Hi all, I have maintained a small waiting list of (very patient!) folks interested in a mini-saucer LED kit for their AFMr. Today I posted an update, and it's on my website: www.ufopinball.com.

My apologies for having put this aside for so long. Life has been super busy, and some side projects took more time than I expected.

Note that this is mainly a work-in-progress, and I am looking for feedback from interested parties, so I hope this doesn't run afoul of forum rules. Nothing is for sale at this time.

Anyway, please check it out, and let me know what you think?

Thanks all,
Bill Ung

Probably best to just read the webpage, but the hope is to be ready in 2020 ... however that may depend on how well we do at COVID-19 containment.

Hi all ... I made the mini-saucer LED Kit for the original AFM, and have been s-l-o-w-l-y working on the AFMr edition. My apologies (as always) for the delay, but I've actually made a lot of progress in the last ~2 months. I just don't get out here to Pinside very often.

Basically, we're in pre-production on the AFMr edition of the AFM kits that I have offered over the years. If you're unfamiliar, my kit adds LEDs to the six mini-saucers on the playfield. They're single-color, not dual-color like AFMr. They also display various LED patterns in a more independent fashion than AFMr, which has a more tight integration with the AFMr light-show patterns. This also includes things like the Hallway LEDs under the mothership in the attack hallway, as well as other features (see the video in the link below). There are different price points depending on which features you are interested in.

For more information, check out the AFMr status page: http://www.ufopinball.com/AFMr-Kit/about.htm

I'll try to be more of a presence out here to answer questions.

Best wishes,
Bill Ung (UFO Pinball)

Yes, you can order the Plus or Full kits without the mini-saucer component. Details and pricing is in the same link: http://www.ufopinball.com/AFMr-Kit/about.htm

There’s also a video at the top that shows what the various features are. It’s the AFM edition of the video, but the features are the same.

I added numbers to help answer your questions.

Questions 1, 2 and 3: YES

Question 4: Yes ... how that works on AFM is when you reach Super Jets, the orange insert in the middle of the jets starts flashing. My mod makes the individual jets GI lamps display a "chase" pattern. During SJ, then the orange insert flashes brightly whenever a jet bumper is hit. I'm not sure if AFMr is any different, but so far it looks like they're the same?

Regarding EVO LED pops, I have not tried them at all, and I don't know how they affect anything. On the hardware end, I just add a FET to control DC voltage. So during the SJ "chase" mode, it sounds like the EVO units will lose power intermittently during the chase effect. I'm not sure how that will look.

Question 5: On AFM, there are three GI strands in the backglass (brown, green and purple). Of those three, only brown is controlled by the CPU, both green and purple are hardwired as "always on". As I understand it, AFMr is wired the same way. My board (in both cases) adds controlling hardware to be able to switch on/off the green and purple GI strands. Any additional animations on AFM consist of six flasher bulbs. I'm not sure if AFMr does this any differently, my kits do not interface with those flashers.

Question 6: It seems AFMr primarily runs on +12v power. The Power Supply Unit (PSU) did not have any +5v outputs that I could find. While there is +5v power in some places in the game, I have no idea what the available amperage rating is, or if it's always available. It seemed far more reliable to include my own PSU to provide +5v power for my kits.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,
Bill

Send me

Question 3: I see you have saucer LEDs, so you're an LE owner? If you buy the LE edition, there are no mini-saucer LEDs included since they're not needed. I also don't touch the flashers, so that's pretty much an entire mini-saucer. If I'm misunderstanding the question/concern, please let me know.

Question 4: I'll look forward to seeing a video of it all hooked up!

Question 5: My board will intercept the 3-pin (2-wire) connectors on the lightbox itself. I considered doing the all-in-one connector in the backbox, but that one is pretty big and I still have to preserve all the other signals when I splice my way in. The effect will control the green and the purple LED strips. There will be more backglass "flicker" when the Mothership sustains damage and/or is destroyed.

Question 6: There's an open 4-pin connection in the backbox which provides +12v and GND. There seems to be some variation on open ports, depending on if you have a topper, so there may be a bit more research to do for LE/topper customers. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, but it should be fully doable.

Hope this answers all your questions, let me know if I missed something...

Bill

With a name like "Mr_Tantrum", how can you go wrong?

Okay, I see where the confusion is coming in. Yes, the "blackout" only refers to mini-saucers that I provide. It wasn't a feature on the original kit, mainly because it wasn't a feature I was thinking of at the time. Many years later, I decided to add the feature, but if I was going to do that, what else could I possibly add? The Super Jets animation, backglass animation, and "Hallway" LEDs were part of the new feature package. That said:

#3 - The LE version of my mods do not modify the AFMr LE mini-saucer LEDs in any way.
#4 - Don't hold out on me!
#5 & 6 - (thumbs_up.gif)
#7 - Yes, that's correct.
#8 - Currently, we're in pre-production. My goal is to have some product in the latter half of summer. This project has taken *years* longer than I had planned, so ... ummm, wish me luck? In case it matters, the full kit is 97% ready, design-wise. There are still some software tweaks, but the hardware part is effectively complete.