After several months of this project sitting on the shelf, I finally have a fully functioning prototype of my MetPro rising cross mod. It is a few 3D printed parts, a servo, and a control board. It's plug and play as far as connecting to the target opto board and the cross LED. It needs a few tweaks and a lot of play testing before I call it done, but I was excited to share a video of it in action. As of right now I am not taking orders or keeping a list of the interested. This will change when I get closer to final design. Happy to answer any questions and take feedback.

Thanks! I have not decided on price. It won't be the cheapest, nor the most expensive mod you have put on the game. How's that for vague?

I need to go through another PCB design and probably some adjustments to the cad models or material choices depending on how the extended play testing goes (ie how things wear or break after prolonged use).

Oh and I was asked if I blasphemously replaced the stock songs with the Sex Pistols The answer is no, it was on in the background while taking the videos. The game volume was all the way down. Also that buzzing you hear in the last half of the video was from holding the flipper to keep the ball search from going crazy. The servo is effectively silent.

Yeah it's a bummer. The exchange rate has not been kind to our friends up north for a while. The good news is that there is still time to save your pennies.

It's triggered from the last drop target and the LED in the cross. Yes it will work with or without the TLS mod. I have TLS on my machine.

A couple of people have asked for an update on this project. General summary is that things are going well with no major issues. I am at least 5 weeks out from having something to send out to my first play testers. More details for the curious;

1) I have been play testing quite a bit. Like a dummy I haven't kept an official record of # of plays, but it is at least one hundred and counting. The good news, nothing has broken and the mechanical bits continue to work exactly as expected. This is important as I wasn't sure how the material or design would hold up to pinball use. So far, so good. I think I can call the physical design pretty much done. If I get a chance I might try to downsize the servo used. I think the one I am using now is overkill.

2) It rises correctly 90% of the time. For the remaining 10% my trigger logic gets confused by events and scenarios other than the start of the Cross MB. I have some coding work ahead to fix this. It never gets stuck in the wrong state, meaning it will right itself during normal play. It is only confused temporarily. That is good news. Also it goes down 100% correctly, so that is also good news.

3) I am redesigning the PCB for compactness and to ease assembly. I need to finish the deisgn, send it out for fab and then retest. This will be my long pole lead time. This is probably 4-6 weeks out (~2.5 weeks just waiting for boards to comeback). If I screw something up, it will tack on more weeks.

4) I am still not set on where the board will mount. I had a a good plan, but then realized part of the stock harness that plugs into my board doesn't look like it will reach. There is still more fiddling here to figure it out, but it's good activity while I wait for PCBs to come back.

5) More play testing. My plan right now is once I am happy with the above, I'll find a couple willing local MetPro owners to be first testers. I want more test time on this to feel better about it.

Man time flies doesn't it?? This project has been shelved for a little bit. I still have a few small things to wrap up before it is in a sellable form. From my list above I would say 1, 3, and 5 are done. So it's down to software fixes to eliminate the false triggers and some kind of better mounting. I would rather it not come to a janky zip tie solution but it just might. I have continued to play test and bash the crap out of it. So far it's holding up just fine. Consider the delay just additional reliability testing.

Not off the face of the Earth! Pretty much same state with prototype still getting exercised. The continued interest sure helps with motivation to drag this across the finish line. I really enjoy this on my game, I am sure you all will too... eventually

I appreciate the poking and prodding gentlemen! <inset Michael Scott line here>

At one point Marco had a semi complete mech kit. I bought one then after understanding the additional parts needed, I got frustrated enough to make my own mech. I have the part numbers and details somewhere in the met owners thread of you want to explore that route. I have only seen that kit for sale that one time.

The other question is with Timebandit disappearing, I don't know how you would add the functionality to TLS. From what he told me, it took some additional changes.

When I have this ready, it will be a plug and play kit regardless of your other mods.

For those curious, this is what the kit looks like at the moment (minus some screws). I have an idea on how I want to mount the PCB, so probably one more printed part to design.

PXL_20210808_171325427~2 (resized).jpg

Also, my hillbilly monstrosity. Good for both pre assembly, chip direct, or in-circuit programming.

PXL_20210808_173026771~2 (resized).jpg

Damn straight! haha

Some good news on progress! I was inspired to tackle one of my remaining two issues; the PCB mounting. The difficulty was that two of the connectors from the harness that my control board needs (the plug to the inline target opto board and the cross LED) come from different areas of the harness. They are only just long enough to meet in one common area for my board to live. Think of it like a minimally overlapping venn diagram. I thought about cutting zip ties and rerouting parts of the harness or building my own extension harnesses. Neither of which I was very keen on. I also was trying to minimize the amount of mounting hardware and wanted to avoid putting more holes into the playfield. I am proud to say that I figured out a way achieve all of my design goals and came up with a clever place that this thing can live.

In the end, I designed three new 3d printed parts that attaches the PCB to the backside of the cross magnet mount. I am quite proud of this one

PXL_20210811_050938425 (resized).jpg
PXL_20210811_051048378 (resized).jpg

The hex cavity fits over the magnet core jam nut leaving the threads of the core exposed.

PXL_20210811_051227637 (resized).jpg

The knob wheel screws down on the exposed thread from the magnet core and locks it into place.

PXL_20210811_051345299 (resized).jpg

Ha. No, I am not making a bunch of these behind the scenes. I did however add a new 3d printer to my print farm in anticipation of the demand (which brings the grand total up to 2 functioning machines ). I do expect there to be quite a few folks wanting to add this to their pros.

One piece of sour news to report is that while looking at ordering more parts to build my first handful of kits, I found that 2 (out of 3 total!) parts I need for my controller board are all victim of the Covid parts disruption and are on extended backorder. I have a crummy back-up plan that might allow me to still build a few before the end of the year, but that is to be seen.

I still have some code improvements to work on to eliminate the rare false cross raisings. The good news is I am taking a decent chunk of time off from my day job next month. Fingers crossed that I can wrap that all up then.

I appreciate all the kind words and the enthusiasm.

Yes there has been! I will start to have these available around the new year.

I rewrote the control code and finally solved my last false triggering bug that would cause the cross to go up at the end of the ball about 10% of the time. As I mentioned, I am running into the chip shortage. The micro controller that I use is backorded until Jan'23! My workaround right now is to cannibalize arduino boards and use those parts. The cost is higher and it does take time to depop, but there isn't really any other alternatives. Who knows how long the arduinos will still be available, but for now I have enough parts to make a few of these.

I don't think I'll need any beta testing after all. I am not keeping any lists. When the time comes, I'll make it clear how to put in your order and fill them as they come in.

yeah no worries, just keeping things clear

Thanks everyone for hanging in with me. I'm looking to have the first couple available in a week or so. Initial price will be $180 shipped. I'll update when I am ready to take orders.

Chip supply is still a challenge. I have enough parts on hand to build maybe 15 or so. Once I get a few out in the wild and I can start collecting feedback, I think I'll have a better idea what the demand is going to look like.

I'm looking to have a more formal, self-service way to handle the interest list. I am generally terrible at keeping track of names from PMs, email and forum posts

Sorry purple sparkle glow in the dark was a 1/1 secret santa special. The rest will be "Self Titled" black color.

And yeah funny enough MrMike is actively helping me fix up my broken webpage. I'll use that to collect the initial interest list.

Ok...the time has come. Go here, create an account, then put your name on the interest list. https://www.robtune.com/product/metallica-pro-rising-cross/

Big thanks to mikespins for all the help standing up my site. It would probably be another year wait if not for him

Dang you are all are a bunch of busy beavers! I have more than enough on the list to burn through the parts I have on hand. I'll start looking for alternative part sources for the next batch.

Also thanks for the error reports. I am working to fix the account issues. The site will go offline for a bit.

I have enough parts to make 15 or so. I'll go through the list (which is something like 26 right now) and notify those above that cutoff directly in the next day or two. I have the first three sets completed and will also be getting those out here shortly.

Should be all fixed now. Thanks again Mike!

SuperMike FTW. For any more website/list issus, please PM or email me directly.

Sorry for the hickups folks. Good thing I am better at engineering than I am at web stuff...egads!

I just sent out a bulk confirmation email blast. If you didn't get one and expected one, PM please.

Sort of?...but that's not the right phrasing. Let me try to be more clear.

Batch #1 <---- We are here
Limited to the parts on hand looks to be about 15 crosses.
Will be building these over the next few weeks.
Will be sold based on order of the interest list submissions.
Invoice for payment request will go out. No Preorders taken.
Introductory price of $180 shipped
Figure out how to get more parts for follow-on builds. Chips I need are the challenge.
Will be taking user feedback on any issues found on early builds

Batch #2 <--- maybe end of Oct if I am lucky?
Will open up orders to the remainder of the interest list.
Orders taken as fast as I can make them (spoiler alert, not that fast)
Price will go up some. Amount TBD.
Broader mod announcement once I get through the pent up demand.

Good call out. Gmail seems more inclinded than not to filter these out.

Just set my password. Looking forward to putting this mod in my pro!

I admit I was a little confused when I saw your name on the interest list lol

Yes I will share this.

Also, I have turned off the interest list as I now have after one day way over (40!) what I can provide in the first build. There is now a simple notify when back in stock email sign up.

Yeah, I totally understand. It must be the least fun part about living in Canada.

I prefer to hope for never at all. It's not 100% preventable of course, but it is much more difficult without support for blatent knock-offs from this small tight-nit community. Certainly a bigger topic deserving of it's on thread and discussion.

Oh no! I am trying to bring joy, not anxiety!

I haven't sent out any emails. My plan is to just share the full ordered interest list. I am not exactly sure where the cuttoff will be. It depends on how well I can scrounge parts and if I have any part failures. Fifteen is my target, but it could could end up a +/- a couple from there.

The first three orders have been sent out.

The install instructions include a pre-flight test. I am posting that section below in case anybody wants go through it ahead of time. Interestingly enough, both guys that have installed this mod found issues with their cross LED flasher that they didn't know about. One was a bad solder joint on the flasher socket itself, the second one Hangry and I are still chasing it down. Just a note that the wedge style 12v flashers that the cross uses are not that common so I wouldn't expect a lot people to have a spare floating around.

Pre-Flight Testing

In order to help troubleshoot any issues after installation, it’s important to get a baseline of the game before you start. The cross rising mod relies on the LED flasher that is inside the cross and the last grave drop down target to determine when to rise. Go into the game test menu and verify both are working before attempting to install the mod.

LED cross flasher
In the service menu, select: DIAG -> FLASH LAMP MENU-> SINGLE FLASH LAMP TEST -> GRAVE MARKER L.E.D. FLASHER #19, ORG / VIO-ORG
With the coin door closed, press the start button to activate the flasher. If the cross doesn’t flash, it will need to be fixed before continuing. Possible causes may be a dead bulb, a bad wiring harness (most likely on the cross side), or a bad Q19 transistor.
If the LED needs to be replaced, be aware it is a 12v wedge type flasher LED. NOT a standard 6v GI LED.
Grave drop target
In the service menu, select: DIAG -> SWITCH MENU -> SWITCH TEST
With the playfield up, manually drop the targets from below. Verify that the last target switch changes state when it is dropped and raised back up again. You won’t be able to see the DMD, but you will hear the sound that indicates a change in switch state. Again, if it doesn’t test as expected, this will need to be resolved before continuing with the mod.

Damn straight!

Too funny. Maybe you should find out where KJL went for vacation, he sounds pretty relaxed.

Moved here;
https://www.robtune.com/cross-mod-installation/

Four more ready to ship. When your name is up, I'll send an invoice to pay via email. Double check that you have a shipping address (right now valid is US and non-WA) or you will be unable make payment. If you get stuck, just send me a PM.

Pre-order list is captured here;
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sla52pUV5WYc98YUBRwM1XTXbqYRH7fv76wNRT_KkaY/edit?usp=sharing

Yeah but we are seven closer now, so it's like you are #29!

Not to worry! To ease your paranoia, I give a very generious 35 seconds to respond to the invoice before bumping people off the list

I think you should cut your vacation short before it melts away in the package....that or forward it on to digitaldocc. He sounds more serious about adding it to his game haha.

Nice! I'd love to hear how the install went and if there is any feedback on the install instructions. Also any reviews of the mod itself would be great to see as more of these are getting out.

Instructions say 3 screws holding the cross mount to the PF and 2 screws holding the cross to the mount.

Are you saying this was different for your game?

If my connector parts show up as expected, I'll have more crosses to send out early next week. It is too bad Great Plains Electronics shutdown. I had to split my orders across multiple sources. It adds cost and pain...ugh. The long lead time chips are supposed to show up late December. That's when I'll start builds for the phase 2 (that's what I called it right??) pre-order 15-40 folks.

Awesome. Gald you like it. I have played on mine for about 2 years and it hasn't broken. It also recently made it through 3 days at the NWPAS.

The one thing to be careful is your scores going south. Once installed, you end up completely focused on grave MB just to watch the cross go up and down

Four more ready to go.

bobbyconover
digitaldocc
THEFOZ
Flapper69

Check your emails!

Go here and add yourself to be notified when stock is available.
https://www.robtune.com/product/metallica-pro-rising-cross/

-Rob

Two more crosses ready to go;

Grizlyrig
snakesnsparklers

Two additional updates;
1) After a few days of payment request I don't hear back from someone, I will cancel their order and move down the list.
2) I forgot to add the ziptie to the last few packages. Oops.

After 40 it will just be stock as available on the product page. If you are signed up for notification, you will part of the email blast.

Thanks for the kind words and posting the video! That's a really good point about the zip tie orientation on the guide post. I added that later so the original in my game does not have one. I didn't think about the buckle part of the zip tie catching on the bottom of the playfield. I'll add a note to the instructions.

Four more crosses ready to ship and payment requests sent to;

RTS
pinball4ever
MG7322
RCA1

This concludes my original first batch builds. The good news is that I was able to squeak out two more than I estimated. Also good news is that my backordered chip parts are now expected mid Nov instead of end of Dec (or the current date of July'23!).

The factory cross comes with threaded inserts. Were those inserts missing on yours or was it a replacement cross by chance? Maybe the parts changed over time?

All kits should come with two screws to mount the cross to the rising arm. Early kits had these in plastic bags. Lately I have been taping them to the mount.

For future reference to all, the screws that are (should be!) included are specific undercut tapered so that once installed, they sit perfectly flush with the new mount. If they are not fully flush, they will interfere with the playfield cut out.
https://www.mcmaster.com/91099A205/

The expectation is that the cross has #6-32 threaded inserts. If yours are missing or you have aftermarket cross without them, it should be relatively easy to add new ones. If I ran into this problem, I would start with something like this; https://www.amazon.com/Z-LOK-Threaded-Insert-Plastic/dp/B08QJHYHYB/ref=sr_1_6

Ah that explains it. Glad you worked it out.

Was it ever on route? This sounds curiously like an operator bodge job Happy you got yours working as well.

I received my chip parts a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I ran into unexpected technical issues with them. It turns out they are slightly different part numbers compared to what I had been using. While they are supposed to be functionally equivalent, I found they are much more picky electrically. I won't go into the boring details, but the good news is that I finally have it all sorted. Thankfully I found fixes that didn't require circuit redesign, which is appreciated since I had just received 100 pcbs. I came pretty close to having to chuck those all in the garbage. After some extra testing, I am ready to get back on track.

I will start sending out invoices and payment requests and have a handful of kits ready to ship out. Call it a Christmas miracle!

Next 10 ready to go. Payments requests out to:

aaron6920
Numskul
GoldenBear
John-Floyd
djreddog
foureyedcharlie
JohnTTwo
Otto110
Lermods
tommyp

Reminder to please make sure you have a ship address entered. If you run into any issues, just shoot me a PM.

I am on the second batch of the initial pre-order list of 40. I am hoping to finish up the remainder of the pre-orders (13) before the new year. After that I will start to add stock to the website as they are built. That's when those who signed up for notifications will get emails that they are in stock and ready to buy. Right now I have about 20 folks who requested in stock notifications.

The pre-order interest list was closed when you signed up. You are subscribed for an email notice when I add stock to the website for regular sales.

Sep 22nd

Nov 5th

It's too bad, I had one for you to pick up at NWPAS to try out. I thought you were going to sell your Met?

Thanks for the comments. I thought I had a mention of that harness post needing to be rotated in my instructions, but it looks like it might have been lost in one of my drafts. I will add it back in.

Are you saying the wire was too short to reach the final mounting position or that it was too short to have it connected while moving the pcb around while putting on the nut?

Yep, came through fine and now in the mail. And for further good news, I have sent invoices to all remaining on the interest list. I'll expect to have all of these shipped out by the 3rd. Any payments taken after the 2nd will not ship until the last week of Jan.

Invoices sent to;

Acronymicon
quickstop
Nstone4425
gweempose
slghokie
Jnewton
BigalzPinz
dfensch
OutlawTorn304
cconway84

Also special call out for JONESDS who early on was able to sneak an actual website order through a glitch in The Matrix during a 2 min window when Mike and I were troubleshooting something with the webstore. He has waited patiently after paying in full back in September. It's finally on the way dude!

Got it. I looked again at my game and I had cut the harness zip ties to that harness post then rotated. That explains the difference. Lermods you didn't miss the mention in the instructions, it isn't spelled out. I remember having it in the original draft instructions, so it is something I need to add back in. I could really use an install video walkthrough, but part of the issue for me is that over the long span of development and testing on my machine, I cut plenty of harness zip ties and moved a bunch of crap around for various mounting options until I came to the final solution. I would want to capture a start from scratch install. If someone within driving distance buys one, I'll see about capturing the install on video. That is of course unless somebody else doesn't beat me to it videos their new installation.

Feedback taken on the harness length. I'll add a couple of inches. It's unfortunate that l cut and stripped an entire 100' spool just a few days ago, so the changes won't be seen for a while.

BTW, thanks for the kind words. This means a lot to me.

Haha. Or better yet, just drag your game across the mountains when it's time to get your mod.

I think I drove by you yesterday. Blewett pass was closed and had to drive the long way around from Wen to get back home. I thought about waving ...

I have updated the install instructions from feedback captured. This is the new page.
https://www.robtune.com/cross-mod-installation/

Hey John. I'll send you an email and we will get it figured out.

-Rob

Oh interesting. Well certainly it looks like there is a solder bridge on the circled pins. Who was the blind drunk that assembled this thing?

That needs to be fixed. Are you handy enough with a solder iron to break that up? I can't be sure that is causing your odd launch behavior, but let's fix that first and go from there. Shoot me a PM to troubleshoot further.

PCB_short (resized).jpg

Awesome! Good call on checking the solder side for obvious Rob f-ups Thank you for the kind words.

Yeah, have to meet those quarterly projections or the stockholders will riot. Don't worry, you are not being added to any surveillance lists any worse than what you are already on.

Happy New Year all.

-Rob

Good to hear. Thanks for the comments.

Thanks for taking the time to capture on video. I got the same question a few days ago and have been running more tests to figure out the behavior. A tiny b it of twitching is normal in digital servo control, but this is new behavior is exaggerated. It turns out what you are seeing is an annoying side effect of one of the workarounds I employed on the new chips. Unfortunately I didn't notice the behavior in my play testing. I run all of my kits through a testbench setup before shipping, but it only checks for correct up/down behavior, and doesn't hold it in position long enough to notice this. That's how it escaped through.

The good news is as of today, I have eliminated it in software and all builds after today will not have any jitter. For everybody in the second batch who wants a replacement I'll send you a PCB to swap out. Just shoot me an email; [email protected] and we'll get it sorted. I have some connector parts that have been delayed in shipment and won't make it to me before I head out of town later in the week. It will be towards the end of January before I can start moving them out again.

It is interesting that you mentioned the cross interfering with the PF cutout. I got a note from somebody else today that had their cross get jammed in the PF as well. I am not sure if it was the same issue as yours. It sounds like it getting stuck might have caused his servo to ultimately fail. It is a good thing to watch out for and I will add a note to the instructions. I am thinking about making the cross do a full cycle up and back down on power on to verify full clearance after install.

Yes, the flasher is now way more visible! Just like the Premium owners, I have gotten used to it. And by that I mean that spot of my vision has finally burned out.

Not quite. I still have some things to wrap up with the last of the pre-orders. Hopefully will be ready by end of the month. I am not managing any more order lists.
Simply sign up for in stock notifications https://www.robtune.com/product/metallica-pro-rising-cross/

All is well. I have been replacing batch2 kits for those who requested updated versions to address the additional jittering. I also have been reviewing a couple reported failures to understand if I needed to make changes before completely releasing to the wolves.

There are two things that stand out about your install that seems strange.
1) On my game (later run LED version) the plastic cutout is larger than the PF cutout. From your picture, it looks your plastic cutout is smaller, or is shifted forward quite a bit. My only guess is that perhaps, you have an early run game that they updated the plastic piece. A premium model with that plastic would have the same issue. I think that's why you had slight interference.
2) The main mount should sit flush with the underside of the playfield with just the two outside mount screws. Yours seems to sit at a slight angle that causes the cross to not be perpendicular to the cutout. I wonder if their is something between the mount tab and the playfield wood that is preventing a flush mount? The bottom of my PF is splattered with clear coat, maybe something like that. I am glad you figured a workaround to straightening it up by using the third mount point. I originally put that there thinking the mech wouldn't be stable with only the two side mounts, but found it was plenty secure to not need the third.

The flasher....yes the flasher. I think I have just burned out that area of my vision so it doesn't bother me anymore. I have not bothered to pay attention what the Prem owners have done as they would have exactly the same problem. I thought about designing a shield to go in front, but it has not been a priority.

Yeah, that would be a good workaround.

The first batch did not have noticeable twitchiness. Batch 2 did. It was the result of a slight difference in microcontroller parts between the two batches.
Yours was early in batch 2, so it will be of the jittery-er variety. A few people don't really notice or care, but I have sent replacements for most at this point. Try it out and shoot me a PM if it bugs you.

I guess you will be pleasantly surprised when the order flood gates open up

Correct. If you are signed up for stock notification, you will be first to know. I think I have around 40ish folks signed up. Out of those I would hope there are at least a few that still have enough dwindling patience to not be totally fed up with my ass dragging.

I won't hold you to the "gladly" part

Indeed, I am.

Do I still need to answer this or do you want in context of 2024

Thanks for the feedback on the long term usage. I learned a lot from the handful of failures from the second batch (and conversely the lack of failures on the first batch).

Yes indeed.