Easy and cheap counter mod.

[PhoneGuy]

I have been experimenting with an idea I had while waiting for my first Pachinko (Star Wars) to arrive last week. I took apart a couple of the cheap step counter pedometers they hand out at health fairs and what not. They count steps up to 99,999 They have a reset button. There is a weighted arm that swings into a contact to increment the counter.

I attached a wire to the inside of the machine that will make contact with the hammer as it comes up. I then attached this wire to one of the contacts in the pedometer. I ran another wire from the other contact in the pedometer to the frame that the stepper motor is hooked to. Every time the hammer comes up, the counter is incremented. I thought the hammer may be faster than the de-bounce circuit in the pedometer but it's not so every shot apears to register. It seems quite accuarate except if you continue shooting when your out of balls. I ran it up to about 6000.

Thanks to Daverob battle counter output FAQ, I attached another pedometer to the prize ball contacts for the battle counters. Every 10th ball awarded increments the counter by one. Add a 0 to the end of this number and you can compare the number balls paid to the number of balls played on the shot counter.

The battle counter contact doesn't increment until the balls actually are released after filling an empty payout hopper. Is there a way to fool the sensors if the machine is converted to cyclic?

Some video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOtUczAHtVQ

[PhoneGuy]

Pictures that didn't make it to the original post.

[MrGneiss]

Wow, that is really cool!!

[daverob]

Cool mod.

The battle counter contact doesn't increment until the balls actually are released after filling an empty payout hopper. Is there a way to fool the sensors if the machine is converted to cyclic?

The prize ball output is intended to be connected to the parlour computer, so that they can keep track of the movement of balls through the parlour. So it will only output pulses after the balls have actually been paid out.

The payout unit of your machine could be modified so that the signal from the ball exit sensor is triggered by an opto-interrupter, or a microswitch that is triggered by the rotation of the gears in the payout motor.

You'd have to tape up the hopper empty sensor as well, but that would be fairly simple compared to the payout unit modification.

[mudfud]

hey phoneguy.

love your mod.

question for you - how did you wire the jackpot output to the pedometer?

is there a 5 volt pulse that can go directly to the pedometer, or do you use a relay to close the pedometer's switch?

I want to wire up a balls paid out counter to my star wars.

thanks

chewy

[Youngjedi]

Awesome Mod!

[alstonj1]

if i remember correctly the machine closes Its own relay thus giving you the contacts (normally open) to close your circuit and advance the pedometer .You only need to connect to the proper cn port .

[mudfud]

thanks for the info.

I will study daverob's japanese translation instructions before I hook anything up. I figure I'll install a pedometer at the top by the ball hopper, so when i'm
frantically heaving balls from the bottom to the top, I don't have to stop to weigh them or keep count.

will post results.

chewy

[PhoneGuy]

After my initial counter test, I took apart three of these pedometers and mounted them in a case and back lit the displays. One counts shot, one spins and one payouts. It was still cheap but not so easy.

These particular pedometers had a couple of features I never found in any other pedometers. Five digit display that is always on. Most turn off the display after about a minute of inactivity. The displays are on a ribbon cable which allowed me to peel off the backing and put a led behind them. The problem with these pedometers is they were handouts at the blood drives at work. From what I could tell you can only buy them in lots of 1000 from China. They are also a radio so they are kind of big. The ribbon cable is very fragile. Also they kept resetting and I could not track down exactly why.

I bought a pinball machine then a couple more pinball machines and mostly ignored the pachinko machine. A few months ago I decided I needed to build a cabinet and hang it on the wall. It was sitting on a stand and was in the way when I needed to pull the glass off one on my pinball machines.

I decided to make room in the cabinet for my pedometer scoring. I still had my prototype. Before I paint the cabinet I've been trying to get the scoring to work better. The resets are definitely what I suspected. The scoring case, a hollowed out VCR tape, is sandwiched between the plywood floor of the cabinet hopper and a plastic tray the holds the balls poured into the hopper. Pouring the balls appears to create static that makes the pedometers reset. I've tried wrapping the case in anti-static plastic and foam that computer parts are packed in. I alligator clipped a wire from the pachinko ground wire to the plastic tray in my hopper. Nothing has helped. Except for the resets the scoring works well and looks decent.

[The80sMan]

very nice mod. How are you powering up the LEDs that are back lighting the LCDs?

[PhoneGuy]

very nice mod. How are you powering up the LEDs that are back lighting the LCDs?

I have a small 10v wall transformer. I use resistors to drop it down enough to not fry the leds. I put an outlet inside the cabinet to plug in the pachinko and the led transformer. The pedometers are all wired to an external battery so they will maintain the counts even when the power is off to the cabinet.

[Meathead]

Saw today's Woot and thought of this thread. 2 pedometers for 2.99. Max order of 6 (2x3) for a total of around $14 shipped. Not bad.