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An update on Radiant Silverball


LynnInDenver

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Great vid!  Thanks for posting!!   *runs to eBay, finds Tardis USB port for $20 - hits click*     whoops, I didn't even notice but I hope the top lights up!

That is a pro-looking build.  You're one of the more knowledgeable minds around here so I expected to see a much more complicated set-up inside.  But that's one of the simplest interiors I've seen.   Nice.  And the chimes!  Did I see you have a vid about those?  Need to check that out as it's a feature I'd like to add.  But oof...used chime units are hard to find and pricey.   What are you using?  

Thanks for the vid Lynn!!

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Yeah, the TARDIS top lights up... and it's an optional thing, there's a switch to turn it off, I actually have it turned off.

 

I prefer to keep things simple. I'm adding an RGB flasher bar soon with undercab support, and I plan on tying it into the existing 12v supply - right now it's running on the wall wart Steve at Zeb's Boards puts in the box. But that's going to come once I get the 49" 4K screen in to replace the playfield screen with. The 47" is currently just on a "sled" mount that's just sat into the cabinet, it's a tight enough fit I have to remove the siderails to get the screen out, the 49" is going to get a nice rotating mount so I can service it without needing my husband to help take the playfield out.

 

I used a set of Gottlieb chimes. I was patient and waited for a good price to come up on one. I think we got under $75.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah, good luck on the chime unit. I know ours wasn't $20.

 

Yeah, it's a neat toy... we just don't have room on our desks for that hub, but it makes for a nice little smile maker whenever I reach into the cabinet to plug in a drive. I'm fairly certain my husband purchased it new. It's not the only silliness in the cabinet. When I got the lockdown receiver, it was rusty and didn't clean up as well as I'd like. Titan Pinball makes excellent labels for the receiver in question, and I paid a little extra for a custom one that reads, "Install 0 Balls".

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, Felsir said:

Only now I noticed the ball and flipper graphic on the side! I already assumed the name was a play on Radiant Silvergun. Nice touch 🙂

 

Yep, very much the cabinet name is a play on Radiant Silvergun. It's one of those names (and logos) that's like most MST3K riffs - "The right people will get it."

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  • 1 month later...

Oh boy howdy, I was expecting a serious level of upgrade installing the Surround Sound Feedback today, but that was still something to behold.

 

Also: The glass purchase I was able to put off? I can't put it off anymore. The cabinet is now QUITE LOUD.

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So, tweaking the SSF setup - the Realtek hardware on the computer couldn't really do what I wanted, even with registry hacks, so I went to an external sound card solution. Plus, I've got some levels of volume tweaking I can do with the new solution, so it no longer feels like I have the flippers from Hercules in there. :P

 

And promptly ran into the issue of Windows 10 and the expectations of 7.1 Surround Sound versus our off-label use - the insistence of most Surround Sound devices that 7.1 means 7.1. Non-stereo PinMAME based tables got routed to the non-existent center speaker unless I managed to disable the exciters attempting fixes. Thankfully it was easier to notice given that Firepower AI is the "test" table (we can compare to the real deal). It wouldn't have been so frustrating if tables like Medieval Madness weren't actually mono, or if telling Windows 10 I didn't have a center speaker actually, y'know, convinced it I really didn't have one instead of feeling like Windows was, "Oh, you don't have one, too bad, you need to go out and get one right now!"

 

So for right now, I have an older speaker/subwoofer system crammed into the cabinet to fill in as the center speaker. It's a temporary solution for right now, I will want a more permanent solution for that, and soon. I'm actually seriously running out of room inside the cabinet now.

 

Edit: got the center sorted out after all, someone pointed me in the right direction for the EqualizerAPO configuration.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

OK, so the latest parts of the roadmap are completed... installed a Spooky (read: P-ROC) shaker motor, including using the included PinHeck interface board (diodes and fuse, oh my). It's got an activation floor under which it won't start reliably, but that's probably because of my setup. I cackled like a madwoman playing Medieval Madness.

 

I also went into the weeds a bit... and put in a Gear Motor - basically a high torque geared motor I happened to have for a stalled project, slapped into a 3D-printed bracket that presses it against the playfield screen mount to get some resonance.

 

I kid you not, I sat there for five minutes just listening to Medieval Madness cycle the drawbridge in test mode. It's definitely audible, although not as audible as the typical sound included with the tables. It does tend to drop into the noise when playing, but then, those gear motors really do that on the real machines too.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

So, I actually wound up yanking out a feature last night.

 

Here's a little bit of updating to set the stage. My husband replaced his computer a few months ago, which freed up his old desktop. That machine has better specs than the computer that was in the cabinet, so in it went, after transferring the needed parts to a benchtop test frame that I could easily bolt to the cabinet floor. Much better in all ways, even though it's not the greatest thing.

 

I was streaming Last Action Hero last night (great table from Data East, just about none of the quirkiness that can put me off). The shaker motor was interestingly active, to say the least.

 

And then the cabinet acted like I had rapidly slammed the space bar, and the virtual tilt bob went off once, racking up a danger. This only happened once, and was mostly noticed because the screen did the rapid oscillation up and down in reaction.

 

After stream, I went in, and told Pinscape to no longer send a space bar on the output that had been assigned that at default.

 

I then proceeded to test. I moved the Pinscape's USB cable as it was laying in a way that the shaker motor power was causing "Hulk Grab Cabinet And Make Ball Go" that I've seen in the past with the chimes.

 

And then the computer started hard locking during the tests of the shaker.

 

You see, the computer has a cooler tower, which was fine and good when it was in a case and standing up, but now it's laying on its side, and that tower oscillates when the shaker motor goes off. It wouldn't hard lock if the shaker motor was run in pulses like in Last Action Hero, but sustained activation was causing an issue.

 

I removed the shaker motor from my DOF config, and I went ahead and physically removed the shaker from the cabinet. I'll be holding onto it for right now, but it won't go back into the vpin without a very different CPU cooler solution, if ever. It might just go into whatever I decide to build as a physical pinball machine.

 

As an added note, I've also grown to dislike people assigning the shaker motor to the magnets in games in the global configs. I mean, yes, you can likely feel the buzz when a magnet engages on a real machine, but the shaker motor isn't a buzz, it's much stronger than that.

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I am not sure if this will help, but back in the day I had a 1979 Camaro with a stiff suspension. I bought a portable cd player and plugged it into the stereo. It was great, until I drove over railroad tracks, or into about any driveway. The cd would skip. My very elegant solution was getting a 2-3" thick piece of soft foam and cut it to the size of a cd jewel case. I opened an old jewel case and glued the foam between the two pieces. I put velcro on top of the jewel case and the mating velcro on the bottom of the portable cd player. I could drive over horrible railroad tracks and the cd would never skip.

 

maybe a thick piece of foam between the bottom of the MB tray and the bottom of the cabinet could solve your issue?

 

This is what I am planning to do when I get (or make) a shaker motor.

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Yeah, I actually dove into a little cheat to try to get something more of my speed - I never really liked that there was a fairly high floor on the shaker motor in terms of how much sensation it imparted. Granted, for some tables, it was fine because it would pulse. But there were many tables it would come up sustained. The cooling tower on the CPU is also tall enough it has a 120mm fan bolted to one side of it, which makes oscillations easier to impart.

 

The cheat is a mini bass transducer puck, an appropriately set up audio file, and a little bit of scripting added to each table I want to have shaker style sensation on.

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