New cabinet owner needs help please!

Hello, I just bought myself a cabinet from a local arcade that was moving away. It's a NEO25 Cabinet, and while it's in perfectly fine working condition, there's a number of things with the cabinet that I would like to fix, change, or improve in an attempt to make it a much nicer machine.

1) Two of the locks on the cabinet don't have keys - the back panel and the marquee display. I can probably get to the screw for the back panel lock and remove it, but it doesn't look like there's really anyway to get to the marquee display lock - any advice on how to remove it? The only way I can think of is to drill the center of the lock out, but I don't know how well that'd work.

2) Speaking of locks, any advice on a good place to buy replacement locks for the cabinet? If I manage to remove the locks, then I'm going to need some new ones. If I could, I'd like to get some locks that all share the same key - the cabinet has around 7 locks total, each with a different key, and it's a hassle to go through each key trying to find the right one.

3) Is there a marquee display for the NEO25 Cabinet that supports the single large JAMMA marquees instead of the usual 4 MVS marquees?

4) The paint on the cabinet is really scratched and scuffed up, so I'm planning on repainting the cabinet, but I like the NEO25 stickers on the side of the cabinet and would like to replace them if I do end up painting the cabinet. Anyone know where I could buy some replacements?

5) This is the most important problem I have, and it's a bit long and detailed:

When I got that cabinet, it had Street Fighter Alpha 2 installed, and when I asked him about playing MVS games on the cabinet, he told me that it was a bad idea because he had rewired the cabinet to play Street Fighter and playing something else might cause a short. This struck me as a bit odd until I opened up the cabinet and took a closer look at the wiring and noticed that several wires had been cut and taped back together with electrical tape. Rather than trying to figure out which wire goes where and what exactly he's done with the cabinet, I figure it'll probably be easier to just rewire the cabinet.

So what advice can you give me on rewiring the cabinet? Anything will help at all really.

A) I'd like to be able to play both MVS and JAMMA games on the cabinet if possible, and I'm wondering if it's easier to wire the cabinet for the JAMMA standard and adapt it to MVS when I want, or vice versa. (Remember: this was originally a MVS cabinet.)

B) What places are the best to buy the wiring from? (I need a full JAMMA or MVS harness and a CPS2 kick harness.)

C) Where can I get some directions on rewiring the cabinet? I could probably figure it out on my own using a JAMMA or MVS pinout, but I'd feel better if I could have some directions to help, since I've never done this before.


Sorry about the length of my questions, but I'm really enthusiastic about this cabinet and I'm really eager to get it into a good condition! This is my first cabinet, so any advice about arcade cabinets, PCBs, or anything in general will be greatly appreciated! Here's hoping I hear from someone soon!

Will respond later with a better reply.

You can get to this(marquee display lock) by taking off the panel behind it..4 screws.

Edit.Disregard.Sorry..I was thinking it was a cab like mine..

I have a neo 29 (very similar to yours) and you should be able to get at the marquee lock through the panel behind it (3 screws I believe)

I also just re-wired a cabinet that had the exact same problem with the Jamma harness. I'd suggest buying an empty crimp Jamma edge connector and a roll of crimp on Jamma pins from Mike's Arcade - Also comes with a key

There's no easy way to get the cab to switch between Jamma and MVS, but to be honest, it's all sound issues. I have seen diagrams of how to make a toggle switch to change between the two, but I have yet to try it.

Did you know if your monitor is rotatable, HardMVS says it isn't, but honestly it should be, I think they are wrong (the candy25 (identical machine) is rotatable)

Cool, thanks a ton for the help, Lashujin!

I managed to get the back of the marquee off by taking out those screws and took the marquee lock off. Then I crawled inside the cabinet and managed to unscrew the lock from the back of the cabinet as well.

And sadly, the monitor isn't rotatable. The structure of the monitor, as well as the structure of the cabinet prohibit it from being rotated into the vertical position. There are metal bars reinforcing the frame around the monitor that would swing down on the monitor if it were in a vertical position.

Also, I don't see where they're selling the roll of crimp on Jamma pins at Mike's arcade, but I've heard good things about that arcade parts that Bob Roberts makes. Do you know if this is his right web address and if he's still in the buisness of selling things? And most importantly, of course: Is his stuff worth buying?

http://www.homearcade.org/BBBB/

Edit: Oh yeah, I'm also curious about the brightness on the monitor. I believe that the monitor is a Hitachi "GMK-25FS2," and there's what looks like a slot for a control panel with, among other options, a brightness setting. The problem is that there's no control panel there though. Anyone familiar with this cabinet or monitor enough to figure out wtf?

Bob Roberts makes an excellent jamma harness for the Neo, with the pinouts labeled and everything. But he doesn't take paypal, and I'm not sure if he takes money orders either.

He only takes mony orders

I just paid him with a personal check... it's easier than a MO, and there isn't the 90 cent fee.

Lock picking...(at bottom)

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93550