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Thread: New to the site, Doing a little pachinko 'hacking'

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    Blind Shooter shnetinka's Avatar
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    Default New to the site, Doing a little pachinko 'hacking'

    So first off, great site! Tons of cool info and I'm clearly getting totally wrapped up in all of the technical information out there!

    I have been following the work DaveRob has done on his dongle, and I have one of the earlier versions that came with my star wars pachinko. Great work! I was hoping to do some hacking as well to control the machine but with the translation language barrier and the lack of service manuals or really much at all I haven't had much luck. I have had my Indiana Jones machine for a number of years now and I have finally started to dig into this project again.

    What I was really hoping was that I would be able to hack my standard dongle that turns on the shooter knob and have it dispense balls. That dream of simply grounding the BRDY and the BRQ to have the balls eject has proven to be more complex and judging by the posts here, quite a bit more involved.

    So the question I have is, are these signals serial data signals and am I going to have to try to figure out protocols and signal details or is there something here that is a bit more straightforward that I am just missing?

    Thanks all!

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    Pachi Puro Moparformances's Avatar
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    Default Re: New to the site, Doing a little pachinko 'hacking'

    Welcome to Pachitalk


    Quote Originally Posted by shnetinka View Post
    What I was really hoping was that I would be able to hack my standard dongle that turns on the shooter knob and have it dispense balls.
    i don't fallow you. dispense balls, to what end?? randomly?? every few seconds?? continually??
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    Blind Shooter shnetinka's Avatar
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    Default Re: New to the site, Doing a little pachinko 'hacking'

    Ah, maybe I wasn't clear. I am trying to interface with the card reader connection much in the same way that daverob has the dongle. So when there is a ball loan available, you can push the button and it dispenses balls. I'm trying to write an app that will allow me to have more control over when a ball loan is available or control how many ball loans can be given out in a period of time over multiple machines. What I would like to do is setup timed tournaments that would only allow a ball loan every x number of seconds.

    But first I have to be able to control the basics. Get the ball loan button to dispense some balls, but so far I haven't been able to figure out how to get that to work with the given pinout on the 25 pin connector.

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    Pachi Puro Peteybob's Avatar
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    Default Re: New to the site, Doing a little pachinko 'hacking'

    Hello shnetinka and welcome to the group

    Sounds like a very ambitious project and I wish you success. This is over my head but seems that putting a timer to multiple machines simultaneously could be a tall order. I use Daverob's card readers with multiple cards preloaded with xx credits and tell the gang they have an hour to win what they can with only those credits.

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    Blind Shooter shnetinka's Avatar
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    Default Re: New to the site, Doing a little pachinko 'hacking'

    I'm a software developer so the actual coding and doing the control work will be fairly straightforward. I could use raspberry pi's or arduinos on each unit networked back and controlled centrally from a laptop or tablet. Communication with the machine is the part I'm not yet familiar with.

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    Pachi Puro Peteybob's Avatar
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    Default Re: New to the site, Doing a little pachinko 'hacking'

    Sounds like it will be a pretty cool setup
    Hopefully some additional knowledge will come your way as others see your post in the days ahead.

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    Master Inventor daverob's Avatar
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    Default Re: New to the site, Doing a little pachinko 'hacking'

    The simplest way of controlling whether the player can dispense balls with the dongle is to intercept the TDS signal to the dongle. This is the connection to the 'Ball Loan' button, so if you insert a relay to cut this signal, the player won't be able to signal the dongle to dispense balls. If you want to do the ball dispensing yourself, then just ground the TDS whenever you want a ball payout.

    I'll send you a PM with a bit more technical info...

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