(Topic ID: 265453)

Skill Roll remake

By dudah

3 years ago


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  • 360 posts
  • 55 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 1 year ago by RCA1
  • Topic is favorited by 67 Pinsiders

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There are 360 posts in this topic. You are on page 2 of 8.
#51 3 years ago
Quoted from BeachPickle:

I spent countless hours dumping nickels into that thing, and only got to the bottom twice! Both times, Myron, the archaistic proprietor, rewarded me with a handful of nickels from the coin box and an orange soda on the house. Not to mention the compliments and cheers from the flys at the bar!

damn, that must have felt good!

#52 3 years ago

One problem that was lingering to solve was how to trigger the inputs.
A Pinsider with Skill Shot sent me the manual and they use a custom IR sensing system with a unique little board at each switch - WAY too much.
The original leaf switch design worked well but would be challenging to reproduce, and more than that, the cost for leaf switches these days is too much.
Playing with some spare pinball microswitches, I thought they would work well! I got two different sizes on eBay and was disappointed to learn that the actuating force was far greater than what could be provided by a falling quarter.
The name brand Cherry microswitches used in pinballs could definitely provide that sensitivity, but I worry about calibration/their ability to consistently read a fast moving coin, as well as the possibility of coins getting stuck.
Price is also concerning as the cheapest Cherry switches at PinballLife are $3 each. I have 27 switch inputs I'll be using so that's another $80+.
Found proximity sensors on eBay for $2 each. Looking at some videos they seem to be pretty well made, they run off 12V (which I'll already have in the cabinet) and they'll be just as easy to interface to the Arduino!
I pulled the trigger on a lot of 10 to sample, my only doubt is their performance in reading a fast moving coin.

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#53 3 years ago

Got the washers! Rich has a bunch more if you want any
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Printed and put together a tester of the flicker assembly. Notched the shaft 90 degrees off.
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Attempted to make a breadboard setup tonight to test the code, but it's way too many wires for a very simple circuit. Going straight to the proto shield! The hope is that I'll be able to fit everything on here and make it plug and play.
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#54 3 years ago

Ugh bought the wrong resistor networks to ground the switches. Mine were a network of individual resistors versus a bussed group of them. Another $8. At least I got the ones that will fit perfectly in the proto board instead of the hack I was going to come up with for the ones that I have that are too large.

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#55 3 years ago

I was trying to do the same thing with an old pachinko machine. All of my switches took too much force to actuate and the ball would get stuck. I threw the project on the back burner, but I had decided that i would use inductive proximity sensors when i started it back up. I was looking at the same one that you have listed above, but I was concerned that the 4mm detection range would prove to be tricky. Let me know how they work out.

#56 3 years ago

Prototype board is done (pending my correct resistor networks). ULN2803's will be switching the score lamps (I plan to use LED strip). TIP102's will be powering the coin mech, knocker, bell, and bottom release the coin solenoids.
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The layout of this proto shield is a little strange and caused some confusion when laying out the circuit.
It required some nimble soldering, but not bad considering I'll get to save designing a PCB and getting it made.
Also required cutting the traces for the outputs. Now the Arduino pin goes to the input of the 2803, and I ran a jumper to the output which will be the screw terminal.pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png

Aaand digging further into the Arduino documentation, apparently the chip offers 20k internal pullup resistors that I can reference in code so now I won't even need the resistor packages! I hate wasting money and buying things I don't need so I'll take this as (another) lesson to slow down a bit.
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/DigitalPins

On that note, I bought a few things direct from China that are taking forever to get here. They've already been in transit for 3 weeks. COVID-19 I'm sure isn't helping. But to save a buck or two here and there, at this point where I'm antsy to get something put together it's worth it to get them from US based sellers!

#57 3 years ago
Quoted from dudah:

Prototype board is done (pending my correct resistor networks). ULN2803's will be switching the score lamps (I plan to use LED strip). TIP102's will be powering the coin mech, knocker, bell, and bottom release the coin solenoids.
[quoted image]
The layout of this proto shield is a little strange and caused some confusion when laying out the circuit.
It required some nimble soldering, but not bad considering I'll get to save designing a PCB and getting it made.
Also required cutting the traces for the outputs. Now the Arduino pin goes to the input of the 2803, and I ran a jumper to the output which will be the screw terminal.[quoted image]
Aaand digging further into the Arduino documentation, apparently the chip offers 20k internal pullup resistors that I can reference in code so now I won't even need the resistor packages! I hate wasting money and buying things I don't need so I'll take this as (another) lesson to slow down a bit.
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/DigitalPins
On that note, I bought a few things direct from China that are taking forever to get here. They've already been in transit for 3 weeks. COVID-19 I'm sure isn't helping. But to save a buck or two here and there, at this point where I'm antsy to get something put together it's worth it to get them from US based sellers!

I bought this 32"x 60" wall canvas from Amazon Jan 23.
I'm still waiting for it! I didn't know it was coming from China until after I bought it.

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#58 3 years ago

Testing the sensors real quick today, seem to perform well with the fast moving coin!
I was just going off of the sensor LED on the back of it, maybe later I'll hook up a test circuit with the Arduino.

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#59 3 years ago
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#60 3 years ago

Haven't had much time for this project last few days, but put a couple more hours in tonight:

Finished Photoshopping the backglass art
Ordered the artwork - I opted for a white high quality window cling material
Finished up the prototype Arduino shield
Put together a test program for the proximity sensors - they work great! The read distance (4mm) is something I'll have to consider with the playfield design but that should be manageable. The internal pullup resistors on the Arduino seem to work fine, saves me a lot of soldering and board real estate!
Ordered the rest of the proximity sensors, plus a solenoid for the winner's circle since the one from China may not be here until June.

Bummed COVID has me (and the hackerspace) locked down until the end of April (so far).
Hoping to have everything else done by then, and sharpen up my vCarve skills so when I am released I can hit the ground running and get the wood CNC'd.

#61 3 years ago

What wood are you planning on using a CNC for? The track?

#62 3 years ago
Quoted from dudah:

Anything is possible!
I've flirted with the idea of making a different track the coin rides on but shined away from it as there's only so much real estate to play with.
Another idea is swappable playfield with different tracks.
Another idea is a cool modern art package, I like monsters and tits.
I've got a very good idea in my head how this will come together, but always open to ideas and suggestions!

I'm also interested in monsters and tits. I would be interested in a kit.

-c

#63 3 years ago
Quoted from CraigC:

I'm also interested in monsters and tits. I would be in for a kit either way.
-c

#64 3 years ago

Be sure to fix your error on the marquee before sending it out to get printed - it should be pressing down, not pressin gdown.

#65 3 years ago
Quoted from homegameroom:

Be sure to fix your error on the marquee before sending it out to get printed - it should be pressing down, not pressin gdown.

Thanks for catching that! I was able to get the corrected version to the printers before they made it.

#66 3 years ago
Quoted from yaksplat:

What wood are you planning on using a CNC for? The track?

CNC will be utilized to cut the cabinet and the playfield.
Likely 3/4" birch ply for the cabinet. Maybe MDO for the playfield as it's very flat. Both are very routable.

#67 3 years ago
Quoted from dudah:

CNC will be utilized to cut the cabinet and the playfield.
Likely 3/4" birch ply for the cabinet. Maybe MDO for the playfield as it's very flat. Both are very routable.

If you're going to use the birch, keep in mind that there are a lot of voids in the layers. I've had strips of wood missing up to 6" long. The surfaces are great, but the insides, no so much.

#68 3 years ago
Quoted from yaksplat:

If you're going to use the birch, keep in mind that there are a lot of voids in the layers. I've had strips of wood missing up to 6" long. The surfaces are great, but the insides, no so much.

Actually, this is very dependent upon the type of plywood and supplier used. Baltic birch should have no voids. Same with other furniture grade plywood. I've used many many sheets of cherry, mahogany and birch plywood with no voids encountered. Now, I buy this from a lumber company that specializes in furniture grade hardwoods and plywoods. I've also bought plywood from the big box stores and encountered the voids you mention. Extremely frustrating! If/when this project comes to fruition as a DIY kit, you can bet I'll be placing an order for the good stuff!

#69 3 years ago
Quoted from Oldgoat:

Actually, this is very dependent upon the type of plywood and supplier used. Baltic birch should have no voids. Same with other furniture grade plywood. I've used many many sheets of cherry, mahogany and birch plywood with no voids encountered. Now, I buy this from a lumber company that specializes in furniture grade hardwoods and plywoods. I've also bought plywood from the big box stores and encountered the voids you mention. Extremely frustrating! If/when this project comes to fruition as a DIY kit, you can bet I'll be placing an order for the good stuff!

Good to know. I'm new to CNC'ing wood cabinets but have a bunch of other project ideas in mind. There's a few specialty hardware stores recommended by dudes at the hackerspace I'll be checking out.

#70 3 years ago

Figured since I'm going to have so many sensors wired in, I need a nice method to power them.
Picked up a lot of distribution blocks on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L1PSR9X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2

Also picked up a coin meter just because I can!

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#71 3 years ago

Got all the wood rails on the outside edge calculated out and feel confident.
What type of wood do you think it is? Or what would be a good substitute? Will also stain and clear them.
The top and ledge dimensions are 2.75"x1" and the sides and bottom are 2.75"x0.75".
I have a router table I'll be using to form the various lips and joints on them.

#72 3 years ago
Quoted from dudah:

Got all the wood rails on the outside edge calculated out and feel confident.
What type of wood do you think it is? Or what would be a good substitute? Will also stain and clear them.
The top and ledge dimensions are 2.75"x1" and the sides and bottom are 2.75"x0.75".
I have a router table I'll be using to form the various lips and joints on them.

I assume red oak but could be maple. You may need to get the wood from a lumber store that specializes in furniture grade lumber. The frame on my old Pinchitter and Ten Pins is a shade over 3/4" thick, while the lockdown bars are over 1". When I have made lockdown bars, I've used 6/4 material. I'm sure a Pinsider with one can give you the thickness. Looking at pics, it appears to me that the top piece is the thicker, like a lockdown bar, while the sides are the thinner material. It also looks like the bottom, below the frame, is wood with a piece of stainless over it...that piece looks to be the thicker material.

#73 3 years ago

Whipped these up real quick. 30ish minute print time. Need 29 total, may save this for the plasma cutter and brake. Good for testing now.

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#74 3 years ago
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#75 3 years ago

Love seeing the progress on this awesome project!

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#76 3 years ago
Quoted from docquest:

Love seeing the progress on this awesome project![quoted image]

Thanks!
Documenting the wiring, I realize I forgot the 90 digit

#77 3 years ago

Fixed the 90 digit, added the missing star digit.
Wrote a program to run through all the outputs.
Looks great! The LED strips are very bright even though these are the 3528 bulbs. May put a diffuser (printer paper) over it when it's in the game.

The 1-400/tilt aren't working properly, they all kinda bridge together dimly.
Forgot the ground on one of the 2803's.
Now that it's all wired up, it's a little more cumbersome as I don't want to be un/rescrewing 16 terminals.

Either way, thrilled with this cheap little Arduino shield and the work it's saved me from whipping up a proto board.
Also - no smoke!

The wiring harness I use I garbage picked a bunch from work, nice 8 ft 16 conductor 24AWG cable!
The light board outputs all fits on one harness.
For the prox sensors, they're about 5 ft long. Depending on where I mount the Arduino in the cabinet I may need more slack.
Thinking about putting it on the back of the door where it would be, maybe on the side of the cabinet, and kinda just wanna throw it all on the cabinet!
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#78 3 years ago

Printed a little bumper case to mount the Arduino (one hour)
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#79 3 years ago

Cool project. I was planning a DIY Skill roll myself, glad you are blazing a trail.

#80 3 years ago

Not very pleased with the colors and printing on the window cling, politely complained to the company.
AM pleased with the artwork! Will likely lighten up the colors a little bit.
Not sure I'll stick with the window cling material. The white isn't very transparent. May just make a translite and tape it.
Good news is it lined up with the light board perfect!
The diodes are obviously visible, but if I pull them about a half inch away it all blends together.
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#81 3 years ago

I had used vinyl material on my arcade machine marquee that had adhesive on one side and was made to be backlit. It worked out really well and I'm happy with it. I'll try to figure out what it was.

I found a picture and where I had it done at https://www.bowmansign.com. He may be able to fill you in on the material. All of the graphics for this machine were $85 shipped.

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#82 3 years ago
Quoted from yaksplat:

I had used vinyl material on my arcade machine marquee that had adhesive on one side and was made to be backlit. It worked out really well and I'm happy with it. I'll try to figure out what it was.
I found a picture and where I had it done at https://www.bowmansign.com. He may be able to fill you in on the material. All of the graphics for this machine were $85 shipped.
[quoted image]

Thanks for the heads up Taz. They've reached out and said they'll reprint them for me correctly at no cost.
I use posterprintshop.com as they can print on a wide variety of mediums, their website is very nice to use and upload art, and their turnaround is very fast!

#83 3 years ago
Quoted from dudah:

Not very pleased with the colors and printing on the window cling,

I wouldn't be very pleased either.
Years back, my vinyl Graphic Designer that made backglasses for me did the Skill Roll
and I've sold a few to collectors in a decal form. It's applied on the backside and comes
out the same as silk screen. A collector just picked up the last one I had, but I can get
a couple more made if you'd like to try one. It's $45.00 (my cost) and like 8 bucks for
shipping..
btw: the light doesn't shine thru so brightly as in the pic. It shines thru as it should..

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#84 3 years ago

This happened today.

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#85 3 years ago

I wonder how well a miniaturized version would play? I can't see devoting the space to a novelty game. But on a bartop it would be so cool!

#86 3 years ago

The small footprint is actually why so many stayed in bars so long, and still are in a few places.
I had found one about 4 years ago in a home (the owner previously owned a bar) and he said it was earning $30 bucks a week until he sold the place in the early 2000s.

#87 3 years ago
Quoted from cait001:

This happened today.[quoted image]

I've been watching that one also, completely nutso.
Looking at the bid history it's one aggressive bidder, so shouldn't be a precedence for future sales, but $2-3k isn't crazy... if you can find someone who wants to sell one!

Putzed around with various aspects of how the code runs tonight.
I thought I had a good idea of how to do it, but limitations in how/when the Arduino reads inputs is providing to be challenging.
Integrated the Serial monitor so I have some feedback of what's happening inside.
Isolated the scoring with the inputs as that's the hardest part currently and will focus on that first.

I was never a strong coder and have only made very simple Arduino projects previously.
This is proving to be much more challenging than I expected.
However, it's very satisfying to visualize the flow of the program in my head and execute it in code!
Fortunately, there is tons of information and examples out there to learn from!
I'm learning a lot and having fun with it, and am pressing forward!

#88 3 years ago

This post on the arduino forums could possibly help with inputs...

https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=557392.0

#89 3 years ago

Replacement art came today, MUCH better! (old vs new)
The picture only does it so much justice, in person the difference is drastic.

I did a bunch of research on Arduino subroutines and rewrote most of the code, I feel pretty good and will test it later this weekend.

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#90 3 years ago
Quoted from pinfarmer:

I wonder how well a miniaturized version would play? I can't see devoting the space to a novelty game. But on a bartop it would be so cool!

I made my own version in 3rd grade. Rubber band shooters, Popsicle stick rails, and pennies, with scoring slots at the bottom.
I thought at that age, I was on my way!

#91 3 years ago

I was busy all weekend with house projects, but got around to testing the code today.
Low and behold - it works! Still some stuff to fine tune, but attract mode and scoring works!
Very happy that a little research and tinkering and I was able to fairly easily redo the whole scoring code successfully!
I'm also calling subroutines for attract and how the score is translated to what LED's are on, very cool.

I'm itching to get out of quarantine and back in the hackerspace, hopefully by the end of the month!

#92 3 years ago

Looking good. The joys of trying to figure out why a pin is active..

#93 3 years ago

Nice work!

#94 3 years ago

That's very cool. Curious question though... Why do you need a unique input for every switch? Don't you just need one input, connected to many switches, for each score value and then just you could just daisy chain them together like a standard switch matrix with diodes? one for 10, one for 20, one for 30, ect.

#95 3 years ago
Quoted from snyper2099:

That's very cool. Curious question though... Why do you need a unique input for every switch? Don't you just need one input, connected to many switches, for each score value and then just you could just daisy chain them together like a standard switch matrix with diodes? one for 10, one for 20, one for 30, ect.

I considered a switch matrix when I was going with microswitches, but the thought of wiring that and possible troubleshooting was very discouraging.
I've got the inputs available on the Arduino so figured I'd use them.
This also allows additional logic to track where the coin is on the game to know which inputs to be reading/when, which cuts down on CPU cycles.
I also don't know how well the proximity sensors would react to being combined together and how the Arduino would read it.

#96 3 years ago
Quoted from snyper2099:

That's very cool. Curious question though... Why do you need a unique input for every switch? Don't you just need one input, connected to many switches, for each score value and then just you could just daisy chain them together like a standard switch matrix with diodes? one for 10, one for 20, one for 30, ect.

The way the original game is set up it knows which row you are on so each switch is separate even if point value is equal.

#97 3 years ago
Quoted from RustyLizard:

The way the original game is set up it knows which row you are on so each switch is separate even if point value is equal.

I understand that... was not asking about “the old machine”, just curious about “the new machine”.

#98 3 years ago
Quoted from snyper2099:

I understand that... was not asking about “the old machine”, just curious about “the new machine”.

Sorry, I thought he would try and emulate the old machine.

#99 3 years ago
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1 week later
#100 3 years ago

Update?

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