So, I have a question about how to approach a problem. I have a Bally playfield that I'm wiring up to a new controller. The solenoids and switches are fairly straightforward. The playfield is a Strange Science, and it has SCR driven lamps. From my count, I think it has somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 controlled lamps. The controller that I'm using has a standard 8x8 matrix. This poses two problems. One is that I've got a limit of 64 lamps. I can get past this by adding a second bank of rows(using a couple of outputs from the MPU to drive 16 transistors), which would give me 128 lamps.
But the other is the wiring. The existing lamps are driven with linked grounds(I believe that this is the phase A, B, C and D mentioned in the manual). Doesn't map well to a matrix style.
I have a few options.
1) Replace the lamp wiring with a matrix. This would limit me to 64 lamps unless I extend it as mentioned above.
2) Replace the lamp wiring with serial LEDs. A lot more wiring, and would waste the RGB capabilities of the lamps.
3) Figure out a scheme to connect the existing wiring to a matrix. Ideal, but probably impossible.
I suppose 4 would be to build a compatible lamp board and drive it from a microcontroller. That would waste the lamp matrix capabilities of the new controller, but would largely avoid rewiring the lamps.
Thoughts?
