Car RamRod
Bringing Pinball Into the Future!
Brian Arment, Ryan Hunter, Aaron Shoaf
Williams® Touchdown
• Originally Produced
November of 1967
• Electromechanical
• Solenoid and relay driven
• No solid-state devices
• Not in working order
Original Internals
Relays and solenoids controlling
game play
Relays and solenoids controlling
scoring
Inspiration
• Newer machines use
solid state devices such as
those in the more modern
machine at right.
• We will not be
mimicking the design but
will use the same basic
idea in modernizing our
old machine.
Outline
• Micro-Controller and Board
• Driver/Step-up Board
• Playfield Interaction
• A/V Controller
• Display
• Audio
Overview
User Input
Micro-controller
25 Vac
6 Vac
Playfield
A/V
Controller
Power
Supply
Driver Board
5 VDC
Display
User Input
•
Two Flipper Buttons
•
Start
RF
CR
SB
LF
 Coin or Manual
Operation
•
MC 14043 Quad SR
Latch – De-bouncing
MC 14043
4 line bus to MCU
Micro-Controller
• MC68HC11
• Handles interrupts for input from
sensors on playfield and users.
• Controls light patterns, scoring, A/V
state, game play options, game play state
• Handles control of driver board for
fail-safe solenoid operation.
Micro-Controller
Game Option Switches
EPROM
Sensory
Input
MC68HC11
RAM
A/V Controller
Driver Board
Driver Board
•Provides Necessary current and voltage for devices like:
•Solenoids (flippers, pop-bumpers, kickers)
•Lamps (in playfield and lightbox)
•Nearly everything on the playboard uses it
•It is controlled directly by the MPU via logic level voltages
Driver Board
Needs and Complications:
•Needs to step up from 3.3-5v DC to 6 or 24v rectified AC
•Make sure the flipper transistors used can handle up to 8
amps each
•Need to control around 15-20 different lamp circuits
•The pop-bumpers and kickout solenoids each need up to
3 amps.
Driver Board
Logic-level input from MPU
Pull up resistors and latches
6/24V
AC
Smaller BJT’s (300 mA) for the lamps
Larger BJT’s (3-8 amps) for the coils
To Solenoids
To Lamps
Playfield (visible)
A few stipulations for the upper playfield:
•Want to keep the functionality as close to
the original game as possible
•Want it to play a bit faster than the
original (incline needs to be steeper)
•Possibly implement larger flippers
•Need to replace all rubber, lights
•Need to touch up paint and polish the
board
Playfield (underneath)
A few stipulations for the lower playfield:
•All the displayed electromechanical
relays are replaced by solid state via the
fore-mentioned driver board
•All aluminum wiring is removed and
replaced with 18-20 gauge copper wiring
•All contact switches are cleaned
A/V Controller
Contains two separate controllers:
•DAC:
•Has a file select input with data fed from the MPU
•Has internal storage of uncompressed WAVE or PCM
files.
•DVC:
•Reads the current score and points from data register
•Writes to individual LED panels
A/V Controller
Current Score
Display Controller/Decoder
-Probably an FPGA
-Could also be a ROM
-Can display customs graphics
Score Display
Points Display
LED Bar Graph
Play Select
Audio Controller
-Several sound bits stored in
flash memory
-A programmable ROM
selects the correct track
-D/A converter outputs RCA
Speaker System
Display
Since this is a restoration, try to keep
the scoreboard looking the same:
•Replace analog score and point
tumblers with individual dot-matrix
digital displays
•Replace mechanical football wheel
with LED bar graph
•Use analog lamps for “ball in
play” section
Audio
• Two 4 inch car speakers
• Powered subwoofer
• Run off of A/V controller
• Speaker receives line level
signal from A/V controller
A/V
Controller
Schedule
Division of Labor
• Aaron: Driver Board, Power Supply, MPU, Display, A/V
controller, RAM
• Brian: MPU board, A/V controller, Flash Memory, RAM,
Line Bus (controllers), EPROM
• Ryan: MPU, EPROM, Flash Memory, RAM, Display,
Driver Board, Power Supply
• All: Playfield - wiring, refurbishing, testing
Risks and Contingency Plan
• A/V controller:
• Implement set of beeps and bells for audio and
toned down preprogrammed display art.
•Cosmetic restoration
• User Options
• 3 or 5 ball play
• #coins / credit
• Free play
• Multi-ball
Questions?
Ask them meow!