As someone who likes to collect video games, including arcade hardware, I was looking for a replacent for my current arcade cabinet (a wood cabinet with a 20″ Hantarex 15Khz monitor that I was still reparing).
After scouting the local used market, I came across a Naomi Universal Cabinet, with a sega Naomi board with Virtua Tennis (Power Smash).
The Cabinet
The Naomi Universal Cabinet is a Sega Cabinet with a 29″ 31Khz monitor, and JVS wiring released in 1999.
This cab was usually fitted with a sega Naomi Board
And it weights…..117Kgs.
The Good
- Good Price, taking into account the local market.
- Included a NAOMI board with Virtua Tennis (Power Smash)
- Control Panel already wired for 6 buttons per player.
The Bad
- Did I say its heavy ?
- A kick harness was not used : the 4th , 5th , 6th button are hard wired into the JVS IO Board connector.
- The button layout…ugh.
- Left audio channel is not working.
- PSU fan was not working.
- Monitor is 31Khz only (VGA 640*480) – so I can’t use my existing jamma boards unless I get a upscaller and a JAMMA to JVS interface.
Inspection and cleaning
To Clean is to Inspect
Taking into account that the cabinet is pre-owned, it was expected to find it quite…dirty, and with some rust.
The whole cabinet was vaccumed and inspected during the cleaning process.
Audio Amplifier
Despite having found and fixed a broken solder joint, the left audio channel is still not working. It’s something to be checked in the near future.
PSU
During the initial cleanup and vaccuming of the cabinet, I’ve found out that the PSU fan was stuck. If left unchecked, it would certainly lead to a PSU failure in the short term.
PSU fan was replaced.
Conclusion
Since I was able to repair the Hantarex Monitor (that is installed in the wood cabinet), and its not trivial to put jamma games into the Naomi Universal Cabinet, I will keep both cabinets for the forseable future.