pixelmagic

Oops... You want to get familiar with a soldering iron then ! I use a 1280 at the moment, hope i have enough memory. The 595 are 74HC595 ic's, and basicly you can extend the number of outputs you can use. 3 outputs of the Arduino can drive several 595's and those have 8 outputs each (!) Check here or even better here (mistyped it, must be Mudokon. I have 28 of those heads around my backbox LCD and they all have 2 leds in the place where the eyes are. And they can light up.

Ok, got the go-ahead from BBB, and made a blog posting about it on my blog (http://blog.pixelmagic.nl/2011/12/arduino-driver-board.html) Basicly i can supply the PCB for € 15, with all parts for € 50 and ready made and checked for € 75. More details on the blog posting.

Guys, before i give the answers i have contaced the administrator of the forum for permission. Will post more if that comes. Erwin P.S. PMI (Pixel Magic Industries) <- you're killing me !!

With one limitation, the CNC is connected to a tattoo machine on your chest !

What are you thinking about ? You would like to cnc the highscore in a wooden list after beating it ?

Another few steps made: First i have made a layout on how i want my toys connected and driven from the Arduino. It looks like this at the moment: Link to a large graphic As you can see i am planning on 4 groups of 595's that are driven separate. one reason for that is ease of use and driving, the other speed. I have made a test setup today with 3 groups of 595's, 1 group of 4, 1 group of 2 and a single one. The writing of data to the 3 groups gets done in about 1600 microseconds (yes, micro) and i think the driving of all 4 groups will be around the 2 miliseconds in the end. I think that will be more then enought to handle all things. There is going to be some more cycles of the Arduino needed to handle the input and selecting the needed ports but i think we will be safe with that. After that i designed and orderer some pcb's for the 595 multiplexers. There are going to be 4 595 on the pcb that can be driven separate or in line and even can be connected to a next 595 board. 1 board can drive up to 32 outputs to the driver boards. This is the board: While i wait on the pcb's to arrive i will try to code the Arduino for further testing and setup 1 table to use all the events i am planning to build. One thing i would really like, is on startup to fire a pattern of solenoids like when a real table gets started And offcourse there need to be some animation with my backbox and the flashers. So little time, so much fun...

Some progress made, i have 1 of the pcb tuned for 24 volt driving for my new contactors. To give some idea of the options we could have in the futre connected a few contactors and wired them randomly to the Arduino board and hitting with different timings. The results: Md3vdEOhZTs WUpFmPlNHQc This one almosts sounds like starting up a real cab !! 2fuuHjNeRuc pLPh7K6B6l4

Ok guys, have made some effects in the arduino: fgWjs2iXB-c The clicking is me punching in the characters via RS232 for the effects. Basicly i have made 8 effects, 2 for lighting 1 led for 50ms, 2 for running up the side (left and right), 2 running down left and right, 1 on the top running sideways and 1 on the bottom changing between leds. And after that did some adding in MM, sending the numbers to arduino on specific events, high loop, enter the moat, hitting troll targets and so on. zHZJTmPoecY So i think i can say i made some progress today

Dude, way too much info on your personal side

Thanks guys, i really appriciate the comments. Keeps me going Orders ? Did not think of that when i started, but things have changed I started this project for Chris and myself, but allready i have sold a empty pcb to someone. Don't know how many people would like it and i think it is better to wait a bit until we have more things working well, it's all very in beta phase at the moment. The max current on 1 output is 16 Amp at the moment, but keep in mind that the pcb is not made to switch all 12 channels at 16 Amps at the same time. I will make a new version for myself with only 3Amp outputs. Mixing it in the same pcb is also an option. I have some time today if all goes wel and i will try to make some kind of nice example on the events driven from a real table (offcourse it will me MM ) When it works out i will tease you guys some more with video's

Had the mail deliverred today: Heated up the soldering iron and: And the board works !! C9Kb9fDNRSQ y8yNPOUEp2c And to show that PWM also works: d3aYXKu58c0

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..

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 ?

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 Edit: Very crappy video: jL7MiG3zivU

Thanks Lets hear those projects, Chris is getting bored

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.

Here you go: 2c6qKv1kcwk Only 1 small flaw: the printing od the LED is not correct, the flat side must go on the other side. Beside that it is working, now need to order some more parts

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: 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.

While you are at it, why not let the highscores show in the DMD area ? yeah i know, hard to do, but would be very nice !

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.

hi Blur, After a long time i finaly upgraded to the newer version, what a changes, excelent !! Just a question, did you make the overlay images in photoshop or something ? I would really like the layered images if possible so i can adjust them to my themed colors. Thanks in advance !

Ok, time for some updates. I have talked with Mr Silver a few times and we are both at the point where we think that it can be done in a way that it adds a lot of extra possibilities and we have got both the idea that it could be stutter free. We have done some time calculations and all things seem to be better in speed. That we have more possibilities is just a fact, the video shows that. We are a long way from having a standard solution and it is going to need extra hardware (not expensive at the point) and i am designing 2 different driver boards, one for max 500ma per output and another for max 16 amps (!!!). The arduino itself can only drive 20ma. Think about $2-3 per output in parts max. Thats all for now

All right, made some progress in putting together a prototype of the driver for connecting toys to the Arduino. Made some videos. First test: yipL8jlORJM Test with PWM and gear motor connected (off, 50% and 100&) Qj88WEkuQs4 Slow starting: IZMT-XpTvao Just fooling around: cID9APyEFdE

Can you read my mind ? But serious, the whole thing is under heavy construction. Basicly it goes like this: I have a separate arduino.vbs. This opens a sreial port to the connected Arduino. The ROM events can be read in the vbs using controller.[switch/solenoid/lamp]. After you get an 'correct' hit data is send to the Arduino and depending on the input it makes a effect (or drives another toy). Hope this clears some things up ?

And here is the first ROM event driven video: fYZxKnScFW4