"A shooting star leaping through the sky like a tiger, defying the laws of gravity."

My switch matrix is done! (Well, mostly. I still have some questions about how the drop targets work, but I'll see if I can't work it out.)

Unfortunately, testing the switch matrix doesn't lend itself to a cool video like the light matrix, so I'll drop a few artsy photos of my wiring instead. It may look like a mess up close, but it makes sense to me.

Also: two-tiered cable ties, copyright TopMoose 2016 ©

P9120406 (resized).JPG

P9120404 (resized).JPG

P9120401 (resized).JPG

P9120402 (resized).JPG

P9120396 (resized).JPG

Coils and flash lamps are wired! White wire for positive, black for negative. I ordered 25 feet of each and blew right through it with no problem. So I went out and bought 25 more feet of each and used it all up in a couple of hours. It took one more trip to the store and now I'm done and have some line left over to connect to the circuit boards when the time comes. But I'll probably need to make a fourth and final wire run.

I discovered in all this that hardware stores generally don't carry wire smaller than 14 AWG. I had to go to an auto parts store to find a match for the 18 I was using.

Here's how the underside of the playfield looks now:

P9180407 (resized).JPG

I also took time to finish the various bundles with Molex connectors. The six plugs pictured are for light rows, light columns, switch rows, switch columns, positive coils and negative coils. The four row and column connections are color-coded with red, yellow, blue and green zip ties throughout the game.

The two loose wires are for the general illumination and will connect directly to the power supply, rather than the lamp boards.

P9180409 (resized).JPG

Here's an update on the cost so far.

Playfield: $250
Marco Order #1: $34.99
Pinball Life order #1: $20.35
Marco Order #2: $54.18
Donor game: $400
Clearcoat & hardener: $126.38
Playfield graphics: $86.14
Clearcoating supplies: $123.98
Veneer: 20.91
Cabinet decals: 301.74
Pinball Life order #2: 210.78
Titan Pinball order: $61.17
Plastics: $91.65
Wire & connectors: $232.78
Electronic components: $115.04

Total: $2130.09

Today I got started re-wiring the cabinet by removing all the existing wires. The cabinet switches were part of the original switch matrix, so there were a lot of wires running back and forth between the cabinet and the playfield, but in my design, the cabinet switches are all dedicated, separate from the matrix, making things a lot simpler.

Since this will be a strictly home-use, free-play-only machine, I was able to simplify further by eliminating a lot of the switches entirely - no need for working coin mechs, slam tilt or roll tilt. That left me with just four switches - two flipper buttons, the credit button and the bob tilt.

I also replaced the original 1978 two-prong plug with a modern 3-prong version. With that simple change, the power cord could stay intact as well as all the existing interior power setup. The line goes into the cabinet, through a simple relay, through a utility plug, to the toggle switch, and out a simple pair of wires, which will feed my power supplies and put out the correct voltages for my components.

P9240411 (resized).JPG

P9240413 (resized).JPG

P9240414 (resized).JPG

Today's chore is to clean out the backbox, removing all the old circuit boards and gently storing them in anti-static plastic bags to sell off later. Now I'm just left with the wiring harness (which is attached to the displays, which I'd like to keep) and a few mounting brackets.

Here's the before and after:

P9250423 (resized).JPG

P9250424 (resized).JPG

Important question: What's the best way to mount my new circuit boards in the backbox? I'm thinking I can drill through the thin sheet metal into the wood and use screws with nylon standoffs.

Would it be better to try to re-mount and re-use the existing brackets?

Should I spring for a P-ROC with the bracket already attached?

Thoughts?

Wellllll... s#&%.

Minor setback. It turns out I overthought some of my wiring - I thought I needed a positive and negative wire for each coil and direct switch to plug into the circuit boards, but it turns out that the coils should all be wired to one node in series with the other node for each going into the boards. I was able to take out about 60 feet of cable, simplifying the inside of the cabinet.

Also, I discovered that I could control all 11 of my coils with a single driver board if I took the flasher lamp out of the mix. Luckily, I have an open spot on the lamp matrix, so I replaced the two flasher sockets with three 5v lamps and wired them into the matrix.

In other good news, I've learned that my circuitry is on its way! This phase is coming together and I hope to make some good progress this weekend.

P9280426 (resized).JPG

P9270425 (resized).JPG

Today's activity is to construct the power supply.

What you're looking at below is the main 120V line coming in from the cabinet switch, through a 15 amp fuse to the high-voltage power unit on the left and the low-power unit on the right. The high power line (which should be about 48V) goes out through an 8 amp fuse and the low voltage line (which should put out about 5V) goes out through a 4 amp fuse.

So I attached the connectors, got everything set up and plugged in the machine... so far so good.

Then I flipped the cabinet switch... and the power units came whirring to life!
Power indicators lit!
Fuses didn't blow!

SUCCESS!

PA010427 (resized).JPG

By the way, that's the same piece of wood I used for my clearcoat tests last Spring.

But here's the thing...

I got out my multimeter to check the output of each power unit and couldn't get a reading.
Cables are plugged into the right spots, the dial is turned to DC voltage ("20" for the low power, "200" for the high power)
Positive to positive, negative to negative.

The reading for both lines consistently reads 1_.__

I've tried adjusting the little screw on each unit that fine tunes the voltage, but the readout never changes.

What am I doing wrong?

The most difficult thing about this phase of construction is waiting for parts to arrive.
But today... progress!

PA080430 (resized).JPG

PA080431 (resized).JPG

This far into the project, I can offer some advice. Tackling a full re-theme or designing a new game is possible if you're at least one of three things:

1. An experienced electrical engineer
2. A computer programmer
3. An artist or have experience with cabinet & playfield repair.

I am an artist - the least valuable of the three - but I've figured out the electrical stuff and have just started exploring the programming, with zero experience in any programming language. The technical jargon you'll encounter is dizzying and you'll have to deal with people who are thinking on a different plane, who assume you have the same expertise they do. It helps if you have no deadline, know how to do an effective Google search, and enjoy the creative process.

The three P-ROC boards together cost about $575 and the (as yet uninstalled) Raspberry Pi was $35, but the little expenses - wire, connectors, crimps, solder - really add up. I'm going to add another $100 lamp matrix board once I Figure out my display issues and backbox setup. (Both P-ROC and Mission Pinball are set up only for DMD displays but I want to dumb it down and use solid state LED's or maybe alphanumerics.)

If you go with P-ROC, download and read all the documentation carefully ahead of time. Same with Mission Pinball software - read through the tutorials to get a sense of how it works before you start the project. As I've mentioned, Flash is the ideal re-theme candidate. Good luck with your project!

I'm keeping track of the cost to show that a custom game can be made way cheaper than a NIB. At the moment I'm a few steps from my first flips at roughly half the cost of a GB Pro.

I did all the artwork myself.

PA140433 (resized).JPG

Jeezy creezy what a weekend.
I made some progress but met roadblocks at every. Step. Of. The. Way.
And to make things more of a challenge, anyone who could help me on the various forums was preoccupied at Expo, so I was essentially on my own.

Boards are installed but the P-ROC wasn't getting 12v power.
Once I figured that out, I couldn't install the hardware drivers.
Once I figured that out, the P-ROC wouldn't connect to my computer.
Once I figured that out, I didn't know the programming protocols for switches and coils.
Once I figured that out, only one switch is recognized and doesn't do anything on the machine.

... And suddenly it's late at night on a Sunday and time for bed.

I'll keep plugging away, but I hope things get easier.

Oh, yes. They are very aware of me on both the P-ROC and MPF forums.

Big thanks to Pinsider bonnevil69 for walking me through a few issues and getting me to this point!

It's one loose bulb and the flipper bat needs to be tightened. It took a staggering amount of work to get to this point - thanks for undermining my achievement with minutia.

So my flippers are functional - and now the "virtual EOS switches" are even working, so they'll cradle a ball - and I've spent the better part of two days trying to get the rest of my switches to register. Most needed a filing and a leaf adjustment, but weird things were still going on. Mostly, when one switch made contact it also registered the switch from two columns away. But I pinpointed the problem and discovered that a resistor was arcing the slingshot switches, causing them to register whenever any switch in their respective row or column was triggered.

Then, none of my Row 3 switches would register, so I traced the problem back, tightened the connectors, reflowed some solder that looked iffy, and replaced the connector that links to the P-ROC. Now the Row 3 switches are working fine!... but the row 1 switches are all out.

Enough for one day.

Can someone put me in touch with this guy? I have all the questions.

It plays! And I have an attract mode light show!
Everything works, except I'm still working on getting the drop targets to re-set during a game when they're complete.

Because I'm using 5 volt power to light LEDs that are designed for 6.3 volts, the inserts were looking a little dim. Especially using naturally-dimmer colored bulbs under already-tinted inserts. My solution?

Quasars.

These are the brightest bulbs available - only in cool white with clear domes - and when they're given full power, they'll practically sear your retinas off. But with only 5 volts, they look really good and cut through the opaque inserts with no problem. The new bulbs arrived today from Comet Pinball and I made this video to show them off. Enjoy!

The game now has three sub-modes working - secondary features that will run alongside the main objective modes and add to the scoring.

Next comes the interesting part, where I get to program the various games this machine will play!

With the sub-modes taken care of, I feel like I'm getting the hang of how MPF works. But before I get into creating the serious modes, I need to take a short break to attend to some work I've been neglecting and make some end-of-year business trips. The real world interferes yet again with pinball.

But I wanted to share with everyone my plan for how the game will work. Here's a flowchart showing how I envision a game going:

GameFlowChart2 (resized).jpg

Basically, upon starting a game, the player is taken right into a Menu Mode, where he or she can choose a song. Each song has its own objective and, when the objective is complete, they'll lock the ball in the saucer and one of the three red lights in the center of the playfield lights. Completing any three songs leads to a timed mode where every shot is worth a large amount.

Completing each song awards the player a different amount of time in the wizard mode, depending on the difficulty of the objective. It also increases scoring of one game feature during the wizard mode so, while you could play "Fat Bottom Girls" three times to get to the bonus round, it would be a greater scoring advantage to choose, say, "Bicycle Race," "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Killer Queen" to get a diverse set of scoring opportunities.

As I said early on, I want this machine to be a sort of "EM Multicade" and you'll notice that "Don't Stop Me Now" is based on Fun Land, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is based on Golden Arrow, "Under Pressure" is a countdown game like Travel Time and "Killer Queen" (which will be the most challenging to program) is basically like Bongo, Hot Line or OXO.