Our guide on how to upgrade a Arcade1Up T2 or Simular cab with our PC kit.

We get asked often what it takes to install our PC kit into a dedicated gun cab like the Arcade1Up T2, Buck Hunter, Time Crisis etc. The install is very straight forward and depending on if you want to use the actual control deck will determine what all parts you need. Lets break it down. 

First off, no mater which direction you go, you will need to replace the Arcade1Up stock guns with our Sinden Light guns. There is not aftermarket board or setup that will allow you to reuse them. The bright side? They are easily sold on places like Market Place, eBay and other similar venues. You can also resell the game board that is attached to the lcd, they are common failures and highly sought after. This will offset the cost of the conversion.

Next, if you are planning to reuse the factory Arcade1Up LCD like most do, you will need a lcd driver in order to give your existing Arcade1Up LCD a hdmi input. We stock the LCD Driver HERE. The stock Arcade1Up LCD is not horrible at all and it preserves the look and feel of the cab as well.

Now you need to decide on if you want your existing control deck to function to navigate and exit games. If you do not care if it does and you are ok with using the Sinden Light Gun along with the included mini keyboard then you have a pretty straight forward install. For this install you need the following parts:

1. The PC install kit, most will choose the 'Light Gun Only' drive option. 
2. A LCD driver
3. At least 1 Sinden Light Gun
4. EMI to Surge Strip (to be able to power on the pc from the outside)
5. Bluetooth Speaker (easier then a amp to use the factory speakers)
6. Customer supplied surge strip for the EMI. 

To get this up and running simply install the LCD Driver ( HOW TOO ) first and install the EMI to Surge Strip next. The hardest part of the entire install is cutting the hole in the back of the cab to mount the EMI. We have included a jig to make this a much easier task. What the EMI is used for is to power off the main power to the pc and LCD or anything else you plug into the surge strip. 

Next step is to put the pc in the inside of the cab, plug in the display port cable to the back of the pc and run the HDMI end of the cable to the LCD driver. Then take the included power supply for the PC and plug it into the surge strip and pc. Take the factory Arcacde1Up power supply and plug it into the surge strip then run the other end to the LCD driver. 

Then mount or simply set the bluetooth speaker inside the cab, plug the USB into any of the USB ports on the PC and plug the 3.5mm male into the speaker port on the PC. Lastly, take your Sinden Light Guns and drop the USB cables inside the cab and plug them into any open USB ports on the PC. 

How do you power the PC on and off by using the EMI? Simple, if we see you have purchased a PC + the emi as of 4/11/26 on the same order we will now configure the bios for you of the PC to boot on power. So when the PC sees power from the EMI it will boot. Then to shut down all you need to do is go into the pc software menu by hitting 'Q' on the mini keyboard and going to shut down. The pc will shutoff in about 3-5 seconds. Once it shuts off reach behind it and flip the EMI to off. This will kill power to the PC and LCD and anything else plugged into the surge strip. Then when you are ready to play again simply flip the power on and the PC will boot automatically on power and the lcd and everything else will power too. 

What If I want To Use The Buttons On The Control Panel?

If you want to use the joystick & buttons on a control panel then you are best off to get one of our control decks. Right now we only offer T2 since the machine is laid out to have the ability to make it a standard upright as well. We offer these 2 panels:

1. Control Panel for 2 players
2. Control Panel for dedicated gun cab

For control panel option #1 you would need to get all the above parts (for PC drive we suggest ALL KILLER NO FILLER) plus:
     - Encoder Boards x 2 ( one per player )
     - Sanwa Joystick or Clone (the clones are not poor quality!!)
     - Buttons x 16

The Mini is pre-configured to work with these items. All you need to do is wire the encoder boards as shown in this image:

If you wire it how its shown it will work right out of the box. See THIS VIDEO of us installing this panel into a T2. It will give you where each button should be and make the install super simple. 

For Control Panel Option #2

This style panel is used when you want to be able to exit and start games on the control panel and use it for navigation. We suggest the LIGHT GUN ONLY DRIVE still for the pc. You will also need to add the below items:

     - Encoder Boards x 2
     - Sanwa Joystick or Clone (the clones are not poor quality!!) Only need 1
     - Buttons x 8

Same as installing Control Panel 1, use the above graphic on where to plug into the encoder board and wire up these buttons:
     - On encoder for player 1, wire up start, coin,  B, Y, A, X and for player 2 wire up only start and coin. For the B, Y, A, X buttons we suggest this for the control panel layout:

                  X
                Y   A
                   B

Either way you go the install is fairly straight forward and know that if any issues arise during the install that we will be here for you 100% to guide you thru. We have yet not be unable to get anyone 100% up and running with any of our kits.