975 replies to this topic

[rickh]

Thanks Mike for clarifying this.  I installed a fresh Windows 7 that was pre-SP1.  So it starts at 8 and after a zillion updates ends at 11 if all updates were installed correctly.  Again, thanks for helping us with all these tedious problems and questions.

 

 

Rick

[mjr]

Thanks Mike for clarifying this.  I installed a fresh Windows 7 that was pre-SP1.  So it starts at 8 and after a zillion updates ends at 11 if all updates were installed correctly.

 

Well, that sounds perfectly awful - I can understand your reluctance. On the other hand, you probably want to get the system updated at least to SP1 for a million other reasons anyway.  I guess this is Microsoft's way of making you "pay" one way or another - $100 for a new copy of Win 10 or $1000 worth of your time...

Edited by mjr, 10 August 2018 - 06:09 PM.

[grendelrt]

 Does anyone know if there is any input lag/latency difference between using pinscape in the Joystick mode vs keyboard mode when assigning buttons for flippers?

[mjr]

 Does anyone know if there is any input lag/latency difference between using pinscape in the Joystick mode vs keyboard mode when assigning buttons for flippers?

 

There shouldn't be any significant difference in principle, but there are so many factors in Windows that it's always possible.  On the KL25Z side they're pretty much identical, as they both get turned into USB HID reports.  So no difference up to the point where the reports hit the Windows USB HID drivers.  At that point there are quite a lot of layers of software to go through, from the USB HID drivers to the Windows Raw Input layer to DirectInput to VP.  Even through those layers, though, the two types of input get roughly the same treatment at most levels.  DI is enough of a black box that there might be some divergence in there, but I don't have any reason to think there actually is.  So I don't think there's any reason to think that one is faster than the other in general, although there might be system-specific factors that make one faster than the other on a given system.

[grendelrt]

 

 Does anyone know if there is any input lag/latency difference between using pinscape in the Joystick mode vs keyboard mode when assigning buttons for flippers?

 

There shouldn't be any significant difference in principle, but there are so many factors in Windows that it's always possible.  On the KL25Z side they're pretty much identical, as they both get turned into USB HID reports.  So no difference up to the point where the reports hit the Windows USB HID drivers.  At that point there are quite a lot of layers of software to go through, from the USB HID drivers to the Windows Raw Input layer to DirectInput to VP.  Even through those layers, though, the two types of input get roughly the same treatment at most levels.  DI is enough of a black box that there might be some divergence in there, but I don't have any reason to think there actually is.  So I don't think there's any reason to think that one is faster than the other in general, although there might be system-specific factors that make one faster than the other on a given system.

 

Awesome thanks for the reply MJR =)

[JLPicard001]

I just installed a under cabinet rgb strip.  Configured these in dof as undercab but they never seem to fire.  Just to check I reconfigured them as center flasher and they work.  I guess my question is when do undercab rgb lights fire typically?

[DDH69]

Undercab and Undercab complex should come on in most VPX games and in PinballX if you have that setup for DOF.  Undercab complex gives you more colour combinations.

[mjr]

Yeah, in most games, the regular RGB Undercab will come up as a fixed color throughout the game, so you should definitely be seeing them turn on in some color in most games.  They won't flash or anything fancy - they'll just be steady on in a fixed color per game.

[JLPicard001]

Vp9 as well?  That's what I am using.  

[mjr]

Vp9 as well?  That's what I am using.  

 

Yep, VP9 or VPX, doesn't matter.  In general, DOF isn't really tied to VP anyway - it's really tied to VPinMAME, at least for ROM-based games, so VP 9 vs VP X should be all the same for most games.

[JLPicard001]

I have some of those little white led amplifiers that I want to try out at the output of my kl25z/uln2803a.  They are powered with12v.   Can I run a rgb strip with that's designed for 5v or Will I need a resister in series with each rgb output from the amp?  I'm using 3 pwm ports out of the kl25z.  Not sure what the outputs are from these aren't they just passing a digital low to the leds to turn them on?

Edited by JLPicard001, 28 August 2018 - 12:22 AM.

[mjr]

I have some of those little white led amplifiers that I want to try out at the output of my kl25z/uln2803a.  They are powered with12v.   Can I run a rgb strip with that's designed for 5v or Will I need a resister in series with each rgb output from the amp?  I'm using 3 pwm ports out of the kl25z.  Not sure what the outputs are from these aren't they just passing a digital low to the leds to turn them on?

 

Yeah, I think that's exactly what they're doing, and if so you should be able to just hook up your 5V light strip directly.  I've never seen anyone publish a schematic for what's inside the amplifiers, though, so your guess is as good as mine.  But my guess is that they've got to be low-side MOSFET switches, in which case they should be perfectly happy with a lower voltage on the device side.  If you use a 5V supply voltage for the LEDs, I don't think you'd need any extra resistors that you wouldn't otherwise have needed (i.e., if the amp weren't there).

[JLPicard001]

Got it to work.  I hooked it all up and at first all three colors were on all the time, RGB resulting in a white.  I went back to some of my online bookmark notes and found out that all the grounds had to be tied together, that this was important.  I had the power supply ground floating seperate from the common shared between the KL25Z , ULN2803A.  I connected the KL25Z ground to the power supply ground and fired it back up and it works perfectly now.  The LED Amplifier is powered by my spare power supply +12V and sending pass through grounds to the RGB LED's as called for with +5V as the common anode to the strip.  Damn thing is a light show in a dark room, i'm digging it!.  Thanks for the help Mike.

 

OH EDIT:  I removed the heat shrink from one the little amps so I could replace the little four pin edge connectors with a more common size female edge connector and found labeling inside on the little circuit board.  They are printed GRB instead of RGB which is what I had expected.  My strips are RGB.

Edited by JLPicard001, 29 August 2018 - 02:10 AM.

[proudx]

I have a couple of intermediate issues.  #1 sometimes I get missed flippers or stuck flippers, this could simply be a windows software problem but still trying to track it down. 

#2 sometimes after I shutdown the windows machine the pinscape controller doesn't come back up after powering the machine back on resulting in two short red flashes and continues until shutting down the system, a windows restart

will not get it out of this mode.  I thought I fixed this by disabling fast startup in windows but it has come back again.  I am on firmware 2016-06-14-1938 running windows 10 version 1511.  Do you think updating the firmware will make issues #1 and #2 

more stable?

 

[mjr]

#1 sometimes I get missed flippers or stuck flippers, this could simply be a windows software problem but still trying to track it down. 

 

That's probably a software problem on the PC side; it's not the sort of thing that happens on the device side.

 

I've seen that happen in VP with ordinary keyboard input (which is why I'm pretty sure it's a PC-side issue).  I'm not sure exactly what the cause is, but it seems like the times I've seen it correlated to CPU overload, and in some cases scripting bugs.  If you're seeing it in specific tables, it could be something in the scripts in those tables, or it could just be that those tables are causing especially high CPU usage.  If it's across all tables uniformly, you might be able to improve things with some performance optimization (some ideas here:  http://mjrnet.org/pi...?sid=optimizing).

 

Or it could be some other issue entirely - my notion that it's performance-related is vague at best.  Maybe ask in the VP forums to see if anyone has any idea what causes it.

 

 

#2 sometimes after I shutdown the windows machine the pinscape controller doesn't come back up after powering the machine back on resulting in two short red flashes and continues until shutting down the system, a windows restart will not get it out of this mode.  I thought I fixed this by disabling fast startup in windows but it has come back again. 

 

That's a USB issue - it's some kind of incompatibility between the KL25Z's USB and your PC's USB host.  Those were more common with earlier versions of the firmware, much less so now, but it's hard to eradicate them completely because they keep coming up with new USB chip sets on the host side with new peculiarities.

 

This type of behavior is due to the interaction between the USB host and device hardware, so there are two things that can often clear it up:

 

1.  If your PC has a mix of USB 2 and USB 3 ports, try moving it to the other type from whatever you're using now.  The two types will use different hardware chip sets and completely separate stacks of Windows device drivers, so it's rather like plugging it in to a new computer.

 

2.  Add a USB hub between the PC and the device.  The interactions are between the directly connected hardware endpoints, so adding a hub changes the hardware that's talking to the KL25Z side.

 

 

 I am on firmware 2016-06-14-1938 running windows 10 version 1511.  Do you think updating the firmware will make issues #1 and #2  more stable?

 

It probably won't affect #1, because I don't think that has anything to do with the KL25Z.  It might help with #2, but it doesn't look like there are any significant USB changes in the revision history after that point.  I fixed lots of USB bugs in the mbed libraries early on, but it looks like they're all well before June 2016. 

Edited by mjr, 29 August 2018 - 08:26 PM.

[joseseguro]

 

 

 

Alternatively, it's possible for the PC to send a command via USB to the KL25Z to trigger an IR send.  I haven't written a front end program to access that feature yet, but it's pretty straightforward, so I should be able to get to it fairly soon if you want to go that route.  You could use that to have your PC trigger the IR command at some point during system startup, via an autoexec command file or a Startup shortcut.

 

 

I use a standalone KL25Z and your last proposition seems to be perfect for me. As I have a shortcut button now to start my TV, I can wait for this little improvement.

 

A new update is available that adds this capability.

 

There's a new program in the Config Tool folder called PinscapeCmd.exe.  This is a little tool that lets you send special commands to the KL25Z - specifically, it can turn night mode on and off, pulse the TV relay, and send preprogrammed IR commands.  Run it with no command line arguments to get a list of the options.  

 

It's designed as a command line tool to make it easy to use for automated tasks.  In your case, to send IR commands at system startup, you could create a Startup shortcut.  The arguments for sending an IR command are like this:

 

PinscapeCmd SendIR=1 SendIR=2

 

That sends the IR command programmed into slot 1, then sends the command in slot 2.  The slot numbers are the same as in the settings in the config tool.

 

Hi guys, thanks for all the help and support on the forums, your work is really appreciated. I searched online in every page I could, the pinscape documentation, this forum, others forum but I could not find the answer to my question.

I'm using a standalone KL25Z in my cab, is it possible to use the "TV ON" feature using only the board and nothing else? (not relay board or ledwiz output board emulation). If this is possible I would be very grateful if you can tell me the output pins I should wire to the TV on button, that would be great! thank you very much. 

[mjr]

I'm using a standalone KL25Z in my cab, is it possible to use the "TV ON" feature using only the board and nothing else? (not relay board or ledwiz output board emulation). 

 

I'm afraid not, or at least I don't think so.  You really need some external circuitry to make it work.

 

Here's the full chapter on the TV ON feature:  http://mjrnet.org/pi...de.php?sid=tvon

 

That tries to cover all the bases:  standalone vs expansion boards, IR remote vs hard-wired TV power switch connection.  Since there's so much material with all of those cases, I'll call your attention to a few specific sections that might be of the most interest for your situation:

 

Power sensing circuit:  this (or something like it) is needed to let the Pinscape software detect when the system is powered on. 

 

No expansion boards: using a pre-built kit (for an IR remote):  I know you said you want to hard-wire this to the TV's power switch, but these days I really recommend going with the IR remote setup instead, since it's so much easier.  This section has a pointer to a board you can buy on Amazon that makes this really simple.

 

Connecting a hard-wired TV ON switch > Standalone wiring (no expansion boards): this has the external circuit needed if you really, really still want to go with the hard-wired TV power switch.  But it's really much easier to use the pre-built IR kit above.

Edited by mjr, 05 September 2018 - 06:46 PM.

[STV]

I did that amazon IR sensor thing and followed mjr's instructions to get it configured and read and program the code from the remote.   

 

Instead of the voltage sensing circuit - I told the pinscape config tool to map a button press to send the IR TV ON code.  So that works great.  When I power the machine on, I reach under the cab for the "hidden" button which turns on the backglass monitor.   Not as automated as the voltage sensing circuit but its one step removed from hunting down the remote control.

[mjr]

I did that amazon IR sensor thing and followed mjr's instructions to get it configured and read and program the code from the remote.   

 

Instead of the voltage sensing circuit - I told the pinscape config tool to map a button press to send the IR TV ON code.  So that works great.  When I power the machine on, I reach under the cab for the "hidden" button which turns on the backglass monitor.   Not as automated as the voltage sensing circuit but its one step removed from hunting down the remote control.

 

Definitely a good simple solution if you want to skip the auto power sensing.

 

Note that you could potentially automate it a little more as well on the Windows side.  You could use the PinscsapeCmd.exe tool (installed with the config tool) to send the IR command during system startup, using a .BAT script in your Startup folder, or via a Windows Task Scheduler task.

Edited by mjr, 05 September 2018 - 08:19 PM.

[Outhere]

I did this 4 years ago -- Works great

DC 5V 12V 24V Multifunction Self-lock Relay PLC Cycle Timer Module Delay Switch

https://www.vpforums...y +cycle +timer