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/BitBangI2C/BitBangI2C.h	Fri Apr 14 17:56:54 2017 +0000
+++ b/BitBangI2C/BitBangI2C.h	Fri Apr 21 18:50:37 2017 +0000
@@ -1,27 +1,149 @@
-// Bit-bang I2C driver.  This provides I2C functionality on arbitrary
-// GPIO pins, allowing more flexibility in wiring an I2C device.  Most
-// MCUs with hardware I2C modules can only access the hardware I2C
-// functionality through specific GPIO pins.  
-// 
-// Hardware I2C is preferable when available, and can be accessed through
-// the mbed I2C class.  The only reason to use this class rather than the
-// native mbed I2C is that you need I2C functionality on pins that don't
-// support I2C in the MCU hardware.
-// 
-// This class isn't meant to be directly compatible with the mbed I2C class, 
-// but we try to adhere to the mbed conventions and method names to make it
-// a mostly drop-in replacement.  In particular, we use the mbed library's
-// "2X" device address convention.
+// Bit-bang I2C for KL25Z
+//
+// This implements an I2C interface that can operate on any KL25Z GPIO
+// ports, whether or not they're connected to I2C hardware on the MCU.  
+// We simply send and receive bits using direct port manipulation (often
+// called "bit banging") instead of using the MCU I2C hardware.  This
+// is more flexible than the mbed I2C class, since that only works with
+// a small number of pins, and there are only two I2C modules in the
+// system.  This GPIO version can be to gain additional I2C ports if
+// the hardware I2C modules are committed to other purposes, or all of
+// the I2C-capable pins are being used for other purposes.
+//
+// The tradeoff for the added flexibility is that the hardware I2C is
+// faster.  This implementation can take advantage of bus speeds up to 
+// about 500kHz, which produces data rates of about 272 kbps.  Higher 
+// clock speeds are allowed, but the actual bit rate will plateau at 
+// this level due to the performance constraints of the CPU (and of
+// this code itself; some additional performance could probably be 
+// gained by optimizing it further).  The KL25Z I2C hardware can double 
+// our speed: it can achieve bus speeds of 1MHz and data rates of about
+// 540kbps.  Of course, such high speeds can only be used with compatible 
+// devices; many devices are limited to the "standard mode" at 100kHz or 
+// "fast mode" at 400kHz, both of which we can fully saturate.  However, 
+// even at the slower bus speeds, the hardware I2C has another advantage:
+// it's capable of DMA operation.  That's vastly superior for large 
+// transactions since it lets the CPU do other work in parallel with 
+// I2C bit movement.
 //
-// IMPORTANT: Wherever a device address is specified, pass in 2X the nominal
-// address.  For example, if the device's actual address is 0x10, pass 0x20
-// for all 'addr' parameters.
+// This class isn't meant to be directly compatible with the mbed I2C 
+// class, but we try to adhere to the mbed conventions and method names 
+// to make it a mostly drop-in replacement.  In particular, we use the 
+// mbed library's "2X" device address convention.  Most device data sheets
+// list the device I2C address in 7-bit format, so you'll have to shift
+// the nominal address from the data sheet left one bit in each call
+// to a routine here.
+//
+// Electrically, the I2C bus is designed as a a pair of open-collector 
+// lines with pull-up resistors.  Any device can pull a line low by
+// shorting it to ground, but no one can pull a line high: instead, you
+// *allow* a line to go high by releasing it, which is to say putting
+// your connection to it in a high-Z state.  On an MCU, we put a GPIO
+// pin in high-Z state by setting its direction to INPUT mode.  So our
+// GPIO write strategy is like this:
+//
+//   - take a pin low (0):   
+//        pin.input(); 
+//        pin.write(0);
+//
+//   - take a pin high (1):
+//        pin.output();
+//
+// Note that we don't actually have to write the '0' on each pull low,
+// since we just leave the port output register set with '0'.  Changing
+// the direction to output is enough to assert the low level, since the
+// hardware asserts the level that was previously stored in the output
+// register whenever the direction is changed from input to output.
+
 
 #ifndef _BITBANGI2C_H_
 #define _BITBANGI2C_H_
  
 #include "mbed.h"
- 
+#include "gpio_api.h"
+#include "pinmap.h"
+
+
+// DigitalInOut replacmement class for I2C use.  I2C uses pins a little
+// differently from other use cases.  I2C is a bus, where many devices can
+// be attached to each line.  To allow this shared access, devices can 
+// only drive the line low.  No device can drive the line high; instead,
+// the line is *pulled* high, by the attached pull-up resistors, when no 
+// one is driving it low.  As a result, we can't use the normal DigitalOut
+// write(), since that would try to actively drive the pin high on write(1).
+// Instead, write(1) needs to change the pin to high-impedance (high-Z) 
+// state instead of driving it, which on the KL25Z is accomplished by 
+// changing the port direction mode to INPUT.  So:  
+//
+//   write(0) = direction->OUTPUT (pin->0)
+//   write(1) = direction->INPUT
+//
+class I2CInOut
+{
+public:
+    I2CInOut(PinName pin)
+    {
+        // initialize the pin
+        gpio_t g;
+        gpio_init(&g, pin);
+        
+        // get the registers
+        unsigned int port = (unsigned int)pin >> PORT_SHIFT;
+        FGPIO_Type *r = (FGPIO_Type *)(FPTA_BASE + port*0x40);
+        __IO uint32_t *pin_pcr = (__IO uint32_t*)(PORTA_BASE + pin); 
+        
+        // set no-pull-up mode (clear PE bit = Pull Enable)
+        *pin_pcr &= ~0x02;
+           
+        // save the register information we'll need later
+        this->mask = g.mask;
+        this->PDDR = &r->PDDR;          
+        this->PDIR = &r->PDIR;
+        
+        // initially set as input to release the line
+        r->PDDR &= ~mask;
+        
+        // Set the output value to 0.  It will always be zero, since
+        // this is the only value we ever drive.  When we want the port
+        // to go high, we release it by changing the direction to input.
+        r->PCOR = mask;
+    }
+    
+    // write a 1 (high) or 0 (low) value to the pin
+    inline void write(int b) { if (b) hi(); else lo(); }
+    
+    // Take the line high: set as input to put it in high-Z state so that
+    // the pull-up resistor takes over.
+    inline void hi() { *PDDR &= ~mask; }
+    
+    // Take the line low: set as output to assert our '0' on the line and
+    // pull it low.  Note that we don't have to explicitly write the port
+    // output register, since we initialized it with a '0' on our port and
+    // never change it.  The hardware will assert the level stored in the
+    // register each time we change the direction to output, so there's no
+    // need to write the port output register again each time.
+    inline void lo() { *PDDR |= mask; }
+    
+    // read the line
+    inline int read()
+    {
+        *PDDR &= ~mask;         // set as input
+        return *PDIR & mask;    // read the port
+    }
+    
+    // direction register
+    volatile uint32_t *PDDR;
+    
+    // input register
+    volatile uint32_t *PDIR;
+    
+    // pin mask 
+    uint32_t mask;
+};
+
+
+
+// bit-bang I2C
 class BitBangI2C 
 {
 public:    
@@ -29,7 +151,7 @@
     BitBangI2C(PinName sda, PinName scl);
 
     // set the bus frequency in Hz
-    void setFrequency(uint32_t freq);
+    void frequency(uint32_t freq);
 
     // set START condition on the bus
     void start();
@@ -60,20 +182,94 @@
 protected:
     // read/write a bit
     int readBit();
-    void writeBit(int bit);
+    
+    // write a bit
+    inline void writeBit(int bit)
+    {
+        // put the bit on the SDA line
+        sdaPin.write(bit);
+        hiResWait(tSuDat);
+        
+        // clock it
+        sclPin.hi();
+        hiResWait(tData);
+        
+        // drop the clock
+        sclPin.lo();
+        hiResWait(tLow);
+    }
     
     // set SCL/SDA lines to high (1) or low(0)
-    inline void scl(int level) { setLevel(sclPin, level); }
-    inline void sda(int level) { setLevel(sdaPin, level); }
-    void setLevel(DigitalInOut pin, int level);
+    inline void scl(int level) { sclPin.write(level); }
+    inline void sda(int level) { sdaPin.write(level); }
+    
+    inline void sclHi() { sclPin.hi(); }
+    inline void sclLo() { sclPin.lo(); }
+    inline void sdaHi() { sdaPin.hi(); }
+    inline void sdaLo() { sdaPin.lo(); }
 
-protected:
     // SCL and SDA pins
-    DigitalInOut sclPin;
-    DigitalInOut sdaPin;
+    I2CInOut sclPin;
+    I2CInOut sdaPin;
 
     // inverse of frequency = clock period in microseconds
     uint32_t clkPeriod_us;
+    
+    // High-resolution wait.  This provides sub-microsecond wait
+    // times, to get minimum times for I2C events.  With the ARM
+    // compiler, this produces measured wait times as follows:
+    //
+    //    n=0    104ns
+    //    n=1    167ns
+    //    n=2    271ns
+    //    n=3    375ns
+    //    n=4    479ns
+    //
+    // For n > 1, the wait time is 167ns + (n-1)*104ns.
+    // These times take into account caller overhead to load the
+    // wait time from a member variable.  Callers getting the wait
+    // time from a constant or stack variable will have different 
+    // results.
+    inline void hiResWait(volatile int n)
+    {
+        while (n != 0)
+            --n;
+    }
+    
+    // Figure the hiResWait() time for a given nanosecond time.
+    // We use this during setup to precompute the wait times required
+    // for various events at a given clock speed.
+    int calcHiResWaitTime(int nanoseconds)
+    {
+        // the shortest wait time is 104ns
+        if (nanoseconds <= 104)
+            return 0;
+            
+        // Above that, we work in 104ns increments with a base 
+        // of 167ns.  We round at the halfway point, because we
+        // assume there's always a little extra overhead in the
+        // caller itself that will pad by at least one instruction
+        // of 60ns, which is more than half our interval.
+        return (nanoseconds - 167 + 52)/104 + 1;
+    }
+    
+    // Time delays for I2C events.  I2C has minimum timing requirements
+    // based on the clock speed.  Some of these are as short as 50ns.
+    // The mbed wait timer has microsecond resolution, which is much
+    // too coarse for fast I2C clock speeds, so we implement our own
+    // finer-grained wait.
+    //
+    // These are in hiResWait() units - see above.
+    //
+    int tLow;       // SCL low period
+    int tHigh;      // SCL high period
+    int tBuf;       // bus free time between start and stop conditions
+    int tHdSta;     // hold time for start condition
+    int tSuSta;     // setup time for repeated start condition
+    int tSuSto;     // setup time for stop condition
+    int tSuDat;     // data setup time
+    int tAck;       // ACK time
+    int tData;      // data valid time
 };
  
 #endif /* _BITBANGI2C_H_ */