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  2. In search of 1 or 2 Taito plastic price insert plate for Space Invaders coin, like the one attached. Ideally a 20¢ playe would be great, but will consider other prices, especially if you have 2 to match I did found a 25¢ version on ebay US for $33 plus another $35 shipping which is JUST ridiculous!!! If you have a spare one of these you can sell me for a reasonable price please let me know.
  3. Nice one Evan. I got mine last week as well and I'm already half way through! The interviews are great. It was nice to read Tracey's insights and hear from the champions and arcade legends in Redelf and DBH. If we play any of the games in the book it should serve as a solid introduction on how to play them as well. Maybe it'll even bring in some new names and faces to the MGL fold. Speaking of which; school holidays start for me very soon which can only mean MGL 59 is fast approaching...*feels the excitement of the impending first coin drop*. 😉
  4. Today
  5. Talking the need for multiple white boards that introduced another problem, the wiring. Didn't want to use close to 3 meters of colour coded harness and dedicated pinball board connectors and pins for each white board so I come up with an easy way that used just one set of pinball board connectors with a few D sub style interfaces. It kept the wire usage down to pinball board connectors to D Sub interfaces in the head, (that remained part of the machine), and components on the playfield to D Sub interfaces on the playfield. Commercial D Sub cables were the interface harnesses between the head and the playfield saving around 1 1/2 meters of harness but more the saving was not needing to use another full set of pinball board connectors and pins on every white board. To change a playfield was unplug the D Sub leads at the playfield and plug them in the next and ready to go so no board connectors needed to be touched. Suited me fine, I just had to standardize the coil drives, lights and switch matrix pinouts used by the D subs and every white board I made would plug straight in ready to test using only the wire used on the playfield and some D sub interface PCBs. Heavy current loads such as + coil supply and GI supply would of used a heavier style connectors but again, at the playfield itself.
  6. Have you tried this? Do you get anything at all appearing for Player 1 and 2 when using the diagnostic feature? If not try swapping a confirmed display (3,4) with player 1 & 2 display to see if the display is faulty. "Double-check all connections, plug in the machine, and turn the game on. The LED’s will light up. Pressing the DIAGNOSTIC pushbutton on the Master Driver board will illuminate all segments of all displays. This indicates that all boards and cables in the PINSCORE System are operating correctly. Use the thumbwheel BRIGHTNESS control on the Master Driver board to set your preferred illumination level." I'd also triple-check the orientation of all ribbon cables to make sure they are all plugged in with pin 1 positioned correctly. It may also be bad connection on the pin out from the MPU but if Ken worked on the boards he would probably have verified those on his rig?
  7. Newcastle Pinfest 2024 - Festival Of The Silver Ball Event Date: Saturday 14th September & Sunday 15th September 2024 Event Location: Club Macquarie, 458 Lake Road Argenton - Main Auditorium Session Times: Saturday: Morning Session – 9.30am - 1pm (TBC) Saturday: Afternoon Session – 2pm - 5.30pm (TBC) Sunday: Super Session - 10am - 3pm (TBC) Tickets: Ticket sales will be available only via the PINFEST website - https://pinfest.com.au/tickets/ Tickets will go on sale as of 6PM Friday 30th August 2024 and will be limited per session on Saturday & Sunday sessions. Tickets bought for one session will not be transferable to another if the other session is sold out. Entry Cost: (To Be Confirmed) SILVER-BALL PASS: (To Be Confirmed) NO TICKETS SOLD AT THE DOOR! Come and experience Australia’s longest running pinball festival, with 100+ pinball machines all on free play. Not-for-profit event run solely by volunteers with proceeds going to charity. Website: http://pinfest.com.au/ ✅ 100+ Machines all on free play ✅ Proceeds go to Charity ✅ Family friendly event ✅ Dedicated bar serving refreshments ✅ Full Bistro facilities available at club ✅ Free onsite parking at venue ✅ Accomodation on site - if booked early or major hotels in Newcastle/Lake Macquarie area ✅ Airport 35 min by car ✅ Newcastle CBD 25 min by car ✅ Public transport close to event 👀 and much much more to discover !!! Contributors: As always, we will make welcome anyone who is interested in contributing a game to the event. Please contact us via a private message on our Newcastle Pinball Association Facebook page at least 4 months prior to the event as spots usually get taken up quickly. Please visit our section regarding pinball contributions. https://pinfest.com.au/contribute-to-pinfest/ PLEASE CHECK CONDITIONS OF ENTRY TO THE CLUB BEFORE PURCHASING TICKETS Entry to the event will be dependent on the club rules. Newcastle Pinfest 2024
  8. I'm always looking for sites with good ideas and friendly people - here is the best I've found as well.
  9. Gents, I had an inquiry from a willing host to see if Wildball was running in 2024. So....is Wildball running in 2024? @nasco62 how about it mate?
  10. New in box both machine and topper. Only selling to fund bathroom renovations. will sell outright or alternatively happy to trade with cash my way to fund some of renovations. PM if you would like a photograph of the boxes. $21500 negotiable
  11. Spread the news of Tasmania's Pinball Tournaments! (and get free entry!) Join us for fun competitions, and bring a friend for a special offer: Your Entry: Just $10 to cover event essentials. Friend's First Time? They get free entry! It's our warm welcome to new players. Friend Returns: If they loved it and come back for our next event, *you* get in free as a thank you from us! Don’t Miss Out: 23rd March: Strikes Tournament at Replay Bar. 6th April: Amazing Race at a special venue. Ask us for the details! Let’s grow our pinball community!
  12. Have a look at what the HO train model community has to offer pre-made at non pinball pricing. The light was to light dark areas and not a toy being so small and discrete. A Egyptian shaped and stone coloured column sleeve around that light's post would suit your needs I think. I was after lights to light up the otherwise dark areas as a result of pancaking playfields under each other. I had the choose, go OP on the under plastics GI or light from the level above. I thought this was a nice subtle way to light when needed and in my case that would have been the only level the ball was being played on at that time. That "concept" was a test bed for whiteboards, lots of them quickly changed around such is the importance I put on getting a layout that works and knowing I was never getting that right first time around. If you read the post a member wrote about one of the great designers he says in his apartment he had multiple whiteboards supplied by the factory......(just in case he thought of a good layout at home) Playfield tempets yes, lay on lower half of a blank white board for lining up every hole and fastener location used to mount the slingshots and flippers and outhole so the process doesn't need remeasuring every time.
  13. Well actually of them all, AA probably deserves top honors…I am actually a paid supporter here and damn proud of it.
  14. Barbie or Munsters don’t have 2 fully populated playfields either, Your design choice coupled with a steel frame construction wouldn’t be best served with random games, But something that more fits the cabinet choice… Barbie in a steel cabinet? or Space station dance party? But it sounds like you got this figured out already, Can’t wait to see this… Take lots of pics.
  15. Hurricane is coming to Hoey Moey 2024 😎😎😎 (Game line-up may change without notice) 🎟️ Event Tickets on sale from the Hoey Moey website. Hoey Moey Pinball Festival - Coffs Harbour NSW
  16. Oddly, I have a need for something like this, but Egyptian themed, and sturdy if not bobbled 🙂 Much of my playfield is opaque, and needs light directed at it, rather than transmissive (through lighting). I think artwork is a significant challenge for the home builder, and a huge expense for a quality result. I think both perspectives work so long as the eventual game play is succesfull. I don't think the great designers would care much if the game was Barbie or Munsters, certainly lots of games designed for one thing became another. Knowing about theme may help with numbers of drop targets in a bank, or inserts to spell out something. For a home build the _motivation_ is the key element in the design. The statistics for abandoned build would be very high I'd guess. If the theme is supplying the motivation to the builder, then it is probably the most important aspect of the design. When it's complete though, people will only return to play it if it is fun!
  17. Just an example, Stern's Munsters, Remove the art work, sound and video along with the Herman target and assorted stickers on targets etc. With a little art, 3D printer work, new sounds and video work and that Munsters could quickly becomes a Barbie. Yes, they are generic and can be turned into what ever you want however if it was a boring machine layout to start with, no theme, art, sounds, toys or video are going to change that.
  18. Interesting theory, But unfortunately that would make it generic in nature… Close your eyes and see it, Know what you are going to build, because those characteristics can change the entire structure and strategy of “How it was built” all the way down to its very core… And while we are one the subject of development CNC, 3d printing, and CAD all have a level of accuracy and acceptance that can actually change that design and deter quality… I notice there has been no mention of templates yet and fitment… Not trying to tell you what or how, but these things are very linear in nature. Case in point… That playfield layout I mentioned a few posts back, That is not premeditation, That is a vision of something that is very possible and quite specific, If you can see that as a vision you can actually build it right out of your head, Math, materials, Physics and all very possibly even with the budget implications imposed on it, since it would most likely also be done with open source software…This actually changes the perimeter of this entire build however because for lack of better terms that is is planned direction that actually changes the design of the cab already as described earlier.
  19. The light is used if you need a light, nothing more. As for it matching a theme or a name, I think to many people get hung up building to either because if you think about it it is usually just the toys, the sound, the art and video that sets the theme and name. To start on these 4 steps first would be building in reverse. Priority should be the layout and the entertainment value it offers first and foremost and then the other 4 can be made to suit what name and theme you choose. Most production machines had there whiteboards tested "unnamed" way before any name or theme is allocated and often had last minute title changes so no, I put very little to no priority to building the other way around......Too many restraints. You can paint, sound and toy any whiteboard to a theme but if the layout is crap, it's a dude.
  20. Yesterday
  21. I think Oscar @Pinmem just listed one recently too maybe?
  22. OK, we've done some basic setup and triggering excercises with our CROs and it's time to try a few measurements on our actual game PCBs, hopefully identify a fault condition and possibly trace it to its source. This is the point, @yngbld where it will help if you still have a video PCB with graphics issues which we can compare with my working PCB. Anyway, I'll take a few measurements which you may be able to duplicate and see if we can spot any issues... We've looked briefly at the final analog video output from the CPU PCB, this is built up from multiple layers of graphic components, scrolling backgrounds, text and large sprites. The sprites include the cars, some scenery such as trees and tunnels as well as animated title graphics and originate from the video PCB. At that stage the graphics are in digital form so instead of comprising three analog signals representing R,G and B components there are 13 bits of data, I'm assuming 4 bits per colour and 1 bit which may be a key signal, to determine the outline of the sprite which will be superimposed over the background layers. We can begin at the point where the sprite graphics leave the video PCB and are sent to the CPU PCB over the 'F' interconnecting cable, working back from that point. The final stage is a bank of 13, 74LS166 8 into 1 bit shift registers . Each takes a byte of data at a time, shifting that out bit by bit. Each group of 13 bits at the output of these shift registers would represent one pixel of a sprite graphic. The outputs are only active when there are sprites to appear on screen. Referring to the Chase HQ Schematic (Taito) page 21 of the Video PCB circuit (page 45 of the 47 page .pdf document) the bank of 13 x 74LS166 shift registers are shown. Each takes a byte of data at a time from the FRD bus (I assume that refers to frame data) and outputs bit by bit to the OBB bus ( objects?) which goes to the CPU PCB via the 'F' ribbon cable (FCN). A small excerpt of the diagram shows the ins and outs... And we can see the 13 ICs in question on the video PCB here: The main difference between using a logic probe to test signals on a circuit and an oscilloscope is the logic probe can only tell us if signals are present and active but not whether they are complete or relevant to the intended function. To give the signals we are viewing some meaning we need to set up our oscilloscope to trigger and view the signal in context to the overall process. So as trivial as it may seem, the most important stage is to set up the trigger. With experience we can just look at a signal then set up a trigger to get a clear picture but to demonstrate more clearly we'll do the trigger first using a setup we've already practiced, looking at video lines. We'll use our composite sync as our trigger source and we'll keep it visible on our display to use as a reference so select dual channel mode. I usually put channel 1 in the top half of display and channel 2 in the bottom half. At 10 microseconds per division with channel 1 as our trigger source and using TV trigger (or DC trigger if there is no TV setting) negative slope and adjusting our trigger level so the horizontal syncs are steady and not jumping around. We can use the horizontal position control to see the initial trigger point and one complete line period to the next horizontal sync. If we've set it up correctly the second sync should appear just over 6 divisions after the first (64 microseconds or 6.4 divisions at 10 usec / div.) Once that is set up and stable we can look at the data at the output of each shift register, pin 13 using our second channel. The data is TTL level so we can set our Ch. 2 gain to 5V per division (or 0.5V per division using a 10x probe) We'll just leave the attract mode running on our game, as below. As the scene changes sprites appear and move around. At some points there are no sprites on screen for example the game instructions which tell us to 'bumb' into the 'climinals' are on a scrolling background layer so we just wait until there are sprites on screen to check each shift register output. As long as we keep our trigger signal on Ch.1 steady the output of the shift registers should be active, depending on the sprite activity, during the active video line period. The intensity will seem to vary as the lower order bits may toggle very often and high order bits may seem more solid on the display but all 13 should have activity at various times. The images here are all from a working PCB. In the image below the chase car sprite is on screen towards the left. As the attract mode continues other sprites also appear and move around. The main problems we are looking for are dropouts where some positions across the line are always missing, or incorrect data levels. Another image below where the sprites are mainly situated towards the left of screen. The blip towards the right of the active line, just before the next horizontal sync is the blue 'progress bar' which can be seen on the monitor image above showing the distance from the chase car to the target. So all of the images above are OK but if a video board has an issue where sections of a sprite are missing or lines which look like 'jail bars' appear at regular intervals on the sprites these may be visible on one (or more) of the shift register outputs. and can be traced further back. I don't have an example of a faulty board to show at the moment but can show one I prepared earlier. In the image below a dropout can be seen which occurred in certain positions, only on particular lines in this case but the type of issue we are looking for may have a similar appearance to the bottom trace below. Anyway I hope that helps to illustrate one potential method for locating a graphics fault, starting at the irregular output and working back from there. As always when fault tracing, take your time and take care not to short adjacent pins when probing IC legs etc. Regards, John.
  23. Don't pick the 3rd Weekend in September - Pinfest is on in Newcastle.
  24. There's probably a little tiny bit of sweat juice stain under the joystick edge.. outside of that, this cab is pretty immaculate. Yes, it's dirty and has a couple of rough stains, but nothing that some elbow grease won't remove. I honestly can't complain. The "collection" of the Monitor was one day, but that was more hanging out and stripping bit and bobs to make one really nice ID3. The tube swap took me roughly 1.5hrs by myself - that's start to finish. It wasn't much work. I mean, this whole cab isn't much work to begin with. If novus 1,2,3 doesn't work on the bezel, that will probably take the longest sanding it down and then repainting
  25. have just bought this grail pin and about to import. will be here ready to go most beautiful backglass ever?
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