This is awesome.. I am glad you got it up and running..
I almost bought that exact one from that post but wound up passing because the guy said that it couldn't be converted back to a Neo Geo.
Aww man! Well I hope you are closer to Orlando than I am. They seem to pop up in that area all the time!
About the seller saying it could not be converted back to a Neo Geo. He probably said that because ALL of the original wiring was gone and the cable running from the monitor chassis had been cut, moved around in the molex connector, a wire had been soldered to one of the ground pins (still need to clean this up with a solder sucker) and it was all connected to a VGA cable on the other end.
Thank goodness whomever did the mod left his notes inside of the cab so I could easily see how he did this:
According to that first pic, this mod was done in 2001. I can understand putting a dreamcast into an arcade cabinet like a poor man's naomi, but why did he choose a Neo Geo cabinet? They were still releasing games in 2001!
Its actually kinda good for me because that means this cab was taken out of circulation after less than 10 years, and kept in a smoke free climate conditioned space for the majority of the time it was stored.
Also I REALLY lucked out by finding an auction on ebay that included all of the guts from a 4 slot cab just like mine that had been junked.
I sent the seller a message, and he let me leave out the heavy things I did not need like the 1 amp transformer and the coin box.
The auction included an original neo geo wiring harness with all the proper molex connectors already on it, a power supply, the coin box panel, the wiring for the speakers, the wiring for the back lights, and thank GOD the cable that runs from the Neo Geo wiring harness to the monitor chassis.
Good job, man! Glad you got all that mess sorted out! I'm jealous of the time you had to get it all set up. Both my cabs are still waiting
Buy coin mechs and start saving those quarters!
You were a huge help! And honestly I had NO idea I was going to have it actually running and playable this soon! All the the parts I needed just happened to pop up for sale and all of the people I have come into contact have been EXTREMELY helpful and friendly!
Im very thankful because this is my first time ever restoring an arcade machine and I was really expecting a rough experience.