SUZO 500 Rubber edition

SUZO 500 Rubber edition

by emphaticNo Comments
I was browsing eBay and found a SUZO 500 that had gray plastic at the base instead of the red I normally find in arcade parts stores online. I know that joystick guru Kowal has mentioned that there used to exist an older revision of these sticks that had a rubber grommet doing all the shaft centering instead of that poor plastic pivot piece that's in use in the "red versions" with the hard springs. I contacted the seller and he informed me that this was indeed the rubber grommet version. I immediately bought one and it arrived a couple of days ago. I promptly installed it into one of my EGRET II cabinets, switching out a "red version" SUZO 500 with a custom shaft. The rubber version came with CHERRY microswitches that has a bit bigger connectors than the OMRON I had installed, so I just took the middle part (with the switches) from the spring SUZO and put it...
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Mounting a (pretty) SUZO 500 in an EGRET II

Mounting a (pretty) SUZO 500 in an EGRET II

by emphatic7 Comments
Updated 2010-05-02 (added a picture of the screw, extender and washer I use) Most EGRET II owners (or any Japanese cabinet owners) swear by their SANWA or Seimitsu sticks (I used to do that as well), but then I read someone @ the shmups forums write how awesome the SUZO 500 is for shmups, because of the extremely short throw and the lightning fast engage, so naturally I had to try them. The trouble is though, these sticks don't come with a threaded metal shaft that you can fit any ball top you want to with ease, like you might have grown accustomed to with your choice of quality Japanese sticks. Instead you get a pretty sad looking moulded shaft cover/ball top combo with a dust cover thrown into the mix as well. The SUZO 500 can be found in many popular part shops under a couple of different names: Ultimarc (Euro-stik) | Groovy Game Gear (Omni-Stik Basic) | Arcadeshop.de (Multi-way Joystick) As you can...
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Easy EGRET II speaker upgrade

Easy EGRET II speaker upgrade

by emphatic1 Comment
EASY EGRET II SPEAKER UPGRADE How to put a 2.1 speaker system into an EGRET II with or without intrusive measures. Very easy to do as long as you know how to do it and what you'll need. Speaker choice After a whole-heartily recommendation (i.e. "these are cheap, mate") I went with the Logitech s220 as they are at an extremely good value. Pros: The smaller speaker will fit in the originals place by a slight wedge-in manoeuvre The bass is "just right" and is small, so it fits very well behind the coin box The little wired remote has volume control and a speaker muting phones outlet Very competitive price Cons: Doesn't have bass adjustment on the remote Doesn't fill the hole made for speakers in the cabinet completely, but that's easily solved with some pieces of cardboard Parts needed (to keep JAMMA compatibility) If you plan on keep running your JAMMA PCBs in your cabinet and not only stereo, line-output systems such as CPS2, NAOMI, a PC or...
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How To: Install a non-PCB joystick in a 5-pin harness

How To: Install a non-PCB joystick in a 5-pin harness

by emphatic1 Comment
Connecting a 5-pin JST-H solution "for dummies" When is this needed? Many Japanese cabinets (or well built console Arcade sticks) use a JST 5-pin connector that will install a SANWA JLF or a Seimitsu LS-32-01 quick and easy (see the picture above) in their control panels. So? Well, sometimes you want to mix it up, and bring in something without that handy 5-pin JST-H connector available. There are some very nice sticks out there, like the SUZO 500 (it's ugly, but very hard to beat for shooting games) that with a custom shaft can blend in like a good weave in your cabinet. I will use my custom built stick for this guide, but any stick using 4 microswitches can be hooked up this way. How do you recommend I do this? I've always been doing harnesses for my non-PCB equipped sticks, but I figured out a way to use a worn out JLF...
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XBox 360 Cabinet Themes

XBox 360 Cabinet Themes

by emphatic4 Comments
"Cabifying" your 360 dashboard What's that you say? I noticed that you could browse pictures in the dashboard of the XBox 360 and decided to see if this could be utilized to create a "theme" of sorts. I then made an EGRET II theme that worked really well in my cabinet. As I shared this on some arcade forums I frequent, the ball got rolling and now I've made a few more of these. Some have multiple versions with colour variations. How do I install them then? You download these images to a USB device that's compatible with your XBox 360, or if you have a Home network, you put them in a folder that you can browse to from your 360's Picture Library. When you have the image selected, press the Y button to use it as a background. Once you've done this once, a new theme will be created that you can select from your User account. Sammy Atomiswave Sitdown | Click image...
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