975 replies to this topic

[Dexje]

Hi,

first of all thanks for the amazing software

 

my setup:

- KL25Z with ULN2803ADWR and Siemens Sirius 3RT1015-1BB42 and 3RT2016-1BB41 as DOF toys.

- I have added 1N4007 to both solenoids as recommended.

- As 24v power source i´m using a Mean Well RS-100-24.

- Pinball Software: VPX

 

The solenoids are configured to left and right flipper.

If I press a flipper button everything is working as expected. I can hear a the solenoids clicking.

If I press both flipper buttons at the same time, nothing happens. Both solenoids are not triggering.

 

I´m a bit baffled .. is this a software side issue or am I missing something in the hardware setup?

Edited by Dexje, 26 June 2018 - 04:36 PM.

[mjr]

The solenoids are configured to left and right flipper.

If I press a flipper button everything is working as expected. I can hear a the solenoids clicking.

If I press both flipper buttons at the same time, nothing happens. Both solenoids are not triggering.

 

So if I'm getting this right, the left and right contactors each work individually, but neither one works if you try to operate them at the same time.

 

I'm assuming that the on-screen flippers are unaffected by all of this - that the video flippers are always doing the right thing no matter how many buttons you're pressing.  If that's not true, then the problem is probably on the key encoder side.  Assuming the on-screen flippers always working, the problem is something on the output side.

 

What happens if you do this?:

 

- Press and hold left flipper button

- Confirm by sound that left contactor activated

- Keep holding left button

- While still holding left button, press right button

 

Which results do you see?:

 

1. Nothing - left contactor stays on, right contactor does nothing

2. Left contactor turns off, right contactor stays off

 

If it's #1, and you get the same results when you do the mirror image version of the experiment (with left and right reversed), it seems like it's probably related to the key encoder or something related to the PC software.

 

If it's #2, I'd guess that you have some kind of power supply issue.  The obvious thing along those lines would that you don't have enough capacity, so turning on both devices at the same time is overloading the PSU and making it cut out until the load is reduced.  But those Seimens contactors should only be drawing about 3W, and I'm guessing the -100- in your power supply's part number stands for 100W, so it seems like you have plenty of headroom for many contactors firing at once.  Maybe there's something else in your wiring that's limiting the power?  

 

If you could post a schematic of all of the wiring you have involving the flippers, maybe someone could spot the problem - KL25Z, power supply, power booster circuit, contactors, basically the complete power and signal path for both flipper contactors.  Maybe you have some weird situation where you're creating a short to ground when both are on at the same time, or something like that.

 

 

- KL25Z with ULN2803ADWR 

 

Are you only using the ULN2803, or do you have MOSFETs in there that are doing the actual load switching?  The ULN2803 is probably enough to control those contactors all by itself, but not by much - the limit on those is 500mA per channel, and the contactors are probably somewhere around 150 to 300 mA at steady-state.  I really doubt that's the issue in any case, though, as the Darlingtons will just fry if you overload them; they wouldn't cut in and out like this.  That's more of a power-supply behavior, since the PSUs usually have some kind of current limiter that cuts off power temporarily in case of shorts or overloads.

Edited by mjr, 27 June 2018 - 04:05 AM.

[Dexje]

Hi mjr,

 

thanks for your reply.

 

I'm assuming that the on-screen flippers are unaffected by all of this

yes, they always work as intended.

 

I tried what you asked for. the result is the following:

1. I press left flipper button and hold it.

2. I can hear the left contactor turn on.

3. I press the right button

4. I can hear the left contactor turn off (left one! not the right one!)

 

if i press the right button again i can hear the left contactor turning off and on again.

i can get the same result the other way around.

 

if i press the flipper buttons individually i can hear the correct contactors triggering.

 

I was just drawing the shematics for you to take a look at ... and i found the error:

GND ULN to V- on the power supply was still there but the wire from GND ULN to GND KL25Z has come loose.

Its working now   

 

perhaps my post helps someone with the same error.

[mjr]

I was just drawing the shematics for you to take a look at ... and i found the error:

GND ULN to V- on the power supply was still there but the wire from GND ULN to GND KL25Z has come loose.

Its working now 

 

Great, glad you found the culprit!

[Dexjee]

i´ve read your hints for setting up the nudge settings but i´m still struggling with setting it up correctly.

the two contactors are creating so many vibrations that the sensor picks it up and creates very creative shots sometimes.

 

in vpx should i work with deadzones to filter them out? or should i move the whole kl25z board away from the bottom of the cab (at the moment its screwed at the bottom of the board with the two contactors a few centimeters away)?

[mjr]

i´ve read your hints for setting up the nudge settings but i´m still struggling with setting it up correctly.

the two contactors are creating so many vibrations that the sensor picks it up and creates very creative shots sometimes.

 

in vpx should i work with deadzones to filter them out? or should i move the whole kl25z board away from the bottom of the cab (at the moment its screwed at the bottom of the board with the two contactors a few centimeters away)?

 

I'd avoid ever using dead zones.  They're just a bad idea in general because they're inherently non-linear.  Stick with the gain controls.

 

Having the conactors within a few cm of the KL25Z probably isn't ideal.   With such a short distance, there's probably too much transmission of high-frequency vibration through the wood.  But I'd leave the KL25Z where it is and move the contactors.  Are those your flipper contactors?  If so, you're probably going to get a better feedback effect from them if you move them to the mid-to-upper sides of the cabs, a little forward of the flipper buttons - that's the natural place for them to simulate flippers or slings most effetively.  And doing that will also get them further away from the KL25Z.

[Dexjee]

ah good idea.

so you would suggest something like this?

http://vpuniverse.co..._7_3_384598.jpg

contactors on the side panels of the cab?

Edited by Dexjee, 02 July 2018 - 07:35 PM.

[mjr]

so you would suggest something like this?

http://vpuniverse.co..._7_3_384598.jpg

contactors on the side panels of the cab?

 

Yes, that's a good arrangement!

[Dexjee]

after moving the contactors to the sides of the cab, nudging works great

thanks again for the hint!

[rickh]

MJR-

 

I have enjoyed reading the virtues of leaf switches vs the V-style switches and had an epiphany.   Back in the 80's I was working as a field engineer on FBM submarines for Lockheed, responsible for maintaining the missile test equipment.  We had a voltage reference system that would create a specific voltage by rotating a series of  rotary switches.  These rotary switches used silver contacts to ensure a low impedance connection (silver is one of the best conductors).  This may appear optimal, but in applications where minimal current is passed through the contacts of silver may be compromised by silver oxide (Ag₂O).  In fact with connections drawing less than 10mA  may end up not making no connections at all, even when the contacts are physically connected.  This played grief with my team and me, as we did not understand what was at play.  Silver contacts require a wetting (whetting) current to break through the surface film resistance of the Ag₂O.  I recall almost losing my job when I decreed that all these rotary contacts be replaced with gold/beryllium contact.  I wasn't politically correct back then as I am now too.  Fast forward 15 years, I am working for a company that builds industrial UPS systems.   We had a fan plenum with a flap valve that triggered a 'V' switch when closed indicating that the fan was broken.  We had a rash of false failures with this system that prompted us to do a full blown failure analysis. Long story short, the 'V' switches we used to trigger these failure events were not making contact, but why? The V switch we used was rated at 5 amp current, but our application used only used < 1mA current. Hence the working current was not sufficient to overcome the Ag₂O that formed on the contacts.  Our solution was to increase the whetting current to break down this oxide.   We never had a failure since. 

I do not know what contact metals are used for these new modern tactile switches, but researching leaf switches, I discovered that many use silver contacts, which is great for medium current, but might be troublesome for low current switching such as used by u'controller I/O.  Any thoughts?

 

Footnote: 

The venerable 'V' switch is a tactile switch found in almost all arcade games.  These switches were developed back in the beginning of WWII, hence the name 'Victory Switch'.   

 

Regards,

 

Rick

[mjr]

Rick - I'm afraid I can only speculate about the longevity of the leaf switches; my personal data points are too limited to be more than anecdotal.  I can only say that the leaf switches in my virtual cab aren't showing any signs of flakiness after three years or so.  That doesn't exactly set a statistically significant floor on MTBF, but it gives me some confidence that they don't glaze over with oxidation in the first couple of years as a matter of inevitable fate.  I do have some rather long-in-the-tooth real pinballs whose original leaf switches are likewise showing no signs of reduced function, but for the most part those aren't good data points, because the pre-DMD machines generally (and my samples specifically) had the flipper buttons switching 50VDC/4A coils directly, so they don't fit the micro-current profile you're concerned about.  The WPC era machines changed to logic switching for the flipper buttons, but alas, they aren't good reference points, because they don't use leaf switches!  They changed to the "Fliptronic" system, which used opto-interruptors instead of contact switches.

 

Interestingly, there is one example of a low-current leaf switch in the old machines, though: the credit button.  On the System 11 machines (and probably before), that was a leaf switch; they didn't go to microswitches until the WPC era.  And those are exactly the kind of low-current logic circuits you're talking about.  I haven't tried to measure the current, but I assume it's extremely low because it serves as the input to a logic inverter.  The chips in that generation are mostly TTL, so they're not zero current like modern CMOS logic inputs would be, but they're probably not in your "whetting current" range either.  Anyway, my S11 credit buttons are likewise showing no signs of flakiness, but again, my sample size wouldn't qualify for publication as a longitudinal study in most medical journals.

 

I have to assume that the pinball manufacturers switched over to the opto-interruptors when they did specifically for the sake of reduced maintenance, although I'm not sure that contact corrosion was the main issue.  Again based on my limited personal experience, the bigger issue with the leaf switches in my machines is that they tend to need gap adjustment from time to time.  They tend to get bent a little bit from repeated use, and you have to go in once in a while and re-bend them to get the gap back to nominal.  In my home-use machines, "once in a while" is something like every couple of decades, so this isn't exactly a big deal for me.  But operators with coin-op machines on routes probably have to gap their leaf switches often enough that it gets annoying.

 

To the extent that any of this ever becomes an issue in a home-use virtual cab, I'd say the simplest solution would be to just move to the Fliptronic opto switches, rather than looking for electronics-level fixes (like your whetting current) or substituting some other type of contact switch.  I'm sure that there are some who violently disagree with this, but I really can't tell any difference in feel or action between the WPC-era Fliptronic switches and the S11-era leaf switches.  Even if you don't think they feel exactly the same, they've got to be the closest alternative - way closer than a microswitch or something like that.

Edited by mjr, 12 July 2018 - 03:18 AM.

[STV]

Fascinating.   In both builds I run the original leafs that came with the 70's era atari widebody cab that I was lucky enough to run across.  I hit the contacts gently with some 800 grit sandpaper to bust the rust and treat with de-oxit once in a while.    

 

Might this need for whetting current be why they had a small capacitor wired across the leads of the leaf?...  I've since clipped it off but maybe it serves that purpose. 

[mjr]

Might this need for whetting current be why they had a small capacitor wired across the leads of the leaf?...  I've since clipped it off but maybe it serves that purpose. 

 

I don't think so - I think that's just there to filter electrical transients.  Mechanical contact switches inject an incredible amount of noise into the circuit at the moment of making or breaking the contact.  A little disc capacitor is usually enough to tamp that down.

[rickh]

Rick - I'm afraid I can only speculate about the longevity of the leaf switches; my personal data points are too limited to be more than anecdotal.  I can only say that the leaf switches in my virtual cab aren't showing any signs of flakiness after three years or so.  That doesn't exactly set a statistically significant floor on MTBF, but it gives me some confidence that they don't glaze over with oxidation in the first couple of years as a matter of inevitable fate.  I do have some rather long-in-the-tooth real pinballs whose original leaf switches are likewise showing no signs of reduced function, but for the most part those aren't good data points, because the pre-DMD machines generally (and my samples specifically) had the flipper buttons switching 50VDC/4A coils directly, so they don't fit the micro-current profile you're concerned about.  The WPC era machines changed to logic switching for the flipper buttons, but alas, they aren't good reference points, because they don't use leaf switches!  They changed to the "Fliptronic" system, which used opto-interruptors instead of contact switches.

 

Interestingly, there is one example of a low-current leaf switch in the old machines, though: the credit button.  On the System 11 machines (and probably before), that was a leaf switch; they didn't go to microswitches until the WPC era.  And those are exactly the kind of low-current logic circuits you're talking about.  I haven't tried to measure the current, but I assume it's extremely low because it serves as the input to a logic inverter.  The chips in that generation are mostly TTL, so they're not zero current like modern CMOS logic inputs would be, but they're probably not in your "whetting current" range either.  Anyway, my S11 credit buttons are likewise showing no signs of flakiness, but again, my sample size wouldn't qualify for publication as a longitudinal study in most medical journals.

 

I have to assume that the pinball manufacturers switched over to the opto-interruptors when they did specifically for the sake of reduced maintenance, although I'm not sure that contact corrosion was the main issue.  Again based on my limited personal experience, the bigger issue with the leaf switches in my machines is that they tend to need gap adjustment from time to time.  They tend to get bent a little bit from repeated use, and you have to go in once in a while and re-bend them to get the gap back to nominal.  In my home-use machines, "once in a while" is something like every couple of decades, so this isn't exactly a big deal for me.  But operators with coin-op machines on routes probably have to gap their leaf switches often enough that it gets annoying.

 

To the extent that any of this ever becomes an issue in a home-use virtual cab, I'd say the simplest solution would be to just move to the Fliptronic opto switches, rather than looking for electronics-level fixes (like your whetting current) or substituting some other type of contact switch.  I'm sure that there are some who violently disagree with this, but I really can't tell any difference in feel or action between the WPC-era Fliptronic switches and the S11-era leaf switches.  Even if you don't think they feel exactly the same, they've got to be the closest alternative - way closer than a microswitch or something like that.

MJR- Thank you!  Your experience and observations are commendable as always.  I recently purchased a set of silver plated leaf switches for my flippers and I remembered silver contacts having a history of reliability problems switching low current signals (medium current has no issues) I created a mezzanine type board that attaches to the KL25Z that neatly breaks out the I/O lines from this board.  I discovered a minor mistake on my PCB artwork and was wondering if I should a couple banks up pull-up resistors to increase contact current on my next spin.  This would consume a lot of board real estate and increase cost and complexity.  If no one is having issues, I would rather leave the board alone. 

 

Thanks again!

 

Rick 

Edited by rickh, 12 July 2018 - 12:54 PM.

[rickh]

MJR-

I  appreciate your excellent Pinscape design. A few years ago I embarked on a mosfet/darlington driver output circuit inspired by your design. The biggest difference is that I drove these devices directly from the KL25Z, hence bypassing the opto-couplers which you use extensively. Everything works, I have sourced the darlingtons with 150mA without any issues and driven a huge vibe motor with the MOSFETs. I'm guessing that you did this to provide added isolation? Last question- on the Chime circuits you used a one-shot to prevent the solenoid from being on for more than 2 seconds. I was thinking that it would be nice to create a one-shot that could produce a 350msec pulse regardless of the length of input. Couldn't this be more easily implemented in the Pinscape firmware?

Thanks again for your great contribution!

Rick

[mjr]

[...] I drove these devices directly from the KL25Z, hence bypassing the opto-couplers which you use extensively. Everything works, I have sourced the darlingtons with 150mA without any issues and driven a huge vibe motor with the MOSFETs. I'm guessing that you did this to provide added isolation? 

 

Right, that was the main original motivation.  Mostly due to a misconception on my part!  I was thinking that it would be great to be able to completely isolate the grounds for the "toy" side and the PC/logic side, to avoid the noise injection issues that I ran into with some of my early attempts.  I didn't know at the time about the way the ATX spec requires referencing 0VDC to the Earth ground on the AC side, which shoots down any attempts to isolate grounds like that.  I guess the isolation still buys you protection against 50V ever getting injected into the logic side if a MOSFET fails in such a way that the drain gets shorted to the gate, and it at least reduces the number of paths between the power supply grounds.

 

For the expansion boards, though, there actually is a good reason for the optos, independently of isolation.  The TLC5940 chips are designed to drive LEDs directly, so they provide basically a switched ground connection.  To drive a MOSFET with that, you have to invert it.  So the optos serve that function, and they're really the perfect inverter for the TLC5940 to drive because they're literally LEDs.

 

 

Last question- on the Chime circuits you used a one-shot to prevent the solenoid from being on for more than 2 seconds. I was thinking that it would be nice to create a one-shot that could produce a 350msec pulse regardless of the length of input. Couldn't this be more easily implemented in the Pinscape firmware?

 

Absolutely!  And in fact, the software does have a way to do this.  The "Flipper Logic" setting lets you configure a port to send a full-power PWM signal for 'n' milliseconds after switching on and then switch to a lower PWM power after that, for as long as the port remains switched on.  The lower power can be zero, so you use it for exactly what you have in mind.  And you can use it as a software replacement for the chime board.

 

The main reason for implementing the time-limiter in the chime board was to make it bulletproof against software failures.  The whole motivation for it is that there's a common failure mode in VP where a script fires a DOF output and then crashes, leaving the output stuck on.  I'm not sure why, but there were a bunch of tables that did exactly this when a replay was awarded - so they fired the knocker and then promptly crashed, leaving the knocker coil turned on and melting a number of people's coils.

 

Granted, it's a lot easier to make firmware that doesn't crash, so it probably would have been good enough to use a purely software solution in the firmware, but I just don't trust my software quite that far.   A hardware timer makes me feel more secure that it will really kick in when it's needed.

[dopdahl]

Hi Mike...  looks like you've got messaging disabled or your box is full...

 

I'm just trying to follow up with you from our discussion last month... (see below)

 

I've got a box full of components and I'm looking to get all 3 pinscape boards, your little plunger kit, plexi and printed scale whenever you have them in stock.

 

If you aren't replenishing stock I'll go the DIY route, just checking with you first.

 

Let me know... Thanks!

Dave

 

 

Dave,

 

I've been keeping a supply of the blank boards on hand - I'm down to one copy of the main board right now, so I can accommodate if you only need one right now.  If you need more, I'll be placing another order shortly; it usually takes 2-3 weeks for those orders to reach me.

 

As for the plunger parts, I'm afraid I just sent out my last AEDR-8300 board today.  Weird how the timing works out with these things; it's been months since anyone asked about those.  My little "kit" for those would normally consist of the assembled AEDR-8300 PCB, the acrylic guide rail, and the transparency film printed with the bar code scale.  I assemble those (unlike the expansion boards) because the surface mounting process is a bit intimidating if you haven't done it before - not quite like regular soldering.  I'm going to order some more, but of course it'll take something like two to four weeks for me to get a new batch of the raw parts and assemble them.  If you're not intimidated by the surface mounting of the AEDR-8300 chip, you can just build the boards yourself, as there's not much cost savings in ordering those in batches.  You can get 3 copies of the little circuit board for about $5 via OSH, and include the AEDR-8300 chip in your electronics order from Mouser or whoever else you're going to use.  I do have the mirrored acrylic part and transparency film on hand, so if you want to DIY the sensor board, I can still send you those bits.

 

Anyway, my cost for the expansion boards is $2.25 each, and $6 covers shipping for up to about 5 or 6 of them.  If you want to wait until I have some new AEDR-8300 boards ready, the AEDR-8300 kit would be $11 in parts (assuming the sensor price hasn't changed), and those are light enough that they don't add to the shipping cost if I throw them into the same package with the expansion boards.

 

Let me know what you're thinking...

 

Regards,

Mike

[rickh]

Hi Mike...  looks like you've got messaging disabled or your box is full...

 

I'm just trying to follow up with you from our discussion last month... (see below)

 

I've got a box full of components and I'm looking to get all 3 pinscape boards, your little plunger kit, plexi and printed scale whenever you have them in stock.

 

If you aren't replenishing stock I'll go the DIY route, just checking with you first.

 

Let me know... Thanks!

Dave

 

 

Dave,

 

I've been keeping a supply of the blank boards on hand - I'm down to one copy of the main board right now, so I can accommodate if you only need one right now.  If you need more, I'll be placing another order shortly; it usually takes 2-3 weeks for those orders to reach me.

 

As for the plunger parts, I'm afraid I just sent out my last AEDR-8300 board today.  Weird how the timing works out with these things; it's been months since anyone asked about those.  My little "kit" for those would normally consist of the assembled AEDR-8300 PCB, the acrylic guide rail, and the transparency film printed with the bar code scale.  I assemble those (unlike the expansion boards) because the surface mounting process is a bit intimidating if you haven't done it before - not quite like regular soldering.  I'm going to order some more, but of course it'll take something like two to four weeks for me to get a new batch of the raw parts and assemble them.  If you're not intimidated by the surface mounting of the AEDR-8300 chip, you can just build the boards yourself, as there's not much cost savings in ordering those in batches.  You can get 3 copies of the little circuit board for about $5 via OSH, and include the AEDR-8300 chip in your electronics order from Mouser or whoever else you're going to use.  I do have the mirrored acrylic part and transparency film on hand, so if you want to DIY the sensor board, I can still send you those bits.

 

Anyway, my cost for the expansion boards is $2.25 each, and $6 covers shipping for up to about 5 or 6 of them.  If you want to wait until I have some new AEDR-8300 boards ready, the AEDR-8300 kit would be $11 in parts (assuming the sensor price hasn't changed), and those are light enough that they don't add to the shipping cost if I throw them into the same package with the expansion boards.

 

Let me know what you're thinking...

 

Regards,

Mike

MJR- Where do you have your PCBs made?  

 

Thanks,

 

Rick

[dopdahl]

That's all covered on the Pinscape website.  mjrnet.org

[mjr]

Hi Mike...  looks like you've got messaging disabled or your box is full...

 

I'm just trying to follow up with you from our discussion last month... (see below)

 

I've got a box full of components and I'm looking to get all 3 pinscape boards, your little plunger kit, plexi and printed scale whenever you have them in stock.

 

If you aren't replenishing stock I'll go the DIY route, just checking with you first.

 

Sorry for the contact hassle - I'll clear up some space and get in touch with you by PM.  I think I finally have all the parts in hand, but I haven't had time to assemble and test the plunger boards yet.  I'll try to get one assembled for you so I can get you the parts.