I decided from early on in the build that I would love the impact that a subwoofer can add to the experience, I really wanted that impactful arcade sound, and given the space available in the bottom of the cabinet, it would be rude not to.

This part of the build was merely function over beauty, it’s rough and ready but produces pretty decent results for very little money.  I calculated the volume of the speaker cabinet to match the driver I bought, and worked with the correctly tuned length of reflex port.  Sounds great, just excuse the rough appearance.

[Bod2019]

Vinyl

A while back I faced the decision of whether to paint the sides and coin door panel and add artwork, or go for a full ‘vinyl wrap’ for the whole sides and coin door.   Took me a while to decide and in the end I went with the wrap as I hoped it would give a more professional finish that I might be able to achieve with paint.

 

Reaching this step meant I could move the cabinet into the house, in a cleaner environment, and in the room I intend to keep the unit.  Lying it down seemed a far easier way to apply the large ‘sticker’ rather than trying to do it whiles the cabinet was vertical.

 

I’ve had a tiny bit of experience apply vinyl to small things in the past, but not much experience.  To say I was nervous about doing this probably doesn’t cover it, as I was all too aware how horribly wrong it could go.

I had it in mind that I would probably spend 1-2 hours applying both sides.  I would say closer to 4 hours by the time I was done.  The first side was a nightmare as I hadn’t honed my technique, air bubbles everywhere, battling with the vinyl wrapped around a tube with one hand, whilst trying to spread it out evenly with the other hand (I did this alone, no spare hands to help).  By the end of the first side I realised where I was going wrong, and luckily corrected a lot of my mistakes.  The second side went on super quick (1/4 of the time it took the first side) and with no issues at all, shows what a little bit of trial and error can do for learning I guess.

The coin door, likewise was a breeze.

 

Things changed up a bit when I took to my control panel.  I had always planned to wrap the contact surfaces on this, and using a laminated vinyl with a nice finish was always the plan to give this a professional finish.  Applying the vinyl was a bit of a logistical nightmare for numerous reasons revolving mostly around the control panel overlay, I got there in the end, and was very pleased with the end result.

[Bod2019]

Electronics Hook Up

 

This part was relatively straightforward.  I opted to have a power strip within the cabinet, this was to allow me to power my CRT Monitor, Audio Amplifier, Marquee Light and the Arcade Power Supply.  Externally the cabinet would only require one lead in, this was wired up with a switch for easy on and off externally.

The button wiring, again straightforward, I opted to solder my connections to DB15 connectors which in turn would be connected to my Behar Bros Shogun, simple loop of the ground/common and all wires soldered to their respective pins, including the coin door for credit.

[Bod2019]

Mini Marquee light and holder

 

For the mini marquee light, I opted for a LED panel light, easily available for little money on Ebay, I wired this direct to a plug and connected to my power strip.  To help control the light I used some foam board, hot glued to try and limit light bleed across the main marquee.

The Mini Marquee sit in a holder on the back of the Marquee panel, so I simply cut some clear plastic, a little double sided tape and the Mini Marquees slip it and out nicely whenever I wish to change it up.

[Bod2019]

That about wraps up the build, here are some teaser images/video before I reveal the whole thing.  ?

 

 

 

 

[Bod2019]

 

Hi all, a very short video of my finished cabinet.

Edited November 27, 2020 by Bod2019

[Bod2019]

Some finished cabinet pictures.

[Reaperman]

I really like this build!  So often neo geo projects these days use emulation, and IMO neo geo emulation has actually been getting worse rather than better.  Combined with a CRT it really does feel like the user is wired directly into those games.

 

You sure did do that control panel the hard way, though.   Looks better than great, but I bet you couldn't fit the button wrench down into those recesses so there was probably some cursing involved. I might have considered cheating by oversizing the mdf holes and attaching the buttons to a couple sheets of macrolon with the overlay sandwiched in between.  That stuff cuts okay with wood tools and doesn't crack like plexi. 

 

Personally, I really like iL's convex buttons with 75g cherry switches, which are a nice combo with an MDF control panel.  They've got a nice tactile feedback with a convex shape that allows for more finger-glide than most western-style controls.

 

This reminds me that the control panel on my ugly, gray, romstar MVS cab is godawful, and needs a redo.  My cab seems to have been originally spaced for a 2-button setup (probably bubble bobble) with C+D buttons added later as an afterthought.  I'm also half planning to steal your subwoofer idea.  It's a great use of otherwise useless space.

Edited November 27, 2020 by Reaperman

[Bod2019]

19 minutes ago, Reaperman said:

You sure did do that control panel the hard way, though. 

It was a labour of love ??

 

It took a while but to be fair it all went to plan, so I can't complain.  The Sanwa buttons self tighten as the orange base bits into the MDF when you rotate them, I was expecting the cursing as you rightly pointed out, but all was well in the end.

23 minutes ago, Reaperman said:

I'm also half planning to steal your subwoofer idea.

I highly recommend the sub.  Originally I planned to just attach the driver to a panel inside, but realised this wouldn't be optimal.  So I picked a driver, worked out the appropriate volume of air for its enclosure and built that.  It adds a nice dimension to the whole experience, highly recommended.  Blazing Star sounded ace.

[+Charlie Cat]

5 hours ago, Bod2019 said:

It was a labour of love ??

 

 

It certainly is Chris. Really enjoyed this separate thread of yours and thank you for mentioning me, the Neo-Geo thread, and our members here on Atariage.com to help inspire you to continue pursuing your interest on completing your MVS "Big-Red" replica unit. I had to read this with snacks and soda-pop since all the postings you shared are very informative and motivational for others to try to construct a unit just like yours. 

 

If I lived closed by to you and had the space, I would personally be willing to order a unit from you for me to have rather than an SNK cabinet. The hard work and dedication you involved yourself into making one is admirable. This takes time and dedication that only true individuals like yourself who are skillful can only do. If that day comes, I'll be glad to remit payment for you to fulfill an order for one. Which, I believe is a demand out there since others are interesting to do bro. 

 

Thank you as always Chris. Next will be the Q&A article to help expand your works and to give additional exposure for what you accomplished kind sir. 

 

Anthony.. 

[Bod2019]

34 minutes ago, fdurso224 said:

It certainly is Chris. Really enjoyed this separate thread of yours and thank you for mentioning me, the Neo-Geo thread, and our members here on Atariage.com to help inspire you to continue pursuing your interest on completing your MVS "Big-Red" replica unit. I had to read this with snacks and soda-pop since all the postings you shared are very informative and motivational for others to try to construct a unit just like yours. 

 

If I lived closed by to you and had the space, I would personally be willing to order a unit from you for me to have rather than an SNK cabinet. The hard work and dedication you involved yourself into making one is admirable. This takes time and dedication that only true individuals like yourself who are skillful can only do. If that day comes, I'll be glad to remit payment for you to fulfill an order for one. Which, I believe is a demand out there since others are interesting to do bro. 

 

Thank you as always Chris. Next will be the Q&A article to help expand your works and to give additional exposure for what you accomplished kind sir. 

 

Anthony.. 

Thank you Anthony, very kind.  At the very least I hope this can help others who venture down a similar path.

 

Looking forward to the Q&A.

[+Charlie Cat]

4 hours ago, Bod2019 said:

Thank you Anthony, very kind.  At the very least I hope this can help others who venture down a similar path.

 

Looking forward to the Q&A.

You're welcome Chris. Always a pleasure.

 

Interestingly, we are also doing a Q&A article with Paul (Mx5dob) that also commented on your fine work as well. He has an unusual piece in his collection called the SNK "Neo Print" and converted it to be playable. I never seen anything like that done before. So seeing you and Paul's works will really amaze the community as well. Brilliant fellas you both are.  

 

Anthony..