153 replies to this topic

[court461]

I have gotten a ton of stuff done this week software wise.  I have went through all my tables and edited them to use the mechanical plunger.  This was a chore, but so worth being able to pull back the plunger.  Also gotten all the missing media I needed for pinballx using the PBX recorder.  What an awesome utility.  It always bothered me that some of my table were slightly different than the videos I had found, and would change when you enter a game.  Now they are my exact tables, awesome.  I have to work out the dmd videos, I did something wrong there, but I have most of them anyway.

 

I also updated 10 or so of my tables to VPX.  Still some tweaking to do there, the nudge settings are much different than VP9.  If my shaker goes off, the tables are almost unplayable.  I have to find the correct settings, but I am sure all will be great then.  

 

I started with 164 tables, but I am down to 139 now.  I decided that instead of getting every table I could, I would keep tables I like to play.  I am sure I will get rid of some more once I get some playing time on them.  There are many I have yet to play at all.

 

My computer is driving me crazy trying to upgrade to windows 10.  I have everything working so well, I am scared to pull the trigger.  Anyone else have windows 10 upgrade over an existing perfectly working installation and have no issues?  I just don't want to break anything.  I have windows 10 on my non-gaming computer and I like it just fine.  Just afraid of any compatibility issues.

 

Oh well, if you have read this far (God bless you) through my ramblings, might as well get some new pics.  It has yet to make it inside, so pardon the messy garage.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by court461, 04 March 2016 - 02:43 PM.

[court461]

Back when I was getting everything setup, I was having trouble with my gear motor.  I blew 3 of my outputs on the Zeb board trying to get running.  I finally gave up.  I tried a few different gear motors, and had them running fine with power directly hooked, but for some reason through the boards I was having problems.  Well, I bought a VW wiper motor, then bought a Zeb gear/shaker driver.  Mounted both on a piece of plywood and got mounted in my cab.  Seems to be working great so far.  The gear is not super loud, but you can hear it and it is a cool effect.  The only thing I don't like is it runs before you launch the ball on some tables.  Not sure why that would be.  It worries me a bit that if you started a table, then got sidetracked you may burn up the motor from running a long time.

 

 

 

 

I also finally took my playfield tv back apart to get at my power button.  This time, I ran the switch board outside of the tv so I can access it.  Unfortunately, I did not have good luck here.  I tried holding down the button (supper advanced lego and rubberband method).  Upon power up, the tv came on so I thought all was good, but it kept cycling on and off, on and off.  Therefore holding the button down does not work like it does on my backglass tv.  I will either have to continue to use the remote, lengthen the power button wires so I could access the switch through the coin door, or get some kind of IR blaster solution that my computer would trigger the blaster on startup to turn on the tv.  Not what I was hoping for.

 

Edited by court461, 07 March 2016 - 06:25 PM.

[Sneetch]

Boo on the challenges you have been working thru, but it looks awesome.   

 

I will have to review the thread again to see how you did the border to your playfield monitor.  It is something I have to do, yet not sure best way to go about it or source material.

[court461]

Boo on the challenges you have been working thru, but it looks awesome.   

 

I will have to review the thread again to see how you did the border to your playfield monitor.  It is something I have to do, yet not sure best way to go about it or source material.

 

I ordered a custom picture mat, like the ones you would put in a picture frame around a picture.  I ordered from a place called framedestination.com.  I had no idea who to use, I just googled a place.  You could probably get done locally at a Michael's, or some craft store that does picture framing.  I think it was about $25 shipped.  You put in measurements for outside dimension, and inside dimensions.  I would recommend them.  Fit perfectly when I received it, and was packed really well in cardboard so it was not bent.  Looks much better than seeing the TV bezel.

[Sneetch]

Perfect! Thanks Court!! I just assumed picture matts capped out at size smaller than we needed. I will give that a look as i agree It would greatly enhance the overall look of the cab.

[court461]

Perfect! Thanks Court!! I just assumed picture matts capped out at size smaller than we needed. I will give that a look as i agree It would greatly enhance the overall look of the cab.

No problem. I just looked back at my receipt email and the mat was $10 and it was $12 to ship lol. But $22 shipped I was happy. I am sure I could have done cheaper, but it would not have looked as good I don't think.


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[court461]

So got my gear issue worked out with the help of randr and angrim.  Somehow I had an old DOF config file in my tables directory.  Even though I was updating the one in my plugins directory, DOF was using the first one it located.  So my gear was configured as the launch ball button which is why it was running on table start until I launched the ball.  I deleted the old file, DOF then picked up the new file and my gear works perfectly now.  So now the only thing I have left to sort out is the playfield power on.  I may look into a usb/ir blaster solution but I have to research more.  I was also reading recently you can change a BIOS setting to have CPU power on when power is applied.  If I can get those two things going, I will truly have a one switch powers everything solution.

[drdecibel]

Regarding auto powr on monitor:

Have you tried HDMI-CEC if monitor supports this?
Hotel mode on your tv? Alot of tweaking can be done here.

[court461]

Regarding auto powr on monitor:

Have you tried HDMI-CEC if monitor supports this?
Hotel mode on your tv? Alot of tweaking can be done here.

 

No hotel mode, I do have CEC, interesting, I can't believe I have never heard of that.  I will play with that some.  I found how to turn it on, but not sure if my computer will wake it up.  If I can figure that out that will be awesome.

[Sneetch]

HDMI-CEC has many marketing terms based on manufacturer...  Shame they cant all call it the same thing as more people would likely realize they could use it as they likely have several things that work together.

[court461]

So I have finally got everything powering on. For the cpu it was easy, there was a bios setting you can change to automatically power on whenever power is applied, so I turned that on. For the tv, it was not so easy. As a recap, I tried through settings, nothing there. I tried holding the button down, that did not work. I looked into cec settings (which my TV has) but my motherboard does not support it. So my options were a cec adapter, or a usb ir blaster. I decided to go with the usb ir blaster since I knew I could use on my home theater if it didn't work. It was about $60 on amazon so not the cheapest solution. I downloaded some software called evenghost, this allows you to tie ir blasts to certain events. I have it set to turn on the tv when the computer boots ip. Now I truly have a one button turns everything on solution.

 

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Edited by court461, 17 April 2016 - 09:22 PM.

[kiwiBri]

Great Build Thread.  Learnt a lot and took note of a few things  

 

So did you update to Win10 in the end? Hows the PC holding up? Good enough for powering the software?

[court461]

Great Build Thread.  Learnt a lot and took note of a few things  
 
So did you update to Win10 in the end? Hows the PC holding up? Good enough for powering the software?

I upgraded, but experienced some problems so I rolled back. I will probably try again when I have more time to work out the kinks. My Win7 build is working so well I just don't want to mess with it. PC is doing great. No issues running any of the tables I have. I love this thing.


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[Nemo]

Again nice work, love the ir blaster, but maybe the most important question with this particular build would be: is it in the house yet ??         

[kiwiBri]

 

Great Build Thread.  Learnt a lot and took note of a few things  
 
So did you update to Win10 in the end? Hows the PC holding up? Good enough for powering the software?

I upgraded, but experienced some problems so I rolled back. I will probably try again when I have more time to work out the kinks. My Win7 build is working so well I just don't want to mess with it. PC is doing great. No issues running any of the tables I have. I love this thing.

 

 

I'll try and install Windows 7 when its time to do the install myself, then look at Win10. Ok, I bit the bullet and got the last remaining main components for the PC build ordered. .(MoBo and CPU).   ..Time to start my personal build log I guess!

Edited by kiwiBri, 10 June 2016 - 06:26 PM.

[court461]

Again nice work, love the ir blaster, but maybe the most important question with this particular build would be: is it in the house yet ??         

 

Haha, not yet.  But I am wearing her down.  It helps the kids like to play it, and it is hellfire hot in Oklahoma so the garage is an inferno.  I am thinking another month and it will make it inside.  

[hauntfreaks]

holy moly that IR blaster dude has a real racket going.... <head spinning>

 

there has to be a cheaper blaster solution 

this looks like it would work, it uses the audio wave to pulse the IR's 

it would just need to know what pulse your TV excepts... I'm sure the smarter guys on the forum can figure it out... "HEY MJR, WHERE ARE YOU!!"

 

http://www.instructa...or-iPhone-iPod/

[roar]

holy moly that IR blaster dude has a real racket going.... <head spinning>

 

there has to be a cheaper blaster solution 

this looks like it would work, it uses the audio wave to pulse the IR's 

it would just need to know what pulse your TV excepts... I'm sure the smarter guys on the forum can figure it out... "HEY MJR, WHERE ARE YOU!!"

 

http://www.instructa...or-iPhone-iPod/

 

mjr's Pinscape expansion board project actually has an IR blaster on it... not sure if the code for that part is implemented yet, but I know I soldered one on the board when putting mine together. I think I'm going to hardwire right to the PCB's on the TV's to turn mine on and off through the expansion board though.

[hauntfreaks]

I use the pinscape setup in my cab....it would be great if i could just wire in a blaster.... my TVs are not deceased 

[roar]

I use the pinscape setup in my cab....it would be great if i could just wire in a blaster.... my TVs are not deceased 

I wouldn't say I decased mine... I took them apart far enough to pull the pcb out and then put the case back on... Then I bought a new tv last weekend for my playfield and that one has RS232 on it so I'll just use that instead