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Ond:
Well, while I'm signed in and posting in other threads I should post an update here. I hate updating without much to show, but I do have something of interest to share. Malenko asked me some time back to help out with connections for his Pinscape boards in his vpin project. Long story short, this ended up with me designing a PCB adapter board for the Pinscape board commonly used in virtual pinball machines. The KL25Z Pinscape board is great, it gives you all these features including accelerometer (for nudging), plunger control types etc, etc. The problem is it's just a board with header pins. It can be used with other add-on boards for connectivity but Malenko and I wanted something to connect directly to it with screw terminals for easy wiring.
An adapter board idea motivated me to re-do my own direct soldering solution I was using in my The Web vpin. I wanted a board that allows simple screw terminal connections to every GPIO pin available on the Pinscape KL25Z board.
Here's the board render from my design in KiCad:
and here's the actual board sitting on my workbench:
and with the Pinscape KL25Z attached:
I have briefly tested the assembly using the Pinscape config app. My own control set works fine with it. At this stage I still have a few spare boards. In the future, I could make up these for other Vpin builders but let's how well it works all wired up first. Malenko's is on it's way to him ;D
jeremymtc:
Very cool, Ond!
The only issue with wider adoption of that design is that the KL25z was recently revised/cost reduced and the current versions don't have an accelerometer. There are some efforts underway (Pinscape Pico) to port the functionality to a Pi-based sbc (RP2040 iirc) to work around the lack of suitable KL25z's. I believe that those require an add-on for accelerometer input too though.
Ond:
--- Quote from: jeremymtc on April 13, 2026, 11:04:08 pm ---Very cool, Ond!
The only issue with wider adoption of that design is that the KL25z was recently revised/cost reduced and the current versions don't have an accelerometer. There are some efforts underway (Pinscape Pico) to port the functionality to a Pi-based sbc (RP2040 iirc) to work around the lack of suitable KL25z's. I believe that those require an add-on for accelerometer input too though.
--- End quote ---
That's interesting! Hmm I feel tempted by the challenge. So, the MEM accelerometer chips are available as well as the cheaper KL25Zs. I think just for the hell of it I'm going to buy both, solder the chip on and load up the Pinscape firmware. The cost of my original KL25Z from Pinscape was still more than the cost of those parts. I'm ok these days with surface mount stuff, any other reasons my idea won't work? Anyone have thoughts on that?
jeremymtc:
mjr posted this note on his page:
"Warning: NXP recently shipped a new batch of KL25Z boards that's not compatible with the Pinscape software. To run Pinscape, you need an original KL25Z, manufactured before 2021 or so, and those have become scarce over the past few years. I recommend looking at the new Pinscape Pico project as an alternative if you don't already have a "classic" KL25Z on hand."
I think he's been active on the forum at VPF, so it may be worth asking him directly what the incompatibility concerns. I assume that there's something more than just the lack of accelerometer at play, but I only know about this stuff kind of tangentially.
Ond:
Ah, thanks for the info jeremymtc, well hopefully my board is a win-win for Malenko and I anyway.
:cheers:
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