Was completed, then not, now definitely completed and for sale! A new 4K VP Build

[Andy B]

Ok, here we go again…

After my successful 4k VP build of 3 years ago (couldn’t believe it was that long ago when I checked my camera roll - but a VP project during lockdown makes sense), I am going to do the whole thing again but this time using someone else’s HD build based on a Sega Baywatch as the starting point.

Picked up cabinet Sunday minus the playfield screen which I didn’t need as wasn’t 4K so agreed with previous owner he could keep that for a reduction in purchase price.

Had a first proper look at it last night so I could start to make up my shopping list.

Got plenty going on “under the hood” for me to get my head around. Although on face of it seems to have a lot of wiring and cables, I think I can figure out what’s going on down there.

The build I did back in 2020 used an KL25Z as the interface and accelerometer - this appears to be using an I-pac, which I am presuming does not have the nudge functionality so might swap that out.

Main thing that enticed me to buy was the solenoids fitted in there. My previous build did not have that feature. Something new for me to figure out. They all appear to be 12v solenoids connected to USB relay boards (again something for me to figure out!) though there is one "regular" pin solenoid on left hand side of cabinet towards front so not quite sure what that is (there's only one on left hand side not right so figure not flipper solenoids). What is a little confusing is the solenoids are labelled up as 12v but there's a switching power supply in the cab that is putting out 24V DC and the wires from that are running to those big "block things" one at each side of cab which I have absolutely no idea what they are - maybe some kind of "step down" to make 24v in to 12v? There is 24V and 12V written in Sharpie at various points in the cabinet.

On the cabinet, although it is decaled as a Sega Baywatch it looks like some kind of scratch build as it's done in plywood with wooden supports at the corners, not like anything I've seen before in a WMS or Stern.

Anyways, all I did last night was take out the hinged frame that the TV had been mounted to and start to make shopping list.

Old PC under specced for 4k so have ordered new build from local pc supplier. Spec as per photo.

Put new graphics card on list and then found a Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070 8gb GDDR2 in local CEX on way to parents’ house last night. Thought that was going to be harder!

In same CEX found 27” Samsung s27E330H for £69 which I will use for back-glass screen. One currently installed is only 24” and there’s way too much black cardboard bezel for my liking

Now comes the hard part of sourcing UHD TV which will fit cab. I remember this was a pain last time. From memory 42” and 43” screens don’t fit (shame as there seem to be loads of them about) and I ended up buying a 40” Panasonic TX-40GX820B. Of course 3 years on and the only one of those I can find is one on EBay but that’s in Sheerness and is collection only and way too far for me to travel. There was actually one on FB Marketplace being sold by someone local but I missed out on that by a day .

Will post a log and photos. First bunch of photos below.

 

[Andy B]

Mostly just ripping stuff out last night.

Big block things connected to 24v are contactors for feedback.

Only two of them in there so reckon they’re for flippers. All other feedback devices are 12v solenoids and a couple of real pinball coils - one for a bell, presumably for EM games and another all alone in base of cab towards front which I can only guess as being the knocker.

Have manually actuated the 12v ones to see what they sound/feel like and can’t say I’m impressed. Will see what they’re like when playing some games (that’s a long way off now I took old PC out) but may swap those out for more contractors (depending on what they’re like). Can see why there’s only a couple of contractors in there and rest are 12v coils though. Price.

Have ordered a refurbished JVC LT-40CA890 40” 4k TV from EBay which will fit height wise according to specifications.

 

[paulg100]

i tore down my VP build a couple of years back, ive got a bunch of parts from it still, all the contactors similar to above (would need to check if 12v or 24v cant remember), the board and plunger set up for analog plunger and tilt etc.

If you think anything may be of use let me know and ill have a better look and see what i have.

 

[Andy B]

Thanks!

I have just ordered a KL25Z with Pinscape pre-installed. Man have they shot up in price - when I bought one for my last build during lockdown it was £19.99 off EBay. This one cost me £50 including shipping from France. Going to use that for nudging and probably all other inputs if the I-pac that’s in it doesn’t work out right.

Would definitely be interested in the contactors if they are 24v and the plunger set up (presumably a real plunger attached to a linear pot?).

 

[paulg100]

yeah i have the KL25Z with pinscape installed, you could of had it for way less

Have a 32 button i-pac as well i think.

Yes plunger is in the housing with linear pot.

Let me have a rumage through tonight and see what there is and what the contactors are.

 

[paulg100]

OK these are probably the main bits,

Contactors are 12v not 24v

Shaker motor with Hbridge
LEDwiz
Ipac
And shooter housing with pot and freescape board for analog nudge and plunger.

Ive sent an image by PM so as not to clog up your build log.

 

[Andy B]

Playfield mount made.

JVC TV I ordered arrived smashed. Packaging was rubbish so not surprised. Refund applied for with no response from seller.

So, after 6 days of constantly searching Amazon, EBay and FB Marketplace I managed to get a 4k screen that fits.

Had to drive to Darlington, a four hour round trip to get it, but I might have been waiting weeks or months to get one the right size so needs must.

Panasonic Tx-40dx600b - 40 inch - fits excellent side to side but obviously got big gaps top and bottom. Have a custom made Virtual pinball acrylic apron left over from my VP build of 3 years ago so will fit that eventually.

Drilling the holes in the plywood playfield mount to line up with vesa holes on back on TV is a bit tricky - measure, measure and measure again is the key.

Didn’t have time to hook up new pc to it yet but menu picture looks nice

 

[Andy B]

Tidied up the insides, hooked up pc and new graphics card and we have 4k life in the old dog.

Next few days I need to mount the 27” monitor in the backbox and then I can dive in to the software side…the hardest part!

 

[Andy B]

All 3 screens in now.

Think the 27” back glass screen looks better than the 24” one that was in it originally.

Installed a couple of tables and played a few games directly through VPX which highlighted a few things for me:

1. The ipac in it is ancient - it has a ps/2 connector on it. Took me a while to find the correct version of the ipac keyboard programming software even from the Ultimarc website where it was hidden down some legacy downloads path! Even using that I couldn’t get all the buttons working (though they were all registering in the software - so I was clearly not doing the mapping correctly. Anyways did manage to get start button and flippers set up right so with those and keyboard was able to play a few games. I was planning to swap out the ipac for a Pinscape board anyway so will probably do that Sunday.

2. Displaying backglasses is gonna need some more work. Used to be you would go in each table’s script first time you ran it and edit one of the settings but reading in Vpforums you don’t have to do that anymore and so long as you have the b2s file downloaded, in same folder and with same file name as table they should all pretty much work straight out the box. Not so for me. They just weren’t appearing at all - another thing for me to tackle Sunday

3. Setting DMDs up correctly is going to be a new challenge for me. In my last build I had a pin2dmd in and I seem to remember it was a straightforward thing getting DMD images to that. In this machine I have a too big lcd screen so currently the DMD image is squashed up in top left corner of that so I’m going to have to teach myself how to resize and position DMD images correctly on that big screen and no doubt it’ll be different for each individual table.

As I said, did manage to upload a few tables and play some games though using a combination of keyboard keys and buttons on cab and was really impressed with results. Flipper buttons were working and was great to play a few games of ToM, TZ and Elvis (all tables I have had in past) and apart from looking awesome - even without me messing around with zooming and resizing etc. - they played really well too with no lag at all (which I was not expecting with the ipac being so old and with a ps/2 to usb connector on it).

 

[ChrisH]

Would you mind measuring the playfield monitor for me?
I'm looking to swap my 39" 1080p to a 4K, but as I built the cab around the screen it's very tight.
Based on the specs I reckon I might squeeze a TX-40DX600B in

 

[Andy B]

Would you mind measuring the playfield monitor for me?
I'm looking to swap my 39" 1080p to a 4K, but as I built the cab around the screen it's very tight.
Based on the specs I reckon I might squeeze a TX-40DX600B in

No problems.

It’s 513mm high x 901mm wide.

It is a really tight fit - not even enough space for mirror blades - but I think the cabinet I have is a scratch build Sega Baywatch rather than an original.

 

[Andy B]

Five installs and reinstalls of VpinX and B2S Backglass (you would not believe how many times I managed to mess up the back glasses) I’ve finally got in to the rhythm of installing tables and back glasses and kind of setting up the DMDs.

Really impressed with the 4k tables which have really come on since my last build.

Not happy with the way I have to move the DMD to the middle display - can never get exactly the right size or position. Last time I used a Pin2DMD which was a lot easier but the LCD came with the machine and besides the DMD grill seems over sized so pin2dmd might look naff so just have to persevere with it - but moving and resizing every time I open a new table is a right royal pain. If anyone has any tips and tricks to make my life easier with the DMDs I’d be most grateful.

Another thing I could do with some advice on is when I am trying to set a back glass up the dialogue box is all scrunched up - see photo - think I had this last time and it was a real easy fix but I can’t for the life of me remember how.

Final two things to sort out before I install a front end is some of the back glasses are dark. Some are fine others dark. Not sure how I adjust brightness on a back glass so something for me to research.

Also some of the tables have really loud sound effects but the music and speach are really quiet. I’m guessing I’ll have to edit the scripting for those - as adjusting audio options in VpinX make no difference.

 

[Wombat]

.

 

[ChrisH]

RE the audio - the mechanical sounds are VPX, the games are in the ROM, so you'll need to open the coin door and use the buttons on the DMD era, the older games have various other routes - there's an article somewhere which I'll dig out.

The text on the B2S config is likely screen DPI scaling - if you turn that off it will look normal (but your 4K screen text will be tiny as it'll be at native 4K, not scaled up)

Thanks for the measurements - much appreciated!

 

[Colywobbles]

Have you tried Pinball Y
Its super easy compared to X

After the holidays I am happy to send you a full set of mine on a USB drive if you like.

Col

 

[Andy B]

Have you tried Pinball Y
Its super easy compared to X

After the holidays I am happy to send you a full set of mine on a USB drive if you like.

Col

Cheers Col.

I started to use PinballX which is what I used last time but I think incorrect configuration of that was the thing that mainly caused the backglass disasters I was having. I clearly have forgotten most of what I learnt 3 years ago. Lesson learned - I’m going to write everything down this time. I was going to look at PinUp Popper but I’ll try PinballY first. Full set in the New Year would be great if you wouldn’t mind - I’ll PM you in January. Much appreciated.

 

[Andy B]

RE the audio - the mechanical sounds are VPX, the games are in the ROM, so you'll need to open the coin door and use the buttons on the DMD era, the older games have various other routes - there's an article somewhere which I'll dig out.

The text on the B2S config is likely screen DPI scaling - if you turn that off it will look normal (but your 4K screen text will be tiny as it'll be at native 4K, not scaled up)

Thanks for the measurements - much appreciated!

Thanks for the tip on the volume - another thing I learnt last time that I’ve forgotten.

I need to find something that shows default keys for VPinmame to find the coin door buttons first.

 

[ChrisH]

VPX - in the settings you can see the default keys, I think it's END to open the coin door and then 5 and 6 and 9 but I could be wrong - (I have a coin door switch and standard buttons inside the coin door so it's been a while since I needed to do it on a keyboard)

 

[Andy B]

VPX - in the settings you can see the default keys, I think it's END to open the coin door and then 5 and 6 and 9 but I could be wrong - (I have a coin door switch and standard buttons inside the coin door so it's been a while since I needed to do it on a keyboard)

Thanks

I’ll have a look later.

On those keys in VPX - I have tried to map some of the cab buttons to keyboard presses but some don’t appear to work (e.g. credit button doesn’t credit - though flippers do). Gonna have to get to that at some point.

 

[Andy B]

Thanks

I’ll have a look later.

On those keys in VPX - I have tried to map some of the cab buttons to keyboard presses but some don’t appear to work (e.g. credit button doesn’t credit - though flippers do). Gonna have to get to that at some point.

It was indeed end to open the coin door and then 8 and 9 for volume. That was only with certain tables though. With others it was zero to open the door and 8 and 9. With others it seemed to be you didn’t need to open the door and could just press plus and minus.

Couple of tables I’m having volume issues with are TZ and BTTF.

TZ is an open door and 8 and 9 table however 8 and 9 don’t make any changes to the volume. It shows the volume level bars on DMD and they move up and down correctly but sound level does not change.

BTTF I can’t work out what to do with that one. DESW is open door and adjust one and seems to work but must be some other way to do it with earlier Data Easts.

Installed Pinvol and then quickly uninstalled it. It was causing issues with fluctuating in game volume levels.

Don’t you just love configuring!

I got a good few tables on it last night and did all the POV and scale adjustments to my liking in them all.

Also managed to work out how to get the DMDs to stick in the right position in the middle screen. Seems crazy but wiggling the mouse from side to side and then moving cursor to playfield screen (with game not in exclusive FS mode) seems to do the trick.

I am not really happy with that middle screen. Apart from it being a bigger screen than a DMD so it’s a bit of a pain to get the DMD in the right place, the grill in the actual cabinet is bigger than a standard DMD. I was thinking of replacing it with a pin2dmd but if I did I’d have to create some kind of bezel. I also figure I’ll stick with the screen to kind of future proof it as some of the newer games that don’t have DMDs get emulated.

Tonight I think I’m going to risk it and stick a front end on it. Definitely gonna make a back up if the hard drive before I do that though!

 

[ChrisH]

This is the resource with all the volume procedures for the various ROMs

The Virtual Pinball Forums

www.vpforums.org

Yep, when sizing and sorting the DMD by hand, show the boarders, get it to where you want it, grab it and move the whole thing a couple of mm and back and then hide the boarders and it'll stick.
There is a way of auto locating it, but I can't honestly remember it - I went through the pain of doing it 90 odd times and now only ever have to do it when adding a new table which I don't often do as I'm generally only replacing older ones with newer versions which use the same ROM.

 

[Tucks]

Found this:

Pinscape Build Guide

Seems pretty comprehensive

 

[Andy B]

Found this:

Pinscape Build Guide

Seems pretty comprehensive

Thanks. Been using that. Used it last time. I think it’s the Bible for VPin cabinet builds but it does have some omissions or occasionally the generic suggestions do not work in an individual setup.

 

[Andy B]

This is the resource with all the volume procedures for the various ROMs

The Virtual Pinball Forums

www.vpforums.org

Yep, when sizing and sorting the DMD by hand, show the boarders, get it to where you want it, grab it and move the whole thing a couple of mm and back and then hide the boarders and it'll stick.
There is a way of auto locating it, but I can't honestly remember it - I went through the pain of doing it 90 odd times and now only ever have to do it when adding a new table which I don't often do as I'm generally only replacing older ones with newer versions which use the same ROM.

I found this. Maybe what you are thinking of when you mention auto locating it.

“Here are some DMD related tools that are supposed to be able to do this (I have not used them)
http://thebigboss.or...ade/setdmd.html
http://www.hyperspin...?9580-DMD-Mover

If you are comfortable with the Windows registry, here is the manual way to setup a specific DMD size and location for all new tables (I used this approach)
1) Setup the DMD for one VP table manually the way you want it.
2) Open the registry and locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\<rom filename> for the table you manually setup. Write down the values for the 5 keys below,
3) Now navigate to Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default and create duplicate keys in the Default folder.

ALTERNATE APPROACH:
1) Setup the DMD for one VP table manually the way you want it.
2) Open the registry and locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default and delete that entry
2) In the registry, now locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\<rom filename> for the table you manually setup and rename it to Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default
All new tables will automatically pick up the Default settings


Every new ROM/Table played will start with the default values. You can edit any existing ROM entries if desired or delete them, so they will be re-created based on the default entry the next time you play that table

Here is a screenshot of the key DMD size, location and rotation settings




I will try that tonight when I install the front end.

Even more reason to do a backup - I can almost guarantee it/I will screw the DMDs up when I make the reg edits.

Will let you know how I get on.

 

[Andy B]

This is the resource with all the volume procedures for the various ROMs

The Virtual Pinball Forums

www.vpforums.org

Yep, when sizing and sorting the DMD by hand, show the boarders, get it to where you want it, grab it and move the whole thing a couple of mm and back and then hide the boarders and it'll stick.
There is a way of auto locating it, but I can't honestly remember it - I went through the pain of doing it 90 odd times and now only ever have to do it when adding a new table which I don't often do as I'm generally only replacing older ones with newer versions which use the same ROM.

I found this. Maybe what you are thinking of when you mention auto locating it.

“Here are some DMD related tools that are supposed to be able to do this (I have not used them)
http://thebigboss.or...ade/setdmd.html
http://www.hyperspin...?9580-DMD-Mover

If you are comfortable with the Windows registry, here is the manual way to setup a specific DMD size and location for all new tables (I used this approach)
1) Setup the DMD for one VP table manually the way you want it.
2) Open the registry and locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\<rom filename> for the table you manually setup. Write down the values for the 5 keys below,
3) Now navigate to Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default and create duplicate keys in the Default folder.

ALTERNATE APPROACH:
1) Setup the DMD for one VP table manually the way you want it.
2) Open the registry and locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default and delete that entry
2) In the registry, now locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\<rom filename> for the table you manually setup and rename it to Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default
All new tables will automatically pick up the Default settings


Every new ROM/Table played will start with the default values. You can edit any existing ROM entries if desired or delete them, so they will be re-created based on the default entry the next time you play that table

Here is a screenshot of the key DMD size, location and rotation settings










I will try that tonight when I install the front end.

Even more reason to do a backup - I can almost guarantee it/I will screw the DMDs up when I make the reg edits.

Will let you know how I get on.

 

[Andy B]

I found this. Maybe what you are thinking of when you mention auto locating it.

“Here are some DMD related tools that are supposed to be able to do this (I have not used them)
http://thebigboss.or...ade/setdmd.html
http://www.hyperspin...?9580-DMD-Mover

If you are comfortable with the Windows registry, here is the manual way to setup a specific DMD size and location for all new tables (I used this approach)
1) Setup the DMD for one VP table manually the way you want it.
2) Open the registry and locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\<rom filename> for the table you manually setup. Write down the values for the 5 keys below,
3) Now navigate to Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default and create duplicate keys in the Default folder.

ALTERNATE APPROACH:
1) Setup the DMD for one VP table manually the way you want it.
2) Open the registry and locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default and delete that entry
2) In the registry, now locate Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\<rom filename> for the table you manually setup and rename it to Computer\HK_LOCALUSER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\default
All new tables will automatically pick up the Default settings


Every new ROM/Table played will start with the default values. You can edit any existing ROM entries if desired or delete them, so they will be re-created based on the default entry the next time you play that table

Here is a screenshot of the key DMD size, location and rotation settings

View attachment 239745


I will try that tonight when I install the front end.

Even more reason to do a backup - I can almost guarantee it/I will screw the DMDs up when I make the reg edits.

Will let you know how I get on.

This worked an absolute treat!

I used the second method i.e. set up a DMD just how I wanted it (Star Wars) and renamed the folder to default and now every table I install, the DMD is the right size and in the right pace.

How much time has that and will continue to save me. Result.

 

[Andy B]

Installed PinballX today. I did try PinballY but it said it was missing some files and I couldn't be a&*$d to go look for them on t'internet so I just installed PinballX again.

So far so good (touch wood).

I've downloaded some animated wheel images (something new for me as previously was just suing static ones - not sure if the animated ones are a new feature since I did my last one in 2020) and loaded up my tables and those wheels and all working except:

1) Backglass for each table not showing on backglass screen in front end despite me having that option enabled in PinballX General Settings

2) When I press escape to quit a table, the VpinX dialogue box comes up (Resume Game, Quit To Editor Etc.) rather than it quitting to front end

Oh and it's so much easier not having to pee about moving and resizing the dmd for each table now I have the default set in regedit.

 

[Andy B]

Further issues identified since installing PinballX (one of which I managed to resolve):

1) Backglass for ToM was not showing in game in PinballX but was in VPX. After a bit of Googling I picked up a tip to look in the B2S Table Settings XML file within Tables folder in Visual Pinball. Opened that file in notepad and compared the settings for TOM to the setting for the other backglasses in there. Only one I could see which had a different value was FormToFront, Changed that from zero to 1 in ToM settings to match others and that fixed it. Guessing PinballX edited the settings somehow.

2) DE Star Wars playfield is now weirdly all blue - see photo. I "think" I used regedit to make the Star Wars DMD settings the DMD default settings in Visual Pinball so thought I must have messed up the original settings. So went in to regedit again. Folder for the 1.07 rom version I have looked fine (well it had loads of details in it not like all the other folders for the different rom versions). Anyways I copied the registry folder for 1.07 from my desktop pc on which I had DESW working fine over to the registry on my cabinet PC but that changed nothing. I don't think this is a PinballX issue as the table has the blue hue when playing directly in VpinX now too :-( I tried making light adjustments by opening the table in F6 mode but nothing I did with lighting madde any difference whatsoever. Anyone have any dieas about that one please?

 

[Fresno Bob]

Are there LUT settings you can change on that table during play using the magna save keys/ buttons? Hold down the left magna save and cycle through them using the right magna save.

 

[Andy B]

Are there LUT settings you can change on that table during play using the magna save keys/ buttons? Hold down the left magna save and cycle through them using the right magna save.

Thanks for suggestion. I went back to it after I had had it switched off to try your suggestion and when I opened up table in VPX it was fine albeit DMD was in wrong place so I repositioned DMD and started it from pinballX and it’s working fine now. I guess that regredit must have done the trick after I had switched machine off and on again - I’m sure I restarted pc after making the regedit