285 replies to this topic

[jreising326]

The Gerber Files are the "defacto standard" ASCII files that contain the "Artwork" (layers of traces), and drilling information (x,y) needed by the PCB manufacturer to build the PCB.  The Board files are binary, and contain all the design information like component list, netlist, etc., that aren't required to build the PCB.  As mjr said, they are all different format, so unless the PCB manufacturer also has experience with your CAD system, he's going to want Gerber.

 

 

If you generate them yourself, you should do a quick look over them to ensure they are correct before ordering the PCB, as it may be possible to generate them incorrectly in some CAD systems.   There are many free Gerber Viewers available, Graphicode is one that's been around at least 20 years and I have some (old) personal experience with.  Here's an alternative off sourceforge:  https://sourceforge....projects/gerbv/

[martymoose]

i would like to order 1 of each board if not 2 late

can it be posted to australia ill pay extra postage

cheers

[mjr]

i would like to order 1 of each board if not 2 late

can it be posted to australia ill pay extra postage

 

Hi - really sorry to disappoint, but I'm only mailing within the US.  Maybe you could find a couple of other people in Australia and put together a group order there?

[martymoose]

i would like to order 1 of each board if not 2 late
can it be posted to australia ill pay extra postage

 
Hi - really sorry to disappoint, but I'm only mailing within the US.  Maybe you could find a couple of other people in Australia and put together a group order there?

No worries I understand
Is there any member that would be able to except my boards and I'll PayPal + time and effort to post to aus

[roar]

Just got shipping notification of the boards today and could have them by the end of the week! Anyone in Canada looking for a set let me know. Outside of Canada the shipping would likely be outrageous and I'm sure you'd be better off ordering 10 on your own. Not looking to make a profit, just looking to split the costs across the 10 sets plus actual shipping to you, I'll pack them on my dime.

[martymoose]

i would like to order 1 of each board if not 2 late
can it be posted to australia ill pay extra postage

 
Hi - really sorry to disappoint, but I'm only mailing within the US.  Maybe you could find a couple of other people in Australia and put together a group order there?

No worries I understand
Is there any member that would be able to except my boards and I'll PayPal + time and effort to post to aus

Would I be able to get printed my self by Elecrow. As postage to aus is cheap

[roar]

that's exactly what I did martymoose. Elecrow has a 5 board minimum but for pennies more you can get 10 boards. Mjr even supplied the gerber files Elecrow needs so you will have the exact product he is getting printed.

[dmoe]

is it too late to get in on the group buy for this in the US?

[NobodyYouKnow]

I am looking to pick up a powered USB hub for use in my cabinet, and have a couple of questions.

 

1) Can the KL25Z take advantage of USB 3.0? For that matter, is it even compatible with USB 3.0? I have seen some message traffic indicating it is, but want to ask first to be sure.

2) Is there any real operational advantage of USB 3.0 as opposed to USB 2.x? I am looking for circumstances where USB 2.x may not have been fast enough to handle the quicker pace of events arising from using a higher-end PC and multiple USB peripherals. Said another way, can USB 2.x become a bottleneck, resuling in lost or delayed events?

 

I plan on picking up an externally powered hub and using the same power rails as the PC to power it. I will ensure there is a common ground with the PC side, but isolated from the high current "noisy" side.

 

Regards.

Edited by NobodyYouKnow, 23 February 2016 - 07:56 PM.

[mjr]

is it too late to get in on the group buy for this in the US?

 

I ordered some extra in my batch, so there are still some left up for grabs.  Let me know what you need and I'll put you on the reservation list.

[mjr]

I am looking to pick up a powered USB hub for use in my cabinet, and have a couple of questions.

 

1) Can the KL25Z take advantage of USB 3.0? For that matter, is it even compatible with USB 3.0? I have seen some message traffic indicating it is, but want to ask first to be sure.

2) Is there any real operational advantage of USB 3.0 as opposed to USB 2.x? I am looking for circumstances where USB 2.x may not have been fast enough to handle the quicker pace of events arising from using a higher-end PC and multiple USB peripherals. Said another way, can USB 2.x become a bottleneck, resuling in lost or delayed events?

 

I plan on picking up an externally powered hub and using the same power rails as the PC to power it. I will ensure there is a common ground with the PC side, but isolated from the high current "noisy" side.

 

This is a somewhat complex question to answer, so bear with me...

 

Question 1a:  Will it takes advantage of USB 3?  No.  The KL25Z hardware is "Full Speed USB", which is one of the UBS 2 subtypes.  That means that it doesn't take advantage of the higher speed USB 3 modes. 

 

Question 1b: Is it compatible with USB 3 ports on the host?  Yes.  I personally use it exclusively with USB 3 on my cabinet.  One caveat, though: this device has a spotty (to put it mildly) track record with USB 3.  The mbed USB software was in pretty rough shape when I found it, and wasn't even USB 3-compatible at all originally, but I've overhauled it a couple of times now and have finally gotten it to a point where I think it's getting pretty solid.  The latest overhaul seems to have resolved all of the issues that I've heard of.  But that's still relatively new - it would probably be premature to roll out the Mission Accomplished banner.

 

Question 2:  Would USB 3 be advantageous?  For this application, probably not.  The main thing that you get from the higher speed USB 3 modes is throughput - moving more bytes in bulk.  That's great for high-bandwidth applications like external USB hard disks.  For this application, the number of bytes moving across the wire is really puny.  The device sends joystick and keyboard reports to the host, which are a few bytes each.  The host sends LedWiz commands to the device, which are also a few bytes each.  USB 3 also has provisions for lower latency, but for virtual pinball, everything is in the human domain, and USB 2 is already way faster than human latency perception.  USB 2 transactions occur in 1ms intervals, and human latency perception is on the order of 100ms, so USB 2 isn't at all a bottleneck on either the input or output side.

 

(What's more, the KL25Z CPU wouldn't be able to keep up with anything faster than maxed-out USB 2 anyway.  You can saturate its poor little CPU pretty effectively with plain old USB 2 traffic if you try to try to build a hard disk controller or audio device with it.  I think that's the main reason they didn't bother with a higher speed USB hardware module on the thing.  Fortunately, the LedWiz/plunger/key encoder work is *much* lighter in comparison, within the range that this CPU can handle pretty easily.)

[dmoe]

 

is it too late to get in on the group buy for this in the US?

 

I ordered some extra in my batch, so there are still some left up for grabs.  Let me know what you need and I'll put you on the reservation list.

 

cool. I'm considering a main board and a power board, or possibly 2 of each so I have a spare. 

 

Question for you, is the power board only good for 12v or could it be used for 24v with the proper power supply?  If only 12v do you have any recommendations for contactors/solenoids that work well with this?

[martymoose]

that's exactly what I did martymoose. Elecrow has a 5 board minimum but for pennies more you can get 10 boards. Mjr even supplied the gerber files Elecrow needs so you will have he is getting printed.

Mjr. Can I get a copy if the files that I need to get printed in China so I can use in AUSTRALIA.
If good [email protected]

Cheers in advance

Edited by martymoose, 23 February 2016 - 09:09 PM.

[mjr]

cool. I'm considering a main board and a power board, or possibly 2 of each so I have a spare. 

 

Question for you, is the power board only good for 12v or could it be used for 24v with the proper power supply?  If only 12v do you have any recommendations for contactors/solenoids that work well with this?

 

Okay, I'll put you down for 2 for now - just let me know if you want to revise that.

 

As for the voltages, you can use pretty much any mix of voltages you might need in a pinball cab.  The limit is a function of the MOSFETs, and the recommended ones are all good to at least 60V.  So you can freely mix 50V pinball solenoids, 24V contactors, 12V motors, 6.3V lamps, 5V LEDs, etc.

[Gribnif]

Does anyone have any suggestions for what to use as a 50v power supply to drive solenoids?

[mjr]

Does anyone have any suggestions for what to use as a 50v power supply to drive solenoids?

 

For my knocker, I've been using a step-up DC-DC converter that goes up to about 38V.  You can find these from Chinese sellers on eBay for around $10; search for "buck step-up dc-dc converter".  They typically take 12V DC in and have an adjustable output up to some voltage limit stated in the ad.  The most common ones only go up to the 30V neighborhood, but if you dig around you can find bigger ones that go up to around 40V.  Above that, you'll probably need to find something that takes AC line voltage in and steps down.  That's not a common voltage range for hobbyist projects, so it seems hard to find anything inexpensive in that range.  You could also build one yourself with a transformer, rectifier bridge, and capacitors, but that takes a little circuit design work and sourcing of parts - and be sure you know what you're doing if you go that route since there are dangerous voltages involved.

 

What are you planning to run with this?  If it's just a replay knocker, you probably don't need 50V.  My cheap eBay 38V supply works well enough for the knocker, and actually, even lower voltages will work too, they'll just be a little less loud.  Most cab builders only use about 30V for their knockers.  

 

Note that 50V is getting into "high voltage" territory from a human safety perspective, so you'll want to be extra careful with your setup if you have any 50V circuitry.  The real machines have interlocks that cut the high voltage supply to the playfield if you open the coin door, for just this reason.  You might want to consider doing the same thing.  You can get the same coin door interlock switches the real machines use from pinballlife.com or other pinball suppliers.  They're just simple mechanical switches so they're straightforward to wire.

[NobodyYouKnow]

Hey Mike. First - thank you for that nicely reasoned answer to my USB 2.x vs 3.0 question. I am mentally counting that as "won't hurt, but won't help either".

 

What wattage is your DC-DC step-up converter? With the notion of using this just for the knocker, I am wanting to size the power source appropriately. I see boost PSU's anywhere from 3 w to 150 w around the $10 mark. I did some googling for power requirements for knocker coils and was surprised to find that they took up to 225w for the brief time they are energized (50v through ~11 ohms). So much for theory - now on to reality. What setup is working for you?

[mjr]

Hey Mike. First - thank you for that nicely reasoned answer to my USB 2.x vs 3.0 question. I am mentally counting that as "won't hurt, but won't help either".

 

Yep, that's exactly it.

 

 

What wattage is your DC-DC step-up converter? With the notion of using this just for the knocker, I am wanting to size the power source appropriately. I see boost PSU's anywhere from 3 w to 150 w around the $10 mark. I did some googling for power requirements for knocker coils and was surprised to find that they took up to 225w for the brief time they are energized (50v through ~11 ohms). So much for theory - now on to reality. What setup is working for you?

 

That's about right - these pinball coils are energetic little guys.  The volts/ohms method you'r using for calculating the draw of these coils seems to be about right in practice.  I'm using an AE-26-1200 coil, which is nominally as 12 ohm coil, and I measure its draw at about 4A.  (That's just with a voltmeter, though, so it doesn't necessarily capture the brief initial surge very precisely.)

 

I think this is the DC-DC converter I'm using:  eBay item number 181566034966.  8A/150W.  That's probably about the minimum you'd need.  Bigger is probably better, especially if you're going to be using it for more than one coil.

[dmoe]

 

cool. I'm considering a main board and a power board, or possibly 2 of each so I have a spare. 

 

Question for you, is the power board only good for 12v or could it be used for 24v with the proper power supply?  If only 12v do you have any recommendations for contactors/solenoids that work well with this?

 

Okay, I'll put you down for 2 for now - just let me know if you want to revise that.

 

As for the voltages, you can use pretty much any mix of voltages you might need in a pinball cab.  The limit is a function of the MOSFETs, and the recommended ones are all good to at least 60V.  So you can freely mix 50V pinball solenoids, 24V contactors, 12V motors, 6.3V lamps, 5V LEDs, etc.

 

Awesome. sent you an email to work out payment

[roar]

Received my boards today... They look great. Just waiting on the parts.

Anyone interested in a set of boards let me know. I haven't worked out the final price but after shipping exchange and duty I'm out of pocket about $160 for the 10 sets so I'd guess shipping anywhere in Canada to be no more than $10. That would put a cost of about $26 Canadian for a set of boards shipped to you.