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So I’ve been making great progress so far…. got all my parts except for beacons. One of my solenoids is broken, so it’s 9 only for now. (I don’t know when a shaker or gear motor will happen.)
Even got it all working in the cab with a mock-up via DOF which is working great. Most of the wiring is good to go. I even setup a kill switch for the 12v going to the sainsmart relay board and anything mechanical for a “night mode”, while still allowing for 12v for anything else light related.
Here’s the board before it’s put into the cabinet. It may not be the prettiest, but it allows me access to everything while having all outputs of the led-wiz fused, and having the led / strobe output closer to where they will be to accommodate the limited rgb wiring I have. The Teensy for addressable leds will be on my PC board. I’ll still have plenty of room for future stuff, even if I need to stack boards.
Here’s my mockup with everything except for solenoids connected (no beacons, and a small test fan in the pic)….but I can still see the relays working to confirm they will work. I have the left and outer-left flashers in my left speaker hole, and the right flashers in the right speaker hole, and the center on the led strip for now.
I also have my FIRE button working on the arcade control panel, and I have it combined with the launch button in DOF, since you need to use the launch button to “FIRE” in VP anyways.
DOF is pretty damn impressive! Some amazing work done by swisslizard and arngrim!
Since I don’t have 10 solenoids, I can just combine the rear center and the middle center for now. It also frees up an LED-Wiz port.
I also have an atwood 3000 blower fan. Man it works great, but sure is loud! Very cool the way different tables make use of it. The noise is going to be better when used with a hose…. which gets me wondering on where to mount it!
I’m definitely considering mounting it inside (like randr did), as it fits perfectly in that spot before my coin door. (I removed my coin door mech as I don’t use it and I have only one coin slot) I was going to have it blow out through the coin eject hole with some kind of upward scoop). Or maybe I might still mount it on top of the cabinet….or behind the cabinet blowing up through a hose / vent at the top of the cabinet with a finished topper…
I also would like a simple way to adjust the voltage going to the fan…12V is pretty loud…5V is too slow…so maybe just a simple way to get in between with some kind of pot / switch. I don’t have an H-bridge or anything else that would allow me to use PWM right now….maybe if I get a shaker down the line.
Any suggestions would be great..
Also….we just found out that we have bed bugs in the house…..AAAAAAAH! We think my son brought them back from his grade 8 school graduation trip! So now my progress is slowed down considerably, cause we have to purge the house and live in hell for a month or so (and its going to cost alot)
….and it was going so well too!
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So now I finally have the solenoids all working. Unfortunately 1 of them was broken in shipping, so I had to settle for 9 instead of 10. Luckily DOF lets you easily combine cabinet toy functions through software, so I just combined middle center and rear center.
I decided to mount them on cross pieces since I was running out of room on the sides of the cabinet. This also allowed me to position them closer to where they would typically be in a real pinball cabinet. I also didn’t like the very loud “metal smacking wood” sound the solenoids give when fully engaging (they would also sometimes get stuck open for 2 seconds). Â So I used some “plexiglass / plastic” L-bracket looking pieces I had lying around for the solenoids to strike. This kept them from getting stuck and it sounded much better. I also used cable clamps for the slingshot solenoids which works really well to replicate that type of sound.
Sadly, I ran out of terminal strips, so I settled on using solder and electrical tape for the diodes connected to each solenoid. (to snuff out any EMI that could damage the Sainsmart relay board) That’s why my wiring looks so wierd for some of this….and the lack of sleep from cleaning my house for 4 days straight didn’t help either.
Here’s a quick video showing them working:
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Looks great. Have you played vp with it? You will never go back to no feedback now :)
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Looks great. Have you played vp with it? You will never go back to no feedback now :)
This demo was after I had tried MANY VP tables…. Â and dear god it is soooo hard to go back to no feedback!
I built in a “night mode” switch to kill power to all the mechanical noise makers (so my wife doesn’t kill me while she sleeps at night) while still allowing for all the lighting, etc… Â and it’s just not the same!
Makes me sad going to a Future Pinball table that doesn’t have Led-Wiz support scripted in yet. The tables that do support it are great though! Guess I’m gonna have to learn some visual basic scripting…
I would equate this to my driving simpit I built. I have 12 transducers that provide positional and effects based feedback based on telemetry data, etc from the driving game. It’s amazing and such a game changer… and its a bummer when your favorite new racing game with much better graphics, etc… doesn’t support the software (SimVibe) to allow that experience. The simpit feels dead… Â Â That’s how a cabinet feels when turning off the feedback…and I don’t even have a shaker yet!
However I also made even more progress…. now my 5 flasher LED strips, strobes, start, launch, FIRE button lights are all working with both VP and FP. My beacons are wired and ready…just waiting for them to arrive in the mail!
Here’s a quick video demo of my current 5 flasher layout and lights:
My blower fan (attwood 3000) works, but I gotta figure out where its going to go! Gotta find a way to convert a 3 inch hose to the coin door hole opening (similar to what you did). Otherwise it will have to go on top.
Once the fan is done and the beacons arrive…. then I’ll make a topper to finish it off!
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Wow great idea putting 5 bar in speaker openings like that! Really is a good ideaÂ
I used 3″ tube for blower then fiber glassed the exit to the tube if you need pictures of how I did it let me know but works so good and I like that it’s hidden********************************************************
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Thar she blows!
After seeing blower fans on other pinball cabinets, I knew I was going to have one in my cabinet.
Visual Pinball currently supports up to almost 30 tables that utilize a blower fan. It can be long gusts of wind like in Twister and Whirlwind, or a quick burst of air during certain events… other examples are:
Attack from Mars – saucer exploding
Medieval Madness – catapult launch, castle exploding
Dirty Harry – shooting your gun
Twilight Zone – Rocket Launch
The Getaway – quick burst of air for each loop
Grand Prix and Nascar – quick burst of air for each lap
Jurassic Park – ?…and many more.
Some people have a simple fan on top of their cabinet. Others use an inline blower fan. Since alot of the events are quick bursts of air, you need something that can push alot of air very quickly to get the right effect. I used an Attwood 3000 inline blower fan. Since I’m just using this with my relay board for simple on/off function, this works nicely.
Its very effective but also very loud when not used with a hose. When I tried it on top of my backglass, I found it to be too loud, and the air was being spread to wide and alot of the effect was lost for those quick bursts (an Attwood 4000 would work better on top).
So I decided to try randr’s unique method….
….by installing it inside the cabinet and blowing air out through the coin eject hole and up to your face. This worked well for the space that I had. I just mounted it in front of the coin door (I don’t use the coin mechanism) and connected with a bathroom vent hose. The only problem is coming up with some sort of upward facing scoop to use at the coin door eject hole. I haven’t been able to find anything I can get to hack / work that was effective and could be installed with the mounting options that I had. So I just made my own hack job…
I really hope I can find something that will work better…. any suggestions?
Here’s a quick video demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmpyxlBpIBI
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Looks good! Love the blower feedback such a great effect always surprises the heck out of people when playing
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Well here it finally is…. addressable LEDS!
After seeing randr showing off addressable leds in action in his cabinet, I knew I would eventually want it! Well here we go!
The idea is that addressable leds can be controlled individually throughout a strip instead having the entire strip turn on / off / change colour, etc. As a result you can create cool animation and effects that can be used on the sides and back of your playfield in a pinball cabinet. They are 3 pin strips that run on 5V with a 5V, DATA, and GND line. The controller I’m using is a Teensy, and the software that controls it is DOF (Direct Output Framework)
For my cabinet, my playfield TV lays down on rails, so I couldn’t just stick the led strips on the inside of the cabinet, as they may get in the way if I ever need to remove the TV. So I needed to have them mounted on something. You can buy proper aluminum channels, but to order them online was quite costly with crappy CDN dollar and shipping.
So I decided to use these shelf rail things I found. They are normally mounted on a wall with the opening facing the wall so you can install shelf supports in the slots. They were cheap and they were black so they matched my cabinet inside perfectly. I just had to put in some long strips of backboard for the leds to stick on, or they would be in too deep and it would be hard to see them while playing.
The led strips I purchased are 144 per meter. I have over 700 leds installed. Thats alot of leds! As a result I had to use a dedicated 5V power supply rated at 60A! No matter what length of 144 / meter strip you buy, they all come with 0.5 meter strips soldered together. So if you want a seamless looking strip, you’ll need to cut off an led or two and solder it back together. Since my work’s soldering station just died, I was stuck with my crappy 21 year soldering iron. For the side led strips I wasn’t worried about cutting them to make them look seamless.
Here is the matrix I made for the back of the playfield. This will look like a low-res led screen. It can be made up of how ever many led strips you want as the DOF software will just scale to whatever you have. I used my 2 meter strips and their middle 0.5 meter sections for the back matrix, as they were the perfect size without me having to cut any strips and resolder them to size. I did however have to solder the 5V, data and gnd pins to and from each strip.
…and here it is in the back of the cabinet.
The connections start at the Teensy controller which is plugged into the computer via usb. Then the Teensy has a cat5 cable output that uses 2 of its wires for the GND and DATA line going to the first strip…which is the right playfield strip. The DATA line then gets connected to and from each strip / matrix, for a continuos connection. 5V and GND also needs to be tapped in at the begginning of each strip and the matrix, as there are alot of leds that need power.
These LEDS are REALLY bright on max brightness. To cut down on that and also to make it so you can’t even see the led strips when they are off…. I had a custom piece of tinted plex-glass (5mm) made for the back matrix. That alone wasn’t enough, so I needed to add window tint to the front of the plex-glass. I put on 20% tint. This combined with the plex-glass tint was perfect and hid the leds completely until they light up. Now I want to do the same for the sides, but I don’t know if I can get plexi-glass cut that small and long.
Success! After setting up the DOF software, the leds strips look amazing! It’s hard to describe all the effects they do while playing, but here is a picture showing the back matrix displaying animations while browsing in Pinball X.
….and here is a video describing what the setup is, and showing what is looks like in Pinball X!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFPAkSGwnFc
I’ll make another video that will show some gameplay that shows off the cool effects while playing!
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Looks great Terry, nice work as usual.Â
Dang it not i want addressable LED’s
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You do such a good job on the videos! And you also do great work! Looks super. It is really amazing looking forward to game play showing the different ways it works into the tables. Oh and Kristen (miss randr) has a big head now and asked when we are doing another video :)
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Mr R&R and I really enjoy your videos. Â You do a really nice job explaining everything and your cab is such a unique build, very well done. Â This last one however is MY favorite
Thank you for the shout out! I’ll wear that name proudly 
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You do such a good job on the videos! And you also do great work! Looks super. It is really amazing looking forward to game play showing the different ways it works into the tables. Oh and Kristen (miss randr) has a big head now and asked when we are doing another video :)
Thanks! You are very inspiring!
Haha! I was hoping she (Kristen) would like that shout out! She really is a good sport with your videos, and you two seem to have fun doing them. I thought the “Vanna White of virtual pinball” was a perfect title for her. Â ;) Â Â I don’t think my wife would want to be seen in my videos (I think alot of wives are like that).
This part of the build was the easiest by far. Mainly because of your help (Swisslizrd and others) with understanding how the configuration of the software works. I know DOF R3 is still in the WIP phase, so it really helped.
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Mr R&R and I really enjoy your videos. You do a really nice job explaining everything and your cab is such a unique build, very well done. This last one however is MY favorite
Thank you for the shout out! I’ll wear that name proudly 
Haha, you are welcome. Â When I see you two do videos, and take playful jabs at each other, it reminds me so much of me and my wife. Its so funny seeing people’s comments on Youtube who don’t understand how “people who are married for a long time” interact with each other. (18 years for me next week) You even include your little dog in the videos! (We have a Shih Tzu, and Yorkie)
It really is cool when someone has a spouse who can share in their hobbies, so we enjoy seeing you guys.
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Looks fantastic Terry. Maybe i need to take the plunge and add a teensy and RGB’s to my setup.
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Thanks. It’s a great plunge to take!
Even if you have a 5 flasher bar already and have no room for a back matrix… you can still run a single strip on the sides and one on the back at the bottom of the flasher bar to match up with the sides. DOF will scale the effects to your setup.
Its the easiest hardware to install…the software isn’t hard once you understand what is going on, and have an example to go by.
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I don’t have any DOF lights yet, only small Chinese (yellow) solenoids. Ive been lusting over doing a matrix for a while, I have the room for it. My play field monitor isn’t 100% full cabinet width. I have about a 2″ gap on each side. Im not sure if the effect will be as great with the gap.
I also need to make a new bezel for the play field. I just used foam core for the current version. I need to replace with some wood or acrylic for a more permanent solution.
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My playfield screen has about 1.25 inches from the actual screen to the inside of the cabinet sides. My TV wasn’t debezelled. It’s a 42 inch TV, whereas alot of people use 46 inch for a widebody cabinet.
The effect would look cool regrdless. You don’t need to have the strips right beside the screen. My side strips have about 3/4 inch gap between them on the screen, including the bezel.
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While I certainly intended to get another video that showed off the addressable led matrix in action….. I got distracted by a couple of things.
First…I updated to the newest VPX, and the newest UltraDMD.
Then I realized that I had been missing out on a bunch of VPX tables that came out in the last few months!
….but then as I’m about to make a video, my eye caught a great new little program that’s a little bit of a game changer….
Pinball FX2 and The Pinball Arcade now have DOF feedback for flipper solenoids (NOT slingshots or bumpers!), RGB lighting and more thanks to a new program called DOFFX2.
It basically maps keyboard keys to trigger Led-Wiz or sainsmart outputs! It also has some other cool features like RGB lighting control, flipper solenoid timers, and more.
Here are videos that demo both Pinball FX2 and The Pinball Arcade on my cabinet running with DOFFX2 (1.3 beta).
I have the program set to be always on and active the whole time, and you can see it doesn’t interfere with Pinball X running the DOF plug-in.
I have the flipper buttons triggering my solenoids.
I have the center RGB led strip “flasher” set to random flipper triggered RGB lighting.
I have the flippers set to turn on a left flasher as green, and a right flasher as blue.
I have the beacon, blower fan, and strobes set to go off during certain moments…. including an appearance from Scotty of Star trek! Â ;)
…and other things too.
It’s a simple demo of the kind of thing that can be done so far…
Here’s a video demo of Pinball FX2:
Here’s a video demo of The Pinball Arcade:
No more octo coupler circuits needed! This can be used for MAME, PC Games, etc…
Here’s a link to the program’s thread:
http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=35349
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Another great video. Dof in the fx2 and tpa will at least make the games better. Great stuff
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Another great video. Dof in the fx2 and tpa will at least make the games better. Great stuff
I’m like you in that I still prefer the arcade pinball games  over PFX2…. for me I think it the lack of “punch” from not having flashing lights and loud sounds within the game.
That said the graphics and visuals on alot of the tables are beautiful. They still need some more modern lighting and post processing in there….it’s too bright…needs some darkness in there, etc…
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