Hey all,

I wanted to share the mods I made to my Zizzle POTC machine. I want to thank Mocean on this forum for the brilliant idea of using an Arduino micro controller to power the coils in the machine. Part of the reason I did this mod was to protect the PCB from any high-voltage responsibilities. I have another Zizzle that has what appears to be a fried voltage regulator/PWM IC and I have a feeling that somehow something in the 24V circuit got shorted to the lower voltage logic portion (5V?) of the PCB and toasted everything. I also noticed that the playfield LED’s and LCD backlight flicker and dim when coils are fired, and I assume that the constant voltage fluctuations are not good for the PCB in the long run. As I don’t want to risk frying another very hard to replace PCB, I want to do everything I can to protect it.

With that in mind, my goal was to completely isolate and remove the 24V circuit from the PCB and have it powered by its own, separate and isolated 24V power supply. The plan was to use the Arduino to control the four coils completely independent of the machines PCB or main power supply. I decided to use the Arduino ‘Leonardo’ board since it had more interrupts (five total) then the standard ‘Uno’ board, and I figured this would make coding a lot easier. After a lot of soldering and coding I have everything working perfectly. Aside from what I mentioned above I made several other mods to the machine as well and will list them, along with photos, below:

- Added illuminated power switch on front of cabinet. Switch in rear has been removed.
- Added a 6-outlet surge protector inside of machine for GI, USB, 9V, and 24V power supplies.
- Added authentic arcade buttons for flippers and disabled the faulty stock buttons.
- Added a 5V and 9V GI circuit. The 5V circuit powers #44-style pinball LED’s and bayonet bulb sockets were added to playfield in selected areas. The 9V circuit powers the LED strip and bar lighting on the playfield. It also powers the two flasher lights added to the playfield (described below and in photos).
- Added two flashers to playfield that pulse when pop bumpers and slingshots fire. Also fires periodically during attract mode (thanks to Arduino). The flasher bulbs are actually #44 6.3V incandescent bulbs over-powered to 9V so they are very bright. They are only on for fractions of a second so they should last a very long time. These are controlled by microswitches that are mounted and mechanically triggered by the pop/sling coils (or Arduino relays in attract mode).
- Added LED strobe light over the Cannibal Island target (see photo) that strobes red/green/blue for 10 seconds when target is hit. This too is controlled by a microswitch attached to the target under the playfield and is powered by one of the three 5V 1-amp USB chargers inside of the machine.
- Arduino code simulates end-of-stroke switch on flipper coils… Flippers triggers at full force (24V) for 200ms then voltage drops 60% (using PWM) while flipper is being held. This avoids the coil from burning out if the player holds the flipper button in for a long period of time. From what I read coil damage happens a lot on these pins.
- Pop and sling coils pulse and are not held “ON” when their switch is activated, thereby removing the risk of a coil getting stuck on if a switch gets jammed.
- Arduino monitors for idle activity. If a game has been started and 3 minutes pass with no activity, the code triggers a relay that activates the end-of-ball switch several times to put the game back into game-over mode.
- When the machine is in game-over mode, all coils and flipper buttons are disabled. The start button on the front of the machine is now only connected to the Arduino, and when it is pressed the Arduino triggers a relay to activate the start-switch circuit to the PCB. This way the Arduino knows when to re-activate coils/buttons for game play.
- Furthermore, when in game-over mode, the Arduino, via relays, periodically on roughly 3-minute cycles, activates attract-mode events where flashers and LED strobe light flash in three different pattern sequences.
- Toys and props added to playfield to enhance esthetics. (see photos).
- Added center bumper post between flippers since ball drains so easily down the middle.
- Added bumper posts to side drains to shorten width of the drain since ball drains so easily.
- Used small 1/2” X ¼” self-adhesive velcro strip on playfield between rollover lanes to act as a ‘speed bump’ to increase the odds of the ball falling into one of the lanes. Anyone who has played these knows it is very, very difficult to get the ball to go through these lanes, as there is no skill shot possible to make it happen.

All of the materials for this project ran just under $50 and I purchased all of it on Ebay. I used three USB wall chargers (each cost $2) inside the machine to power the GI and Arduino. I mounted a second, standalone 24V power supply used solely for the coils. This plugs directly into the home-made circuit board I constructed to interface the Arduino to the rest of the machine. I mounted two strips of header pins on my homebrew board that line up exactly with the females on the Arduino, so it plugs directly into it (see photo). As you can see by the photos the four JST-style coil connectors now plug into my new homebrew circuit board and no longer into the main PCB. In fact, the flipper/pop/sling switches are no longer connected to the main PCB either, so a 24V request is never even sent to the PCB. The flippers/pop/slings and their respective switches work even with the main PCB completely unpowered and disconnected from the machine.

Hope you like my mod. If you have any questions or would like to see the code, pinouts, wiring specifics, etc, just let me know.

Lastly, I was able to find and order 2, 5, 6, and 7 – pin JST connectors through Ebay. These, along with a standard IDE ribbon for the LCD display are all of the connectors the main PCB uses. With these connectors it’d be pretty easy to whip up a small homebrew interface board for literally all of the wiring harnesses these machines use. Since coding libraries exist that allow multiple Arduino boards to communicate serially, it’d be theoretically possible to use one board to control coils (as I did in the above project), one to control an LED matrix for all of the playfield lights, one to handle a switch matrix and logic, and one to control the LCD display (with the help of pre-written libraries) and a sound board. This would work nicely since the ‘Uno’ boards have 20 I/O’s each and the Zizzle’s have less than 20 switches and playfield lights. In theory this would allow for programming of a completely new rule set if desired, a dip switch for multiple selectable gameplay rules, and an open source way to have a rom, along with cheap, readily available, non-proprietary hardware to restore and maintain non-working machines as they age and the non-repairable, proprietary PCB electronics eventually and inevitably fail. In all likelihood I doubt I’ll have time to take it this far, but it is food for thought, and I’ll share any further progress I make while messing around with it.

Thanks!

-Brian

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Thanks! I thought I read a post a long while back in some other random forum that someone found the manufacturer or some distributor in china that had the coils (or compatible ones) for the Zizzles. If I come across it again I'll post a link to it.

I thought about beefing up the flippers with new coils but my concern was too much power given to the ball might start breaking some of the toy-grade plastics or start to strip/chip/break the pressed particle board-type cardboard/wood used for the playfield, not nearly as sturdy as a solid wood playfield.

I purchased a junker POTC for backup parts that didn't work. It must have been stored in a hot attic or wet basement because just the force of the rubber ring around the posts (the ones by the pop bumpers) had partially pulled the posts out of the playfield and closer together and damaged the playfield. I would love to replace the cheap-o stock rubbers with real ones but I'm worried that too much elastic force on the posts will eventually damage the playfield. Do you know of anyone who has tried this or have another source of good replacement rubbers that fit the Zizzle machines? My main goal is preservation and I don't want to make any mods that may potentially damage the machine in a few months/years.

-Brian

I will say that in retrospect it would probably have been just as easy to poll versus using interrupts. I thought it would be easier, and the code does use a combination of both polling and interrupts, but after actually doing it I think strictly polling would have been just fine.

I will write up a list of what components i used on the homebrew board to interfae the Arduino and post it when i get a chance, along with the pins used for each component so it is compatible with the code. Same goes for the code... towards the end it got a bit sloppy, i need to clean it up and add necessary comments and i'll post it.

-Brian

Zizzlemeplease,

I love the idea of adding lights to the popcaps! I thought about doing this but didnt realize there was room in one to stuff an LED in. I will definitily do this mod. I'd love to get a few of those color change LED's if you have a few extra.

Thanks!

-Brian

Yeah Ive heard a few people mention that Fritzing program before but I've never used it. I'll give it a shot this weekend and try to make some fancy diagrams to post.

-Brian

I just youtube'd some clips of the Saitek pins and they look cool! Are the flippers coil-powered in those? You've got me thinking now, if I can find one cheap I may have to pick one up and mess around with it. Does the F14 game have a rule set that is more in-depth than simply 'hit random target and earn point'? Like, hit targets in order to light letters, activate jackpot, attain jackpot, etc.?

When I have time I'll take some pics of my Marvel Heroes machine and post them here. This one is NOT my "spare" pieces/parts machine, it is another one I made several lighting mods to. In addition to lighting mods, I gutted a plastic ramp from one of those tabletop spiderman toy pin's and retrofit it into the Zizzle, essentially adding a mini third ramp to the game. The ramp allows the ball to go up and over the pop bumper triangle and drops the ball so the pops knock it around, thereby increasing the chance of the ball getting knocked up into the difficult-to-hit rollover lanes, and is reached by shooting from the left flipper. I also added two flasher lights as toppers on the backbox that flash when the pop bumpers are triggered, and a (real) neon bar on the back of the playfield as GI.

Marvel Heroes mods. As I mentioned in my last post the new ramp is visible. I thought a good idea for the future might be to add a target at the top of the new ramp to take the place of the rollover lane targets, and just connect the rollover lane switches to one of the flipper lane switches strictly to score points. I outlined the edges of the ramps in black to make them stand out more and used a little tripod LED mount thingy (I picked up at walmart in the auto accessories isle) over the spinner. In this machine I also added a 6V DC circuit to power four incandescent #44 bulbs along the playfield. The neon blue along with the bright GI LED's seemed a bit too 'vibrant', so the natural, softer light from the incandescent bulbs offsets this very nicely.

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*** Fyi, no Arduino mod in the Marvel pin (yet!).

goldiewag,

That is a great idea. My knowledge on LCD interface is next to nothing, although from what I read there is a pretty much universal controller chip/ form factor that almost every basic LCD display uses, and I assume the Zizzle's use it as well. I know there are pre-written code libraries to interface Arduino's to LCD displays too. That being the case I imagine it'd be theoretically possible to swap in a larger, fancier (9-segment i think?) display. Or if an Arduino could detect a request for a specific digit from the Zizzle's PCB, it could take the request and output it to a controller chip for a customizable, graphical, dot-matrix display. If you could interface this then the sky's the limit. Probably a lot of coding needed for this though!

Here is the code I wrote for this project. I added some comments to the code, hopefully enough that you can make sense of it. I can add more or answer specific questions if anyone needs. The code is confusing because most of the events have to be timed simultaneously in loop() without using the 'delay()' function or else the code will hang and things don't work. So there are several if/then/while's to check for things like, "if flipper already triggered and has been triggered for more than 200ms, then use PWM to drop voltage (eos) until button is no longer pressed. I found that even a 50ms delay() will make the flippers/slings not fire on time and make the game control sloppy and virtually unplayable.

Some of the code is probably redundant and i'm certain this could be very streamlined by an avid programmer. For what it is meant to do though, as far as i can tell so far it has worked flawlessly in my machine. I'll provide a Fritzing circuit diagram when I get a chance to make it. Also, I used the "Ywrobot" 4-relay board I bought on Ebay for i think $7 (see in photos).

I had to zip the code file because the forum won't allow me to upload a file with a ".ino" or ".txt" extension. I inserted a plain text version of the code too so you can view it without the compiler.

Here they are.

Pinout-847.JPG

Here is the code. I'm not sure if the forum will let me attach this. If not I can email it to anyone who wants it, just let me know.

[attachment=1788132,]

Here is the basic wiring for the controller I made. At some point I’ll try to post a Fritzing diagram that’s a bit more specific but that Fritzing software seems pretty involved and I have to learn how to use it.

The diagrams shows single examples of how each switch, transistor, and coil are connected to the Arduino. It should be pretty easy to extrapolate how to repeat this multiple times on a breadboard. Please keep in mind I pulled these diagrams from Google and modified them a bit. The diagrams show examples on an UNO board but it makes no difference here.

For the relay board it is self-explanatory. The board was designed to be used with Arduino, and there are 4 input pins, along with Vcc/Gnd that connect directly with the 5V, Gnd, and I/O pins on the Arduino. No external power needed. The relay board already has screw-type wiring harnesses to connect the relays to their outputs.

Parts list:
-------------------------------------

Arduino – Leonardo Microcontroller
TIP102 transistors X 4
2k-Ohm resistors X 4
10k-Ohm resistors X 4
1N4007 rectifier diode X 4
JST 2.5 XH 2-Pin Female Connector Plug X 4
JST 2-wire RC battery plug male and female connectors
Female and Male Pin 2.54mm headers
‘Ywrobot’ four-relay Relay board
Breadboard
24-guague speaker wire
gray/blue/orange electrical caps
zip ties
hot glue
USB 1-amp wall chargers X 3
6-outlet surge protector
Mini microswitch (normal/open/close) X 3
USB cables (one for Arduino and two for GI)
An additional 24v power supply
Bayonet bulb sockets
#44 incandescent bulbs and pinball LED’s
9V DC power supply
Arcade buttons
12 LED strip/bar lighting as desired
LED strober * * (see note)

Side notes:

** The LED strober actually came out of a disposable peel-and-stick shirt sticker that said “AWESOME!” haha, and flashed when the sticker was pressed. I found a 2-pack at a gas station for 50-cents, so you’re on your own with this one. I removed the sticker and pulled out the guts. It used two tiny 3V watch batteries in serial at 6V, so it works just fine on a 5V DC USB-driven power supply J

The DC power input socket glued on the bottom of the homebrew board is the one from the back of the pinball machine.

I used a 15-foot extension cord for the main power cord for the machine. Inside the machine it is connected directly to the surge protector (which I cut the plug off of) and the illuminated power switch on the front of the machine.

For all under-playfield wiring mods I used the two-wire red JST RC battery plug connectors. This way, if desired, I can completely rewire the game back to its original configuration simply by switching the labeled connectors around.

To make quick work of the wiring mods I shot hot glue (with a glue gun) into the electrical caps and pressed them over the solder connections on the wires. That way there is no chance of them coming off, and it is very difficult to screw these caps on the thin gauge wires without breaking the wires, and the glue eliminates the need for this.

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newtoit,

Let me see your code and I'll see if i can help. I've only been doing Arduino code for a month or so solely for this project, so I may not be much help, but I'd be happy to take a look. You may also want to ask for assistance on the Ardruino (http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?action=forum) forum. They can probably help you tremendously.

zizzlemeplease,

The Saitek's still sound cool enough that I'm gonna try to get my hands on one. Funny you mention EL wire, I used some of that to trace the rim of the solar ramp in my PinBot machine. Great minds apparently think alike . I ordered some new EL wire on ebay about a month ago, it's called 'chasing EL wire' because it is animated. Looks really cool! I plan to upgrade the EL wire in my PinBot to this and add a switch to the visor so every time it opens the animation pattern changes a little.

Check it out here:

Lastly, with uploading photos to the forum I had the same problem with photo uploads where it would upload then disappear. I noticed that when I changed the file name to include NO spaces, numbers/letters only, that fixed it. Only worked for images, didn't work for the zip/txt/ino files.

I'd love to see some pics of your Saitek if you get image uploads working!

Hey all,

Just a heads up, I made a new mod to this machine that involves a servo to divert the ball on the ramp and create a new timer shot for the game. Check out the “Zizzle ¾ Pinball – Servo Ramp mod” topic on this forum.

I also made a YouTube video that shows all of the mods I made to this machine. The video is at:

if the embedded video didn't work the URL is:

Thanks!

-Brian

Yeah those color fading LED's really enhance the pf and make it appear more active. As you can probably see I used one above the servo too in order to indicate the arm is down and timer had been started.

Thanks again for those LED's!

Hey all,

For anyone interested I created a thread called “PinBot Mods” showing all of the similar mods I recently made to my Pin Bot machine.

-Brian

Excellent work so far! The video doesnt seem to be working though. Its a crazy coincidence but I am currently modding a star galaxy as well. Been looking for one for a few years now and finally picked one up off of craigslist. In this machine I'm using an UNO board to control the coils. Since there is no real rule set for this machine I added my own LED's and three Star Wars micro machines ships attached to three servos which are controlled by an additional UNO board. I will be using a MEGA board for the logic ruleset and lighting. I used a 12v relay in place of the playfield spinner circuit. This essentially acts as a switch to let the driver UNO know the game is in-play and to stop functioning while in game-over mode. If you noticed the rollover lane sounds are a direct rip-off from Star Wars so I have the arduino trigger that switch in conjunction with the ship moving via the servo. This way the ships have 'shooting' sound effects while they move.

Can you double check the video you posted? I would love to see it.

I'll post some pics of my lighting and servo mods soon. Please keep me updated on any progress you're making with this project. I'm very interested to see what you come up with.

-Brian

That is freakin' awesome so far!!! I love the Ghostbusters and ACDC idea. Just curious, I assume you added additional under-playfield LED mounts from your 'backup' star galaxy machine to replace some of the original LED's that were built directly on to the PCB's you gutted? I thought some of the LED's were directly soldered to the top of that driver board that sits right in the middle of the playfield. And I assume you replaced all the playfield stock LED's with RGB LED's?

On a side note, since I created this thread a while back I did the same flipper/coil/arduino mod to my Marvel Zizzle and the Star Galaxy. I coded these a bit differently. Did not use interrupts as they were not needed. It was useful on the Star Galaxy pin to use PWM to limit the strength of the flipper coils. The power supply that came with the machine was a 23v i think. I added a separate, standalone 24v power supply for the coils as to isolate the stock PCB's from any high voltage tasks. The 24v power supply WAY overpowered the flippers for some reason. This did not happen in either of the Zizzle machines. I was able to use PWM in the code to lower the flipper strength, which worked out great because I could fine-tune the flipper strength to just the right amount for the machine, while still simulating an EOS switch after a quarter-second of the flipper being held ON. I added another chunk of code that would disable the flipper back to its open position after 5 seconds of being held ON. Probably overkill but want to avoid parts damage as much as possible.

Here are a few pictures and links to two YouTube videos that show the progress on my machine so far. I got a little bit lazy this time with the GI and used LED strips for most of it. I added a few GI LED’s under the slingshots, the ramp mount and rollover lanes. I took a few photos of the home made coil driver board and power strip mounted inside the machine. I added an illuminated on/off switch to the front of the machine as well.

The video shows the Micro Machines ships I added (described in earlier post). As of now I simply have them hooked up to a servo tester, but in the end they will be controlled by an Arduino and will have movement that is interactive with game play. In one instance the two ships on the right will shoot each other when the ramp shot is active. The Arduino-activated relay will trigger the rollover lane that sounds the tie fighter sound built into the original soundboard (which is clearly ripped off from Star Wars haha).
The second video shows the runway lights on the main ramp in action. During game play the runway lights will turn on after, according to my rule set, “three ships are prepared for launch”. Each ramp shot “launches” one of the ships. Ships are “prepared” by first hitting the playfield’s left side spring target or rollover. After all three ships have been “launched” the enemy ship (tie fighter) has to be destroyed by hitting the right side smaller ramp twice. Finally, after the ship is destroyed, the player must hit the “rogue planet” target 5 times to destroy it and win the game. Each object that defines the rule set has a set of new LED’s that will indicate the number of hits acquired and how many are still needed (see photos).

Lastly I added a flasher topper to the top of the back box. When completed I plan to have it activate for 5 seconds every time one of the challenges in the rule set are completed, and maybe stay on if the player wins. See video clip.
I disabled both ramp switches that, in the stock game, give you between 50 to 100 or so extra balls per hit. Ridiculous.

Here are the YouTube video links:

Topper Flasher:

Runway Lights:

Servo/Ships:

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The Star Trek sounds are excellent btw!!!!!!

Thank you!

The led strips are simply connected to a 9v power supply. None of them are interactive except the runway lights on the main ramp. The chasing effect is built in to the strip, so I will have the arduino (through a relay) turn the strip on and off when ramp shots are needed. As of now I have code completed for the driver board flipper buttons, pops, slings, and flippers. I'm still in the process of building an interface board that will receive switch inputs and control the playfield LED's. Your idea with using neopixels in place of the original LED's is awesome. In hindsight I should've done this too, but i've already drilled holes and mounted all the LED's I added to the playfield. I'm using a 3v power supply and series of transistors to have an arduino control the LED's. Again, in retrospect neopixel would have been easier. Actually I did not know about the existence of neopixel and the like until you presented it in this forum, so thank you! I ended up using a neopixel stick in a PinBot mod after seeing your work thus far.

I'd be more than happy to share code with you but I'm guessing my coding knowledge is far less than yours.

I'd be very interested to see how you coded for the serial communication between the uno and mega boards. I've never tried this before.