Sweet put me up for three when they come out! Looking good keep it up!
Just want to say how much I also appreciate this and want to bump this.
i am excite!
The place fabbing the protos has their main CNC guy out on vacation, so the parts milling is dragging ass. Sorry about that.
Partly good/great news though. One of the pieces was done, specifically the one made to go on an original flash PCB. I have one here for me to test with thanks to someone trying hard to get this project off the ground. I popped off the original housing, put the new housing on in its place and threw it into the ST cabinet. As far as I can tell, it works absolutely swimmingly, and I’ll be leaving it in for a bit for those who come over to play to try out.
What does this mean/why should you care? Because manipulating the pcb and the components in it is my game, and one I know well. THe housing stuff, notsomuch. But if I have a design that I know can and does work, then all that will need to be tweaked is the pcb and components stuff, if it needs tweaking at all. I can finally play to my strengths.
Gdlk. I’m glad you’re finally back in your element! I can’t wait for the FLASH to be done!
I was talking to gummowned and he said not to buy an ASCII so I could support your project… and thats what i’m gonna do!
Good stuff Toodles! Looks like it will be all downhill from here!
Can’t wait for pictures of it to be posted.
awesome news. time to sell my ascii stick so i can buy a couple of your units.
Toodles are you pulling the power for the pcb off of the jamma harness?
So Toodles where does the line start man?
I’m in for at-least two of these (min). better than the ipad lol
craze
Yup. I’m pretty sure I connected the wire to one of the +5v wires going to the harness, which is directly connected to the power supply. THe original flashes and p360’s all had a long wire with an eyelet terminal on the end made to be screwed down directly on the power supply.
Appreciated, but no need. When everything’s done and they’re ready for purchase there will be plenty of them for everyone. The housing pretty much guarantees that, since I’ll have to have an absolute crap ton of housings made to have a chance of breaking even after the cost of the mold.
Hey Toodles,
Do you know if it will work on 3.3V also (maybe the question has already been answered)?
And what is “Goblin” 0_0!?
- Frankly, I’m not too sure. Right now, I’m just focused on getting 5v versions out. If it works, great. If it doesn’t work too well on 3.3v, I’ll see about making an advanced model with a DC-DC converter built in, but right now my focus is on +5v only.
- Guess
Sadly, the Spark and SMD Chimp are taking focus of my time, so I haven’t been able to make much progress yet.
Sadly, the Spark and SMD Chimp are taking focus of my time, so I haven’t been able to make much progress yet.I guess a DC-DC converter can be built on the outside if it doesn´t work, no biggie, just wondering.
I have no idea what Goblin is, sounds cool though ^_^.
Lol, Toodles always bringing the hype to the geeks.
Speaking of which, I didn’t post up the progress made today.
The guy on vacation came back and had the housings made for my board done in no time, so I went and picked them up about 6:30pm. Even though the most recent pcb wasn’t made with the inner walls in mind, the housing still fit on the board beautifully without running into any parts, which meant I had a complete proto assembled. I threw it into the arcade cabinet and had some friends come over to play.
The directions were responsive, both activating and deactivating. This is a VERY good sign. Since the earlier problems of returning to neutral or having difficulty activating were almost certainly caused by light pollution from other LEDs interfering, this pretty much sealed it that the new opaque housing is doing the proper job of keeping the light separate. Very, very good news. The housing design works and is doing its job.
The downside from the testing was difficulty with diagonals. With a square gate in, diagonals would activate in the corners just fine, but even a slight movement out of the corner would only show the cardinal direction. With a circular gate in, the ‘slice’ for diagonals was very small compared to the cardinal directions. That symptom, along with the fact that cardinal directions were activating and deactivating perfectly, leads me to believe that the placement of the LEDs and receptors are off, too far from center. I need to take some more measurements, and do a new layout of the pcb, and try again. It will take about a week from when I order the new boards for them to arrive, and a couple of days to do the layout, then I can test again to see how the corners feel.
Todo:
- Housing part was missing four holes that the JLF restrictor plate go into. Those need added, but I can easily dremel them into the current proto housings.
- Take measurements and check Omron microswitch datasheets to try to find the best placements of the LEDs and receptors.
- Layout board with new measurements.
- Add some extra components to help with compatability (resistors on outgoing signal lines, decoupling cap or two)
- Order new pcbs
- Retest with they arrive.
I guess its still a very iterative process, but progress is being made. I’ve got it reliable, now I need to get it precise.
Suuuuuper Excited! Can’t wait till I can order these from u!
Hey Toodles,
Shall we start a commit to buy list with tentative pricing for first batch?
Nope. I’m confident that there is enough demand to warrant getting them made, even it’ll take 2-3 years to sell out the first batch. Because of the molding, I’ll have to make a crap ton. When they’re available, there will be plenty for everyone.
I get the feeling that I know what that little guy is 