Ice Cold Beer Beacon Light Mod (ticket simulator module)

DogP

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Ice Cold Beer Beacon Light Mod (ticket simulator module)

Hey,

A few of you guys that have been to my arcade parties had asked about the beacon light on my Ice Cold Beer. I'm not sure that I ever posted about it, but my original version used TTL and timer chips, and was kinda ugly. I just changed it over to a microcontroller board over the last week, so I figured I'd share.

Basically, the module simulates a ticket dispenser, and outputs a programmable pulse for every "ticket" dispensed. Ice Cold Beer has the option for tickets, so I set it to output 1 ticket for holes 5 through 10. I have the board drive a relay (PowerSwitch Tail) that runs the beacon light on top of the machine. Kinda cool IMO. Of course you can drive a lot of stuff... I guess you could even drive a beer dispenser so Ice Cold Beer dispenses Ice Cold Beer. ;) And Zeke's Peak could drive the Price Is Right mountain climber off the mountain while playing that yodelayheeoo song. :)
price-is-right-yodeler-cliffhanger.jpg


The board by itself should be usable as a ticket simulator as well, if you have a redemption machine that you want to use without tickets, and without an "out of tickets" error.

Anyway, here's a quick video demo of it:


I don't know if anyone's interested in something like this, but I should have the ticket simulator module available for sale in a couple weeks. If there's interest in the whole mod, I could order the PowerSwitch Tails to save on shipping, and make a kit with the ICB ticket connector already installed.

DogP
 
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What a cool idea! Awesome mod. So would something like this work for other redemption games (or basically anything with a ticket dispenser)?
 
Sounds cool, I'd be interested in 3 of the kits including the power-switch tails if the price isn't too high.
 
What a cool idea! Awesome mod. So would something like this work for other redemption games (or basically anything with a ticket dispenser)?
Thanks... I designed it to hopefully be plug and play compatible with anything that uses a standard ticket dispenser, like Ice Cold Beer uses.

I think there are a couple other oddball dispenser types too. I haven't determined any games that use these though... I think they're mostly used for adding tickets to things that don't normally output tickets. I could probably make it work with them as well, but I'd have no way to test.

Sounds cool, I'd be interested in 3 of the kits including the power-switch tails if the price isn't too high.
My board will probably be ~$25 (connectorized and ready to plug in)... PowerSwitch Tails are $26 each ( http://www.powerswitchtail.com/Pages/default.aspx ). Depending what you want to switch on/off, you may be able to get away with the PowerSSR Tail for $20 ( http://www.powerswitchtail.com/Pages/PowerSSRTail.aspx ). I personally like the mechanical relay, though the beacon light I used is only ~20W, so the SSR should work just fine.

As usual Pat your projects are awesome. Well done again.
Thanks. :)

DogP
 
Sweet. I have an ICB and a powertail already.
Do you have the original PowerSwitch Tail, or the PowerSwitch Tail II? In my video I'm running the original PowerSwitch Tail, because that's what I had laying around... but I plan to configure these for the PowerSwitch Tail II, and don't recommend the original.

The problem is that the original drives the relay directly, which draws more current from my module, and generates more heat. The PowerSwitch Tail II drives an optocoupler, which draws less current, and lets the module run cooler.

DogP
 
My board will probably be ~$25 (connectorized and ready to plug in)... PowerSwitch Tails are $26 each ( http://www.powerswitchtail.com/Pages/default.aspx ). Depending what you want to switch on/off, you may be able to get away with the PowerSSR Tail for $20 ( http://www.powerswitchtail.com/Pages/PowerSSRTail.aspx ). I personally like the mechanical relay, though the beacon light I used is only ~20W, so the SSR should work just fine.

That sounds fine, sign me up for 3 of the boards then. I'll get some of the PowerSwitch tails ordered so I have those ready to go.

Thanks,
Greg
 
That's pretty sweet! It's too bad the light doesn't go off right when you get the ball in the hole.
 
That sounds fine, sign me up for 3 of the boards then. I'll get some of the PowerSwitch tails ordered so I have those ready to go.

Thanks,
Greg
Sounds good!

That's pretty sweet! It's too bad the light doesn't go off right when you get the ball in the hole.
Yeah, you can blame Taito for that. ;) If you'd like, you can hook it up to a button that you press when you get in the hole... but it's gonna be on the honor system. :p

DogP
 
You could also make a little circuit that NAND's the NC side of the switches and then feeds the output to your beacon driver. Wouldn't even have to hack the original wiring. :D
 
Not sure. Its up in the attic with my Halloween stuff.

Do you have the original PowerSwitch Tail, or the PowerSwitch Tail II? In my video I'm running the original PowerSwitch Tail, because that's what I had laying around... but I plan to configure these for the PowerSwitch Tail II, and don't recommend the original.

The problem is that the original drives the relay directly, which draws more current from my module, and generates more heat. The PowerSwitch Tail II drives an optocoupler, which draws less current, and lets the module run cooler.

DogP
 
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