297 replies to this topic

[Darkfall]

Thanks, guys.

Nice work. Seems a lot of work to wire the reject buttons for credits, when you have working coin mechs. Why not simply use the shift function on the iPaq and use a button combo?

Let's see some running pics

This way I don't need to remember anything. Insert coin leads to me looking at the coin slots, which reminds me how easy it is to do that. :-)

Blade: The model number is in the updated first post.

[maxxsinner]

Great work there Darkfall.

[dreamaholic]

Love the coin door operation - I can use this for my own. Nice work!

[bladexdsl]

hows uvp work on this new setup?

[Darkfall]

hows uvp work on this new setup?

So far, UVP seems to work great, though I haven't tried the tables that were a problem before (LED tables - DMD tables all seem to play fine).

Edit: I tested UVP with a few LED tables to see if the slow down was still there - it is. It doesn't happen to every table (KISS seems fine), but to those that it does, it's brutal. The table is completely unplayable. So, I just don't use UVP for those tables, or I load the UVP file and delete the LEDs from it, then just position the PinMAME LEDs somewhere where I can see them (sometimes this means me editing the UVP and PNG to make a spot).

Edited by Darkfall, 07 September 2011 - 07:36 AM.

[bladexdsl]

i had a look at your m/b it only has 1 pci x16 slot wouldn't that be a problem?

Edited by bladexdsl, 28 August 2011 - 09:58 AM.

[Darkfall]

Well - I had some fun this weekend. I got the new power board for the TV, went to screw it in place, then noticed a connector on it is missing - along with a few components. I went back and looked at my eBay order - Bah! It's for a 40" model, and I have a 46" model. Apparently, the boards differ some. I didn't even think about that - I just assumed it would be the same for all of them (this board is used on a bunch of different brands - Sylvania, Philips, and a few others).

I fiddled around, moving components between boards, but in the end, that didn't work out as I'd hoped - there's differences in components all over the board, and a couple of them are surface mount. I found the right board online and ordered it. Oh well - a $64.00 mistake. Live and learn. The new board is slightly cheaper. Still much better than replacing the entire TV.

While I wait for the right part, I decided to get my LEDWiz going. The flashers worked great right off, but my buttons weren't were quite right (wrong colors sometimes - yellow, instead of white, etc.) Turns out there was a loose connection for the blue wire at the terminal block. A couple of minutes with the meter to find it, and 10 seconds to fix it, and that was ok.

My next issue was that not all of my contactors were firing. 3 were, the other 5 weren't. More meter fun, and I discovered a solder issue on the first relay board I made - 5 volts isn't getting to the last 5 relays. I can make them go if I jam something in beside the wire to make it contact the board (so I did for now, until I can yank the board out and fix it).

Oddly, the 3 contactors that were working were fine. When I got the other 5 going, VP stutters and stalls and freezes. Odd. I'm not sure what the deal is with that yet. It seems like the LEDWiz is unhappy about something to do with those 5 relays. The little LEDWiz utility from GroovyGameGear had some issues with them, too, turning them off and on inconsistently, and when the relays disengage, the backbox flashers flicker. Something with that board isn't right. I'll yank it out and trace the board's logic and figure out what I did wrong.

My secondary relay board, the one that drives the strobe and replay knocker, works perfectly, however. No issues at all with that one.

While installing the LEDWiz stuff, I somehow broke the exit emulator button (which I'd mapped to "e"). It's still set correctly in the HyperPin settings, but it no longer works. It works fine to exit HyperPin to the desktop, but it won't exit a running table anymore. Loading Notepad and pressing the button, I get a bunch of nothing - so I'm sort of baffled that it works at all. My Favorites button no longer works, either (which it still mapped to "P", since it used to be Pause). I get nothing in Notepad for either button - though the rest of the buttons work as expected. I wonder if the old Pause button works while playing a table? I never tried it. Neither should do anything, if they don't work in Notepad - but "e" still does for HyperPin. Very confusing.

I also can't get HyperPin to do anything with the LEDWiz. I copied the new files into the HyperPin directory and edited the config and stuff, but nothing works. Maybe I edited the config wrong - for buttons I don't have, I just removed everything after the "=" on those lines. Maybe I'm supposed to remove the entire line.

One final thing I noticed - I did most of my testing with Attack From Mars (and some Star Trek: The Next Generation), and on Attack From Mars, I noticed that eventually the 4th flasher (counting from the left) will stay on - often yellow. It'll change or flash if an event happens that needs it, but it'll return to yellow once the event is over. Sometimes it's white. Once the ball is lost, it resets itself and behaves again. Weird. I also noticed that my flipper buttons will turn green sometimes, then red again shortly after. Also weird. I didn't notice these things happening on Star Trek - just Attack From Mars.

And finally, I ordered a bunch of little LED strips designed to be used to add "halo lights" to your car, like the new Audi's have (see here). They were dirt cheap (under $9.00 for 4), run on 12 volts, and they're damn bright (though they are pretty directional - you have to aim them at your target for the brightest results). I figured I'd use 2 inside the cabinet for lighting while troubleshooting. Since I don't yet have strobe CREEs, I decided to hook one of these up for testing - holy crap - it works pretty well as a strobe! I may actually use it as one and skip the $100 the 4 CREEs and heatsinks will cost me. I ordered a bunch of these little strips, planning to use them for under-desk lighting in my home office, too, so I can see things without having to turn the overhead light on. I can think of a million uses for these things! LOL.

Anyway, there's my news for today *grin*. Tomorrow, I'll spend some time figuring out WTF is wrong with my relay board. Damn thing!

Edited by Darkfall, 28 August 2011 - 10:02 AM.

[bladexdsl]

that's why i don't have a ledwiz in my cab too damn complicated! as for the pause button no longer working you didn't have the cab turned on while installing the ledwiz and lit buttons did you?

Edited by bladexdsl, 28 August 2011 - 10:03 AM.

[Darkfall]

I dunno if it's complicated, but I definitely have something screwed up that is causing issues.

The flashers for the backbox are epic, though - and the strobe. Pinball just needs that stuff to look right, in my eyes - and people just sort of stop talking and stare when they go off. They're just stunned by all the flashy lights and stuff *laughs*.

[maxxsinner]

The flashers for the backbox are epic, though - and the strobe. Pinball just needs that stuff to look right, in my eyes - and people just sort of stop talking and stare when they go off. They're just stunned by all the flashy lights and stuff *laughs*.

Couldn't agree more Darkfall. The LED's change the game entirely, let alone some of the other feedback options via the LEDwiz.
Good luck finding your fault there. Certainly sounds bizarre.

[DedRok_V]

Gee Paul you have done heaps.

Seems to be 2 steps forward 1 step back at the moment for you.
You will get it sorted out soon enough. Top work.

[zebulon]

For the Ledwiz to work in hyperpin, you need to configure the settings in the HPLedControl.ini file (good luck figuring out which is which) and run hyperpin from HPLedControl.exe

I had to tinker for hours to figure out which light would flash and which are just ON. You can assign any output to any setting but only certain ones flash and all of them need to be populated, don't delete any unused settings from the .ini

[Darkfall]

For the Ledwiz to work in hyperpin, you need to configure the settings in the HPLedControl.ini file (good luck figuring out which is which) and run hyperpin from HPLedControl.exe

I had to tinker for hours to figure out which light would flash and which are just ON. You can assign any output to any setting but only certain ones flash and all of them need to be populated, don't delete any unused settings from the .ini

You're not kidding about having to fiddle around! It seems as though the settings are just about random.

I change settings for buttons I don't even have, and my other buttons change behaviors. It's damn odd. And my flipper buttons always flash, no matter what. In fact, I can't get any buttons to do anything but flash. Nothing appears to be a solid light that I can find. Flippers, Launch Ball, and Start all flash (sometimes they just flicker, if I set all of the buttons I don't have to = nothing, and other times they alternate between flipper/Launch Ball button and Start button, flashing back and forth). It seems to me that the code that reads the hpledcontrol.ini file is slightly out to lunch. It all looks logical, but it doesn't behave the way it appears it should.

There have been several people ask about this stuff on the LED/PacDrive Configuration Tutorial threat on the HyperPin forum, but no answers that I can see. The posts seem to go completely unanswered. I think other people are just as confused, and just don't know what to tell people.

You eventually got yours to work, though? It sounds like it was a brutal trial and error process you went through to get there.

[zebulon]

For the Ledwiz to work in hyperpin, you need to configure the settings in the HPLedControl.ini file (good luck figuring out which is which) and run hyperpin from HPLedControl.exe

I had to tinker for hours to figure out which light would flash and which are just ON. You can assign any output to any setting but only certain ones flash and all of them need to be populated, don't delete any unused settings from the .ini

You're not kidding about having to fiddle around! It seems as though the settings are just about random.

I change settings for buttons I don't even have, and my other buttons change behaviors. It's damn odd. And my flipper buttons always flash, no matter what. In fact, I can't get any buttons to do anything but flash. Nothing appears to be a solid light that I can find. Flippers, Launch Ball, and Start all flash (sometimes they just flicker, if I set all of the buttons I don't have to = nothing, and other times they alternate between flipper/Launch Ball button and Start button, flashing back and forth). It seems to me that the code that reads the hpledcontrol.ini file is slightly out to lunch. It all looks logical, but it doesn't behave the way it appears it should.

There have been several people ask about this stuff on the LED/PacDrive Configuration Tutorial threat on the HyperPin forum, but no answers that I can see. The posts seem to go completely unanswered. I think other people are just as confused, and just don't know what to tell people.

You eventually got yours to work, though? It sounds like it was a brutal trial and error process you went through to get there.

Pretty much. I think one night I got drunk enough to make sense of it and haven't touched it since.

Here's what I came up with

[Config outs]

Start_out = 1
Launch_out = 2
Extra_out = 3
Shot_out = 4
Pause_out = 0
Exit_out = 14
HowToPlay_out = 15
Credits_out = 24
Flippers_out =23

14 and 15 are the flashers on either side of the dmd under the playfield glass, 24 and 23 are the blue flashers up in the backbox, 3 is extra ball and 4 is the exit button

[Darkfall]

Pretty much. I think one night I got drunk enough to make sense of it and haven't touched it since.

Here's what I came up with

[Config outs]

Start_out = 1
Launch_out = 2
Extra_out = 3
Shot_out = 4
Pause_out = 0
Exit_out = 14
HowToPlay_out = 15
Credits_out = 24
Flippers_out =23

14 and 15 are the flashers on either side of the dmd under the playfield glass, 24 and 23 are the blue flashers up in the backbox, 3 is extra ball and 4 is the exit button

You have all kinds of things going on there *grin*.

I decided to scrap the HPLEDControl thing. I'm told that the flashing flipper buttons is normal, and I think that looks odd - so I'm rolling my own solution. I'm about half way through it - the LEDWiz code is done and working, I just need to integrate into HyperPin and all should be well. As a bonus, I'll be able to turn the LEDWiz outputs off after exiting a table and stuff, so I don't have random things left on if I exit the table in the middle of an attract mode or something.

[Darkfall]

My plan worked! I've got the HyperPin LEDWiz browsing thing working exactly as I planned on my cabinet.

I have a few people trying it before I unleash it on the world. If it checks out, I'll post a link for everyone.

[DedRok_V]

Nice work Paul. Glad you got it sorted.

[Darkfall]

Today was all about figuring out why my contactors were causing the PC to freak out.

I strongly suspected release voltage from the coils when the contactors were shut off, because they share a power supply with everything else (the one dedicated supply does 5 and 12 volts for all the gadgets, including the LEDWiz). I did protect the LEDWiz from release voltage with diodes on the small 5 volt relays that fire the 12 volt contactors, but I didn't do the same with contactors, thinking they weren't directly connected to the LEDWiz, so it didn't matter. The shared power supply makes it matter, apparently. Now I know *grin*.

For $0.68 each for some diodes that'd handle up to 3 amps, I figured I'd give them a try and grabbed 9 of them (one for each contactor, plus one for the replay knocker). I put the first one backwards across the coil of the contactor and did a quick animation with the LEDWiz software to click the output on and off, and voila! Success! I did the rest of the contactors and the replay knocker, and everything works as it should (I still need to fix my 5 volt relay boards - there's a bad joint, so some of the relays stop firing intermittently - but that's no big deal to fix).

So, my force feedback stuff is working. Yay. I was playing Attack From Mars, having the game of my freakin' life (almost) and won a replay. The replay knocker went off, smacking into the side of the cabinet from inside. The noise was so loud, it scared the hell out of me! *laughs*. That $1.50 solenoid certainly does the job for that task, no question.

Chris has his replay knocker set up to also fire the strobe at the same time, which is a brilliant idea (literally). I'm going to do the same thing - it's just a quick jumper on the terminal blocks to do it, and the effect really emphasizes that you're the man when you get a free game (that's right, ladies - I'm awesome. All the women want me, and all the men want to be me, because I get free plays on virtual pinball. Whoop whoop!).

Anyway, a productive day. Now if my power supply board would show up for the TV, I'll be able to finish things and assemble it properly (rather than have the topper on a chair next to the machine, and a cheap little LCD TV for the backglass, and my backglass display as my playfield).

I should take some photos again soon, too. I'll show everyone my automatic work lights that come on when I open the coin door or the back door. Oooooh! Special! LOL. I got sick of working with a flashlight inside.

[maxxsinner]

Great to hear you got it worked out Darkfall. The spike that a coil does when its turned off (for those that want boring info ) is called a back EMF and the voltage spike can be massive. The diode allows the magnetic field to 'gently' dissipate rather than collapse.

[Darkfall]

Great to hear you got it worked out Darkfall. The spike that a coil does when its turned off (for those that want boring info ) is called a back EMF and the voltage spike can be massive. The diode allows the magnetic field to 'gently' dissipate rather than collapse.

So I discovered. The spec sheet for the contactor says the release voltage is 1.7 volts maximum, but it was plenty to confuse the LEDWiz when it came down the line in whatever round-about way it got there. I think the LEDWiz was actually resetting itself - everything just sort of stopped (the ROM's audio was still going, however, but everything else was frozen). I was surprised at how much chaos it generated. *laughs*.

Fortunately, I had incorporated a "night mode" switch to kill the relays to the contactors and knocker, so I was able to just shut them off until I could sort them out. I was able to continue to feed my pinball addiction, which is all important!

I can't believe how loud the replay knocker is - it sounds like someone hitting a desk with a broom handle. It's truly impressive.

Edited by Darkfall, 01 September 2011 - 12:14 PM.