After putting the pin in the basement (and back on it's legs), I've realized I really let the blue october project slip. Maybe I'm a little bit discouraged after seeing all the incredible PROC systems at expo, I don't know. I'm starting to think that even if I get an entire playfield designed the way I want it, it's going to be useless without having a way to control it.
Part of me thinks that by the time I get the layout done, there will be a solution on the market other than PROC (skillshot, ben heck's C+ arduino based board). Part of me thinks maybe someone will step up and do the programming for me if I supply the hardware (yea right).
So then I really started to look for other simplistic options. Sure, I could probably wire up a pair of flippers directly to 50V, but if I held them on they would fry up without reducing power. Obviously I can't do PWM without a microcontroller, so I thought I'll go old school. I'll simply use an EOS switch to switch to a 12V tap for holding. That's great and all, but what about pretty much everything else? I need logic to keep track of how many balls have been played, track multiballs, track players, track any extra balls.. Hell, just keeping score is a task if I want to bypass the stock Stern MPU I have in there now.
So here's my next logical step, I need to learn electronics. I can design mechanical things all day long, but half a pinball machine is electronics, so if I want to design one I have to learn. My boss likes to push adult education, and he agreed to send me to a basic electronics course so I can understand circuits (I work for a company that does gas products but we are starting to get into the electrical market). Even if my boss didn't send me, I can always take a course at my local college for less than $100 (and my company would likely reimburse me, my benefits cover up to $3k/year for tuition). Once I learn what does what in circuits and I truly understand how things work, I plan on experimenting with arduino. I'll pickup some kit that includes a bunch of add-ons and just go through tutorials. Once I start to realize not only how circuits work, but the programming that goes along with it to run a microcontroller, I should have enough grasp of how to at least create a crude controller to do as much as early solid state controllers are capable of.
I figure even if I don't go down the arduino route, C+ and Python are supposedly very similiar, so if I chose to give in and just buy a PROC system I could adapt easily. One cool thing about the PROC project for "Wrath of olympus" is that he did all of his layout, artwork, and sounds inside visual pinball first (because it's easier to move things around digitally in case you have a bad ball trap in your design), then he created the real thing based on the virtual one and to his surprise it played almost identical to the virtual one
One key difference on this project, he used one of the plugins where he could run the PROC system through USB into his computer, and have a real controller run a virtual pin. That way he could tweak his rules at a computer, then start running wires from a driverboard to real parts:
http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=13153
