Content Provider Rascal Posted July 6, 2014 Content Provider Posted July 6, 2014 Congratulation to everyone who was involved in this! All these years of virtual pinball, who would have thought that interfacing a spring on a rod would have been the hardest feature to get right. Nice job guys!
Administrators Dazz Posted July 6, 2014 Administrators Posted July 6, 2014 Guys... Put me down for the first batch!
zebulon Posted July 6, 2014 Author Posted July 6, 2014 Thanks for the interest and support everyone, off to the shop soon to see how well this works!
neohusky Posted July 6, 2014 Posted July 6, 2014 Great work gents! So this is why you've all been so quite lately For those of us that were stupid enough to invest in the mot-ion nanotech solution, is there anyway to incorporate our existing plunger and just us your nudging solution for now?
Content Provider freneticamnesic Posted July 6, 2014 Content Provider Posted July 6, 2014 Great work gents! So this is why you've all been so quite lately For those of us that were stupid enough to invest in the mot-ion nanotech solution, is there anyway to incorporate our existing plunger and just us your nudging solution for now? BigBoss just posted this link over at VPF and it should help you - apparently it combines 2 physical joysticks to 1 virtual joystick. http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/89279-ujr-universal-joystick-remapper-using-vjoy/
maxxsinner Posted July 6, 2014 Posted July 6, 2014 Probably not at this point Neohusky. But if there is enough interest, I am sure Zeb would be able to create a simple board for just nudging. I love making work for him.
Content Provider unclewilly Posted July 7, 2014 Content Provider Posted July 7, 2014 This looks really good. My nanotech is a hunk of crap. How long before you have these in stock. Are they about the same size for mounting as the nanotech plungers
zebulon Posted July 7, 2014 Author Posted July 7, 2014 Well, still a bit of work to be done as something we changed somewhere broke the code for the encoder (works, just not as well as it was working). Always a few things to deal with...still need to refine the mount for the housing anyway.... This is a completely new design and doesn't resemble the nanotech at all. It will be a little more 'bulkier' in appearance but should fit in the same space. I'm designing the housing to be universal meaning that you could remove the nanotech equipment from the actual plunger itself and put this unit on the existing plunger. The nudge and keyboard encoder are a no brainer, screw the box to the floor of the cab in the correct orientation and connect your buttons, usb cable and the plunger harness.
zebulon Posted July 8, 2014 Author Posted July 8, 2014 Getting even closer....code is fixed and updated a little bit. Be kind with the comments, I know I suck at multitasking and I had one hand busy with the camera. Almost pulled the test bed off the table. About the test bed... I call it the "OHNOTECH PINBALL GIZZARD" and don't be getting any ideas, it's Patent Pending (pending me collecting enough empties to pay for it). I'm charging $199.95 and it comes prefinished in "whateverthehellIhavearoundtheshop" (that's a custom colour you know, easily a $4.99 value). I'm so confident in its quality that I'm going to close the business after I get a sale because you'll never need support.
Administrators Dazz Posted July 8, 2014 Administrators Posted July 8, 2014 I am soooooooo freaking excited that someone other than Paul has a solution... This is definitely a solution I can stand behind and support. Whatever you guys need from me just let me know.
zebulon Posted July 8, 2014 Author Posted July 8, 2014 Well, I did run out of beer yesterday while fighting with the code.....
Content Provider freneticamnesic Posted July 8, 2014 Content Provider Posted July 8, 2014 Whatever you call it, I need it. That plunger has such smooth axis movement, it's very very very impressive Now I think we need the obligatory
zebulon Posted July 9, 2014 Author Posted July 9, 2014 Just finished beating the hell out it on CFTBL and Embryon and everything works as it should. Status: Coding complete Sensor design complete PCB design complete Housing - just working out a bulletproof mount Should be good to go very soon.
SirCheddar Posted July 9, 2014 Posted July 9, 2014 Zeb, this really sounds interesting. My VirtuaPin kit - it is still a v1 kit - has a lot of problems if a contactor fires or when the gear motor goes off no matter how I shield it. I had to disable nudging altogether, the cab is completely unplayable with nudging turned on. So can you run a few tests with the acceleratometers close to contactors and gear motor? Secondly, the button inputs work as keyboard controller or can they also emulate an joystick button? I have all of my buttons connected to an ipac except for two - the first is my coin door button, the second is my "service/exit RDP" button. Especially the letter doesn't work if it is connected to a keyboard contoller. Of course this is an minor problem - I can always slaughter an cheap joystick for this functionality.
zebulon Posted July 9, 2014 Author Posted July 9, 2014 Sure, I'll post a video tomorrow. The inputs are currently set as keyboard inputs but there are still 3 or 4 empty slots. If there's an interest in making a hybrid controller I could add a couple of buttons.
RNunez187 Posted July 10, 2014 Posted July 10, 2014 I would purchase an all in one kit similar to the Pinball Wizard. Looked nice but was out of my price range. Not sure I'll ever be able to build a cab so something to use on my desktop setup would be awesome.
zebulon Posted July 10, 2014 Author Posted July 10, 2014 I hadn't really thought about putting out a control unit, that was more of a tongue in cheek description. I'm sure I could make something up for you though. You can pm me if you'd like to discuss it further. Thanks. For Sir Cheddar: There's not much movement created by the vibration of the gear motor. Obviously a shaker motor on "GAWDALMIGHTY" speed would have an impact, but in a real pin, the shaker is more of a feeling through your hands than an actual shaking of the cabinet. I tested the unit in vp and had to boost the gain to 750% before I started to see any drifting or playability issues. Unfortunately, the webcam gets kicked out when vp takes over the focus of the desktop so I couldn't film it.
SirCheddar Posted July 10, 2014 Posted July 10, 2014 Thank you very much. This looks very good - in fact it looks exactly like I want it to behave. I will nudge again!
zebulon Posted July 10, 2014 Author Posted July 10, 2014 I didn't have the unit in the camera view (a cinematographer I'm not) but the sensor is almost 90 degrees to the horizontal plane when it's on the motor and is horizontal at the beginning of the test. That's how effective the centering and smoothing routines are. As with everything, your mileage may vary. Cabinet construction, positioning, how much oomph you put into the nudging will all have an impact on the effectiveness of the sensor. I've tailored the sensitivity in the code to a point where I think there's a nice balance, but there is all kinds of room to tailor it even more with the gain settings in vp.
zebulon Posted July 12, 2014 Author Posted July 12, 2014 And after much testing, we have a mount. Just a matter of refining the process and we are good to go. Will come in textured black or textured blue.
Content Provider unclewilly Posted July 12, 2014 Content Provider Posted July 12, 2014 What are these going to run price wise
zebulon Posted July 12, 2014 Author Posted July 12, 2014 Around $150CAN. Still have to do an actual tally of the production costs but I figure I can hit that target.
Content Provider unclewilly Posted July 12, 2014 Content Provider Posted July 12, 2014 I think I'm gonna be wanting one of these also
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.