Need a cheap euro supergun? Look here! (Inc. pics!)

I've built some 'superguns' in the past, and seen a lot of threads on how to make one.. Here's some pics of what i made. Keep in mind that i'm in europe, and we have scart tv's here.

It's a very basic 'gun' designed with a mvs-multislot in mind, so there's no need for joystick hookups, but if you have the pinouts, it's very easy to hook up a joystick when you need to.

Most of the parts needed:

• Some scrap wire
• 28 pin female connector (jamma)
• Fingerboard (Not needed, but handy!)
• Screw mounting things (kroonsteentjes)
• Male PC power plug (molex)
• PC power supply (not in this pic, top right)

What i did is put the fingerboard into the connector, this makes it very easy to see what is what on the jamma pinout.. no need to browse to a web page with the pinouts.. Then i soldered the ground wires.



Pins 1&2 and 27 & 28 are bent together with the bottom pins, then soldered together with the ground wire. I chose black wire here. After that i added the power lines required. (+5 and +12v)
Then i screwed it together into the PC male connector i ripped of a old AT cpu fan..



If you look closely, you can see that the +12 and +5 solder points are also connected both on the top (parts) and bottom (solder) side. At this point, if i were to power up with a mvs connected to the jamma connector, it would already work. (but no video or audio yet)

Keep in mind that the +5 pins (3/4) are soldered together with the bottom pins. Same goes for the +12 pin. Note that +12 is not connecting to its left/right neighbours, only to the pin directly below it! (same goes for the ground pins!)

Now for the video:



We euro's can simply solder RGB and SYNC directly to SCART. What i did was add a 1k variable resistor to every color, so i could adjust the brightness if needed. CPS-2 for example, will be too bright for normal use on a tv-set. The wires that run to the 9 pin male connector are:

• Some scrap wire
• Red (via 1k var. resistor) to scart pin 15
• Green (via 1k var. resistor) to scart pin 11
• Blue (via 1k var. resistor) to scart pin 7
• Sync to scart pin 20
• +5v (added to the +5v o/t jamma con.) to scart pin 16
• Ground to scart ground

The +5 volt is for making the TV switch into RGB. It's connected to pin 20 o/t scart cable via a 100 ohm resistor. This is needed!! Otherwise you might slowly fry the scart input on your TV!

If you need audio, there's several options here.. You can connect a 8 ohm speaker to the speaker + and - wires.. Ar you can hook up speaker plus (pin 10) to scart pin 6 and speaker - (pin 'below' 10) to scart pin 4.. But. The MVS multislots have stereo out!! The pinout is different. If you look at the <a href="http://www.hardmvs.com/manuals/Jamma2NeoGeo4SlotPinout.pdf" target="_blank">differences</a> on briggs page, you can spot the easy way..

- easy -
Audio MONO (pin 11) can be connected to scart pin 6 for mono sound.
Connect ground wire (from jamma ground) to scart pin 4
- or -
Speaker POS R(ight) (10) can be put on scart pin 6
Speaker POS L(eft) (11) can be put on scart pin 2
Connect grounde wire from jamma ground to scart pin 4

- Results! -

Once you are done, check all wires & soldering, and then hook up some cheap pcb you have. In my case, a Tetris bootleg will do just fine. Plug in the PCB, and the PC AT power supply. Turn on TV, switch to 'Scart IN' channel (AV), and turn on the PSU. If you did everything correcly, you should see something like <a href="http://www.zonko.nl/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album01&id=aaa" target="_blank">this.</a>

So there you go. A very cheap supergun. Now all you need is a mvs 2 slot, some AES sticks, and some mvs carts and you are ready to play! And remember, don't switch carts with the unit turned on!

- Alex

Edit: yes i used a 9 pin connector for the video, but if you want, you can just solder the cable directly to a scart cable's wires. You can open up the scart connector and see what goes where

[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: Asure ]

[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: Asure ]</p>

Very nice ! I hopefully have a cab but that would allow me to bring mobo and some carts with me to play them on holidays !

Wow Alex! Really great job and info. Thank you very very much for posting this and sending me a PM
Can I send you an e-mail if I need to ask you anything about this when I get my MVS board?

[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: ocsmod ]</p>

Yup, either pm me or send me mail, asure@zonko.nl

- Alex

Yes, constructing a supergun is quite easy... When I have the time I'll get an old computer from my job and I will convert it in a supergun (I'll just profit the case and the PSU).

So ocsmod, you've decided to go MVS? Yes, that's the way to go. Good luck.

I'm still looking for a small plastic casing to house the wires and the connector. I saw a really cool one from Arakon, here's a pic:



When i pass by my local electronics shop, i will see if they have this kind of case.. it will also probably fit this nice RGB encoder for all you americans!



- Alex

If you turn down the volume on the game pcb, you can install the audio output to the tv's speakers.. just don't turn it up very high!

For AV support.. that's the expensive way. The small converter you see in my above post costs $95 ex shipping. You connect R/G/B/Sync and +5v to it, and it outputs composite video / svhs.

So, $5 for a scart cable, or $95 for a AV converter/encoder.. i know what i would choose..

If you need sound in 'tulip/cinch', i think the outer cable casing in cinch is ground (or speaker negative - ), the inside is positive (speaker + ). So for stereo, get a white and red cable, cut off the plastic casing, connect the copper casing to ground. The inside wire goes to speaker + . You could probably also hook that up to your stereo (line in) as well..

- Alex

that one's not mine, Asure, mine are in fact even smaller.




The cases can be bought at most electronics stores, conrad.de and reichelt.de sell them, check if they possibly have shops in netherlands too.

Wow, yours are even smaller.. i either grabbed that pic from ebay, or you pointed it out to me one time on irc

I found conrad page in .nl, they sell <a href="http://www.conrad.nl/cgi-bin/conshop/ConShop.pl?TK_PAR[USER_ID" target="_blank">=0202076771024092495&TK_EV[SHOWPAGE]=&TK_PAR[PAGEID]=75661&TK_PAR[MEDIUM]=]these boxes</a> i'm gonna go by my local electronics shop to see if they have something similar. ($15 is not too bad for a case..)

- Alex

Ocsmmod, some months ago I noticed the prices of MVS loose carts were almost the same than NGCD games, so I bought a second hand supergun and a 1-slot MVS board. I didn't sell my NGCD (well, remember I actually sold the one I bought you, but I managed to repair mine and I'd like to keep it) but sold some games. Now I only buy MVS games. Also I bought the Street Fighter 2 World Warrior board, my favourite arcade of all time.

Ocsmod, trust me, get full RGB through scart and forget about A/V, it's much cheaper (you don't need that expensive converter, just a good TV with RGB 60 Hz) and the picture is much better.
About sound, it's outputted through the scart lead in my supergun, I can hear it no prob in my TV, but anyway I have an "euroconnector thief" so I always turn off my TV sound and use my stereo music equipment (although my MVS board only has mono).

As I said, MVS is the way to go. You should decide either to keep your AES collection or not. Or just keep the best games and get the others in MVS. There are some games you can find at very reasonable prices in MVS like Metal Slugs, MOTW, SS4.....

So good luck with the MVS adventure. If you have any question about it just ask and I'll do my best.

Here's a pic of mine...

Very poor quality picture(the image below that is, not the outputfrom the s'gun), and the thing is still in it's old case...



Similar design to Arakon's but a little wider..I've still to find a new case, hence the coin/test wires out of the top.

My goal in life is to build a smaller supergun than Arakon...

[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: doughboy ]

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: doughboy ]</p>

So what kind of power supply do you use for those? I'm looking to biuld a compact NTSC supergun but an internal power supply really takes up space.

Heres a Pic of mine From Ravengames very compact with a mini Power Pack



its blurry but neat!!

Yeah, any crappy pc psu will do...

We're lucky in Europe cos we can stick rgb straight into most tvs so don't need the space for any convertors either.

Is there a way to use a ATX power supply as AT are getting harder to find.

ta
Jon

Yes, I was wondering the same thing: if it was possible to use an ATX power supply. <a href="http://www.neo-geo.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=002493" target="_blank">http://www.neo-geo.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=002493</a>

I guess AT are easier, specially for powering up. I found a lot of info about PC power supplies in <a href="http://www.pcguide.com/ref/power/sup/index.htm" target="_blank">http://www.pcguide.com/ref/power/sup/index.htm</a>

Anyway if you can't find any AT PSU you could just buy a regular PSU (not for PC use) in any electronics store, more or less like this one:
<a href="http://www.dameon.net/BBBB/ps.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.dameon.net/BBBB/ps.jpg</a>

In any case the opinion of the experts out there will be welcome.

I don't know the difference between AT and ATX... What does that mean??

All you need is 12, 5, -5...

Guys, take the time to do things the right way:

- don't just get one red wire (+5v) from the power supply: use as many as possible.

- don't use thin gauge power wires: use 18awg.

- don't make too long a harness (I've seen 6-foot long ones!): the shorter the run from the psu to the jamma connector the better.

- Avoid shortings: use heat shrink on every soldering terminals of every connector.

- don't try to cram everything (esp. the PSU) in extra small cases: portable superguns are useless

[ June 18, 2002: Message edited by: MKL ]</p>

[ June 17, 2002: Message edited by: MKL ]</p>

woot!

got given two AT psu's for nothing today..

IT BEGINS