How to get an LED-Wiz to control pinball solenoids. Rottendog Amusements makes modern replacement Driver Boards like this Williams WPC89/WPC-S replacement. While it is better than the originals, this board is still rather large, though it does handle more than just solenoids. One of the most important components in a pinball machine is the control
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circuit that sends power to the solenoids, moving the various mechanical assemblies like flippers, slingshots, and pop bumpers. The solenoids need lots of power to have enough oomph to move those heavy steel balls around the playfield. The Modern Firepower design will be using 50 volts, just like the Williams machines back in the day (not all pinball machine designs use or require 50v for the solenoids). In testing, I`ve measured some solenoids to be pulling more than 3 Amps of current when they fire, and at 50 volts that`s over 150 watts of power! This is enough current to be deadly to humans, so safe design and handling is essential, and this amount of power far exceeds the electricity handling capability of computers and typical control circuits. The solution is a power driver circuit board that bridges the gap. On one hand the power driver has to be capable of controlling the high voltage and amperage that is flowing to the solenoids, and on the other hand it has to respond to low powered control signals from the computing device while isolating it from the solenoid power. In pinball machines, this circuit board is typically referred to as the Solenoid Power Driver, and often it is integrated onto larger circuit boards with other types of circuits. For Modern Firepower, the control signal will flow from a PC to a LED-Wiz over USB, then on to the Solenoid Power Driver sending power to the various solenoids on the...
This project fits more for custom made battery casing that can have more space to hide things inside. This switch with few alterations can be used for any other project as well but is designed based on e-bike needs! This project use a clever functionality of....
The circuit described here uses ultrasonic oscillations and operates based on the propagation velocity of these oscillations in the air. Thus, we can easily determine the distance of two points if the time within which the wave travels this distance is....
Sometimes the precious metals are hidden too deep and are not detected except with complicated devices. In many cases, however, small pieces of precious metal buried near the surface can be detected by relatively simple means. Everyone is very attractive to....
Many times for various reasons we forget or can not water the plants that we have in our homes. And many humidity sensors units just notify us with a beeping sound or with a flashing light, that the pot needs watering. But what if we are away from home? This....
The principle behind a metal detector is really very simple. Proof of this is the circuit that follows, in which it proves that the construction of a metal detector can be done in the minute, with few components that we find very easily everywhere. With the....
The sub-harmonic bass generator is a sound producing unit for guitars. The sound it produces looks very much like that of the bass guitar. The octave generator is sometimes quite unusual since it does not produce any of the usual ways of coloring the sound,....
In the past the sounding (sea bottom measurement) was done with the "bullet", that is, with a heavy lead object that the seamen plucked into the sea hung from a calibrated rope. As soon as the "bullet" reached the bottom, the depth appeared directly from the....
This Amplifier was designed to have the following specifications: Distortion less than 0.1% at full power of 100W even at 20KHz. Power has to be attributed to an extended bandwidth. The output transistors must be protected against short circuits. The power....
A series of LEDs serve to alert the gardener when plants need water. Using two conventional digital integrated LEDs and a series of LEDs, we make a very useful device for gardening. The device detects the amount of water in the pot and alerts the grower.....
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