I bought a Project Diva Arcade Future Tone Cabinet!

Since last August I've been playing the Future Tone arcade rip using this adapted arcade control panel on my PC, which has been great, with perfect touch slider and Sanwa buttons...



The only downside is that I've been using it on my main PC which can be a bit inconvenient as it's huge and makes it impossible to use the pc for other things when not playing without moving it all out of the way, in turn making me play the game less or just being lazy and using an Xbox controller. I considered setting up a dedicated PC on a small table elsewhere, but really wanted to see if I could get the whole cabinet. A big dream, but nothing to loose by looking.

Initially I thought finding an empty chassis or even one of the other games that uses the same main body (Border Break, Shining Force Cross etc) and putting my control panel on it and making some artwork. I sent an email to a local Sega arcade repair guy (Andy at AGS / Sega Shed) and he gave me the details of a guy in the Netherlands who imports cabinets from Japan: Ronnie at RKLOK.

On september the 27th, this is the reply I got: "I can get you a full Diva cabinet , no problem".
It took him a while to find one, but at the end of November he managed to source one.

It arrived last week (17th of April)...











It took 2 hours of stripping it down to get it small and light enough to lift into my house, and I've been cleaning it out and rebuilding it over the weekend.

It's a complete cabinet with Sega Nu hardware and full Future Tone artwork, the only thing I don't have is the Key Chip, which was expected as Sega demand that back when the cabinet is no longer used.

Today I've ordered a suitable 100v Step-down converter so I can finally power it on and see what it does, hopefully It'll get delivered by next week.

My plan is to try to get it to work without a key chip. In theory many of the tricks that are used to make the arcade rip work on a regular PC could make it start the game without one, same goes for the All.net connection. Bur there a lot of hurdles involed with this hardware.

Plan B would be putting my own PC inside instead and wiring up the control panel the same way my standalone controller is. I would loose some of the cabinets features such as the flashing side lights and buttons but the speakers and static lights should all still work as before.

I'm not sure but this could be the only one of these is the UK!

I'll keep this thread updated with my progress.

 

Picture taken while putting it all back together...

After 2 hours of dismantling outside my house, Miku appears shocked...





Had a lot of use of it's life...



Screen bezel with touch layer...



Main cables behind control panel area.



The Nu motherboard with Yamaha network switch, sound board for top speakers, Aime card reader and touch screen controller board...



top pcb back in upper area...



main speakers and Aime RFID reader...



10W front speakers



Main power boards, JVS IO, audio board and display PSU...



the plastic sides are both identical plastic pieces with metal parts to reinforce them, the white metal bit acts as a cover for the side LEDs...



some fading but not too bad, I swaped them over as the ends that were near the top of the cabinet were less faded...



Elo systems touch panel cotroller...



Rear cabinet 120mm fan, all metal, 100v and very heavy...



Rear of the 21.5" display...



Control Panel tray reattached...



Display back in chassis...



Upper art and side panels back on...



Sega Nu motherboard mounted back in lower left of cabinet...

 

I did wonder what puting the PCI card in a regular pc would do, i'd have thought it would need drivers etc, or does the game just know how to use it?

As for getting the game to ignore the mssing keychip and network, I think simply hex editing the diva.exe with the same changes that are used in PD-loader should work.

The good thing is there are plenty of options.

 

Ha, known that since the Naomi days.

The step-down arrived and it all powers up.

We won't talk about this though, but it's now been rectified...



I connected my PC to it to test the screen and sound. The speakers are really good, especialialy the top ones. and both top and bottom have seperate volume dials.

The Nu boots to the Nu logo with error 0001 no keychip so hopefully that means it didn't find any other errors apart from that.

 

I've put my own small PC (HP Prodesk, 4th gen i3 with 750ti) in it for now, it can run the game fairly well as it's higher spec than the Nu, but i'm using a plugin to get the sound to work which causes a bit of slowdown on some parts. But it will do for now.

Here's a quick video of it running...

 

I think the safest plan for now is the use the PCI card in another pc - or put a regular motherboard in the nu case allowing me to use its own psu and conveinent 12v output connector with existing cabling

Then I can also use it for other things than just diva.

I tried to pm you about those drivers etc but you have it disabled on your account I think?

 

Yesterday I took the Nu apart to clean it out as it was very dirty inside...

Empty case


Motherboard, based on an Advantech AIMB-582...


Really loud intake fan...


The 250w PSU, universal input voltage but custom connector, this also has the external facing connector. that powers many of the cabinets parts like the control panel and side lights...




The air intake cover which lines up with vents at the rear of the cabinet...


Hard Disk bracket with 64GB SSD and 500GB HGST drive...


nVIdia GT 650 Ti...


The AMEX PCI-E card that gives the board it's JVS interface...

 

I replaced the super locked down Nu motherboard and drives with a Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H, installed my i3 4130, 750Ti and Intel SSD and now have a near fully working set up...

I no longer need to use a performace slowing audio plug in as the boardrhas a Realtek chip the same as the original meaning native sound support and no more slowdowns. Next I may upgrade the CPU to the i3 4170 which is 300mhz faster and the same wattage giving a bit more available performance.

The regular PC backplate fits perfectly


My graphics card is smaller and doesn't need the extra 6-pin power connector


A few less cables than the original board as I won't need to power the Aime reader, network switch or coin mech


The flashing buttons and side lights now work...


The only feature not yet sorted is the touch screen, but that can wait for now.

 

The touch screen is now working and this is how it's set up in my living room now...
I have a long HDMI cable going from the cabinet to my TV for mirroring the gameplay too.

 

I'll scan the artwork tommorow, I thought about doing that a while ago but havn't got around to it yet,

 

Here you go...

Full size 300dpi scans here: https://mikucity.com/cabinet/artwork/