Hey man thanks! It was a blast to build… All 3 of them haha It’s my favorite game of yesteryear for sure. I Am trying very hard to talk myself out of building a Space Ace cab. My Dragon’s Lair with the repro PCB installed can play Space Ace, Dragon’s Lair, and Dragon’s Lair 2, so it’s not really worth it to build the Space Ace, however you have to admit they’d look killer sitting beside each other in my arcade.
If ya embark on the journey of building one for yourself and I can be of any help, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Welcome to the forums! Do a search on KLOV for user Aztecf. He is also on BYOAC forums. He has all the reproduction parts. Monitor plexi, Marquee plexi, speaker grills, monitor brackets, power plate, volume plate, marquee brackets, control panels, score boards, scoreboard plexi etc. He has pretty much everything but the cab.
I had original cabs so I already had alot of those parts, but Aztecf is a good guy, and will take care of you.
As for the fan, I got it on ebay. I’ll link you when I find it again.
Hello! I am getting to the wiring stage, and I have a question. I got the interlock switch/power plate but dont have a clue what wires goes where on the interlock? I cant find anything on searches outside of those single on/off switches. Can you give me a picture/pictures of your power/lock wiring? I looked at your build pictures but I couldn’t find any shots of it. Also, did you run your power outlet right off the power supply? This build cost me a small fortune and I dont want to screw it up! Thanks a ton!
Hey man, I got you! I’ll take some photos in the morning of the interlock! I just got back home tonight, and I’m beat, but check back in the morning and I’ll have some photos for you.
As far as the outlet goes, I just wired it into the harness using the monitor power if I remember correctly. Since I wasn’t using that section of the harness, because I have a TV in mine now, so I think that’s the part I used. I’ll also verify that in the morning when I open up my cab to take the photos for ya.
And yes, it’s easy to sink a ton of money into one of these, because of all the expensive parts!!! haha I think I have close to $3000 in mine, so I get that ya wanna know for sure before you start the electrical! And I don’t blame ya one bit either.
Great, I really appreciate it! The only real difference in my build is I am putting a power strip in the cab and running a subwoofer for some extra bass. One more thing, I bought some pots for the audio board, but they don’t fit… Do you recall where you found yours? I was only able to get the metal panel from Aztecf so I’m not sure which Pots fit on that board with the notch? Can’t thank you enough for your help. This is definitely my biggest investment in an arcade machine, and I would be minus many parts without your lead to Aztecf!
Hey! I haven’t forgotten about ya, we were just super busy today clearing the land on our property that’s an hour away. I’ll get you those photos in the morning!
For the volume pots, I used these, they’re a direct drop in for the stock ones. I’m pretty sure one of the tabs get bent flat on each pot, but I can’t remember. I might be incorrect on that. I’ll check that tomorrow too.
Ok, here are a couple of photos. If you need more, I’ll slide it out and do a deeper tour of the machine. If you’re using the Golden Age harness, this will make sense to you. If you’re making you’re own, I’m not sure if this will help.
Here’s the switch panel, mind the little blue wire. It jumps from the plug, to the interlock. Then the right side post, ties into the interlock as well, to give you 2 way power (interlock pulled, or pushed) Not sure the ‘push’ part is necessary since the cabinet doesn’t have anything there to keep it pressed. But that’s how the original was, so that’s how I did mine. The ground is from the main harness, as is the hot and neutral. I used the monitor power to supply power to the receptacle since I’m using a TV and those were free to use. The TV and the Dexter are plugged into the receptacle to supply power with the switch. Works perfectly.
Let me know if that’s not clear enough, and I’m happy to dig in deeper and try get better pictures.
PS - I was wrong about the pots, the tabs are actually in the holes, so those pots I linked you will drop right in.
This is great stuff. One of the reasons I wanted to build a Lowrider was one day I’d like my own arcade cabinet.
Seeing how complicated it all is has pushed it into further into the ‘eh, maybe one day’ column but I still love seeing how it all works so thanks for that.
Build one! It looks way more intimidating than it is! If you were to do a JAMMA setup, the cabinetry is actually harder than the electronics. JAMMA harnesses are pretty much the entire cabinet wiring, minus a few little things like main power for marquee, and cabinet power switches. And if you got one of those multi game boards, it’s 98% plug and play.
The exact reason I built my Lowrider was to build my Dragon’s Lair. haha
Jamma boxes are a bunch of wires, but they are well labelled and a bit of patience will fet through it.
Using a zerodelay board is a bit less organized, but still pretty easy to do, then you can use a Raspberry Pi or a PC to run things.
My boxes use PCs running the arcade emulation., and the cabinet is still the more complex. Plenty of plans available on-line, and it’s not too difficult.to do your own.
And old PC motherboard is probably the cheapest option, if you have an unused PC hanging around that you aren’t using, with a couple of zerodelay joysticks. Then the expensive part is the plywood for a cabinet.
A Jamma box is a little more money, but maybe better performance with some games, but mostly it’s guaranteed compatablity with its selection of games.
I still need to put together a box to go with the GRS flite yoke. It will mostly be for the Star Wars arcade games, plus Spy Hunter. Those ate so many of my quarters in the 80s…
I got a buddy that just picked up a nice Star Wars cab. That vector monitor tho, those things scare me! I’m about to go pickup a score in a couple days, I got another Galaga, a Centipede, and an Astroid Deluxe. All in great shape. Gonna have fun putting the boardsets and all that fun stuff back in them. They were converted into other games, but being a collector, I’m definitely restoring back to their original titles.
I have 2 Centipede cocktail cabs right now, guessing I’ll sell those since I’ll have an upright.
So about your JAMMA Box. I have an old Pandora’s Box around the shop somewhere if ya wanna try that. It has like 400+ games, but while I did see some classics, looked like it was more geared towards the fighters. shrugs only one way to find out! haha
I dont think I asked, and I assume you dont, but the only piece I am missing is the monitor bezel (I am using a CRT). Do you have an extra by chance? Or one that may be close in size to sell? Seems nobody has these and there are zero reproductions available. Shot in the dark but thought Id check. Otherwise, I will have to run this bezeless for now.
What I did was used a Ms Pacman bezel. You’ll have to cut it down on one edge, but it’s the closest thing you’re going to find for a Dragon’s Lair. UNLESS, you’re able to score a Taito bezel. I heard those are the exact depth. But grab a Ms Pac bezel, trim a little off of one of the long edges, and you’ll never see it through the plexy, and it will be very close to the original.
