Oh how you two brought back some memories for me... I actually worked at Williams\Bally between '92-'94 as a QA tester. The Getaway was one of the lines I worked on. I so loved that particular game.
I have the game and I have done a lot on my machine. Every time I add a mod or first get a machine I over haul it. And live stream it. I have a playlist of pins I have gotten and given some TLC to. And why is there just a sticker that says QA Tester #74? Why they not credit the tester of these machines?
The "matrix glitching" happened because the charged capacitors discharged themselves through the other rows/columns when not driven. When interacting with a matrix you need to use diodes in order to not feed back into it. On more complex systems it could even damage stuff - think 24V going into a 5V line. Not sure if just the diode before the resistor would fix the flickering, but might've been worth a try. The matrix is pulsed at 60Hz but the SSR also turns on 60Hz AC. If those pulses happen near the zero-cross voltage the lights wold barely turn on. Lots of points to consider, which is why something that seemed simple took days to finish.
This is exactly how ALL of my projects turn out. In the beginning I say to myself “ It will be so easy, no worries”...by the end I’m ready to toss it off a cliff. Cheers for hanging in there.
Now that you are using an Arduino, you might as well go all out and add a second Arduino. Take it all apart, put the solid state relays INSIDE of the stop lights with proper fusing, so that you are not running line voltage wires along the floor which is really dangerous. Connect the relays to Arduino #1. Then, open the pinball machine and mount the Arduino #2 inside of it, connected to the lighting matrix. Finally, run a low voltage serial cable from Arduino #1 to Arduino #2. Now the states of the lights can be detected inside of the pinball machine and transmitted to the stoplight, where the solid state relays are controlled. No more dangerous line voltage wires all over the place, no project box to hang off of the side of the machine, and you can use simple CAT5 cable to connect them together.
Not trying to be Captain Safety here but there is some dangerously incorrect information at 11:30 or so. When Jeremy says it doesn't matter what side is switched when they are attaching the relays to the stop light for the first time, they should be attaching them through the HOT side (black wires) because the power comes from there. The neutral side (white) is technically only connected to ground. While this does give the end result that they are looking for, it means the lightbulbs ALWAYS have power coming into them and they are waiting to find a path to ground to turn on. If you were to touch the metal part of the bulb, or likely any part of the metal housing of the stop light, even when the light is not lit, it would likely shock you as the hot wire tries to find a path to ground. This is wrong at best and dangerous at worst. Not great to advertise this misinformation publicly.
took me a while to understand what you're saying. That in a simple circuit, the switch should be on the live side, not the neutral side. Yes i agree, but i *think* the guy was trying to ask if there's an input and output in the relay itself, which a google suggests "some" are bi directional.
Well, Sean specifically asks about "positive and negative or Neutral" which I'm guessing is him asking about the hot side vs the neutral side of the power coming in, not asking about the relay. The only way a 120v (or up to 480v) AC relay could be messed up would be applying the AC line voltage to the signal side of the relay (which uses the much less power) if it was looking for a low level DC input. Some relays can use AC power for the signal input as well, but it's only a small amp load, not switched through a heavy draw like an old incandescent bulb.
This isn't just "Captain Safety" stuff. This is against NEC electrical code. This is a fire safety issue as well as a health safety issue. If the pinball place burns down because they wired contrary to code, the insurance company can deny the claim, leaving the owner pretty screwed.
I was going to say that too... but I didn't want to seem too "doom and gloom". But you're right. I think most people don't understand that there is a reason why you hire a professional electrician anytime you touch the 120v power in your house or business, and it's not just because they know more than you; it's mostly a liability that they undertake for you.
29:00 You need a diode too, not just a resistor and capacitor. Without the diode, the capacitor ends up backfeeding the matrix, discharging the capacitor instantly. No need for arduinos or optoisolators, you just need a diode to prevent backfeeding. You can also add an additional low-value resistor in series with the diode to filter out the really short pulses.
Seems easier to put the relays in the light and use the existing power and use an ethernet cable to get multiple pairs back to the pinball low voltage. It eliminates the box and big external high voltage lines. But what do I know. I do like the idea though. fun to watch.
dnegrichjr they don't need all that AC line running everywhere...THAT is quite dangerous. And yes, putting the relays in the stop light would eliminate safety and design flaws...I would not want to be anywhere near that machine with HOT AC voltage going into a plastic project box. Inside a pinball machine you're actively touching... This is dangerous and ignorant to say the least. AND that's not even close to the size of a real stoplight. This would be 1000x easier and probably look exactly the same with a novelty LED stoplight.
I have run into this problem with SSRs in the past. Traditional (zero crossing) SSRs can only be turned on or off when the AC frequency crosses zero. They are essentially an optoisolator with a TRIAC attached. If you feed them a switched frequency, they latch on until a zero cross; they are then turned back on before the zero cross, hence the erratic behavior. This is likely why the SSR seemed to work properly when attached to just the matrix, as the LED in the SSR indicates both the state of the optoisolator and the output of the SSR. When it latches, the LED will stay on until a zero cross sync when it can unlatch. For a resistive load such as a light bulb, you might get away with a "Random Fire SSR" that has circuits that allow it to be cycled at any point of the AC cycle.
Not really - random fire SSRs cause other problems. The correct way is to add a filter circuit to the front end - which they did, in a round-about way.
AC goes back in forth from a current perspective from -110v to +110v at 60 times per second (60hz). Alex was pointing out that the solid state relays will only allow the relay to be switched on or off when the voltage hits 0v which happens every 1/60th of a second but indicates that there are relays that are able to switch at any point in that cycle available.
I expected them to create a pass-through cable rather than solder on to the light board in the machine. Slightly more challenging, but leaves the machine intact.
I hate to say it, but you really went through a major complicated way around getting a simple on signal from a pwm... could have been done with a transistor a schmit a diode and a capacitor.
I was thinking the same thing, but then when they went into their diatribe about the false positives and seemingly needing the PWM decoder function of the arduino I let it go.
NICE!!!!! I have a 1986 Williams "High Speed" Pinball Machine, and an older Traffic Light almost exactly as the one you have minus the stand. When I first started watching this video I was thinking I would love to do the same. After seeing everything you went through though I kind of changed my mind.
This all feels really improvised. They should have done recon to check how the machine works first. Also it makes more sense to put all high voltage in the light and run low voltage control wires (modular) from the pinball machine to the light. It is nice that they leave some of the mistakes in but it sucks that that is half the video =/
Nice try guys, and kudos for the trouble shooting. I must also give the guy props for installing an earth ground to the light fixture. However, I have to agree with the growing number of comments where this is really not safe. You should be switching the "hot" black wires, not the "neutral" white wires. By not breaking the hot wire, the light bulb socket is still live, even if the solid state relay is off. I am not going to beat you up for the type of box chosen for the project, but I would have encouraged you to use a better enclosure to house your project in, especially if you are going to heep the high voltage separate from the light fixture. That aside, I would have suggested you locate all the high voltage items (would have only needed an on/off switch and the solid state relays) in the light fixture, and then had a low voltage cable coming out to go to the pinball game. I think I would have liked to see you add a fuse to the light fixture, but if you had wired the rest of it correctly, you could have honestly passed on that, as it is not required by code. For just the low voltage part of your project, the box you used would have been fine. How you went about solving your matrix / PWM / glitchy signal problem, that is all a matter of what you know and what you have available to work with. Put 10 engineers in a room to solve that problem, and there is a good chance you will end up with more than 10 correct answers. Keep up the good work, and hopefully put a little more research into high voltage electrical safety and the NEC before doing another project where you will be dealing with mains voltage.
Fabian Tschopp And way too accessible. Just a small plastic latch isn't enough to keep curious kids and idiot adults out. They need something with a padlock latch on it... And thicker plastic...
Solid state relays can get hot too, depending on how much current is being drawn. Might not be an issue with a simple light, but I would probably not feel comfortable mounting them to plastic. They typically have a bare aluminum back for the purpose of heatsinking.
No, more because of the matrix system that the game's computer internally uses. But yeah, that's exactly the problems one runs into when implementing a solution without having examined the OG hardware first. Not good.
I know I was cringing all the way through this video. Especially when he was disconnecting things while the machine is still on which can blow up boards or the facepalm moment of stripping wires while the machine was on and were the one's they had soldered to the stop light. I am self taught and I do not know everything but dang I do not want them working any where near my H-S Classic or H-S II or my other pins. o.o
Agreed. However that should always be tempered by knowing one's own limitations. Here they ended up with a machine, in a public arcade, which violates safety codes. That is simply unethical. It should have concluded with a safety inspection, by an electrician certified for such work. Contrast this to all the safety-first attitude shown on Mythbusters.
Yep I would have said shut it down and re-do it. Since the box they put it in was just a plastic box not properly marked for electronics and could melt down. And with pinball machines once a fire starts you cannot get it out easily as it is like tire fire once it starts it is not going out. :|
Great video. I love you guys trying things out even if not successfully. All you haters, you enjoyed watching it with the flaws. That's what made it great. People trying things out without worrying if they would be shot down for trying. Keep it up tested crew
A smaller capacitor, capable of charging faster, combined with a diode to only charge it, the "relay" would discharge it, and maybe a really small resistor in series with the diode, to keep the charge time a little longer than the small peaks you would like to ignore, should do the trick. That is if the pinball machine can supply enough current to charge the capacitor quickly enough. Anyway, the Arduino is better, since you wanted to change what the light did, after not being used for a while.
It's like the old saying goes if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Since I got my 3D printer I find I need to remind myself that modifying found objects is often faster and more rewarding and the finished items have a uniqueness that is interesting.
Just replace the bulbs in the mains traffic light that is the source of your issue with LEDs running at low voltage - put an inline connector at the traffic light in the machine - and run 4 low voltage cables to the external traffic light. No high voltage. No switched earth line. No project box. No dead people. No fires. No liability. Sometimes you have to take a step back and think about what you are trying to achieve and work back from there. You want the external traffic light to light up - nobody says it has to be running at mains voltage.
Good job guys. This seems like the basic progression/troubleshooting to understand something that you don't. Sure you may not have got it 100% correct, but it did what you wanted it to do and now could be improved on to be more safe or streamlined now that the basis is there and things have been figure out about whats going on and how. Thumbs up here.
I have one in my home I play it a ton. I also have a full playlist of when I got the machine and cleaning and tuning it up and also putting in various mods.
Not to harp on all the AC flaws of this video (because everyone else has been tearing you guys a new one) but for the low voltage side of this, you could have handled all the LV signal triggers with a length of Cat5 4-Pair, and made the connections simple with RJ-45 jacks mounted to the underside of the machine, and cut through the sidewall of the non-UL listed "project" box. Then you could use any standard PC network cable for easy connection from the mod-box to the machine. This would make it easy to disconnect the light from the machine for easy relocation.
*Cringe. There is a lot of electrical safety issue in this video. First that box would never pass inspection, they really should have used a Nema 1 electrical enclusure that can then be grounded and it would need to be UL listed. Also I would have put a divider to keep the DC separate from the AC. When it comes to an AC circuit you never switch the neutral. Not sure if they did it that way but just for everyone else to know. Lastly this should have been done by a licensed electrician since it will have the public interacting with it. If any of this shorted out and started a fire the insurance company would not cover it. Or if someone was electrocuted you could be held responsible. Hate to be that guy complaining about how they did this cool project but electricity is no joke.
Cringe...you complaining about what you think you see in a 30-minute video. You have no clue what was done off camera and assuming anything is beyond absurd. Another armchair know-it-all.
Well he does know the box is plastic and has no divider, and he clarifies he doesn't know if the neutral was switched or the hot. Furthermore, one would assume that a 40 minute video would show an electrician if they called one in.
If you want those I have plenty in my playlist of when I first get a machine. I have some in the Que a Club House from 1958 and a Sea Ray from 1971. I also have a Space Mission, LaserCue, Classic High-Speed and High-Speed II.
That was [expletive deleted] cool! I loved High Speed and played it daily when I was in college. I would have loved the semaphore in the basement of the student union!
Did not realize that this was a mod. For some reason when i was playing this machine, I thought it was an add on that was built into the game. Super cool. I miss playing at Free Gold Watch.
Note, tradicional rele have a physical delay and maybe they would not care about the flickering voltage, but the idle animation for the stop light make it worth it to use an Arduino.
Well remember Ohm's Law - V=IR and it's permutations. From there you can add resistance to the input voltage to get it down to 5V - or just use a power regulator.
I'm no traffic light expert, but that "traffic light" looks outrageously small compared to the size of an actual traffic light. Could be a novelty traffic light.
You are correct; that is NOT a standard traffic light but most likely a work area temporary light. I have a real traffic light and it is more then twice the size of this little pole light. That light would look like a Barbie doll toy light 20 feet in the air over a intersection.
I don't know much about electronics, but I'm very interested in learning about them. I was glued to my seat during this video! I had an idea about your original idea of being totally solid-state... Using your resistor-capacitor fix, but minus the arduino solution, would a smaller voltage relay work with the voltage you were originally getting? If so, maybe have it trip a slightly higher voltage rail that your bigger relays would sense? Basically, you would have the pinball sending its' micro-pulse, feeding into a low voltage relay, feeding a slightly higher voltage to your big relays. I don't know where your resistor-capacitor filter would fit in there. Would this solution work?
You would like some of my live streams of this very machine that I did from start to finish on my own Getaway that I have. Also streamed when I put in mods.
Why Tested doesn't have a Pinball show, given the nature of how the machines work.. is a fucking mystery. What better way to get kinds into electricity, physics, and repairing cool shit?!
Yep I always work with the game off. Doing what they were doing with it on is a great way to blow up boards and cook the transistors off the boards. Only time I do not really turn off the power is changing out a light bulb or changing out a rubber on the game.
I'm not too knowledgeable on the workings of pinball machines but you probably would have been fine with standard relays. They would click on engagement and the coils may hum with ac as the trigger but they might not actually disengage on the polarity changes. If it's rectified to DC with a diode and not a full bridge rectifier it might clack at 60hz. However if it's is DC an it does clack you could run a capacitor parallel to the relay input. For the solid state relays, they have have a near infinite input impedance. This would cause issues with allowing the light to turn off as you'd have to wait for the capacitor to bleed off. Without a load that can take some time so you would need a resistor to pull the signal voltage down. You could measure the resistance of the light bulbs for a proper load if the control board depends on the load for any function. If it's driving an led you won't get any useful number with a multimeter but you can get a ballpark number with the watt rating and the input voltage. But for many circuits the acceptable values would be a wide range. The opto isolator is the proper answer for a circuit with a microcontroller which I'm still not convinced you needed. It might have some applications without the microcontroller but I think i went into the hypotheticals enough. At the end of the day you got a solution.
electronics 0v to 26v DC. Electrics 60v to 1000v AC. Different fields with different challenges. I can dabble with electronics but I sure as hell wouldn't touch Electrics
chris steel Thanks for your personal interpretation of what electrics/electronics are. Pinball machines have easily damaged; low voltage electronics controlling higher voltage (often DC) systems. Messing around with such things as an amateur can be damaging, dangerous and a very real fire hazard. Also I'm fairly certain America has an electrical code of practice like we do in the UK and to have a mains voltage electrical installation created and installed in a commercial property by a non-coded amateur would be against regulations and would very probably void the buildings insurance in the case of fire. Cheers anyway.
That's what I came to suggest...that they use two inverter stages. The first acts as a buffer so you aren't impacting the circuit driving the game's internal LEDs. Then you can have your RC filter. Choose your components right and it smooth out the bigger pulses while not charging up enough, and thus ignoring, the smaller pulses. Then run that through a second inverter stage. This buffers your RC filter so it doesn't have to push the current required to drive the LED in the solid state relay. You could use any old 40xx or 74Cxx series inverter for this (or other logic gates wired as inverters), but Schmitt trigger inverters are well suited for interfacing between an analog signal (like the output from your RC filter) and logic, as they have well defined high and low input voltages. They're the electronic equivalent of a micro switch, which has mechanics that cause the switch to snap 100% on, once a pressure threshold is exceeded. Whether you really needed the optocouplers, particularly seeing as the Arduino ended up being powered by the game (and thus not isolated) is debatable. But hard to say without seeing the schematic of the matrix LED driver arrangement. Regardless, a $0.30 inverter was all you needed instead of an Arduino.
Now that's one heck of a response. For someone who has been doing simple electronics for only two years and isn't even in high school yet, half of that went over my head. But still, thanks for the amazing response.
Don't strobe them, or maybe only strobe them every 60 seconds or something, but make each light randomly go on every random # of seconds (10 to 20), and stay on for some random # of seconds (3 to 9). That would be a nice display.
love the video. It is awesome to see a mod done to a pinball table done that is cool. I normally don't like pinball mods as I am someone who usually likes pinball all original but I do love it. I also love pinball even if I am not so go at it. Mu uncle started my love for pinball like 20+ years ago when I was a kid with his Black Hole Pinball he had back then.
I am not one to much on mods but I do like putting in mods that were going to be in a game but were taken out for cost reasons. For instance I put in a mountain mod on my Getaway as it was going to be in the game but for cost reasons they pulled it before mass producing the game. I put that back in I got the mountain from Mezel Mods who do all sorts of pinball mods. :) I love my mountain it was not cheap but man it looks so good! :)
Could you not use a 9v connected to the capacitor and resistor. Then have that split those wires and connect them to the three solid state relays, but with a mechanical relay in between each one Have the mechanical relay attach to the common wire of the game and the rag wires respectively. That way the battery would have enough power to trigger the SS relay and the traffic light would actually represent the game better with less delay. (also no arduino)
Artist impresion (if thats what you call 2 mins on paint) prntscr.com/k2yj4x (Also sorry if I drew anything wrong its been 3 years since I've done this)
when amateurs are doing pros' job, wiring at random until something will eventually lit on or burn out... anything weird can happen... The neutral is never switched because your provider already grounded it in the transformer booth before delivering it locally... At least, it's how it works in Europe...
I'd have made the connection in the wiring harness leading to the lights. The kind of thing people do all the time in car audio wiring. Also definitely would have solved the issue of the pulsing signals prior to even testing it; that's pretty obvious.
Change the lamps in the traffic light. There's incandescent lamps with a larger diameter filament that glow longer and don't mind 16 Hz. Won't be as bright as what you have now, but it looks too bright in the video anyway.
I love this, but can't help but laugh every time he said it's high voltage, not saying you should work on 120v live, but when you work with 480v plus every day 120 is quite a bit less scary
RaketenKuhGewehr Actually all domestic & international versions were produced in the same facility in Chicago, IL. If the game was originally sent overseas, replacing the power supply with a domestic one would make it useable here. All the display languages were software controlled. The Getaway was one of the production lines I QA'ed when I worked for Williams\Bally between '92-'94.
The US coin doors had two slots. The foreign coin doors have 1 or 3 coin chutes. And the back has a silk screen on it saying Caution and it in several languages of be careful when the machine is open as you can get shocked. My Getaway was also some place in France or something as it had Francs and also a 3 slot coin door. I have converted mine back to the US 2 coin slot and made sure all fuses and the transformer jumpers are all good for the US.
I wonder if this could have been done mechanically with either some kind of fluid filled relay or a relay armature bonded with rubber. something like. Anything that could dampen the frequency. Seems like it would work.
diode then resistor to the transistors base, then resistor and capacitor onto the SSR's just adjust the main resistor from the transistor to the capacitor.
Oh how you two brought back some memories for me...
I actually worked at Williams\Bally between '92-'94 as a QA tester. The Getaway was one of the lines I worked on. I so loved that particular game.
I have the game and I have done a lot on my machine.
Every time I add a mod or first get a machine I over haul it.
And live stream it.
I have a playlist of pins I have gotten and given some TLC to.
And why is there just a sticker that says QA Tester #74?
Why they not credit the tester of these machines?
The "matrix glitching" happened because the charged capacitors discharged themselves through the other rows/columns when not driven. When interacting with a matrix you need to use diodes in order to not feed back into it. On more complex systems it could even damage stuff - think 24V going into a 5V line.
Not sure if just the diode before the resistor would fix the flickering, but might've been worth a try.
The matrix is pulsed at 60Hz but the SSR also turns on 60Hz AC. If those pulses happen near the zero-cross voltage the lights wold barely turn on.
Lots of points to consider, which is why something that seemed simple took days to finish.
i know I'm kinda randomly asking but do anyone know a good site to stream new tv shows online ?
@Jesse Kingston Flixportal
@Grayson Ibrahim thank you, I went there and it seems like a nice service =) I appreciate it!!
@Jesse Kingston Happy to help :)
This was awesome, and a great demonstration of the true obsessiveness of us pinball fanatics!
This is exactly how ALL of my projects turn out. In the beginning I say to myself “ It will be so easy, no worries”...by the end I’m ready to toss it off a cliff. Cheers for hanging in there.
Now that you are using an Arduino, you might as well go all out and add a second Arduino. Take it all apart, put the solid state relays INSIDE of the stop lights with proper fusing, so that you are not running line voltage wires along the floor which is really dangerous. Connect the relays to Arduino #1. Then, open the pinball machine and mount the Arduino #2 inside of it, connected to the lighting matrix. Finally, run a low voltage serial cable from Arduino #1 to Arduino #2. Now the states of the lights can be detected inside of the pinball machine and transmitted to the stoplight, where the solid state relays are controlled. No more dangerous line voltage wires all over the place, no project box to hang off of the side of the machine, and you can use simple CAT5 cable to connect them together.
Not trying to be Captain Safety here but there is some dangerously incorrect information at 11:30 or so. When Jeremy says it doesn't matter what side is switched when they are attaching the relays to the stop light for the first time, they should be attaching them through the HOT side (black wires) because the power comes from there. The neutral side (white) is technically only connected to ground. While this does give the end result that they are looking for, it means the lightbulbs ALWAYS have power coming into them and they are waiting to find a path to ground to turn on. If you were to touch the metal part of the bulb, or likely any part of the metal housing of the stop light, even when the light is not lit, it would likely shock you as the hot wire tries to find a path to ground. This is wrong at best and dangerous at worst. Not great to advertise this misinformation publicly.
took me a while to understand what you're saying. That in a simple circuit, the switch should be on the live side, not the neutral side. Yes i agree, but i *think* the guy was trying to ask if there's an input and output in the relay itself, which a google suggests "some" are bi directional.
Well, Sean specifically asks about "positive and negative or Neutral" which I'm guessing is him asking about the hot side vs the neutral side of the power coming in, not asking about the relay. The only way a 120v (or up to 480v) AC relay could be messed up would be applying the AC line voltage to the signal side of the relay (which uses the much less power) if it was looking for a low level DC input. Some relays can use AC power for the signal input as well, but it's only a small amp load, not switched through a heavy draw like an old incandescent bulb.
This isn't just "Captain Safety" stuff. This is against NEC electrical code. This is a fire safety issue as well as a health safety issue. If the pinball place burns down because they wired contrary to code, the insurance company can deny the claim, leaving the owner pretty screwed.
I was going to say that too... but I didn't want to seem too "doom and gloom". But you're right. I think most people don't understand that there is a reason why you hire a professional electrician anytime you touch the 120v power in your house or business, and it's not just because they know more than you; it's mostly a liability that they undertake for you.
"Break the Black", is what i was taught.
Version 2, I'd put the relays in the lamp housing and use a 4-pin XLR with panel mounts on the machine and the housing for the control.
29:00 You need a diode too, not just a resistor and capacitor. Without the diode, the capacitor ends up backfeeding the matrix, discharging the capacitor instantly. No need for arduinos or optoisolators, you just need a diode to prevent backfeeding. You can also add an additional low-value resistor in series with the diode to filter out the really short pulses.
Great, just simple stuff but demonstrated so many things. I like how you really explain the basic stuff like relays, opto-something-thingies..
Seems easier to put the relays in the light and use the existing power and use an ethernet cable to get multiple pairs back to the pinball low voltage. It eliminates the box and big external high voltage lines. But what do I know. I do like the idea though. fun to watch.
dnegrichjr they don't need all that AC line running everywhere...THAT is quite dangerous. And yes, putting the relays in the stop light would eliminate safety and design flaws...I would not want to be anywhere near that machine with HOT AC voltage going into a plastic project box. Inside a pinball machine you're actively touching... This is dangerous and ignorant to say the least. AND that's not even close to the size of a real stoplight. This would be 1000x easier and probably look exactly the same with a novelty LED stoplight.
I have run into this problem with SSRs in the past. Traditional (zero crossing) SSRs can only be turned on or off when the AC frequency crosses zero. They are essentially an optoisolator with a TRIAC attached. If you feed them a switched frequency, they latch on until a zero cross; they are then turned back on before the zero cross, hence the erratic behavior. This is likely why the SSR seemed to work properly when attached to just the matrix, as the LED in the SSR indicates both the state of the optoisolator and the output of the SSR. When it latches, the LED will stay on until a zero cross sync when it can unlatch.
For a resistive load such as a light bulb, you might get away with a "Random Fire SSR" that has circuits that allow it to be cycled at any point of the AC cycle.
I'm just going to pretend that I understood that and nod along.
So in conclusion you are saying that the choice of solid state relay was the problem?
Not really - random fire SSRs cause other problems. The correct way is to add a filter circuit to the front end - which they did, in a round-about way.
AC goes back in forth from a current perspective from -110v to +110v at 60 times per second (60hz). Alex was pointing out that the solid state relays will only allow the relay to be switched on or off when the voltage hits 0v which happens every 1/60th of a second but indicates that there are relays that are able to switch at any point in that cycle available.
I expected them to create a pass-through cable rather than solder on to the light board in the machine. Slightly more challenging, but leaves the machine intact.
phrebh yeah. A connector where the light passed through would have been the perfect place to pull the signal from.
Seriously! All the safety stuff aside, just hijack a jumper between the molex connectors for the light and it’s far easier and less permanent!
I hate to say it, but you really went through a major complicated way around getting a simple on signal from a pwm... could have been done with a transistor a schmit a diode and a capacitor.
I was thinking the same thing, but then when they went into their diatribe about the false positives and seemingly needing the PWM decoder function of the arduino I let it go.
I was wondering why they couldn't just use a diode bridge to rectify the AC to DC easily and cheaply...
This was going to be my comment.
This is becoming one of my favorite tested shows. Love the project.
Lol, all that work to not see someone activate the red light.
NICE!!!!! I have a 1986 Williams "High Speed" Pinball Machine, and an older Traffic Light almost exactly as the one you have minus the stand. When I first started watching this video I was thinking I would love to do the same. After seeing everything you went through though I kind of changed my mind.
Loved your journey through that, lads. Glad you could make a clean 'getaway' eventually with a job well done!
This all feels really improvised. They should have done recon to check how the machine works first. Also it makes more sense to put all high voltage in the light and run low voltage control wires (modular) from the pinball machine to the light. It is nice that they leave some of the mistakes in but it sucks that that is half the video =/
This is the first time I've seen Jeremy really open up and get excited.
Nice try guys, and kudos for the trouble shooting. I must also give the guy props for installing an earth ground to the light fixture. However, I have to agree with the growing number of comments where this is really not safe. You should be switching the "hot" black wires, not the "neutral" white wires. By not breaking the hot wire, the light bulb socket is still live, even if the solid state relay is off. I am not going to beat you up for the type of box chosen for the project, but I would have encouraged you to use a better enclosure to house your project in, especially if you are going to heep the high voltage separate from the light fixture. That aside, I would have suggested you locate all the high voltage items (would have only needed an on/off switch and the solid state relays) in the light fixture, and then had a low voltage cable coming out to go to the pinball game. I think I would have liked to see you add a fuse to the light fixture, but if you had wired the rest of it correctly, you could have honestly passed on that, as it is not required by code. For just the low voltage part of your project, the box you used would have been fine. How you went about solving your matrix / PWM / glitchy signal problem, that is all a matter of what you know and what you have available to work with. Put 10 engineers in a room to solve that problem, and there is a good chance you will end up with more than 10 correct answers. Keep up the good work, and hopefully put a little more research into high voltage electrical safety and the NEC before doing another project where you will be dealing with mains voltage.
Wonderful how this seemingly simple project turned out to be actually quite complex.
This box is not safe for a 120V AC project, sorry dudes... also 4 wires for the signals would have been enough, as you realized too late.
Fabian Tschopp And way too accessible. Just a small plastic latch isn't enough to keep curious kids and idiot adults out. They need something with a padlock latch on it... And thicker plastic...
Fabian Tschopp 15:30, I guess this is why he decided to have separate ground leads for each light...?
Solid state relays can get hot too, depending on how much current is being drawn. Might not be an issue with a simple light, but I would probably not feel comfortable mounting them to plastic. They typically have a bare aluminum back for the purpose of heatsinking.
No, more because of the matrix system that the game's computer internally uses.
But yeah, that's exactly the problems one runs into when implementing a solution without having examined the OG hardware first. Not good.
agree get a box and a fan just in case, other than that you can just change the arduino with a smaller adafruit one (trinket maybe?)
As an electrician I am horrified by your work. And by not using a ul listed junction box you are making yourselves liable for any damages.
I know I was cringing all the way through this video.
Especially when he was disconnecting things while the machine is still on which can blow up boards or the facepalm moment of stripping wires while the machine was on and were the one's they had soldered to the stop light.
I am self taught and I do not know everything but dang I do not want them working any where near my H-S Classic or H-S II or my other pins. o.o
i wrote a comment above too about it. they should make a video on how to fix this WITH a certified Electrician
The armchair "electricians" are in full force on this video.
Bakers Field Ibew 558 member for nearly 25 years no armchair electrician here
Frankie Holt I'm sure you are.
That was so satisfying to come along for. I really appreciate Jeremy’s attitude toward problem solving- despite the know it all commenters here...
Agreed. However that should always be tempered by knowing one's own limitations. Here they ended up with a machine, in a public arcade, which violates safety codes.
That is simply unethical. It should have concluded with a safety inspection, by an electrician certified for such work.
Contrast this to all the safety-first attitude shown on Mythbusters.
Yep I would have said shut it down and re-do it.
Since the box they put it in was just a plastic box not properly marked for electronics and could melt down.
And with pinball machines once a fire starts you cannot get it out easily as it is like tire fire once it starts it is not going out. :|
Monostable Oneshot 555 will remove that PWM, then can use a few Logic gates to filter flickering.
Your RC circuit could have just needed a diode.
Great video. I love you guys trying things out even if not successfully. All you haters, you enjoyed watching it with the flaws. That's what made it great. People trying things out without worrying if they would be shot down for trying. Keep it up tested crew
A smaller capacitor, capable of charging faster, combined with a diode to only charge it, the "relay" would discharge it, and maybe a really small resistor in series with the diode, to keep the charge time a little longer than the small peaks you would like to ignore, should do the trick. That is if the pinball machine can supply enough current to charge the capacitor quickly enough. Anyway, the Arduino is better, since you wanted to change what the light did, after not being used for a while.
transistor or mosfet can give a lot more current if its needed like you said
Loving this series! Some of my favourite content on Tested :)
It's like the old saying goes if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Since I got my 3D printer I find I need to remind myself that modifying found objects is often faster and more rewarding and the finished items have a uniqueness that is interesting.
This is a great example of differing engineering professions smoothly collaborating to develop a full piece of hardware.
PINBALL > Everything else. Awesome work!!
Thanks so much for this! Getaway is one of my favorite games! It’s so simple but so rewarding! Great episode!
Just replace the bulbs in the mains traffic light that is the source of your issue with LEDs running at low voltage - put an inline connector at the traffic light in the machine - and run 4 low voltage cables to the external traffic light. No high voltage. No switched earth line. No project box. No dead people. No fires. No liability.
Sometimes you have to take a step back and think about what you are trying to achieve and work back from there. You want the external traffic light to light up - nobody says it has to be running at mains voltage.
Good job guys. This seems like the basic progression/troubleshooting to understand something that you don't. Sure you may not have got it 100% correct, but it did what you wanted it to do and now could be improved on to be more safe or streamlined now that the basis is there and things have been figure out about whats going on and how. Thumbs up here.
Ok how much is this, this is my favorite pinball machine, I neededddd it
I have one in my home I play it a ton.
I also have a full playlist of when I got the machine and cleaning and tuning it up and also putting in various mods.
Not to harp on all the AC flaws of this video (because everyone else has been tearing you guys a new one) but for the low voltage side of this, you could have handled all the LV signal triggers with a length of Cat5 4-Pair, and made the connections simple with RJ-45 jacks mounted to the underside of the machine, and cut through the sidewall of the non-UL listed "project" box. Then you could use any standard PC network cable for easy connection from the mod-box to the machine. This would make it easy to disconnect the light from the machine for easy relocation.
*Cringe. There is a lot of electrical safety issue in this video. First that box would never pass inspection, they really should have used a Nema 1 electrical enclusure that can then be grounded and it would need to be UL listed. Also I would have put a divider to keep the DC separate from the AC. When it comes to an AC circuit you never switch the neutral. Not sure if they did it that way but just for everyone else to know. Lastly this should have been done by a licensed electrician since it will have the public interacting with it. If any of this shorted out and started a fire the insurance company would not cover it. Or if someone was electrocuted you could be held responsible. Hate to be that guy complaining about how they did this cool project but electricity is no joke.
Cringe...you complaining about what you think you see in a 30-minute video. You have no clue what was done off camera and assuming anything is beyond absurd. Another armchair know-it-all.
Well he does know the box is plastic and has no divider, and he clarifies he doesn't know if the neutral was switched or the hot. Furthermore, one would assume that a 40 minute video would show an electrician if they called one in.
Seriously? We watched them tinker for 40 minutes, and then we only get to see two seconds of functionality?
You should have a whole channel with Pinball repair videos guys!
If you want those I have plenty in my playlist of when I first get a machine.
I have some in the Que a Club House from 1958 and a Sea Ray from 1971.
I also have a Space Mission, LaserCue, Classic High-Speed and High-Speed II.
Awesome to see pinball on one of my favorite youtube channels! Maybe Ill see you at pinburgh this year :)
That was [expletive deleted] cool! I loved High Speed and played it daily when I was in college. I would have loved the semaphore in the basement of the student union!
I want that "Insert coin to Play" shirt.
Did not realize that this was a mod. For some reason when i was playing this machine, I thought it was an add on that was built into the game. Super cool. I miss playing at Free Gold Watch.
This was a proper Tested video. Good work, guys. :D
Note, tradicional rele have a physical delay and maybe they would not care about the flickering voltage, but the idle animation for the stop light make it worth it to use an Arduino.
Well remember Ohm's Law - V=IR and it's permutations. From there you can add resistance to the input voltage to get it down to 5V - or just use a power regulator.
I really wish you guys showed more of playing the game at the end. (The stoplight switching) You only showed from green to yellow.
I absolutely love this show
I'm no traffic light expert, but that "traffic light" looks outrageously small compared to the size of an actual traffic light. Could be a novelty traffic light.
Possibly it is. However it looks to be appropriate size for the type used at roadworks.
It's probably an 8 inch light used on city side streets
You are correct; that is NOT a standard traffic light but most likely a work area temporary light. I have a real traffic light and it is more then twice the size of this little pole light. That light would look like a Barbie doll toy light 20 feet in the air over a intersection.
Standard traffic lights used at intersections have a one foot lens, AFAICR.
if only i would have seen more footage of that mod working...
Well done boys!
That’s a bad ass shelves on the background at the beginning of this video... I will build something like that in my house!
Am I the only one who played with Radio Shack kits as a kid who thought "555 Timer to lengthen the pulses!" ?
monostable one shot 555
OMG I have not thought about a triple-nickel in years (decades)
I don't know much about electronics, but I'm very interested in learning about them. I was glued to my seat during this video! I had an idea about your original idea of being totally solid-state... Using your resistor-capacitor fix, but minus the arduino solution, would a smaller voltage relay work with the voltage you were originally getting? If so, maybe have it trip a slightly higher voltage rail that your bigger relays would sense? Basically, you would have the pinball sending its' micro-pulse, feeding into a low voltage relay, feeding a slightly higher voltage to your big relays. I don't know where your resistor-capacitor filter would fit in there. Would this solution work?
You would like some of my live streams of this very machine that I did from start to finish on my own Getaway that I have.
Also streamed when I put in mods.
I'll check some out!
Ok, I'm pretty sure you could have done this with caps and resistors. Except for the attract mode filter
Need to have that light switch between the colors when the game is idle.
Fun fact: The pinball arcade burned down the next day due to an electrical fire from an unknown source.
Why Tested doesn't have a Pinball show, given the nature of how the machines work.. is a fucking mystery. What better way to get kinds into electricity, physics, and repairing cool shit?!
15:08... nice use of a storage container that I also own and haven't till now found a use for. !
Wasn't it the first pinball machine who had music as well?? love that particular pinball :) high speed 1 and 2
Your RC circuit could have just needed a diode in series with the resistor, but an arduino will suffice I guess.
Wish you guys would have shown the full sequence of lights!
put a few coin batteries in series to bump the voltage up then it will flip flop at the trigger range....
Arrrrr....threepwood! Gimme back my shirt!!
This feels like the geek version of "This Old House" I like.
Great video, do more like this.
Lots of safety comments I see. But surely the machine should be off before tinkering 😜
Yep I always work with the game off.
Doing what they were doing with it on is a great way to blow up boards and cook the transistors off the boards.
Only time I do not really turn off the power is changing out a light bulb or changing out a rubber on the game.
I'm not too knowledgeable on the workings of pinball machines but you probably would have been fine with standard relays. They would click on engagement and the coils may hum with ac as the trigger but they might not actually disengage on the polarity changes. If it's rectified to DC with a diode and not a full bridge rectifier it might clack at 60hz. However if it's is DC an it does clack you could run a capacitor parallel to the relay input. For the solid state relays, they have have a near infinite input impedance. This would cause issues with allowing the light to turn off as you'd have to wait for the capacitor to bleed off. Without a load that can take some time so you would need a resistor to pull the signal voltage down. You could measure the resistance of the light bulbs for a proper load if the control board depends on the load for any function. If it's driving an led you won't get any useful number with a multimeter but you can get a ballpark number with the watt rating and the input voltage. But for many circuits the acceptable values would be a wide range. The opto isolator is the proper answer for a circuit with a microcontroller which I'm still not convinced you needed. It might have some applications without the microcontroller but I think i went into the hypotheticals enough. At the end of the day you got a solution.
For an electronic expert you don't seem to know very much about electricity.
electronics 0v to 26v DC. Electrics 60v to 1000v AC. Different fields with different challenges. I can dabble with electronics but I sure as hell wouldn't touch Electrics
Symon Enry he doesnt call himself an expert, i think for the exact reason youre pointing out
8000pendragon Fair enough, I concede. At no point does he call himself an expert.
chris steel Thanks for your personal interpretation of what electrics/electronics are. Pinball machines have easily damaged; low voltage electronics controlling higher voltage (often DC) systems. Messing around with such things as an amateur can be damaging, dangerous and a very real fire hazard. Also I'm fairly certain America has an electrical code of practice like we do in the UK and to have a mains voltage electrical installation created and installed in a commercial property by a non-coded amateur would be against regulations and would very probably void the buildings insurance in the case of fire.
Cheers anyway.
A simple schmitt trigger would have done the trick
That's what I came to suggest...that they use two inverter stages. The first acts as a buffer so you aren't impacting the circuit driving the game's internal LEDs. Then you can have your RC filter. Choose your components right and it smooth out the bigger pulses while not charging up enough, and thus ignoring, the smaller pulses. Then run that through a second inverter stage. This buffers your RC filter so it doesn't have to push the current required to drive the LED in the solid state relay.
You could use any old 40xx or 74Cxx series inverter for this (or other logic gates wired as inverters), but Schmitt trigger inverters are well suited for interfacing between an analog signal (like the output from your RC filter) and logic, as they have well defined high and low input voltages. They're the electronic equivalent of a micro switch, which has mechanics that cause the switch to snap 100% on, once a pressure threshold is exceeded.
Whether you really needed the optocouplers, particularly seeing as the Arduino ended up being powered by the game (and thus not isolated) is debatable. But hard to say without seeing the schematic of the matrix LED driver arrangement.
Regardless, a $0.30 inverter was all you needed instead of an Arduino.
Now that's one heck of a response. For someone who has been doing simple electronics for only two years and isn't even in high school yet, half of that went over my head. But still, thanks for the amazing response.
Hot to ground and hot to neutral. Seems like the guy explaining would probably know how to fix a breaker live as well lol
I am from Spangler/Barnesboro! Hiya neighbor.
LOOKS LIKE A FUN PLACE! 😧
Yeah for a boost sub-circuit you need a capacitor but also an MCU. Arduino should work fine.
Don't strobe them, or maybe only strobe them every 60 seconds or something, but make each light randomly go on every random # of seconds (10 to 20), and stay on for some random # of seconds (3 to 9). That would be a nice display.
love the video. It is awesome to see a mod done to a pinball table done that is cool. I normally don't like pinball mods as I am someone who usually likes pinball all original but I do love it. I also love pinball even if I am not so go at it. Mu uncle started my love for pinball like 20+ years ago when I was a kid with his Black Hole Pinball he had back then.
I am not one to much on mods but I do like putting in mods that were going to be in a game but were taken out for cost reasons.
For instance I put in a mountain mod on my Getaway as it was going to be in the game but for cost reasons they pulled it before mass producing the game.
I put that back in I got the mountain from Mezel Mods who do all sorts of pinball mods. :)
I love my mountain it was not cheap but man it looks so good! :)
Is anyone else watching these videos during the QUARANTINE 2K20?
Tell me more about these "relays." :P
Could you not use a 9v connected to the capacitor and resistor. Then have that split those wires and connect them to the three solid state relays, but with a mechanical relay in between each one
Have the mechanical relay attach to the common wire of the game and the rag wires respectively.
That way the battery would have enough power to trigger the SS relay and the traffic light would actually represent the game better with less delay. (also no arduino)
Artist impresion (if thats what you call 2 mins on paint)
prntscr.com/k2yj4x
(Also sorry if I drew anything wrong its been 3 years since I've done this)
Thanks to the background music I couldn't understand a word from that intro.
why the seperate relay box, put the relay's behind de lightbulbs and run lowvoltage to de traficlight. thats seems simpler and safer?
4:38 my life in two words for last three or more years :D
when amateurs are doing pros' job, wiring at random until something will eventually lit on or burn out... anything weird can happen...
The neutral is never switched because your provider already grounded it in the transformer booth before delivering it locally... At least, it's how it works in Europe...
I'd have made the connection in the wiring harness leading to the lights. The kind of thing people do all the time in car audio wiring. Also definitely would have solved the issue of the pulsing signals prior to even testing it; that's pretty obvious.
Change the lamps in the traffic light. There's incandescent lamps with a larger diameter filament that glow longer and don't mind 16 Hz. Won't be as bright as what you have now, but it looks too bright in the video anyway.
I love this, but can't help but laugh every time he said it's high voltage, not saying you should work on 120v live, but when you work with 480v plus every day 120 is quite a bit less scary
38:10 for anyone looking to see the result
Ernest Hobbs x2 I clicked the comment to reply, but you beat me to it. Very anticlimactic.
You are a Legend, this result sucks
The getaway came out in 92 btw. Not 95.
Sean is from Altoona.... I'm so so sorry to hear that.
Anybody else spotted the german warning label under the board? I wonder why that is there. Maybe this particular machine is quite well travelled.
The coin slots were marked up in DM (Deutschmarks) as well so it's a pretty safe bet this machine started its life in Germany.
Oh, I didn't catch that. But yeah, seems like a pretty safe bet. That's kinda cool.
RaketenKuhGewehr
Actually all domestic & international versions were produced in the same facility in Chicago, IL.
If the game was originally sent overseas, replacing the power supply with a domestic one would make it useable here. All the display languages were software controlled.
The Getaway was one of the production lines I QA'ed when I worked for Williams\Bally between '92-'94.
The US coin doors had two slots.
The foreign coin doors have 1 or 3 coin chutes.
And the back has a silk screen on it saying Caution and it in several languages of be careful when the machine is open as you can get shocked.
My Getaway was also some place in France or something as it had Francs and also a 3 slot coin door.
I have converted mine back to the US 2 coin slot and made sure all fuses and the transformer jumpers are all good for the US.
Mithbusters will never be the same without her
So why not use a mosfet or use a bjt to simplify the circuit?
I wonder if this could have been done mechanically with either some kind of fluid filled relay or a relay armature bonded with rubber. something like. Anything that could dampen the frequency. Seems like it would work.
This would be so illegal in Australia, you can't mess with any of that mains voltage unless your a trained electrician
Can you make General Zod's kryptonian armor from Man of Steel?
That T-Shirt is awesome *i void warranties*
diode then resistor to the transistors base, then resistor and capacitor onto the SSR's just adjust the main resistor from the transistor to the capacitor.
Pinball and screen printing in one place. Interesting idea.
Hakko flushcuts. Best $4 I've ever spent.
no one in the "Tested" house thought that playing with mains while having little idea what they should do was a good idea?