160 replies to this topic

[zebulon]

Looking sweet Zeb. Like the starter solenoids.
Do you get much lag with them or do they fire pretty quick?

They have the briefest bit of a lag, mostly from the relays (I scrounged them from a couple of household digital thermostats) but since they're for the bumper jets, you don't even know it's there (combined with a pretty hefty sub). Hard to describe the effect, it's more like filling in a gap than actually making an independent noise. They just round out the overall feel of the cab.

They're also cheap chinese knockoffs so they'll probably round out the overall effect of the FIRE! table at some point too...
(not really, 12v@5-600mA depending if they're vertically or horizontally mounted).

[gwjrabbit]

Looking sweet Zeb. Like the starter solenoids.
Do you get much lag with them or do they fire pretty quick?

They have the briefest bit of a lag, mostly from the relays (I scrounged them from a couple of household digital thermostats) but since they're for the bumper jets, you don't even know it's there (combined with a pretty hefty sub). Hard to describe the effect, it's more like filling in a gap than actually making an independent noise. They just round out the overall feel of the cab.

They're also cheap chinese knockoffs so they'll probably round out the overall effect of the FIRE! table at some point too...
(not really, 12v@5-600mA depending if they're vertically or horizontally mounted).

I've got nothing but cheap 10 dollar solenoids in my cap (5 of em) and while they sound and feel great, I did blow one out -- the one I use for the "back" solenoids, like pop-bumpers. I end up using it for a lot of things, and I think at one point it just tried to fire too many things too fast and fried. Sniff.

[zebulon]

Looking sweet Zeb. Like the starter solenoids.
Do you get much lag with them or do they fire pretty quick?

They have the briefest bit of a lag, mostly from the relays (I scrounged them from a couple of household digital thermostats) but since they're for the bumper jets, you don't even know it's there (combined with a pretty hefty sub). Hard to describe the effect, it's more like filling in a gap than actually making an independent noise. They just round out the overall feel of the cab.

They're also cheap chinese knockoffs so they'll probably round out the overall effect of the FIRE! table at some point too...
(not really, 12v@5-600mA depending if they're vertically or horizontally mounted).

I've got nothing but cheap 10 dollar solenoids in my cap (5 of em) and while they sound and feel great, I did blow one out -- the one I use for the "back" solenoids, like pop-bumpers. I end up using it for a lot of things, and I think at one point it just tried to fire too many things too fast and fried. Sniff.

Wow, I hope it only blew the solenoid on you rabbit....that's why I have them buffered through a relay and fused...just in case.

Thanks for the heads up.

[zebulon]

Finally got a chance to jam most of the upgrades in, back to the usual rat's nest of wiring until I get time to sort that out.



On a side note, Keep your amplified subwoofers away from the solenoids unless you want to hear them firing through the speakers (terrible to non-existent shielding on theses speakers) and don't panic when nothing works from the ledwiz if you're using the web based configuration utility, one error or mismatch in someone else's config can keep yours from initializing at all....spent a couple of hours sorting that one out

Still have the opto couplers and RGB LED strips to install....

[hkimport]

Motors, Relays, Solenoid, Optocouplers, fuses....this sounds and looks like the coolest senior project I've ever seen! Thanks for the updates. I very much enjoy following this project come together.

[zebulon]

Motors, Relays, Solenoid, Optocouplers, fuses....this sounds and looks like the coolest senior project I've ever seen! Thanks for the updates. I very much enjoy following this project come together.

Thanks for the kind words, once again though, I don't think I'm breaking any new ground here, just following the lead of others. Glad you're enjoying the build, it's been a fun project so far.

[zebulon]

Picked up some new toys tonight....an evga 1gig superclocked gtx280, a crosshair ll board (nvidia chipset, 3 16x pci slots), an amd 1100T (6 core 3.3ghz Black Edition), 4gb ocz 1066 reaper hyper ram (not sure they're going to fit under the scythe heatsink, they're heatpipe cooled and tall), a 256m 6800 superclocked (I'll try it for the backglass, you never know), the ugliest case I've ever seen (but it came with a dvd player and a dvd combo drive) and a bunch of questionable bits and pieces.....all for 250.00. Looks like I can retire the current ATI rig from pinball (it's going to become the home desktop....photoshop is kinda fun) and try the Nvidia route for a bit (see if there's any real difference).

All in all it was worth the drive to Uxbridge.

Pics to follow......

[zebulon]

So I finally got a chance to install the mobo, 280gtx sc, 240 gts, reaper memory and the 955 cpu from the previous assembly. Tried win7 and had nothing but grief and heartache. At 4meg of ram every table was unplayably slow.

Reinstalled winxp 32bit and reloaded the vp and hp configurations and BANG...up and running without an issue. I'm able to overcome the 50hz limitation on my screen allowing me to run 1080p smoothly, and the colour depth is far superior to the ati drivers. Blacks are black right out of the box. For those interested, I'm using the latest drivers from nvidia. 275

It wasn't all roses though, after chasing a stutter on every table for 3 hours, I finally found that the culprit was the cheap usb hub I had in the cabinet. When the starter solenoids would fire, the vibration would cause the hub to disconnect and reconnect, hanging the gameplay and causing a stutter.

Disconnecting the hub cleared the issue right up. Overall, for vp, I'm a nvidia convert.

Now I just have to get rid of the free credit glitch. I think in my rewiring I hooked or programmed a mercury switch to the credit circuit somewhere. Fire the solenoids often enough and some games are crediting on their own. It does add an element of realism though, lots of machines from my youth had issues like that.

[maxxsinner]

Sounds like its going well there Zeb.
Solenoids must pack a bit of punch to rattle the cabinet enough to loosen the usb cable.

[zebulon]

Sounds like its going well there Zeb.
Solenoids must pack a bit of punch to rattle the cabinet enough to loosen the usb cable.

You can definitely feel and hear them.

I'm guessing there's a cold solder joint on the hub board that's causing it, I noticed it only because my mouse and keyboard are plugged into it and the mouse kept cutting out.

[maxxsinner]

So hows the side art coming along Zeb. Got any pics you could share with us?

[zebulon]

So hows the side art coming along Zeb. Got any pics you could share with us?

Funny you should ask Mr. Inner, I just finished a rough draft........



Let me know what you think......

[maxxsinner]

Crikey! That there art is a bloody bottler cobber!

[zebulon]

Crikey! That there art is a bloody bottler cobber!

According to Wikipedia that's supposed to mean good right?

[ebarlow99]

Crikey! That there art is a bloody bottler cobber!

According to Wikipedia that's supposed to mean good right?

awesome!!

[zebulon]

So after a lot of laughs with maxxsinner over the odds of both of us using the same artwork (and some good natured teasing) I've finally finished the art design for the cab. Of course I think mine looks better (and that can only be bolstered by someone else's need to spruce his up with illuminated bling ) but for what it's worth, here it is.

[maxxsinner]

(and that can only be bolstered by someone else's need to spruce his up with illuminated bling )

C'mon Zeb. Thought we got over this whole jealousy issue? lol

Looks awesome mate. Love the highlights around your buttons on the front panel. This is going to come up great.

Edited by maxxsinner, 07 August 2011 - 01:09 AM.

[zebulon]

A little more playing around the past couple of days and I came up with a replacement wheel deign for the frontend.....

Edited by zebulon, 11 August 2011 - 01:17 AM.

[settingsons]

Beautiful artwork and a great looking wheel too. A first class build

[bladexdsl]

i want that wheel