Be careful when playing with electricity.
¶ About this repair
In this example scenario, we are using a Betson cabinet, with a PC running ITGMania, a J-Pac, a lit board, and a replacement neon transformer matching factory spec was installed. The neon transformer is being fed 120v via a molex connection to the CRT power molex as there is no CRT in use.
Here is a demo video of this configuration in action.
Note that the fade effect seen in the video is irregular and likely caused by the aftermarket transformer. On standard hardware the neons turn on and off faster resulting in more of a blink.
This mod is not dependent on any special setup or hardware, it simply replaces the factory relay.
You can do this in a stock cabinet that uses an EXT-IO, or a cabinet with a PC that uses a light board such as the lit, LumenAR, etc. This should also apply to other cabinets, but your mileage may vary.
This article focuses on tapping into cabinet wiring. If you wish to avoid cutting wires in the cabinet, please refer to the optional method. This will require a specific type of 4 pin molex receptable to do it properly.
¶ (Optional method) Install relay without cutting cabinet wiring
You will need to purchase a molex connector that fits the 120v cable that connects to the stock relay and do some custom wiring. I have not tested this, but you should just need to jump neutral and run the 120v wire through the relay. The factory molex plug should be this MLX model for the wiring, and to connect to it you will need this receptacle. A pair of connectors can easily be found from online retailers when googling "molex mlx 4 pin".
Click here to jump to diagram.
¶ Requirements
- A solid state relay such as this one (DC input, AC output)
- A dupont jumper with a male end (the other end will be cut and stripped to bare wire)
- Two wires. One roughly 1 foot long (optional if your dupont jumper is long), and another wire roughly 4 feet long.
- Basic tools. Screw driver for new relay / PSU terminal, wire cutters and strippers.
- Optional: Soldering iron or crimp/twist splice for connecting duport jumper to new relay's ground wire.
¶ Installing the relay
Betson alert
Pay attention to the hot and neutral 120v AC wires, the color coding is the opposite of what's typical. In this cabinet, white is hot and black is neutral. Verify with your multimeter before starting work.
Refer to the below pictures which have annotations on them. The installation is really quite simple.
In summary:
- The new relay's DC ground is connected to the ground pin on the factory relay wiring (black/blue wire from 5 pin connector that has 2 pins populated, do not connect to the red wire)
- The new relay's DC voltage is connected to anything that supplies voltage while your cabinet is on, it doesn't matter as long is your relay supports the amount of voltage
- And lastly, the AC output terminals on the relay "intercept" the 120v power going
¶ Factory relay closeup
¶ PSU closeup
¶ New relay wiring
¶ Reference picture of lit board
Example of a lit board correctly plugged into EXT-IO plugs and "PORT1-PYTHON2" off the main jamma wiring bundle.
¶ Bonus diagram for avoiding cuts into wiring
¶ This diagram is unrelated to the ones above
Highly untested, use at your own risk
