1103 replies to this topic

[ikendrick]

Hi,

 

I have a question about the knocker functionality. I didn't realize that this thread was here as I posted the question in the VP Forums so I am repeating it here.

 

I have almost finished building my cabinet and have the pinscape boards all build and debugged. I have tested all of the outputs and all works well. The only thing I find odd is the way the knocker works with the config tool.

 

I have a 24 Volt PSU stepped up to 48 Volt with the red wire from the + on the output from the step up to the knocker. There is a diode between the input and output of the knocker oriented as per mjr's guide. The output from the knocker goes to the knocker on the pinscape main board.

 

Like I said it's not that it doesn't work - in fact it makes a perfect punch when it fires. The only thing I find odd is I was expecting it to fire once I switch it ON in the config tool. Nothing happens until I turn if OFF then it fires for 2 seconds before shutting down. Shouldn't this be the other way around?

 

Also seems a little odd that it fires after updating the KL25Z from the config tool.

 

May be it is supposed to do this - just wanted confirmation that it is normal.

 

Thanks

Ian.

[mjr]

ikendrick - yeah, something's definitely wrong.  It sounds like you have a polarity reversed somewhere, since the device is firing when the port turns off, and by implication it must be un-firing when the port turns on.  The "on for 2 seconds" part is coming from the time-limiting circuit, so the timer is evidently working correctly, at least.  That means the problem must be one of:

 

- the software is configured for Active Low for that port

- something's wrong in the circuitry between the KL25Z GPIO port and the timer circuit input

- the polarity of the timer output is getting reversed somehow

 

I'd check the software configuration first, to make sure you didn't accidentally set the port to Active Low at some point.  That would be the simplest explanation I can think of.

 

If it's not just a configuration issue, there must be something wrong in the hardware, but I don't have any ideas about what that would be.  The symptom so specific that I'd think it would point to a particular place to look for the fault, but I can't come up with any explanation of what that could be.  I guess I'd start by going through the circuit for that output and carefully checking all of the component pins for continuity, checking against the schematic.

[MikePinball]

Also try a different output device. A LED button with a 1K resistor is best. Connect the anode to 5V and the cathode via the resistor into the Pinscape output. A correctly working knocker output lights the LED for 2 seconds and then turns it off. You have to turn off the output and turn it back on to see the LED light again.

 

If this is not happening then there may be an issue with the timer circuit. If this is happening but in reverse i.e. the LED is on, then turns off for 2 seconds and then comes back on; the timer circuit is working and you must have the output set to active low.

[ikendrick]

Hi Mike and Mike,

 

Thank you so much for the fast response - very much appreciated.

 

I also noticed today that when I power up the PC it also fires the knocker once.

 

I know this is out of left field but is it possible that if I installed an NPN instead of PNP would that possibly caused this symptom given that the polarity of the transistor would be wrong or would the circuit just not work?

 

I have plenty of the transistors for this circuit so I could just swap them out.

 

I will try the active low in the software first and let you know but it is odd that the timer circuit works and it fires just the wrong way round.

 

Thanks for the input and I will let you know. FYI - mjr your guide is total awesome and saved me a few times from making big mistakes   

 

Ian 

[mjr]

I also noticed today that when I power up the PC it also fires the knocker once.

 

That's consistent with something being backwards in the circuit, either at the software or hardware level.  It still could be either.  If you have the port configured as Active Low in the software, the first thing the software will do on boot is set the port to HIGH, because Active Low means that HIGH is OFF and LOW is ON.  That would cause the timer to trigger immediately (because *it* thinks HIGH means ON), turning the knocker on for two seconds and then cutting it off when the timeout expires.  The same thing would be true if the software were set up properly and something were backwards in the circuitry.

 

 

I know this is out of left field but is it possible that if I installed an NPN instead of PNP would that possibly caused this symptom given that the polarity of the transistor would be wrong or would the circuit just not work?

 

Interesting idea - I suspect it just wouldn't work, because NPN vs PNP isn't quite as simple a matter of changing all of the signs, but I'm not sure we can rule it out.  Check the software config first, since that's the simplest explanation, but if you can rule that out then definitely inspect all of the components in the timer circuit and make sure they're all the right ones.

[ikendrick]

Hi guys,

 

Your first idea was correct. Apparently my sticky mouse finger set the knocker output to active low - I feel so stupid but in fairness ( let me at least let me think that ) I have spent many, many hours soldering and wiring and it's amazing how long this build takes.

 

All works perfectly now and I really don't know how to thank you for your kindness and support.

 

I will be buying a subscription to this site as all of the work that people put into this is incredible.

 

Thank you for saving me from tearing my hair out.

 

Ian.

[mjr]

Glad you got it working, and glad to hear it was just the port configuration.  That's always an easier fix than a hardware problem - no soldering needed for software issues.

[pintris72]

Hi,

I have bought a pinscape board set (main board + expansion board) from German Gaming Supplies. I connected the power supply cables correct as described (the 4 pin on main board and expansion board to a 2nd power supply and the 2 pins on both boards to the computer PC supply).

The cabinet buttons I hooked up to the board do work (allthough I found one pin that did not work). 

But when I try the mosfet output pins, none of them seem to work when I set the slider to 255 in the pinscape test program. I measure 0 voltage even when the slider is fully 'up'. 

Is there something else I could test or do ? I contacted Dominik for weeks but no reply at all on whatsapp... So not sure what to do now.

I read in this thread that some of his board he sent had a certain chip soldered 'backwards'. Which chip is that exactly? So maybe I can compare if my board has this same issue...

Thanks

[mjr]

pintris72 - reading 0V on an output port when on is actually correct.  The ports don't supply voltage; they connect to ground when on, and connect to nothing when off.  You should double-check that you're wiring them correctly:

 

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

 

If you're sure the wiring is correct, then you might have a defective board, so you'll probably need to pursue that with the vendor.  If you want to try to check/repair them yourself, you can find the schematics and EAGLE plans for the boards here (under "Where to download the board plans"):

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi...hp?sid=expanFab

 

I don't know if the past examples of defective boards are always the same problem, so I can't point to you to one simple thing to check, but maybe start by checking each of the big chips to make sure they're oriented correctly.

[MikePinball]

Hi,

I have bought a pinscape board set (main board + expansion board) from German Gaming Supplies. I connected the power supply cables correct as described (the 4 pin on main board and expansion board to a 2nd power supply and the 2 pins on both boards to the computer PC supply).

The cabinet buttons I hooked up to the board do work (allthough I found one pin that did not work). 

But when I try the mosfet output pins, none of them seem to work when I set the slider to 255 in the pinscape test program. I measure 0 voltage even when the slider is fully 'up'. 

Is there something else I could test or do ? I contacted Dominik for weeks but no reply at all on whatsapp... So not sure what to do now.

I read in this thread that some of his board he sent had a certain chip soldered 'backwards'. Which chip is that exactly? So maybe I can compare if my board has this same issue...

Thanks

Send pictures of both boards top and underneath.

 

Do any of the other outputs work like the LEDs, flashers or knocker? Did you properly apply 12V to the power connector (can you test the voltage). Unfortunately reading 0V on the output doesn't help that much because you get a similar but slightly different result when the MOSFET is off and when it is on. Off might read slightly less than zero. On will read between 0.1 and 0.5V if it is working correctly. There are other places to test but that gets more involved to describe.

[pintris72]

 

 

 
Do any of the other outputs work like the LEDs, flashers or knocker? Did you properly apply 12V to the power connector (can you test the voltage). Unfortunately reading 0V on the output doesn't help that much because you get a similar but slightly different result when the MOSFET is off and when it is on. Off might read slightly less than zero. On will read between 0.1 and 0.5V if it is working correctly. There are other places to test but that gets more involved to describe.
 

Hi,
I tested the voltage on the connectors which go into my shaker motor, not on the output pins of the board. When the pin of the output board is on I should start to get 12v when i measure the connectors to the motor... I am building a VR cab and I only use the buttons on the small board on top and the analog plunger on the main board. both work. I only use the power board to connect a shaker motor. All other effects will be handled by ssf (audio tranducers).
I tested all 4 power connectors. the 2 4-pin going to my 2nd power supply deliver 5v and 12v fine on the pins of the connector going into the board. same for the 2 2pin connectors coming from my pc power supply. I measure 5v there.

You can find picture here : https://photos.app.goo.gl/rZbvnEs6tZyFTsC28
Many thanks for your help.

Edited by pintris72, 25 July 2021 - 07:47 AM.

[MikePinball]

Unfortunately the photographs are only partial helpful.

 

Have you tried running the shaker motor from the knocker output on the main board? It will only run for 2 seconds at a time but that output is different from the power outputs. With the right knowledge and soldering skills, it is possible to turn off the timer.

 

Did the board come from GGS with those green sockets soldered on or did you add them afterwards?

 

Are you also planning to run button lights as well as the shaker? Unfortunately the full Pinscape expansion board set is more than you needed if you plan to use SSF. If we cannot get things working then there is an alternative from a guy is France who makes good stuff.

[pintris72]

Unfortunately the photographs are only partial helpful.
 
Have you tried running the shaker motor from the knocker output on the main board? It will only run for 2 seconds at a time but that output is different from the power outputs. With the right knowledge and soldering skills, it is possible to turn off the timer.
 
Did the board come from GGS with those green sockets soldered on or did you add them afterwards?
 
Are you also planning to run button lights as well as the shaker? Unfortunately the full Pinscape expansion board set is more than you needed if you plan to use SSF. If we cannot get things working then there is an alternative from a guy is France who makes good stuff.

Hi, thanks for your reply and for the help  so far. I really appreciate it.
I just tried to connect the shaker motor to the knocker output on the main board and that does work like you decribed. So the main board seems fine .
The board came from GGS with the green sockets soldered yes. I did not do any mods on the board whatsoever. 
I don't want to run anything else. So only the cabinet buttons and analog plunger on the main board and shaker motor on the power board. That's all. I am glad the shaker motor works at least partially on the main board now. This further gives me the impression the power board is faulty... I did buy the board to have the pmw feature of the power board so i can lower shaker intensity in the dof software.

I uploaded 5 more clearer pictures of the power board.
Thanks

Edited by pintris72, 26 July 2021 - 04:44 PM.

[pintris72]

I made some progress... i checked the voltage connectors (4pin and 2pin) on the back side when the boards where plugged in. It seems the 5v pin (red wire) on the 2-pin small connector going to the PC power supply was not soldered at all at the back. So it did not supply 5v to the board. I soldered the pin in. 

Sadly the power board still does not do what it should. Now, some pins, like before, don't do anything when turned on in the software, but some pins (like pin 4, 13 , 19...) are ALWAYS on, even if OFF in the software. There are a good half of the pins now "stuck on". I tested with a 5v light bulb as well (simple wire from the 5v power supply + and the power boards pins as - ) and indeed the lightbulb goes on the moment I touch certain pins, even if all of them are OFF in the pinscape test software. They are also 'fully on'.. The slider does not have any dimming effect. So the pwm does not work either on these pins.

[mjr]

pintris72 - glad you were able to track down one problem, at least.  Hopefully the remaining issue(s) can be fixed as well.

 

The 5V lamp test is definitely a good thing to try.  To clarify, when you say that some ports are stuck "on", do you mean that the remaining ports are working properly, or that the other ports are equally non-working but are stuck "off" instead of "on"?  If some of the ports are working, then the TLC5940 chips must be working correctly, so that narrows things down to the optocouplers and/or MOSFETs.  You should compile a full list of which ports are working and which aren't - that should narrow down the list of optos and MOSFETs to check further.  If none of the ports are working, then I'd start with the TLC5940 chips - make sure they're installed in the correct orientation, and carefully check all of the pins to make sure there's not another missing/bad solder joint.

 

Just so that you're not chasing too many red herrings, note that there's really no distinction between "PWM" working and "on/off" working.  The ports are entirely controlled through PWM, so there's no sense of "on" and "off" that isn't also PWM - "full on" just means 100% duty cycle and "off" means 0% duty cycle on the PWM.  So at least you don't have to worry about two separate problems there; whatever's physically wrong is responsible for both the "stuck" ports and the PWM slider not working.

[MikePinball]

i checked the voltage connectors (4pin and 2pin) on the back side when the boards where plugged in. It seems the 5v pin (red wire) on the 2-pin small connector going to the PC power supply was not soldered at all at the back. So it did not supply 5v to the board.

I'm glad you found this.

 

But sadly Dominik does not test any of his boards before shipping them. It fact he takes so little care it is surprising that people don't receive empty boards altogether. This is another lesson about not buying from GGS. Anyone reading this, please save yourself big trouble by buying instead from Arnoz who is reputable.

 

The TLC5940s appear to be correctly oriented but who knows on the soldering. Let's start by taking a detailed photograph of the board underside. Given that your soldering is better than Dominik's I would examine every joint carefully and retouch or add solder to any joint that looks mildly suspicious or cold.

[pintris72]

 

i checked the voltage connectors (4pin and 2pin) on the back side when the boards where plugged in. It seems the 5v pin (red wire) on the 2-pin small connector going to the PC power supply was not soldered at all at the back. So it did not supply 5v to the board.

I'm glad you found this.

 

But sadly Dominik does not test any of his boards before shipping them. It fact he takes so little care it is surprising that people don't receive empty boards altogether. This is another lesson about not buying from GGS. Anyone reading this, please save yourself big trouble by buying instead from Arnoz who is reputable.

 

The TLC5940s appear to be correctly oriented but who knows on the soldering. Let's start by taking a detailed photograph of the board underside. Given that your soldering is better than Dominik's I would examine every joint carefully and retouch or add solder to any joint that looks mildly suspicious or cold.

 

Yeah, this board is clearly not tested. Sadly Dominik seems to have crawled back under his rock with again dead silence from his side... So he does not appear to be in any urge to help me out... He sold the board, now it is clearly MY problem...  I added more pictures to the google album. The last two have red marks and notes on them. In the first one you can see two resistors have been "connected" which each other due to excessive solder. Could this cause problems? Also on the second photo, I noticed I have continuity between one side of the resistor with all other resistors in that row. Is this normal?

 

If we are not getting out of this mess, perhaps I can better look for a working alternative. As noted before, I only need cabinet buttons, analog plunger and nudge (which works fine by the way), and 1 pwm output for my shaker motor. That's it. What would I need from another seller for this? Basically, I assume an output board with 1 output for the shaker would be sufficient...

 

Thanks

Edited by pintris72, 28 July 2021 - 08:53 AM.

[gtxjoe]

If you are on Facebook, Dominic (GGS) is present on the Visual Pinball Junkies group

I would join it and and post your issues there. Hopefully you will get his attention there

[MikePinball]

If you are on Facebook, Dominic (GGS) is present on the Visual Pinball Junkies group

I would join it and and post your issues there. Hopefully you will get his attention there

Dominik won't fix anything or refund, or replace. You can state your case so other people see the problem. But as administrator Dominik can delete threads he doesn't like. He does this all the time on his facebook page. You can post on forums to warn people.

I added more pictures to the google album. The last two have red marks and notes on them. In the first one you can see two resistors have been "connected" which each other due to excessive solder. Could this cause problems? Also on the second photo, I noticed I have continuity between one side of the resistor with all other resistors in that row. Is this normal?

 

I looked at both of these pictures. All of these things are supposed to be connected together- it is a common ground signal (connected to ground of 12V supply).

[ikendrick]

Hi all,

 

I'm having some odd behavior with the shift, cntrl and alt buttons in the pinscape controller setting. I have my flippers and magna save buttons set to shift keys and cntrl keys respectively. In the controller config tool when these buttons are pressed the button shows as on and highlights the keyboard map correctly. When released the button goes to off but the keyboard map stays highlighted until the button is pressed again. All other keys do not show this behavior.

 

I thought nothing of this to start with, as all of VPX tables work perfectly with no obvious side effects. However now I am finalizing the build with the front end PinballX and PinballY I see the side effect of it.

 

PinballX requires 2 button presses to change menu items and PinballY requires only one but then spins the wheel until the button is pressed again.

 

I have changed the flipper / magna buttons to other keys and then both menu systems work fine.

 

Any ideas why only those keys would display this sticky behavior?

 

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

Ian.