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Build Your Own Pinball Possibilities...?

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allroy1975:
c'mon kids, quit the pissing contest.  I love CWT cuz he's a pin guy and ya gotta love yugffuts cuz he's thinking along the exact same lines as me.  After I saw the Futurama pin, I started thinking about the LED Wiz and what a kick ass pin you could build with that...not just lights that go off and on, but actually change color while flashing....

I started talking to a programmer friend of mine and he's all for trying, and I started (trying) to design an Army of Darkness Pinball Machine. 

The theme seems SO obvious and perfect for a pin.  My thinking is to make it like that Space Cadet pin that Windows comes with (now...I think it was originally in the Plus Pack) and I'm sure there are tons of real pins like this..but you choose a misison by hitting X target, then hit another target to select that mission...missions would be stuff like...

Kill the "pit monsters"
Fight Little Ashes
Obtain the "book of the dead"  (not sure how to spell necronomikin and don't feel like looking it up)
Build an Army
Fight the army of the Deadites

The best idea...I thought...came from my friend (flipper) was to use a 15 inch LCD in the Head unit to display the score, and also to show movie clips etc.

Using the LED wiz certainly takes a lot of hassle out of the light problems.  I don't know why someone hasn't started producing that pinmame-HW board.  I would imagine a LOT of DEAD pins could be EASILY restored were someone to build one.  The big problem is of course all the solonoids and that's what the pinmame HW board addresses. 

I think it's a totally sweet idea, and I'm all about trying this. 

It's obviously 100% possible as they're already doing it on the Pinmame-HW.com but their documentation doesn't seem great. 

More brainstorming...btw, those chips they use on those boards only seem to be about .50 each....cheap if you ask me.

Allroy

yugffuts:
The pinmame-hw project is progressing, but if you read the site, it seems to be just 2 guys who are doing their own projects.  I downloaded the Active-X control last night, but I couldn't get it to work (got an error when loading the table). [The Active-X control allows you to map objects in pinmame to key presses, so if a ball hits a switch, it will send a keypress back to the program for processing.]

I think they are still developing the solenoid driver board, as well.  I would imagine someone with some experience with circuitry could look at or build what they have so far, and see how/if it works.

MYX:

--- Quote from: yugffuts on March 07, 2006, 02:47:28 pm ---I think if it can be normalized to some degree the hardware, then homemade pins can take off.  You would need:

Solenoid driver board*
Lamp driver board* (LED Wiz?)

--- End quote ---

The LED Wiz can be a solenoid driver board. Again, use the outputs of the wiz and go to a transistor or relay and you can control higher voltage circuits.

This would be another reason for Randy to make progress on software for more than 1 LEDWiz.
You figure 1 wiz for lighting and a second for solenoids. If a computer were the brains, you could use it for sound samples. You could use a pentium 1 as all you would need to run is sound, and the the program and the I/O. 32 outputs should be more than adequate. You figure, 2 for flippers, possibly 3 pop bumpers, 4 sling shots, a couple of drop hole returns. It would be plenty.

Here is another thing to consider. -->LINKITYLINK<--
This would allow you to use a Williams System 7 main and or driver boards. He has also made display boards. I was abut an inch away from buying a new main board for my Black Knight when I got it fixed and no longer had a need.

There is a major cost consideration for a pin. with a mame machine there is a computer, encoder and buttons, and joys and the rest is done on the screen. If you go the pin route there are SO MANY parts. It would seem a logistical nightmare. anyone who has ever been under the hood of a pin has to have respect for the guys that built these things.

yugffuts:

--- Quote ---The LED Wiz can be a solenoid driver board. Again, use the outputs of the wiz and go to a transistor or relay and you can control higher voltage circuits.
--- End quote ---

So, if you ran the LEDWiz LED output through a different board, you can increase the voltage?  You can't connect 2 LEDWiz's in parallel?  I am not too familiar with how that device works.



--- Quote ---There is a major cost consideration for a pin. with a mame machine there is a computer, encoder and buttons, and joys and the rest is done on the screen. If you go the pin route there are SO MANY parts. It would seem a logistical nightmare. anyone who has ever been under the hood of a pin has to have respect for the guys that built these things.
--- End quote ---
Don't forget the cost of the monitor, cab, speakers, control panel, etc.  Designing a pin certainly wouldn't be easy or cheap, but it would still be a great project.

ChadTower:

--- Quote from: yugffuts on March 08, 2006, 10:57:22 am ---So, if you ran the LEDWiz LED output through a different board, you can increase the voltage?  You can't connect 2 LEDWiz's in parallel?  I am not too familiar with how that device works.
--- End quote ---

No, the voltage comes from someplace else.  The LEDWiz would send a 5v signal to a transistor that is controlling individual ground connections in a ~35v circuit that is connected to the solenoids in a loop. 

Transistor gets its 5v -> connects invivdual solenoid to ground -> solenoid HV fires -> EOS switch is hit -> transistor loses 5v -> solenoid HV shuts off.

That's greatly simplified but how it generally works.

Using the LEDwiz could work for this, I suppose, but you'd still have to build a transistor matrix yourself for switches and solenoids.

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