297 replies to this topic

[sharkus]

Darkfall,

I really love your build. It has inspired me to eventually work on a dual 37" setup.

One thing I was wondering... Have you considered "exposing" the backglass monitor between the playfield monitor and the playfield glass? You could then use that portion of the monitor for "virtual" flashers (in similar locations as Chris' setup) or additional table specific graphics. This would also result in even less of the backglass monitor being "wasted" and might provide some pretty cool flexibility...

-Sharkus

[Darkfall]

Darkfall,

I really love your build. It has inspired me to eventually work on a dual 37" setup.

One thing I was wondering... Have you considered "exposing" the backglass monitor between the playfield monitor and the playfield glass? You could then use that portion of the monitor for "virtual" flashers (in similar locations as Chris' setup) or additional table specific graphics. This would also result in even less of the backglass monitor being "wasted" and might provide some pretty cool flexibility...

-Sharkus

Hi, Sharkus,

I'm glad you find my build inspiring - that's awesome!

I hadn't considered your idea, but it's not a bad idea - I kind of like it, in fact. You do need a piece of wood there to screw the rear plastic channel for the playfield glass, but there's a bunch of space below that doing nothing that would work. I can think of a few things that area could be used for - even if it was just a static image of the "Wildfire Pinball" logo, or something, that'd be kind of cool. Hmmm...You got me thinking now!

[Darkfall]

A friend (ironspider) just drew my attention to something I'd never considered - a ready made relay board. Why the heck didn't I do this? eBay is full of them for dirt cheap. After paying for the parts and spending the time to put a board together, this would have been a way better idea.

Here's a link to one of the boards - 16 relays, all 5 volt: $26 plus shipping.

Man, this would have been easier! Next time!

In the meantime, this might help someone who doesn't have the time or the skill to make a board themselves.

[mameman23]

hehe, check i think the BBB thread of mine. i posted the one i used months ago

you need to be watchful as many of those relay boards use the + wire to trigger the relay and not the ground which is what you need since you are using the ledwiz.

[sharkus]

hehe, check i think the BBB thread of mine. i posted the one i used months ago

you need to be watchful as many of those relay boards use the + wire to trigger the relay and not the ground which is what you need since you are using the ledwiz.

Thanks for that tip. I probably would have ordered the wrong one. Does this mean we should look for "input active low"? Would there be any advantage to a board that offers opto-isolation?

I noticed some listings don't specify active state, but do show board schematics. If I'm reading things correctly, this would be ground triggered:



While this would be + triggered:



Am I reading these correctly? Does the ground triggered schematic above provide enough protection with the LED to prevent problems with the LEDWiz?

[maxxsinner]

Yep your reading them correctly.

The protection for the LED wiz is done with the IN4007 which is just a signal diode.
Using a similar setup for a circuit in my cab.

[Darkfall]

I'm not entirely sure on the schematics. The positive triggering would be a problem, if the board forces that (which looks like these ones do, primarily due to the diode (D1 or 1N4007, depending which schematic you're looking at), since if it's backwards, it'll not do it's job of stopping the backflow of power from the relay's coil when it releases.

With that in mind, it looks to me like both of those schematics behave the same way in terms of polarity, since the arrow on the diode is pointing away from ground in both circuits.

Some of the board say they're compatible with the Arduino, which likes to use a common ground and power to control - exactly the opposite of the LEDWiz.

Hmmm...That makes selecting a relay board a little more interesting.

[maxxsinner]

I'm not entirely sure on the schematics. The positive triggering would be a problem, if the board forces that (which looks like these ones do, primarily due to the diode (D1 or 1N4007, depending which schematic you're looking at), since if it's backwards, it'll not do it's job of stopping the backflow of power from the relay's coil when it releases.

With that in mind, it looks to me like both of those schematics behave the same way in terms of polarity, since the arrow on the diode is pointing away from ground in both circuits.

Some of the board say they're compatible with the Arduino, which likes to use a common ground and power to control - exactly the opposite of the LEDWiz.

Hmmm...That makes selecting a relay board a little more interesting.

The ground is being switched on the opto schemtic Darkfall so no problems there. The D1 on the relay (Sorry I refered to the wrong diode on my last post and its only protecting the transistors as the LEDwiz is only seeing the led as the load) and the IN4007 should both be reverse to normal polarity as the back EMF from the realy is reverse polarity meaning that when the relay is switched off, the current will flow from - to + through the diode allowing the coil to basically absorb the power. So its not actually trying to stop the backflow, its trying to let it flow.

Arduino boards can switch postive or ground, so a signal can be high or low. I think they normally refer to Arduino compatible due to protection diodes and current flow from the input pins.

Some optos can be a pain in the #$*& as they will light the LED dimly with it connected to the LEDwiz outputs and give ghost signals.

Edited by maxxsinner, 14 October 2011 - 02:06 AM.

[sharkus]

Darkfall,

How do you like your cheap contactors? Are they all working properly at this point with the additional diodes? Any chance you can post a video that shows the amount noise they make?

Thanks!
-Sharkus

[Darkfall]

How do you like your cheap contactors? Are they all working properly at this point with the additional diodes? Any chance you can post a video that shows the amount noise they make?

They're not bad, actually. I don't know if they make as much noise as the more expensive ones, but they make enough noise for me. I tried a bunch to get a feel for different solutions via various videos, but it's really hard to determine much from a video unless you can hear a comparison of the different devices working on the same video. I never did buy one of the Siemens contactors, so I don't have one to connect for comparison, unfortunately.

for the $13, though, I think these are doing the job pretty well - maybe even as well as the Siemens. For the most part, a relay sounds like a relay of a given size, from the few different ones I toyed around with (I even played with an old, old monster of a relay. Huge beast - and it sounded pretty much the same as my cheap ones).

[pinballlooking]

Did you get your H-Bridge yet? I am thinking about getting one. Thanks for posting the shaker setup I am going to set mine up similar.

[Darkfall]

Did you get your H-Bridge yet? I am thinking about getting one. Thanks for posting the shaker setup I am going to set mine up similar.

Not yet. It's been stuck in Canadian customs for a week. I expect it'll show up this week, but I'm gearing up to head to Cabo on Friday for just under a week, so I don't know if I'll get a chance to do anything with it before I go.

[DeeGor]

Not yet. It's been stuck in Canadian customs for a week. I expect it'll show up this week, but I'm gearing up to head to Cabo on Friday for just under a week, so I don't know if I'll get a chance to do anything with it before I go.

Stay Safe.

I got dibs on your cabinet if you don't make it back.

[Darkfall]

Not yet. It's been stuck in Canadian customs for a week. I expect it'll show up this week, but I'm gearing up to head to Cabo on Friday for just under a week, so I don't know if I'll get a chance to do anything with it before I go.

Stay Safe.

I got dibs on your cabinet if you don't make it back.

LOL. Deal!

[Darkfall]

Hey, guys,

I finally got the Dual-H Bridge. The thing sat in customs for 3 weeks! Crazy.

Anyway, it took some screwing around, but I finally got it going with an LED for testing. Works great!

Soldering the wire onto pin 4 of the surface mount chip for the 9-16 bank is a bit of fun, but with a steady hand it can be done. If you're doing it, I recommend using a small gauge wire, strip a tiny amount off the end (just enough to make the connection - not a whole bunch that can accidentally contact other things you didn't intend for), tin that end generously, then either hold the wire on the pin 4 or use a helper clamp to hold it for you, brace your hand against the desk you're working on to steady it, then touch the tinned end for a moment with the soldering iron to get the solder to flow and make the connection. Don't get things too hot - try more than once, if you need to, but avoid putting too much heat on the chip. Once you get the connection soldered, secure the wire with tape or something to give it strength - it's tiny, it's not hard to rip it off by mistake. I chose to drill a hole through the header at screw terminal 12 and feed the wire through the hole, then screw the terminal down to hold it - this secures the wire, and makes it clear that terminal 12 is no longer to be used.

After all that, I updated the electrical schematic again.

Changes:
- Corrected a typo on one of the contactors (had Left Flipper in there twice). Thanks IronSpider.
- Corrected minor wiring issue on Dual H-Bridge (had motor direction connect to +5, when it should be connected to ground)

Wildfire Pinball Electrical Schematic

Edited by Darkfall, 28 October 2011 - 04:11 AM.

[zebulon]

Yeah, soldering to pin 4 shows you how good your glasses are working for sure.

Little late for this info, but in case anyone else wants to avoid the 3 week customs wait....

http://www.robotshop...ers.html?p=2-20

It's a Canadian site out of Quebec, a little quicker than the slow boat from China.

[Darkfall]

Well, I got the modified LEDWiz put back in, mounted the dual H-Bridge, and wired everything up. The thing works great! Almost too great - when playing Attack From Mars, during the martian attack phase, the shaker motor spins up to full blast for the whole time - it shakes the living crap out of the cabinet! *laughs*. I'll have to tone that down a bit in the LEDWiz configuration for that table.

It's great when you make a saucer hit, though, and when you destroy the saucer.

My LEDWiz setup for Black Knight 2000 has always been kind of out of whack, and with the shaker motor, it's so much more noticable how screwed up that configuration is. The shaker motor is turning on and off constantly during play. It's fun, but way overkill. Great for testing, though, since it spins up at different speeds a lot. I really need to sort the configuration out for that table. It's doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I love that table, though. "You can do it! You can do it!" "Ha ha ha. No waaayyy!" LOL.

Scared Stiff didn't use the motor much at all. I'll be fiddling with it's configuration too - a shaker hit when the casket is hit is pretty much a no brainer.

Anyway, my cheap parts worked great for any of you thinking of doing the same thing!

[pinballlooking]

I based my shaker off your Thanks for posting it!
I love it unless it is on full and it is too much how did you tone yours down?

[Darkfall]

I based my shaker off your Thanks for posting it!
I love it unless it is on full and it is too much how did you tone yours down?

I ended up editing the LEDWiz configuration for the tables that got a little too shaker happy. It seemed that the ones that fire it up and leave it on for an entire stage were the killers (Attack From Mars' alien attack wave was a prime example).

I also considered using less weight on the motor shaft, but haven't tried it yet. I did find that on lower intensity hits, the shaker would fail to spin because it couldn't get the first revolution going. Less weight would probably fix that.

Edited by Darkfall, 18 January 2012 - 08:46 AM.

[pinballlooking]

I based my shaker off your Thanks for posting it!
I love it unless it is on full and it is too much how did you tone yours down?

I ended up editing the LEDWiz configuration for the tables that got a little too shaker happy. It seemed that the ones that fire it up and leave it on for an entire stage were the killers (Attack From Mars' alien attack wave was a prime example).

I also considered using less weight on the motor shaft, but haven't tried it yet. I did find that on lower intensity hits, the shaker would fail to spin because it couldn't get the first revolution going. Less weight would probably fix that.

In this post they talked about Ledcontrol.vbs if it was too low all some to it and if it was to high drop it down. This would work for all tables. What do you think about something that. I post to see if they got it working.
http://www.hyperspin...e...ity&page=16

Yes Attack From Mars' alien attack wave is crazy I am new to modifying LEDWiz config what did you do in the config to tame that one?

Edited by pinballlooking, 18 January 2012 - 01:32 PM.