1103 replies to this topic

[mjr]

I was actually thinking if the TLCs continue to be so problematic, that I build another chime board, but bypass the 555s and drive the flipper contactors and shaker motor off that instead?

 

And then for the flashers, try and find the brightest WS2812s that I can, and run 5 of those as an addressable light strip. Haven't got to the stage of seeing if I can map individual addressable LEDs to the 5 flashers in DOF config.  I have a bunch of individual WS2811s from my christmas lights which I might be able to use.

 

That seems like a good backup plan to me.  A lot of people prefer the light strips over the flashers anyway, since you can do more with them.

 

 

 Most of my SM experience is with passive components, so have not had first hand experience with a QFN package, but am willing to give it a go if I've exhausted all DIP options.

 

The QFN packages are tough to work with by hand since they're so tiny, and all of the pads are hidden under the chip.  A solder mask would help a lot, if that's an option for you, since you can at least get the solder paste lined up with the little pads.  The PCB pads are only 0.23mm x 0.8mm, with 0.08 mm spacing - not human-friendly dimensions.  The TSSOP packages aren't exactly easy, either, but they're quite a lot bigger and the leads are exposed, so it's possible to see if the solder all ended up in the right place.

[svorak]

The ebay seller that @fhjui suggested adjusted his listing temporarily to add shipping to Australia, and the chips are on their way. If the seller's product is as good as his communication, seems I may just be sorted for DIP versions. Still won't hold my breath until they arrive and work though

 

All the chime board components were readily available an in stock between mouser and digikey, so if these TLCs don't work I think I'll go with the second chime board and light strip as flashers as my backup plan.

[svorak]

@fhjui's seller came through with the goods! My TLCs arrived, plugged into the main and power boards, and my feedback devices are all working perfectly!

[fhjui]

@fhjui's seller came through with the goods! My TLCs arrived, plugged into the main and power boards, and my feedback devices are all working perfectly!

That's great news! Had checked with him to send flawless parts. He is a very trustworthy seller.

Had asked me, if I could produce a lot of my smd2dip-adapters... unfortunately no, I'm a private person without business. Told him that I had made all design stuff public

[Nathsea]

Hi
Just purchased second hand Pinscape boards off eBay main board works a treat, power board doesnt appear to be working . The mosfets get hot to the touch is this normal ?
When I connect my solenoid to the pin it is active and the on / off doesnt do anything on the Pinscape program

Any ideas ?

Cheers

[mjr]

Just purchased second hand Pinscape boards off eBay main board works a treat, power board doesnt appear to be working . The mosfets get hot to the touch is this normal ?
When I connect my solenoid to the pin it is active and the on / off doesnt do anything on the Pinscape program

 

It sounds like the MOSFETs on the power board are bad.  A typical failure mode for MOSFETs is to short across the main switching section so that they're stuck permanently on, which sounds like what you're seeing.  You can test that by completely unplugging the board from everything, getting out a multimeter, setting it to resistance/Ohms mode, and measuring the resistance between each of the Output pins and either of the center pins on JP4 ("2ND PSU").  If you get a low resistance reading (zero or single-digit Ohms), the MOSFETs are definitely blown.  A good MOSFET will usually read infinity (like a completely disconnected circuit) or at least in the milliions of Ohms.

 

If you get infinity/mega-Ohm readings, the MOSFETs are probably good after all, so it might be just a wiring problem or one of the other chips.  But I'm pretty sure you're going to find that the MOSFETs are blown given that they're getting hot.  

If the MOSFETs are bad, you might be able to salvage the board by un-soldering the MOSFETs and replacing them.  It's a bit of a pain to get them out but it's doable if you have a decent soldering iron and one of those little spring-loaded solder-sucker tools.  (If you have access to a dedicated de-soldering station, it's actually pretty easy to remove MOSFETs, but most people don't have those lying around the house.)  I'd probably give it a try with a single MOSFET as an experiment - each circuit is basically independent in the MOSFET section so you can do them one at a time like that.  If that fixes it, you could replace as many more of them as you had patience for.

[Nathsea]

Hi
Thanks for the response , think Ill give that a go . Ill report back

Cheers
Nath

[Nathsea]

Hi
So I have checked and all of the mosfets appear to have approx 2.8m ohm ??

Further testing showed some poor power wiring which I have now rectified. Also it appears that the top 4 and bottom pin on each side are causing the solenoid to fire as soon as I connect it and all the others appear not to , but o cannot get them to turn on / off in the test software

I have also connected up the chime board , doesnt get hot at all , but again cannot get the pins to turn on / off

Plugged a solenoid in to the knocker on the main board and this works fine

Any ideas or shall I just put it down to a bad eBay purchase and try something else ?

[mjr]

So I have checked and all of the mosfets appear to have approx 2.8m ohm ??

 

That sounds like the MOSFETs are all dead, unfortunately.  It's always hard to be absolutely sure about a measurement when a part is still installed in a board, so the definitive test would be to unsolder one of them and take the same reading, but for this particular part in this particular board I'm pretty sure there aren't any other circuit pathways that could be confusing the reading.

 

If you haven't already, you could try going through the debugging steps here:

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi...?sid=expanDebug

 

Since your main board is working, and the chime board at least isn't showing the "always on" problem you're seeing with the power board, I'd probably give that one another try in the hope that it's not physically damaged like the power board seems to be.  The main thing would be to carefully check the wiring between it and the main board - make sure the ribbon cable is oriented correctly at both ends, and make sure the power wiring to the chime board is right.

[jle]

fhjui mentions this source for the TCL5940NT chips: https://www.ebay.de/itm/111056828725.

 

svorak also had luck with this vendor.

 

Being in the U.S., I got a little confused tracking this down, as it was a German eBay site that had a listing from the U.K. I finally found the same vendor's listing on the U.S. eBay site here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/111056828725. I had the same experience as svorak reports with regards to shipping. The listing does not support shipping to the U.S., but when I contacted the vendor ("atelecs") and he answer immediately and quoted reasonable shipping to the U.S. He then enabled that on the eBay listing so I could order, and the chips are on the way. While I have not tested them yet, two other forum members reported great success with these chips, and I thought others from the U.S. might find the eBay link useful.

 

Thanks to fhjui and svorak for the information.

 

P.S. It looks like someone else found this site and ordered all his remaining chips; let's hope he can restock!

Edited by jle, 18 October 2022 - 06:13 PM.

[Suikazz]

ooops

[jle]

I am putting together my Mouser BOMs for the Pinscape interface boards (Main, Power and Chime Boards). The Pinscape Build Guide has a wonderful tool for this, creating the BOM(s) that import directly into Mouser's BOM tools. I some I had to do some substitutions due to a few parts becoming obsolete. Most substitutions were all pretty easy, but I am stuck on substituting for the obsolete FQP13N06L. Mouser lists this as End of Life and currently Out of Stock, but some additional chips may be available by 11/4/2022. Of course, I am impatient and anxious to get started, so I am looking for a substitution rather than waiting.

 

One of the recommendations in the Build Guide is to substitute with BUK7575-55A. Searching Mouser for that gives three results, two of which are obsolete, and one that is STP16NF06. The specifications for that STP16NF06 include a lot of numbers that I am not clever enough to match against the Note 4 recommendations in the Builder Guide.

 

QUESTION: Is STP16NF06 a suitable substitution for FQP13N06L?

 

I'll post all the substitutions required to the BOMs for these 3 boards once I get this last question resolved.

 

Thanks!

Edited by jle, 19 October 2022 - 03:24 PM.

[mjr]

QUESTION: Is STP16NF06 a suitable substitution for FQP13N06L?

 

That looks like a good substitution to me.

[jle]

Here's my list of substitutions to the BOMs for the Pinscape Expansion Boards (to reconcile the Pinscape Build Guide lists to what is in stock at Mouser today):

• For the Main Board (KL25Z Interface):
  • 21RZ310-RC replaced with 80-C315C104M5U
  • 855-M20-9760646 replaced with 855-M20-9760642
  • 270-2.2M-RC replaced with 594-5063JD2M200F
  • 538-08-50-0114 replaced with 538-08-50-0032
  • 512-FQP13N06L replaced with 511-STP16NF06
  • 511-ULN2064B replaced with 511-ULN2066B
  • 511-LD1117AV33 replaced by ?? (will be ordering from Digi-Key)
  • 649-65239-013LF replaced by 649-65846-019LF
  • 653-G5V-2-DC5 replaced by ?? (will be ordering from Newark)
• For the Power Board:
  • 21RZ310-RC replaced with 80-C315C104M5U
  • 538-08-50-0114 replaced with 538-08-50-0032
  • 512-FQP13N06L replaced with 511-STP16NF06
  • 511-LD1117AV33 replaced by ?? (will be ordering from Digi-Key)
• For the Chime Board:
  • 21RZ310-RC replaced with 80-C315C104M5U
  • 538-08-50-0114 replaced with 538-08-50-0032
  • 512-FQP13N06L replaced with 511-STP16NF06

Still two parts that I haven't figured out (marked with "??" above).

 

No warranties, and your mileage may vary. Just thought that this might help somebody at the same stage of building as I just go to who is trying to construct order(s) for electronic parts at Mouser.

 

-Jon

Edited by jle, 19 October 2022 - 06:03 PM.

[Nathsea]

Hi so I went through all the wiring as per the guide for the chime , couldnt see anything wrong , so I swapped the chip out , it worked apart from pin 3 or 5 🤷‍♂ took it all apart to check that circuit and couldnt see anything wrong , put it back together and it didnt work !! Not sure what is going on , but think Im gonna give up and just keep the main board for now and look at other solutions when funds allow !

Cheers
Nath

[fhjui]

Hi so I went through all the wiring as per the guide for the chime , couldnt see anything wrong , so I swapped the chip out , it worked apart from pin 3 or 5 ‍♂ took it all apart to check that circuit and couldnt see anything wrong , put it back together and it didnt work !! Not sure what is going on , but think Im gonna give up and just keep the main board for now and look at other solutions when funds allow !

Cheers
Nath

 

thats a pity because the pinscape-hardware is pretty good to check, seems complicated at first look but its all the same output stages in a similar design.

Its difficult to make a remote troubleshooting,

Perhaps in dependance of your knowledge and equipment you can build up my testboard for pinscape ICs, cost app. 20-25€, which I presented in

https://www.vpforums...907#entry506086

with its help you can test all Pinscape-ICs and the mosfets

[maniacman]

is it possible to connect undercab led stripes and Front Panel Button LEDs to the pinscape mainboard on the RGB Flasher or Small led connectors ?

[mjr]

> is it possible to connect undercab led stripes and Front Panel Button LEDs to

> the pinscape mainboard on the RGB Flasher or Small led connectors ?

 

Not directly - undercab LED strips usually draw about 3 to 4 Amps, which is more than the flasher ports can handle (they're rated for 1.5A) and much more than the small LED ports can drive (they'll only handle about 20mA).  However, you should be able to use either port type as long as you connect an LED strip mini-amplifier between the LED strip and the Pinscape ports.  Connect the mini-amp input to the Pinscape port, and connect the LED strip to the mini-amp output.

[JLPicard001]

Man I wish I'd bought a case of FDRM kl25z when they were $18....

Edited by JLPicard001, 13 January 2023 - 01:43 PM.

[TheGeek]

Greetings! I recently discovered VR Pinball and am hooked! I set up a poor-man's pin sim with an old fighting stick and an ancient iPac board, but am looking to upgrade to something with nudge sensing, so this project looks like what I'm looking for.

 

Unfortunately, I goofed and bought the wrong board: a  FRDM-KL02Z. I'm pretty sure I can't substitute this board for the FRDM-KL25Z the project calls for, but I figured I'd ask.

 

I also found a FRDM-KL26Z for cheap, and it looks like the pinouts are the same, and it has all the same parts as far as I can tell. However, I figured I would ask before I ordered one.

 

If not, I'll just have to get ripped off on Amazon.