I would welcome feedbacks on two points:
- Has anyone tested LOTR Pinsound shaker package vs a "standard" Stern Shaker implementation (ie using the updated PAL and ROM, etc)
- There are four expansion ports available on Pinsound, has there been any documentation on how to use them ?

Thanks !

Thanks for this info. I already have a pinsound, so was considering the upgrade. That said I'm not too big on customization (spending waay too much time already on repairing/modding HW), but can I assume the default "shakerization" is already good enough?

Ah, also, do you know if I can use Stern shaker as a replacement for the pinsound shaker, of course replacing the control electronics board ? Or is it a different motor with different voltage requirements?

That's too avoid if I can having to physically swap the shaker themselves. Plus it has the bonus that if I ever sell my LOTR, I can easily remove the pinsound and just sell it stock with the original LE shaker

Regards

OK, so I found some answers:
- Pinsound shaker orientation is not the same as Stern Shaker, so I would need to drill new holes... Argh, bad
- Pinsound shaker board installs in the backbox, with a long wire from the backbox. I can only assume this cable is Power and GND.
- Stern shaker board installs next to the shaker, with just one control wire from the backbox (ground)

Bottom line: I can probably use the already installed Stern shaker provided that:
- Pinsound shaker is 12V as well (that's what Stern shaker uses)
- I build a wire harness (easy)

Can someone confirm that the motor is 12V ? That should be written on the motor itself (if you happen to have one lying around already installed... which is unlikely but worth asking )

I did send an email to Pinsound directly, no response yet

Well to clarify, I don't intend to replace the Pinsound shaker control board with the Stern shaker control board, my goal is just to keep the already installed shaker, and control it with the Pinsound shaker board. In the end, the shaker itself is a motor with a 12V and Ground connection, nothing else (as can clearly be seen on the installation diagram). The control scheme is a PWM control system (or maybe voltage controlled, but I doubt it, too complicated to manage for high amperage devices such as a shaker).

So bottom line: if the Pinsound shaker is 12V as well, then I can buy the Pinsound shaker kit, mount the Pinsound shaker control board, and drive by the virtue of a custom wire harness drive the Stern shaker with the Pinsound control board.

This has the benefit that I don't need to drill other holes in my Pinball machine to mount the Pinsound shaker itself which does not have the same mechanical footprint. I can even leave the Stern control board installed, although not used at all. And later on, if I decide to sell my LOTR I can easily remove the Pinsound boards, and just reconnect the Stern shaker.

At least that's the rationale.

On that point, I must admit that I have a rather negative opinion on the communication and attitude by Pinsound on this topic. When reading their website, they state "Official package", which implies it's done by them. At no point on their website do they highlight that it's actually community done. They don't give any credit, at least none that I could see. Maybe I missed it, but it's not really apparent then.

Curious though, so when loading an orchestration in Pinsound Studio for a supported machine, will the default implemented shaker routine appear at all ? Or will they only be in the firmware, so you don't see in the Pinstudio application what is already implemented (but any change you make on a specific sound command will override what's in the firmware) ?

Well, I'm trying to find it, but can't on their website...

What type of accessories did you control, and how do you control it (besides the relay on the board) ?

They have these expansion boards which conceptually are very cool, but they fall short on promises here. Their website still has "LED control" for example, but I fail to see how in the current implementation. I know how I would do it if had control of the firmware, but I don't, so...

OK, that's a downer. I certainly don't want to redo an entire shakerization by hand if I want to update just one single effect.

And I know EXACTLY why they did it that way (ie storing the shaker routines within the firmware), and while I understand the business rationale, I personally think that taking community work, integrating it in the product without giving credit, and then not providing a way for the community to access the original work is really borderline.

Ideally, Pinsound should add the option in the application to define a code to be sent on a specific expansion port when there is a specific sound being played. It's probably exactly how they do it today in their motion shaker board, and there is a microcontroller on it which will interpret the command being sent and translate it into a specific shaker action (or relay trigger).

If they did offer that capability, Pinsound will gain a LOT of value for the modding community. You could very easily develop Arduino based custom HW to trigger events based on sound commands. Could be controlling LED, gyros, or even animation. To give you an idea, manufacturing 10 units of a simple PCB cost about 20 dollars including shipment, and the design for a WS2812 control system is DEAD simple. It could even be done on a breadboard.

This "sound command driven action" is fundamentally the approach taken on the Twilight Zone interactive screen mod. This is also the approach taken on Mike's video mod for "Creature from the black lagoon".

Here's hoping that Pinsound is reading this thread and will implement something similar and not keep it proprietary.

If not, well, there are alternate open source options anyway that do exactly that, at the expense of not being plug and play, and require a little bit of soldering work, so applicable for the tinkerers, not so much for the regular pinball players.

The link to the latest Pinstudio Pro is broken (page is empty with some html code in), and my installed version of Pinsound Studio Pro crashes after opening a config file... (version 21.02.2)

Would anyone has a link to it ?

Thanks

Thanks, that's the link I was using, it was dead this afternoon.

It still crashes though... Just love it when this happens

OK, so just tested on another PC where it seems to work. Will have to think of reinstalling windows

That said, I have a TZ which is fully equipped with Pinsound + Pinsound shaker. Working fine, but wanted to add a little bit more power to some events.

Turns out that when I take the USB key on which all orchestrations are installed, if I copy the file over to my PC and open it, I can see the orchestration, but it does not display the embedded shaker settings. So I can't edit them (aside of recreating from scratch). Am I missing something ?

Yes shaker is working. I'm using regular pinsound orchestrations with no edits (ie the one available to download on the community website), downloaded them, put them on USB key for installation, started the Pinball. Orchestrations are working, so is shaker.

After that, I simply took the USB key, and copied the files back on my computer, assuming the shaker commands would appear when opening in Pinsound Studio Pro. No dice.

That's a bummer

But let me get this straight, just want to make sure I understand correctly...

- Community develops shaker orchestration
- These orchestration are then provided to Pinsound, who decides on whether to integrate them or modify them
- They are then embedded inside the firmware, but in such a way that they don't allow to access them nor modify them
- If a user wants to modify a few shaker routines, he needs to start from scratch and recreate the entire shaker orchestration
- There is no repository of the shaker orchestrations done by the community
- If using community shaker orchestrations anyway, they would be tied to a given sound mix (since there does not seem to be a way to transfer shaker orchestration from sound mix to another)

Does this summarize well my understanding ?

Regards

Thanks for the insight. I suspect there's a difference reason for the path taken by Pinsound, but that's a topic for another discussion.

Now back on what I'm attempting: could whoever did the shaker routines for TZ share his sound package ? I downloaded the most recent sound mix available (TZ Deep Funky) (even though I don't use this one), but it does not seem to include the shaker routines. Other sound mix are too old

Thanks !