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| toadman:
--- Quote from: Ixliam on January 18, 2005, 05:03:25 pm ---Its not bouncing, its that the ball takes a bit to go down, so it is holding down the button for longer than it needs to be, same thing if you held it down on the keyboard. --- End quote --- Isn't that what a momentary contact switch is for? Would that fix your problem without having to have a code hack? |
| Chris:
--- Quote from: toadman on January 19, 2005, 03:42:33 pm --- --- Quote from: Ixliam on January 18, 2005, 05:03:25 pm ---Its not bouncing, its that the ball takes a bit to go down, so it is holding down the button for longer than it needs to be, same thing if you held it down on the keyboard. --- End quote --- Isn't that what a momentary contact switch is for? Would that fix your problem without having to have a code hack? --- End quote --- "Momentary contact" means that once the pressure on the switch is released, the switch opens, as opposed to a toggle switch which is pressed once to activate and again to release. But as long as the switch is held down, the circuit is closed and Windows' key repeat kicks in. Now that he's using Allegro, though, he can use the key[] array to read keys which does not use the key repeat feature. It also has the benefit of being able to read multiple keys at once in case two balls are thrown and trip two different switches at the same time. |
| Ixliam:
Momentary contact is like your arcade buttons. Long as you hold it down, it makes contact. Normal contact is like a lightswitch, you put it in a certain position, it stays there till you switch it to something else. Had I used transistors connected to the switches then directly to the TTL circuit, there would not be a problem, since in order to count the "pulse" must be +5V then 0V. Since I wanted an easy way to handle sound and programming, I'm using an old Pentium (1) 180mhz machine with 16mb ram to handle it. Allegro handles it very well, and the program is very simple when you think about it. At the basic stage it takes a keypress, sends out the pulses to run the score or ballcount circuits, then plays a sound according to the ring you hit. There are no graphics or anything like that at all, but if you wanted that to use with a pc monitor RandyT's Keywiz and associated program will do all of that. I'm just waiting on RandyT to start building a skeeball. Chris - Mine really isn't an encoder as it is a parallel port interface circuit. Two data lines run the ballcount and score, which leave 10 others available to run anything else. Some will run relays to fire off the ball release mechanism, lights, flashers, etc. Plenty to work with there. Brad |
| jfunk:
You are going to post some video (with sound) of this in action when all is said and done, right?? :) |
| Ixliam:
No video camera.. I'm kinda like Peale, I never watch TV.. live in the dark ages. I ended up having to make some adjustments to it with the switch issue. Part of the problem was the held contact, part of it was a bounce. Both of those occured more on the "slow" balls down towards the bottom (prob why skeeball went to all optical switches). I rearranged the switches to work in a cascade, and put a screw that the spring trip wire hits on return to stop some of the bouncing. But what worked best was careful positioning of the switch so that the ball hit it, but didn't hit it 100%. You wanted the balls to contact it enough to trigger the switch, but not pull the switch all the way down. Mine are now arranged like the ones in typical machines, where each is worth 10 points. Not as ideal as I would have liked it, but that is what works (maybe that is why skeeball put theirs that way). I will probably make them all optical at some point, but not right now. In any case, it is playing and scoring correctly now. The program size is VERY small now, but works great. I converted the front switch which just reset the score (by disconnecting the reset chip line from ground) to a 12v DPDT relay. With this now, the switch throws 12V to the relay, which resets the scoreboard and eventyally will open the ball release. Looks like I will end up using a hobby motor and a sprocket/chain pull down the ball release, I think that will be the best method. Brad |
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