I'm thinking back and forth If it's possible or needed to Install more then one Cap in houdini?

Like this:

https://www.pinballlife.com/total-nuclear-annihilation-power-filter-board-assembly.html

https://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php?title=OPP#Power_Filter_Board

https://docs.missionpinball.org/en/latest/hardware/multimorphic/power_entry.html

I have Seen this in Other proc related Games Like R&m, tna and some homebrew games.

Maybe more Caps provide snappy flippers in every Situation?

Hope someone with more know how and electric skills can chime in....

I am trying to hookup a psw 10 to my Houdini,I thought I ordered the kit form pinovtors But I am confused,where do I plug in the RCA jacks to ,or do I just use speaker wire?,there is a left and right sub out?,can I gat some help

Thanks

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And....I have used these Polk subs before for Stern pins in conjunction with Pinnovator kit. So, it seems I can directly connect this sub to the amp in Houdini, right?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002KVQBA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title

I connected speaker wire to the sub outputs r and l to the subs inputs r and left and the sub is nor moving?

It may help but too much capacitance can cause issues too, in order to do the actual math on it (once upon a time I knew that equation instantly off the top of my head but I haven't done that kind of work in a LONG time) you need to understand how much peak current the total circuit can pull and how much load the power supply can handle before voltage drops. If you add too much capacitance it will create a load on the power supply that can actually pull the voltage even lower because the power supply has to re-charge the caps as well as supply the circuit current. It can also cause significant power surge at power-up if there is anything in circuit that pulls the caps down when powered off.

I've reached out to Sandra at Pinnovators to determine if we need their kit to install external sub. Or, if using their kit makes the process easier.

I have there kit,I posted pictures of it,a few post back,I don’t understand how it works.i wish someone that have hookup the sub would lets us now how to do it.

Reach out to customer service at Pinnovators, they will help. Or, once I get my sub and kit, I will hook up and post pictures.

I pm'd you.

Some of the switching supplies may have a limit on the amount of capacitance it can have on the output. In-rush current (from charging up too much capacitance) and loop stability (the circuitry that monitors the output voltage and tells the power supply what is needed to keep the voltage correct) can have issues with too much capacitance. A while ago, I looked on the Meanwell data sheet but they didn't have it listed. Some supplies can handle more capacitance without issues, others can't.

Bottom line, I wouldn't add any extra capacitance.

i=C dv/dt, plus whatever the power supply can chip in. (LOL, I had to look it up. Been a long time for me too. ) Not sure if that was what you were thinking of or not. Too easy to forget those equations, given all the simulation tools nowadays.

I did not have the correct kit,I will soon,thanks to customer service at pinnovators.

This is a photo of how their thingumabob hooks into the Lepi amp in the head of the Houdini game. Go to their site and look up product by game and then open the instructions. Kind of a bit to install, but not too bad.

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So while waiting for the "coil improvement Kit" from my distributor I will try to switch back to the "normal" flipper coils. But I need to know which WPC Coils I can use for the flippers. At the moment FL-11629 (blue wrapped) is installed.

Maybe I should try one of those, cause the FL-11629 need a lot of "power" and the "weaker coil" should compensate the 50V of the powersupply - right?

FL11630 "standard" flipper strength, parallel coils, used on nearly all Williams system 11 pinball games (Red Coil Wrapper Color) - power 4.7 ohms; hold 160 ohms

FL11722 "weak" flipper strength, parallel coils (Green Coil Wrapper Color) power stroke coil 6.2 ohms; hold flipper upright coil 160 ohms

May it's possible that rosh can provide more settings in the gamecode especially for flipper coil pulse timings. That would give more opportunities to adjust Houdini when using different coils.

Also I will try to build and power filter- / power supply board for all the HV-Rails, cause all other manufactors use somethink like this (Stern, Spooky, etc)....

If you look at there sight it shows the multi speaker cabinet speaker adapter Not this doohickey under Houdini .

You should use the coil the game is designed to use, not something else because you think it will be better. If FL-11629 is the coil in the game from the factory this is what you should use.

I believe 11629 is the equivalent to what comes from the factory

11630 slightly weaker main power, slightly stronger hold

I would expect either to work fine on Houdini. Just need to adjust coil strength to your liking

The picture is the speaker adapter in the game’s head. After wiring as shown in the photo on my previous post, the adapter is rolled/folded over the end of the game’s amp and screwed down.
Once fully installed, there is one cable that travels from the pictured adapter to the game’s door (and connects to the door control module) and another cable that travels from the pictured adapter, out the back of the head, directly to the subwoofer. Very simple. Caveat is that the cable to the subwoofer terminates with a 3.5 mm jack. It also includes adapter that plugs into the jack allowing you plug RCA jacks into the subwoofer. The Pinnovator system does not come with a bare wire option in the kit. See the attached photo from the Pinnovator site.

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Thanks for the help,I understand now

Was changing some game settings and thought I’d try the pre made easy setting. Went to play a game and the right flipper stuck in the up position. Tried fixing it in test mode nothing worked. Re-installed the OS. Still nothing. Decides to lift the playfield and guess what. The spring on the right flipper fell off. Weird timing or what. Anyways reattached the spring and it fell off again. It looked a bit stretched at the end. Anyways have some spare Bally/Williams flipper springs. I noticed these springs are longer than AP’s. Fitted them to both flippers and I feel the flippers are more Bally/Williams like, seem better to me than they were. My pin has had 400 plays..

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I wanted to give a shout out to Dave at american, and Jason at classic game rooms. After a very VERY nasty self inflicted electrical issue with my game, it's finally up and running like new. Dave spent a good bit of his time on the phone with me making sure everything was perfect. This company has been great, and customer support is top notch. I absolutely love this game, it is very well made and a ton of fun.

So here's a strange question. I purchased a brand new Houdini and just now tried to open backbox. I discover I have no key on the coin door. When you purchased, was the key already there? Also, I have a friend with same game, is it possible to use his key to open backbox? Hope I don't have to drill it out...

The key is there amongst all the new in box stuff or on the key hook.

Mine was was nylon tied to the shooter knob with the coin door keys.

Contact API they should have a key for you.

All keys are tied to the shooter when shipped. Should have had 4, two for coin door, two for the head.

Keys differ from machine to machine, odds that your buddies work on your machine are low.

Since many of you Houdini owners are probably magic buffs, you might enjoy this video of me doing a card trick for Robert De Niro:

Spoke to Dave. Gave him number on the lock to see if he has spare. The good news is, a friend with the same machine has same lock. So, I have a spare key until I fix long-term or get spare set from APB.

If your friends key works, make a copy

hmmm, didn't think of that. Make copy at HD or Lowes?

backbox is usually common c95 or h95 the coin door is normally the one keyed differently.

That should work. Walmart has a kiosk machine at the front doors that makes copys also.

Well, well. I have a relatively new Houdini and have installed most of the recommended "fixes." Most recently, I installed the power/capacitor kit. All seemed to be good until I installed Pinnovator subwoofer kit. Mark/Pinnovator said to connect kit to one of the speaker wires (red/black). I did and now my game keeps resetting even after removing the kit.

I'm confused if previous poster said he used kit, but it appears he did not connect the way I did. Any thoughts on how to troubleshoot or what might have happened?

Thanks.

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I am sure you disconnected both kits the. Cap and the sub

I connected speaker wire to the sub outputs r and l to the subs inputs r and left and the sub is not moving because this will not work at all! You have two choices for Houdini the 180.00 headphone kit with sub out to the cheep multi clip on to back box speaker kit for 35.00>

“The picture shown by Zahner shows the board we use for our headphone kit. The headphone kit has a subwoofer output built in. We also use this output to drive an external amplifier so it is a true left and right output.“

Yes, I disconnected the Pinnovator kit and the APB capacitor kit. Still getting resets. APB suggested checking 5V connections...that's next up to check.

All is good. Dave at APB directed me to look at red and black wires in power supply. Black wire was really really loose. Crimped and now everything works as it should including Pinnovators sub kit.

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Awesome find!

I hate bad crimps. Sometimes it takes months to find them.

Well, I spoke a bit too soon. Although crimping the black supply wire terminal fixed most of the resetting issues, I now get the game resetting after the ball is launched into the trunk. I'm not getting any resetting for the rest of the game play/coils, only when the ball goes into the trunk.

Here's what's happening. The ball goes into lower catapult; trunk opens; ball shoots into trunk; lid closes; then game resets. I played about 5 games and the only time game reset was when the ball went into the trunk. Happened 3 times in a row.

I went into test mode to test all coils related to the trunk and all work and don't cause the game to reset.

I then took of glass and manually put ball into the lower catapult to see if it would reset. The first 2 times I tried, it worked fine. The third time, the game reset.

So, things are better, but the game still resets when the ball is launched into the trunk.

I'm reaching out to APB for assistance.

Reinstall the latest code.

Haven't done that yet. Have you or anyone else ever had resets occur?

Thanks.

Yes. I had adjusted several of my settings. Among the readjustments, I had set my Houdini letter award to “none” after completing a subsequent escape (or something like that - the actual setting isn’t the point). After I finished fiddling with my settings, the game rebooted when I pushed the start button. It was a glitch in the program.
Josh figured out that it was the Houdini letter award adjustment I had made. He said I was apparently the first person to try that setting. (BTW, future versions will not do it.) The point is it was something to do with my settings. Perhaps rest your settings all to factory and see if that helps. Confidence is a bit low since you said it doesn’t always do it, but it might be worth a try.

Thanks. Any help is appreciated. Seems reasonable to reinstall and/or reset back to factory settings, but maybe wait for the new update coming out soon.

If you’re having issues with the catapult resetting your game and you think that setting your game back to factory might help, I’d do it. Nothing worse than being in the middle of a game and having it reset. Unless of course you’re having a real crappy game

More update on my resetting issues.

This morning, I was trying to get logs for Josh. When I plugged in USB stick, game immediately reset. Tried twice, and both times game reset.

After work today, I came home and started up game to see if I could replicate catapult resetting. But, this time, no resetting. Tried to cause catapult to reset, but tested about 8 times and no resets. Played two long games and no resets. Hmmm, so now it's intermittent.

Check all power connections, especially the ground connections (brown and black wires).

Check wal-nuts (if you have them installed), possibly replace wal-nuts with lever nuts

Well, played a few long games including many catapults. No resets. But, during a long game, a reset occurred while a ball was about to come out of scoop.

Next test. Josh said to disconnect shaker. I did and turned off in menu. Played a few games and no resets. Out tomorrow, but will check connections and ground connections as you say. Not sure I know what Wal-nuts are, but I think I'm getting hungry.

sounds like a loose ground or power wire.
Houdini might have wal-nuts in it if it has the upgraded supply.

they are notorious for loose/bad contacts.

Check this thread for info about them.

I posted a wal-nut upgrade earlier in this thread.

I had a wire near the shooter assembly get nicked and the game would reset when the wire shorted out.
As it turns out a couple of folks had the same problem.
Good luck.

I finally upgraded to the new power supply, couple of questions. Im assuming that the black and brown wire went to the black wal-nut... just wanted to make sure, I couldnt agree more that the wal-nuts on paper is a great idea for an easy install, but it was a pain in the ass to get the wires to stay in securely. Not sure why its not better to just wirenut the cables together instead of the wal-nut. Im sure Ill be changing them in the future because It will annoy me.

That said, the new power supply is loud... I guess with the fan its something we have to deal with.

Now for the good. Both catapults are almost 100 percent now. And I dont know if its a placebo or not, but the flippers definitely have a more "williams" feel now much snappier. I did order the cap kit to upgrade the flippers so may see an improvement over the power supply as well.

Overall, the hardest thing about the install was getting at the power supply to do the install... it was a lot easier than upgrading the GI on MMR.. lol.

A friend of mine got a knocker kit from American which was wired incorrectly, it caused all sort of problems and damage. I have been delaying putting my knocker in to my Houdini because of it. Is there anyway to tell if this is correctly wired? This is all the kit came with. I think a connector is missing.
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