1103 replies to this topic

[Fusionwerks]

Hey mike, thought you would find this interesting. here is the board i made and etched. It will have the same 16 pin header to connect to JP11, proper resistor values, and 5 plugs for the flasher LED's

 

 

[mjr]

That looks great - that should make it much easier to set up.

[Fusionwerks]

well, i guess i should have read the build guide a little closer before i planned all my wiring. I currently have all the components (PS's, shaker, gear, etc) layed out in my cab. I haven't wired anything yet. My problem now is back to fusing. I thought early on a good way to do it would be to use a 12 position fuse block for my 24v devices. 1 Main power in, and 12 fused outputs, and i would use 10 of them for the contactors. But after reading your build guide a little further, i see that you suggest the fuses should go on the controller side (0v) Is this correct? If so i guess i need to rethink my whole plan of using that fuse block since it only has 1 common input.

 

And on a side note to anyone reading this and looked at the LED board i built pictured above, it works great, with the exception that you want to mirror the image before you etch... the one above is 180 degrees backwards... duh. Round 2 came out great though.

 

Other than that, so far so good on my build, im done with carpentry and got my first coats of paint on this weekend. I picked a metallic dark teal green. I finally started a build thread

 

Fusionwerks "Mad Scientist' 40/32/15 Build

Edited by Fusionwerks, 23 October 2017 - 04:43 PM.

[mjr]

well, i guess i should have read the build guide a little closer before i planned all my wiring. I currently have all the components (PS's, shaker, gear, etc) layed out in my cab. I haven't wired anything yet. My problem now is back to fusing. I thought early on a good way to do it would be to use a 12 position fuse block for my 24v devices. 1 Main power in, and 12 fused outputs, and i would use 10 of them for the contactors. But after reading your build guide a little further, i see that you suggest the fuses should go on the controller side (0v) Is this correct? If so i guess i need to rethink my whole plan of using that fuse block since it only has 1 common input.

 

You should be fine sticking with the original plan.  Fuses trigger on current, and the current through a circuit is the same across everything connected serially, so fusing things on the +24V power supply side should be equivalent to fusing on the 0V side.  

 

The reason I drew my suggested schematic with the fuses on the 0V side is that most people find it more convenient to set things up that way, because it tends to require less wire footage overall.  To see why, let's start by looking at the basic circuit without any fuses.  The basic circuit requires a separate, independent wire run from the "-" terminal of each device to the controller, because each "-" terminal has to connect to a separate controller output port.  But all of the "+24V" connections to the devices can be daisy-chained together - you don't need to run a separate wire from each "+" device terminal to the "+24V" supply terminal, but rather connect the +24V from one device to the +24V on the next device, and from there to the +24V on the next device.  That's usually a lot less wire.

 

So now let's add fuses to the mix.  Each device needs a separate fuse.  If you put them on the 0V side, you can take advantage of the separate wire run that each device already has to the controller port.  Put the fuse block physically near the controller, and you just need a short additional wire from each fuse to each controller port.  But if you put it on the "+" side, it means that you can no longer daisy-chain the "+" connections, since each "+" device terminal has to run to its own separate fuse terminal.

 

I hope that makes sense.  The bottom line is that it's perfectly fine to put the fuses on the +24V side from an electrical perspective.  The only downside is the practical matter that you'll end up using more wire footage.

[Fusionwerks]

That makes total sense, but i guess i wasn't thinking about wire usage since i have a 500' roll of 24/8 conductor. I had already planned to run individual pairs of wires to each device and use terminal blocks to make connections. I really hate daisy chaining things for the sake of troubleshooting. Besides, i have to do something with the 5 terminal blocks i bought.

[mjr]

That makes total sense, but i guess i wasn't thinking about wire usage since i have a 500' roll of 24/8 conductor. I had already planned to run individual pairs of wires to each device and use terminal blocks to make connections. I really hate daisy chaining things for the sake of troubleshooting. Besides, i have to do something with the 5 terminal blocks i bought.

 

500' sounds about right by my experience.

[Fusionwerks]

I just dont get it. Everything worked fine in my test cabinet, and now that i am doing my final wiring, I cant get my buttons to assign correctly and my right flipper just works when it wants to. Using the shift key on the keyboard work fine with no delay or errors, but when i try a table with the flipper buttons i get slow or even no reaction, and it will not hold in the up position. I've tried adjusting the leaf switches with no luck, i've switched the wires to the left flipper leafs and it still gives me problems. Here is how i have my buttons assigned on JP1:

 

Port / Button

10 / right flipper

9 / left flipper

6 / ball launch

1 / start

7 / exit

5 / coin in

26 / common

 

anybody have any ideas?

[mjr]

I just dont get it. Everything worked fine in my test cabinet, and now that i am doing my final wiring, I cant get my buttons to assign correctly 

 

Could you clarify what "can't get my buttons to assign correctly" means exactly?  Do you mean you're having problems with the config tool, or the VP keyboard dialog, or...?

 

 

Using the shift key on the keyboard work fine with no delay or errors, but when i try a table with the flipper buttons i get slow or even no reaction, and it will not hold in the up position. I've tried adjusting the leaf switches with no luck, i've switched the wires to the left flipper leafs and it still gives me problems. 

 

Have you wired any of your other buttons yet?  If so, are any of those working?

 

And is it just the right flipper that's having problems, or both flipper buttons?

 

Have you looked at the button response in the config tool "Button Tester" page? 

 

- Go to the config tool. 

 

- On the main page, click on the Buttons icon.  This will bring up the tester window. 

 

- The left side shows the physical status of each pin, so start there.   Make sure the "Pin Status" column for the flipper button is showing steadily OFF and isn't randomly flashing or anything weird.

 

- Press the button and see if it switches to ON.  Hold the button on and see if the Pin Status reads steadily ON. 

 

- If you're seeing any randomness so far, there must be something wrong with the leaf switch or physical wiring.  If the Pin Status tracks the physical button state correctly, your wiring looks good, so the problem must be on the software side.

 

- Now watch the little keyboard diagram on the right side of the window.  The little drawing of the Shift button should light up when you press the button, stay lit when you hold it, and turn off when you release it.  Do a little testing and see if that tracks correctly.

[Fusionwerks]

Just frustrated. Long build and i'm eager to be done with the wiring so i can play the damn thing. i will have to report back on all of this, i think i might have a bad PS2 or sketchy at best, and i think that it is what is giving me random signals. I have changed a bunch of stuff on the wiring in the cab and using some different connectors to avoid splices. I think the button thing will resolve itself. 

[Fusionwerks]

So, i'm back to the frustration stage again. I decided to retry the buttons after i re wired them, and i am still having problems getting them to work correctly, so correct me if im wrong on this because i feel like i did the right steps during my initial testing, but am forgetting something now.

 

The Pinscape config tool ONLY shows the status of the buttons, whether they work, and what key they are currently associated with, and you can not re-assign them to a different key without physically moving it to a different pin?

 

And then,

 

You ASSIGN the button functions within VP under the key settings?

 

Is there ANY other place that I'm supposed to map the buttons besides VP? (excluding PBX, FP, etc) Does the DOF tool have anything to do with the buttons besides handling the light functions?

 

If i go into the config tool, everything works normally and the button status reflects the button action, however, when i go to VP and assign my keys, then launch a table, they do not work accordingly. The start button will add coins, the right flipper is still sporadic (works sometimes, and will not hold in the up position, and sometimes launches the ball) Left flipper works like a champ.

 

Either i'm missing something or i have broke something. Maybe i need to wipe/reprogram the KL25Z? Or reload VP? Just doesn't make sense that i can go from the test cab to the real cab and use the same exact wiring pin-out and never change anything, and get these problems.

 

On a side note, i got the flasher bar working in DOF and my board works awesome, but i think i fried a red LED on one of them. Had a stupid moment after i soldered the wires on them, got anxious, and hit it with 12 volts without a resistor momentarily. It still works, but it is really dim. Luckily i ordered 10 RGB stars, so i will have to replace it. But that's the beauty of what my board does, just unplug it and replace, no resistors to reconnect, just plug and play.

Edited by Fusionwerks, 03 November 2017 - 01:51 PM.

[mjr]

The Pinscape config tool ONLY shows the status of the buttons, whether they work, and what key they are currently associated with, and you can not re-assign them to a different key without physically moving it to a different pin?

Actually, you can reassign the keys in any way you want.  There's never any need to move anything physically.  You're right that you can't reassign keys from the "Button Tester" screen.  But you CAN reassign everything in the Settings screen.  Go back to the main page and click the SETTINGS button.  Scroll down to the Buttons section.  That list lets you assign whatever key and/or joystick button you want to each button.

 

 

And then,

You ASSIGN the button functions within VP under the key settings?

 

Right, VP *ALSO* has its own key assignment dialog.

 

Pinscape's key assignments work like this:  for each physical button input on the KL25Z, you assign the keyboard key that the button generates.

 

VP's key assignments work like this:  for each simulated pinball function (e.g., "Left Flipper"), you assign the keyboard key that triggers the function.

 

So to connect the two, you start at the physical button on your cabinet, say the left flipper button.  You figure out which KL25Z port that's wired to.  You go to the Settings page in the Pinscape config tool and set the desired keyboard key assignment for that KL25Z port, say "Left Shift Key".  That makes it so that when you press the physical left flipper button on the cabinet, your PC gets a "Left Shift Key" input from the keyboard.  Now you go to VP and you tell it that you want the left flipper in the game to be triggered by "Left Shift Key".

 

 

Is there ANY other place that I'm supposed to map the buttons besides VP? (excluding PBX, FP, etc) 

 

Generally, every "game" program you run will have its own key setup options.  So, right, PinballX and FP need this.  Excluding those, what other games are you running?  That will probably be the answer.

 

 

Does the DOF tool have anything to do with the buttons besides handling the light functions?

 

Nope.  DOF is one piece you can ignore for key setup, at least.

 

 

If i go into the config tool, everything works normally and the button status reflects the button action, however, when i go to VP and assign my keys, then launch a table, they do not work accordingly. The start button will add coins, the right flipper is still sporadic (works sometimes, and will not hold in the up position, and sometimes launches the ball) Left flipper works like a champ.

 

Maybe what you should do next is this:

 

1.  Go to the Pinscape config tool.  Go to the SETTINGS page.  Scroll down to the Button section.  Take a screenshot showing all of your button assignments.

 

2.  Go to VP.  Open the Settings > Keyboard page.  Take a screenshot.

 

Post those screen shots and let us have a look.  At first blush it sounds like you just have something disconnected in your key assignments, so maybe someone here can  spot it if we can see the whole config.

 

Also, when debugging something like this, it can sometimes be helpful to simplify things down to the very simplest configuration possible for your whole machine, just to rule out software or hardware conflicts between different devices or programs.  Do you have any other devices connected, like any other joysticks or game controllers?  Unplug them.  Do you have any other software running, like PinVol or PinballX or xpadder...?  Kill them all.  Pare things down to just VP and nothing else running.  

 

 

Maybe i need to wipe/reprogram the KL25Z? Or reload VP? 

 

Save those for last resorts!!!  Those will probably just waste your time if you try them randomly.

 

 

Just doesn't make sense that i can go from the test cab to the real cab and use the same exact wiring pin-out and never change anything, and get these problems.

 

Actually, that could make a lot of sense, because the two machines probably have different software environments.  That does suggest you're having a conflict with some software or hardware on the real cab that's not present in the test machine.  If you can step back and think about precisely what's different between the two environments, that might point you to the culprit.

[Fusionwerks]

Thank you Mike, i will try this again tonight when i get home. If i still have problems, i will screenshot the VP and Pinscape settings and give you the pin numbers that the buttons are physically connected to on the Pinscape board. I'm just so close, and for something so stupid to stump me, (that worked before on the same buttons, same PC, same pin-out, same settings) its just frustrating. I REALLY hope the plunger will be pretty much plug and play. I haven't even put it together yet.

[mjr]

Thank you Mike, i will try this again tonight when i get home. If i still have problems, i will screenshot the VP and Pinscape settings and give you the pin numbers that the buttons are physically connected to on the Pinscape board. I'm just so close, and for something so stupid to stump me, (that worked before on the same buttons, same PC, same pin-out, same settings) its just frustrating.

 

I completely understand the frustration!  The worst thing about setting up a cab is troubleshooting when something goes wrong - most of the software is pretty opaque about what's not working.

[Fusionwerks]

ok, so here are the screenshots. the buttons work as expected with the exception of the exit button. it doesnt do anything with VP when a table is running. AND more frustrating... the right flipper is still not working consistently or holding in the up position. Im really hoping somebody can give me clear directions on something they see wrong, cause im about over it. I just want to play, and here i am standing at my beautiful cab with a keyboard to make the flippers work....

 

 

[mjr]

Glad you posted those, because I see at least part of the problem.

 

PROBLEM #1:  Right flipper is acting weird

 

That's because you have your right flipper button set as the Pinscape "Shift Button" - indicated by the green up-arrow next to button 7.   

 

The "Shift Button" is completely different from the "Shift Key" on the keyboard, despite the confusingly similar name.  The "Shift Button" is something that affects your Pinscape buttons.  The "Shift Key" is the key labeled 'Shift' on your PC keyboard (actually, there are two such keys on most keyboards, one on the left side and one on the right side).

 

See how there are two columns of key assignments in the Pinscape config tool, one called "PC Input" and the second called "Shifted"?  The "Shift Button" is what activates the Shifted key assignment.  For example, take your Button 5, which you have mapped to PC Input = Escape and Shifted PC Input = "Q":

 

Press button 5 by itself -> send "Escape" to the PC

Hold down button 7 ("Shift Button") and press button 5 -> send "Q" to the PC

 

That's probably not what you wanted, or even if you did, you probably didn't want to use the flipper button as the Shift Button.  So what I'd suggest you do is go up to the part just above the key list where it says "Shift button number:", and set that to 0 to disable the Shift feature for now.

 

If you actually did intend to use the Shift feature, there are two options I'd recommend:

 

1.  Pick some other button besides a flipper button.  My favorite button to use for this is Extra Ball, because it's rarely used for anything else.

 

2.  If it was actually your intention all along to use the right flipper button as the Shift button for some reason, and this wasn't just a misunderstanding, you should change the setting to "Shift AND Key Mode" - see the radio button just under the "Shift button number:" box at the top of the key list.  The normal setting, "Shift OR Key mode", is the reason for all the grief you've been experiencing with the right flipper.  In "Shift OR Key mode", the Shift button WAITS for you to press another button before it does anything.  If you DON'T press another button before you release the Shift button, the Shift button sends its normal keystroke to the PC *when you release it*.  If you carefully observe the flipper behavior, you'll see that what's actually happening is that you get a brief flip each time you *release* the flipper button.  That's what it's supposed to do in "Shift OR Key mode", and it's why you should never use that setting with a flipper button as the Shift button.  But when you select "Shift AND Key mode", it make the Shift button work like a normal button again, sending its keystroke to the PC whenever it's being held down.

 

PROBLEM #2:  Exit button isn't working

 

EXIT from VP is kind of confusing.  When you're running plain standalone VP, the exit button is "Q".  BUT, when you're running PinballX or HyperPin, the exit button is usually Escape.

 

Now, you have BOTH key assigned to your physical Exit button (at least, I'm assuming Pinscape button 5 if your Exit button).  Your regular (unshifted) key is Escape.  So when you're running standalone VP, nothing's going to happen when you press that button, because VP by itself ignores Escape.  If you're running PinballX, however, this will trigger PinballX to kill the VP process and return to the menu system.   

 

So you actually have it set up right for PinballX.  You just won't see anything happen when you test in standalone VP.  I think if you test by launching a game from PinballX, it should do the right thing.  If not, check your PinballX key settings and make sure you have Escape set up as the exit key there.

[Fusionwerks]

OMG i feel like an idiot... i did map the shift function on the right flipper on purpose, but i didnt think about what was happening when i pressed it. its been a long night of wiring, im going to bed and i will try it in the morning. Only 8 more contactors to wire and im done! Thanks again Mike

[marie]

Hi MJR,

 

I have a little problem here. Perhaps you have an idea to avoid this in the future.

 

On JP8 I connected  4 (5v) rgb leds and they ork well. However, after playing a few hours the +5v wire started to melt, just outside the pinscape board.

I have connected all my wires to the pinscape with a small peaces of (chinese) dupont breadboard cable.  And this little piece of wire melted at the +5v jumper. 

Can I do any measurement to see if everything is well connected, or is it most likely to be caused by sh*tty wire quality...

[mjr]

I have a little problem here. Perhaps you have an idea to avoid this in the future.

 

On JP8 I connected  4 (5v) rgb leds and they ork well. However, after playing a few hours the +5v wire started to melt, just outside the pinscape board.

I have connected all my wires to the pinscape with a small peaces of (chinese) dupont breadboard cable.  And this little piece of wire melted at the +5v jumper. 

Can I do any measurement to see if everything is well connected, or is it most likely to be caused by sh*tty wire quality...

 

 

Well, that's not good!

 

Given where the melting happened, I'd suspect the connector is the problem.  It was probably a crimp connection inside the plastic housing, right?  I bet the wire at the crimp point got frayed (probably when it was assembled originally) and it was down to a couple of strands of wire, which would indeed get hot.

 

That type of crimp connector *should* be able to handle 3-4 Amps, which is vastly more than you need for JP8.  That connector is throttled to a maximum of about 60mA per output (the exact number depends on the resistor you installed for R5), so at most, with all 16 outputs drawing 60mA simultaneously, they're all drawing less than 1A in total.  If you melted the connector with 4 RGB LEDs connected, there must have been something wrong with the connector.

 

It might have just been a single bad connector.  The preassembled ones (especially the cheap eBay ones) do seem pretty variable in quality, so you might have better luck if you just try substituting a different one.  You could also try pulling the metal parts out of the plastic housing and inspecting it to make sure you have a good connection, or even soldering the crimp point to reinforce it.

[Fusionwerks]

well you were right mike, it was the shifted button that was giving me heartache. Everything worked right after i changed it. I meant for the coin button to be the "shift" and the right flipper to be the "key" I just had it ass backward.

 

Finished all my wiring this weekend, got my graphics card (GTX 1060 6G) and a new SSD and started loading the software and setup on the actual computer that will go in the cab.

 

Had a good 3 hour session last night just enjoying it, however i have run into another problem. This is happening while in PBX (I didn't confirm if it happens in standalone VP)

 

I select and start a table, in this case it was Cirques Voltaire. When it starts, it runs a "test" on the ringmaster, and my gear motor runs to emulate it, then ALL the force feedback; contactors, shaker,  button lights (power board), RGB flashers (expansion board) go dead. The game plays fine, but i actually have to exit out of PBX and restart it to get the FF to restart. It does this in multiple games, and not always at the start. Like Medieval Madness will play for a few minutes, then just randomly drop out mid game. When it happens, sometimes i hear the "boo-doop" sound of the usb disconnecting / reconnecting. I still have power on the boards and the power supplies. So i started to think it was related to just the gear motor or shaker, so i pulled the fuses out of them both and everything worked fine for hours after that. I also thought maybe it was a wire gauge problem (24 stranded), but trust me, that the tiny little gear i'm running, its enough. I do also have the diodes correctly installed on all the devices BTW.

 

Do you have any ideas where to start troubleshooting this? Still, nothing has changed from my test cabinet where it all worked fine, same PC, same gear, shaker, lights, power supplies etc. Could it be related to DOF, PBX, expansion boards... i dont know enough about how they communicate to even take a guess. 

 

I'm tempted to just let it go until i finish loading windows and other software on the new PC, but id like to at least know whats going on in case i get the same thing happening.

Edited by Fusionwerks, 06 November 2017 - 02:52 PM.

[mjr]

When it starts, it runs a "test" on the ringmaster, and my gear motor runs to emulate it, then ALL the force feedback [...] go dead. [...] When it happens, sometimes i hear the "boo-doop" sound of the usb disconnecting / reconnecting.

 

My guess is that it's always the USB disconnection when this happens, whether you hear the Windows audio cue or not (it's probably just masked by the game soundtrack when you don't hear it).  The USB disconnection is most likely caused by the KL25Z rebooting itself, which is in turn probably caused by a power spike from one of the inductive devices.  

 

It sounds like you've narrowed it down to the gear motor and/or shaker.  I'd probably disconnect them both and do some more testing to gain confidence that it really is one of those, then maybe test with one of them connected and the other disconnected to see if the problem comes back, and switch after a while to test the other one the same way.  It saves a lot of time if you can be reasonably sure of the source of the problem so that you don't waste a lot effort trying random fixes for something that ain't broke.

 

If you can pretty clearly peg it as the gear motor and/or the shaker, there are three main things to try.  The first is to triple-check the diodes to make sure they're really solid and can't lose contact even momentarily due to vibration or something (especially with the shaker, as it's all about vibration!).  If possible, I'd solder them in place on those devices.  If your multimeter has a diode test mode, you could test to make sure the diodes are good, but the chances of a bad diode are pretty small so I wouldn't go to a lot of trouble with that.

 

The second thing would be to add a small capacitor in parallel with the diode.  Diodes suppress a particular type of electrical noise associated with inductive devices known as flyback, but motors can inject other types of noise that the diodes do nothing to suppress, and caps can help with that.  Try a 100nF disc cap if you have one sitting around, and maybe a 100uf to 1000uf in parallel with that.

 

(Note that a 100uF or 1000uF will be polarized, so you have to install it in the right direction.  A 100nF disc cap is non-polarized so the direction doesn't matter for that.  For a polarized cap, there's usually a big thick stripe with "- - -" signs printed by one leg to tell you the negative side.  Install it with the negative capacitor leg connected to the wire going to the Pinscape output port, and the positive leg connected to the "+" power supply side  As with the diodes, connect the caps physically close to the device.)

 

The third thing is to try giving the motors their own power supply.  How are you supplying them currently?  If the supply is coming from the PC PSU, that might be the problem.  ATX PSUs can actually be pretty weak at instantaneous voltage regulation, so a surge draw when a motor starts can make the voltage between ground and +5V momentarily drop low enough that the KL25Z thinks it's being unplugged, which makes it reboot itself.

 

Hopefully one of these changes will fix it - let me know what you find.

Edited by mjr, 06 November 2017 - 06:03 PM.