The Ben Heck Show

Mini Pinball: Final Analysis and Programming (11) (8x6)

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Ben is putting the finishing touches on the Mini Pinball Kit. The new PCBs from Oshpark have arrived. The board includes everything but the Arduino or the Teensy. It’s got the audio amplifier, the lights, the switches, four MOSFETs, four servos, power regulation, and a bodged in LED light for power. In this episode, Ben takes a look at the board, makes sure that it works when installed in the pinball case, and works out some finishing touches on the prototype game. Ben hooks up an LED to a socket so he could plug it in and test it. He’s changed the code so that it will turn on the LED that is relative to the switch, 16 switches, and 16 LEDs. Ben goes through each one to make sure everything works, tests the coils, and the servos so that he can write some code and put together a test game. The team had trouble selecting which servo library to use. They went with the pwmservo library, which is older but doesn’t conflict with the Arduino library. Ben commences with his tests on the servos. He got two of the switches attached to sound events. They’re going to need to add some debounce to the switches. What this basically means is that, as the switch opens and closes, there can be very small fluctuations in the state, it doesn’t fully open and close each time. Switch debouncing can be achieved through hardware or software. You can’t really tell without the help of a microcontroller, but it’s there. Ben adjusts the switch library, to create an array, so that each switch has its own debounce setting, depending on what kind of switch it is, because they might have different mechanical properties. Ben adjusts the angle of the flippers, puts in larger solenoids, and adjusted the length of the rods throw. He’ll change the layout of some of the feature mounts. Ben fires up Autodesk Fusion 360 so he can make some final adjustments. He makes some progress on the modular wall system as the mini pinball moves closer to a finished build.