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LED-wiz alternative ?


pixelmagic

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I am not sure if i get you right, are you talking on expanding the ledwiz or some other design like arduino or so ?

The stutter most people experience is when a lot of ledwiz events happen, then the table skips part of gameplay, so the ball is last seen in the top and then suddenly near the bottom.

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I'm talking about expanding the ledwiz.

My guess about the stutter is that it's related to the mircocontroller IC, part number: CY7C63413C-PVXC

If you do a google search of that part number and look at the datasheet for the IC you'll see that it's a low-speed high input/ouput 1.5mbps USB controller.

An improvement on this IC along with more darlington IC's will improve the LED-Wiz performance.

The issue about the current rating being limited to 500mA per output, the only substitute IC that I can find that would be an improvement still only has 8 outputs each with a collector current rating of 750mA.

The only issue I think there is is getting the source code's for the IC's, unless someone is a software programmer and wants a project?

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Oh and I'm more than certain that Randy would be aware of the IC with 750mA current ratings that I mentioned, though the price of that IC is triple the amount of the one's used on the LED-Wiz pcb's, so common sense tells you to manufacture with the cheaper yet still suitable part...

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Yes he did call it LEDwiz, though the IC's used are designed for the EXACT purpose as being used in pin cabs.

http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/nte/NTE2017.pdf

This is the datasheet for the IC which has the higher current rating of 750mA. In the first paragraph the Description it says "Typical loads include relays, solenoids, stepping motors, multiplexed LED and incadescent displays, and heaters."

Granted it's not the exact chip that is on the LEDWiz but it's job is the exact same, just with different ratings. So I don't see an issue there.

There are other pcb's available to the public that do the same job as the ledwiz, it's just this one is programmed for what we want it to do...

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Hi guys, (still no girls here, weird.. )

We have made some steps with the Arduino stuff and as some know a have designed (with a lot of help) a schematic to drive up to 16Amp on a Arduino output. From that design i made a PCB design and ordered the PCB's. They came yesterday in and here is the result:

IMAG0076.jpg

IMAG0077.jpg

IMAG0078.jpg

Next thing on the list is soldering some components for testing the whole thing and after that ordering the parts for 1-2 complete PCB's.

With this PCB it is possible to drive 12 devices from the Arduino, both digital and analog (PWM) and drive 5 and 12 volt devices by setting a jumper.

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Those look really professional. Any plans for making the pcb available to the public????

I see no problem with that, but at this time the whole Arduino project is in beta phase and the board itself does not work with the LEDwiz (LEDwiz switches negative, Arduino positive).

I would suggest waiting a bit until we get some real results.

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Ok guys, want me to make you a little crazy ?

I have read the remark of Noah on VPforums about editing core.vbs and he thinking that is not the way to go. I tend to agree a bit on him and keeping things closer to the table. The table is also 'running' a .vbs script for gameplay. Things also happen there.....

Why do the same kind of things in 2 different places ?

I looked a bit into the B2S magic happening at the moment and got a small insight on how it COULD work.

A am going a bit into details here, so you might want to skip this if you are not interested.

Starting point: a Arduino board connected to the VP PC via usb. On that Arduino port you have special personal dedicated hardware, like i have 28 Mudokons with lighting eyes, but this could also be some gadget like contactors, shakers or whatever. You pick your own config.

Next, from now on, don't think in the LEDwiz way like "i want the middle red flasher to light up for xx microseconds" but think in events like "I want a lightshow with the middle red flasher lighting up and then the 3 middle and then the outer 2" and we give that a name, like "FlashRed1" or something. If you like you can throw in a buzz from the shaker too. That specific lightshow is one of many you can have and personally create. From now on we will call this an event.

Now back to VP. First off we need to open communications with the Arduino board. That is simple, just open a serial port from the table. That's it. Next thing we want is to have VP during gameplay send signals to the Arduino on specific events. This is basicly the thing that the vbs script inside the tables does, it waits for things to change and on specific things it does something.

That something is what we like to know, so we can do our own magic with it. Basicly like with the LEDwiz we are going to say: when switch x is hit, send signal y to the LEDwiz.

Only in this case we want it to watch for switch x and then send a signal to the Arduino. Here comes the point where > I < think is going to be a large speedsaver, the things allready happen, only thing we need to do is just add our own 'listener' to it.

So when a flasher goes off, the vbs sends a signal to the emulated table to show another picture, and we will add that it also sends a event ti the Arduino. The nice thing about Arduino is that we do not need to send a large number of signals to the usb (like LEDwiz) but if we like we could just send 1 byte that refers to the event that is configured in the Arduino.

From that point on the Arduino takes over the hard work, blinking 700 LED's in a order from left to right and so on, and you pinball game just runs further after sending 1 byte of info.

Still with me ? Good.

Some questions:

Is this going to be more work ? Definitly !

Is it going to be faster ? I like to think so at the moment. Love to here comments.

Is it going to need more configuration ? Yes !

Will i be able to have a more realistic cab ? Absolutely ;)

When is it going to be ready ? Not very soon ;)

Oh yeah, and to keep you guys thinking, i have just played around a bit on my desktop with a table and got the basic thing running. While playing BadCats when the ball shoots i get an effect, when drop targets fall also. So it can be done :D

Edit: Very crappy video:

jL7MiG3zivU

Edited by pixelmagic
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Nice work Pixelmagic! This thread is exciting to watch.

How does the Arduino handle multiple events being triggered at the same time?

Let's take for example the square box of LEDs in your video. If you had assigned the same event to a set of drop targets and the ball hit two of them at almost the same time. Would the Arduino queue up the events and play them one after the other, or would it simply stop processing the first and start the second event?

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Nice work Pixelmagic! This thread is exciting to watch.

How does the Arduino handle multiple events being triggered at the same time?

Let's take for example the square box of LEDs in your video. If you had assigned the same event to a set of drop targets and the ball hit two of them at almost the same time. Would the Arduino queue up the events and play them one after the other, or would it simply stop processing the first and start the second event?

That's all in the way you program the Arduino. I have some thoughts on doing that with an interrupt, and setting during the 'play' of an event still watch incoming events and triigger them also at the same time.

At the moment the only limits in my mind are the way the events run (how to make them look nice) and possibly the memory of the Arduino.

Having said that, can someone spare me some free days ? ;)

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Would an SD shield work to extend the memory limitations Pixel?

Not sure if 32 Gig of events would be enough for Chris, but for us average humans...... :D

LOL, my SSD in the cab is only 32 Gb ;)

i have no idea on how much memory it will take up, basicly only thing we need is some kind of mechanism that receives the events and execute them. The rest of the memory can/will be used for patterns. The more complex the patterns, the more data. But there are tricks for that, only then it would be less user friendly.

Buts not rush into things and find out what we can do first.

Next thing is making a more detailed testversion on 1 table and putting it into the cab. More electronics arriving today for the driver board, oh yes, and have to do something weird like 'work' today too ;) Oh wel, good for funds..

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