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Thread: Building a streamed Pachinko machine

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    Tokie Owens etcetc's Avatar
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    Default Building a streamed Pachinko machine

    Hello everyone,

    I'm interested in building a streamed Pachinko machine where you can remotely add balls to a Pachinko machine in my room and play. I have no experience with Pachinko but it looks like a lot of fun, so I'd be grateful if anyone could offer advice on building this.

    I am going to buy a Pachinko machine online and build a remote control ball dump where users can trigger a signal to release a ball into the machine. However, I am not too sure on how payouts work - does the machine have its own reserve of balls to pay out with?

    Would I need to build some sort of weight sensor to detect ball payouts so that users could then put more balls in?

    Anything else that I need to think about before trying this?

    Thanks!

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    I was thrown out of Top Gear Drunkenclam's Avatar
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    Default Re: Building a streamed Pachinko machine

    Getting a modern machine to payout is easy if you know the inputs/outputs, code and the correct timings of the CR port. As most of us don't have that skill. We just get a daverob dongle.
    In theory. If you did that and replaced the signal from the LH credit button on the front of a modern machine with a remote switch. getting a payout would be possible.

    The payout tank ona standard machine can hold between 500-1000 balls.

    Unless you have someone on hand who can pick the lost balls out the back of the machine and move them to the top tank, or get a ball lifting device.
    Getting a cyclic machine might be better. Where the flow of balls just go round and round. One of my mad plans was, play for time with a cyclic machine.

    insert credit will enbale the shooter for set time. Then for every pocket hit you get, it adds to the time. when you run out of time, the shooter stops.
    If you want to remotely play a machine from a different room or location. Thats harder, as a lot of pachinko shooters adjust the shooting strenght mechanically rather than electronicaly. So you might have to plan carefully what machien to buy. As you might have to motorized the shooter knob. rather than an electronic solution.
    Ian #UKPachinko

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    Master Inventor daverob's Avatar
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    Default Re: Building a streamed Pachinko machine

    I'd recommend getting hold of and playing a few machines to figure out the ball paths, and how they operate. You can get a good idea from some youtube videos, but it's easier in person.

    The pachinko machine has a top tank of balls at the back of the machine that are used for payout of prize balls and on modern CR machines can also be used to payout 'loan balls' via the card reader interface, these balls are fed to the front tray where the player can shoot them onto the playfield. If you get too many prize balls for the front tray, they would normally overflow into a tray placed under the front tray for the player to collect their winnings. All balls that are shot onto the playfield exit from the back of the machine.

    So all you need for ball handling is to collect the balls that come out of the back of the machine, and the excess prize balls from the front of the machine, and lift them up and deposit them in the top tank.

    Many modern pachinkos have data outputs on the back of the machine that can be connected to a computer to count the statistics of each machine. All machines have three basic outputs for connecting to 'Battle Counters', these are 'Start' which pulses each time the player gets a ball into the start pocket on the playfield, 'Bonus' which activates when the player is in a bonus round, and 'Kakuhen' which activates when the player is in high probability round following a bonus round (the counter uses the kakuhen signal to detect and count consecutive bonus rounds).

    Some more recent machines have extra data outputs, which may include 'prize ball' (which usually pulses once for every 10 prize balls paid out), and 'loan ball' (one pulse for 25 loan balls), if you can get a machine with these outputs, they can make collection of winnings information a lot easier than building an external device to count balls.

    If you need to use an external ball counter, then there are ball catcher trays designed for use in the Japanese pachinko halls which incorporate counter mechanisms that pulse for each ball that passes through them (or one pulse for a certain number of balls).

    For control of the shooter mechanism, you will have to defeat the 'player hand detector' circuit. This is connected to a metal 'touch ring' around the shooter handle, and will only enable the shooter if it detects someone holding it. Depending on the circuit you may need to feed a low level AC voltage to the connection to the touch ring, or you could trace the circuit back to the detector chip, and wire it's output permanently enabled.

    If you just want to control the shooter with an on/off signal and not allow the remote player to adjust the strength of the shot, then this can be done via the card reader interface connector on CR enabled machines (the VL signal is used to enable/disable the shooter handle). If you want to control the strength of the shot, then as Drunkenclam said, there are two styles of shooter mechanism. The first where the shooter handle is mechanically connected to the shooter mechanism to set the strength, the second where the shooter handle contains a variable resistor and the voltage set by this resistor is used to set the strength. Both types can be controlled with a servo motor with a mechanical connection to the shooter handle, only the variable resistor type can be directly controlled from an electronic signal.

    The complicated bit is the triggering of 'loan ball' payouts via the card reader interface, you can use my card reader emulator dongles for this, and simply divert the connections to the buttons that the player uses to add credit and payout loan balls to the computer that you use to control the web interface. I'm working on a firmware version for the Rev3 dongle, where this can be triggered from a serial port connection to a remote computer, but this firmware isn't complete yet.

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    Default Re: Building a streamed Pachinko machine

    Quote Originally Posted by daverob View Post
    I'd recommend getting hold of and playing a few machines to figure out the ball paths, and how they operate. You can get a good idea from some youtube videos, but it's easier in person.

    The pachinko machine has a top tank of balls at the back of the machine that are used for payout of prize balls and on modern CR machines can also be used to payout 'loan balls' via the card reader interface, these balls are fed to the front tray where the player can shoot them onto the playfield. If you get too many prize balls for the front tray, they would normally overflow into a tray placed under the front tray for the player to collect their winnings. All balls that are shot onto the playfield exit from the back of the machine.

    So all you need for ball handling is to collect the balls that come out of the back of the machine, and the excess prize balls from the front of the machine, and lift them up and deposit them in the top tank.

    Many modern pachinkos have data outputs on the back of the machine that can be connected to a computer to count the statistics of each machine. All machines have three basic outputs for connecting to 'Battle Counters', these are 'Start' which pulses each time the player gets a ball into the start pocket on the playfield, 'Bonus' which activates when the player is in a bonus round, and 'Kakuhen' which activates when the player is in high probability round following a bonus round (the counter uses the kakuhen signal to detect and count consecutive bonus rounds).

    Some more recent machines have extra data outputs, which may include 'prize ball' (which usually pulses once for every 10 prize balls paid out), and 'loan ball' (one pulse for 25 loan balls), if you can get a machine with these outputs, they can make collection of winnings information a lot easier than building an external device to count balls.

    If you need to use an external ball counter, then there are ball catcher trays designed for use in the Japanese pachinko halls which incorporate counter mechanisms that pulse for each ball that passes through them (or one pulse for a certain number of balls).

    For control of the shooter mechanism, you will have to defeat the 'player hand detector' circuit. This is connected to a metal 'touch ring' around the shooter handle, and will only enable the shooter if it detects someone holding it. Depending on the circuit you may need to feed a low level AC voltage to the connection to the touch ring, or you could trace the circuit back to the detector chip, and wire it's output permanently enabled.

    If you just want to control the shooter with an on/off signal and not allow the remote player to adjust the strength of the shot, then this can be done via the card reader interface connector on CR enabled machines (the VL signal is used to enable/disable the shooter handle). If you want to control the strength of the shot, then as Drunkenclam said, there are two styles of shooter mechanism. The first where the shooter handle is mechanically connected to the shooter mechanism to set the strength, the second where the shooter handle contains a variable resistor and the voltage set by this resistor is used to set the strength. Both types can be controlled with a servo motor with a mechanical connection to the shooter handle, only the variable resistor type can be directly controlled from an electronic signal.

    The complicated bit is the triggering of 'loan ball' payouts via the card reader interface, you can use my card reader emulator dongles for this, and simply divert the connections to the buttons that the player uses to add credit and payout loan balls to the computer that you use to control the web interface. I'm working on a firmware version for the Rev3 dongle, where this can be triggered from a serial port connection to a remote computer, but this firmware isn't complete yet.
    Thank you so much - this is incredibly helpful.

    A few questions:

    1. Must a player purchase loan balls in order for the machine to function (if I have balls already outside of the machine, will the machine not start without an initial transaction?)
    2. What is a Rev3 dongle?
    3. How do you determine payout probability of a machine?

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    Master Inventor daverob's Avatar
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    Default Re: Building a streamed Pachinko machine

    The machine will function at any time, even if there are no balls in the tray the shooter will work and you should be able to hear the shooter hammer firing. You can add balls by hand at any time and play.

    The card reader emulator (daverob dongle) has gone through a few redesigns/revisions since it was first made, Rev1, Rev1.1, Rev2 and the current model is Rev3. The new hardware feature on the Rev3 is a serial port connection, but I haven't completed the firmware modifications to enable it.

    Payout probability is usually written in the top right corner of the playfield/cell, and is expressed in how many balls on average that need to go into the start pocket to trigger a bonus mode. 'Light' games are usually around 99-1, and usually have shorter bonus rounds with a lower number of balls paid out. Regular machines are usually between 200-1 and 400-1 and will have a full bonus round with a higher payout.

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