1103 replies to this topic

[kiwiBri]

Again, thanks for the info regarding the RGBs. I'll stick to one row for now (flasher bar) along with the strobe lights.

 

I was curious, how do I wire up the Start/Exit/Launch button lights?  I think these can be controlled by DOF?   (oh that reminds me, I need to install DOF soon!)  same with the led light strip used in your speakers?

[mjr]

Again, thanks for the info regarding the RGBs. I'll stick to one row for now (flasher bar) along with the strobe lights.

 

I was curious, how do I wire up the Start/Exit/Launch button lights?  I think these can be controlled by DOF?   (oh that reminds me, I need to install DOF soon!)  same with the led light strip used in your speakers?

 

Right about the button lights.  DOF has entries for each of those in the standard config, so you just need to pick a port for each button, wire the light using the same general plan as the flasher LED wiring (but simpler in that these are monochrome lights needing only one port per lamp), and tell DOF which port is attached to which lamp.

 

The thing that makes the button lights a little hard to think about (it was for me at first, anyway) is that the it seems like the "input" side of the buttons should somehow be coordinated with the "output" side (the lighting).  It's easier if you just think about the lights as output devices in their own right (which they are!) and forget that they have anything to do with the buttons (which they don't!, apart from being physically co-located).

 

There's no DOF output in the standard config for "speaker lights".  You could add a custom one of your own - DOF has a "custom RGB" slot for purposes like this - but of course you'd have to define your own custom lighting pattern for every table in that case.  You could alternatively attach these to the same ports as your undercab lights and use "undercab RGB complex" in the DOF config.  I think that would be a pretty good choice, since it uses colors that are based on the original game's cabinet paint job colors plus event-based effects that supplement the flashers and strobes.  On mine, I don't even use DOF - I just have them hooked up to one of the eBay effect generators (look for "3 key led strip mini controller") set to continuously rotating colors.  I set that up early on based on what the real pinball people tend to do with similar speaker lighting, but I'll probably change it to use DOF at some point.

Edited by mjr, 08 May 2017 - 08:57 PM.

[kiwiBri]

 

Again, thanks for the info regarding the RGBs. I'll stick to one row for now (flasher bar) along with the strobe lights.

 

I was curious, how do I wire up the Start/Exit/Launch button lights?  I think these can be controlled by DOF?   (oh that reminds me, I need to install DOF soon!)  same with the led light strip used in your speakers?

 

Right about the button lights.  DOF has entries for each of those in the standard config, so you just need to pick a port for each button, wire the light using the same general plan as the flasher LED wiring (but simpler in that these are monochrome lights needing only one port per lamp), and tell DOF which port is attached to which lamp.

 

The thing that makes the button lights a little hard to think about (it was for me at first, anyway) is that the it seems like the "input" side of the buttons should somehow be coordinated with the "output" side (the lighting).  It's easier if you just think about the lights as output devices in their own right (which they are!) and forget that they have anything to do with the buttons (which they don't!, apart from being physically co-located).

 

 

Are you meaning the Small LED/OPTOs header?  (JP8) ?    I see that is 5v. I haven't checked to see what the bulb rating is for them (They are from VirtuPin actually) .  I was assuming they were like the coin door and possibly 12v.  

[mjr]

 

 

Again, thanks for the info regarding the RGBs. I'll stick to one row for now (flasher bar) along with the strobe lights.

 

I was curious, how do I wire up the Start/Exit/Launch button lights?  I think these can be controlled by DOF?   (oh that reminds me, I need to install DOF soon!)  same with the led light strip used in your speakers?

 

Right about the button lights.  DOF has entries for each of those in the standard config, so you just need to pick a port for each button, wire the light using the same general plan as the flasher LED wiring (but simpler in that these are monochrome lights needing only one port per lamp), and tell DOF which port is attached to which lamp.

 

The thing that makes the button lights a little hard to think about (it was for me at first, anyway) is that the it seems like the "input" side of the buttons should somehow be coordinated with the "output" side (the lighting).  It's easier if you just think about the lights as output devices in their own right (which they are!) and forget that they have anything to do with the buttons (which they don't!, apart from being physically co-located).

 

 

Are you meaning the Small LED/OPTOs header?  (JP8) ?    I see that is 5v. I haven't checked to see what the bulb rating is for them (They are from VirtuPin actually) .  I was assuming they were like the coin door and possibly 12v.  

 

Check the ratings on the bulbs - they vary.  

 

Most of the front panel buttons use #555 incandescent, which are 6.3V at 250mA.  So you can't use the "small LED" outputs for those as they're limited to the current set via the R5 resistor, which will be 20-60mA depending on the R5 value you chose.  It won't harm those outputs to connect a big power-hungry incandescent bulb, since those outputs have built-in current limitation, but the current will be too small to light up the bulb (or might light it very dimly).  

 

If you're using an LED replacement #555, those will usually run on 5V and need only about 50mA current, so the LED outputs will work.

 

If you are in fact using the standard incandescent #555's, just connect them to power board outputs.  Those are good for just about anything.

 

The incandescent #555's are rated for 6.3V, but if you want to keep things simple, they'll run on 5V.  They'll just be a little dimmer than they're meant to be.   Not all that much dimmer - most pin cab people don't even know they're supposed to run on 6.3V, and you might never notice unless you had a 6.3V and 5V version side by side.  But if you want to power them at their normal 6.3V, you can pick up a little "DC to DC step down converter" on eBay for about $5 - look for the adjustable type where you can dial in the output voltage of your choice.  Hook up its input terminals to the 12V line from your secondary PC power supply, hook up your voltmeter to the converter's output terminals, and turn the adjustment screw until the meter reads 6.3V.  Then you can use this as your 6.3V source for the #555's.

[kiwiBri]

Thanks for the tips regarding the bulbs. LED #555's if they work at 5v sounds like the simplest option.  I'll have to see what R5 value was used 

 

Though I did find a few DC->DC options on ebay like this:

http://www.ebay.com/...=item2ca8e3103c

 

this would work out cheaper than actually buying 3 or 4 new LED #555 bulbs

[kiwiBri]

 

After waiting more than 60 days for parts to arrive from China I finally got some but not the ones I was hoping for. I got my strobes and my heat sinks but no rgbs, still waiting on those.

I picked up strobes that are 12V but when I measure the pins on the main board I see only one pin has 3.3V on it and I can't seem to find any voltage on the other 3 pins.

First question is why does the strobe output have 4 pins and second question can I get 12V sent there. For now I just moved it over to the power board and it works there but I'm curious to know if I've made a mistake or just bought the wrong strobes.

 

The labeling is pretty confusing for the strobe now that I look at it.  The strobe is actually the pin closest to the "STROBE" label on the 2-pin connector (JP9), not the 4-pin connector (JP12).  

 

That little arrow makes it look like the word STROBE is supposed to be pointing to the JP12 pin, but the arrow and the STROBE label aren't actually connected.  The arrow is separate - it's part of the JP12 cluster, and it just means "this is pin 1 of this header".  Almost all of the headers throughout the board have an arrow like this to tell you where pin 1 is, in case you're trying to match it up with the schematics and you're not sure how the pin numbering corresponds.

 

Here's a diagram showing how the label is intended to be grouped - hopefully this will make it clear which pin you're really after.

 

 

 

As for the voltage, you're fine with 12V.  The strobe works like all of the outputs:  you connect the negative side of the device to the STROBE pin on the board, and you connect the positive side to the +12V on your power supply, as in the diagram below.

 

Also connect the negative terminals of all of your feedback device power supplies together and to the "GND" on the "2ND PSU" connector on the Pinscape board.  That's the trick that lets you mix different voltages for different devices.  The Pinscape board doesn't care about the voltages in each device because it's always connected to the negative side of every device, which are all at "zero volts".  That way you can have a +5V power supply for your LEDs, a +12V supply for the strobe and your motors, a +24V supply for your contactors, a +35V or +40V supply for your knocker coil, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

By the way, that 4-pin connector "JP12" is the "Expansion" connector.  The name is a little redundant - it's an expansion connector for the expansion board.  It doesn't have any specific purpose right now; it's there for future use.  It simply gives you direct connections to four extra GPIO ports that aren't used for anything else with the expansion boards.  You can use them for button inputs if you needed a few more buttons, for example (the setup program even knows about the header and lets you map button wires there).  The real motivation behind the extra connector was to allow for a data channel to additional peripherals, in case anyone thinks up clever add-ons in the future.

 

 

 

Hi MJR, I'm Going to bring back an old post. ..   So, I thought I would test my outputs - so the easiest one I figured was the Strobes.  Should be simple. 

Here's my scenario:

 

I have connected the strobes GND to the Strobe port on the Main Pinscape Board. I have connected the 12+ line of the strobe to my second PC PSU (I plan to power all the 12v & 5v features from here) . 

I went to the Pinscape tester and tried to get it working. Nothing.   From reading the above, seems l have also have to link the PC PSU 2 GND to the PC PSU 2 GND on the connector on the main pinscape board. I didnt think I need the 5V and 12 v lines?  Do I need both GND lines. connected AND the 12v & 5v?

 

With just the GND connected as described I could not they the strobes to turn on

[mjr]

Hi MJR, I'm Going to bring back an old post. ..   So, I thought I would test my outputs - so the easiest one I figured was the Strobes.  Should be simple. 

Here's my scenario:

 

I have connected the strobes GND to the Strobe port on the Main Pinscape Board. I have connected the 12+ line of the strobe to my second PC PSU (I plan to power all the 12v & 5v features from here) . 

I went to the Pinscape tester and tried to get it working. Nothing.   From reading the above, seems l have also have to link the PC PSU 2 GND to the PC PSU 2 GND on the connector on the main pinscape board. I didnt think I need the 5V and 12 v lines?  Do I need both GND lines. connected AND the 12v & 5v?

 

With just the GND connected as described I could not they the strobes to turn on

 

Yes, having all of the ground and power connections from both power supplies in place is pretty essential.  The +5V and GND from the secondary are required to make the output stage transistors turns on - without them, you'll just have open circuits on the transistor inputs, which will keep their outputs switched off.  So if you don't have the PSU 2 power connections plugged in, and nothing is turning on, at least you know that much is working like it should.  (It's actually a good thing - if the transistors were turning on without the power attached, that would indicate that you had a dead transistor.)

 

I don't think the PSU2 +12V does anything in the flasher or strobe circuits, but it is required for the knocker output and all of the power board outputs.

 

Hopefully the outputs will start turning on when you plug in all of the power connections!

[kiwiBri]

Yes, having all of the ground and power connections from both power supplies in place is pretty essential.  The +5V and GND from the secondary are required to make the output stage transistors turns on - without them, you'll just have open circuits on the transistor inputs, which will keep their outputs switched off.  So if you don't have the PSU 2 power connections plugged in, and nothing is turning on, at least you know that much is working like it should.  (It's actually a good thing - if the transistors were turning on without the power attached, that would indicate that you had a dead transistor.)

 

 

I don't think the PSU2 +12V does anything in the flasher or strobe circuits, but it is required for the knocker output and all of the power board outputs.

 

Hopefully the outputs will start turning on when you plug in all of the power connections!

 

 

 

Just following up on this incase anyone is following this. Once I powered both connections, the outputs started to work as designed. Likewise with the secondary pinscape power board. 

[Slydog43]

I ordered parts last year for this project and I have become stumped.  I have a bunch of mofets: mouser part # 512-FQP13N06L and I'm trying to build a ledwiz driver board.  Can I use this part for what it says I need in the oinline manual: mouser part # 771-BUK9575-55A127.   If not anyone know why I would order them?  Thanks

 

wow it take a lot of time populating these

[mjr]

I ordered parts last year for this project and I have become stumped.  I have a bunch of mofets: mouser part # 512-FQP13N06L and I'm trying to build a ledwiz driver board.  Can I use this part for what it says I need in the oinline manual: mouser part # 771-BUK9575-55A127.   If not anyone know why I would order them?  Thanks

 

Yes - that's the right part.  Those two types of MOSFETs (and several others) are all interchangeable for the purposes of these boards.  So you're good - just install them where the BUK9575's are marked.

 

For anyone in the process of sourcing parts, you can buy any either type - whichever you can get the best price on.  And other parts from the FQPxxN06L series will work as well, if you should come across one of the others.  Those parts are all the same except for the maximum amperage, which is encoded in the 'xx' in the part number.  The FQP13N06L are good to about 13A.  That's way higher than we actually need on these boards, and there are some lower-rated FQP series parts available, but the '13' parts seem to be the cheapest and easiest to find when I've looked.

 

 

wow it take a lot of time populating these

 

It is a bit of work, I know.  Hopefully it'll be worth it when you're done!

[Slydog43]

thanks, very excited now!  The current project will be a total game changer.  Can't wait to show off this project when much closer.  I think it will be one of the coolest machines on earth

[Slydog43]

Can I use 2 driver boards in 1 system with different voltages, say 50V for a real pinball coil and the other driver board with 24V or shaker, flashers, etc.   Do you assign an id for each driver board?  or can you only use 1 driver board.  Your support is top notch, thanks

[mjr]

Can I use 2 driver boards in 1 system with different voltages, say 50V for a real pinball coil and the other driver board with 24V or shaker, flashers, etc.   Do you assign an id for each driver board?  or can you only use 1 driver board.  Your support is top notch, thanks

 

Short answer: you actually can keep it simple and do this with a single set of boards, because it's fine to connect devices that run at different voltages to the same board.  But for the sake of understanding why, let's unpack this a bit:

 

1.  When you say "can I use 2 driver boards", let's make sure we're talking about the same thing.  Remember that there are three kinds of Pinscape boards that work together:

 

- There's the main board, with the KL25Z attached.  This board connects to your system via USB.  It has a device ID for USB purposes.  You can have more than one of these, and if you do, each one gets its own ID.

 

- There's the power board, which attaches to the main board.  You can have several of these attached to a single main board.  This doesn't need a separate ID on the Windows side, since there's no separate USB connection for it.  Windows thinks of it as part of the main board.

 

- There's also the chime board.  That also attaches to the main board, and also looks like part of the main board to Windows, so it doesn't need a separate ID either.

 

I think what you have in mind in this case is two of the power boards, since those are where you attach things like pinball coils and shaker motors.  If you really did want to attach two driver boards, you could.  You'd just plug the second board into the "daisy chain" of power boards connected to the main board.  As far as Windows was concerned, you'd still have just one Pinscape board and one KL25Z attached, but you'd have another set of 32 outputs to play with in the output port list.

 

But...

 

2.  You actually don't need to connect two power boards in this case, because you can freely mix devices with different voltages on one board.  So for the setup you have in mind, you can keep it simple and just build the one main board and one power board.

 

Why would you need two power boards, then?  More outputs.  The main board gives you 33 outputs (15 flasher, 1 strobe, 1 replay knocker, and 16 low-power outputs for flipper button LEDs or other small LEDs).  The power board gives you another 32 outputs, all high-power, general-purpose outputs suitable for any device running on DC voltage, up to about 4A and up to about 60V.  So you have 65 total with the two standard boards.  If that's not enough, you can add a second power board to get an additional 32 of the high-power outputs.  And if that's not enough, you an add a third power board.  At that point you'd reach the software limit of 128 outputs per KL25Z, so the next step would be to add a second main board (with a second KL25Z), which would open up another 128 outputs.  I'll be suitably impressed when someone builds a system requiring the second KL25Z, but you don't even have to stop there, as the software setup allows for 16 KL25Zs in the system.

[Slydog43]

wow like I said, what great support.  OK I only actually want to drive a few outputs but at different voltages.  Could you give me a simple drawing of using 48volts to a coil and 25volts to a flasher.  Thanks.

 

 

any idea on how many watts I would need to drive 3 pop bumper coils, 2 flipper coils & 2 sling coils.   Looking for a 48 or 36 volt switching power supply.  I have tested 48volt and it fire real coils very nicely, but I think I can get away with 36 volt, not sure yet.  Thanks

Edited by Slydog43, 14 June 2017 - 02:23 AM.

[mjr]

The basic wiring for outputs is all the same:

Power supply (+) ----- feedback device ----- power board output port

 

Power supply (-) ------ power board PSU2 Ground 

 

Wire all of the (-)/Ground outputs of all of the different power supplies together, and connect them all to the PSU2 Ground terminal on the main board and power board.

 

So if you have two different power supplies at different voltages, you'd connect their grounds together and connect both to the PSU2 Ground inputs on the Pinscape boards.  If you have a third, just do the same thing.  The "+" side of each power supply ONLY connects to the feedback devices.  The one exception is that you should have a regular PC power supply that you connect to the PSU2 +5V and +12V terminals on the Pinscape boards in addition to the Ground inputs.

 

As for wattage, you should probably budget for about 3-4A per coil for the pinball coils.  They're not going to fire all at the same time, but you should probably budget for having at least three or four of them fire at once.  So minimally 3 coils at 3A per coil is 9A, which gives you 9A x 48V = 432W if you go with the 48V supply, or 9A x 36V = 324W for a 36V supply.  Those are huge wattages, I know - probably one of the big reasons most people don't use the real pinball coils.  (Check out the transformer in a real pinball machine some time if you're not convinced these things take big power supplies - they have these gigantic 7-inch cube transformers that look like they should be powering your neighborhood electric substation.)

One more thing - don't forget the diodes on the coils.  See mjrnet.org/pinscape/BuildGuideV2/BuildGuide.php?sid=diodes.

Edited by mjr, 14 June 2017 - 02:40 AM.

[kiwiBri]

I see VPX 10.3 has been released. I'm going to wait a while before playing with my software setup as I'm just doing the home leg of my build, but I noticed in the release notes there was mention of "Native support for Pinscape"  - Was wondering what this meant?

 

thanks

[mjr]

I see VPX 10.3 has been released. I'm going to wait a while before playing with my software setup as I'm just doing the home leg of my build, but I noticed in the release notes there was mention of "Native support for Pinscape"  - Was wondering what this meant?

 

I finally had a chance to check that out.  You're looking at a REALLY old entry, from 9.9.1 and a subsequent branch merge, so the "change" is from about 2015.  That was just some code to recognize the Pinscape device by product string when scanning for joysticks, rather than treating it as an unknown joystick type.  It has almost no effect, since VP treats almost all of the specially recognized devices as generic joysticks anyway.  It was mostly for the sake of internal documentation, just in case any special handling is ever needed.

Edited by mjr, 22 June 2017 - 03:58 AM.

[Slydog43]

testing out today without any luck.  I have configured everything up and that went smoothly.  Updated KL25 board firmware and then configured it.  I can test the keyboard encoder and that seems to work fine.  I can't seem to fire a coil on the high output.  any ideas on where to go from here to test a high output port.  I know I'm very close at this point, very excited.

 

by jumping a wire from ground to a transister does fire a coil, so I think its wired correctly. 

 

Thanks

 

Steve

Edited by Slydog43, 22 June 2017 - 03:55 PM.

[mjr]

You're testing the power board ports, I'm assuming?

 

First, make sure you have all of the power connections to the board.  You need the 0V (GND), +5V, and +12V from the secondary power supply going into the "PSU2" connector, and 0V and +5V from the main PC power supply going into the "PC PSU" connector.   Those should all be connected on both the main board and the power board.

 

Second, make sure you have the connection between the main board and the power board in place - that's the "PWM OUT" on the main board, which connects to "PWM IN" on the power board.

 

Third, in the config tool, make sure you have it set up with "Expansion boards" at the very top (NOT "standalone KL25Z"), and that "Number of MOSFET power boards" is set to 1.

 

I'd also recommend trying some of the outputs on the main board to see if those are working.  If you have some small LEDs lying around, you can try spot-checking a coule of the flipper button RGB outputs and the flasher outputs.

 

If all of that looks right, we'll probably have to do some more involved circuit trace debugging to see where the problem is.

[Slydog43]

sorry for such a newby, but if I want an led plugged into jp8-1  is the other end a common ground from something like psu2 grnd?  thanks for such quick replys 

 

Is it right that I have the hi outpuuts all pwm, can I change them to digital?  Trying to fire 1st output on output board, thanks

 

 

ok, if I want to check LED R1, how can I test fire that ( I assume I could use new ledwiz tester and click on output 50 and turn on with top button, is that correct?)

 

sorry getting close I think

Edited by Slydog43, 22 June 2017 - 07:51 PM.