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Build Your Own Pinball Possibilities...?
yugffuts:
The Futurama pin thread fed this, and this discussion started in there. I'll try to sum up:
Previous home-made pinball machine makers created their own hardware or modified existing pins, which makes it difficult (and limiting) to the average tinkerer.
Is there a way to interface a PC using the VPinmame program with a physical playfield? By mapping a bumper to button "m", and wiring it into an IPAC?
Then, if the bumper is hit, the "M" is sent to the PC in the cabinet, and the VPinmame script is run and reacts accordingly, handling sound, scoring and modes.
To handle Solenoids and lamps, www.pinmame-hw.com may be able to help.
Any thought on this topic?
RayB:
Search this forum, there's a couple long threads discussing the pros, cons and hows to do this (all theory of course).
If you were to use an IPAC for input, you could in theory use any programming software to handle the game logic side of things. Hell, you could even use Macromedia Flash.
The problem comes with controlling stuff on the playfield. Input is one thing, but output is a whole other ball game. (ie: How do you tell a mechanical device on your playfield to start up and move?)
MYX:
--- Quote from: RayB on March 07, 2006, 01:22:28 pm ---Search this forum, there's a couple long threads discussing the pros, cons and hows to do this (all theory of course).
If you were to use an IPAC for input, you could in theory use any programming software to handle the game logic side of things. Hell, you could even use Macromedia Flash.
The problem comes with controlling stuff on the playfield. Input is one thing, but output is a whole other ball game. (ie: How do you tell a mechanical device on your playfield to start up and move?)
--- End quote ---
LED Wiz. You use the a Wiz on the front for input. The program translates and outputs to LED Wiz. You would need to put a relay or transistor on the output to allow the flow of higher voltage lines.
yugffuts:
I read a bunch of other homemade pinball threads, but didn't see this topic touched on. I will search again and see if I missed anything.
The reason I picked VPinmame for the purposes of this discussion is pinmeme-hw has an Active-X control that allows you to map buttons to objects, so that part is already taken care of. I plan to install this and see exactly how it works, but it looks promising.
I agree that the current problem would be output (driving solenoids and lamps). I am not very familiar with the LED Wiz, I will check that out.
I think if it can be normalized to some degree the hardware, then homemade pins can take off. You would need:
PC
IPAC (or other encoder)
Monitor (backbox displays)
Solenoid driver board*
Lamp driver board* (LED Wiz?)
Obviously, the 2 most complicated items are not available. What is preventing them from being made? Is it the complexity? I would imagine it could work like an IPAC. USB port to a seperate board that is labeled for say 16 solenoids with terminals. Wire from that device to the solenoids, and drive it with the pinmame script. Would a board such as this be that complicated/expensive to create?
TheCaptain:
I used to have these little toys that were like legos with little motors and stuff, and you could program them to start up under certain parameters (time, keypress, etc.) They were only like, 30 dollars. The motors packed a nice punch, too.
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