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Edmonton, AB
Quoted from acebathound:Awesome having you post an entry Lindsey! I saw you use a few of the Pinitech tools in your Pinball Repair 101 - Bally Elektra video.. that was pretty cool since it was the first I've seen anyone using it in a Youtube video!
The LED display was handy for filming the video and the switch boards made troubleshooting the switch problems easier. I hand built some switch boards years ago, but I prefer yours.
Quoted from acebathound:Funny, I bet all benches look the same for people developing boards or repairing a lot of things.. if I do get a chance to clean up after working on a bunch of projects, it stays that way for maybe 2 days and it's chaos again!
I usually end up making a big mess while working on stuff and then I'll clean everything up for a fresh start and have it cluttered again in no time. When I get on a roll with something I just don't think about tidying the bench. I usually have to force myself to go to bed when it's 3:00AM and I'm burning myself with the soldering iron. Then I'll do other stuff for a while. I tend to work on this stuff in spurts rather than working consistently from day to day.
Quoted from acebathound:Looks like you're up to some neat stuff. Soon as you get the new website up and running, I'll give you a shout-out in another blog post. And probably find plenty of things to buy myself
Thanks. I've had a pretty steady stream of ideas since I started working on pinball again earlier this year. I wish I could just spill all of the ideas and show more of what I'm doing during development, but I'm going to wait until I have each new thing available for sale before I give too much detail on anything. My problem has always been building stuff in any kind of quantity and getting it out to people. I'm hoping to improve on that next year.
Quoted from acebathound:Thanks! Aesthetically I thought that one was cool to hide the "useless" components under the display.
The advantage of your design for some people will be the through-hole construction. It looks like it would be easy to rework if it broke for some reason.
Quoted from acebathound:Helps not working blind at the bench, I've identified some boards with issues I wouldn't have until they made it back into a machine otherwise.
It's definitely nice to have some kind of display for bench testing MPUs.
Quoted from acebathound:Also envisioned some of this stuff as "building blocks" for people that wanted to toy with other mods, ideas. Simulate games at the bench, create some other cool hardware.
My goal is to eventually have hardware to fully simulate the game around the MPU including displays, lamps and solenoids. I have the hardware for the displays and solenoids finished. The design for the lamps is just a concept at this point.
Test equipment for pinball isn't a huge market, but it's fun stuff to design and the people who do use it really appreciate it.
Quoted from acebathound:Lindsey@Pinforge may have done some type of driver.. he fools with PICs a lot. Like you said, really not *too hard* to drive the signals. But I don't know of anyone that offered something for sale officially.
I built one of these back in 2009 and documented it on my old blog. Hard to believe it was that long ago and I took so much time off from working on pinball:
http://warpzonearcade.com/?p=320
I never really liked that design because it was using a PIC with USB and it was WAY more complicated than it needed to be for what it does. I wrote a GUI for windows where you could flash individual lamp, individual signals for the 4-16 converters, etc...
I had a couple people asking me about it recently so I did another design with a much simpler design, but I haven't gotten around to building any to sell because I've been working on so much other stuff for pinball, but it seems like more people are interested so I'll see what I can do about getting them available in mid-January.
Quoted from too-many-pins:It seems funny to me with all this pinball electronics & test stuff. As soon as someone decides to try to design stuff not currently available to the public and others see it might be something that will sell all of a sudden they built one years ago
The only reason I replied in the first place is because my name was specifically mentioned. I did build one of these years ago. Should I feel bad about that or something? I just don't really get where you're coming from. If someone else wants to build one now I could really give a shit. I don't have any patent on this idea or any of the other test equipment people are building for pinball. I've made that point over and over on this forum.
The only reason I said I might build some to sell is because people seemed interested in BUYING them. Not building them to sell. I didn't just make up the fact that I have been working on this recently. The OP of the thread is the one who inspired me to work on it again in the first place a couple months ago by email. It's not like someone was like "Hey, I'm going to build these and sell them" so I jumped in and implied that I built one first so they should just fuck off and now I'm going to sell them. That's basically what you're implying and it's not the case at all.
Quoted from too-many-pins:were thinking about building one and now they are finally going to do it, or what ever. I just don't get it - why not build & release it or let the guy that decided to build it and announced it go ahead and do it?
I must have missed the part where someone said they were going to build and sell these? I don't have to "let" anyone do anything. If someone wants to build these and sell them then go right ahead. I'll probably offer advice based on already designing, building and testing this exact thing twice. Not just talking about it or thinking about it.
I guess you've missed the posts where I've encouraged people who design stuff for pinball and the schematics and PCB designs I've given away on this forum for free which have already made their way into boards that other people are selling?
Quoted from too-many-pins:There doesn't seem to be a ton of money to be made with any of these items but they all are helpful to guys trying to fix machines.
I agree completely. That's the whole reason I build this stuff. Firstly because it's stuff I want to use on my own games, but then because I know it will help other people. I'm not claiming to be a humanitarian, but my first motivation in this stuff is definitely not money because there's not much to be made.
Quoted from too-many-pins:Why fight over a few sales when the other guys could be developing something else?
I strongly agree with this opinion. I would like to see more people working on more new stuff too. There are a lot of different reasons for the fighting over certain products. Like the NVRAM adapters, for example. There are a lot more people who are more capable of taking something that's already out there and selling it cheaper than there are people developing new stuff so that accounts for some of it. It's also easier, obviously.
Quoted from too-many-pins:There seems to be plenty of need for plenty of stuff in this hobby but every time I look at one of these post it seems like two or four guys want to be competing over the same items.
If you have ideas for new stuff, I'm all ears.
Quoted from too-many-pins:On top of that this post didn't start out to be talking about new designs, etc. It was started by a guy in the hobby trying to do something nice for his customers by giving stuff away.
Anyway MERRY CHRISTMAS to all!
Again, I didn't reply about the lamp driver tester until I was specifically mentioned. No one was being negative at all until this post. If the thread has gone to shit, it's not my fault.
Quoted from too-many-pins:Lindsey,
Sorry if it sounded different than what I was trying to say - I really hate writing instead of talking to people in person - but my point was basically just saying if the people who have these ideas "sitting on a shelf" and they might help people who are trying to repair machines I wish they would either just get them into production or leave them on the shelf and let other people get stuff out their.
This was not a post trying to be personal - more just an observation. It just seems every time I get to reading one of these post where someone is developing or has developed something things seem to get sidetracked with post about "I had that idea years ago / I was going to build something similar / etc". My dad had a saying back when I was a kid "shit or get off the pot" and I wish there was more action on getting some of this stuff available to people trying to fix machines. Went I read about some of this stuff I keep thinking "god that would have saved me a ton of time on ____ ____ machine last month". Time is money and the more of this stuff that is available to people trying to repair SS machines the more time that can be saved. So even though the up front investment seems kind of high at times the time saved more than makes up for the cost of some of this stuff.
Anyway - MERRY CHRISTMAS to all and may many of the NEW IDEAS or (old ones "sitting on the shelf") become available to us less tech oriented in 2016. The past couple years have seen a good many great ideas become available to those of us that really need them. Keep them coming!
Anyway THANKS to all you guys trying to help those of us that are kind of clueless when it come to repairing SS machines. All this stuff is very helpful to save time when it comes down to isolating hard to find issues. I just wish I had a better understanding of electronics & circuit board stuff but EM machines are more my speed as far as repairs go. Thankfully some of these test fixtures make it easier to figure out issues with SS machines that would otherwise be well beyond my abilities. KEEP THEM COMING!
Merry Christmas to you too. I understand where you're coming from.
I agree with the shit or get off the pot statement and it does apply to me. I've said it many times that I love designing new stuff for pinball, I don't mind assembling the stuff, and I hate shipping orders so I end up designing and talking about a lot of boards that no one other than me ever has a chance to use, which I can understand might be annoying. There are a few things that I've been planning to put out "next month" for like two years. It just kind of happens and stuff comes up. I do have some neat stuff in the pipeline, but I'll try to take your advice and shit sooner than later.
2 weeks later
Quoted from MarAlb:Leaving the backup battery there??
That was my thought too. Or the hackey jumpers 
Quoted from falco:Hey, the jumpers on this one are nothing! People do some weird and wacky things to when setting up the ROM jumpers on these boards. I'm working on one where quite a few of them are done in bare copper wire on the back of the board. Looks very tidy from the front, startling from the back...
I've definitely seen worse.
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