Mike R / Mbed 2 deprecated Pinscape_Controller_V2

An I/O controller for virtual pinball machines: accelerometer nudge sensing, analog plunger input, button input encoding, LedWiz compatible output controls, and more.

Dependencies:   mbed FastIO FastPWM USBDevice

Fork of Pinscape_Controller by Mike R

This is Version 2 of the Pinscape Controller, an I/O controller for virtual pinball machines. (You can find the old version 1 software here.) Pinscape is software for the KL25Z that turns the board into a full-featured I/O controller for virtual pinball, with support for accelerometer-based nudging, a mechanical plunger, button inputs, and feedback device control.

In case you haven't heard of the idea before, a "virtual pinball machine" is basically a video pinball simulator that's built into a real pinball machine body. A TV monitor goes in place of the pinball playfield, and a second TV goes in the backbox to show the backglass artwork. Some cabs also include a third monitor to simulate the DMD (Dot Matrix Display) used for scoring on 1990s machines, or even an original plasma DMD. A computer (usually a Windows PC) is hidden inside the cabinet, running pinball emulation software that displays a life-sized playfield on the main TV. The cabinet has all of the usual buttons, too, so it not only looks like the real thing, but plays like it too. That's a picture of my own machine to the right. On the outside, it's built exactly like a real arcade pinball machine, with the same overall dimensions and all of the standard pinball cabinet trim hardware.

It's possible to buy a pre-built virtual pinball machine, but it also makes a great DIY project. If you have some basic wood-working skills and know your way around PCs, you can build one from scratch. The computer part is just an ordinary Windows PC, and all of the pinball emulation can be built out of free, open-source software. In that spirit, the Pinscape Controller is an open-source software/hardware project that offers a no-compromises, all-in-one control center for all of the unique input/output needs of a virtual pinball cabinet. If you've been thinking about building one of these, but you're not sure how to connect a plunger, flipper buttons, lights, nudge sensor, and whatever else you can think of, this project might be just what you're looking for.

You can find much more information about DIY Pin Cab building in general in the Virtual Cabinet Forum on vpforums.org. Also visit my Pinscape Resources page for more about this project and other virtual pinball projects I'm working on.

Downloads

• Pinscape Release Builds: This page has download links for all of the Pinscape software. To get started, install and run the Pinscape Config Tool on your Windows computer. It will lead you through the steps for installing the Pinscape firmware on the KL25Z.

• Config Tool Source Code. The complete C# source code for the config tool. You don't need this to run the tool, but it's available if you want to customize anything or see how it works inside.

Documentation

The new Version 2 Build Guide is now complete! This new version aims to be a complete guide to building a virtual pinball machine, including not only the Pinscape elements but all of the basics, from sourcing parts to building all of the hardware.

You can also refer to the original Hardware Build Guide (PDF), but that's out of date now, since it refers to the old version 1 software, which was rather different (especially when it comes to configuration).

System Requirements

The new Config Tool requires a fairly up-to-date Microsoft .NET installation. If you use Windows Update to keep your system current, you should be fine. A modern version of Internet Explorer (IE) is required, even if you don't use it as your main browser, because the Config Tool uses some system components that Microsoft packages into the IE install set. I test with IE11, so that's known to work. IE8 doesn't work. IE9 and 10 are unknown at this point.

The Windows requirements are only for the config tool. The firmware doesn't care about anything on the Windows side, so if you can make do without the config tool, you can use almost any Windows setup.

Main Features

Plunger: The Pinscape Controller started out as a "mechanical plunger" controller: a device for attaching a real pinball plunger to the video game software so that you could launch the ball the natural way. This is still, of course, a central feature of the project. The software supports several types of sensors: a high-resolution optical sensor (which works by essentially taking pictures of the plunger as it moves); a slide potentiometer (which determines the position via the changing electrical resistance in the pot); a quadrature sensor (which counts bars printed on a special guide rail that it moves along); and an IR distance sensor (which determines the position by sending pulses of light at the plunger and measuring the round-trip travel time). The Build Guide explains how to set up each type of sensor.

Nudging: The KL25Z (the little microcontroller that the software runs on) has a built-in accelerometer. The Pinscape software uses it to sense when you nudge the cabinet, and feeds the acceleration data to the pinball software on the PC. This turns physical nudges into virtual English on the ball. The accelerometer is quite sensitive and accurate, so we can measure the difference between little bumps and hard shoves, and everything in between. The result is natural and immersive.

Buttons: You can wire real pinball buttons to the KL25Z, and the software will translate the buttons into PC input. You have the option to map each button to a keyboard key or joystick button. You can wire up your flipper buttons, Magna Save buttons, Start button, coin slots, operator buttons, and whatever else you need.

Feedback devices: You can also attach "feedback devices" to the KL25Z. Feedback devices are things that create tactile, sound, and lighting effects in sync with the game action. The most popular PC pinball emulators know how to address a wide variety of these devices, and know how to match them to on-screen action in each virtual table. You just need an I/O controller that translates commands from the PC into electrical signals that turn the devices on and off. The Pinscape Controller can do that for you.

Expansion Boards

There are two main ways to run the Pinscape Controller: standalone, or using the "expansion boards".

In the basic standalone setup, you just need the KL25Z, plus whatever buttons, sensors, and feedback devices you want to attach to it. This mode lets you take advantage of everything the software can do, but for some features, you'll have to build some ad hoc external circuitry to interface external devices with the KL25Z. The Build Guide has detailed plans for exactly what you need to build.

The other option is the Pinscape Expansion Boards. The expansion boards are a companion project, which is also totally free and open-source, that provides Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layouts that are designed specifically to work with the Pinscape software. The PCB designs are in the widely used EAGLE format, which many PCB manufacturers can turn directly into physical boards for you. The expansion boards organize all of the external connections more neatly than on the standalone KL25Z, and they add all of the interface circuitry needed for all of the advanced software functions. The big thing they bring to the table is lots of high-power outputs. The boards provide a modular system that lets you add boards to add more outputs. If you opt for the basic core setup, you'll have enough outputs for all of the toys in a really well-equipped cabinet. If your ambitions go beyond merely well-equipped and run to the ridiculously extravagant, just add an extra board or two. The modular design also means that you can add to the system over time.

Expansion Board project page

Update notes

If you have a Pinscape V1 setup already installed, you should be able to switch to the new version pretty seamlessly. There are just a couple of things to be aware of.

First, the "configuration" procedure is completely different in the new version. Way better and way easier, but it's not what you're used to from V1. In V1, you had to edit the project source code and compile your own custom version of the program. No more! With V2, you simply install the standard, pre-compiled .bin file, and select options using the Pinscape Config Tool on Windows.

Second, if you're using the TSL1410R optical sensor for your plunger, there's a chance you'll need to boost your light source's brightness a little bit. The "shutter speed" is faster in this version, which means that it doesn't spend as much time collecting light per frame as before. The software actually does "auto exposure" adaptation on every frame, so the increased shutter speed really shouldn't bother it, but it does require a certain minimum level of contrast, which requires a certain minimal level of lighting. Check the plunger viewer in the setup tool if you have any problems; if the image looks totally dark, try increasing the light level to see if that helps.

New Features

V2 has numerous new features. Here are some of the highlights...

Dynamic configuration: as explained above, configuration is now handled through the Config Tool on Windows. It's no longer necessary to edit the source code or compile your own modified binary.

Improved plunger sensing: the software now reads the TSL1410R optical sensor about 15x faster than it did before. This allows reading the sensor at full resolution (400dpi), about 400 times per second. The faster frame rate makes a big difference in how accurately we can read the plunger position during the fast motion of a release, which allows for more precise position sensing and faster response. The differences aren't dramatic, since the sensing was already pretty good even with the slower V1 scan rate, but you might notice a little better precision in tricky skill shots.

Keyboard keys: button inputs can now be mapped to keyboard keys. The joystick button option is still available as well, of course. Keyboard keys have the advantage of being closer to universal for PC pinball software: some pinball software can be set up to take joystick input, but nearly all PC pinball emulators can take keyboard input, and nearly all of them use the same key mappings.

Local shift button: one physical button can be designed as the local shift button. This works like a Shift button on a keyboard, but with cabinet buttons. It allows each physical button on the cabinet to have two PC keys assigned, one normal and one shifted. Hold down the local shift button, then press another key, and the other key's shifted key mapping is sent to the PC. The shift button can have a regular key mapping of its own as well, so it can do double duty. The shift feature lets you access more functions without cluttering your cabinet with extra buttons. It's especially nice for less frequently used functions like adjusting the volume or activating night mode.

Night mode: the output controller has a new "night mode" option, which lets you turn off all of your noisy devices with a single button, switch, or PC command. You can designate individual ports as noisy or not. Night mode only disables the noisemakers, so you still get the benefit of your flashers, button lights, and other quiet devices. This lets you play late into the night without disturbing your housemates or neighbors.

Gamma correction: you can designate individual output ports for gamma correction. This adjusts the intensity level of an output to make it match the way the human eye perceives brightness, so that fades and color mixes look more natural in lighting devices. You can apply this to individual ports, so that it only affects ports that actually have lights of some kind attached.

IR Remote Control: the controller software can transmit and/or receive IR remote control commands if you attach appropriate parts (an IR LED to send, an IR sensor chip to receive). This can be used to turn on your TV(s) when the system powers on, if they don't turn on automatically, and for any other functions you can think of requiring IR send/receive capabilities. You can assign IR commands to cabinet buttons, so that pressing a button on your cabinet sends a remote control command from the attached IR LED, and you can have the controller generate virtual key presses on your PC in response to received IR commands. If you have the IR sensor attached, the system can use it to learn commands from your existing remotes.

Yet more USB fixes: I've been gradually finding and fixing USB bugs in the mbed library for months now. This version has all of the fixes of the last couple of releases, of course, plus some new ones. It also has a new "last resort" feature, since there always seems to be "just one more" USB bug. The last resort is that you can tell the device to automatically reboot itself if it loses the USB connection and can't restore it within a given time limit.

More Downloads

• Custom VP builds: I created modified versions of Visual Pinball 9.9 and Physmod5 that you might want to use in combination with this controller. The modified versions have special handling for plunger calibration specific to the Pinscape Controller, as well as some enhancements to the nudge physics. If you're not using the plunger, you might still want it for the nudge improvements. The modified version also works with any other input controller, so you can get the enhanced nudging effects even if you're using a different plunger/nudge kit. The big change in the modified versions is a "filter" for accelerometer input that's designed to make the response to cabinet nudges more realistic. It also makes the response more subdued than in the standard VP, so it's not to everyone's taste. The downloads include both the updated executables and the source code changes, in case you want to merge the changes into your own custom version(s).
  
  Note! These features are now standard in the official VP releases, so you don't need my custom builds if you're using 9.9.1 or later and/or VP 10. I don't think there's any reason to use my versions instead of the latest official ones, and in fact I'd encourage you to use the official releases since they're more up to date, but I'm leaving my builds available just in case. In the official versions, look for the checkbox "Enable Nudge Filter" in the Keys preferences dialog. My custom versions don't include that checkbox; they just enable the filter unconditionally.

• Output circuit shopping list: This is a saved shopping cart at mouser.com with the parts needed to build one copy of the high-power output circuit for the LedWiz emulator feature, for use with the standalone KL25Z (that is, without the expansion boards). The quantities in the cart are for one output channel, so if you want N outputs, simply multiply the quantities by the N, with one exception: you only need one ULN2803 transistor array chip for each eight output circuits. If you're using the expansion boards, you won't need any of this, since the boards provide their own high-power outputs.

• Cary Owens' optical sensor housing: A 3D-printable design for a housing/mounting bracket for the optical plunger sensor, designed by Cary Owens. This makes it easy to mount the sensor.

• Lemming77's potentiometer mounting bracket and shooter rod connecter: Sketchup designs for 3D-printable parts for mounting a slide potentiometer as the plunger sensor. These were designed for a particular slide potentiometer that used to be available from an Aliexpress.com seller but is no longer listed. You can probably use this design as a starting point for other similar devices; just check the dimensions before committing the design to plastic.

Copyright and License

The Pinscape firmware is copyright 2014, 2021 by Michael J Roberts. It's released under an MIT open-source license. See License.

Warning to VirtuaPin Kit Owners

This software isn't designed as a replacement for the VirtuaPin plunger kit's firmware. If you bought the VirtuaPin kit, I recommend that you don't install this software. The KL25Z can only run one firmware program at a time, so if you install the Pinscape firmware on your KL25Z, it will replace and erase your existing VirtuaPin proprietary firmware. If you do this, the only way to restore your VirtuaPin firmware is to physically ship the KL25Z back to VirtuaPin and ask them to re-flash it. They don't allow you to do this at home, and they don't even allow you to back up your firmware, since they want to protect their proprietary software from copying. For all of these reasons, if you want to run the Pinscape software, I strongly recommend that you buy a "blank" retail KL25Z to use with Pinscape. They only cost about $15 and are available at several online retailers, including Amazon, Mouser, and eBay. The blank retail boards don't come with any proprietary firmware pre-installed, so installing Pinscape won't delete anything that you paid extra for.

With those warnings in mind, if you're absolutely sure that you don't mind permanently erasing your VirtuaPin firmware, it is at least possible to use Pinscape as a replacement for the VirtuaPin firmware. Pinscape uses the same button wiring conventions as the VirtuaPin setup, so you can keep your buttons (although you'll have to update the GPIO pin mappings in the Config Tool to match your physical wiring). As of the June, 2021 firmware, the Vishay VCNL4010 plunger sensor that comes with the VirtuaPin v3 plunger kit is supported, so you can also keep your plunger, if you have that chip. (You should check to be sure that's the sensor chip you have before committing to this route, if keeping the plunger sensor is important to you. The older VirtuaPin plunger kits came with different IR sensors that the Pinscape software doesn't handle.)

--- a/main.cpp	Tue Sep 01 04:27:15 2015 +0000
+++ b/main.cpp	Wed Sep 23 05:06:39 2015 +0000
@@ -137,6 +137,15 @@
 //    but with a slight practical need for a handful of extra ports (I'm using the
 //    cutting-edge 10-contactor setup, so my real LedWiz is full!).
 //
+//  - Enhanced LedWiz emulation with TLC5940 PWM controller chips.  You can attach
+//    external PWM controller chips for controlling device outputs, instead of using
+//    the limited LedWiz emulation through the on-board GPIO ports as described above. 
+//    The software can control a set of daisy-chained TLC5940 chips, which provide
+//    16 PWM outputs per chip.  Two of these chips give you the full complement
+//    of 32 output ports of an actual LedWiz, and four give you 64 ports, which
+//    should be plenty for nearly any virtual pinball project.
+//
+//
 // The on-board LED on the KL25Z flashes to indicate the current device status:
 //
 //    two short red flashes = the device is powered but hasn't successfully
@@ -214,6 +223,7 @@
 #include "tsl1410r.h"
 #include "FreescaleIAP.h"
 #include "crc32.h"
+#include "TLC5940.h"
 
 // our local configuration file
 #define DECL_EXTERNS
@@ -226,6 +236,12 @@
 // number of elements in an array
 #define countof(x) (sizeof(x)/sizeof((x)[0]))
 
+// floating point square of a number
+inline float square(float x) { return x*x; }
+
+// floating point rounding
+inline float round(float x) { return x > 0 ? floor(x + 0.5) : ceil(x - 0.5); }
+
 
 // ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 // USB device vendor ID, product ID, and version.  
@@ -309,6 +325,13 @@
 //
 // On-board RGB LED elements - we use these for diagnostic displays.
 //
+// Note that LED3 (the blue segment) is hard-wired on the KL25Z to PTD1,
+// so PTD1 shouldn't be used for any other purpose (e.g., as a keyboard
+// input or a device output).  (This is kind of unfortunate in that it's 
+// one of only two ports exposed on the jumper pins that can be muxed to 
+// SPI0 SCLK.  This effectively limits us to PTC5 if we want to use the 
+// SPI capability.)
+//
 DigitalOut ledR(LED1), ledG(LED2), ledB(LED3);
 
 
@@ -316,20 +339,77 @@
 //
 // LedWiz emulation
 //
+// There are two modes for this feature.  The default mode uses the on-board
+// GPIO ports to implement device outputs - each LedWiz software port is
+// connected to a physical GPIO pin on the KL25Z.  The KL25Z only has 10
+// PWM channels, so in this mode only 10 LedWiz ports will be dimmable; the
+// rest are strictly on/off.  The KL25Z also has a limited number of GPIO
+// ports overall - not enough for the full complement of 32 LedWiz ports
+// and 24 VP joystick inputs, so it's necessary to trade one against the
+// other if both features are to be used.
+//
+// The alternative, enhanced mode uses external TLC5940 PWM controller
+// chips to control device outputs.  In this mode, each LedWiz software
+// port is mapped to an output on one of the external TLC5940 chips.
+// Two 5940s is enough for the full set of 32 LedWiz ports, and we can
+// support even more chips for even more outputs (although doing so requires
+// breaking LedWiz compatibility, since the LedWiz USB protocol is hardwired
+// for 32 outputs).  Every port in this mode has full PWM support.
+//
 
+// Current starting output index for "PBA" messages from the PC (using
+// the LedWiz USB protocol).  Each PBA message implicitly uses the
+// current index as the starting point for the ports referenced in
+// the message, and increases it (by 8) for the next call.
 static int pbaIdx = 0;
 
-// LedWiz output pin interface.  We create a cover class to virtualize
-// digital vs PWM outputs and give them a common interface.  The KL25Z
-// unfortunately doesn't have enough hardware PWM channels to support 
-// PWM on all 32 LedWiz outputs, so we provide as many PWM channels as
-// we can (10), and fill out the rest of the outputs with plain digital
-// outs.
+// Generic LedWiz output port interface.  We create a cover class to 
+// virtualize digital vs PWM outputs, and on-board KL25Z GPIO vs external 
+// TLC5940 outputs, and give them all a common interface.  
 class LwOut
 {
 public:
+    // Set the output intensity.  'val' is 0.0 for fully off, 1.0 for
+    // fully on, and fractional values for intermediate intensities.
     virtual void set(float val) = 0;
 };
+
+
+#ifdef ENABLE_TLC5940
+
+// The TLC5940 interface object.
+TLC5940 tlc5940(TLC5940_SCLK, TLC5940_SIN, TLC5940_GSCLK, TLC5940_BLANK,
+    TLC5940_XLAT, TLC5940_NCHIPS);
+
+// LwOut class for TLC5940 outputs.  These are fully PWM capable.
+// The 'idx' value in the constructor is the output index in the
+// daisy-chained TLC5940 array.  0 is output #0 on the first chip,
+// 1 is #1 on the first chip, 15 is #15 on the first chip, 16 is
+// #0 on the second chip, 32 is #0 on the third chip, etc.
+class Lw5940Out: public LwOut
+{
+public:
+    Lw5940Out(int idx) : idx(idx) { prv = -1; }
+    virtual void set(float val)
+    {
+        if (val != prv)
+            tlc5940.set(idx, (int)(val * 4095));
+    }
+    int idx;
+    float prv;
+};
+
+#else // ENABLE_TLC5940
+
+// 
+// Default LedWiz mode - using on-board GPIO ports.  In this mode, we
+// assign a KL25Z GPIO port to each LedWiz output.  We have to use a
+// mix of PWM-capable and Digital-Only ports in this configuration, 
+// since the KL25Z hardware only has 10 PWM channels, which isn't
+// enough to fill out the full complement of 32 LedWiz outputs.
+//
+
+// LwOut class for a PWM-capable GPIO port
 class LwPwmOut: public LwOut
 {
 public:
@@ -342,6 +422,8 @@
     PwmOut p;
     float prv;
 };
+
+// LwOut class for a Digital-Only (Non-PWM) GPIO port
 class LwDigOut: public LwOut
 {
 public:
@@ -354,6 +436,17 @@
     DigitalOut p;
     float prv;
 };
+
+#endif // ENABLE_TLC5940
+
+// LwOut class for unmapped ports.  The LedWiz protocol is hardwired
+// for 32 ports, but we might not want to assign all 32 software ports
+// to physical output pins - the KL25Z has a limited number of GPIO
+// ports, so we might not have enough available GPIOs to fill out the
+// full LedWiz complement after assigning GPIOs for other functions.
+// This class is used to populate the LedWiz mapping array for ports
+// that aren't connected to physical outputs; it simply ignores value 
+// changes.
 class LwUnusedOut: public LwOut
 {
 public:
@@ -361,7 +454,11 @@
     virtual void set(float val) { }
 };
 
-// output pin array
+// Array of output assignments.  This array is indexed by the LedWiz
+// output port number; that protocol is hardwired for 32 ports, so we
+// need 32 elements in the array.  Each element is an LwOut object
+// that provides the mapping to the physical output corresponding to
+// the software port.
 static LwOut *lwPin[32];
 
 // initialize the output pin array
@@ -369,6 +466,18 @@
 {
     for (int i = 0 ; i < countof(lwPin) ; ++i)
     {
+#ifdef ENABLE_TLC5940
+        // Set up a TLC5940 output.  If the output is within range of
+        // the connected number of chips (16 outputs per chip), assign it
+        // to the current index, otherwise leave it unattached.
+        if (i < TLC5940_NCHIPS*16)
+            lwPin[i] = new Lw5940Out(i);
+        else
+            lwPin[i] = new LwUnusedOut();
+
+#else // ENABLE_TLC5940
+        // Set up the GPIO pin, according to whether it's PWM-capable or
+        // digital-only, and whether or not it's assigned at all.
         PinName p = (i < countof(ledWizPortMap) ? ledWizPortMap[i].pin : NC);
         if (p == NC)
             lwPin[i] = new LwUnusedOut();
@@ -376,6 +485,9 @@
             lwPin[i] = new LwPwmOut(p);
         else
             lwPin[i] = new LwDigOut(p);
+            
+#endif // ENABLE_TLC5940
+
     }
 }
 
@@ -601,14 +713,6 @@
 };
 
 // ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-//
-// Some simple math service routines
-//
-
-inline float square(float x) { return x*x; }
-inline float round(float x) { return x > 0 ? floor(x + 0.5) : ceil(x - 0.5); }
-
-// ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 // 
 // Accelerometer (MMA8451Q)
 //