Rave: Homepin.com = awesome

FrizzleFried

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I just wanted to relay that www.homepin.com based out of Australia absolutely ROCKS. They back up their product like none other. I finally got fed up with trying to get my damn magnet board working (it had multiple burned traces) and gave up and purchased their board from homepin.com.

Evidently I may need to relocate my magnet board because when I installed the board from homepin it tested perfectly (via the magnet test) but once I got up and running I noticed that at one point my ball locked up and sat in the middle of the field when the magnet should not have been active. For whatever reason the fuse under the playfield did not blow but rather one of the transistors on the board smoked.

I explained the situation to the folks at homepin... I'd assumed they already updated their boards with the .22uf cap that is a common fix for this problem but evidently, while they actually have a spot for the cap (no hack necessary) ... they don't install it as it's not necessary for many people and actually causes problems with some.

Anyway, I expected them to send me a transistor and perhaps the .22uf cap... but they sent me a brand new board and the necessary cap. I asked if they wanted the other board back and they told me to keep it. These guys back up their product it seems. I'd highly recommend them to anyone looking to purchase pin parts... they went beyond the call of duty to make their customer happy. Period.

Awesome...
 
It would be extremely helpful to post the name of the game you're talking about. I know you know, but the rest of us just aren't following you around. So frankly i have no idea what game this board the homepin guys made for you. It would be helpful to know, just in case someone else is having a similar problem (maybe update the title of this thread?)
 
I just wanted to relay that www.homepin.com based out of Australia absolutely ROCKS. They back up their product like none other. I finally got fed up with trying to get my damn magnet board working (it had multiple burned traces) and gave up and purchased their board from homepin.com.

Evidently I may need to relocate my magnet board because when I installed the board from homepin it tested perfectly (via the magnet test) but once I got up and running I noticed that at one point my ball locked up and sat in the middle of the field when the magnet should not have been active. For whatever reason the fuse under the playfield did not blow but rather one of the transistors on the board smoked.

I explained the situation to the folks at homepin... I'd assumed they already updated their boards with the .22uf cap that is a common fix for this problem but evidently, while they actually have a spot for the cap (no hack necessary) ... they don't install it as it's not necessary for many people and actually causes problems with some.

Anyway, I expected them to send me a transistor and perhaps the .22uf cap... but they sent me a brand new board and the necessary cap. I asked if they wanted the other board back and they told me to keep it. These guys back up their product it seems. I'd highly recommend them to anyone looking to purchase pin parts... they went beyond the call of duty to make their customer happy. Period.

Awesome...

I have to agree 100 percent. I ordered a 24-inch opto board for my Bram Stoker's Dracula from them a few months ago and it fixed some super-annoying problems with the machine. I also had an order issue that they resolved beyond the call of duty - and lightning fast. I would order from them again in a heartbeat.

Highly recommended.
 
Great Story

Mike is a great bloke, he helped me to initially get my PCB making underway.
Made me sample boards, sending me dozens of transistors

Also making huge progress on his Zaccaria boards

He certainly has a solid reputation.
 
It would be extremely helpful to post the name of the game you're talking about. I know you know, but the rest of us just aren't following you around. So frankly i have no idea what game this board the homepin guys made for you. It would be helpful to know, just in case someone else is having a similar problem (maybe update the title of this thread?)

I think his point was that the guy has good customer service. I don't think which game it he was talking about is really needed to get the point across.
 
That Homepin Bally MPU looks amazing.. like the kit aspect of it. I would probably do this before buying one of the other replacement boards.
 
Thanks for all of the kind words guys - I try my best to look after every enthusiast as I would like to be looked after myself.

I have a very long association with the amusement industry which is explained on my website for anyone interested.

Thanks for the interest in the Gottlieb PB kits Ken - but the link you have is an old one - here is the updated link: http://www.homepin.com/gott.html

Also please remember I am always on the lookout for new boards to make so if you find one that has become unavailable or seems more expensive than maybe it should be, please email me and suggest it.

Regards,

Mike
 
Interesting look what you get for your money when compared to the LAH, GNR Magnet Driver boards, quite a few more components for about half the price, would you care to explain why such a large variance in price ?

Larger(and more) resistors, 3 LL MosFETs and a Dual Input NAND Gate? Compared to a single General Purpose Transistor and what appears to be your run of the mill hex inverter(? I can't really make it out).

Not sure how you meant to put that, but it looks a bit snotty...but there you have it.
 
Larger(and more) resistors, 3 LL MosFETs and a Dual Input NAND Gate? Compared to a single General Purpose Transistor and what appears to be your run of the mill hex inverter(? I can't really make it out).

Not sure how you meant to put that, but it looks a bit snotty...but there you have it.

Have to factor in supply/demand. Assembled cost of those two boards probably isn't too far apart. Certainly not $50 apart, anyway. I think he's the only one doing the Data East magnet driver board. If people are paying that then more power to him. There are only so many people doing this stuff so he should get as much as he can for his products.

Looks like there's a PIC microcontroller on the pop bumper boards. Some crazy design decisions on some of those boards (IMO) but nice to see anyone manufacturing pinball boards!

EDIT: To be clear, I think the addition of the micro with jumpers to select "pop time" on the pop bumper boards is pretty cool.
 
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As some have discussed there are a lot of variations in prices due to many factors:

(1) Demand for the item - more demand means bulk parts purchase = lower price.
(2) Development time - sometimes the simplest boards can take the longest time to take from concept to finished product and I have staff to pay to do this.

I was contracted to make the DE magnet board by another company and I am contractually forced to stay with that price for commercial reasons. They put up the development money and investment in stock and want their money back in a timely fashion. I have little say with the pricing of this product.

Yes, the Gottlieb PB board has a micro on it. This makes the start delay and pop time adjustments very simple.

I'm unsure about what "crazy design descisions" have been made but I certainly would be keen to hear your thoughts about them? We do our best to use common parts and always use through hole parts so that future repairs will be easy. Some other boards being sold about the place are throw away, not ours.

All of our boards are hand assembled and this takes time and care. Nobody will work for under $50 an hour in Australia and if I had to pay staff anything like that, it would make ALL of these boards impossible to sell for even twice the price we do. I am very lucky that I have a couple of guys working with me that do it for the love of pinball at a very cheap price.

If you feel my prices are not realistic feel free to design, develop, source, stock, pay upfront and warranty them yourself and then we can ask you to justify the pricing. With some of these boards I have an initial investment of many thousands of dollars that I will have to wait many many years to get back, if ever, just so you can buy ONE board to fix your machine for under $100.

I am not a large, multi-national company, just a small one man band trying to help the hobby. Thanks again for the feedback, it is much appreciated. I am always looking for new boards to make so any input is welcome. I do prefer constructive criticism however.

Regards,

Mike

I forgot to add that it isn't a matter of the magnet board being too expensive - quite simply the Gott PB board is FAR too cheap! It should be double what I am selling it for.
 
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I'm unsure about what "crazy design descisions" have been made but I certainly would be keen to hear your thoughts about them?

I'm not trying to knock your products. Like I said, I think what you're doing is great. "Crazy design decisions" may not have been the most constructive way to make a point. Among other things, I would point to the reset circuit in the Bally MPU as a "crazy design decision". Adding provisions for things like single RAM, NVRAM and single EPROM seem obvious as well but are debatable. It's easy to nit pick like that. For reset though it just doesn't make sense to use the original circuit (IMO). And it definitely doesn't make sense to not at least add an option for dedicated reset to the design. Emphasis on "in my opinion". Just because I disagree doesn't make it bad.

In any case, good luck in the future. I understand the time and cost involved.
 
OK - no problems.

We try to keep the design as close to the original as possible. With time, some parts are becoming harder to find and so we decided to allow the option to use 6800 OR 6802 micro as well as many other changeable things.

We didn't see the reset circuit as giving any trouble so we didn't bother changing it? Unless you mean the ad-on board we made to replace the oscillator IC?

We are always looking to improve a design where possible.

Cheers

I'm not trying to knock your products. Like I said, I think what you're doing is great. "Crazy design decisions" may not have been the most constructive way to make a point. Among other things, I would point to the reset circuit in the Bally MPU as a "crazy design decision". Adding provisions for things like single RAM, NVRAM and single EPROM seem obvious as well but are debatable. It's easy to nit pick like that. For reset though it just doesn't make sense to use the original circuit (IMO). And it definitely doesn't make sense to not at least add an option for dedicated reset to the design. Emphasis on "in my opinion". Just because I disagree doesn't make it bad.

In any case, good luck in the future. I understand the time and cost involved.
 
We try to keep the design as close to the original as possible. With time, some parts are becoming harder to find and so we decided to allow the option to use 6800 OR 6802 micro as well as many other changeable things.

Understandable, but that's the exact reason that I'm surprised to see the original 5101 RAM used. That part was obsolete 20 years ago.

We didn't see the reset circuit as giving any trouble so we didn't bother changing it?

There's not necessarily anything wrong with the original circuit. The reset is a little fast, but it worked in thousands of games for years. It just makes sense to use a dedicated reset IC because you're replacing 10+ components with 2 making for a lot easier assembly and probably even some cost saving. Not to mention, arguable more consistent booting. Couple that with a more modern RAM and you can eliminate the +12VDC all together (including R11), again saving assembly time and money.

Unless you mean the ad-on board we made to replace the oscillator IC?

Nope, but it would have made sense (IMO) to build it into the board with jumpers to select MPU-200 clock speed. I notice that you have instructions to hack in a 6116 but there's nothing I can see mentioned about the clock speed. You'll need to replace 2 resistors and 2 caps in the original design to change to MPU-200 clock speed. I've got an article about Bally/Stern clock speed on my site. http://warpzonearcade.com/?p=415

It's a little disingenuous to have "Replaces: MPU-200" screened on the board because it doesn't really, without some hacking. And again, there is no mention of having to adjust the clock speed.

Might also be worthwhile to add some instructions so people can hack in a 6116 RAM without having to use your daughter board. I've got an article on my site covering that as well.

We are always looking to improve a design where possible.

There is a lot of room for improvement in the Bally MPU design (IMO) but it might be a little late in the game for that, assuming you're sitting on a bunch of stock.

For a reproduction Bally MPU, there should be a few things that are mandatory (again, IMO):

1. Dedicated reset IC (DS1811 or similar)
2. Clock speed/RAM options for MPU-200 built in
3. Provision for single EPROM (why not do 27C512 across the whole bus with original address decoding? That adds a bunch of code chunks for homebrew depending on address decoding)
4. Provision for single RAM. No longer need the 6810. (use 6116, making it easy to drop in an NVRAM. Could also add pads for an SOIC Ramtron part - FM1608. Could also add a bunch of RAM chunks for homebrew)

There's plenty of room in the design to add this stuff on top of the original stuff, though I would probably leave out a bunch of the original stuff. Like ROM locations you're never going to use (U3, U4).

As usual, just my opinions.
 
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I like the idea of the power up delay on the Pop Bumper Driver Board as well as the selectable "pop" time pulse length. Makes the board handy for other applications like driving playfield toys or the Haunted House upkicker.
 
Thanks for the valuable feedback, it is much appreciated.

From my experience pinball collectors/restorers are VERY reluctant to buy something that differs from the original too far. I have several projects here that just never took off - they did the job well but were not the original size for a start. Making a PCB the size of the Bally MPU is VERY expensive and I am well aware this board could have easily been made half the size but I guarantee nobody would buy it if it was.

5101 RAM are a dime a dozen. Yes, they are a long time obsolete but easily available. I can buy as many brand new Philips branded ones as I want and for little money - thousands of pcs if required. I see no reason to change it? In any case the ad-on board isn't a 'hack' as it does not require ANY tracks to be cut to install it. Again, collectors, in my experience, are VERY reluctant to damage and hack boards to make any changes.

To be frank, I have sold only two kits to people who were going to use them for Stern MPU-200 so I don't see that as any sort of priority anyway.

In short, we have tried to re-create the original board as closely as possible while offering upgrades to the battery options most importantly. We didn't set out to re-design the entire thing, many others have done that already.

At Homepin, our first philosophy is to re-create the original board as closely as possible - using ONLY through hole parts. Then we beef up all tracks and pads as much as possible and upgrade parts when it has been shown over time that the original was too small and caused problems. We fix things like the dodgy earths on the Bally A3 solenoid driver (currently under construction) and replace output transistors with MOSFETs where it is deemed to be a huge advantage.

We avoid making massive changes to anything. The one exception is the Gottlieb PB board where time has proven the original design was just terrible and re-creating that board would have been a joke as all the original problems would have remained (the most fatal being all solenoids fire at switch on).

Again thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated and so are suggestions for boards to make.

Currently in the pipeline and some not far away are:

Zaccaria MPU (about a month away)
WMS motor driver board A-16120 (about a week)
No Good Gofers 2 x Opto board A-22026 (one month)
Gottlieb SYS-80 ROM card (a week)
Bally A3 solenoid driver/regulator board (2 months)
Getaway HSII Turbo Magnet driver board (just started - 3 months)

More suggestions are welcome
 
From my experience pinball collectors/restorers are VERY reluctant to buy something that differs from the original too far.

I could have agreed with that logic until I saw the microcontroller on the pop bumper board ;)

I have several projects here that just never took off - they did the job well but were not the original size for a start. Making a PCB the size of the Bally MPU is VERY expensive and I am well aware this board could have easily been made half the size but I guarantee nobody would buy it if it was.

The people at Alltek would probably disagree with you there. Their board is approx 1/2 the size of the original and I don't know how many they've sold but it's safe to say it's in the hundreds. I've seen TONs of their MPUs in my travels and I can't say I've ever seen a single other Bally/Stern reproduction MPU in person and there are a few out there. Hard to argue with their results.

The size of the board isn't really relevant anyway. You don't need to change the size of the board to add features. It's not like people are going to say "I'm not buying that MPU because it doesn't use the crappy original reset circuit". That's just not realistic. You could definitely argue that people don't like stuff that doesn't mount in original holes but again, that doesn't dictate the features of the board.

5101 RAM are a dime a dozen.

I'm sure people would love to know where you're getting those. Most people are going to be stuck paying $5+/piece for replacements.

Yes, they are a long time obsolete but easily available. I can buy as many brand new Philips branded ones as I want and for little money - thousands of pcs if required. I see no reason to change it?

Price isn't really the only issue, though I'm certain you could source 6116 as cheap or cheaper than 5101. Compatibility with MPU-200 and easier conversion to NVRAM are two good reasons to not use 5101. Even if you're compelled to use 5101, why not at least add the OPTION for NVRAM or other SRAM. There is crap-loads of space on that giant PCB.

In any case the ad-on board isn't a 'hack' as it does not require ANY tracks to be cut to install it. Again, collectors, in my experience, are VERY reluctant to damage and hack boards to make any changes.

The term "hack" is subjective. I don't use it in a derogatory way. I wouldn't say the board has to be cut up for it to be called a hack but it's all semantics. It's a kludge to work around something that should have been built into the original board (IMO). To me "hack" seems less offensive than "kludge" but again, it's semantics :)

It depends on the collector when it comes to board modifications but I would generally agree with you. People don't like to hack up boards. Especially when it comes to a new board. That's why it should just be built into the board. You could basically just use the MPU-200 clock circuit with a different multivibrator (maybe 74HCT123) and there you go. Make the jumpers .100" headers with user selectable jumpers and you've got a clock circuit compatible with all Bally/Stern systems. That's going to be WAY cheaper/easier than building an adapter board and doesn't even deviate from the original design.

To be frank, I have sold only two kits to people who were going to use them for Stern MPU-200 so I don't see that as any sort of priority anyway.

I would guess that's because it's not being marketed to the MPU-200 market or people just don't know about it. Sure, there are less MPU-200 games than all the other systems combined but why limit your market? Especially when you can add the compatibility for no additional cost or even realize a savings in doing so vs. the current design. I've seen Alltek boards in MPU-200 games a bunch of times so there is a market.

I wonder if those two people are running their MPU at the -35 clock speed.

In short, we have tried to re-create the original board as closely as possible while offering upgrades to the battery options most importantly. We didn't set out to re-design the entire thing, many others have done that already.

I would consider all of the things I've suggested as "upgrades". There's nothing revolutionary about using a DS1811 in place of the original reset circuit, for example.

I should just put my money where my mouth is and do my own Bally/Stern MPU. Saturate and undercut the market even more :)
 
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