Palmer,

Got my lights from amazon.ca
5 Volt, 50 Lamps
https://www.amazon.ca/ALITOVE-LED-Individually-Addressable-Waterproof/dp/B01AG923GI/ref=sr_1_30

Palmer,

I like your avatar. Ultraman, been a long time since I saw that show.

Today's journey.

Did a test fit of closing the pinball table inside the cabinet. Encountered two issues.
1) Power bar mounted on side wall of cabinet too close to drop target. ( no biggie simply moved the power bar to bottom of cabinet)
2) Wires connected to play field too short to reach cobra pin connections. ( Had to add extensions to the coil wires, switch wires, power wires to reach board)

The test fit also shows that my wire management needs to be tidied up. I may create a deflector shield above the cobra board for items that may fall on it.

Connected all of my 14 wires to switch matrix from the playfield. Tested some of the playfield switched to see them appear in the mpf screen.
My drop targets were not showing up... Hmmmmm

In testing my light shows I noticed a peculiar issue with my leds. Were I had to cut the series of light chains and run a wire between the chains, the timing of the light on/off took longer. Example LED 1,2,3,4,5 (top of table), LED Multiplier 2x,3x,4x,5x (bottom of table) is next in the series chain of light but I had to run a wire between the two chains. Noticing a longer delay between the two chains. Need to do more testing on this one or simply change the timing between light shows.

Cleanup my coin door area, removed the coin door solenoid lockout added a coin button to exterior of cabinet. You can still open the door and press the coin switch or simply press the coin button located under the start button of the cabinet. I also removed the rolling ball tilt unit.

Today's update,

The flippers are flipping, the flippers are flipping.

On my first attempt I only hooked up the left and right flipper coils and tried the flipper buttons. The flipper button lite up on the mpf screen but no flipping.
"Crap". Trouble shooting time. Checked the playfield fuse, it was fine. Checked for voltage from my power supply, that was ok. Checked my wire labeled left and right coil wire... Opps mis-labeled coil wires for flippers. Rechecked for correct flipper coil wires and relabelled them and connected them to board ports. Tried the flipper buttons again but still no flipping. Hmmmmm, awww crap, crap have to start a game and ball has to be in the outball hole.

Started up a 2nd terminal session and launched mpf service. From the service command prompt typed coil_pulse c_flipper_left_main. That did the trick.
Now lets flip the other flipper and type coil_pulse c_flipper_right_main and the right flipper worked. By simply pressing enter key and the last command is repeated and the flipper flipped again. Like a little kid I pressed the enter key over and over again...
Finally I tried the outhole coil and typed coil_pulse c_outhole and it worked too.

If I want to push the flipper button and the flippers work I need to start a game. Not ready for that with the playfield propped openned and leaning against the backglass.

Still need to do some soldering of my coils that I pulled the ground wires off by routing the LED lights.

In my trouble shooting exercise I noticed that the underside of the playfield has only 1 fuse. That fuse is for the flippers only. The playfield has two hot leads that feed power to the 13 coils. Not sure why the 2nd hot power lead is without a fuse. Guess it was a design choice because the flippers are used the most. I wonder if there is any value to add a fuse for the 2nd power string of coils.

Next Up:

I have been delaying the emptying of the backglass box. When I remove the "Phoenix Backglass" I don't want to break it.

Going to use the backglass as wall art in the pinball room. Need to store it somewhere safe for the time being so it does not get broken.
Mounting the glass inside a frame or build my own custom wall slide rail for the glass to mount inside of.

After I remove the remaining parts like the transformer, rottendog CPU, power board, 7Seg displays, wires, etc those have to be boxed up and stored somewhere.

With the backbox empty I can mount the TV and speakers. Initially I will start using a PC monitor, because I don't have an old tv that fits.
The PC monitor will look small inside the cabinet but will do for the short term.

After everything is mounted up, lots and lots more stuff to do.

Thanks for the example stefanmader.

Time for another youtube to show progress

bjmclrn,

Cool, both the cobraboard and the auxiliary board... Not too shabby. I am using the tv screen (eventually but pc monitor for now) for my backglass. It will be a virtual dmd with pictures and other eye candy. I will watch for your progress.

When I originally got this pinball machine it was in a barn with the coin door openned and critters living inside of it. Some hay and other nesting materials needed to be removed and layers of animal excrement to be removed. Yes I only paid $200.00 for it and it took a while to clean it out and make it usable.

The animal smells are gone (mostly) and it smells a little musty today. Job one I want to make it a playable machine first to further my pinball journey.
This machine will never win any beauty contest and will likely be another frankenstein.

I am wiring up the drop target coils and bumper coils and starting to encounter mysterious behavior. It may be possible some of the original wires might have fallen victim to critters chewing on the wires or I have some shorting to deal with in the drop targets and bumper switches.

My coils for the flippers, outhole, left and right slingers, and knocker are fine. But the coils in the middle section of my playfield are giving me problems.

I originally bought a brand new rottendog cpu, power supply, board with the intent to fix it back to original, but never did. Today its getting closer to becoming a playing machine again.

Oh the joys of making a hybrid pinball machine.

It's semi alive

As you can see from the video the backglass is emptied and the pc monitor is in place.

Had my first real chance to test the outhole to kick the ball out of the trough. My default_pulse_ms was set to 7 too weak to kick the call out.
Tried 10 and that nudged it but still too weak. So I set it to 12 and that worked fine.

The flippers default_pulse_ms are set to 10 and boy does it launch the ball to the top of the table.
When I shoot the ball thru the spinner did it ever go, no lag in score like my arduino pinball machine.

Love the ability to put a high score using the flippers, couldn't do that on the older version.
Also love the extras that the virtual dmd gives me from a menu and service diagnostic functions.

Still lots to do but it is working (sort of) ...

Here is the before shot of emptying the backglass and parts everywhere.

StartUp & Shutdown:

To make life easier I created a simple shell script for ubuntu so that after the host boots Ubuntu 20.04 into the Gnome desktop environment a startup application spawns a gnome-terminal then launches mpf for my machine.

startup.sh
#/bin/bash
gnome-terminal -e "bash -c 'cd mpf/phoenix; mpf both; $SHELL'"

Also I have a mode shutdown that performs a shutdown command
/sbin/shutdown -h +1 System shutting down in 1 min

To make sure my shutdown command works I added my default user to the sudoers file

Added this line using command sudo visudoers

pinball ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/poweroff, /sbin/reboot, /sbin/shutdown

The net result is when Ubuntu boots into the gnome desktop, a terminal session starts and launches my mpf game

When I press my service button "ShutdownPc" the mpf mode shutdown runs and the pc does and orderly gracefull shutdown.

So far, the only python coding added to this project was bonus.py that provided the bonus count down logic and the shell script application startup script.

The python code was borrowed from another project so no real coding on my part.

Thus far, my entire project is 99% stock out of the box mission pinball framework yaml files. Very Impressive.
Of course the OPP and Cobraboard makes the difference too.

I have a list of 24 items to do to finish up this project before attacking my Close Encounters machine, it will be receiving the cobrapin board too.

I was scratching my head on the slingers, and pop bumpers. Three sets of dual wires. Power and Ground, Coil trigger, Score switch to switch matrix.

Not sure why the slingers need 3 sets of dual wires when 2 should be enough. My only thought here is in case the cpu is lagging the coils would autofire on a interupt priority scale. I can see the jet bumpers needing it for that reason, but oh well. This is just a curiosity

I have a development virtual machine image running in virtual box of my Phoenix table so I can try out new things. Even have the dual stm32 so I can test firmware changes or dev changes to the mpf without impacting my production machine.

My back glass screen is boring consisting of black back screen and single virtual dmd image. Need to work on sprucing that up to something more interesting. Will work on it in my dev environment then copy to USB stick to install on production.

My host computer is located in the top section of the lower cabinet. It’s not accessible for any form of maintenance. Going to cut a door in back of lower cab to allow easier access just like my virtual pinball table. Till that door is in place I added a 4 port USB caddy and placed it in the back glass area. The USB has my keyboard/mouse connector there and my USB stick to copy data there. This makes it easier to reach instead of opening up play field.

ThatOneDude. Yes simple misslabelled wire. Easily fixed

Stefanmader, I built 3 virtual pinball machines. The first had hyperpin, this one uses pinball front end. Fruit box jukebox is a cool raspberry Pi jukebox and built two of them. Yes I work in IT….

ThatOneDude, yes auto fire coils and switches need to be on same board.

I plan on paying tribute to Cobrapin, Mission Pinball Framework, and Open Pinball Framework by including the brand images on the attract startup sequence of the game.

Got hooked on building a hybrid pinball machine after months of lurking and reading the Open Pinball Project forums. Hugh documented and explained many of the concepts. It got me started on the arduino and learning many aspects of a pinball machine that I earlier took for granted.

I learned how to code a switch matrix, denouncing, build a lamp board, some fundamentals for a driver board, built a simple bridge rectifier from four diodes.

Yes, many thanks to the many that helped me in my pinball journey.

Ordered my 2nd Cobrapin board today for my Close Encounters machine!!!!!! Yabba dabba doo

Been playing pinball on my machine between correcting small issues.

Have a list of 24 items but so far its playing well.

Happiness is a working home brew pinball machine ....

Youtube video's shortly

Here is the Phoenix so far...

So much more to do. Want to add my tribute to MPF, OPP, Cobra18t in the next youtube video.

Got some more items knocked off my to-do list.
Mounted pc speakers in a wooden form and added speaker cover.
Added a coin button below start button
Wire management tidy up
Changed Williams 4 drop target default wiring by desoldering the all down target wires and individual drops.
Begin to add sound events to most switch events.
Got my bonus count down working.

This table will never be a pretty table but rather an ugly duckling or Frankenstein. I’m ok with that, maybe in the future I’ll build a pretty one.
For those members in the forum that are also into virtual pinball, my table is a players table or like the vp Cartoons table.
That vp had rusty greasy buggy stuff.

I really envy the builders that have done the white wood or resurfaced a table but my skills aren’t at that level.
To those builders, I salute you.

I would like to add slides in my attract sequence that acknowledge this machine is powered by (cobrapin, OPP, MPF)
Searching for logo artwork (gif, jpg, png) for OPP, and Mission Pinball Framework.
Cobra18t has already provided me with artwork file for my virtual dmd display.

Any suggestions from the community for the artwork that I can add to my home brew would be appreciated.

Been updating my backglass artwork. Now instead of just a boring virtual dmd is full screen dynamic artwork.

Need to order a replacement flipper coil and end of stroke switches. Once a new flipper is in place she is game playing ready.

The most exciting news is my 2nd Cobrapin board arrived!!!! Yabbadabba doo. This board is destined for my Close Encounters machine.

As a pinball hobbiest, you never really complete building your machine. When I look at my Elvira Virtual Pinball machine, I see many tweaks and improvements I could add or do to it, but really it was completed when I upgraded the CPU, GPU card and 4K TV. Yes that project is done.

Now when I look at my hybrid pinball machines my Phoenix machine is nearing completion and I will move onto my Close Encounters machine and my 60's Jukebox project.

My Xenon machine is working perfectly but I can't help but think how much I could improve it with my own game logic.

Yes, Pinball projects, its fun but time consuming and you never seem to be quite finished.

That being said, I will sign off the Phoenix project soon and ask the MPF web authors to indicate that the Phoenix machine is done.

Youtube video's to follow and updates to github for the code.

jabdoa,

Target date is Sept 30.

That date is based on my expected delivery of Custom Glass for backglass install, Delivery of replacement flipper coil and RGB LED coil.
Correction of coin switch debounce issue and double kicker flip issue.
Posting to Github Version 2.0 of Phoenix code
Posting of Phoenix in action with rules explainination to Youtube and Pinside.

I full expect to have these issues done before the 30th

After the 30th I will be immersed in the "Cobrapin - Close Encounter Pinball conversion".

Borgdog,

Pinball projects, the "Honey do-list" that never quite gets completed.

My "Honey-do" list is never completed because more stuff keeps getting added to the bottom of the list.

Update:

I have a self imposed timeline of Sept 30 the Phoenix will be completed. After that I will engross myself on the Close Encounters machine.

My milestone of completion entails the correction of some of my minor irritation checklist items and uploading of code updates to Github.
The cosmetic stuff is not included in that list nor improvement ideas.

My right flipper issue turned out to be a bad End of Stroke switch. When I pressed the right flipper it barely moved.
My next issue is I need to see whats up with it on the hold of the coil. That's kinda wonky too. I am not using a hold coil in my config.
It almost seems that the right side flipper is not pulsing while the flipper is in the hold position.

My double kick from the kinker/slinger is anoying. Not sure if there is any debouncing control I can add with OPP or switch issue at play here.

I have a few finicky switches that what to stick.

One item that I am embarred to admit is my playfield general illumination problem. I got lazy again and left my existing playfield wiring for GI lamps in place.
I hooked up my portable DC Power tester to the GI lights under the playfield and turned on the power but no GI lights. I took my testing incandesent bulbs and sockets to the same portable DC power tester and still no lights. Tested my number 44 bulbs for contenuity and they are fine. Damm what was I doing wrong. I did some googling is found that Williams System GI's on playfield are 6.4 VAC. AC, OK, so I get my secondary transformer power tester. Connected my 6.4 AC power leads to my testing lamps on the bench and low and behold the lamps came on. SHAZBUT!!!! I'm an idiot. My decision before me is remove the GI lights from the playfield and string my new LED lamps in place or add my power transformer and give it the 6.4 VAC it needs.

I have uploaded updates to Github so all my code is there. Going forward updates and improvement will appear in the repository.
Uploading my youtube video today too.

So far, I'm on target for my completion date of Sept 30th. On going improvement will continue after that date.

Here is present status of machine. It shows the double kicker issue and coin debounce issues.
Humble appologies this video was filmed with me holding camera upright (landscape mode instead of portrait).

Removed the band and tested, still giving the double bounce

Let me begin by saying my flippers are using an End Of Stroke switch and the flipper coil is dual wound (3 wires on the coil).
I was having some screwy issues with my left flipper. As a precaution I replaced the flipper coil (which did not fix the issue) then replaced the end of stroke switch and suddenly my flipper worked (sort of).

The next issue was when I would trap the ball with the left flipper. The hold of the ball was sporatic and the flipper would sporatically jump on and off.
My right flipper worked perfectly and held the ball in the hold position fine.

After some time of looking and adjusting EOS and googling I noticed my config file for the flippers was missing the "allow_enable: true" setting for the flipper coil. This makes me scratch my head. The right flipper was consistantly working fine to hold and trap the ball but the left flipper was all over the place.
I added the "allow_enable: true" setting to both the left and right flipper and the sporatic behavior disappeared.

This probably never would have been a problem had I configured the "hold coil" but I wanted to use the EOS and save on wiring a second coil wire on the playfield.

In a nutshell I hope my mistakes made with setting up my Dual wound flipper coils with and End Of Stroke switch can help others trouble shoot problems encountered in the future. You will find my source code/yaml config files on github.

Update:

The mysterious double kick from the slingshot has been solved (See youtube link in thread above to demo what it was doing). The Phoenix Williams Slingshot have a hardware debounce circuit located on the dual switch.
All it really is a resistor and a capacitor. It performs a hardware debounce that in this case is to strengthen the slingshot kick.

I can do my own debounce using the Cobrapin/OPP/MPF for the slingshot so I don't need the capacitor to perform a separate debouncing function.

In short to fix my double kick issue I removed the capacitor from the slingshot switch and problem solved.

Man I'm really close to finishing this machine and moving onto the next one.

After I correct my coin debouncing issue and finish updating Github I'm putting this machine in the done column.

Any further tweaks and improvements there after will appear in this thread.