Dino King Conversion

[aeroflott]

Appreciate there's been a few of these, but thought I'd add to the fray and share my effort.

I really like the size of these - nice and small, which is ideal for the space I have. My thought was to get one and stick a cheapo MAME system in there. Thankfully there's a lot of clever guys in the hobby who have produced various bits for these to make the conversion pretty easy.

So I bought the cab earlier this year from AndyGeezer who had a few in. A few hours road trip to Cambridgeshire and picked it up. Nice chap is Andy, had a good chat about cabs and stuff:

Cab was complete, with original hardware, but no Dino King board:

Got everything stripped out that wasn't required, which was basically everything except the monitor, and PSU:

Cab was pretty grubby having been on site for a few years, so a good hoover out and an hour with some flash liquid and hot water got the cab pretty nicely cleaned up for the most part.

Meantime, I got hold of a mini PC running GroovyMAME from 2huwman over the road:

Then had fun and games trying to get a picture on the 15Khz monitor (as you might have read in the Tech thread), but got there in the end using a VGA amplifier I had lying around from Ultimarc:

On pulling the monitor out, I had an opportunity to give it a clean up and get the picture nicely adjusted to my liking.
aeroflott2015-10-31 17:37:22

 

[aeroflott]

What made this fundamentally an easy conversion was an opportunity to grab a dedicated control panel - luckily for me, the timing was perfect. FrancoB got a group buy going just after I bought the cab, so got on board and went for a 1P panel with six buttons. It's a metal panel, cut to size with ready made holes - A really well made quality piece this - thanks again Franco for organising. Made life much easier.

Bought some cheapo buttons and Sanwa style stick from Ebay and got things populated using a mini ipac from Ultimarc.

Threw everything together, programmed the buttons and stick and switched on:

And we're in business.

Started taking a look at the insides, and got things tidied up - the cabling is great to work on as you can use the old grips and get things nice and tidy:

Those speakers are USB powered things from Amazon - perfect for the job. Stick them down using sticky pads on the second shelf.

Next up was removing the artwork. What's on there wasn't a total mess, but was pretty tatty. The original art is quite striking. If it was in better condition I probably would have left it. Bit of a crappy job, but a heat gun and old credit card make the job easier:

aeroflott2015-10-31 17:36:15

 

[uberpixel]

Makes me wish I never sold mine now! These are great to mod. I'm still keeping an eye out on Franco's updates to his tate-able ones.

 

[Mr20to5]

Nice thread, will be good to see how it goes. Mainly as I would like to do the same myself one day.

 

[strykr]

not using the front speaker mate? it sounds pretty good

 

[aeroflott]

Good shout on the front speaker. Might wire that up eventually.

Cracked on with this today. Next up is artwork. Top man muddymusic sorted me out with what I wanted. I went for his 'Aero City mini" design, which arrived this week. Untubed it and left overnight to straighten out:

Side art first. I found this really tricky compared to previous side art, mainly because the surface is so straight and flat, that every bubble showed up. Didn't do a perfect job, but its more than acceptable:

Next, the control panel. Easy enough:

Dropped the buttons and stick back on:

And finally the bezel. Removed the old artwork top and bottom, and replaced with Olly's creation:

New M4 bolts all round, and this is the finished result:

For scale, here it is next to Donkey Kong II:

A few things bugging me which I need to work on:

While I like the red buttons, I think they clash with the orange of the bezel. Can't change the bezel without a lot of arseing about, so I may replace the joystick and buttons with orange ones.

The white bezel and CPO surround has yellowed enough to notice. There's a local firm down the road I've used before for powder coating. I imagine its a 30 quid job, so might look to get that done next week.

There's a lot of holes drilled in the front of the cab which you can see above the speaker grille. Not sure how to cover these up - maybe a sticker of some kind once I've filed them down smooth.

Need to adjust the locks as the latch is too big to close properly.

All in all, really pleased with how it's turned out. Tiny footprint, cute cab. It'll fit nicely under the eaves of the loft arcade once I've shifted a few things around.

Big thanks for muddymusic for the artwork design and to Franco for the control panel.

 

[Brettster]

I used a cutting disk on my dremel to cut down the tangs on the lock a bit to make it fit.

 

[gingerbeardman]

Nice write up Tony, I now want one of these!

 

[strykr]

Come out nicely

 

[Mr20to5]

Good job Sir.
Looks good in the room.

 

[aeroflott]

I used a cutting disk on my dremel to cut down the tangs on the lock a bit to make it fit.

What kind of discs are you using Brett? Every time I've tried this it's been a disaster! Also, how much are you cutting off?

 

[paulie]

You can just a junior hacksaw and/ or bench grinder, that's what I used for the tangs for my DK cabs

Here's my conversion http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=29144

 

[aeroflott]

Thanks for that Paulie.

 

[paulie]

No worries mate.

BTW I forgot to say that your cab looks lovely

 

[Brettster]

I used a cutting disk on my dremel to cut down the tangs on the lock a bit to make it fit.

What kind of discs are you using Brett? Every time I've tried this it's been a disaster! Also, how much are you cutting off?

I used the cheap ones that come supplied with most Dremel kits
http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Accessories/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=409

Hold the tang with some pliers though as they get hot but cut through them like a hot knife through butter

 

[aeroflott]

Thanks for this chaps - much appreciated. I shall give it a go tomorrow.

My experience with the Dremel hasn't been great to date. I've had one for years but always seem to damage the discs really quickly. I've ordered some new bits from Amazon which should be here tomorrow.

 

[aeroflott]

Thanks for all the positive feedback - not sure I can take much credit for the conversion (other than the work itself) as everything was made for me!

While I'm here - anyone got any ideas on what to do with the holes
drilled in the front of the cab, which you can see to the left of the
speaker grille? I'm not sure they can be filled given the thin nature of
the metal. I was thinking of sanding them down smooth and sticking a
piece of firm white plastic over the space.

 

[Brettster]

Easy Mode, Stick something over the top like a sticker
Hard Mode, Stick or weld a plate or strip of something over the back of the holes and fill them with filler, sand smooth and paint.

 

[corn]

Maybe just pop rivet a metal plate over the front? Wouldn't look too terrible and you should be able to find white rivets reasonably easily.

 

[muddymusic]

Nicely done Tony. These cabs are so tiny and have such nice monitors it's great that we've been able to find a use for them. Franco doing the panels really made life easy didn't it, as that was always the tricky bit to deal with.