Pinduino -- easy programmable control for any mod!

[mwong168]

Update: 12/19/2014

Version 2 of the Pinduino is returning from production. Details on the improvements are in this post: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/update-arduino-shield-propin-pinhead#post-2118187

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This is an update on our progress on our Arduino shield for intercepting flasher and coil outputs. Since this is prof_pinball, here is our science-style update:

Purpose: Develop a plug-and-play Arduino shield that let's anyone easily make custom programs for controling any pinball mod.

Background: This is a plug and play shield for Arduino Megas (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/arduinoBoardMega) with all the necessary circuitry for plugging into J6 and J7 on SAM Stern pinball machines, and plug outs to drive LED strips, addressable (programmable) LED strips, or other mods. You can easily program Arduinos using all the open source tools available (Windows, Mac, Linux: http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/HomePage) so that every time a J6/J7 flasher or coild is triggered (or a sequence of them), you can trigger a custom mod in your game. Right now, we have been writing programs for ramp lights, backbox lights, and under backbox lights. (See videos of Tron and Ironman)

Update: We received our first set of boards from our manufacture. We have some refining to do on the layout of the board, but they work perfectly and are incredibly simple to install. The two problems we will fix in the next version of the board are flipping the orientation of the J6 and J7 plugs (the way they are now means we have to twist the wiring harnesses 180 degrees), and fix an isolated ground (currently fixed with a bridge wire).

We made five boards and will send a couple out to people for testing. The others will be used in our own games for testing and developing programs for games we have on hand (Xmen and Avengers are next).

Please let us know if you are interested in these and we'll order more in our next batch. We'll work on pricing and let you know soon. Since we love the DIY aspect of these projects, we plan on selling each item individually or a sets: Pinduino, Arduino's preprogrammed with your game, J6/J7 wiring harnesses, power wiring harness, LED strip wiring harnesses. Of course, let us know what will make you happy and we'll see what we can do.

Right now, we are very excited to see that our first boards worked as designed without any major problems. Also, we are on track for having everything ready for ZapCon next year.

Vids:

[youtube]

[youtube]

 

[mwong168]

The Professor Pinball Team is excited to announce that the next version of the Pinduino is currently under manufacture! Based on our first run and feedback from the community, we have made some MAJOR improvements.

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The Professor Pinball Pinduino Board has the following:
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---===Standard Inputs===---
J6 and J7 of Stern SAM boards.
This includes the signals for up to 16 flashers, coils, or motors. For a breakdown of what is controlled for various Stern SAM games: http://goo.gl/lKMpR1

---===Standard Outputs===---
(3) +5V Output Headers. These output headers have an Analog/Digital Output, +5V, and GND, (Servos, Addressable LED strips work well for this)
(4) +12V Output Headers. These work great for 12V RGB strips. Each color is independently controlled so you can program all types of lighting effects for cabinet, under cabinet, and backbox.
(2) Generic Output Headers. These supply +5V, +12V, and GND sources from the pinball machine.

---===Arduino SDK Control===---
The Pinduino is based on the common Arduino Shield architecture, and is designed to work with Arduino Mega/Arduino Due boards and the Arduino SDK. These open source micro control boards are cheap and easily available. Arduino brand boards cost between $20-$40 (http://goo.gl/BLcc5V) and off brand boards can be had for around $15 (http://goo.gl/wsz1MB).

---===Protoboard===---
You may want to expand upon the Pinduino to add your own capabilities that we haven’t thought of. In this case, we have included a mini-protoboard section (150+ through-holes) to allow you to easily add whatever you need. This could include resistors, transistors, diagnostic LEDs, fuses, etc. to customize the Pinduino to your needs. With this, you can build your own input logic (e.g., read from a switch) to read from anywhere on the pinball machine.

---===Power===---
Everything is powered by plugging into the standard Stern AUX power plug.

Just wanted folks to know that we have done our first code drop (X-men)! You can download the Arduino sketch from our GitHub repository: https://github.com/elyons/professor_pinball_pinduino_sketches

Vids:

[youtube]

[youtube]

 

[bstock]

Really neat stuff!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[luch]

really makes the tron game pop