85 replies to this topic

[mjr]

Re the question on maximum currents: the safest thing is certainly to go by the published tables that say things like an 80 mil outside trace is good to 4A.  But that's actually based on some very conservative assumptions...

 

To be precise, what they say about an 80 mil trace at 4A, for example, is that it'll be in thermal equilibrium at 10 C higher than ambient (which they call delta-T or dT).  If you figure an ambient room temperature of 75 F, that means the traces will be at about 95 F.  I imagine things start getting warm to the touch at maybe 100 F (maybe a little higher for such a small surface area as an 80 mil wide trace).  So keeping to the 80 mil = 4A from the tables should keep the board from ever feeling warm, which is a reasonable benchmark, but it's extremely conservative in terms of actual safety.  Copper's melting point is about 2000 F, so we have a bit of headroom above 100 F before the trace starts acting like a fuse filament.  Although something else would probably fail before the copper melts, probably either the glue holding the copper to the board, or the solder connecting one of the components.  But there's a lot of room between 100F and 2000 F.   You could probably be perfectly safe pushing the design benchmark up to, say, 125 F, which would give you a dT of 25 C, which would let you carry 6A on those same 80 mil traces.

 

The other interesting thing to note is the tables are all about "thermal equilibrium".  The tables aren't saying that the trace will immediately heat up to such and such a temperature; what they're saying is that it'll be in thermal equilibrium at that temperature over infinite time.  That's actually the key to why (say) 80 mil at 4A is "safe": you know that the temperature will reach equilibrium at dT = 10 C no matter how long you leave the power on at that current, so you don't have to worry about transient temperature characteristics; it will always be at the equilibrium temperature or cooler.  What's never been clear to me is what the time scale is before you reach equilibrium; the published tables don't include that information.  One interesting paper I found* suggests that the time scale is on the order of minutes - maybe 2 minutes to reach 75% of the full dT rise.  At that kind of time scale, I think the sort activity you'd see in, say, a pinball chime unit, slingshot, or bumper, could be treated as though it were a sort of PWM signal, by which I mean that you could treat a 50% duty cycle as 50% of the peak current, for the purposes of calculating trace heating.  So if you had a 6A bumper solenoid that you wanted to run on one of the 80 mil traces, you'd be within the original conservative 10 C heating profile as long as the bumper wasn't switched on more than 67% of the time.

 

* https://www.ultracad...es/pcbtempr.pdf

Edited by mjr, 15 August 2019 - 05:36 PM.

[MikePinball]

 You could probably be perfectly safe pushing the design benchmark up to, say, 125 F, which would give you a dT of 25 C, which would let you carry 6A on those same 80 mil traces.

 

At that kind of time scale, I think the sort activity you'd see in, say, a pinball chime unit, slingshot, or bumper, could be treated as though it were a sort of PWM signal, by which I mean that you could treat a 50% duty cycle as 50% of the peak current, for the purposes of calculating trace heating.  So if you had a 6A bumper solenoid that you wanted to run on one of the 80 mil traces, you'd be within the original conservative 10 C heating profile as long as the bumper wasn't switched on more than 67% of the time.

 

Good information  MJR.

 

I think this explains why people like BorgDog have had absolutely no problems using real Pinball solenoids with the Pinscape "Chimes" board. The Pinscape AIO uses the same or thicker traces in some place and therefore shouldn't have a problem either. 

[Outhere]

Thanks for the response @MikePinball and @mjr with all the good information

One question

If I read everything right it will hooked up like an LEDwiz with the negatives come from the Pinscape to the solenoid and the positives for the solenoid can come from the power supply

[MikePinball]

If I read everything right it will hooked up like an LEDwiz with the negatives come from the Pinscape to the solenoid and the positives for the solenoid can come from the power supply

 

Yes that is correct. The MOSFETs act as "low-side" drivers (you called them negatives). The "high-side" of solenoids, motors etc can be connected to a variety of different voltages up to 50V. Diodes are a necessity and fuses are highly recommended. I assume you are using something like 5A slow-blow fuses for your 6A Pinball solenoids.

 

Of course LEDWiz is limited to 500mA and should never be used for high power devices without some kind of MOSFET or relay. Pinscape All-in-One integrates everything you need (except fuses and diodes) into a single circuit board.

[Outhere]

I have relays between the solenoid and the LEDwiz but it takes up a lot of Room in the Cabinet

https://www.ebay.com...UhiyadVtdvZOH6I

 

Diodes are a necessity -- Yes

I think this is what I have in there - 5A slow-blow fuses -- Yes

Based on @mjr, sounds like this board should work for me but I really don't want to buy this one if your going to make a heavy duty one

Thank you

[BorgDog]

I actually don't have my pinscape assembled or installed in the big cab yet   

 

my stuff is all 24V (gottlieb system 1 era stuff), and I believe most of my stuff maxes out at 2amp except for the flipper coil which is theoretically 10amp (2.4ohm coil) for a fraction of a second until the hold coil takes over at 0.5amp.  pretty much everything but the flippers will be on timer circuits, chimes, big bell, slings, pops, knocker.. 

[ericcsgmu]

I am very interested in this!  I was almost ready to pull the trigger on a zebsboards plunger then I was going to pick up the ledwiz and a few sainsmart relays....but I am interested if this could actually be a better solution for me.  

I have to be honest, I am a little nervous to pick up a version 1 of anything, esp with no videos out there explaining how things really work.  I did run through the instruction manual, and seems fairly good, though I am still a little fuzzy on power and also what I would still need to go out and get for plungers. 

 

with that being said, I think I am willing to try this option.  What is your inventory like?  Is there a revision planned based on what you have seen with your first shipment of devices? Feel free to look me up on either of the main facebook groups (look up Eric Adams and PM me)  

 

Thanks! 

[STV]

I started with ledwiz and SS relays...   My recommendation is to skip that step and go with a board like this that is solid state switching.  Perfect timing...  

[MikePinball]

This is not really version 1. Please follow the links in this append which will help you understand better.

 

mjr on here (>650 likes) developed some hardware and software to support Pincabs. Pinscape V2 matured 3 years ago and you will find a good number of users here using the Pinscape technology. There is a very active support thread for Pinscape. All of the hardware design and software is open source - meaning it is freely available for anyone to see or even modify. mjr developed 3 circuit boards to support Pinscape - see here. But getting your own boards is pretty much a DIY proposition as mjr remarked earlier in this thread.

 

My contribution is to provide the functionality of 3 boards already built and tested at a reasonable price. The Pinscape All-in-One uses the original schematics (electronic circuit) from mjr and just lays it out differently and onto one larger board. Although I am biased, there is essentially no risk for you here. Other very established Pincap people like STV recommend the Pinscape design and also like my version - Pinscape AIO. You should perhaps read the Why Pinscape append again as well.

 

As you are finding out there are a lot of questions and things to sort out - no new person can fully grasp everything at once. mjr has a good virtual pinball build guide which you can find on his homepage here: http://www.mjrnet.org/pinscape. There are sections on pretty much most things. Here is a section on choosing plunger hardware and see also sections 89 to 95 on setting up different analog sensors together with the Pinscape software. I use the potentiometer approach which is the simplest and works quite well.

 

In terms of power you need two 5V supplies, a 12V supply for Pinscape and most of the output devices it can drive. The default approach espoused by MJR is to use one 5V supply from your PinCap PC and then use a second PC power supply for the other 5V and 12V which tend to be "noisier" in terms of switching and should not interfere with audio on the PC. You could also use stand-alone power supplies including power bricks providing they have enough current capacity for the LED flashers (if you use them) or the various devices connected to the MOSFETs such as solenoids and motors. Higher voltage devices such as 24V are also supported but only need to be connected to the device itself and not Pinscape (providing you use a common ground).

 

If you look at my profile you will see that I only joined this forum 10 months ago. I was in your position less than a year ago; exploring options and trying to understand everything by reading this forum, MJR's build guide, other people's writeups of their cabs etc. But I did figure out quite quickly that Pinscape with its MOSFET-based solid-state switching and all of the other builtin function was easily the best choice. I decided to start small and not go full bore with a whole Pincab and you can read about my Mikrocontroller cabinet. It has Pinscape at its heart. I am now much further along and am in the middle of creating a Widebody cabinet design that will soon go to a CNC to create the plywood parts.

 

To answer your question about availability, I still have some of the first batch available which can be ordered today. There is nothing fundamental that I would change in the next batch - perhaps a few layout changes and some minor improvements to the silkscreen i.e. the schematic will stay exactly the same.

[Outhere]

Based on @mjr, sounds like this board should work for me but If you are going to make a heavy duty one I will wait for that?

   Thank you

[MikePinball]

Based on @mjr, sounds like this board should work for me but If you are going to make a heavy duty one I will wait for that?

   Thank you

 

Yes I think it should be just fine for you too. I haven't decided on the heavy duty board version yet. I need to complete the sale of my first round boards to prove that this idea will sell otherwise there unlikely to be more. As you can imagine this all requires quite a bit of up-front investment from me. I have to make an assessment of much up-front I want to expend and there is quite a difference between selling 3 a month and 30 a month. Inventory management is a real problem especially when it is all coming from your own pocket.

 

Making 100 boards is the lowest cost but requires a huge investment and the assurance that I can actually sell that many in a reasonable period. So that really means the next batch will be for say 25 boards (which won't be as cost effective). I believe very few people are going to need a heavy duty version and it will be also more expensive because of the thicker copper. These two factors probably means I cannot hold the price to $200 and it will have to go up slightly. As other people have said $200 is actually a very good price for what you get.

[Outhere]

Does this Pinscape software allow you to set a Max for the PWM output?

 

Why I ask

Right now I use an LEDwiz with my shaker motor With a board (4-Channel DC 5-24V) in between but I also had to add a DC Motor Speed Controller

board because sometimes playing the game the Shaker motor would go full blast no matter what settings I put in the DOF with website

4-Channel DC 5-24V

https://www.ebay.com...872.m2749.l2649

[roar]

Very very cool product, congrats on bringing it to life. I built out a set of pinscape boards and sold blank boards until I ran out of them a while back. The screw down terminals are a great idea, I took years off my life hand crimping all the connectors last time around.

[MikePinball]

Does this Pinscape software allow you to set a Max for the PWM output?

 

This question really belongs on the Pinscape support thread.

 

The simple answer to your question is yes. The Pinscape software is integrated with the DOF framework and the max speed settings for motors. The best level of code is MJR's grander unified DOF framework. It contains a consistent set of all of the fixes for DOF.

 

The Pinscape configurator software includes an output test tool. By putting an LED on the output, you can see if the PWM output is working properly. Perhaps you can do the same with LEDWIZ which means not having to fire up a table to test the outputs.

 

The Pinscape AIO has the function of LEDWIZ, opto-couplers + MOSFETs, motor speed controllers, analog plungers, keyboard encoders all wrapped up nicely into a single board.

Edited by MikePinball, 18 August 2019 - 08:06 PM.

[bord]

I purchased a Pinscape AIO a few weeks back. My old Pinscape setup had some trouble with the power board and after many hours of troubleshooting I decided the AIO would be a better use of my time than continuing to struggle with the power board or even building a new one. So here is the rundown:

• Communication with Mike was clear and timely
• Shipping was fast and it was very well packed
• Hooking it up to my current setup was unbelievably easy
• Worked immediately as promised
• Ability to expand/use my existing boards was a major plus

Granted I have some experience with Pinscape already, but it couldn't have been easier to get this thing up and running. I'm currently driving lighted buttons, all my leaf switches, an optical plunger, 4 coils w/ bumper mechs, 2 coils w/ slingshot mechs, 2 Gottlieb flipper mechs, a Gottlieb chime box, and a shaker motor with the Pinscape AIO, a bunch of fuses, and a PC power supply.

 

Pinscape is such a great system already. Having it all pre-packaged with screw terminals fit the amount of time I had to spare. If you're in a situation where you don't feel comfortable doing board work or you have more spare change than available free time this seems like a really good option. It does have a considerably larger footprint than a 3 board Pinscape so plan accordingly.

[MikePinball]

• Communication with Mike was clear and timely
• Shipping was fast and it was very well packed
• Hooking it up to my current setup was unbelievably easy
• Worked immediately as promised
• Ability to expand/use my existing boards was a major plus

It does have a considerably larger footprint than a 3 board Pinscape so plan accordingly.

Thank you for a great review, Bord. I wanted to make a couple of clarifications for new customers:

• The screw connectors are pluggable. This means you need less pluggable connectors elsewhere in your cab and it is super easy to connect and disconnect things, in batches of 8.
• If you stack the 3 individual 4" x 4" Pinscape boards, then I agree the Pinscape AIO takes up more room. However with the connectors in place, the Pinscape AIO is 7.5" by 7.5" which is actually about the same area as the 3 boards placed next to each other. 

One best practice is to screw everything into a single piece of wood, which is then mounted somewhere in your cab. Just by way of example, here is my CAD design for what I am going to do (when I can finally stop being distracted by Electronics ). The raised, slotted shelf is going to hold the Pinscape board, fuse board, and possibly the power amp circuit board.

Edited by MikePinball, 13 September 2019 - 04:01 AM.

[MikePinball]

I am pleased to report that my first batch of Pinscape All-in-One boards is now sold out. When I first started this venture, I wasn’t sure how many I would sell but the average has been roughly one a week. This is good news because it means that people are seeing the value of Pinscape as developed by MJR (cannot say enough thanks here) and the value of the fully assembled Pinscape All-in-One board as documented in this thread.

 

All of this gives me confidence to get more boards manufactured. Right now, I am making some minor improvements to the board to improve manufacturability and fix some minor nits I have seen. The basic board layout is the same with no changes to the circuitry.

 

I deliberately started small with my first batch of 5. I am thinking now about making a larger number which will require a much higher capital investment. With 20 boards it means that I can always have some in stock for immediate shipping. And I can reorder again before I run out entirely. 

 

I got a very good discount for the first batch which won’t apply to this second batch. I am planning to double the thickness of the copper to increase the maximum current capacity (thanks OutThere). This all means that the next batch will have a slight price increase to $225 not including shipping. That’s still very good given all the functionality.

 

Assuming a similar time-scale as before, I expect boards to be ready for shipping around the 28^th October (i.e. 6 weeks from now). I will post here when I can report more progress. If you want to pre-order then you can email me at o a k m i c r o s at austin dot rr dot com rather than using messaging on this forum.

Edited by MikePinball, 13 September 2019 - 06:47 PM.

[roar]

Anyone doubting the value here needs to price this out for themselves... I just spent about $220 CDN for the parts to populate all 3 boards, I had boards printed up a couple of years ago and had a set left so I'm assembling one more set, those boards were about $20 for a set of three... I know there is exchange rate here, but for plug and play??? This is a no brainer, I've got hours of soldering ahead of me and I'm off to the support thread now to re-read all the amazing support mjr gave me last time to brush up on things. Save yourself the headache and buy this board!

[rickh]

Mike,

 

This is a good bargain. If those connectors are Phoenix, they command over $8 a piece(pair), the MOSFETS adds at least another $50 and the KMZ25 is ~$20.  I'm glad to see someone offering an affordable solution.

 

Regards,

 

Rick    

Edited by rickh, 14 September 2019 - 01:31 AM.

[roar]

I didn't think the kit came with a KLZ25? That's an even better deal if it does.

 

Mike,

 

This is a good bargain. If those connectors are Phoenix, they command over $8 a piece(pair), the MOSFETS adds at least another $50 and the KMZ25 is ~$20.  I'm glad to see someone offering an affordable solution.

 

Regards,

 

Rick