Just got my JY NVRAM'd and to preserve midnight madness, I don't see any reason I cannot keep the remote battery pack in place for time keeping? Any thoughts?
If your keeping the remote batteries then why even install nvram. It would be a complete waste plus risk damaging the board for nothing.
Mitch....that's the question, I don't think it'd damage the board at all...and if not - why not keep the remote batteries to keep time for Midnight Madness mode pins....consider, if, like me - I already have the board NVRAM'd and have the remote pack in place - if it doesn't hurt the board - then why not...
Quoted from Sonic:Mitch....that's the question, I don't think it'd damage the board at all...and if not - why not keep the remote batteries to keep time for Midnight Madness mode pins....consider, if, like me - I already have the board NVRAM'd and have the remote pack in place - if it doesn't hurt the board - then why not...
OK I see the question now.
Will batteries damage nvram and if they don't will it keep proper time.
So to answer your question.... I don't know lol
Can't you just change the time to whatever you want when you turn the game on? Takes just a few seconds. Toss the batteries.
On the advice of big JohnW that it poses no problem - I tried it....and it works...so for those that have Midnight Madness pins...if you want to NVRAM - you can keep the batteries (although remote those things or indeed what is the point) and it'll keep your time...if your forget to change them - no big wup - ain't gonna do a thing if they die....
I am kinda confused, though - not whether it's possible, but.. why?
I mean, if you're gonna have the batteries for time, why bother with the NVRAM then?
I know...but I've had instances where the remote pack dowels popped out, one of three batteries went bad, etc. in the end lost the settings...so NVRAM...but with JunkYard - it's cool to have the time showing on the DMD and playing literally at midnight...with friends/family...so doing what I just did, I don't ever have to worry about my settings...that's forever set now - but also JY can keep accurate time/date as well...remember how folks freaked out about not NVRAM'ing midnight madness pins - well there is no point to hesitate - do it, but if you want to keep the time going - just keep the batteries....
Quoted from zaza:Biggest question is, what is the power consumption of NVRAM. Is it the same as the static-RAM (1milliAmp or 100 microAmp) or does it suck the batteries empty in a week ?
Standby Current of an e.g. FM16W08 is only 20µA.
Use the service outlet and a 3.3v - 5v. wall wart supply to power the RTC. If the power goes out, the nvram still retains settings and the clock will continue when the line power comes back.
Would need tested. The RTC is really inaccurate anyways. Expect it to drift out of time pretty fast whatever solution used.
Quoted from barakandl:Would need tested. The RTC is really inaccurate anyways. Expect it to drift out of time pretty fast whatever solution used.
I really haven't seen this, while my WPC-89 RTC does run a little fast, it gains less than 1 minute a month, come CST/CDT time change it's usually not more than 5 minutes off.
Quoted from barakandl:Use the service outlet and a 3.3v - 5v. wall wart supply to power the RTC. If the power goes out, the nvram still retains settings and the clock will continue when the line power comes back.
This is a really smart, yet simple solution; I like it.
Quoted from Pin_Guy:This is a really smart, yet simple solution; I like it.
Just wired up Johnny. We'll see how it works.
I think you'd notice failure of batteries way later with NV ram, because except for the time, everything keeps working fine, so I wouldn't do both in fear of having more damage if you'd have a bad battery.
Quoted from barakandl:Use the service outlet and a 3.3v - 5v. wall wart supply to power the RTC. If the power goes out, the nvram still retains settings and the clock will continue when the line power comes back.
Would need tested. The RTC is really inaccurate anyways. Expect it to drift out of time pretty fast whatever solution used.
Before somebody does it (because I know at least a few will), note to the people who use power strips/wall switches and need to figure out why their solution is definitely not working: It won't work that way obviously
Johnny kept time overnight and the NVRAM did not scramble (i didnt expect it to).
I will take some pics with a little more info. Probably for a new thread.
Update.....just checked it - been 5 days...all is well and time was SPOT on....it's staying...I already had the batteries remoted - so why not keep it...keeps Midnight Madness on time and NVRAM takes care of everything else...
Quoted from Sonic:Update.....just checked it - been 5 days...all is well and time was SPOT on....it's staying...I already had the batteries remoted - so why not keep it...keeps Midnight Madness on time and NVRAM takes care of everything else...
How on time? I've known WPC to be pretty poor with respect to keeping time on batteries.
Fired it up and it was exactly on time after 5 days...it may drift in 3 months, but hey, it'll probably be close enough....
Quoted from hocuslocus:I installed both on Champion pub and haven't had any issues.
Why would you need it on Champ Pub though? There are less than a dozen games in all of pinball that do anything at all with the Real Time Clock, and Champion Pub isn't one of them.
No need for the risk, however small remotely mounted, if there's no benifit from it.
--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com
Which WPC games do something with the real time clock?
I know of Junkyard, Twilight zone and Scared stiff, is there anything else to add to my list?
Quoted from alienagent:Which WPC games do something with the real time clock?
I know of Junkyard, Twilight zone and Scared stiff, is there anything else to add to my list?
Congo, Dirty Harry, Johnny Mnemonic, Junkyard, NBA Fastbreak, and Who Dunnit.....I am unaware of Scared Stiff having it, nor Twilight Zone....
Quoted from barakandl:1f super cap across the nvram held time over night. i got a charge limiting resistor in there. i think it was 150 ohm
Very cool, thanks for experimenting and posting the results. I don't play my games every night, and sometimes I might go a week or more without firing them up (sad, I know). How big of a cap would be needed to hold time for a week? A month?
Quoted from alienagent:Which WPC games do something with the real time clock?
I know of Junkyard, Twilight zone and Scared stiff, is there anything else to add to my list?
I had already posted that in another thread 2 yeras ago:
Here is the list based on my experience:
WPC (Fliptronics2)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (no play of different music based on date(***))
Twilight Zone (clock on playfield does show correct time)
WPC Security (WPC-S)
Dirty Harry ("real" midnight madness)
Johnny Mnemonic ("real" midnight madness)
WHO dunnit ("real" midnight madness)
Theatre of Magic ("hermaphrodite position" - "unreal" midnight madness - does not depend on RTC, more a game feature/game mode)
WPC-95
Congo ("real" midnight madness)
Junk Yard ("real" midnight madness)
NBA Fastbreak ("real" midnight madness)
(***)
Explaination by pinside-user "TheKorn" in another thread:
"...I'm admittedly being pedantic here, but Creature's music selection is NOT based on the day of the week! (It doesn't play the same music every Monday.) It's based on the *date*. Creature has five main play tunes, and for a three ball game chooses three of them. It divides the date by five, takes the remainder, and that's the starting song for ball 1. Next ball, the next song in the list is chosen, etc. So what's played on ball 2 today will be played on ball 1 tomorrow, until the cycle repeats every *five* days. ..."
Cheers
Ingo
Quoted from snakesnsparklers:Very cool, thanks for experimenting and posting the results. I don't play my games every night, and sometimes I might go a week or more without firing them up (sad, I know). How big of a cap would be needed to hold time for a week? A month?
The standby current of a the FM16W08 is in the data sheet and it was very small. What is unknown is the current needs of the RTC inside the asic chip.
Another thing is batteries, specially lithium ones, hold there voltage pretty stable and then drops like a rock when the battery is drained. These super caps voltage drops slow and steady as the capacitance of the super cap is drained. How the RTC behaves at 2.5v vs 4.5v is unknown (to me).
Quoted from barakandl:The standby current of a the FM16W08 is in the data sheet and it was very small. What is unknown is the current needs of the RTC inside the asic chip.
Another thing is batteries, specially lithium ones, hold there voltage pretty stable and then drops like a rock when the battery is drained. These super caps voltage drops slow and steady as the capacitance of the super cap is drained. How the RTC behaves at 2.5v vs 4.5v is unknown (to me).
rough math i think says 50uA discharge rate for 1farad cap would be like 50,000 seconds(1 month) to 2.5v where the ASIC's RTC stops. If you use an ac/dc wall wart adapter to the battery plug, then you would be battery safe, line power out safe, and the RTC should never stop unless the line power goes disconnected for a month.
Quoted from barakandl:1f super cap across the nvram held time over night. i got a charge limiting resistor in there. i think it was 150 ohm
Several of us have experimented with this and more for awhile. Final conclusion is that the cap will discharge to the point of not retraining the time/date after only a couple of days, depending on capacity.
--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com
Quoted from Borygard:Several of us have experimented with this and more for awhile. Final conclusion is that the cap will discharge to the point of not retraining the time/date after only a couple of days, depending on capacity.
--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com
So use a wall wart ac to 4.5-5vdc in the service outlet to the battery connector of the MPU if must have the real time clock and nvram. Bonus points if you use a super cap to save you from times the line voltage might drop out for whatever reason.
For those that insist on having the remote battery pack, use some speaker wire and mount the pack up near the coin door for easy access, and further away from the expensive circuit boards in the event that the batteries outgas.
Or you can install a lithium button cell to the asic to maintain the clock and there you go.
Nvram and lithium button cell and you have proper RTC and saved settings. The low power drain of just the RTC will make the button cell last and last like in a pc which almost never go.
Quoted from Hawk007:Or you can install a lithium button cell to the asic to maintain the clock and there you go.
Nvram and lithium button cell and you have proper RTC and saved settings. The low power drain of just the RTC will make the button cell last and last like in a pc which almost never go.
That is unfortunately not completely correct. You cannot compare it with a PC-Motherboard.
The ASIC alone (without RAM) consumes 37,00 µA current when VBatt is 4,00 VDC.
A PC-motherboard consumes only 1,51µA when a 3-Volt-coin-cell is used; thats the reason, why coin cells there nearly live longer than the PC itsself.
Quoted from barakandl:1f super cap across the nvram held time over night. i got a charge limiting resistor in there. i think it was 150 ohm
New prototype product?
Quoted from german-pinball:That is unfortunately not completely correct. You cannot compare it with a PC-Motherboard.
The ASIC alone (without RAM) consumes 37,00 µA current when VBatt is 4,00 VDC.
A PC-motherboard consumes only 1,51µA when a 3-Volt-coin-cell is used; thats the reason, why coin cells there nearly live longer than the PC itsself.
true. poorly chosen example........ So it will not last quite as long as a pc but the main point was it will last for many years and the only con when it starts to die is the clock will keep poor time but all settings are still retained.
Best of both worlds as the boards are saved and midnight madness will occur at midnight and no AA batteries anywhere.
The RTC / ASIC is power hungry. Drained down a fully charged 1f cap to below 2.4v in about 48 hours (clock was holding, but running slow). CR2032 would be lucky to last a year.
Quoted from barakandl:... Drained down a fully charged 1f cap to below 2.4v in about 48 hours ...
maximum 48 hours
Quoted from barakandl:.... CR2032 would be lucky to last a year.
absolute maximum
Two 25F ultracaps should last longer, but too expensive.
Quoted from Borygard:Why would you need it on Champ Pub though? There are less than a dozen games in all of pinball that do anything at all with the Real Time Clock, and Champion Pub isn't one of them.
No need for the risk, however small remotely mounted, if there's no benifit from it.
--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com
oh, why did I install batteries. I have it in a public location so when someone hits pub champ it lets others know when (not a huge deal). I installed the ram chip because I didn't want the high scores resetting every time I swapped batteries.
might not be worth the risk, but wasn't thinking that at the time.
Quoted from hocuslocus:I installed the ram chip because I didn't want the high scores resetting every time I swapped batteries.
..Uh.. Turn game on. Swap batteries. No high-scores lost.
11 days with NVRAM and remote battery pack in conjunction....time/date - spot on...to the minute...fyi...
Quoted from Sonic:11 days with NVRAM and remote battery pack in conjunction....time/date - spot on...to the minute...fyi...
Just stick a standard $2 6264 SRAM in it and use the $15 FeRAM based NVRAM in a game with out a clock. I don't get the point of NVRAM at that point.
NVRAM + a 5v wall wart plugged into the battery connector makes more sense. Batteries are the worst.
Andrew - You're thinking too hard...I had the board NVRAM'd..then remembered JY has midnight madness - so I thought, well I already have the remote battery holder - all the way out to the coin door - with lithium batteries in it - so why not leave it to keep the clock rolling....if I lose power or the batteries go - nothing but the time is lost...in the meanwhile - time is kept and I didn't have to do anything more than what I had in place already...that's it really....figured for those that had concerns over midnight madness could double up if they felt it was needed, But make no mistake - I'm not biased one way or the other - I just wanted to see if it'd work and report it....
Could someone summarize when and why the time information kept by the machine is lost when using NVRAM? Is it every time the machine is powered off?
Quoted from snyper2099:Could someone summarize when and why the time information kept by the machine is lost when using NVRAM?
The RTC - real time clock - needs power to operate. NVRAM doesn't.
So, by plugging in NVRAM and removing batteries, when you turn the game off, the clock 'stops'. The time is remembered, once you power the game back on, the RTC resumes where it left off (when you turned game off..)
I'm pro-battery, but I also make sure I check them whenever I clean/wax my playfield, so.. Apparently, noone else does this, and are at risk of losing their MPU.
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