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Watchmen Pinball - 40/27/DMD - Standard Body


mikekim

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update

todays update is finishing off the cab wiring of the removable I/O tray

all of the wires that were toned out and labelled now need to be soldered to the 24 way molex connectors, so that they can connect to the tray.

this is major overkill, but i want to be able to remove the tray if required.

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started soldering the corresponding cables (as per labels) note i'm using steadying arms to make the cable joins easier. the heat shrink tubing covers the join, but won't be shrunk into place until after each cable has been verified correct.

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all cables soldered - now time to check each one is connected correctly

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once physically checked, one of the labels is cut off, and the heat shrink cabling is shrunk with a heat gun to seal the cable joins.

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after each cable has been checked each cable was the tone tested using a multi tester, just to be sure... a little time spent here doing this saves a lot of grief later on if something is not working properly.

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once tested the wires are wrapped with spiral wrap so they look neater.

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the 4 wires i had left over (for coin led and dmd) are attached to a molex connector and will be connected to the main motherboard power supply.

i have to repeat this procedure for the back box flashers when i get around to installing them.

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What's the "to do" list looking like ?

PC

install new GFX card

install new water-cooling reservoir

DOF config setup

CAB BODY

DMD and PINDMD installation

power strip for components

IEC power input

USB connector

Ethernet connector

Undercab RGB lighting

central playfield support (with BC contactor attached)

wiring tidyup (anything that has been missed)

playfield installation

playfield glass installation

chrome side rail fitment

BACKBOX

Flasher installation

front screen installation

monitor installation

Speaker installation

Blue Chrome wrap Front coverage

Speaker cover installation

chrome t-mold installation

Fan controller installation

Speaker Amp installation (mechanical sounds)

rear access door for backbox

back box hinges

connection to cab body

wiring tidyup

and finally the all important final step..

spend a good couple of hours play testing :party:

there are a good couple of hours work left still to do, hopefully today i should be able to bleed off the water-cooling system and replace the reservoir and Graphics card, which is the biggest job left.

so in all i should hopefully be done just prior to Christmas..

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update

new graphics card and Reservoir installation...

installed the new gfx card and reservoir today.. a simple enough task just time consuming.

drained out the old fluid. removed the old card and water tank.

installed the new tank and gfx card..

removed the motherboard power connector - shorted out the green cable and one of the blacks, with a paper clip. this will allow the PSU to run, so you can get all of the new fluid into the system without the components overheating.

I'm using Mayherms Sunburst Yellow cooling fluid, as per the original installation. (basically as i had a spare bottle of it left over)

L6Zl6K.jpg

the 780 has two 8 pin pci-e power connectors, so i had to fit a 6-8 convertor. i might look at a neater solution at a later date

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this card is a monster... heavy too

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to route the pipework from the gfx card i drilled a 32mm hole through the motherboard tray, rather than have the pipework over the top of the tray.. looks neater.

now just have to run the system for a couple of hours to ensure that all of the bubbles are out of the cooling fluid, and topping up where necessary, before reconnecting the powersupply to the motherboard, and powering on the PC properly.

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new pc specs after changes

PC Specs

Intel Core i7 980X 3.33GHz, Extreme Edition (Socket LGA1366)
 (O/C'd to 4.2Ghz)

Asus Rampage III Extreme,X58, S1366, DDR3 Motherboard 


Corsair Vengeance 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz



Enermax Galaxy EGX850EWL 850W Modular PSU



EVGA GTX 780Ti, 3072MB Watercooled Graphics Card

OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive

Akasa SATA-III 50cm Rounded Data Cable

Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

XSPC X2O Laing D5 Pump and Reservoir

HK CPU Backplate LGA 1366

HK CPU LGA1366 Waterblock

EK CoolStream Triple Radiator XT 360 (360mm)

EK-FC580GTX VGA cooler

6m XSPC HighFlex Hose 1/2" ID, 3/4" OD, Clear/UV

3x Bitspower right angle connectors

4x Bitspower 45 degree connectors

10x Bitspower compression fittings

4x EK-PSC Adapter Rotary 90° G1/4 Black

4x EK-PSC Adapter Rotary 45° G1/4 Black

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update

booted the pc in safe mode, removed the original graphics card drivers. installed the latest drivers for the 780ti.

restarted the machine to find this message...

Reboot and select proper boot device

or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key :afraid:

checked the CMOS (bios) settings and they all looked ok.

added a dvd rom to the system and booted up the win7 dvd.

selected repair your computer option - command line - diskpart, as sometimes the efi patrition can become inactive and cause an issue.

running diskpart showed that the disk existed but the partition didn't exist.. :banghead: so much for reparing the disk then...

so installed a new 120gb ssd onto the system (replacing the old disk) installed windows, and all of the drivers required.

thankfully i backup my VP, HP and hyperpin folders regularly, so all i had to do was restore the folders and re register some .dll's

took about 2 hours to have it all back up and running again..

the morale of the story is to make sure you have a regular backup of your important files...

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What's with big HDD ? A 64 would have been plenty or am I missing stuff ?

tbh you could use a 60GB with no problems, as my total installation of HP,VP & FP clocks in around the 13GB mark, but the new 120GB SSD i used only cost £41 link. the 60GB version is £8 cheaper..

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  • 2 weeks later...

update

time for the motherboard and I/O tray to be fitted..

its been a while since this was last in the machine... i wasn't sure if it would still fit..

Te4c4d.jpg

yay it fits... the only problem now is that the I/O tray sits too low, as the beast of a GFX card i now have installed is higher than the 580 originally installed

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i had to raise the tray side rails by 2" to get adequate clearance from the gfx card below.

now just got to concentrate on getting all of the I/O tray and pc connections completed. (the more observant of you will notice the LedWiz is missing the usb connection)

i also installed a 6 way IEC C13 power strip

FrlGfx.jpg

all of my cab power will be fed from this unit, i will custom cut the cables and attach IEC C14 connectors to the cables - first one done in the pic..

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update

not much in update terms, just fiddly time consuming cabling and connections.

ticked lots off of the to-do list though..

  • made up custom length cables for all of the powered devices.

  • installed DVI to HDMI cables for both screens

  • tested the ipac connections.

  • tested the plunger works ok - the nudge seems a bit weak, so will have to look at configuration setup

  • plugged in and configured the two sound systems.

what i will say is that for anyone looking to do a cab, a second sound system with speakers under the play field producing mechanical noises makes a world of difference.

hopefully Friday i should be able to install the DMD and strobes, tidy all of the cables in the cab. then onto the back box..

DOF will be left as the last thing to setup, once everything else is done.

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update

started work on the backbox..

pics and details to follow next week...

meanwhile, just to keep Steve happy..

a quick shaky hand held one handed pinball session, just to give you an idea of how it plays..

(the dmd was just placed on top of the playfield, so don't be alarmed that its not level - haven't got around to installing that yet).

i will look at getting better gameplay footage when the machine is completed.

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These One handed pinball videos are getting out of hand. I was doing the same thing. Maybe we all should get Go-Pros for our pins haha.

When picking the tables, How did you get the sounds for the tables?

seriously looking at mounting my phone onto one of my camera tripods... would be cheaper than a go pro..

the sounds for tables in selection mode are .f4v videos of the tables with audio.. you can pick them up from VPuniverse and VPf, not all table videos have the audio enabled sounds though, on my 25 tables that i run on the cab 20% are missing audio

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update started work on the backbox.. pics and details to follow next week... meanwhile' date=' just to keep Steve happy..
a quick shaky hand held one handed pinball session, just to give you an idea of how it plays.. (the dmd was just placed on top of the playfield, so don't be alarmed that its not level - haven't got around to installing that yet). i will look at getting better gameplay footage when the machine is completed.

Looks great Mike. Are those the VPinball night mods?

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Update

A couple of days rolled into one on this update…

Time to work on the backbox.

I was never really happy with the carbon fibre wrap originally done on the backbox so I decided to start again on the backbox covering.

uDQjLm.jpg

Started off by cable wrapping the flasher leds and securing them to the backbox.

Leveled up the flasher covers, as some of them were not quite aligned properly.

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On the polycarbonate screen I routed out the speaker holes using a forstner bit and a jigsaw. I also routed a 10mm channel In the base so the polycarbonate screen would have something to sit on, as I would not be using H channel fittings.

The top of the screen would be supported by metal “L” shaped brackets.

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The screen was affixed to these top and bottom supports using “No Nore Nails” adhesive.

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Once the adhesive had set I used the old carbon fibre wrap to make a template of the position of the flashers, so I could cut out the holes properly in the High impact polystyrene sheet.

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The carbon fibre wrap was removed from the backbox and transferred to the sheet ready to be cut to shape.

Once the holes where cut out the carbon fibre wrap was removed and the sheet test fitted onto the backbox.

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The position of the screen was measured and the cutout made on the high impact polystyrene sheet.

The speaker holes where marked and cutout out ready for the speaker covers.

The backbox screen and speakers where installed into the backbox.

Foam draught excluder was attached to the screen to hopefully stop future ingress of dust. (didn’t stop dust getting in on installation though :banghead:

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Double sided sticky tape was applied to the backbox external surfaces in preparation for the backbox covering to be applied.

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The high impact sheet was then covered with blue chrome wrap.

The speaker covers where attached to the chrome wrapped sheet. The cutout holes were filled with black acoustic cloth.

The completed sheet was then attached to the backbox and held in place with the double sided tape.

04V7qA.jpg

Next up the installation of the chrome t-mold, simply clicked into place on the routed side channels.

the back box now looks like it should be sat in a 50's diner :P

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Great job, Mike - that looks fantastic!

thanks for the compliment :cheers:

todays update

remade the DMD panel as i wasn't happy with the previous aluminium window and the fixing of the DMD to it.

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so, i measured out a new piece of 12mm MDF and transferred the DMD measurements onto it

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cut out the window with a jigsaw, and routed out a shelf 5mm shallower than the rest for the DMD to affix to, so the front glass of the Plasma DMD is flush with the MDF panel.

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next marked up the position of the strobes, and cut them out with a jigsaw

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using high impact polystyrene sheet (covered with chrome blue wrap) measured up the openings for the DMD window and the two strobes

o7bxrW.jpg

affixed the cover sheet to the dmd mounting plate..

will look at installing it tomorrow...

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