certainly a flash gorden

FlashGordonScapinoV3_0_4x3[1].jpg

I'm normally against re-themes (killing off an original), but with 10,000 made, and the playfield being notorious for wear and bad paint, I can't say I'm too sad to see it put to good use. I'm dying to know if you managed to finagle a way to change the sounds through a separate board? Also how the heck did you keep this a secret for an entire year?

I'm going to guess you used this:
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10628

If so, that makes it pretty straight forward for sounds (switches are hit, press a button on the board to play a sound). I'm curious how you handle the music. Seems like it changes music for each ball, then also changes when the game is over. How do you tell it which ball your on?

Ahh.. So if you have a set number of balls (3), you could always have the same sequence (as long as your on a pin that doesn't have ball save for non-score). Since this is a re-themed early solid state, it wouldn't have that.

Makes me want to find a working pin with a trashed playfield now

better to be safe. In fact, I wouldn't recommend ever selling the one for copywright reasons.

Wow, really that cheap? I assume licensing varies depending on application, but yea.. I mean, it makes sense why stern does licenses, that's a drop in the bucket. Of course it also has to be a hassle to get things approved rather than having total creative freedom.

two things:
1. I found a source that could print that translite at half cost (not that $50 is a lot). Plus if they've dealt with translites before, they might have better knowledge about transparancies, half-tone shading, and back mask
2. You mention that the MP3 trigger can handle playing random sounds (rather than specified ones). I've been reading up the user manual, and I assumed that meant that if you have 18 channels, then you have one trigger but 18 random sounds. Does that actually mean you can have 18 channels, and you can multiple random sounds to each channel? I thought you had to run an arduino with some code to do that, or are you using arduino?

I don't want to offend, but this seems high? I've gotten quotes for vinyl printing for less than $60, and translite (backlit printing) for less than $40 (I can get my own glass). I only know because I actually do have a re-theme project and looked into it.

I've been playing with mine for a few days. I've got a power plug, headers soldered in. I'm gonna try to do a video tomorrow morning and post a very rough demo so others can see how easy it is. I think once you see it in action, it'll make a lot more sense. I'm really surprised there are nearly no youtube videos on this subject.

I've yet messed with programming it through the serial port yet so I can do random banks of sounds

do you have version 1 or 2? Mine was set by default to play once. Does yours have the little test knob on top (press down to start, press again to stop, click right to go up a track, click left to go back a track)?

Didn't get around to doing a video this morning, will try tonight.

I think there needs to be a sticky thread (like Vid does) that lays this out, I think more people would be apt to try it if they saw a good demo video.

Hunted around last night, apparently the cable you need to hook up with USB is called an FTDI cable:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9718

I believe these can be had for cheaper, that's just one example. Only reason you'd need the usb cable is if you want to update the firmware on the chip (new code). It's possible chichlid has an old firmware that has looping on by default.

I bought connectors to make my own cables, not realizing that .100" pitch is the standard header on most PC's, so probably easier to buy these cables pre-made (if you've ever built your own computer, it's like the thin wires you hook up for power switch, reset switch, HDD light, etc).

For power I'm using a 5v wall plug from a D-link router ($6 on amazon). I intend on simply plugging it into the extra outlet nside the cabinet. What's nice is this board will handle 4.5-12V input making it quite flexible. I don't recommend hacking a usb cable to give you 5V since it draws 650mah (I got a new error message that says my usb is exceeding power limits). I could have blown my computer's usb chip by being impatiently stupid

The mp3 .INI file (search around, there are example files you can copy into a text editor) goes onto the micro SD card for instructions (like volume control, random tracks, etc). Only way for you to access 512 banks of sounds with full control is through arduino (not ready to go down that path just yet, but nice that it supports it, and arduino kit is less than $30).

It's amazing the old one only had 7 channels, now we get 18 for the same price.

that's good to know! I need to update my firmware to the latest then.

*edit* Ok, I get it now, I see the looping audio. If you wire it up to switches with power off, works just fine. Turn on the power, looping audio. I guess this makes sense since there's live voltage of between 2-4V through ground, and this device is triggered by 3.3-5V. I'm racking my brain how to isolate each switch from this powerline?

Trying to bump this thread. Measured the voltage coming out of the trigger inputs, sure enough 3.3v, no wonder why it's getting triggered over and over. I spose if I have 4v on the line, and I use the right value resistor to drop it to 2v, this should solve it? But then is it going to jump back to 4v when the switch is activated?

I'm getting that voltage from the lines running on the switches while it's in attract mode or playing a game. Didn't get a chance this weekend to see if the voltage changes when the switch is activated (which it would have to in order to detect a switch is pressed), or see if any of my other pins have this same issue.