Big plans for this year!

Happy New Year!

This year will be about finishing the machine.
It's so close I can basically taste the highscores already!

But...  (unexpected, huh?)  ...I will also be remaking the motherboard.

I feel I've finalized all functions enough to create a proper PCB of the features needed. I will also add a few backup functions such as additional ports and other features that aren't necessarily used for this game. You never know...

I've tried several (trial versions of) different PCB softwares, including Eagle, PCB Express, DipTrace and one other I can't remember the name of - but the one that got my interest is Fritzing. Very easy to use, and perfectly fine for my purposes. It even has a breadboard and code layout in addition to the standard schematic and PCB-layout features. The production prices aren't the cheapest, but neither are any of the other software's license costs...

Read more about Fritzing here.

While creating the new motherboard, I will also transplant the location of the board into the head instead of the body. This is common practice in consumer pinball machines, and I can see why. It's basically impossible to service the machine without moving the glass, board and what not. It's also more or less impossible to troubleshoot hardware errors. On top of that, I'll rewrite most of the code as I now have a better understanding of the programmatic requirements of a pinball machine (which wasn't there to begin with - never seen the innards of one before starting this project! ).

I've played quite a few games now, and man - it's a difficult game! No risk of completing the game without proper practice, that's for sure...

1) State of the machine as of 2017-01-01. There are a few plastic signs missing here though, that have been broken in half during the years. But overall - it's looking very good! :)