please delete

Thought they used Bally/Williams stuff from Pinball Life. I know there are different size coil stops though.

So I had the fuse blow that controls the servo for the ghost and the target bank. I unplugged those from the board under the playfield assuming there is something wrong with at least one of them. Then I plugged in a brand new servo to the spot on the board for the target bank servo. Replaced the fuse on the main board, and powered the game back up. Went into test mode and that brand new servo is still not doing anything. The fuse didn't blow though. I emailed Spooky tech and they said to check for voltage at the servo so I am going to do that next, but I was just wondering if anyone has had something similar happen. This is the first time I have seen this game blow a fuse at all. The game remains pretty playable in this state just can't start the ghost minion battles since the target bank is down, if it is up you can start them but then you basically get locked out of anything else because the bank doesn't go down to allow you to shoot the ghost.

Sorry for the late response, just saw your post now. The kit comes with everything pictured.
Here is the website page...
https://www.cometpinball.com/products/spotlight-kit

CometSpotKit (resized).jpg

I see the Laserific toppers are available again in case anyone is interested.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1231-cointakercom/03026-america-s-most-haunted-laseriffic-topper

BOO lol just the thread needs a bump

Anyone looking to join the club I'm looking to sell.

Curious if there has been any more progress made on the colorization for the LCD display? I believe Malenko was working on that a while back. Is that still happening?

I spoke with him a few times when he was planning to start on it. He wanted to send me a sample scene to confirm the process, but I haven't heard anything from him since then. I suspect life happened.

Life did happen, I contacted Ben about getting the sauce but nothing ever came of it. I could likely get it done in a few days using that, but to redo everything by hand was too time intensive.

If I knew it would get the project moving again, I'd buy a drive and ship it to Ben. Hell, this one is only $48.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VVS7S94/ref=twister_B081ZV4WBZ

I'm happy to provide the files just mail me a hard drive. I think it's around 100 gigs. The video is all in After Effects/Premiere CS6 version I wanna say?

That's awesome Ben and @malenko! Thank you for doing this.

That is extremely nice of you to offer!

Drool! We have to get you those files!!!

Eh, I feel bad about running out of steam on the coloring, plus I want it for my own game. A drive is on its way now.

Whether Malenko decides to take over or not, I figure it's more likely to happen, regardless of the artist, if I help it along.

Getting involved in this as a courier has also rekindled interest in a project I had been thinking about. The audio in the game has always seemed a bit "off" and had a good bit of noise in the background. I think I even heard Ben mention once the possibility of using an external DAC to improve over the Propeller's internal one. Well, that's what I did.

I bought a cheap PCM5102 DAC board from Amazon, hacked up an old SD card adapter to get access to enough I/O to control it, and wrote some firmware. I'm pretty happy with the results. It's still a hackjob, and I'm trying to decide how much work to put into cleaning it up.

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You can kinda tell from video how much it has cleaned up the audio, but I think the stock audio sounds worse here than in person.

...and here's the audio from the external DAC.

Wow, that sounds so much better! Huge difference. Well done!

That's fantastic!

I'm in for one of these if/when you sell them. I'd even be in for one in it's current state due to my hatred of all the electronic garbage that's present in the audio.

I have tried everything "simple" to eliminate it. A new amplifier. A new dedicated power supply for amplifier. Some new audio cables. Tried moving the amp into head to make audio path as short as possible. I added multiple ferrite chokes. I messed around with adding and removing audio grounds.

Thanks again for all you do herg!

Looking at prices, I can barely buy the parts for what the DAC board costs. I decided to just make an adapter board and use the DAC board as-is.

Starting with an open source Sparkfun design and modifying for our needs, these are probably the easiest board I've ever designed. They're also really cheap at 3 for $12 at OSHPark. I should have this order in a couple of weeks. After testing, I'll have a couple of extra, and I'll share the design on OSHPark so that others can order direct from them.

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Ah, crap! I was just looking at some of the files on the drive from Ben, and I noticed in a picture that the second SD card slot wasn't populated on the board.

At first, I thought the picture might have been an early board, but it seems like all of them in this thread, other than mine, are also missing this card slot. The board in the previous post won't be as easy for you guys as I hoped. It should be great for me though.

The DAC should still be workable, but I don't see a way for you guys to use it without having to solder something to your board. It could be the SD slot, or wires attached to the pads and staked in place.

That's a bit of a bummer but I don't have an issue with having to solder to the board if need be.

My slot isn't populated either...I dont recall, is the slot through hole or surface mount? If through hole, I'm sure many of us could solder a slot in. I have a friend that does surface mount for a living, so that wouldn't be a problem for me, but likely a non starter for most.

Oh wow you're bit banging DAC into an external device? That's crazy cool! I'd love to know more how you did it.

Most AMH only have one slot populated. Why not just solder wires to the empty pads directly to the DAC?

That looks totally doable...

0325201103_HDR (resized).jpg

Oh yeah, totally doable. Please proceed.

Yeah and you only need to solder to 4 of them (for data) and then power and ground someplace.

Yeah. Basically, I have a "left justified" driver running on one of the unused COGs, and ROY_DAC feeds samples to both the Propeller DAC and the other COG. I was just barely able to get it to run at 22kHz by highly optimizing the code. I'll send it to you.

Agreed. It would not be hard to solder wires to those pads, you just want to make sure to stake (glue) the wires so they don't end up pulling the pads off the board. I only used 3 of the 4 signals, and I'm getting 5V from the 5V connector on the upper right of the PinHeck board.

Just in case this thing goes live, I ordered a PCM5102 DAC from Amazon this morning. LOL.

I'm thinking a little hot glue will hold it to where the empty SD card slot is.

I be interested in this for sure count me in if you sell

See this is why I tell Parker to port every unused pin to a header

I do not plan to sell anything, but I will post instructions on how to do it. Keep in mind that it is not as easy as plug and play. As mentioned above, you're going to have to solder directly to the PinHeck board. That is, unless you're lucky enough to have the unused second SD card slot like mine does.

I hope you got this one. It will make things much easier for you since it will match my instructions.
https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Lossless-Digital-Converter-Raspberry/dp/B07Q9K5MT8/ref=sr_1_1_sspa

Yep, that's the one. I ended up using your picture to find the right one.

I'm pretty sure all AMH had two slots. But I didn't realize any shipped with both populated.

Mine is AMH #1, and I've run into a number of minor differences with it.

I may try this mod as well! I have no problem soldering wires to the board. What all would be involved to get the code updated for this to work? I thought the last release was closed source.

There are two different code files used in AMH. One is game rules, the other is the AV kernel. What we're talking about here is the AV kernel.

Neither of the latest is actually open source, but Ben has been gracious enough to allow me to change the AV kernel, previously for the colored DMD mod. Now that I'm writing it, I realize he hasn't blessed the DAC mod, so I probably shouldn't post a build unless he does.

To make things a bit more convoluted, there will have to be separate builds based on which DMD is in your game; the stock XPin, my colored DMD mod, or a Pin2DMD.

Ben has not approved of any changes to the the game code, so you would continue to use the released v23 for that.

Ben did tell me "You should totally make a kit of this.", so I took that as permission to share the custom AV kernel builds. JeffF installed his DAC today, and he seems happy with it. His game has a Pin2DMD, so that tests that firmware build. The one remaining untested is for a stock XPin DMD. If anyone would like to install the DAC in their game and it still has a stock display, send me a PM.

Here are a bunch of pictures I took during the install.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HGWHa2699hgdh6RNA

The difference is night and day. I added two videos that show how dramatic the change is in my game to the end of the above Google album. It's crazy how quiet it is now. With the new DAC in place the volume level also went up... a lot!

Thanks again herg!

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I have the original XPin DMD, I'll order the DAC and give this a try. Thanks for sharing this mod!

Now that we know my game is likely one of only a few with the SD slot populated, this may be of no interest. It's gotta be better than more bad news, though.

Because the only option from OSHPark was 62 or 31 mils thick, I had to get a 31 mil board and shim the thickness a bit. It works great, though.

20200402_155944 (resized).jpg

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20200402_163139 (resized).jpg

I'm happy to report that the audio mod install onto a stock XPin DMD AMH was successful! The audio difference is amazing and well worth it! No more of that high pitched noise that always drove me nuts. All of the audio clips sound much clearer now. Thanks again Herg for making this mod available!

Nice job!

Have either of you two noticed you can hear Ben breath at the end of one of his outtakes at the end of the game? Everything really is *that* much clearer!

Oh yeah AMH was a total hack job. Used a $200 Samson USB mic with pillows behind it.

Have you considering making a PCB with castillated edges? That could lay flat where the SD is supposed to be? Much like how the unpopulated Bluetooth module is?

I've noticed a lot of little things that I couldn't hear through the game previously. I have listened to the files on a PC before, and that's just as good, maybe better. It is still all 22kHz audio, so there are things that are a bit rough. I notice it most with S's. Sounds like ssstatic or a sssnake hissssing.

Yeah, I was thinking about it yesterday while installing my faux-SD. I've made castellated boards a few times before, mostly to use an IC in a smaller package on a larger footprint. Luckily, I'm still working a regular schedule from home, so not a lot of free time. That, and there's not as much motivation with my game modded and cleaned up already.

How do you get one of these audio mods? I don’t have a game (yet) but have a color DMD so might as well get the fun stuff while it’s available.

So, do I just need to buy the DAC, wire it up as per JeffF’s pics and I’m good to go? I have hergs color dmd mod in case that matters.

Now that all three cases have been tested, I suppose it's time to share with the masses. I threw together a page on my website with instructions and the necessary files.

http://ledocd.com/amh_external_dac

Cool thanks.