Original Project Thread: https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/97314-italian-arcade-machine/
Been a while since I’ve posted an arcade project so here’s my latest.
This cab has been sitting in my garage for years as a long non-started project. I recently took a couple of days off (in lock down) and decided it finally needed some love. Originally a container import out of Italy, it arrived non working.
There was no life in the 35 year old Hantarex Power Supply rattling around loose in the cab and the Orion tube/chassis would also not fire up. Knowing virtually nothing about the electronics on those particular parts, combined with the age and state of them I ended up removing them from the cabinet.
I gave the cabinet a thorough clean as I’d never seen one like this and I loved the artwork and style of the cabinet.
I had to repair the front frame of the monitor mount. Its made out of MDF and in glued and screwed into the sides but has started to collapse. I ended up filling it with MDF glue, clamping it back into shape and letting it set overnight. I think its stronger than new now.
Unholy of holies I have a stash of 19″ CRT PC monitors so I de-cased one and slotted it into the chassis frame. A little diligence in cutting some of the plastics and it fit like a glove. Yeah yeah I know Arcade Tubes are far and away better and several of my other cabs sport them but I was in lock down with no access to any other parts so sue me 😉
The control panel is covered with a sheet of acrylic now as the original underneath has many marks from cigarette burns. Notice the cigarette holder on the right. That’d never fly in Australia.
I gave it all a good clean, removing the rusted bolts and giving them the treatment. The treatment being locked into a cordless drill and spun against some finishing paper. Then undercoated and sprayed black. As usual they came up really well. The cigarette holder was removed and polished. The bolts for those were also rusted but I sanded them and then clear coated to prevent them rusting up again.
I re-built an old Dell PC I have a few of. Windows 7, Mame and MalaFE all configured and ready to go then interfaced it all with a J-Pac. Hands down the easiest way to get your controls running. Some test drives, configuring a few of the controls at a global level and everything is working as expected.
Note I was cheeky and edited the original MalaFE layout I’d selected to add my own description at the bottom.
I’d retained the Jamma harness and all of the micro-switch connections had been soldered on. Good practice but a bitch for replacement and maintenance. I was lucky in that there were no broken connections.
Another advantage of the J-Pac is the Shift Key function so I don’t have to drill holes and add extra buttons for Exit and Coin Inserts.
Further to this the coin mechs were still all wired up to the harness and dropping a 50 euro cent coin into the slots triggers a credit. Love it although I only have 5 of the coins. Thinking about modifying them to use the 100 custom tokens I have but with the J-Pac’s shift keys it would purely be a novelty.
Note the Price on the Inserts. I do need to replace the bulbs in there so they look nicely backlit. (Note this photo is before I cleaned it all)
Italian Gaming Licence ID:
I’ve configured the PC to start up after power loss and MalaFE to start up with Windows.
The cab has an IEC power socket on the top with a fused switch. I wired that into a 4 port power board that I mounted inside the cab. This powers the monitor, PC and eventually a fluorescent tube for the marquee. The original was practically disintegrating.
Unfortunately the marquee (glass) was broken. So I scanned it with a flatbed scanner and have restored the image after I vectorized it. It’s now complete and I’ll send it off to be printed on a new acrylic marquee to fit. See my short instructional process for doing this. I’m easily an amateur but it got the job done.
Original Marquee Scan
Restored Marquee
I’ve replaced all 3 locks (coin slot, coin box & rear access panel) with brand new barrel locks that are keyed alike for convenience.
I also purchased a low powered LED light to replace the original fluorescent tube and batten fitting. This has been plugged into the 4 port power board I’ve mounted inside the cab.
Note the recessed bottom edge above. This is where the glass marquee sits and there would have been a metal bracket to hold it in. Alas this was missing so I had to reproduce one myself. I measured it up and a piece of 30mm x 20mm angled aluminium does the trick nicely.
I cut it to length, pre-drilled the two mounting screw holes then undercoated and painted satin black to match the rest of the cab colour.
There is also a mount for a volume control. I’ll be installed one of DavidAVD’s in-line volume controls into that in the next few days which will allow me to control the volume on the original single Jamma powered speaker.
There is a chunk of chipboard missing from the top. I’m of two minds on whether to repair it or not. Like the coin door, I may leave it alone so it retains battered Arcade Cabinet patina.
As stated at the top, this machine is powered by a Windows 7 computer. It’s an old Dell machine retired from work that I’ve re-purposed.
It now has Windows 7 installed along with Mame and a number of games. Since Mame now emulates 10,000’s of games probably more since they’re merged with Mess and other systems the list of supported games is both overwhelming, cluttered, near useless and in many cases unplayable. This is especially true when you consider the fixed control panel options. This cabinet whilst 2 player only has two 8 way joysticks, 4 player buttons each and a Player 1 and Player 2 start button.
Not nearly enough to be able to control all those console, computer, gambling, pinball and other devices that this software can now emulate and lets be honest, who would want to.
So I cleaned the available list down to ONLY arcade games that use 4 buttons or less and joysticks where appropriate. This cut the list down to a manageable though respectable roughly 3000 games. You can refer to my page on List Filtering for detailed instructions on how to do this.
All up I’m very happy with the result and since the cab is not large, it now sits in my study instead of the garage arcade which is embarrassingly full.
I still need to replace and power the bulbs for the coin slots but after that I’m calling this project complete!
I recently completely the scan, stitch and repair of the Smashed glass marquee image. Once done I sent it off to be printed onto an acrylic replacement. A week later it’s been delivered and installed and looks fantastic, especially when backlit.
