Gomez's Design Details
(Continued)Gomez's Design Details
(Continued)
The Power Driver Board
This board can be thought of as the heart of the pinball machine. It provides the power to the majority of the functions in the game. Those big black, barrel shaped objects on the board are the big filtering electrolytic capacitors that will someday need to be replaced. Those silver, square objects with the hole in the middle are the bridge rectifiers which will certainly need to be replaced soon! The electrolytic capacitors filter the current for the bridge rectifiers. When the capacitors break down, voltage spikes may occur and they could fry the bridge rectifiers. This is my chief complaint in the design of this otherwise ingenious circuit board. Also located on this board are a majority of the fuses for many of the components of the game.
The Extra Flipper Supply Board
This board is used more or less as an auxiliary power supply for the flippers. In times when there is constant use of flippers, and the large caps on the main power supply board can't keep up, this board kicks in. It is nothing more than an electrolytic capacitor, another bridge rectifier, and two fuses. It is linked to the power supply board by the molex connectors.
The WPC CPU Board
This board is the central processing unit for the pinball machine. In simple terms, it may be thought of as the brain, as it contains the game software and processing chips. It has a battery pack for three AA size batteries. I always use good quality alkaline batteries here. When changing the batteries, do it while the machine is turned on, as if you don't you will loose all of your custom settings, time, date, high scores, etc.
The Flipper Controller Board and the WPC Audio Board
As simple as the flipper action may seem, behind the movement is really a very complex set of electronics. The flipper control board helps control the movement of the flippers during game play. The WPC Audio Board holds the software that controls the various sounds and music heard during game play. The sound software is stored in EPROM chips.
The Dot Matrix Assembly Board
This board is located in the upper right corner. It has a long ribbon cable that connects to the dot matrix display. This board controls the images shown on the dot matrix display during game play. The picture below shows all of the boards together in the backbox. The wires and large ribbons there carry currents and signals from one board to another and they work together to generate the electronic features of the game.
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