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First test of the LED matrix :D
Took hours to get this going but well worth the effort. Window tint en-route to complete the look then i will work on the control panel.
I’m re-doing the POV of every table now in order to try and get it as close to 1:1 as possible… essentially sacrificing the instructions and plunger graphics (the real plunger equates to where it would be showing if there was screen there) in favor of a more realistic view and less warping of the table for when the ball is in play. Way, way better in terms of the gameplay!
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Very nice! And a great original vpx table for sure.
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Working on the matrix up the side of the playfield today… Definitely needs to be darkened in some way when they are on full bright (i don’t really want to reduce them in DOF if possible so I can keep my bezel flashers bright). Looking at a hardware fix then, I decided to stretch some of the spare speaker mesh that I had over it. Held in place with Velcro which the perfect solution as it’s clean, professional looking from the front and completely reverseable :)
Tested one side and taking a break before i go do the other. Here’s the pics:
Before / Unmodified :
^^ Its’s made from two pieces of strip woord/skirting board (different shapes, they have at my local hardware store) that I cut down, glued together leaving just enough space for the LED strip. In some places the edge piece of the strip would sink into the crack so i’m glad i went with curved pieces at the join and not a hard 90 degree corner. This in itself looked really nice i thought but it’s too bright and my housemate’s review was that it’s too distracting in game (maybe she’s the easily distracted type :wacko:)!
So i stuck some velcro in places, stretched speaker mesh and cut it down to shape.
Quick comparison video, I’ll be doing the other side later this evening….
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Cool idea!
And what a great table choice to play test with too
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Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
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Cheers! Had a small problem with the back matrix, connector on very first led was bad so awaiting a couple of new strips… such a fiddly thing to solder to even using a clip, Im really bad at it! I might eventually test this method on that too as the cheap tint i ended up finding is way too thin (i could try layers). Failing that I might look into a thicker limo tint.
Hoping to get the area around the playfield finished and looking good by the end of next month…
As for test tables AFM and Stranger Things are my most used… certainly haven’t found another table that has the entire matrix lit with an effect on launch yet so it’s super handy and it’s one of my favorites anyway! :)
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Plexi with Limo tint and the cheapest privacy screen on the internet (as per the randr video)… Think the levels are great now – me and a housemate played a bunch of tables and didn’t go blind!Â
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Really great work on the cabinet – cheers!
Gwen
- Wonky builder of the steampunk Nikola Tesla cabinet & Starfighter CabinetYou need to login in order to like this post: click here
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Goals for first half of the year:
- Get solenoids firing with the Pin Control 2 board (had an attempt previously but nothing worked).
- Arcade controls top plate and mounting (have an idea for how this might work).
- Fix Red channel on undercab lighting (for some reason only blue and green working right now)
- Install more permanent / accessible power button, at the moment that’s inside the speaker grill.
- Same goes for volume controls.
- Record video tour of the thing once it’s “done”
Keep getting side-tracked with other projects such as creating matrix effects for things and loading up tables… lots of interesting stuff going on in the scene! When the weather is a bit more pleasant here I will probably do another big hardware push over a week or two…
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After much tinkering I have finally found a way to have the nudge of the pincontrol 2 board work as it should with VPX.
Issue is that the range of the X and Y axis was extremely low meaning that you could never get the balance right as I was having to crank the gain to ridiculous levels and even then was giving me inconstant tilt in game.. well no longer! Here’s my workaround.
Resources :
http://ftp.vkb-sim.pro/Programms/  <- programs used (note you might have to copy-paste or type this link)! O_o
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1foQ41XFtHOxZcey6qUKhrDuDnDQgL_MO/view    <- Nudge test table
- Create a folder to work with on your C: Drive for tweaking the nudge.
- Download and open DiView (from the above link). Note the X and Y axis, nudge and the middle sensor is only moving a little way when you shake the cabinet.Â
- To fix this I used a program called DXTweak2, it was intended for flight sim enthusiasts but works here too. Again, download and run this from the link above.
- By default the axis will range from -32767 to (positive) 32767 with a center point of 0. By reducing these extremes we can shorten the range and therefore make the nudge much more sensitive.
CURVE BEFORE :
CURVE AFTER
5. Using DXTweak to find a comfortable range where it would take a realistic shake of the cab to have an effect (I want a moderate shake to register about 70-80% up the scale) I settled on the following values. You can use these as a baseline if trying to follow on your own device.
Y axis min/max = -4200/4200
X axis min/max = -4600/4600
- Then hit “Apply”
- I also saved it as a “my tweaks” too, when i do this the program exits, i’m not sure if this is needed or not.
- Good news is that this saves to registry so the changes (at least for me) persist on restart, no need to add anything to start-up etc!Â
You could have these the same… i wanted a bit more of a kick for forward tap with my setup as X axis requires more precision. The other axis should remain unchanged as this tweak shouldn’t be needed for your plunger.
7. In VPX i recommend a combination of two tables for testing – the “nudge test and calibration” table found at the link above and Attack from Mars by G5K (currently awaiting new hosting). The reason for the latter is that it features a toy that jiggles as you nudge the table however you can substitute this with any other VPX table that you are familiar with.
8. In the nudge test table, your movements are overly exaggerated. Experiment by setting a value in this table, back out, test in your game, repeat… repeat… Eventually you can get this feeling pretty realistic!
9. Last thing to note is that if you change a value in the VPX settings menu direct, you will need to re-start VPX to have the change work (so don’t just make change with AFM loaded and not restart). Also you will see that I ended up having to make the tilt sensitivity pretty high for realism. This might be nice with a physical tilt bob instead (maybe an upgrade for another day).
Here’s how i have this set in VPX currently, its actually playable now but may need a bit more tweaking still!
Happy tweaking, hope this helps someone with the same board as this plays so much better with a more realistic nudge feeling!! ^_^
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This feels like deja-vu. You seem to have done more or less exactly what I’ve done. The difference is that this actually is written down in a proper post. You should really consider putting such great info directly into the wiki. Or, you could be lazy, and just write the wiki and then link to the exact article ;)
A great post like this should not get lost inside the forum. It is something to pick up time and time again – especially when new guys arrive.
I wonder. Do you have a tilt bob ? If so, now it is really time to tune that and you will be super happy with your cab. The only thing that annoys me is that stern tables for some reason registers the tilt bob. I can shake it like wild and it feels like there is a hold-off timer in there somewhere, so it doesn’t matter how many times the bob hits the metal. That is kind of the last thing I need to fix before I’m happy with my cab.
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@Thalamus Only just got it set up today so thinking it might need some fine tuning but would be happy to add this to the wiki :)
Don’t have a tilt bob although considering getting one…Â software tilt which seems OK although think a real one might be better!
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Better ? That is the only thing where I believe DjRobX doesn’t know what he is talking about ;) YES !
One big advantage is that you don’t have to consider your digital nudge sens. when you adjust it. I tried that at first, and there is no way you will be able to fine tune thme both. Or at least, very very hard.
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@thalamus I copied the nudge info to a wiki article, PM me if something needs changing! Also added links to the media post… been a while since i looked there ;)
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Excellent. Not that I could not do it myself. But, I hope that we can get more “facts” up there and by asking people to do it themselves, they kind of remember that there is such a thing. Things we repeat over and over again should be considered to go into the wiki if you ask me. Been a bit too lazy not adding a few things myself. Promised myself I’ll do better :)
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Great stuff guys. nudge is a tough thing in VP to get right so any info or ideas are very welcome to help make it work “more right” if thats a thing?
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Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
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Cheers @thalamus – i’ll try and add a few other bits to the Wiki as I move forwards as well. We shall see if this one is easy enough to follow or if I need to ultimately make a video guide on the topic!
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Anything is better than what we had and I don’t have any troubles with understanding what you explained already. Of course. The more details, the better, a video like Terry does for many of his projects is of course very useful, especially for those that struggle with the English language. Thank you for sharing. i should try to find that tilt-bob video that I shared over at VPF and add it.
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The madness continues on the DOF front.Â
Been unable to spend as much time as I was hoping towards the beginning of the year due to real life commitments but hoping to make a last big hardware push over a few holidays I now have in the coming months… In the end I hope to have 90% of the hardware I want done by the end of the year!Warning to sensitive viewers, this cab is currently a rat’s nest (but i love it)… Maybe one day I will re-wire things but redoing something that’s already solid runs the risk of breakage (more on that shortly)…
On to the pics:
Current overview – 12 seiman’s (6 bumpers, 2 slings, 2 sets of 2 for the flippers) – tested working. This is because a 2 of the seimans sounded a bit weaker than the others, i figured why not double up….
^^ the 6 bumpers.
Reverse view – you can see I already added another 2x 12v solenoids (chinese push type) which will be ANOTHER 2 for the flippers (clicky sound), there will be yet another 2 added for extra sound on the slings once I get paid! Luckily the bumpers don’t need it although more can always be added if you power it correctly and be mindful of the channel limits of the pincontrol board (i kept the loudest ones for the bumpers and the 4 smaller seimans for the slings and flipper combos).
Speaking of which…. disaster struck last night while i was working on the cab!
^^ this is the usb controller which is socketed on the PC2 board. Err needless to say a swear was said when i clumsily broke this!
I’m hoping it’s ok… there is another identical controller which luckily is also socketed on the board (intended for an expansion board) so i just swapped it out… hoping it’s going to be ok or I’m going to have to beg Sven of pin-shop.de to sell me a replacement (or help me to reflash the non-broken one).
On a side note i have nothing but praise for the PC2 board. The fact that these are so well put together and designed (these usb controllers have proper sockets), has really saved my ass. I intend to do a full review at a later date.Â
https://vpin-shop.com/
Another shot of my Chinese solenoid mount. The beater hits a plastic cable reel that i sawed in half (a good way to ensure the same distance apart if you want to make a matching pair).
^^ Prototype bell to go in the backbox. Brass Pendelton bicycle bell from halfords… i tried several that i saw about the place, this was the winner! I already have a 24v knocker in the backbox. Forgot to take a pic when I mounted that but will do so when I mount the bell.
^ 12v gear motor. £15, lucky ebay find, i love the sound of this!
Left to do on my list –
- Rebuild of the LED matrix as the temporary backing is super awkward. Planning to add a discrete power supply too since the other toys are now in play, previously it was running off the same modified computer PSU as the other DOF stuff which is not ideal.
- more 12V solenoids! Aside from the slings, I want to build a chime, hopefully can find a kid’s xylophone in a charity shop or something as per mameinabox’s recent videos (check them out on youtube, he’s great).
- Implementing the arcade control board (ipac) and controller.
- Swapping flipper buttons out to RGB and attaching to the above controller.
- Blower fan!
- Tidy up some of the hardware
- Lightguns (sinden) once the kickstarter gets shipped!
- Software, modding and tweaking until the end of time…
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We will need a video when you get it all running :) I’d say it’s looking good so far. Congrats!
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Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
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