Battle Counter Readout to Computer

[Mooseman]

I was watching a pachinko livestream on youtube a few days ago, and this guy has a readout of what I'm assuming is battle counter style info: https://youtu.be/pj0qD84i1lk Is this something that requires a battle counter? Or is this some standalone program? As someone with very few dollars currently due to rampant machine buying, having a cheap little digital screen with that info would be killer.

[Drunkenclam]

I've seen these kits on YJA. Converts the impulses to a USB port.

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n526997138

With links to software.
Never tried it myself. So unsure how good they are.
Or if the software allows multiple USB devices.

As to making something yourself. If you can modify an existing USB device which has switches in it. Like a keyboard or joystick that could be hacked. Then you could make your own.

[Mooseman]

Thanks! I think this could work much better than traditional battle counters for me personally, as I might be able to have a wall mounted monitor that shows all the various machine data. I've got a lot of hardware work on my plate already, but I'm definitely going to try this at some point.

[VideoRyan]

This really got me thinking about using a computer and OBS to act as a battle counter on a monitor. With some OBS scripting it would even be possible to get something fancy created with an animated background, animated characters that react to various events, etc. I even noticed that newer photos of the parlors look like they are using LCD monitors for battle counters now.

I have a feeling it may even be possible to use the GPIO header on a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino to count the pulses to feed into OBS (which would be ideal since you can run OBS directly on a Pi). Looking around here there was even a thread from 2013 where somebody did that for a Pachislo.

[Mooseman]

This really got me thinking about using a computer and OBS to act as a battle counter on a monitor. With some OBS scripting it would even be possible to get something fancy created with an animated background, animated characters that react to various events, etc. I even noticed that newer photos of the parlors look like they are using LCD monitors for battle counters now.

I have a feeling it may even be possible to use the GPIO header on a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino to count the pulses to feed into OBS (which would be ideal since you can run OBS directly on a Pi). Looking around here there was even a thread from 2013 where somebody did that for a Pachislo.

It would be very easy to do this once you worked out how the hookups all work. The huge benefit of this system as opposed to a normal battle counter is that you could tie all the machines into it, and design a central display in your play area that could show all the scores of the machines. As I dont really want to spend money on battle counters, but still want the features, I'm definitely going to be looking into this system.

[VideoRyan]

One of the old threads mentioned using a MAME arcade joystick kit (those are under $30). These things are simple relay boards that translate button presses on an arcade controller switch into a Windows X-INPUT joystick interface.

But I'm not sure if those will work if our pachinko sending out pulses. I'll need to check...

I hope I'm wrong and all we need to do is take a MAME joystick USB kit, and use OBS Studio with the OBSCount script!

[Mooseman]

One of the old threads mentioned using a MAME arcade joystick kit (those are under $30). These things are simple relay boards that translate button presses on an arcade controller switch into a Windows X-INPUT joystick interface.

But I'm not sure if those will work if our pachinko sending out pulses. I'll need to check...

I hope I'm wrong and all we need to do is take a MAME joystick USB kit, and use OBS Studio with the OBSCount script!

I have a lot of those boards for other projects. Once I start to tackle this I'll post about my success in using them, but it will really just depend on how the outputs from the pachinko machine work.