One year ago today, Oak Micros announced the Pinscape All-in-One board for Virtual Pinball cabinets. Since that time 80 have been sold, not including the one I use in my own cabinet. That is an average of 1.5 per week.
It all started 20 months ago when I came across this hobby and got stuck in right away. After a detailed examination of things like Ledwiz, PacLed, Sainsmart relay boards, it became obvious that Pinscape was the best software and hardware controller for VP cabs. I wrote up a topic called "Why Pinscape" to explain the great features.
Not content with just using the standard boards from MJR, I produced my own versions with some minor enhancements and more suited to what I needed at the time for my Mikrocontroller cabinet. This was a great learning experience and I quickly realized that I also wanted to invest in a proper wide-body cabinet.
About the same time I became aware of German Gaming Supplies (GGS) that produced Pinscape expansion boards but GGS was stiffing their customers and generally devaluing the Pinscape name. I even received one of their products from an upset customer because it didn't work. Three of the chips were soldered in backwards without sockets. I fixed the boards and put in new sockets with replacement chips. I tested everything and although three outputs were irretrievable, everything else worked. I read here and on other forums about multiple month delays, similar bad soldering and outright lies from GGS. I don't know how this company still exists except by praying on newbies who don't know any different. Only this week I sent a Oak Micros AIO builders kit to a GGS customer who had been waiting more than 3 months and still hadn't received anything or even a fake DHL tracking number which is a common delaying tactic from GGS.
By May of 2019, I resolved that I wanted to do something about this problem; to produce a set of Pinscape boards that worked, could be shipped from stock within one business day, and generally provided a gold-standard Pinscape solution for cab builders that did justice to the superb Pinscape software.
Anyone who has built their own Pinscape expansion boards can attest to the long time it takes to both gather all the components and do the manual soldering. I wanted to have these boards built using mass-production techniques common to the electronics industry i.e. surface mount components with automated component placement and soldering. That would ensure a quality, consistent error-free board and also reduce my effort per board. However this is expensive for low volumes. I reduced the cost to something affordable by using one board instead of three. And hence the Pinscape All-in-One was born.
I didn't know if people would buy this board so I started with a small batch just to see. They sold so I gradually increased the number for each batch. I still do relatively small batches because a significant up-front investment is needed.
Over the last year, I created a set of complete set of products for cab builders, all of which I use in my own cabinet. The full set of products is listed in the link in my signature. I also have a "all-in-one" builders kit which has all the products as a single kit with a small discount on the price.
Some people have asked why I don't have a website. The reason is simple. It allows me to keep my costs low and eliminate extra costs such as Paypal fees. But low cost does not mean low quality. I quality test every item I produce and stand by it if there are problems.
As a celebration of the one year anniversary I am offering a prize of up to $50. This competition is open to everyone except people who sell a KL25Z-based Pinscape solution. All you have to do is find the error in the Pinscape All-in-One board. It cannot be an already documented problem and it has to be the same one that I am seeing. If you find other errors then you may get a "honorable mention" or more. Just to point out that this error does not affect the function of the AIO board. Here are the rules:
- All decisions by me are final.
- You are disqualified from entering if you make a KL25Z-based solution.
- You are allowed only one entry and it must sent to my email address. No private messages.
- The prize is awarded to the first person who gets it right. But see rules 5 and 6.
- If MJR, the originator of Pinscape, gets the right answer, he automatically gets 50% of the prize (or 100% if no-one else answers correctly).
- If you are one of my 80 customers that bought a Pinscape AIO and have the right answer, you automatically have preference over someone who did not, even if you sent your entry later.
- This competition ends on Friday 14th August at midnight Central Time. If no-one wins then the prize money will be donated to a local charity.
- I will publish the answer and the initials of the winner(s) on Saturday 15th August.
Edited by MikePinball, 08 August 2020 - 04:30 AM.
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