975 replies to this topic

[mjr]

my button 5 send the joystick key 5 (which is ok) but at the same time  the T key (which is Mechanical tilt in vpx)

how to get rid of the T key?

all my other buttons don't send a keyboard key at the same time when  joystick button is selected

 

I'm really not sure where that "T" could be coming from.

 

Just to rule out the obvious, when you go into the Config Tool, what you have in the keyboard mapping table?

 

Second, if you go to Notepad, open a blank document, and press Button 5, what happens?

 

Third, do you have ANY other software in your system that might be synthesizing keystrokes, such as any of the joystick-to-key programs, or X-box gamepad programs, or anything like that?

[Robotica72]

Hi - Im new to the forum and have my Virtual Pin Cabinet going together over the next 2 weeks (all about time) - I have the Freescale prorgrammed with the latest FW, no issues there and I was just looking to order the parts from Mouser and it seems that they no longer carry the Linear arrays (either of them)

 

Is there any updated BOM or a suggestion for the array?

 

Very impressive project!

[mjr]

Hi - Im new to the forum and have my Virtual Pin Cabinet going together over the next 2 weeks (all about time) - I have the Freescale prorgrammed with the latest FW, no issues there and I was just looking to order the parts from Mouser and it seems that they no longer carry the Linear arrays (either of them)

 

Is there any updated BOM or a suggestion for the array?

 

I'm afraid the TSL1410/12 sensors were discontinued by the manufacturer a long time ago and are no longer available anywhere.  They were unique devices, with nothing remotely similar that would serve as a substitute, as far as I know.  Given that you're mentioning those sensors, I suspect you're looking at the very old and very outdated v1 software page.  You might want to check out the more modern v2 version here:

 

https://os.mbed.com/..._Controller_V2/

 

...and the new Build Guide here:

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi.../BuildGuide.php

 

The Build Guide has several alternative sensor types for the plunger - see the plunger chapter for an overview of the options:

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi...php?sid=plunger

[LynnInDenver]

They pretty much don't make any of the optical linear arrays anymore, not in any form factor. Your only real option right now is a 10K linear slider potentiometer, which works alright in most cabinets.

[mjr]

They pretty much don't make any of the optical linear arrays anymore, not in any form factor. Your only real option right now is a 10K linear slider potentiometer, which works alright in most cabinets.

 

Don't forget the AEDR-8300!  That's a very nice option that exceeds the performance of the TSL1410 setup.

 

And there actually are a few linear sensors still being made, just nothing at the 3" scale needed in the original design.  The current ones are more like camera imaging sensors, designed to be used with focusing optics.  I've actually been working on a new design with such a sensor that might see the light of day (as it were) before long.

[Robotica72]

Thanks for the quick replies.  I was/am looking at the V2 guide and it shows the Arrays - http://mjrnet.org/pi...p?sid=partslist

 

Of course, I just liked the array idea - So knowing they arent available, Ill use another option - sounds like the aedr-8300 is a great option?

[mjr]

Thanks for the quick replies.  I was/am looking at the V2 guide and it shows the Arrays - http://mjrnet.org/pi...p?sid=partslist

 

Oh, right, I guess I left that in there for the sake of completeness/nostalgia/on the off chance that someone comes across a palette of unsold new-old-stock in a warehouse someday.

 

 

sounds like the aedr-8300 is a great option?

 

I really like it, apart from its complexity.  Most people who've tried the potentiometer have had great results with that as well.  

[Robotica72]

  I had to check the page twice, thought maybe I was going crazy and I was on the old guide.  

 

I have the parts to add the aedr-8300 to my cabinet - I can 3D print the parts on my SLA (rather than FDM for these) - but the other two parts I sent you a PM to see if you have any around....

[sppooky]

Hi I've got a problem with my pinscape kl25z no longer being detected. I added a IR receiver and transmitter, configured the 2 ports to be used within configtool and saved changes. However the kl25z then failed to restart and windows just wouldnt detect it. I inserted it into another PC and it detected the programming port allowing me to refresh the original firmware. However I then re-added the IR ports used for the transmitter and receiver within configtool and it again failed to reboot successfully. I managed to reflash the firmware again. Tested all ouput buttons etc. All working fine. This time I only physically connected the IR transmitter. Added the IR port in the tool, and saved changes. Again it failed to restart. Now it doesnt even come on with green light when I reinsert programming usb. So cant even re-flash firmware. I've reinstated both subs and restarted pc. No leds appear on kl25z. Anyone any ideas?

[mjr]

sppooky - at a guess, you've probably got something shorted or otherwise wrong in the IR wiring.  I'd disconnect all of the wiring going to the KL25Z (all of the wiring - all power, USB, and GPIO pins).  Then plug it again in on the programming port ("OpenSDA"), again without any GPIO wiring connected.  See if it shows up.  If it does, download the firmware again and plug in the joystick port ("KL25Z") to see if it shows up there again.  It sounds like you've gone through that cycle once, but maybe do it again since it sounds you're back to a non-responsive KL25Z.

 

Whatever's going wrong is probably on the wiring side.  There are two possibilities, one benign and one bad.

 

The benign one is that you've shorted something in the KL25Z power wiring so that it's shutting down the USB port when you connect it.  That's usually benign because USB ports on the PC side have overload protection that shuts them down when there's a short, and resets automatically when the short is removed, so it usually prevents any permanent damage.  If it comes back after you remove all of the GPIO wiring, that's probably what happened.  In this case, you should take a close look at your IR wiring and figure out where the power short is coming from, before plugging any of the IR wiring back in.

 

The less pleasant possibility is that you overloaded one of the KL25Z GPIO pins somehow.  The GPIO pins are wired directly into the CPU core without any protection, so an overload on one of those pins can destroy the whole CPU.  The two easiest ways to do this are to try to drive a load over 4mA on one of the KL25Z GPIO pins, or to connect a GPIO pin to a voltage source over 3.3V.  Hopefully you didn't do either one of those, but if it seems completely dead, that's probably what happened.  There's really no way to recover the KL25Z in these cases because the CPU chip is damaged.

[sppooky]

Thanks for the reply back mjr. Looking back at my wiring and what you said about overloading one of the GPIO pins I think this is what I have done. Because one of the 3.3v pins is being used by the plunger I could only see one other available 3.3v pin that I could use. So I connected the VCC pin on both the transmitter and receiver to one side of a terminal block and the other side of the block to the other free 3.3v pin on the kl25z. Would this have overloaded it? Saying that though the last time I re-flashed the firmware I had only the transmitter connected. I will try again to remove all connections and see if it powers up. If it has blown and I need to get another kl25z is it possible to connect both transmitter and receiver if you have a pontimeter connected to the 3.3v pin?

[mjr]

So I connected the VCC pin on both the transmitter and receiver to one side of a terminal block and the other side of the block to the other free 3.3v pin on the kl25z. Would this have overloaded it?

 

Possibly.  The potentiometer and IR receiver are both low-power devices, so those won't have caused any damage, but the transmitter might be a different matter as those can be require high current.

 

What kind of transmitter are you using?  Could you post a complete diagram of how you had it wired?  For that matter, your complete wiring diagram including the pot and IR receiver might even be helpful, just in case there's something I'm missing about your description.

[LordBeric]

Hi all, I've installed 2 pinscape in my virtual pinball and I use a linear potentiometer plunger connected to the 1st board. In the 2nd board joistick is disabled. 2nd board is for only some rgb pwm output. In VPX all is perfect nudge and plunger. In Future Pinball BAM setup (last version installed from terryred guide) it recognize pinscape or mouse in the key setting windows, but I can't choose an axis for nudge or for plunger. I choose pinscape and click enable but all the axis are "none" and no choose is possible So I back to windows10, win+r run joy.cpl and it show pinscape, but doubleclick on it and nothing happen if I pull the plunger. In the pinscape config tool in the plunger setup if I pull the plunger I can see the green bar go to the right and I repeat in VPX all works good. I'm italian with italian win10 and I read about the dinput8.dll. so if I put the dll in BAM folder nothing change. If I put the dll in futurepinball folder in the key setting windows I have only the mouse to choose, pinscape not present anymore. Any idea?

[LordBeric]

Sorry for this 2nd post, I can't delete it. Sry

Edited by LordBeric, 07 June 2020 - 07:17 PM.

[mjr]

LordBeric - a few suggestions.

 

The first one is to try the Config Tool Joystick Tester window to see if the plunger is working there.  It sounds like you've confirmed that the hardware is working in the Plunger Tester window, but you should also test it in the Config Tool Joytsick Tester window to make sure the hardware connection is translating into joystick input properly.  If that's not working, go back to the plunger tester and go through the calibration procedure there.

 

Second, you should make sure that you don't have any past Windows joystick calibration in effect.  Even if you don't think you've ever done a Windows calibration, you should go back and explicitly delete the Windows calibration, just in case - almost everyone wants to click that button at least once when setting up their system.  The procedure is mentioned several times in the build guide, but so that you don't have to go search for it:

 

  * Press Windows+R, type joy.cpl, press Enter

  * Find Pinscape Controller in the list and double-click

  * Click the Settings tab

  * Click Reset to defaults

 

Since you have two Pinscape devices, you might want to repeat it for each device.

 

Third, make sure you've configured Future Pinball for the plunger.  Go to Plunger Setup in the build guide here:

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi...id=plungerSetup

 

then scroll down to "VP and FP plunger preference setup" and then further down to "Future Pinball", and go through the steps there.

 

If it still doesn't work, I'm not sure what else to try.  The only other thing I can think of is that FP might not be able to handle the multiple Pinscape units you have plugged in.  As a test, I'd unplug the one that's not wired to the plunger and try again, to see if that resolves it - if so, it sounds like there's a conflict at the FP level.  If that's it, I'm not sure there's any way to solve it, since there's no one doing any development on FP at this point as far as I know.

[LordBeric]

Thx for the reply I've made some progress. So I have axis, the solution was put dinput8.dll in future pinball folder. And execute FPLoader.exe as admimistrator! I've choosen the axis z for plunger, x and y for nudge. Now If I execute FPLoader not as administrator I still have the axis choosen, so here is ok. The nudge works but I have to move strong the cabinet not as VPX (where is working good) now I'm in 1g may be I try 2g or more. But the plunger not works.

[apturbo]

I've had one of these boards in my cab working fine for years.  Recently updated to win10 and noticed it going in and out of being recognized.  Now things have gone from bad to worse.  Green light doesn't come on when plugged into the non-programming usb conn and will not be recognized... even tried on another win7 machine.  Green light does come on when plugged into programming port.  Am i dead in the water here?  Thanks for your time.

[mjr]

I've had one of these boards in my cab working fine for years.  Recently updated to win10 and noticed it going in and out of being recognized.  Now things have gone from bad to worse.  Green light doesn't come on when plugged into the non-programming usb conn and will not be recognized... even tried on another win7 machine.  Green light does come on when plugged into programming port.  Am i dead in the water here?

 

The programming port connects to a separate CPU on the board, so if that's not working, chances are that the whole board is dead.  You might want to just try replacing it.

 

Given the history you describe, it doesn't sound like there was any single catastrophic event that killed it, so maybe it's just a case of a defect on the board.  But you might want to try to rack your brain and see if you can recall anything that might have changed when you moved to the new setup that could have affected the KL25Z.  E.g., change in power supplies, change in devices you had connected to the KL25Z, etc.  I'd particularly try to think of any one-time events that might have happened immediately before the very first signs of flaky behavior - it's possible that something zapped the KL25Z and damaged it, and it limped along for a couple of weeks before finally dying completely.  The KL25Z is especially sensitive to voltage overloads (anything at all above 3.3V) on its GPIO pins - if there's any chance you might have had a short-circuit or crossed wire that exposed a GPIO pin to 5V or 12V, that could have been the root cause.

 

If you're pretty sure that the board wasn't exposed to anything like that, I'd just go ahead and get a replacement.  If you can think of any possible catastrophic event, I'd try to make sure that's not going to happen again before plugging in the new one.

[apturbo]

 

I've had one of these boards in my cab working fine for years.  Recently updated to win10 and noticed it going in and out of being recognized.  Now things have gone from bad to worse.  Green light doesn't come on when plugged into the non-programming usb conn and will not be recognized... even tried on another win7 machine.  Green light does come on when plugged into programming port.  Am i dead in the water here?

 

The programming port connects to a separate CPU on the board, so if that's not working, chances are that the whole board is dead.  You might want to just try replacing it.

 

Given the history you describe, it doesn't sound like there was any single catastrophic event that killed it, so maybe it's just a case of a defect on the board.  But you might want to try to rack your brain and see if you can recall anything that might have changed when you moved to the new setup that could have affected the KL25Z.  E.g., change in power supplies, change in devices you had connected to the KL25Z, etc.  I'd particularly try to think of any one-time events that might have happened immediately before the very first signs of flaky behavior - it's possible that something zapped the KL25Z and damaged it, and it limped along for a couple of weeks before finally dying completely.  The KL25Z is especially sensitive to voltage overloads (anything at all above 3.3V) on its GPIO pins - if there's any chance you might have had a short-circuit or crossed wire that exposed a GPIO pin to 5V or 12V, that could have been the root cause.

 

If you're pretty sure that the board wasn't exposed to anything like that, I'd just go ahead and get a replacement.  If you can think of any possible catastrophic event, I'd try to make sure that's not going to happen again before plugging in the new one.

 

Just to clarify, the green light comes on when plugged into the programming port but does NOT when plugged into the other port normally used.  Only thing that changed was upgrading from 7 to 10.  No hardware changes.  Thanks.

[mjr]

Just to clarify, the green light comes on when plugged into the programming port but does NOT when plugged into the other port normally used.

 

That's exactly as it should be, so the board might be okay after all.