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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 1d

Did some wiring on Voyager today!

The machine now remains in reset mode until all of the score reels are zeroed out.

The next part will be hooking up the score reset relays. Those will pulse the score reels; advancing them from whatever number they're on to zero.
#indiedev #pinball

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 1d

Buying color coded wire has gotten difficult in recent months, so I've had to devise a method to make my own in house.
#indiedev #electronics #pinball

A small 3D printed gadget that holds the tip of an oil based paint pen in position as a wire is run across.

This leaves a nice stripe across the wire, giving it a new color code. In this case, a solid white wire becomes a white/red wire.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 6d

More progress with Voyager! Player Select relays, Score Reset relays, Credit Reel, and Score Reels have been installed!

I had to design and order some special 6 digit score reel mounts, 'cuz this will be a million point game.

Now to order some wire and start hooking things up!
#indiedev #pinball

The front view of a homebrew electromechanical pinball machine's head. Here the player 1 (top) and player 2 (bottom) score reels can be seen, and below them is the credit reel.

An overview of a homebrew electromechanical pinball machine's head. Here mechanisms for score and credit keeping, as well as player selection and score resetting are stored.

Larger pair on the left: Player Select relays.

Smaller pair on the right: Score Reset relays.

Above: Player 1 (top) and Player 2 (bottom) score reels

Below: Credit reel.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 8d

Another Snoodle board update; now with analog inputs!

Just the two axis at the moment, but the code will be expanded to support eight.
#indiedev #electronics #arcade

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 9d

It's been a sawdust kinda day.

Voyager's mech panel needed holes for the player 1 and 2 score reels as well as a funny shaped hole for the credit reel.

With the help of the 3D printer, I made some simple jigs for the router's trace bit.

#indiedev #pinball #woodworking

Voyager's mech panel pull and laid out for cutting. The top two rectangular holes are for the player 1 and 2 score reels respectively, while the odd shaped hole is for the credit reel.

The mech panel reinstalled in Voyager. With these new holes, electrical work on the machine can resume!

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 11d

Sorry I haven't posted about that StarFox project in a while. I wanted to give lasers to enemies and that ended up triggering a 2 month long project wide refactor lol

I can't express how happy I am to finally check this box
#indiedev

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 12d

Felt like relaxing today with a Gameboy repair.

This fella was given to me years ago. It would boot, but couldn't read carts. Suspecting the edge connector, I found one of the pins heavily corroded.

So, I took some wire, bent it into shape, hardened it, and now it's playing again!
#electronics

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 13d

Giving the Snoodle board a work out after writing the code that handles button inputs!

The game is Buck Up and Drive! by @fontes.bsky.social
#indiedev #arcade #electronics

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 14d

The new rev.1 Snoodle board is loaded up with components and after a wee bit of software setup it's now working away!
#indiedev #arcade #electronics

A custom made circuit board called "Snoodle I/O" with a snake mascot. This board is intended to provide both input (buttons and joysticks) and output (motors and lights) for indie arcade machine developers.

A terminal showing debug information received from the Snoodle I/O board.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 15d

Ordered the first custom fabricated part for my EM pinball project! This long piece is a ball guide and will form the inner loop.
#indiedev #pinball

A render of a custom fabricated metal strip.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 16d

Rev.1 Snoodle boards have arrived!

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 19d

Tie Fighters!!

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Reposted by Scylla-Leeezard

Amando Gasca | Out-Class Hunter Dev @7hrone.bsky.social · 22d

A mechanic I've been meaning to implement quite a long time and finally all the other systems are where they need to be for it to work properly, Momentum!

Pick up speed going down slopes and lose some speed going up them!

#indiedev #gamedev #outclasshunter

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 22d

Revision 1 Snoodle I/O boards are on the way! These feature the fix for the serial data bus as well as new status lights.

In the meantime, I'll continue to use the prototype to develop the microcontroller code.
#indiedev #arcade #electronics

Revision 1 of the Snoodle I/O board. This circuit board is used to hook up both digital and analog controls to indie arcade machines.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 26d

The new CD4066 governs which bank of shift registers can assert on the serial input line by gating their outputs with their respective enable lines.

A little bit of trickery was needed because a bank is enabled by an low signal, but the new chip is enabled with a high.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 26d

Please ignore my fucky wucky uwu

I forgot that the output of the 74hc165 always asserts, so the dipswitch shift register bank and button bank were fighting over the single serial data input. lol

To fix this an additional chip (CD4066) had to be added.
#indiedev #arcade #electronics

The back of a custom interface board for indie arcade machines. Here a new chip was added to fix a problem with the digital input shift registers fighting over who could assert their data on the serial data line.

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Reposted by Scylla-Leeezard

mayzmae @mayzmae.dev · 26d

task force: there is one anomaly in the darkness. we must be careful not to be taken off guard by this unknown force
the subject, logging into it's favorite speed game:
#godotengine #godot #gamedev #indiedev #solodev

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 26d

Ultimately, neither of these are real problems. Fixing them would just make coding easier... which I'm a fan of lol

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 26d

Inverting the order of the data is more tricky.

The hardware solution would be to physically rewire how the data enters the shift registers.

Software side, the order of the memory could be inverted after it's loaded in. This will cost CPU time though.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 26d

Flipping the bits isn't too hard. The hardware solution would be to use pin 7 of the 74hc165 shift register instead of pin 9. Both pins output data, just one is inverted from the other.

However the software solution should be as easy as adding a "!" to flip each bit as it comes into memory.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 26d

It's alive!! I wrote the first little chunk of code for the I/O board; reading the dipswitch settings on boot.

The data needs bit flipped and it's order inverted, but hey it's something!
#indiedev #arcade #electronics

A serial data console showing information reported by the Noodle I/O board. Here we can see that it successfully read the states of the dipswitches.

A close up of the dipswitches on the physical board. Unfortunately the bits are flipped, so that an "on" switch is reported as "false" and vice versa. Luckly though that isn't hard to fix.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 27d

Update on the I/O board from a couple of days ago

The prototype boards and their components arrived today! Got one if them fully populated and power tested. Now to start programming it!
#indiedev #arcade #electronics

A custom designed circuit board called "Noodle I/O".

The final goal of this project is to create a piece of interface hardware for indie arcade machines; which allow a game designer to hook up to 64 individual buttons and 8 analog devices.

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 28d

Tic Tac Toe has been running great, then yesterday I find it off with the smell of ozone. 'Opened it up and found the lock relay was fried.

This particular relay is energized the entire time the game is on, so it's not uncommon for them to burn up after a few years of service.
#pinball

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Reposted by Scylla-Leeezard

Fábio Fontes @fontes.bsky.social · 29d

I know public appearances can be a pain in the neck but goddamn

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Scylla-Leeezard @scylla-leeezard.bsky.social · 29d

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