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Lets look over the 'new' spooky driver/controller board

myPinballs

myPinballs

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So the next spooky games look to have switched to ben heck driver/controller board (by bye p-roc). My favourite part to any new pinball and something i want to get a heads up on, so let take a look at what we've got . I will be look to support these later on for repairs as usual. Seems this board was first mentioned by Ben in 2019, so not brand new.

Looks to be a fairly modular approach with lots of standard and useful ideas added to 1 board.

Specs look to be:

24 x Mosfet Drivers for high current devices (coils) (3 x 8, each individually fuses)
4 x Steppers
6 x Servos
16 x Optos
64 x Direct playfield switches
16 x Direct cabinet switches
16 x 'GI' Lamp drivers
1 x High Voltage disable/enable relay
USB control to main computer
onboard Firmware for low level control (guess)

Interestingly no main lamp drivers on here, so it must be a separate rgb lamp controller via usb again most likely. Probably using the WS2812B ics and controller stuff.

One other thing ben mentions in other posts from 2019 is to make this board as cheap as possible (assembly/design wise, not parts quality wise) which was one issue with the proc board and multimorphic unwillingness to reduce the costs on it for large purchasers, which i've seen in the past/heard from multiple manufacturers using it, so this move is a logical step for them. Only thing that could be an issue from a first glance is horizontal SMD mosfets on the board so replacing them isnt as easy as when they are vertical. I would have stuck to regular plate though here, but costs comes into play again then

a28889e92e686034c0b23f0ef16a1a2571865baa.jpg
 
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Its weird I used to watch Ben Heck videos all the time and then saw him do a how to make a pinball video and thought it looked similar.. realised then he went to go work for Spooky, but then left over 'creative differences'. So assuming they are now using his PCB they have mended relations?
 
Looks like a cool board - is that one you have at home?

On the pinside thread one of the spooky guys mentioned the LED strips were APA102 not WS2812b - not a massive difference anyway.

Do you know what platform the main software runs on?
 
AlanJ said:
agree on those mosfets, unless they’re current overload protected somehow, so unlikely to blow if shorted??
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If 30 years of fixing pinball has taught me one thing, coil drivers always blow up eventually no matter what you do. A 45A current mosfet can still be killed by a stern sam game... and lets not talk about spike driver boards!! The issue with electronics designs is always the thing you dont know you dont know!!
 
Looking at the board - I’d say it would be relatively easy to swap a bad mosfet for a good one Jim. The pads look nice and chunky… with all your gizmo’s I’m sure you already have a SMD rework setup.
 
MadNat said:
Looking at the board - I’d say it would be relatively easy to swap a bad mosfet for a good one Jim. The pads look nice and chunky… with all your gizmo’s I’m sure you already have a SMD rework setup.
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Yeah compared to fixing a konami gti club arcade graphics fault changing a mosfet like this is a pile of **** of course, but the point is more about heat generation and board damage by ic placement. By sticking high current parts to the surface of the board no matter what ground plane there is, heat is building up in the pcb itself when the part fails. A vertical part has more air flow around it so normally less board damage. The question is what do you do if you get the part off fine but the board traces and pcb surface is burnt up. Jumpers time. :( Seen it many many times...

Also remember this board is stuck to the underside of the playfield and heat rises

Just thoughts though as i think about it in more detail.
 
Something else. All direct switches 64+16 so 80 in total sure is going to create alot of wiring. Each switch is grounded so its 1 wire back to the pcb for each switch instead of a matrix. Possibly why the pcb remains on the playfield underside
 
Fubar said:
On the pinside thread one of the spooky guys mentioned the LED strips were APA102 not WS2812b - not a massive difference anyway.
Click to expand...

I know Gerry from Multimorphic and Aaron from FAST have had it out a few times as to whether addressable LEDs are a sensible thing to use for inserts. FAST boards are 100% addressable whereas I think proc LED boards have the option of both (addressable or matrix). I can't find the thread to get the specifics, but from memory Gerry's argument is that a pinball playfield is a terrible place to use addressable LEDs, due to the high magnetic currents and (possibly) the physical disruption caused by moving parts. Thoughts Jim?
 
1625741541949.png

Obviously everyone has a very expensive horse in this race and is at pains to ensure that people perceive their solution as the best one.

All I know is that I've had issues with addressable LEDs, signal noise, grounding issues etc, and the idea of EM noise interfering with the serial signal seems really really likely.
 
I suspect that's the reason for using APA102 over WS2812b - the 2-wire signal is more robust.

It's interesting to note that spike does some kind of mix - the node boards drive a bunch of 74HC595 chips on a separate PCB (custom to the game), which has SMD LEDs for inserts and also connectors for wiring remote ones to.
 
stumblor said:
I know Gerry from Multimorphic and Aaron from FAST have had it out a few times as to whether addressable LEDs are a sensible thing to use for inserts. FAST boards are 100% addressable whereas I think proc LED boards have the option of both (addressable or matrix). I can't find the thread to get the specifics, but from memory Gerry's argument is that a pinball playfield is a terrible place to use addressable LEDs, due to the high magnetic currents and (possibly) the physical disruption caused by moving parts. Thoughts Jim?
Click to expand...

stumblor said:
Here we go it's in the deeproot thread:

View attachment 142077

bheck not holding back :)
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stumblor said:
View attachment 142084

Obviously everyone has a very expensive horse in this race and is at pains to ensure that people perceive their solution as the best one.

All I know is that I've had issues with addressable LEDs, signal noise, grounding issues etc, and the idea of EM noise interfering with the serial signal seems really really likely.
Click to expand...

Well there's plenty i could go into and discuss on this topic and other related things, but i'm not going to in a public forum. I've had enough of my own run-ins with gerry in the past so dont want to relive any of that. There is a trend though... If we meet up sometime at a pinball show i'm happy to chat to you on anything technical over a few beers and chew the fat on things :)

For the record i'm in the serial led camp for inserts and have used them with great success in a few products of mine along with some pinball games. Though i'm not adversed to other ideas and don't 'lose my ****' when there's an alternative approach to things..
 
myPinballs said:
Well there's plenty i could go into and discuss on this topic and other related things, but i'm not going to in a public forum. I've had enough of my own run-ins with gerry in the past so dont want to relive any of that. There is a trend though... If we meet up sometime at a pinball show i'm happy to chat to you on anything technical over a few beers and chew the fat on things :)
Click to expand...

Of course I'm not one to gossip but for the sake of beer I will accept. See you at pinfest! :)
 
Interesting note on pinside that MPF support is likely to be added for this driver board (if not already) so maybe python game code is still a possibility over at Spooky. I was wondering if their old p-roc guys (scott and eric) would be buying c++ coding manuals rather quickly. but maybe not. It is a really interesting move to move away from p-roc even though you have 2 great programmers familiar with that hardware in your payroll, so something must have happened. Other than the flippers issue on rm.

I've said before a few times that using a 3rd party control board can leave a company in a difficult position if things go wrong, especially if you don't own the firmware. And I've seen this first hand to.
 
Ben loves his micro controllers and Gary loves his FPGA’s

Wonder what that spooky P-Roc contract was worth must be quite a chunk of change they are losing out on now.

Which other companies use P-Roc?

Iv always wondered if you could make the whole system addressable ie each coil would have its own chip. Think long as you figure out all the interference issues it would work and then you would just need a few power rails and data line going around each component in a daisy chain.

Sounds good on paper but no idea if it would actually work :D
 
myPinballs said:
Interesting note on pinside that MPF support is likely to be added for this driver board (if not already) so maybe python game code is still a possibility over at Spooky. I was wondering if their old p-roc guys (scott and eric) would be buying c++ coding manuals rather quickly. but maybe not. It is a really interesting move to move away from p-roc even though you have 2 great programmers familiar with that hardware in your payroll, so something must have happened. Other than the flippers issue on rm.

I've said before a few times that using a 3rd party control board can leave a company in a difficult position if things go wrong, especially if you don't own the firmware. And I've seen this first hand to.
Click to expand...
Is the game code not all running on the mini pc in python and the Ben board just takes care of the low level hardware? So does not actually run any game code just controls the various hardware with simple commands over the usb bus? So the way they write games won’t change just the hardware interface will? (Just guessing here)
 
myPinballs said:
Something else. All direct switches 64+16 so 80 in total sure is going to create alot of wiring. Each switch is grounded so its 1 wire back to the pcb for each switch instead of a matrix. Possibly why the pcb remains on the playfield underside
Click to expand...

I think George said that the spike 2 architecture had saved stern over $1M per year on wiring compared to continuing with SAM.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Neil McRae said:
I think George said that the spike 2 architecture had saved stern over $1M per year on wiring compared to continuing with SAM.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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yeah when you move the boardset under the playfield and goto a cat5 connection serial chain. Biggest saving on wiring is not having the boardset in the backbox, but unfortunately thats the best place for it!!! Under the playfield is a **** idea really.

and using direct switches instead of a matrix is going to add wiring back in, plus adds to the bom for ics for decoding or burns through io ports.
 
They use macrofab which is interesting as they are quite expensive these days, used to be reasonable then over night prices sky rocketed. But I guess keeps within the made in USA
 
russdx1 said:
They use macrofab which is interesting as they are quite expensive these days, used to be reasonable then over night prices sky rocketed. But I guess keeps within the made in USA
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Well Parker Dillman (the board designer) is co-founder of Macrofab...
 
Fubar said:
I suspect that's the reason for using APA102 over WS2812b - the 2-wire signal is more robust.

It's interesting to note that spike does some kind of mix - the node boards drive a bunch of 74HC595 chips on a separate PCB (custom to the game), which has SMD LEDs for inserts and also connectors for wiring remote ones to.
Click to expand...
74595 are very 'old school' but seriously reliable and also cheap and plentiful as a bonus. Makes sense to use them as you then have the best of both worlds, serial info to the node (in Sterns case), then convert to parallel (that's what 595 chips do) and drive the LEDs. We use 595's to drive our GI and a row/column matrix for playfield lamps (not using 595's).
 
stumblor said:
View attachment 142084

Obviously everyone has a very expensive horse in this race and is at pains to ensure that people perceive their solution as the best one.

All I know is that I've had issues with addressable LEDs, signal noise, grounding issues etc, and the idea of EM noise interfering with the serial signal seems really really likely.
Click to expand...

Totally agree stumblor plus the added challenge of managing the EM noise from those LEDs outside the cabinet let alone on inside the cabinet. I’d be amazed if you would get CE or other approvals.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Neil McRae said:
Totally agree stumblor plus the added challenge of managing the EM noise from those LEDs outside the cabinet let alone on inside the cabinet. I’d be amazed if you would get CE or other approvals.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Click to expand...
Yeah.
But are these boards not designed for home brew people ? An awful lot of CE is self certification. To be honest most the stuff from China would fail as I find it hard to believe they go thru any of the correct procedures.
Glad to see proc gone off spooky games but I hate the idea of a board like this on the playfield. How many years until soldering fractures…. Well more than likely just out the warranty!
Good to see thru hole mosfets!
 
myPinballs said:
yeah when you move the boardset under the playfield and goto a cat5 connection serial chain. Biggest saving on wiring is not having the boardset in the backbox, but unfortunately thats the best place for it!!! Under the playfield is a **** idea really.

and using direct switches instead of a matrix is going to add wiring back in, plus adds to the bom for ics for decoding or burns through io ports.
Click to expand...

Yup, looking at Mmr etc, not good having board mounted under of, especially with No anti vibration support
 
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