Operation Mother

So - finally got my greasy fingers around properly installing the motherboard inside the machine.

Still haven't got my opto's to work but at this moment I'll have to live without them. Will need to debug the circuit and possibly rebuild it separately in the future. 

Like most of the work on this build it's a bit of "one step forward, two steps back" since I was only going to screw the board to the backing plate. But... I forgot that the backing plate was made out of cheap fiber board so screws won't work - and - of course the cables didn't reach the intended position for the board.

So I did what any hobby engineer with(out?) self respect would have done; I cut a big hole inside the frame of the head.

This worked alright, but due to the placement of the intended cut everything turned out a bit crooked. Not that it matters much, since now it's done. But I know my future self will grin at this during any maintenance session, haha...

"Fun fact" - while checking out the playfield, it turns out most of the rubbers have cracked and need replacements. Again. But I guess I kind of was prepared for that and it'll have to wait until the game logic / game rules are completed and the machine is closed up properly.

Other than a few mishaps; the board is now installed and I didn't break anything in the process!

Installed and ready to be developed!

P.S, ignore the double vision display, there's
a small gap between the display and the panel at the moment. 

Remembering The Past

Needed the soundboard from the "old system", so I opened up the pinball machine for the first time in a while... And I was actually surprised to see what a mess it was/is! It's a wonder it even worked at all, haha. :D

Anyhow -
It was quite satisfactory to see that where the old setup used tons of different boards, two MCU's and a cabling from hell, the new setup is ultra neat in comparison. And despite having "only" one MCU, the performance is 4x in most cases, but 200x when it comes to I/O. Hardware stability is improved a lot as well! I'm also pleased with the new code library compared to the old, which will make game programming a breeze.

The maintenance mode is always enabled, which gives me detailed input on sounds running, scenes started, sound and input / output etc - so I can see right away if there's a problem. Love it!

1) The old....monstrosity. This is actually HW3.0, if we're counting revisions.
HW4 (current) is seen in the post below, which despite being in development "mode", still looks tons better. 

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! :)

Are we there yet?

Not quite, but at least the machine is done enough to be moved into the living room. :)

1) Close, but no cigar. But at least the scotch is cooling, awaiting the cigar!

A Helping Hand!

While bolting the legs on with the new plastic protectors, I realized that the bolts were only just long enough to reach into the bracket on the other side. I double checked this with a couple of pinball experts online and they all said that there were two different bolts available - and of course I got the wrong ones...

But then I received a mail from a guy called Purre who was willing to send me a complete set of bolts free of charge! Awesome stuff!

Thank you, Purre!

The bolts made all the difference as you can imagine when compared side by side with a regular bolt...

1) Top - old bolt. Compared to the new bolts there's almost 10 mm difference in length!

Finally the legs are rock solid!

Slap some paint on it!

While waiting for my parts that are currently residing in customs-land, my girlfriend who works professionally applying decals helped me attach the last decals on the pinball machine - on the cabinet itself. It looks awesome!

1) The completed exterior - minus side rails and lockdown bar, but their time has not yet come.
It's really starting to look like a proper pinball machine now!

Doing so also allowed me to mount the legs in their final mode including the plastic protector, fixing the cabinet head and attaching the "fold-lock" on the back. The plunger, buttons and cabinet door is now also attached properly.

As soon as the parts arrive I'll jump right in creating the harness!

State of the Machine

With less than six hours on familiar grounds, work continued on the pinball machine...

1) Almost all bulb holders and assemblies are in place now. Still talking about the lower level, the upper level is still miles away.

2) It's basically a completed machine, more or less!

I've also started re-recording all animation data. But things are progressing slowly at the moment!

White at the end of the tunnel

Seems the playfield will be able to recover from the whitemask incident. Phuh.
A little sanding should work and then we're back on track.

Touching Up

Sanded some more inserts today. Joy to the world.
(Yesterday I sanded most of the inserts until my fingers literally bleed from numerous freak sanding incidents...)

Then I glued the inserts and did a couple of touchups. Ahem...

1) Touchy touchy. Looks a lot worse than it is, actually. 

Obviously all the excess material will be sanded away before painting the whitemask, but it's rather discouraging to see all my nicely sanded inserts covered in gunk. The end results will be a super smooth surface which is what matters anyway!

Ah... I remember the days when a millimeter was considered to be very small.

Inserts are inserted (pun intended)

Quick update - did a little powertooling so all inserts fit properly now.
Next time I'll measure the inserts more carefully!

1) Playfield with inserted inserts. They are currently not glued in place.
A little sanding is up next, then glue, touchups and paint!

I did try to get a good shot of the playfield, but my cell-camera seems to have given up completely... The "black" inserts at the bottom are dark green and the round insert at the bottom is blue.

What a beaut'!

"It...is...accomplished!"

After months and months of searching, driving, waiting, asking, questing, something else'ing -
The playfield is now routed!

And it looks awesome!

1) Before any work's been done. Flat and boring.

2) The insert layer is taking shape. Excitement grows!

3) Finished, but untouched, playfield. Totally awesome!

4) After a little touch-ups. After the inserts have been inserted (no pun intended) I'll stripe the whitemask on
and spray paint the white color. Then it's decal time!  

There's still some work to be done on it before painting, such as drilling holes for various objects and rails. Most, but not all, screw holes have been marked but some of them I'll have to do after the board is complete (yikes!).


Today is a good day!

Hinges of Steel

Finished the major elements of the backbox today!

I mounted the speakerpanel on a a piano hinge and it works and looks rather good actually. The downside is that it's a little too short so I'll probably need to cover up the edge with a rubber strip or similar.

1) The speakerpanel in a open position. What's not visible in this picture is that I've also
fixed the speaker cables so that they can be easily detached from the speakers if needed. 

I also (finally) got the backglass finished and put in its rightful place!
It's basically a high quality decal that is sandwiched in between two layers of crystal clear PVC. It gives me a nice surface that can be cleaned (with alcohol, if needed) and keeps the decal scratch free.

2) The plastic sandwich. Looking pretty sharp! 

The back glass lights up just enough so that the printing is visible, which was the goal. I was afraid the colors might become too washed out or not illuminated at all, but it turned out just right.

3) Illuminated backglass. There's a pretty strong reflection from the sun, but from the players point of view
it's looks perfect! There's also a slight light bleeding from the fluorescent tube shining through the edges
that needs to be corrected. 

4) Another angle of the completed backbox.

Now I'll just have to wait another week until the playfield is routed!

Heads up!

Finally got the backglass in place!

1) Backglass partly held in place by magnets (these things are a godsend!).
I figure I'm going to things a little different - I will allow unlocked access into the lighting-area of the
head, but the displayarea under it will be locked. So the lock won't be visible from the outside.

Weird angle thou - everything looks crooked!
And...

2) Decals applied to the sides (and speaker panel). Looking pretty sharp if I may say so!
The protective film is still somewhat attached to the backglass. I'll remove it on the very last moment, hehe.

Yepp, that's a couple of decals for you!
Or for me. I guess it's mostly for me.

The speakers has spoken!

Placed, but not fastened in the cabinet head. As I wrote before I have not yet decided to hinge or not to hinge, so I'm leaving open doors here (ha.ha...). I'd like to find some fancy beveled edges to apply on the edges of the head. Preferably chrome since the lockdown bar and side rails are chromed as well.

P.S
I really need to get a better camera. The colors are looking a lot better in reality and not washed out like in the picture.

Speaking of speakers...

I decided a while ago to remake the speaker panel since it wasn't up to par with the rest of the machine. The old version was also crooked and I'm actually quite ashamed that I left in the machine for so long... But I'm finally seeing the end of that now!

Using a piece of left over plywood from the intended playfield wood (more about this in another post) I used the decal as a template so that the edges match up perfectly. It has been given two coats of black paint to resist smaller scratches.

1) Comparison of the old (upper) and the new (lower) speaker panel. Much nicer!
Note the unpainted interior - I'm avoiding painting any surfaces that might get exposed to heat. Good or bad?

So far so good!

Then the first (ever!) decal was applied to the panel giving it a rather professional finish in an instant. I've always been fond of having decals on the speaker panels since it gives a more complete, non generic, look to the final machine.

2) Decal applied. This was printed way back when, but have not been put to use yet. I'm urging not to apply the rest of the decals yet since the machine is still under construction - what if I accidentally scratch the sides? Doh!



Finally - the speaker grills were mounted. My original plan was to use the classic "internal" speaker grills, but I failed somewhat miserably cutting perfectly round circles... And in the end - I like it this way.

3) And here it is - somewhat representative of the final version! Looks quite nice in my opinion. But I'll probably play around a little more with the black next time around, since it looks a little bleak compared to the superblack on the speaker grills. Well well, you live - you learn.

Next I will apply the display protector (with a sun filter screen), mount the display and speakers. I may also mount an inner protector/rim inside the display cavity. I've not yet decided if I will be keeping the current way of accessing the interior from the back or switch the hinges and have the speaker panel swing towards the front.

Those noisy rules...

Despite the lack of updates recently, quite a lot of work has been done on the machine.

I've evened out the surface of the cabinet including repainting and filling various dents and differences that would be visible through the decals when applied. That took quite a while to do. With a little luck the surface should be ideal for the decals now.

I've also begun recreating the speaker panel on the head, since the one I have now is not ideal - the display hole is a bit too small and the panel itself is slightly arched due to the nature of the wood I've used. I'm thinking it should be possible creating the panel in acrylic to get small or no edges between the artwork and the "glass". I might also do a combination with a wooden frame overlaid with a acrylic surface.

I've begun the selection of sound clips and combining them with the ruleset. I've used up around 180 samples out of 255 possible for sound effects and around 30 samples for music - while still filling all the major elements. The extra slots can be used to create variations of the elements already in place, avoiding hearing the same sample whenever you hit the same target repeated times, for example. I could also flesh out the current features allowing additional Splicers to take part etc.

The plan is to have two identical sets of sound samples for the sound effects and one unique set for music.
With a little planing I could vary the two sound effect sets slightly - for instance, all mode start samples for a specific mode could be limited to only one card since no other samples will be playing during that time.
But I do want to avoid this since that would require special code to handle each case instead of just "playSound(x)". But in case space is running out...

Some of the features I've planed I'm having troubles finding sound samples for. I might have to wing it a little and either create my own samples or use external sound samples outside the Bioshock universe...

Them Bolts

I've snooped around on the net a bit for reference photos regarding the playfield hinge bolts, and I found that more or less all pinball tables have a bolt-through solution.

Check out Medieval Madness here, for instance.
It's not immediately obvious that the bolts are there, but they are.

So I'll go for the standard solution - I mean, those tables have lasted for eternities without falling apart!

---

Said and done, and it doesn't look bad at all actually (besides from a little wood chipping, but nothing a little filling won't fix):

1) Attached brackets. The bolts are visible from the outside and will thankfully NOT cover any crucial graphics! 

Mock-up, you say?

Time's a real luxury these days!

But I got some work done on the playfield hinges, which hopefully turned out alright. I had to make a mock-up playfield using a small wooden board and the actual playfield hinges, brackets and supporters. If I had been using a proper playfield it would have been near impossible to position the playfield correctly since the actual playfield would be blocking most of the view...

1) Front of the mock-up. It turned out to be crucial in aligning and positioning the brackets for the hinges.
The supportbracket is not in it's final position and will come closer to the center of the cabinet. 

2) The mock-up "playfield" in an upright position.
The brackets are not attached in this picture and the "playfield" will extend 5 cm
beyond the end of the hinge on a real playfield. 

I need to decide on how to bolt the brackets for the hinges, since I'm pretty sure the bolts will cause big holes in the forehead of the Big Daddy that is featured on the sides of the cabinet. But on the other hand, if a proper bolt isn't used the whole playfield could drop down into the cabinet if we're unlucky!

I might do a compromise by having the bolt go through the cabinet sides, but lowered into the wood so that the head of the bolt does not protrude beyond the surface of the board. It should be stable enough, I hope. The downside with this approach is that I have to cut a (big) hole in the sideart if I ever need to unscrew those bolts. Not a big deal, but something to consider.

I also need to make a small wooden box that protects the circuitry in the bottom of the box since the cables of the playfield might possible cause damage when lifting or rotating the playfield. It would also protect the circuits if the playfield would drop into the cabinet, and also from any rogue balls that might drop onto the circuits in case of any catastrophic events containing coconuts and machine failure.

The long hours...

Still waiting for my playfield from the woodshop.
Agonizing wait!

Artwork!

This is the box of wonder I received today from "ADV Idé & Design" here in Gothenburg, Sweden.  Sideart, translite, playfield, front, playfield whitemask, speaker art etc. All in glorious 300 DPI, so the quality of the printing is EXCELLENT! (In fact, Stern should learn a thing or two about printing art from these guys...)

A quick peek inside reveals the whitemask for the playfield. Since the playfield is transparent and does not contain any white color, the playfield needs to be painted white first. Imagine masking each of these individually...  Now it's just a matter of taping it down, paint and remove - ready for the playfield art!

A small teaser of the middle right section of the playfield. Looks incredible! Can't wait to see it all lit up in colors etc! The playfield print is made on a transparent film that has been laminated for extra protection before the clear coating. Obviously the white in the pictures is transparent or cutout, and will show the insert color shining through.

Another great thing about this company is their cutcontour printing - After the artwork was designed I simply had to create an additional layer where the cutting should occur. Smooth, perfect edges with minimal work. This allows me to get that nice bit of visible wood on the edges of the holes that professional tables has. Very nice!