Pinball projects

[Shellrippr]

Hello!! I am new to these boards and I was wondering if you fine folks can help me. I am looking for a way to take a pulsing 50vdc and make it a steady 12-24vdc output. The reason being my logic pulses 50vdc to activate a shaker motor, and I want to be able to hook up rotating beacon lights as the motor is being pulsed.

Project 2:
I also need a circuit for taking that same pulsing 50vdc and just step it down to 12vdc so I can hook up led strobe lights while it is shaking. Maybe a simple step down transformer for this one...

But any help or pointing in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

Rich

 

[Sceadwian]

Could you explain a little more about your logic? The idea of using the same 50VDC pulses to covert to steady state DC is not something you want to atempt, There must be some kind of originating signal that turns on the shaker motor, you would want to tap THAT, and use a seperate power supply for your lights/beacons and motors.

As much details about the schematic of the machine you're talking about would help, if you don't know yourself it's difficult to provide help for such a complex electrical/mechanical scenario like that without having first hand knowledge of how the machine is actually constructed. All the tips you're going to get from the information you've provided so far are gonna get you rough guesses at best.

 

[Pommie]

Which machine is it? A lot of manuals for machines are available at The Internet Pinball Machine Database

I have a Williams Monster Bash so I know pinballs pretty well.

Mike.

 

[Shellrippr]

Hello, thanks for the reply. Sorry, I just looked at the schematic and it is an AC circuit. The machine is a Williams Earthshaker. There is a pulsing 25-50vac that goes to the shaker motor. The logic would pulse the 25-50v in order to vary the intensity of the machine shaking. It is not constantly pulsing, only when the game is in a certain mode, then the logic starts to send a pulse to the motor to activate it. I was hoping for a board that can take that pulsing voltage and turn on, steadily, (2) 12v rotating beacon lights until the shaking has stopped. Also, there is a transistor near the motor. I was talking to somebody who made a circuit for the neon lamps off of the transistor near the motor. If there is any other info you people need, please let me know. I will try my best to get it. Thanks all!!!

 

[Pommie]

You need to look through the manual - https://www.ipdb.org/files/753/Williams_1989_Earthshaker_Manual.pdf and identify the actual output that drives the shaking device. A quick look suggest that there are no AC driven components, only DC.

Mike.

 

[Gary B]

This seems reasonable straight forward to me. 50VAC into a bridge rectifier and then into a filter cap. The bigger the cap, the better. That will give you about 70.7VDC. Now connect your high voltage load at this point. Drop the voltage to something below 40VDC (2-resister voltage divider is the simplest) and you can then use a one-chip regulator (7912 for example) for the 12 volt output. Filtering on that can be smaller like in the 1 to 10 microfarad range on both the input and outputs.

 

[Shellrippr]

any ideas?

 

[Shellrippr]

Project Pinball Rehash

Hello All,
Sorry to bring an old topic back. I have been gone for a year and just now getting back to this project. I did learn some more information about it and realized that what I said above is in error. I realized that the game doesn't pulse 50AC, it actually uses a 25VDC circuit through a TIP36c transistor on the High Current Driver Board. The logic uses a Tip122 to send a low signal to the Tip36c to switch it on and allow the 25VDC to flow through the transistor and turn on the motor. I know that the Tip36c is a PNP, so it uses the low signal to activate it.

Here is another question: Can I just take the same signal wire for the driver board and run it to another driver board (i built another one using these schematics but with a Tip32c) and run my lights through that Tip 36c? Basically, that one signal wire would be attached to two (2) High Current Driver Boards at the same time. Only one board is connected to two (2) 12VDC motors.

Thank you all for taking the time to help a stranger like me!! It is much appreciated!

I have attached a picture of the schematic for the "High Current Driver Board" for the shaker motor.
View attachment 67044

P.S.
Wire Blu-Blk is the signal wire from logic.