Star Trek: The Mirror Universe pinball

[zitt]

The Orbits aren't the only "important" areas on the PF; so I wanted to try the Warm White Facetted bulbs in the other areas of the PF.

Slingshots:

Check - Lights up the slings without issue.

500 target:

Check - Good illumination and the bulb isn't horrible either.

BustyBlonde:

ALWAYS a problem in this game. Not enough light bulbs in this area to keep the plastics well lit.

Let's try one of Comet's 3LED strips in combo with the Facetted:

Yes; I know the strip doesn't match the bulb in color tone. I'm not sure Comet Carries the strips in Warm White. Art sent me this as a sample to play with.


But; it had the intended effect of lighting the plastic more uniformly. Need to ponder on the situation to see what can be done. Maybe CometPinball.com has these in WarmWhite... or maybe I'll have to make my own.

With most of the items "Checked" off; I think I'll go with mainly Warm White Facetted. Blue Facetted for the TE lanes... and some strips to help in the darker areas.

[flippnaussie]

Love the work you are doing.
LED selection is damn hard with all the styles and warmth' of the light. We had a host of problems years ago with differences in LED's from the same manufacturer and different batches. I'm sure they are better now.
It's good to see your selection process the difference is huge.


Simon.

[zitt]

Time for a quick update... Lots going on behind the scenes getting the machine to a point where I can power up. I've been working on little bits and pieces almost non-stop after work. Wed and Thursday night last week; I began assembling the new Lamp Matrix board. It's about 1/3rd the size of the original and uses MOSFETs instead of SCRs. Here's the board getting "skillet reflowed" with all the SMT parts.


While assembling the head; I noticed that all the display brackets were rusted pretty good. So I needed to take them to techshop and sandblast the rust off. I figured it was time to make a day of it at techshop on Sunday... so I queued up a bunch of work.

I attempted to mount the 48V transformer for the solenoids but quickly realized I didn't have the right hardware. I didn't want it mounted in the Backbox; instead I opted to mount it on the wood rail on the bottom of the cabinet. It was time to create a bracket for the transformer; so I decided to use the stainless steel leftovers I used for the inlane mechanism. Some CAD work Saturday night yielded the following watercut bracket:


Put it in the Techshop break and:


A M8x1.25 tap for the center hole and some wood screws; and we have the bracket installed ready for use:


Here's a test fit of the transformer:

:thumbs up:

I decided I was going to powdercoat the parts with a Nickel color since I had a bunch of it in the garage. I took a whole bunch of parts to get sandblasted. Coindoor parts & hinges, and the bottom metal sheet metal on the underside of the cabinet.

Bottom Metal sheet before:


After Sandblasting and powdercoat:


Also did the display trays; but no pictures yet. Will post them later when I have them installed.

That's about it for tonights update.
It's suppose to be very cold here in Austin tomorrow... so unsure how much time I'm going to spend it the garage. If I feel up-to-it; I'm going to try and wire the transformer to the PSU board. Maybe do some work on the topside of the PF.

I hope to power up the machine sometime this week. :Fingers crossed:

[zitt]

Work continues on the Transformer and power situation. I began by sleeving the transformer connections to make them less of a mess inside the cabinet and then began wiring the ATX powersupply cable. I thought... hey; I'll just wired the ATX PSU into the existing wiring harness going into the machine. Keep in mind I designed the ATX PSU board to always power the ATX PSU when AC is supplied. So in effect right now; the Machine will always be powered.

The switch in the machine is AFTER where I tied in the ATX PSU - as the Noise Suppressor is only rated for 5Amps as is the cable feeding the main power switch. The switch goes after the noise suppressor. The existing switch is only rated for 5A... and ATXs can demand 15A on a fully loaded machine. So it's not as simple as just wiring the ATX psu after the switch. Gonna have to replace the switch and probably run a wire back to the ATX power cable.

So I took a trip to Lowes to get some 14gauge black wire to wire the hot side from the switch to the ATX power cable. I also stopped by Fry's Electronics to get a suitable switch which could handle the current. I ended up selecting a DPDT 20A / 125V... not because I needed 20A... but because they didn't have anything on the shelf > 10A.

I desoldered the old switch and replace it with the new... putting in a red and a black wire to tie in the ATX PSU. In effect; I've bypassed the noise suppressor on the hot rail. But alas; can't be helped right now as I'm out of time for TPF.


Here's the transformer wired up with sleeved power connections going into the backbox.


Overall:


He is Stinker... and He approves this message!

[zitt]

Just after work Tonight -  ClayD, Bess, and I worked on vinyl cutting the light blocker from Black vinyl on Techshop's Cutter. Here's the bottom of the LiteBlocker, Weeded on transfer tape; ready to move to the backside of the glass:


And after some work getting it aligned right:


Then We cut the top lite blocker and after about 1.5hrs working on the top; This is what I can show you:


Here's a picture with it backlit by the overhead fluorescent lights in my garage. Best I can do right now as I'm waiting on USPS to deliver my CometPinball LED order.


Some slight registration issues in a couple of spots; Due to workflow issues between photoshop (raster -> path) ... then to CorelDraw. I think at some point one of the conversions grew the mask by a 1/4" causing registration issues in some areas. If I have time I'll try to trim it up a bit more with an xacto knife before TPF.

Anyway; overall really happy with the results.

[zitt]

This weekend was all about lighting and plastics. First step was to replicate the plastic ball guides on the game.


I knew I couldn't replicate the metal standoffs in my home shop... nor could I really duplicate them easily / cheaply at Techshop. So I jumped in my appropriated Klingon Bird of Prey and slugshot around the Sun arriving in the year 1986... on a mission to procure some Transparent Aluminum so I could machine me some standoffs. Turns out that Transparent Aluminum hadn't been invented yet so I worked out a deal with a materials engineer to trade the formula for a suitable material with equivalent properties. The engineer and myself agree that Acrylic would have to do in a pinch. So I loaded up my Bird of Prey and came back to the present.

The idea would be to laser cut the acrylic... and some 1/8"wall acrylic tubing and bond them together with some acylic solvent. Here's the test piece I created to test my theory:


Why Acrylic Tubing? Well; I feel that the metal standoffs used in the original pieces block a lot of the light from the lamps underneath said plastics. With the tubing; the light transmission should be at the best case conditions. With the test piece a success; I began the work of assembling these pieces. I needed to clamp the acrylic pieces to the tube standoffs while the solvent bonded the two pieces together. What better way than to use the alignment board used by the sign shop to print the playfield. Some screws and we have the ability to clamp:

I opted to recreate the grey standoffs as well; so they'd also be clear.

Here's a closeup shot of one of the ball guides being clamped:


The guide we left to finish bonding overnight... just to be safe.

[zitt]

While those guides bonded; It was time to work on the guide behind the drop targets. This guide is created in sheet metal with riveted brackets on the original machine. I opted to recreate this bracket in 1/8" clear acrylic. Why; Again... I feel the sheet metal block all the lite from the bulb under the plastic; preventing it from lighting up the playfield. I have a concern than the acrylic won't hold up long-term to the ball abuse; but short term I think the experiment is worth the benefit.  I layed out a new bracket in CAD and sent it to the laser cutter at techshop; then using the original as a guide; I used a heatgun and some clamps to bend the bracket into shape.








And checking the shape on the dummy PF:


Countersunk holes house the #6-32 counter sunk machine screws. Here's what it looks like; with it (sneak peak) plastics installed:


:Thumbs Up:
More tomorrow... time for bed.

[zitt]

Been spending the last few nights chasing the bugs out of the system. Got the MPU board to boot, but goes straight into diag mode instead of attract mode.
Had a Soleniod board with a bad 'LS154 decoder. The ChipSelect pin was shorted to ground; causing the coils to fire every time the soundboard was accessed. It was pretty funny to hear the star trek theme being beat out by coils on the PF.

Tonight I worked on some of the lamps and began reassembly of the coin door.

Since that's all I have to report; let's take a step back in time and continue updates from this past weekend.

The Plastics were installed given the ball guides were completed. One of the pet peve areas of the original Bally is the darkness of the Enterprise plastic behind the drop targets. Given the entire machine is planned to be LED for it's entire life; I don't have to worry about lamp heat melting the posts. So; drilled a hole between the two posts:


I promptly voided the warranty of one of Comet Pinball's LEDs by removing the Bayonet Base and collar... then soldered a Green and Orange GI wire to the diodes.


I saved the 30ohm current limit resistor from the base and soldered inline under the PF:

Connecting the wires to the base of a GI lamp socket nearby.

The result:

[zitt]

Today was a good day... in short; Star Trek: The Mirror Universe LIVES.

A design short-sight with the MOSFET LAMP board I designed rendered the LED switched inserts too dim. Basically; I had forgotten that the MPU scans each LAMP in sequence which in effect cause the LEDs to be on for only a short period of time. I can't fix the design (will require a board spin at a minimum) in time for TPF; so I had to go back to the original lamp board... along with shoehorn in a 6.3V Switch GI transformer from radioshack.

ShertzPinball loaned me a untested Lamp board which I debugged and was able to get the lamps functioning well enough for TPF.  Thanks Jason!
All but one lamp is working... the outlier is the 10K bonus section on the primary hull of the ISS Enterprise. I'm planning on further debug after I get it buttoned together. I suspect a bad SCR; but will have to test.

MPU was going straight into Diagnostics... or resetting after the machine entered Attract mode. given it was going into Diag / test mode was a clue... turns out that the 6821 PIA at U10 had pin 40 bent under the package instead of into the socket. This caused the flakiness.

All solenoids are firing under test; ball ejects into the shooter lane.
All switches adjusted so switch test passes. Original soundcard passes tone test.
Proximity sensors tested and verified working.

3 of 5 displays are installed in Pl1,2, and the credit window. All pass the diagnostic digit count.

Coin door reassembled and attached to cabinet. Lockdown bar hardware is being cleaned and prepped for re-install tomorrow.
Hope to install side rails and misc cabinet hardware tomorrow.

Sunday I hope to finish the last two displays and install them. It's at this point I'll probably drill the hole for the left handed shooter.

So; What Do I have to report? Let's finish up the picture bomb from last weekend's work. Rather than post a bunch of individual plastics images... I've created a panoramic stitch of several high resolution shots. Feel free to click the picture/link and look at the detailed original image: ( yeah... it's HUGE... so big it wouldn't load in IE11. Chrome or FireFox)


Each plastic (except the orbits) has it's own protector. There is protective transfer tape over the backglass... which will stay on until TPF to reduce scratches.

[zitt]

Attention moves to the Lockdown bar mechanisms and coin door. I resurfaced the coindoor skin with some sandpaper and installed the new coin door inserts; pictures later when I take them. Installed the coin door and proceed to clean the lockdown bar assembly:


 I disassembled it and cleaned the rust / grime off with some coarse sandpaper. Once I had the bracket rust free; I powdercoated it with some chrome powdercoat; keeping the metal on metal area free of powder coat. I reassembled the mechanism with stainless steel hardware to help prevent future rust:


Playfield hanger bracket got the same sanding/powdercoating treatment:


I have more to report; but it'll have to wait until tomorrow as it's late and I have work in the morning.
Toodles.

[femto]

This is coming along nicely. Can't be too far away?

[zitt]

TPF is at the end of march (27th to be exact)... so has to be done asap.
Plan is to play a game early tomorrow night.... I hope.

Time to finish the lockdown bar... but the lockdown bar and side rails kinda go together.
I had bought a new set of side rails from PBResource... but they don't fit right. Not sure if it was my error or theirs. I'll have to email them when I get a chance.

Since I couldn't use the NEW side rails; I really had no choice but to recycle the old ones since I had no time to really source and ship new ones. The old ones were bent by the backbox as some point... and there is a really nasty scratch on one side.


I tried resurfacing the rails with a belt sander... but it still looked like as$ to be honest. So... what to do?!?

Guess one must powdercoat them with black and the holographic clear coat as was done on the apron.
So at 7:30pm Sunday; I jumped in the truck and raced up north to Techshop where I could bake these huge as pieces...


Yeap; that's right... I made the lockdown bar match... would you expect any different? I thought maybe the black would be too much; but it's really kinda kick ass on the machine:


You likey?

[Retropin]

Me likey very much!.. lockdown bar looks fantastic.. love it

[swinks]

looks great, can't wait for a gameplay video and the nixie tube vid

[zitt]

:(
Last night (Monday) I finally got to a point where I could try to play a game.
Didn't get very far.

Turns out the Proximity Sensors are triggering the switch matrix; but at the wrong "locations". IE I thought they were working... IE they triggered _a_ switch; but not the correct switch. Spent most of the evening (tonight) troubleshooting this and came to the conclusion that I can't hook a transistor directly to the switch matrix. As a result I ordered some relays and other components from Digikey so I can do some dead-bug rework to put the relays in place of the transistor.
Gotta be honest here guys... if it weren't for all the "excited"/"can't wait" proclamations here on the forums; I just would have just given up for this years TPF.

I'm going to move along and try to test other aspects of the game. The other issue I have is a dead flipper. Firstly; the flippers are swapped. IE I swapped the wiring harness on the PF but not the cabinet. So the Right button is flipping the Left. The Left button is dead. Haven't troubleshot the dead flipper yet; I'm thinking I'll swap pins on the solenoid board connector... and start troubleshooting.

Once that is done; I'll begin assembling the last of the displays while I wait on the parts from Digikey.