4/29/2020 – Fantastic new illustrations

So, as stated in my last blog entry, my photos stink.  I apologize for that, and since this is essentially a technical blog, I don’t go out of my way to make them any better than they happen to turn out.  (I don’t have a particularly nice camera, and much to the chagrin of my wife, really don’t care.)

I’m sure that anyone who is a graphic designer cringes at those images.  Luckily enough, somebody was so distraught by the photos that they decided rise to the occasion offer up some help.  My deepest thanks to Adrien A-G for providing these much clearer illustrations.

 

The first image shows the changes that need to be made to support all four wing boards fully.  The second image shows a Neopixel as wing 0 (all unused pins are configured as direct inputs), solenoid as wing 1, input as wing 2, and SM incandescent board as wing 3.  The last image shows a solenoid plank board being used in wing 2 and wing 3 positions.  As noted earlier, plank boards cannot be supported in wing 0 and wing 1 positions because of the USB bus pins that split the two wings.

The only final caution that I need to add is that the serial LEDs usually expect a 5V control signal level.  To work properly, I have found that I need to use a 3.3V to 5V converter on the PB15 pin so that the serial LEDs can be driven as brightly as possible, and the control of the LEDs work perfectly.

Thanks again, Adrien A-G.  I would like to say that I will try to make better illustrations, but let’s be serious, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and I’m just too darn old.

4/5/2019 – STM32 Firmware Complete

The STM32 firmware is now fully functional, tested and complete.  Special thanks to both Jan (for MPF support) and Cobra18t (for helping test).  Both helped immensely during the change from the PSOC4200 to the STM32.  The firmware is released at version 2.0.0.2.

An added bonus is now MPF is able to use serial LEDs (Neopixels) driven by OPP, and in any configuration such as GRB, RGB, GRBW, RGBW.  This should be a much cheaper alternative than the FadeCandy option if you are trying to build your own low cost homebrew machine.  From my non-extensive research, the OPP serial LED support should require much less processing than running the open pixel server.  OPP supports over 230 LEDs per STM32 board.

The information on how to attach wing boards to the STM32 was scattered over multiple posts in forums, so I’m going to try and aggregate it here so I don’t have to keep searching for it when I need it.

These pictures are great examples why I should never be allowed to take pictures.  Look how blurry!  I guess nobody subscribes to this blog because of the desire to see the crispest pinball photos.  Hopefully they get the point across.  There is a lot of good information on these two pictures.  They show the positions of each of the wing boards with respect to the STM32F103C8T6.  Note in particular the two pins that are left blank between wing 0 and wing 1.  These two pins are used by the processor for USB communications.  This is why plank boards can not be used on the wing 0/wing 1 side of the processor.  The picture also shows that a wire must be added between PA13 and wing 0 pin 0 to fully support the wing 0 board.

Jumping to the back side, wing 2 requires the most aggressive modification.  The VB pin (battery voltage) has a trace that goes to the top right pin in this picture.  That trace must be cut.  When I cut traces, I make two separate cuts in the trace, then use an xacto knife to remove the copper trace between the two cuts.  That is very easy to do in this case, and it guarantees that the trace has been fully cut.  Last thing is to add a wire from PA14 (SWCLK) to the top right pin.  Now the wing 2 is fully supported.  The second picture shows the wing 0 modification from the bottom.  I chose to do that modification on the top of the board, because it was easier with my soldering skills.

One final note.  When using wing 2 and wing 3 as a switch matrix, wing 2 must be the switch matrix output (i.e. control signals to drive the switch matrix), and wing 3 must be the switch matrix inputs.  This is because of the LED (attached to PC13) which is populated on the board.

Keep your social distance by building your own personal pinball machine.  Keep safe!