My consolized MV-1C

After much debate on a good and suitible chassis, I decided to modify a Viako Mini ATX computer case. I gambled a bit on the dimensions, crossed my fingers and made it work
The case is all aluminum and I think it looks pretty fantastic. Turned out better than I thought it would.

The DB-15s were a pain to cut out. The aluminum was much thicker than I anticipated. I must have gone through over 10 Dremel heavy duty cutout wheels. The 2nd one turned out much better than the first, but I'm still happy with the 1st one. It still looks good.

The blue LED switch I picked up is rugged and a perfect level of brightness. Not at all overpowering and nicely diffused. It was advertised as 12V, but 5V seems to work perfectly. Has a nice mechanical "CLICK" when it's pressed. Note my use of Robertson screws . Forget hockey, Robertson screws, Ginger Ale, Whiskey and Kraft Dinner are why I'm happy to be a Canadian.
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To cover up the rear, I dug up some old aluminum diamond plating, cut out the size I needed and brushed the aluminum with different grades of sandpaper until I liked it. My original plan was to screw/bolt the back plate on, but there wasn't enough room for that, due to the curved corners of the case. Instead, I used JB Weld and it's very solid; Cleaner, too!


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I'm happy with the cleanliness of it all. Tried to do as little damage to the PCB as possible; so far, it's all 100% reversible. I drilled and threaded custom standoffs into the case, so the MV-1C is super secure in there. Board doesn't flex in the slightest when inserting or removing cartridges. Between that and the JAMMA connector, it's nice and easy to remove the board for any reason.


My whole setup is RGB, so I don't have a need for an encoder of any sort. I'm just running RGB + Composite Sync and stereo audio.
I plan on doing some general tidying, such as removing the blue ink, installing a battery backup and fixing the shitty previous repair job (the IC chip to the left of the 3 capacitor cluster). For now though, I'm really glad this turned out so well.

Excuse me while MY JAW DROPS TO THE FLOOR WITH HOW F#CKING AWESOME THIS THING IS!

I didn't even notice you're canadian like myself.  I normally don't pay attention to where people are from unless their english is bad.

How come I don't see pcb feet in the back corners?  I agree it's a good idea to have something to prevent the pcb from flexing when inserting or removing the cart.

Drakon wrote:

Excuse me while MY JAW DROPS TO THE FLOOR WITH HOW F#CKING AWESOME THIS THING IS!

Thanks! I appreciate it. I put a lot of effort into it; I wasn't overly happy or amazed by the majority of the solutions out there and I'm glad I went with this route. I gambled a lot and I got lucky with a lot of things working out the way they did. There was no shortage of "I hope I don't screw this up" moments throughout the build.

Drakon wrote:

I didn't even notice you're canadian like myself.  I normally don't pay attention to where people are from unless their english is bad.

Yessir. Grew up in Saskatchewan; I used to live in Kitchener for about 5 years and London for a year, in and out of Toronto every other day. Moved back to SK last year. I still end up flying around large Canadian cities for contract work, Southwest Ontario being the most frequent. Starting tomorrow, I'll be on the road for a little over two months, so I probably won't have any mods to work on/upload during that time.

Drakon wrote:

How come I don't see pcb feet in the back corners?  I agree it's a good idea to have something to prevent the pcb from flexing when inserting or removing the cart.

I used standoffs and screws at the cartridge slot's base, rather than the stock mounting in the corners. I'm not really sure why they exist (I didn't drill through the PCB or anything), but they sure make excellent mounting points. It's rock solid.

Nice that's a better mounting spot than the corner since it's closer to the cartridge connector.  Enjoy your work trip!  All this project needs is a spring loaded cartridge flap and it shall be perfect!

Drakon wrote:

All this project needs is a spring loaded cartridge flap and it shall be perfect!

The thought has certainly crossed my mind, but I'm still a little uncertain on how to go about doing this and ending up with good results.

Grambo wrote:

Drakon wrote:

All this project needs is a spring loaded cartridge flap and it shall be perfect!

The thought has certainly crossed my mind, but I'm still a little uncertain on how to go about doing this and ending up with good results.

It's no rush.  Take your time and plan well. That's a big hole. If the case isn't high enough there won't be enough clearence and you can just live with no flap.

Drakon wrote:

Grambo wrote:

Drakon wrote:

All this project needs is a spring loaded cartridge flap and it shall be perfect!

The thought has certainly crossed my mind, but I'm still a little uncertain on how to go about doing this and ending up with good results.

It's no rush.  Take your time and plan well.  That's a big hole.  If the case isn't high enough there won't be enough clearence and you can just live with no flap.

Don't listen to Drakon, this needs to be done BY TOMORROW. Great job BTW. I was thinking of using one of those Buttons on the 2 Slot CMVS I have in limbo but wasn't sure the LED would run off 5 volts (i've ran into buttons with actual 12v LED's). Did not want to spend the money if I wasn't sure, thanks for letting us all know! Also that better be Metal Slug in there, only a game as brilliant as that is worthy of such a case.

Skips wrote:

Don't listen to Drakon, this needs to be done BY TOMORROW. Great job BTW. I was thinking of using one of those Buttons on the 2 Slot CMVS I have in limbo but wasn't sure the LED would run off 5 volts (i've ran into buttons with actual 12v LED's). Did not want to spend the money if I wasn't sure, thanks for letting us all know! Also that better be Metal Slug in there, only a game as brilliant as that is worthy of such a case.

Thanks :)I had originally bought a cheap DC voltage step up converter for the LED, but found I didn't need it. I was pretty happy about it, since a good and easy way to mount it in the case wasn't super obvious to me.

The cart that's in there is just the 161 in 1. Decided to get it before I went purchasing any MVS games, as I've never really thoroughly played any NeoGeo games until I got this board. I can assure you that I play Metal Slug WAY more than anything else though, I'm not huge into fighters.

Here's the link of the exact switch I bought. Quality's great... it's a bit on the massive side, but it works well in my enclosure.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/190834693789?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Skips wrote:

Drakon wrote:

Grambo wrote:

Drakon wrote:

All this project needs is a spring loaded cartridge flap and it shall be perfect!

The thought has certainly crossed my mind, but I'm still a little uncertain on how to go about doing this and ending up with good results.

It's no rush.  Take your time and plan well.  That's a big hole.  If the case isn't high enough there won't be enough clearence and you can just live with no flap.

Don't listen to Drakon, this needs to be done BY TOMORROW. Great job BTW. I was thinking of using one of those Buttons on the 2 Slot CMVS I have in limbo but wasn't sure the LED would run off 5 volts (i've ran into buttons with actual 12v LED's). Did not want to spend the money if I wasn't sure, thanks for letting us all know! Also that better be Metal Slug in there, only a game as brilliant as that is worthy of such a case.

I found the secret to running a non 5v LED off of 5v, a resistor.

Drakon wrote:

I found the secret to running a non 5v LED off of 5v, a resistor.

Lol, yes, but the issue here was that the resistor is moulded inside the switch itself and not readily accessible. It was advertised as 12V, so I thought my 5V might not do the trick. Some LEDs output almost zero light when they're underpowered.

Oh haha whoops

Yeah I will definitely be trying them out if I ever build another larger CMVS. Its to bad its out for painting otherwise I could drill the hole bigger and use one.

Skips wrote:

Yeah I will definitely be trying them out if I ever build another larger CMVS. Its to bad its out for painting otherwise I could drill the hole bigger and use one.

You mean...that one that's been getting painted for the last month or two?

Yeah that sum bitch still has that metal case. I am about to drive to Canada and have Grambo do some of his fancy metal work. It would be faster than waiting for this dude to duracoat this one. My painting and casework skills are ass so I sent it to the dude that does my guns. Normally has a 2-3 week turnaround time frame but not this time. At this point I am not even keeping the CMVS that comes out of it. i am just going to sell it when its done.

I just noticed, you aren't tapping the left and right audio channels from their source. Are you tapping audio from the Jamma edge? The MV1C does not do stereo (at least not true stereo) directly from the Jamma edge. Are you tapping the left and right channels somewhere other than directly from the pins on the 9480F? If you are and are going through the Jamma edge you will not get true stereo. You can get real stereo by wiring up the audio pins on your AV out port to the left and right audio pins on the 9480F as shown in the picture below. If you are pulling left and right from somewhere other than the Jamma edge that we can not see then disregard. However if you are indeed taking audio from straight off the Jamma edge give this a try. You will get full stereo sound from it and MUCH better audio.

Removed Capacitors:



Routed line level stereo audio to JAMMA (Please excuse my soldering and rosin. Was in a rush and cleaning it up is on the to do list):


I felt like this method kept it a lot cleaner.

I would have wired it from the tap points instead of feeding it into the jamma edge but smeh, that's just a preference.