Jukebox Wireless Microphone “Enabler”

At my company we operate TouchTunes Jukeboxes. There are all digital media playing  juke’s. Some of our locations need to be able to use a microphone, and talk over the music. Normally this is not too much of a problem, except for the cost of the microphone. To get a “off the shelf” working solution wireless mic is about $800 from TouchTunes. But wireless mic systems are as cheap as $50! The problem is the juke needs to know when to shut off the music so someone can talk. The juke has a “switch” trigger, when the switch is triggered, the music cuts out, and the mic input is enabled. Pretty simple, but low cost mics don’t have a “switch” output to tell the juke to cut out.

SO, how do we fix this? I made a small PCB “add on” board for the cheap mic system. I simply stole a signal from the mic indicator LED. So when the remote mic is switched on, instead of the LED lighting up, it now triggers the juke “enable switch”…thus cutting out the music, and allowing the user to talk over the speaker system.

“Original Xbox” Mod Chip

I made some mod chips PCB for the “open source” BIOS replacement for the original xbox. I sold a few here and their, but it was mostly for my buddies and myself.

I used EagleCad to make the design for the PCB, based on a 49LF020 PLCC chip. Then penalized it, to get lots of small boards on one sheet. I had a board house make them for me, I didn’t have the CNC PCB Engraver at the time.

ATX Power Supply to Sega Adapter

This is a simple solution for a big cost problem. The ATX PSU is about $55 for 400W. A Sega PSU is about $200. So as you can see, this is a cost effective and elegant solution.

I made design with EagleCad, and the PCB with my CNC PCB maker.

Xbox 360 Rapid Fire Trigger Mod

I love to play my Xbox 360, but I needed a little edge over the people that spend all day and night playing. Because I have to work during the day, I can’t do that.

So I wrote some code in PicBasic for a PIC12F683. The basic code is below, you are welcome to use it, you will need to compile it to a HEX file and flash it to the chip. It comes with NO warranty’s. This mod may not work with all controllers, but it worked for me!

Once installed you use a quick press of the sync button to toggle the mod off and on. The mod is indicated by the lower left quadrant LED of the controller.

Device 12F683

Declare XTAL 4
REMINDERS 0
Config FCMEN_OFF, IESO_OFF, BOD_OFF, CPD_ON, CP_ON, MCLRE_OFF, PWRTE_ON, WDT_OFF, INTRC_OSC_NOCLKOUT
CMCON0 = %00000000
ALL_DIGITAL = true

‘*********** Interrupt/TRIS Settings ***********’
IOC = %00010000
OPTION_REG = %01011111
INTCON = %10001000
WPU = %00010000
TRISIO = %00010111
‘******************************************’

Dim modeAs As Byte
Dim modeVar As Byte
Dim RFspeed As Byte

RFspeed = 48                ‘ Rapid Fire speed setting in Milliseconds
modeVar = 0
modeAs = 1                  ‘ on/off mode {0 = off}
High GPIO.5                 ‘ Indicator LED
DelayMS 250                 ‘ Let the controller boot up…

On Interrupt  GoTo MODE     ‘ Interrupt goto…

MAIN:
If modeAs = 1 Then GoTo RUN :Else: TRISIO.0 = 1
GoTo MAIN               ‘ Loop…

RUN:
TRISIO.0 = 1            ‘ Tri-state float … Low of PWM
DelayMS RFspeed         ‘ FireRate
TRISIO.0 = 0            ‘ TRIS to output … High of PWM
DelayMS RFspeed         ‘ FireRate
GoTo MAIN               ‘ Loop…

‘*********** Interrupt routine ***********’
Disable
MODE:
INTCON = $88                ‘ Turn off Interrupts, while we change the mode.
DelayMS 75                ‘ debounce
Select modeAs
Case 0                    ‘ Is modeAs equal to 0 ?
modeVar = 1              ‘ Load modeVar with 1 if yes
Case Else                 ‘ Otherwise…
modeVar = 0              ‘ Load modeVar with 0
EndSelect
Let modeAs = modeVar
If modeVar = 0 Then High GPIO.5 : TRISIO.0 = 1  :Else: Low GPIO.5
INTCON.3 = 1
DelayMS 75
Resume
Enable

PIC Based PWM for Hydrogen Production

I designed a microcontroller based PWM, that will automatically limit the current on your HHO cell. It was based on a PIC16F877 IC. I wrote the code for it in PICBasic.

The PWM will have:

• Adjustable Duty cycle
• Adjustable frequency 1300 to 23000 HRz
• Automatic current limiting when a preset boundary is reached
• LCD screen add on to visualize all the above and MORE!!!!
• Easily upgradeable and expandable
• 150AMP continuous use rated!!!!!!!! (if you need that many amps…LOL)
• Lots of other things too…..
• “Set it and forget it!”

Here is a 3D image of the board (with out LCD).

PIC Based Oscilloscope.

I made a PIC based oscilloscope, just for the fun of it. It acctually works great, and very portable.

This was the second board I made with my CNC machine.

The code and design for this project was not mine! But I use EagleCad to design the schematic and board layout, then use the CNC machine to rought it out.

Here is a link to the original work: http://www.semifluid.com/?p=15

Arcade JAMMA Testing Tool.

I made a tool to quickly test the JAMMA connector on an arcade machine. The tool had a on board PIC Micro Controller that had a selection to display a color bar pattern or a grid test pattern. Voltage was indicated by 2 LEDs and one LED bar graph.

This tool made testing VERY fast, just unplug the game board and pop in the tester. It tested for:

• 12VDC – Yellow LED on/off
• -5VDC – Red LED on/off
• 5VDC – LED bar to indicate 5V level
• Color bar pattern output to the monitor (15KHz only)
• Grid test pattern output to the monitor (15KHz only)

Description of what JAMMA is:

The JAMMA standard was invented in 1985; any game older than this will not be JAMMA. JAMMA (Japan Arcade Machine Manufacturers’ Association) is a standard 56-way connector used on many arcade boards to simplify conversion of cabinets from one game to another. The majority of newer games use a subset of this pinout. Some games (i.e., Street Fighter) which need extra buttons have extra connectors for these additional controls. The JAMMA connector has a .156″ pin spacing edge connector (male on the game board).

Custom Made Ms. Pacman Machine.

This is a small size arcade machine I made. I took a Namco TV game system, a 19″ TV and built a cabinet for it all. I took the guts out of the Namco system, and mounted the joystick in the control panel of the cabinet. Then using a switching power supply to power the Namco system. It originally needed AA batteries to run, so I just hard wired it.

Xbox360 Control Board for the Amusement Industry.

At the time i was working at a local arcade amusement vendor, we put games, juke boxes, and pool tables in locations.

The industry was suffering, and not to many new games were coming out. The Xbox and the PS3 were indirectly to blame. So in order to have a new, and profitable machine, someone made a Xbox360 based arcade machine. You put your money in and get a X amount of time to play that game. My company wanted to make our own, based on the Xbox360 and the, then newly release Halo3. SOmeone else in the company worked on the software to run on a computer to display the game, timers, and credits for the machine. I worked on a way to control one or all 4 controllers at a time.

Basic theriory of operation:

The unit was plugged into  a 12VDC power supply. Serial cable was connected to the unit and the computer. One USB cable was connected to the Xbox and the upstream of the unit. Four “wired” xbox controllers were plugged into the USB  controller ports of the unit. The unit was then placed in front of the IR sensor of the Xbox.

The player would deposit money in the machine, and select a controller. More money equals more time or more players. Once all players have selected a controller, the computer would send a simple serial command to a PIC micro controller. BTW, i wrote the code for that too. Then the unit would turn on or off any of the four connected controllers. This way the user was not stuck using the first position controller, they could use any of the four.

The game would play and a timer on the computer would let them know when their time was up, they could insert more money or just walk away. At the end of the game the computer would send another serial command that the game was over. The unit would turn off all controllers, then send a command to the IR output. The IR signal would tell the Xbox to open and close the drive very fast, I found this to be the best and fastest way to reset the game.

The machine then would go into a attract mode and wait for new players money.

I had a board company make 5 of these boards, but only enough parts for one prototype. I gave the 100% working board to the guys doing the software end of it… and never saw it again. They don’t know what happened to it, and each one blames the other. AARRRGGG!!

So this is what it looks like…

Xbox360 arcade control unit.