These are pretty sweet, I might need to get a set for my pacman pinball
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Quoted from jturner:Just finished up the display mask - not sure if I like it yet - though I think it dresses it up a bit in bright light.
6 digit is in my mask folder - let me know what you think they are 10mm deep now - I might do them 5 deep instead
You can see the difference from my earlier post photo
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I'm actually looking into getting a laser cutter and making these out of Eva foam. If you have a picture of the 5mm and the 10mm taken at an angle so I can see how well they each block the light I'll order some supplies.
Quoted from AlanJ:I'm retired, so got 18 hours a day to fill ! Plus I've got so much great feedback on these that's I just can't stop working on them.
The only frustration at the moment is waiting for more part and new boards to arrive.
Yes, I'm really looking forward to getting these in every early bally machine I own. These are exactly the displays I was looking for my collection. I really think it's what's the early machines have been missing all along to really customize them while not having to physically change the machine.
Quoted from AlanJ:Be careful with the Micro SD card reader boards, some batches don't work. I had to return a batch, all faulty. Test one before you solder in the other 35!
Also the ESP32s 30-pin dev boards - there are several variants, the cheaper versions use cheaper, lower spec CH340C or CH9102X rather than the CP2102 USB to UART chip. Having said that, that chip is only used in this application when initially flashing the firmware, so any of them will be fine. You may need to install drivers for them though.
I'm waiting on the sd card readers. Hopefully they aren't junk.
Williams display hardware is identical from sys 3 to 6. It changed at system 6a/7 to allow 7 digit scoring. But the hardware used for 6 digit scoring was all the same as was the later hardware 7 digit scoring. So it's basically just 2 systems.
Quoted from AlanJ:The Williams games are "easier" in some respect, because they have a central display controller which outputs to the 4 player and 1 CMBIP displays. So from my point of view, only need a single Arduino, but with more data signal to input and output.
On the downside, the Williams hardware changed more often than Bally's did. I'm not a Williams expert but I recall the displays changed somewhere between sys 6 and sys 7 - one has the CMBIP on the master board and the other took it off board? So at least two different hardware designs will be needed for that. I think the control signals to the two units look very similar, if not identical.
I guess the majority of games are sys 3-6? So that's probably the place to start?
The data looks very similar to bally - with BCD data and then digit strobes. The williams ones are not latched, the ballys are. That might make things easier or harder
Bally has 7 digit select lines and 4 BCD lines, a latch and a blanking line. Williams has 16 digit strobe lines, multiplexed to make 24 players score digits and 4 CMBIP digits, then it has 2 sets of 4 BCD lines & a single blanking line.
Your first job will be to hook up an arduino to those input lines and read the data, interpret it and display the scores back onto the arduino serial monitor. That's where I started with bally. You learn a lot by just looking at what the game is pumping out by way of data signals.
If you can get to that stage then can discuss board design options. EasyEDA is a great free board designer.
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