We are building a minions pinball! updates every friday!

Quoted from PDFVT:
Maybe you bought some color-blind LEDs?

Piss off dude,you are no help at all

Quoted from jabdoa:
That's weird. So let me get this straight: You set all LEDs to the same color but they turn into different colors in groups?
Can you post your lights config? Did you try individual LEDs in service mode?

I’ll show u at dpo,it really puzzles me,also after 15 minutes all lights start going insane.(flickering)
That also happens when the code isn’t running?

Quoted from Marten:
Wow, that's a lot of work to get the Minions up and running again! Thanks again for showing it all!
Looking forward to seeing your progress next week at the DPO!
B.t.w. Congratulations on your 8000th post

Wow! 8000 posts! I deserve a freakin medal or sumtin
Didn’t even notice?

#4702 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

This is the light section jab,it looks fine to me?

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#4703 5 years ago

MBG

Marten

Pinside member

12y 77,550 878

Could the problems with your lights be a technical problem in stead of a software one? Maybe disconnect some stuff and only have a few lights hooked up. There could be a fault in the wires or lights.

#4704 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from Marten:
Could the problems with your lights be a technical problem in stead of a software one? Maybe disconnect some stuff and only have a few lights hooked up. There could be a fault in the wires or lights.

Yeah , been diagnosing for 4 days now.
Swapped a lot of stuff,i even made anotherstring of 50 rgb’s and hooked em up,same problem,swapped the FAST nano controller with crazy mansion,same problem.
It’s really weird?

#4705 5 years ago

PRD

epotech

Pinside member

Leicester

19y 87,300 1,015 8 64

is that channel order correct? grb?

normally that would be rgb so if you went to light it red it'd be green.

#4706 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from epotech:
is that channel order correct? grb?
normally that would be rgb so if you went to light it red it'd be green.

Hey pinball brother!
Yeah i noticed that too?
I copied it from the mpf files and later thought i made 50 typos
I changed it but it doesn’t seem to help one bit.
So glad you guys chip in with your thoughts,thanks so much

#4707 5 years ago

RCD

Drewscruis

Pinside member

Hamburg Usa, NY

11y 49,300 632 32

have you tried pulling 1 of the rgbs that is say lighting up blue and trying it where one is red to see if it lights up red. would help a little to eliminate the rgbs as the issue.

#4708 5 years ago

JAB

jabdoa

Inactive member

7y 46,050 448

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
This is the light section jab,it looks fine to me?
[quoted image][quoted image]

This looks absolutely fine. FAST LEDs are WS2812 which are GRB LEDs (green, red, blue) internally. WS2811 are actually RGB. Other channel orders also exist for RGBW. This looks fine. I will bring some LEDs and a different controller to DPO. We will figure it out.

What are you using as power supply? Those serial LEDs are prone to interference in the power line. We found that connecting 5V ground and HV ground below the playfield certainly causes issues (similar to what early WoZ versions had) because negative voltages in the ground line. For that reason we connect 5V and HV ground only at the PSU and also use a separate PSU for serial LEDs.

#4709 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from Drewscruis:
have you tried pulling 1 of the rgbs that is say lighting up blue and trying it where one is red to see if it lights up red. would help a little to eliminate the rgbs as the issue.

Yeah , i tried bridging it (then the next simply lights up wrong) and swapping the rgb’s! (I have 300 of them fast rgb’s)
Every time i think i found it,everything goes mental again?

#4710 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from jabdoa:
This looks absolutely fine. FAST LEDs are WS2812 which are GRB LEDs (green, red, blue) internally. WS2811 are actually RGB. Other channel orders also exist for RGBW. This looks fine. I will bring some LEDs and a different controller to DPO. We will figure it out.
What are you using as power supply? Those serial LEDs are prone to interference in the power line. We found that connecting 5V ground and HV ground below the playfield certainly causes issues (similar to what early WoZ versions had) because negative voltages in the ground line. For that reason we connect 5V and HV ground only at the PSU and also use a separate PSU for serial LEDs.

Allright...so that is correct.
The power supplies i use are the ones FAST ships with the starter kit.
I have indeed a separate HV and 5/12 PSU.
Strange thing is,when the attract runs smooth,it runs supernice?
And then stuff starts to flicker and boom! A mess.

#4711 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Look how nice? And after a bit it starts to flicker and fuck up

#4712 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

And this i what happens after a few minutes?
So hard to diagnose if you have to wait if the problem still excists??
It is taking days by now,eating time i needed for the machine code.

#4713 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

I am taking off the hv
See what happens

image (resized).jpg

#4714 5 years ago

JAB

jabdoa

Inactive member

7y 46,050 448

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
And this i what happens after a few minutes?
So hard to diagnose if you have to wait if the problem still excists??
It is taking days by now,eating time i needed for the machine code.

Wow. That looks bad. We had similar results when we hit bugs in the fadecandy firmware. Any chance that you defined LED numbers more than once in MPF? Mpf should catch that but this may also happen if two LEDs fight over the resources. Not sure. Maybe Aaron has an idea. We can try a fadecandy as alternative controller at DPO.

#4715 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from jabdoa:
Wow. That looks bad. We had similar results when we hit bugs in the fadecandy firmware. Any chance that you defined LED numbers more than once in MPF? Mpf should catch that but this may also happen if two LEDs fight over the resources. Not sure. Maybe Aaron has an idea. We can try a fadecandy as alternative controller at DPO.

Dude!
I am cautiously positive YOU found the problem..i just took the 230v away from the 48volt PSU and everything looked more calm.
I hooked up the fast kit weeks ago and i cross-connected grounds under the playfield....so the 5/12 volt PSU AND THE 48 volts PSU grounds touched(i figured ground is ground right?)
I made separate ground circuits just now and you can instantly see the grb’s being way more relaxed...less flickery..
If this solved it,free beer for you all weekend at DPO.
Dude...after days straight you just don’t know where to search anymore?
And we have this crazy dpo deadline and i can’t have these setbacks? Not now!

#4716 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

So thanks to Jabdoa we can move on and man are we in a hurry....we need some stuff on the dmd,scoring and sounds.
That’s enough to not look like a dumb asshole at DPO.
People’d be going like:” ohw? So you guys been busy for 4 years now? And what do these machines do after all these years?.
(Us : ) Uuuh...yeah...about that...they both don’t work...

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#4717 5 years ago

MBG

Marten

Pinside member

12y 77,550 878

Good luck! Don’t forget to sleep a few times before Saturday!

#4718 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from Marten:
Good luck! Don’t forget to sleep a few times before Saturday!

No time bro! Sleep is overrated anyway,i can totally function on 2 hour nights

#4719 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

I even sqeezed in a Level 42 concert,i don’t need no stinking sleep
Hey! And i now own a set of Mark King’s used bass strings!!
Supercool!

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#4720 5 years ago

FST

fastpinball

jabdoa so glad you could chime in! Just watching those videos of the issue didn’t seem to match up to electrical or firmware issues, but it’s pinball, so you never know!

I have been fixing a major plumbing issue in my house all day and just now cleared that up. My dad Freeplay40 had even texted me earlier that I needed to get in here and help out.

I wish I could be there with all of you! Next year...

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#4721 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

So i just turned on the machine,to write some code for the dpo deadline as the grb’s were finally behaving perfectly yesterday?
And now the lights are all over the place?
I only turned it off yesterday?
This is officially brutal now.
I am going to collect stamps from now on.
I need another hobby.

#4722 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from fastpinball:
Just watching those videos of the issue didn’t seem to match up to electrical
Aaron
FAST Pinball

So do you have any idea what is happening?

#4723 5 years ago

FST

fastpinball

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
So do you have any idea what is happening?

It looks like exactly the same issue, right? I would start with the most basic things first. Shutdown the PC and turn everything off. Have a beer. Then power it all back up. The reason I suggest this is because if there is even the outside chance that there is a rouge config someplace in cache someplace, this would weed that out.

If you have the same results, I would shutdown/quit MPF and make a direct terminal connection to the FAST Nano's RGB port, like you did when you resynced the firmware using Tera Term. This time, instead of the 2nd of 4 ports in the list, connected to the 3rd. Connect at 921600 and send the command:

ID:<enter>

This should give back a message:

ID:RGB FP-CPU...

If the first 3 characters are "RGB" you are on the right port.

Now send the command:

RA:990000<enter>

This command turns all the RGB LEDs Red. (you can use any hexadecimal color) This will help us to know if the issue is in wiring. If you see all red, good to go. If you see any LEDs NOT red, then trace it back to the first LED in the chain(s) that is not red, and inspect.

What directly connecting to the FAST Hardware does is take out any potential issues with the MPF configs. I always test my hardware direct before moving on because it is a huge time suck to try and solve something in high-level software that could never be truly solved that way.

Good luck! Report back.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

PS: From a time crunch stand-point, LEDs will be the easiest thing to solve. If you are hung up or want to change gears for a bit, focus on the other areas of the pin and come back to this.

#4724 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from fastpinball:
focus on the other areas of the pin and come back to this.

Yeah i already decided i am gonna light candles under the glass,way more reliable.
So i had time to move on to the lcd.
Positioned everything and made a simple attract mode.
Very pleased with it.

#4725 5 years ago

FST

fastpinball

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
light candles under the glass

Tough to see in this photo, but that comment had me spit-take laughing my iced-tea.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

5135F916-4DD6-4DFD-846F-FF0462D86B66 (resized).jpeg

#4726 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from fastpinball:
Tough to see in this photo, but that comment had me spit-take laughing my iced-tea.
Aaron
FAST Pinball
[quoted image]

Hahaha,through the nose i presume?

#4727 5 years ago

FST

fastpinball

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
Hahaha,through the nose i presume?

The waitress didn’t know if she should offer to help me or just keep laughing.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#4728 5 years ago

JAM

Wolfmarsh

Pinside member

Hey Bas, serial LEDs flicker like that when there is a power problem or a flaky connection somewhere.

Ground and 5V are super important. I would recommend you run some extra 5V and Ground lines directly from your power supply to the LED chains, about every 10-15 LEDs. If you are having floating ground issues that will make a massive improvement. Just connect them in to your existing chain wiring.

#4729 5 years ago

MCB

mcbPalisade

Iron Transfer

Parachute, CO

6y 46,300 771 4

Quoted from Wolfmarsh:
Hey Bas, serial LEDs flicker like that when there is a power problem or a flaky connection somewhere.
Ground and 5V are super important. I would recommend you run some extra 5V and Ground lines directly from your power supply to the LED chains, about every 10-15 LEDs. If you are having floating ground issues that will make a massive improvement. Just connect them in to your existing chain wiring.

Doing this could also create conductive loops that are susceptible to induction due to magnetic fields acting on those loops. So maybe just supply power near the middle of the chains and not at the ends? Took JJP a long time to solve this on WOZ, if ever.

John will agree with me: PINBALL IS HARD ( - :

#4730 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from fastpinball:
The waitress didn’t know if she should offer to help me or just keep laughing.
Aaron
FAST Pinball

She saw it was the result of a good joke
I did what you said with tera term,look at the vid...they all turn red but flickery...i am starting to dought these nice connectors i bought.

Quoted from Wolfmarsh:
Hey Bas, serial LEDs flicker like that when there is a power problem or a flaky connection somewhere.
Ground and 5V are super important. I would recommend you run some extra 5V and Ground lines directly from your power supply to the LED chains, about every 10-15 LEDs. If you are having floating ground issues that will make a massive improvement. Just connect them in to your existing chain wiring.

Yeah,i can imagine...maybe i will solder all wires directly to the rgb lights?
I bought a shitload of these cool connectors but maybe they have some resistance or sumtin?

Quoted from mcbPalisade:
John will agree with me: PINBALL IS HARD ( - :

Dude,i’ll agree with you too anytime.

#4731 5 years ago

JAM

Wolfmarsh

Pinside member

Quoted from mcbPalisade:
John will agree with me: PINBALL IS HARD ( - :

Truth.

#4732 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from Wolfmarsh:
Truth.

John,you found the last piece in the puzzle...found some bad lights too in the past days but now i connected extra ground and 5v to the last light in the string of 50 rgb’s and they light up stronger instantly!
When blue,the last rgb tended to fade away a little...and when i connect extra juice to the other side,BOOM! strong light!
You guys are all way smarter than me man...wow.
Cautiously optimistic (again) ( part 5 )

#4733 5 years ago

JAM

Wolfmarsh

Pinside member

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
John,you found the last piece in the puzzle

Yay!!

#4734 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from Wolfmarsh:
Yay!!

Yeah it looks real solid and stable now after a while.
Thanks everybody for your thoughts and input the past days.
This machine wouldn’t even work without your help over the past years.

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#4735 5 years ago

FST

fastpinball

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/future-spa-father-and-sons-second-restoration/page/13#post-4655940

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
Yeah it looks real solid and stable now after a while.
Thanks everybody for your thoughts and input the past days.
This machine wouldn’t even work without your help over the past years.
[quoted image]

Sweet! Pay it forward!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#4736 5 years ago

WOT

Atari_Daze

Spd

Houston, TX

7y 141K 10,053 7

Phew, glad you got that solved. Pinsiders are an amazing bunch. At least your issue wasn't related to your solar cells:

well technically related to the inverter.

#4737 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from Atari_Daze:
Phew, glad you got that solved. Pinsiders are an amazing bunch. At least your issue wasn't related to your solar cells:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/future-spa-father-and-sons-second-restoration/page/13#post-4655940
well technically related to the inverter.

Dude...that is insane?
Did that actually happen?!
What the f. man...i would never find that problem.

#4738 5 years ago

WOT

Atari_Daze

Spd

Houston, TX

7y 141K 10,053 7

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
Did that actually happen?!
What the f. man...i would never find that problem.

YES, that is fact, watched it play out almost live here on PS. It was quite the conundrum. The level of knowledge from the PS community is awesome.
Anyway, keep up the great work on your builds, they are both looking great. Minions getting the "clean up" that it deserves.

#4739 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from Atari_Daze:
YES, that is fact, watched it play out almost live here on PS. It was quite the conundrum. The level of knowledge from the PS community is awesome.
Anyway, keep up the great work on your builds, they are both looking great. Minions getting the "clean up" that it deserves.

Yeah...the wiring was garbage hahaha...
As we speak i am soldering all the rgb’s so the extra 5 volt and ground isn’t needed anymore.
I don’t like these chinese connectors anymore.
Here we go!

image (resized).jpg

#4740 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

First few rgb lights soldered...no more chinese connectors!

#4741 5 years ago

JAM

Wolfmarsh

Pinside member

It's still good practice to have the extra 5V and ground lines. I wouldn't get rid of them.

#4742 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Quoted from Wolfmarsh:
It's still good practice to have the extra 5V and ground lines. I wouldn't get rid of them.

Allright,will do...are you talking out of experience?

#4743 5 years ago

JAM

Wolfmarsh

Pinside member

OP
Quoted from pinballrockstar:
Allright,will do...are you talking out of experience?

Haha yes, more than I let on some times.

#4744 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Fuuuuck!!!
My soldering station crapped out on me!!!

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#4745 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Fight the depression....fight the depression...

438228C4-6FDE-481C-9AAE-4DB427AB73DA (resized).jpeg

#4746 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Piece of crap!! Damned!

1C4E86EA-CC14-4706-90AD-A31F971DB114 (resized).jpeg

#4747 5 years ago

PRS

pinballrockstar

Pinside member

Nevermind,we’ll just use the “electric soldering gun
Let’s proceed!

image (resized).jpg

#4748 5 years ago

MAZ

zerbam

Pinside+ Frequent

Holland, MI

12y 77,550 1,289 8

you threw it away without tearing it apart to salvage parts for future pinball builds?....."it's probably just a fuse"

#4749 5 years ago

MBG

Marten

Pinside member

12y 77,550 878

Quoted from zerbam:
it's probably just a fuse

Yes! Check if there is a fuse!

#4750 5 years ago

JAM

Wolfmarsh

Pinside member