wow...this is amazing!
Thanks! It's a big undertaking, but I'm currently optimistic that it will all work in the end.
This weekend was about the power control box. It's been pictured in a few prior updates; it lives on the floor
behind the driving pedals, underneath the pushed in chair, in front of the back wall.
When I first proposed this project, rablack97 voiced a concern that there'd be insufficient volume to accommodate the parts and wiring necessary for a good vpin because of the design. This box is one of the places those guts live.
First, I had to cut and drill a lot of holes in the steel box.
(Then I had to remove a whole lot of conductive steel shavings and swarf, because that's not something I want floating around in here.)
My dad gets the credit for the creative use of space that follows...
A 12v power supply mounts flat on the lid. A 24v power supply mounts -edgewise- on the lid.
The 12v will be running the 9 amp (max) table rotating actuator, the 9 amp (max) control panel sliding actuator, and the intake fan.
The 24v will be running the flipper contactors, the slingshot contactors, and the bumpers.
Next I took a PC power cable, cut the insulation off half of it, and threaded it through a heavy duty strain relief panel entry.
This will be the 120v AC in to this box for the various power supplies, and for the big 120v contactor I'll be using as a knocker.
Immediately above and to the left is a fuseholder and fuse; power goes to it first, then everywhere else in the box. Above and to the left of the fuseholder is the connector we'll be using to run up to the rotating playfield, for sending 24v DC to the flipper and slingshot contactors.
Many outputs from the LED-Wiz in the back cabinet are wired to a DB25 connector in the front wall of the back cabinet; this box has the matching cable that attaches to that connector. Then, inside this box, the LED-Wiz driver outputs will be flipping solid state relays. So, this box gets a whole heap of solid state relays crammed into it.
To help mount those, I fabricated a neat little bracket out of sheet aluminum.
Cut out a rectangle of .060 aluminum, folded it to 90' on my little 12" finger brake, drilled it, and pushed in some pem nut thread inserts.
This thing mounts 6 solid state relays back to back, and acts as a heat spreader for them - here's a test fit of the four on the ends.
That's not enough relays, though, so some get mounted to the walls, too. Here's the DIN rail, with terminal blocks and three more relays, and four solid state relays mounted to the back and left walls. On the left wall, an 80mm intake fan, which will blow out through the rectangular duct I showed in my last update out through the back wall. In the center of the box is the two holes for the aluminum bracket shown above.
When the solid state relay bracket goes into those holes, it all looks like this:
The tall 24v power supply swings in over the aluminum bracket full of six solid state relays, with about a half inch of clearance, which is half the wind tunnel going from the intake fan out the back of the box. The flat 12v power supply swings in over the top of the DIN rail, with about 3/4ths of an inch of clearance, forming the other half of that air channel.
This is most all the mounting that needs to go on to make the power control box mechanically complete. It is likely to get disassembled again for wiring, of course, because getting into these spaces to wire it would be needlessly tricky.
As oriented from the pinball player's perspective, the front wall of the box has the 120v power, fuse, and a connector out to the playfield. The back wall of the box has the DB25 signal cable to the backbox, and connectors for 1) the control panel stowing actuator, 2) the playfield rotation actuator, 3) the replay knocker, and 4) the various limit switches that will confirm to the PC whether the TV is horizontal or vertical, and whether the control panel is stowed or retracted.
Next up is probably wiring, and some bodywork on the floor/back wall/midshelf - that's the last batch of parts to be painted black by my count. I've cut the back wall and midshelf back to what I think - fingers crossed - the actual correct final distance from the front cabinet to the back cabinet should be. Man I hope I got that dimension right, because it'll be a pain to adjust if I missed.
A great disassembly is coming on the horizon, probably 2-3 more updates from now, which will be a demoralizing thing to power through... but the next version of the assembly is the final assembly in the house, I think. All work after that happens in situ. Additionally, that reassembly is the one where it becomes motorized, so that's something to look forward to.