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Battery Powered Taito Upright.


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  • 2 weeks later...

All going well. Harness is close to being fully installed. I did put in a DB25 connector near the control panel, ( same place as Taito had theirs allowing for quick swap over of different control panels).

 

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I put in a merit connector directly above the Taito ID plate at the top of the back of the cabinet.

 

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This is where the solar panel will plug in for recharging the onboard battery. This same plug input will be used when there is no sun and I want to run the machine off the farm house's 12 volt supply rather than the machine running solely off it's internal battery.

 

This input when plugged into the solar panel goes through a solar regulator to hold the input voltage from the panel to about 14volts so as to not damage the onboard battery through over voltage. If however the plug is used to plug into the house 12volt supply, this power will go straight through the solar regulator.

 

Once the power goes through the solar regulator, it goes to the onboard battery. Also connected to the battery is a buck convertor. This buck convertor is there to stop higher than 12.5volts getting past this buck inverter like when the solar panel is plugged in and the battery itself is getting 14volts from the solar regulator to charge it.

 

The output from this buck inverter, (12.5volts) is what powers the monitor and the rest of the machine's 12volt supply. Another feature of this buck inverter is it's low voltage drop out. If the supply getting to it should drop below 10.8volts for any reason, ( low onboard battery voltage for example), it will stop any power coming out of it so as to not deep cycle the battery and damage it.

 

There is another inverter that is powered off the machine's 12volt supply. It's job is to drop the 12.5volts down to 5volts to power the machine's 5volt supply. ( The Pandora and RPi).

 

Lastly one finally inverter powered off the 5volt supply. This is solely for the coin lights and header panel lighting that is 3.3volts. So 5volts goes into this inverter and out comes 3.3volts.

 

The solar regulator, the buck inverters and all the fuses are all on the one removable panel. This removable panel has plugs for easy removal for servicing.

 

That pretty well covers the power side of this machine.

 

Now I have a couple of questions. A Arcade Pandora requires...

How many amps for the 12volt?

How many amps for the 5volt?

 

This is to determine what inverters I should use.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Quick question. I'm using the stereo 3.5mm sound output from the Pandora for the sound. Does it require an amplifier to drive twin 10 watt 8 ohm speakers or does the Pandora box have amps inside already?.

 

Will need an amp

 

I used to use cheap ebay 12v ones around the $6 mark

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Coming along nicely mate, that black coin door looks great, might do the same on my defender. What paint did you use?

 

Yer the black doors pop. The paint I used was Rust-oleum. Black Hammered paint and primer in one. I scuffed the original paint so it could grab well which it did and layed down two coats.

 

Problem was it is more a grey than the satin black I was after so I put on another coat and while it was still very wet, sprayed on a coat of Australian Export Black satin.

 

The thought was this Australian Export paint, while it scratches off metal easy by itself, mixed with the Rust-oleum, it won't.

I was right, the two paints mixed well and dryed to a black satin hammer finish I was after.

 

A bit of a process I guess but the end result is the paint colour I was after that is pretty much as durable as the original Taito paint. It's just a shame the Rust-oleum isn't really a black, more a dark grey.

 

The Rust-oleum come from Bunnings and the Australian Export come from Supa Cheap.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well it's been a fun project but I'm just about done. Machine does nearly everything it was designed to do.

It is totally mains power free able to run solely on an internal truck battery and able to do that for many hours without needing a re-charge.

It is re-charged off a plug in solar panel.

Power demands are under 5amps @ 12volt total including the monitor, the Pandora 5, the audio, the header panel lighting and the coin entrance plate lights.

I simplified the original power supply design reducing it to just a solar regulator, Pico power supply and fuses that protect every individual part of the machine.

This shows the power supply....

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Solar regulator is the black box at the top, Pico power supply is slightly modified to do the job but it supplys the 3.3volts for the lighting.

The 5 volts for the Pandora and a spare 5 volts for an RPi later to be added.

And 12volts for the monitor and the Pandora audio.

 

Seven fuses protect from left to right.

Battery, coin door lights, header lights, Pandora 5 volts, RPi, Monitor, Pandora audio.

 

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The blue bar in the machine is the arm for rotating the monitor. It isn't needed for a Pandora much to my disgust as they have this utterly stupid idea of squashing the vertical games whilst having the screen horizontal rather than requiring you to change the orientation of the screen.

Anyway, that is about it ready for it's life at my off grid farm house. Hope you enjoyed.

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  • 1 year later...

Time for another project I think. Had to put a homebrew pinball on hold simply because I figured to actually build it would cost around $5000 and I would prefer to put that money into the farm I'm afraid with too much of a hit or miss whether the ideas on the homebrew pinball would be taken up or the machine would simply become a $5000 toy for my own use.

Maybe one day I may sell my AC/DC or Getaway to fund it but now is not the time.

I loved making the 12 volt Taito Upright even though I'm not a real fan of video games, never have been to tell you the truth, pinballs were always my passion but it cost me virtually nothing as I had most of the parts already.

I have a Taito 20" table top that I could retromod but I've seen many tables with LCD screens and I come to the conclusion, looking at an LCD screen on any angle sucks to be quite frank especially the viewing angles on a table plus you guys previously recommended I leave that Taito 20" TT stock with would include the original 20" CRT it has in it so, what to do?

 

I'm thinking next project be a double sided bar top video machine. That takes care of the table viewing angle problem having a near vertical LCD screen facing each player so each player looks straight at his screen but allows both players to sit down like a table, just at the height of the bar or table the machine sits on.

 

I have a pair of matching 19" 4:3 aspect LCD 12 volt screens so the machine can be fairly narrow.

 

I also have a new 60 in One game board.

 

I have a few Jamma harness and definately got a heap of MCA sticks and buttons.

 

If I make this one solar and battery powered like the upright, I have the solar regulator and a 12volt to 12 volt/ 5 volt power supply like I used on the upright. I also have a few 12volt car/ truck batteries to power it.

 

About the solar / battery idea, that upright is so handy because it has no mains cable. You can roll it out in the middle of the backyard and turn it on at parties with no mains cable and it will run for 10 -14 hours. I guess the solar isn't really an advantage but being cordless curtainly is. The solar part could be replaced with a battery charger but for the farm, the solar is golden. I'm seriously thinking a cordless bartop would be an advantage too so I think that will be the way I go.

 

I do have a few questions though hopeing you guys might be able to help with.

 

What are the chances the VGA output on the board will power, (signals wise), both screens at the same time or would it need a VGA amp/ splitter?.

 

Should I just use the HDMI output and split that instead?. Monitors do have both as does the 60 in 1. I do have a HDMI amp/ splitter. VGA I'd need to buy.

 

As the machine would need to be a table configuration because it has two totally independant joysick / button panels, player 1 and player 2, how am I going to stop the screens from flipping when the 2nd player plays? Do multigame boards have a suitable setting to prevent the screen flipping even when set as a table?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 5 months later...

New solar powered video machine. Looking at a machine that uses the existing monitor that only gets used for the RPi media center we watch movies, music videos etc on.

Going to mount the electronics on a board mounted to the underside of the lounge room table. Table has a rather large edge around the underside of it so everything I mount to the board should be we up out of the way and well above your knees when using the table.

 

Going to be solar again or rather solar panels re-charge the batteries and the game board is powered off those batteries.

 

Batteries I have are twin 12volt/ 20amp Gel Cells.

 

These are connected to the solar regulator.

 

Game board is a 60 in One.

 

Controllers will be twin, (joystick 3 button combo), one for both players connnected by a wiring loom to each from the game board. These controllers will hang down from the board when not in use or simply left on the table.

 

Monitor has VGA or a spare HDMI and the game board has both as well. Not set which I'll use yet.

 

Sound comes from a speaker mounted in each controller.

 

Pretty loose on descriptions but I'll get some pictures up as I make the thing.

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I have a Aldi MP3 Jukebox with a solar panel to a 12vdc regulator transistor I added running it all day. Works a treat, not that it needs much power anyway.

 

I only make these things solar and battery powered so they can be used at the farm in the night time without needing the generator going and if the generator is going, use it to fast charge up the batteries again.. While this one is to suit that purpose and nothing more, the upright is just is cool idea. It gets some looks when it gets wheeled out under the car port and turned on with no power cord.

Been throwing this particular idea around for a while now, (while collecting the parts I needed), and can't help myself thinking,

 

I could do a solar battery powered pinball.

 

If you think about it, the constant drain from the battery running a pinball is the 5volts for the boards and the lighting. If the machine went dark while not in play, it would just be the 5 volts to keep the boards alive.

 

The coils can run off 24volts, batteries wired in series, but most coils while pulling up to 2 amps, are only energised for a split second excluding the flippers and the coin lockout coil and the latter can disappear.

 

Not likely to ever do a pinball, good to keep the mind active thinking out the hyperthetical problems that would come up making it all work.

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  • 2 years later...

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