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Complete Homebrew System


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Hey Everyone,

 

Thought I'd post this here for everyone that is interested in this kind of thing.

I'm in my final year studying Electronics Engineering and as my final year project I've been working on a pinball machine.

Well not just the machine but the whole system.

 

I've been designing all the control boards and circuitry from scratch.

I'm working towards having a working prototype of my first machine by February (I have 5 designs I'm working on :redface).

 

If anyone is at all interested in my project here is the the proposal I had to submit earlier this year.

 

 

At the moment I'm just finishing up the control boards schematic and PCB layout and then they're off for manufacturing.

Below is an example of the dedicated switch schematic section.

 

Capture.thumb.JPG.ac965239c439bce757e8a46814cb19e1.JPG

 

The main playfield controller is a FPGA much like a P-Roc board, this connects to a Raspberry Pi that is running a modified version of Mission Pinball Framework.

Eventually I'll be ditching MPF completely for my own game engine but for the Uni prototype it will be used.

 

The machine is going to be a completely converted junk machine where I'll be reusing all the mechs and cabinet but will have a completely new playfield layout.

Below is the very first VP attempt at the layout I did at the beginning of the year, it's gone through a few changes in design since then and I might share the final Solidworks layout sometime soon :p

Capture2.thumb.JPG.34aae2cf3bf692cc1e8cd457d10062c4.JPG

 

If anyone has any questions feel free to post below.

 

I'll try keep this up to date with how things are going at least once a week from now on :boring:

 

Cheerio

 

P.S if anyone reads the proposal and see's the junker pinball machine that's not it...still need to pick one up for this project.

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Cool, good to have another HomeBrewer here.

 

I'm not a fan of designing every piece of electronics in a pinball myself preferring to use tried and tested parts that exist in large numbers and can be manipulated to do as I want plus I absolutely hate the software side of things.

 

To me it is all about the appeal of the HomeBrew but each to there own.

 

Just in case you may be interested though, on a Bally SS 35 board set, the U6 chip contains all the major, common data used on all that series Bally machines. It is common to all Bally 35 games. The U1 or U2 chip contains all the specific game data for that particular title machine.

 

It is U1 and U2 that change the game rules and program for the game.

 

This data is written in blocks of data and these blocks, all in a library on the site can now be read and changed to suit your needs using a program on the net.

 

Being in blocks was the way it was originally written that enabled the programmers not to have to write ever line of data and simply insert blocks and these blocks can be configured quickly to do basically anything pinball related that the machine needs to do.

 

You need to do the software but you can change the game play, rules, features etc a lot quicker and it is using hardware that are being reproduced to this day or a set of original boards.

 

You re-write the software with your game requirements, burn it to an Eprom, insert the Eprom into the Bally 35 boards and the machine does as you require.

 

All the game's basic data like coinage, scoring, PLC controls etc is all handled still by the U6 chip so you don't need to go that deep getting the basics working as it is all there as original.

 

You do however have access to using a proven and tested proper pinball system on a game using your game rules you write however and it should save you many hours of software and in front of a computer and more into actually pinball building.

 

Just thought you may find this interesting.

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If you get a change look up what Mission Pinball Framework is, the site is here, it's essentially what your describing.

The software has already been written for things like lights, solenoids, switches, ball troughs, attract modes etc

I just have to program in all my rules and how it all interacts.

 

Obviously I also have to program in the hardware controller that talks with my system, as well as the code for the FPGA that controls all the items on the playfield.

But I've almost finished off all the FPGA code.

 

I've come from a background of designing PCBs and coding so that's half the fun for me :)

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Like I said, I hate software and are quite happy using existing game rules myself but come across this program. What I did like about it was it uses existing hardware that is common and with proven reliability.

 

I like your enthusiasm and designing your own PCBs. 10 years ago that would have been my route most definitely but not so much these days.

 

I'm more into manipulating proven products using hardware solutions these days probably as a result of gaining "cranky old bastard status" I guess.:lol

 

Non the less I am very interested to see what you do and please keep us up to date aye.

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Like I said, I hate software and are quite happy using existing game rules myself but come across this program. What I did like about it was it uses existing hardware that is common and with proven reliability.

 

I like your enthusiasm and designing your own PCBs. 10 years ago that would have been my route most definitely but not so much these days.

 

I'm more into manipulating proven products using hardware solutions these days probably as a result of gaining "cranky old bastard status" I guess.:lol

 

Non the less I am very interested to see what you do and please keep us up to date aye.

 

That's one of the great things about pinball!

All the different ways people have chosen to go about achieving the same end result.

I love seeing all the different hardware/software/mods and general craziness people use to build pinball machines.

 

But one of the main reasons I have gone about creating my own board set as apposed to using something like P-roc, is because I needed enough in there Electronics wise to justify building a pinball machine at Uni :lol

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  • 1 month later...

Hey Guys,

 

Was going to try update this more often but got distracted moving down to Melbourne :unsure

 

Anywayz, I picked up the project machine that will provide all the mechs and cabinet for the project last weekend.

It's a Zaccaria Pinball Champ 82 (thanks Oscar).

I actually had a blast just making the game flip by hooking the flippers up to my own power rig so I've decided I can't scrap all of it entirely.

I've changed my layout design just a little to keep a few things in there that keen eyes will know are from the original machine.

Next week I'll be starting to put together the first whitewood and I'll make sure I take a heap of photos of it coming together.

 

The PCB designs will also head off to manufacturing next week, I planned to have then done by now but I made a few changes to the board designs to add a few extra safety features as well as LED's to check all the different power rails.

The next step with the electronics is to finish programming my control boards to talk correctly with the PC and more specifically MPF.

Luckily MPF are just adding a feature to connect custom hardware which will same me some coding, which is always nice.

 

Well that is all for now but I'll try keep this up to date :blink:

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  • 1 month later...

I've been meaning to update this page for a while!

So much has been going on and there are not enough hours in the day.

 

Hopefully I'll do a big update on the weekend after the whitewood is a little more complete.

 

For now enjoy the 3D photo of the new control board that is currently in production.

 

This board has all the inputs and outputs for every switch, solenoid and LED.

That's over 88 Switches, 24 solenoids and about 440 RGB LED's

 

Capture.thumb.jpg.1bb0e19543229c349a47b12febfa86e8.jpg

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you blokes who build these boards from scratch, and even repairers who fix old buggered boards, Blow my F'n mind.

I look at this stuff and I cant get my head around it, goes way over my head lol. The best I can do is solder up a jaycar kit by following the pictures ahaha

I certainly have allot of respect as do others here im sure when threads like this come up with people building boards and doing all this electronic stuff.

Just reminds us there are some clever people out there.

So great work mate, I really wish you success with your prototype and the build.

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That's a lot of resistors. [emoji6]

Any chance you could post a picture of the schematics? It'd be interesting to see how you've tackled each section.

Looking forward to seeing this come together. Keep up the great work.

Cheers Trev

 

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

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you blokes who build these boards from scratch, and even repairers who fix old buggered boards, Blow my F'n mind.

I look at this stuff and I cant get my head around it, goes way over my head lol. The best I can do is solder up a jaycar kit by following the pictures ahaha

I certainly have allot of respect as do others here im sure when threads like this come up with people building boards and doing all this electronic stuff.

Just reminds us there are some clever people out there.

So great work mate, I really wish you success with your prototype and the build.

 

Well you beat me i dont even know how to solder lol

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That's a lot of resistors. [emoji6]

Any chance you could post a picture of the schematics? It'd be interesting to see how you've tackled each section.

Looking forward to seeing this come together. Keep up the great work.

Cheers Trev

 

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

Most of the interface designs are nothing new.

You can see the dedicated switch section in my old post and that is the section most of those resistors belong to.

 

The solenoid section is also a very basic buffer into a mosfet irl530.

 

The LEDs are all addressable LEDs and are in section chains, so there is just a simple buffer for those on the board.

 

For now this board connects to a separate FPGA development board that talks to the PC.

 

On the future if I were to manufacture these i would incoperate the fpga and USB interface straight into this board so you could plug it straight into a PC.

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