Pinball
This is a meandering series of articles that will one day hopefully result in an operating homebuilt pinball machine. We'll see.
Wiring a New Digit
Wiring the Driver Initially I have to wire up my TLC59213IN to the 16 segment LED bank. In order to do a proof of concept I’m going to wire up a single digit. Line Display Pin Display Segment MAX Segment MAX Signal Max Pin 1 11 Common Cathode CC O1... (more...)
Rearchitecting the output display, again.
The Problem I want to create some simple circuit diagrams that look nice and can also be used to create a circuit board. Most layout programs either cost big bucks or run on the PC only (and still cost big bucks). I found a tool aimed primarily at Arduino called... (more...)
Multiple Digit Display Bank
Wiring Up Digit 1 Line Display Pin Display Segment MAX Segment MAX Signal Max Pin 1 11 Common Cathode CC O1 8 2 1 a a1 O2 9 3 18 b a2 O3 10 4 16 c b O4 11 5 13 d c O5 12 I got one digit... (more...)
One Display Bank
Wiring up a full Bank I got one digit to work but I need to prototype the full 8 digits before adding an intelligent front end (that’s later). I place all of my digits on the breadboard and move the MAX6954 to the top so that I can drive it... (more...)
Single Multisegment Display
Wiring up the MAX6954 I discovered the MAX6954 4-Wire Interfaced, 2.7V to 5.5V LED Display Driver with I/O Expander and Key Scan which I’ll call the MAX6954 from now on. This chip allows me to drive up to 8 16-segment LEDs using one chip and a minimum of discrete parts.... (more...)
Power Supply and a Pivot
Finishing the Power Regulated Power Supply I finished up the Adjustable breadboard power supply kit - v1.0 by following their excellent directions. One word of warning though. The power supply kit generates two different voltages on the two sets of output pins. The left side is the selected voltage range... (more...)
Five Volt Interlude
A 5V Interlude The next phase of my project is to get a working multisegment display. I’d like to hook up several of my multisegment LEDs but before I do that I have to get more power since the Raspberry Pi doesn’t supply much current out its pins. I’ve decided... (more...)
Driving the MAX6957
Writing to the SPI Interface The SPI interface is working on the Raspberry Pi and so I’m getting ready to send some information to the 4-Wire-Intefaced 20-Port LED Display Driver and I/O Expander (MAX6957), called the 6957 from now on. The issue that is mentioned from the data sheet is... (more...)
Investigating the SPI driver
We left off with the hardware being hooked up but no software to run our project. I wanted to test the SPI hardware and the best way to do so is with a loopback test. After using my favorite search engine I found a post called SPI-Python: Hardware SPI for... (more...)
Lighting an LED
If you look at my first light post there is a glorious picture of a blank breadboard hooked up to a Raspberry Pi. I got it to flip a bit on the GPIO (#21) but I really wanted to see something. I’d like to do that classic project, lighting an... (more...)
First Light
I’ve always loved pinball machines and I really love electronics. So, the obvious tie-in would be to combine the two! I’ve decided to embark upon creating my own pinball machine from the ground up! I want to do everything but I might be willing to compromise on the cabinet since... (more...)