in 3D-printers we're readily putting 12-24V into 2-3V steppers since they are running on a constant current chopper driver. This gives excellent response and torque. I guess this item is so old that it was before the modern chopper drivers so it was probably run by a quad set of NPN transistors and a power resistor for dropping the excess voltage.
The listed voltage has always been the dc voltage. ie V= IR on the steppers. You normally drive then with 2 or more time the voltage, but you limit the current.
"overdriving" the steppers has been a thing for a very long time, so that one probably did it too. There's some kind of current control so when the motor's stopped it will have the nameplate voltage across it. But if the motor is spinning fast, the voltage will rise a lot due to the inductance of the coils, so the voltage is used to overcome this.
Now this is something I've wanted to see for a long time!! These Whittaker Roulette machines are one of my favourites and sadly becoming less and less common thanks to the newer American ticket machines making their way over here and replacing them. I've seen many of these machines where the motor loses traction and stalls like you mentioned, I once reported one that was doing it every time to one of the arcade staff and they looked at it and said "It's supposed to do that" 😂😂😂 I'm also quite surprised this doesn't have any electromagnets underneath it to steer the ball away from the winning colours when it doesn't want to pay out but this is an older one so maybe the newer ones do; it's also a shame you didn't get the rest of the machine as I've always wanted to get the voice messages and music raw off the machine. Unfortunately, Whittaker Bros stopped manufacturing new machines a couple of years ago so these will eventually just be history but luckily they still provide spare parts and their website is still live but advertising machines which are no longer made. I just want them to be revived again before all these machines vanish for good.
@@felixscamp Arcades games have been rigged for years and they have always got away with doing it. Take Stacker for example, when the player gets close to the Major Prize level, the machine deliberately skips over the winning block position if it doesn’t want to pay out. I agree it’s fraudulent but they don’t get into any trouble for it
When I was selling my A4988 based stepper driver back in 2001, I had a few defective returns. It turned out, if you unplug one of the 4 wires to the motor, while the motor was running, the chip would burn out. I had to change my design to incorporate 8x ultra fast diodes at the output of the driver. Hell with synchronous rectification. This was before Pololu was selling his. I can bet that the same thing happens to his driver module since he's not using external diodes. ULN2003 has these diodes built in, and won't suffer if you suddenly unplug an inductive load from it.
@@j.f.christ8421 No shit Sherlock! What happens when the wire breaks from work hardening? If know-it-all people like yourself are any indication, you'll whine to the seller that their stepper controller is no good and blew up for no reason. Then the seller has to deal with that shit.
@@piconano Well, who's a grumpy little boy then? I think you need a nap. From you original message it sounded like you were the first person every to make this amazing discovery. Lol no.
Calculating the gear ratio for a toothed belt is easy, count the pulley teeth. No fancy math with decimal points or measurements required. I've seen stepper motors driven with a couple of hundred volts. It's all about the current. Keeping the current under control you can get some spectacular performance.
There's Scream if You Wanna Go Faster, well the mechanism may not have been screaming, but it was complaining. When I was young visited Blackpool, in the UK, you had the arcades with all the flashing lights, machines making ringing and various noises, then the screams of people having fun at the Pleasure Beach, that thing reminded me of places like that.
Although nominally rated for 5V operation it's possible to use a higher voltage to improve the di/dt curve with either "forcing" resistors or a chopper/constant current driver in order to improve acceleration capabilities, also the use of microstepping or at least half stepping during the early phases of the acceleration will enhance performance, another cheap trick used to be to run at nominal 5V, but switch to 12V for the acceleration/deceleration with deceleration being the killer of lots of cheap circuits due not including adequate facility for dumping the energy from what is essentially a flywheel. Interestingly in the past I was involved with the design of the controls for proper high stakes automated gaming wheels that ran on stepper motors - we had a lot of fun working out acceleration profiles to manage issues surrounding the various mechanical resonances that had to be avoided.
They had these at the South Pier amusement arcade in Blackpool when I was working there, as a teenager. Was a bit of a swine to keep working as I remember.
@@TsiolkovskySportingLocks I remember it from an arcade in Dawlish Warren in Devon, and from when I worked as entertainment staff in Brean sands, drilled into my head. Haha, and dance machines.
With Steeper motors its about the Current! The voltage is only for the holding torque. As soon as they go fast you need more voltage because oft induction.
You were one of those kids that destroyed everything as a child by tearing things apart to see how they worked, weren't you? 🤣 I did the same thing! I think most passionate engineers and electronics hobbyist we're those children as one point or another. Eventually we learned how to put things back together as well!
I've never seen inside one of those, so that was actually simpler than I was expecting. I do hope to own the full machine one day when arcadeUK has more space
As mentioned on Patreon, this could make a really nice wall mounted clock. :) I'm also now curious about the coin acceptor mechanism you described. Always found those things intriguing.
Stepper motor driving is "interesting". I made several direct drive zoetropes, which have considerable mass to spin up, with consequent inertia. Getting them to spin up reliably took considerable coding effort. (By effort I mean trial end error). Driven by an AtTiny84 for those interested. Eventually made it reliable but it took a while.
In my mis-spent youth, I put many a 2p in one of those. Sometimes the ball would land in the tiny groove between the disk and the cone..... the motor would just turn the disk slowly for a few revolutions until the ball dropped into the slot right next to the one I'd bet on :-) If it didn't drop in, the machine would go into fast spin again. I never walked away with more money than I'd gone in with :-(
Loved these machines as a child, and after leaving school went to work with a amusement company, All arcades are now the ticket payout devices,as the government don’t want children gambling, even 2p pushers pay tickets now. & to be honest,it does increase revenue for operators,the amount of tickets we get through in a season is eye watering. Very interesting video Clive
4:12 Well... you need to consider, also, that stepper motors are inductive loads and, as such, they tend to draw less current as you rise the pulse frequency, whilst still maintaining a constant voltage. Torque in motors, as you may already know, tends to increase with, among other things, driving current. I would advise driving the motor with PWM, and increasing the duty cycle linearly with frequency. This will maintain the torque more or less constant throughout the desired RPM range. Cheers!
Stepper motors are usually current driven not voltage, "5V" on a stepper doesn't mean it's operating voltage. Taken from a website I can't link to :- The voltage ‘rating’ of the motor is simply derived from the motor’s rated current and winding resistance. An example motor shown above is rated for 5 [A] (per winding), with a winding resistance of .5 [Ω]. The motor’s nameplate voltage is therefore listed as 2.5 [V]. This is the voltage that produces 5 [A] of current into the winding in steady state. However, a stepper motor must change the current in its windings rapidly and will not always run in steady state. Unfortunately, inductance is associated with the winding (since it is a large coil of wire). The winding inductance prevents current from changing instantaneously and will require time to increase the current flowing through the winding after a voltage is applied to it. .......... A good rule of thumb is to use between 10 and 24 times the motor’s nameplate voltage for the system bus voltage. Use a cheap step/direction driver from eBay/Amazon and you'll get far better performance particularly with ramping.
Some versions have small wire levers in the centre on each colour which get pressed when the ball falls into the colour slot so that the machine knows which colour has got the ball to pay out.
The sound of this reminds me of a 70s to 90s two speed lift shifting from full speed to low speed. Pretty sure it’s using a similar method to slow the speed down.
Nice item, remember playing with them years ago. I always thought it had an electro magnet under it to catch the ball in the slot that paid out the least amount. 2X👍
I've just bought a modern NEMA34 motor kit... the driver module just wants direction and step signals... so much easier than using stepper libraries... just assert direction, and supply a pulse per step.... simples!
There are stepper drivers with built-in pulse generator. Set the direction, acceleration and target speed, tell it to go X steps (everything via SPI) and off it goes. The TMC5160 by Trinamic is one of these, but it requires external MOSFETs for switching. You can use it with the regular direction/step interface as well.
I've done this with fruit machine rolls, pretty interesting. Accel stepper for the arduino and a microstepping driver can drive a motor like that one up to 3k rpm. I think the 5v is its continuous or long term rating, the inductance of the windings reduces the drive current with increasing stepping frequency, requiring more voltage as you go quicker, constant current is a good way to drive steppers. I did a rough youtube vid of my 3 wheel fruit machine.
They can use that inductor sensor in reverse by sending high current through it [which is why the wires are thick.] to attract the ball to any specific slot based upon the amount of time since the last trigger.
Still one of them at the Pier Bandstand amusements in Weymouth with a load of other older machines (including the excellent Tuppenny Nudger!). Great to have a choice between the likes of Alexander Gardens (and work) that have a lot of the latest machines and some of the others that have older machines, many a pound has been spent there over the years.
0:25 "... roughed up some software"!!!???? Jeez, Big C, I'm still struggling trying to make sense of basic circuit diagrams. Once again, you De Man. Thank you Sir.
There was an old novelty item sold on amazon that might be interesting to review and that would be the SUN JAR Solar light, its quite simple but it seemed to have sold well
We've all watched you for many years now. I was just thinking how nice it is watching you, as we can see that you really enjoy what you do. You could call it work & call it a hobby. I'd love to have your passion Clive. Well done fella. Your far to clever, far to clever. lol
Ohh wow that seems familiar! It’s one of my favourite games at the seaside. If your colour wins it gave out lots of tickets! As it’s on your bench I get the feeling I won’t be playing it next time!
I have fond memories of that as a kid on holiday, I preferred the machines like horse race or any machine with the coloured bezel lamps. I always popped a coin on every outcome so you always win but will obviously lose money. I remember the loud buzzing sound when your coins were ready to fall in the machine. The annoying thing was if the coin slot was jammed or your coin didn't drop. Bad maintenance on the arcade owners side I think lol Something about those colours always sticks in my mind. Red, Green, Yellow, Blue and White everywhere. Also loved the penny pushers but they now stuff them with things that are too big to drop that the machine was never designed to have in it in the first place and they don't cost 2p any more they're bloody 10 or 20p, sod that! :D Would love to own a classic machine like that but I imagine the power consumption is a bit high. If I could I'd have the horse race one. Always wondered how it worked? (wink wink) '*cough*' get one and take it to bits '*cough*' ha ha
I remember playing one of these on a sunny day out at the beach with some candy floss and a bag of chips. Those were the days! haha Cool to see how this stuff works all these years later, never crossed my mind back then.
The solderless breadboard is likely why you had to crank up the voltage.Those things don't like more than a couple dozen mA running through the points.
You're probably running into residence on the stepper promoters. One of the things you've got to do when setting up a CNC conversion using stepper motors is tuning the drivers to avoid resonant bands in the stepper. It sounds like you've accidentally hit one of those resonant bands.
That slipping is the stepper not getting the needed voltage I think, when running cnc machines on steppers they recommend driving at from 4 to 20 times the rated volts, of course trying not to exceed the per phase current. I would guess and from driving similar motors, that around 20-24 volt work for it, just keep an eye on the heat of the motor.
"Voltage drop across the Darlingtons"? Sounds like something Kenneth Williams would have said. Or maybe Robo-Kenneth. OooOOooh I've got a terrible voltage drop across me Darlingtons!
Clive I loved this however I feel that there are Christmas lights you've not covered. I'm looking at buying a candle bridge, according to various sources the 7 LED bulb ones use 3W LEDs meaning they consume a whopping 21W over 7 lights. Surely this cannot be right? If it is is there any way to tame it down to something more reasonable like 0.5 watts per light? I also feel that the incandescent candle arch that you have may actually draw less power, i'd love to see a showdown between an LED and traditional incandescent arches.
Clive, you missed an important part of driving stepper motors as you ramp up the speed. To keep up the torque, you want constant current, not constant voltage due to the back EMF. Pick up a proper stepper motor driver to ramp the motor. Depending on the application, the driver may be run from 12 to 36 volts for that type of application depending on the speed desired. The driver takes care of the motor current at all speeds using motor inductance and PWM.
I've wondered for decades both how these work and who made them, so thanks for this. Like another commenter said, it'd be cool to hear the raw audio the machine played, or at least find out what the music track is. Also, I wonder how the horse racing machines work that Whittaker's made.
Big Clive, wondering if you can help with this one, I have an relatively old led Christmas tree which I have just repaired ish, but I’m lost trying to figure out how it works. There are bi colour leds on the tree and the output voltage is essentially phase angle controlled ac to vary to amplitude and polarity of the output. Can’t see how that’s possible tho as all the thyristors are in parallel. Maybe you have seen a similar one?
@@bigclivedotcom: Ok. Just one of those random thoughts that ran through my head. Thanks for looking. BTW, are you helping out with any “new” lighting for the tractor parade this year? Or planning to watch it?
@@bigclivedotcom I'll fire mine up and see if I can recreate said bug. I'd love to see you explain some EM pinball stuff (steppers, simple hold coils etc) I use some of these parts to explain to school kids (year 6) how pinballs work and would love to direct them to your channel. Thanks for the reply 👍
Also, did you find those fairground LEDs I sent you? Could make a nice short Xmas video... Though I imagine you're probably all planned out till summer with content!!
It would be interesting to see a recording at normal frame rate (presumable 25 fps at your end), and then another recording at the same rotation but double frame rate (50 fps for most or all European countries, but 60 for people who record in North America).
So is this, as far as it goes, fully random? There's no control in the system for it to control the outcomes like AWPs? I thought the yellow unit might have been a solenoid and it did some kind of pulse on certain numbers (as calculated by the steps)... Interesting. What category would these be according to the Gambling Commission? I'm guessing cat D... But I dunno if it even applies!
You had to Watch it with these machines some had Solenoid coils to de-orbit the ball early + others a more advanced Algorithm (orbit telemetry) ware it can time the ball and wheel just right spots to avoid wins Some other could work out the ball Position using the steeper motors own coils with a more aware Power analyzer ESC - same tech as Balancing machines Newer machines are starting to use MEMS (microelectromechanical systems ) - They can image 3D Magnetic fields Vary high Sensitivity - Cameras for magmatic fields
I'm not aware of any cheating with these machines. Controlling a ball in that way on a moving wheel would be quite complex to avoid it suddenly deflecting visibly.
![Quando Rondo - Grow Up [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8zFnCg3BO4Q/mqdefault.jpg)
in 3D-printers we're readily putting 12-24V into 2-3V steppers since they are running on a constant current chopper driver. This gives excellent response and torque. I guess this item is so old that it was before the modern chopper drivers so it was probably run by a quad set of NPN transistors and a power resistor for dropping the excess voltage.
So, with a tweek, Clive could have thrown the ball out the window? That would have been engaging video…
The listed voltage has always been the dc voltage. ie V= IR on the steppers. You normally drive then with 2 or more time the voltage, but you limit the current.
@@Dust599 Old equipment would use series resistors in combination with higher voltage, to allow the current to rise faster.
This explains why I thought my meter was shot working on my 3d printer.
The is one of the nicest sounding motors I've ever heard, I want one!
Oh, I love the sound of it ramping up. As with most things, its beauty is in the simplicity.
Four of those would make a very funky set of car wheel hub caps.
And make the lights flash when they stop on a jackpot! Lol
"overdriving" the steppers has been a thing for a very long time, so that one probably did it too. There's some kind of current control so when the motor's stopped it will have the nameplate voltage across it. But if the motor is spinning fast, the voltage will rise a lot due to the inductance of the coils, so the voltage is used to overcome this.
I always used to think these things contained magnets to always push the ball to where you don't want it to go lol
No. It just uses odds stacked against you.
Now this is something I've wanted to see for a long time!! These Whittaker Roulette machines are one of my favourites and sadly becoming less and less common thanks to the newer American ticket machines making their way over here and replacing them. I've seen many of these machines where the motor loses traction and stalls like you mentioned, I once reported one that was doing it every time to one of the arcade staff and they looked at it and said "It's supposed to do that" 😂😂😂
I'm also quite surprised this doesn't have any electromagnets underneath it to steer the ball away from the winning colours when it doesn't want to pay out but this is an older one so maybe the newer ones do; it's also a shame you didn't get the rest of the machine as I've always wanted to get the voice messages and music raw off the machine.
Unfortunately, Whittaker Bros stopped manufacturing new machines a couple of years ago so these will eventually just be history but luckily they still provide spare parts and their website is still live but advertising machines which are no longer made. I just want them to be revived again before all these machines vanish for good.
There are no such devices underneath as they would come under the title of fraudulent & would come with a serious fine
Literally a few days after this video is uploaded and me posting this comment, the Whittakers website has now been taken down. Coincidence?
@@felixscamp Arcades games have been rigged for years and they have always got away with doing it. Take Stacker for example, when the player gets close to the Major Prize level, the machine deliberately skips over the winning block position if it doesn’t want to pay out. I agree it’s fraudulent but they don’t get into any trouble for it
When I was selling my A4988 based stepper driver back in 2001, I had a few defective returns.
It turned out, if you unplug one of the 4 wires to the motor, while the motor was running, the chip would burn out.
I had to change my design to incorporate 8x ultra fast diodes at the output of the driver. Hell with synchronous rectification.
This was before Pololu was selling his. I can bet that the same thing happens to his driver module since he's not using external diodes.
ULN2003 has these diodes built in, and won't suffer if you suddenly unplug an inductive load from it.
For as long as I can remember, every stepper driver manual has had "Don't unplug motor while powered" written in it somewhere.
@@j.f.christ8421 No shit Sherlock!
What happens when the wire breaks from work hardening?
If know-it-all people like yourself are any indication, you'll whine to the seller that their stepper controller is no good and blew up for no reason. Then the seller has to deal with that shit.
@@piconano Well, who's a grumpy little boy then? I think you need a nap.
From you original message it sounded like you were the first person every to make this amazing discovery. Lol no.
Whittaker Amusement makers are just are just around the corner from my house in Shaw UK . 👍
Calculating the gear ratio for a toothed belt is easy, count the pulley teeth. No fancy math with decimal points or measurements required. I've seen stepper motors driven with a couple of hundred volts. It's all about the current. Keeping the current under control you can get some spectacular performance.
Yes, but counting that many teeth is a b\it of a job and you wouldn’t want to sit there watching him do so.
I was very pleased to see that it didn't shart as that can be very messy indeed.
Great to have made the experimental drive circuitry so we can al see it work. Thanks.
There's Scream if You Wanna Go Faster, well the mechanism may not have been screaming, but it was complaining. When I was young visited Blackpool, in the UK, you had the arcades with all the flashing lights, machines making ringing and various noises, then the screams of people having fun at the Pleasure Beach, that thing reminded me of places like that.
Thankfully lots of videos of the machine out there so I could see what the whole thing looked like. Yes, just a little too large to ship.
Although nominally rated for 5V operation it's possible to use a higher voltage to improve the di/dt curve with either "forcing" resistors or a chopper/constant current driver in order to improve acceleration capabilities, also the use of microstepping or at least half stepping during the early phases of the acceleration will enhance performance, another cheap trick used to be to run at nominal 5V, but switch to 12V for the acceleration/deceleration with deceleration being the killer of lots of cheap circuits due not including adequate facility for dumping the energy from what is essentially a flywheel. Interestingly in the past I was involved with the design of the controls for proper high stakes automated gaming wheels that ran on stepper motors - we had a lot of fun working out acceleration profiles to manage issues surrounding the various mechanical resonances that had to be avoided.
It very much reminds me of something that Tim Hunkin would make. Although I'm sure he would find a way to make it simpler, yet even more robust.
Lovely bit of workmanship and simple it’s just great thanks Clive for that gem
All I remember with them "Place your bets now please", 2p from memory.
They had these at the South Pier amusement arcade in Blackpool when I was working there, as a teenager. Was a bit of a swine to keep working as I remember.
@@TsiolkovskySportingLocks I remember it from an arcade in Dawlish Warren in Devon, and from when I worked as entertainment staff in Brean sands, drilled into my head. Haha, and dance machines.
Steppers can be driven at 10x / 20x the specified voltage.
With Steeper motors its about the Current! The voltage is only for the holding torque.
As soon as they go fast you need more voltage because oft induction.
“I like this it is nice! Let’s take it to bits.”
This is what every big Clive video starts with.
My favourite arcade machine!
You were one of those kids that destroyed everything as a child by tearing things apart to see how they worked, weren't you? 🤣 I did the same thing! I think most passionate engineers and electronics hobbyist we're those children as one point or another. Eventually we learned how to put things back together as well!
🙋♂️
I've never seen inside one of those, so that was actually simpler than I was expecting.
I do hope to own the full machine one day when arcadeUK has more space
Space is always the issue. These machines are classic arcade centrepieces. I wonder how much money they made.
You would be gobsmaked trust me
As mentioned on Patreon, this could make a really nice wall mounted clock. :) I'm also now curious about the coin acceptor mechanism you described. Always found those things intriguing.
That motor sounds AWESOME
Stepper motor driving is "interesting". I made several direct drive zoetropes, which have considerable mass to spin up, with consequent inertia. Getting them to spin up reliably took considerable coding effort. (By effort I mean trial end error). Driven by an AtTiny84 for those interested. Eventually made it reliable but it took a while.
Hahah brings back memories this does, used to love playing this in the arcade. Great vid clive
In my mis-spent youth, I put many a 2p in one of those. Sometimes the ball would land in the tiny groove between the disk and the cone..... the motor would just turn the disk slowly for a few revolutions until the ball dropped into the slot right next to the one I'd bet on :-) If it didn't drop in, the machine would go into fast spin again. I never walked away with more money than I'd gone in with :-(
BigGambling has reached the rooftop deck ❤️
I always thought these were a con growing up, thinking there was some kind of magnet under it to chose when to pay out or not.
Awesome video 👌🏼
No. It's just done with biased odds.
Loved these machines as a child, and after leaving school went to work with a amusement company,
All arcades are now the ticket payout devices,as the government don’t want children gambling, even 2p pushers pay tickets now. & to be honest,it does increase revenue for operators,the amount of tickets we get through in a season is eye watering. Very interesting video Clive
Nothing to do with the government not wanting kids gambling. It's more profitable to pay out tickets
4:12 Well... you need to consider, also, that stepper motors are inductive loads and, as such, they tend to draw less current as you rise the pulse frequency, whilst still maintaining a constant voltage. Torque in motors, as you may already know, tends to increase with, among other things, driving current. I would advise driving the motor with PWM, and increasing the duty cycle linearly with frequency. This will maintain the torque more or less constant throughout the desired RPM range. Cheers!
I used to love these as a kid. That's extremely familiar. They had one in Pwllheli amusements.
Stepper motors are usually current driven not voltage, "5V" on a stepper doesn't mean it's operating voltage. Taken from a website I can't link to :-
The voltage ‘rating’ of the motor is simply derived from the motor’s rated current and winding resistance. An example motor shown above is rated for 5 [A] (per winding), with a winding resistance of .5 [Ω]. The motor’s nameplate voltage is therefore listed as 2.5 [V].
This is the voltage that produces 5 [A] of current into the winding in steady state. However, a stepper motor must change the current in its windings rapidly and will not always run in steady state. Unfortunately, inductance is associated with the winding (since it is a large coil of wire). The winding inductance prevents current from changing instantaneously and will require time to increase the current flowing through the winding after a voltage is applied to it.
..........
A good rule of thumb is to use between 10 and 24 times the motor’s nameplate voltage for the system bus voltage.
Use a cheap step/direction driver from eBay/Amazon and you'll get far better performance particularly with ramping.
I wasn't aware of that. I've never used stepper motors much. It's good to know.
Some versions have small wire levers in the centre on each colour which get pressed when the ball falls into the colour slot so that the machine knows which colour has got the ball to pay out.
Reminds me of a stepper motor that I controlled through a centronics port, buffered by power mos-fets.
The sound of this reminds me of a 70s to 90s two speed lift shifting from full speed to low speed. Pretty sure it’s using a similar method to slow the speed down.
Thanks from Texas Clive.
Nice item, remember playing with them years ago. I always thought it had an electro magnet under it to catch the ball in the slot that paid out the least amount. 2X👍
if the initial pass of ball in 25, .brief speed-up/slowdown ?, to move it on a space before 2nd pass ?
I've just bought a modern NEMA34 motor kit... the driver module just wants direction and step signals... so much easier than using stepper libraries... just assert direction, and supply a pulse per step.... simples!
There are stepper drivers with built-in pulse generator. Set the direction, acceleration and target speed, tell it to go X steps (everything via SPI) and off it goes. The TMC5160 by Trinamic is one of these, but it requires external MOSFETs for switching. You can use it with the regular direction/step interface as well.
Whittakers roulette . Worked a lot on these back in the day. The coin entries used to be problematic after a few years of grime.
What were the main problems with them?
I've done this with fruit machine rolls, pretty interesting.
Accel stepper for the arduino and a microstepping driver can drive a motor like that one up to 3k rpm.
I think the 5v is its continuous or long term rating, the inductance of the windings reduces the drive current with increasing stepping frequency, requiring more voltage as you go quicker, constant current is a good way to drive steppers. I did a rough youtube vid of my 3 wheel fruit machine.
This was a display of the fundamental building blocks of robotics. Thanks Clive.
What a nice yellowing on the breadboard, actually, you kept a power regulation add-on on it for quite while, I guess?
I did.
They can use that inductor sensor in reverse by sending high current through it [which is why the wires are thick.] to attract the ball to any specific slot based upon the amount of time since the last trigger.
That sounds like the things they say on the gambling conspiracy channels.
Neat. It makes a wonderful sound.
Well, that's one exceptionally robust record player... :P
Clive! Could you solve Technology Connections' LED christmas lighting woes?
Still one of them at the Pier Bandstand amusements in Weymouth with a load of other older machines (including the excellent Tuppenny Nudger!). Great to have a choice between the likes of Alexander Gardens (and work) that have a lot of the latest machines and some of the others that have older machines, many a pound has been spent there over the years.
Tuppeny nudged!, blast from the past, taken those to bits a few times over the yrs
0:25 "... roughed up some software"!!!???? Jeez, Big C, I'm still struggling trying to make sense of basic circuit diagrams. Once again, you De Man. Thank you Sir.
There was an old novelty item sold on amazon that might be interesting to review and that would be the SUN JAR Solar light, its quite simple but it seemed to have sold well
We've all watched you for many years now. I was just thinking how nice it is watching you, as we can see that you really enjoy what you do. You could call it work & call it a hobby. I'd love to have your passion Clive. Well done fella. Your far to clever, far to clever. lol
Psychedelic man. I'm spinning now 🤓
Really interesting I had one when I was young with horse I loved it so much
Ohh wow that seems familiar! It’s one of my favourite games at the seaside. If your colour wins it gave out lots of tickets! As it’s on your bench I get the feeling I won’t be playing it next time!
Whew it’s not the same machine! There is a chance it could still be there when I return!
I have fond memories of that as a kid on holiday, I preferred the machines like horse race or any machine with the coloured bezel lamps. I always popped a coin on every outcome so you always win but will obviously lose money. I remember the loud buzzing sound when your coins were ready to fall in the machine. The annoying thing was if the coin slot was jammed or your coin didn't drop. Bad maintenance on the arcade owners side I think lol Something about those colours always sticks in my mind. Red, Green, Yellow, Blue and White everywhere. Also loved the penny pushers but they now stuff them with things that are too big to drop that the machine was never designed to have in it in the first place and they don't cost 2p any more they're bloody 10 or 20p, sod that! :D Would love to own a classic machine like that but I imagine the power consumption is a bit high. If I could I'd have the horse race one. Always wondered how it worked? (wink wink) '*cough*' get one and take it to bits '*cough*' ha ha
Many of the games of that era were very low power consumption.
I remember playing one of these on a sunny day out at the beach with some candy floss and a bag of chips. Those were the days! haha
Cool to see how this stuff works all these years later, never crossed my mind back then.
The solderless breadboard is likely why you had to crank up the voltage.Those things don't like more than a couple dozen mA running through the points.
That's a good point. I don't normally use them at high current.
Very good 👏
You're probably running into residence on the stepper promoters. One of the things you've got to do when setting up a CNC conversion using stepper motors is tuning the drivers to avoid resonant bands in the stepper. It sounds like you've accidentally hit one of those resonant bands.
Looks like you could mount that in a bucket or something and then at the pub the lower pays for the beer that round.
I always remembered these machines being more crooked than my granny's knees.
It's genuinely random, but the odds are biased to the house by more than a real roulette wheel.
That slipping is the stepper not getting the needed voltage I think, when running cnc machines on steppers they recommend driving at from 4 to 20 times the rated volts, of course trying not to exceed the per phase current. I would guess and from driving similar motors, that around 20-24 volt work for it, just keep an eye on the heat of the motor.
"PlaEce yOur bEhts now plEase" if I do remember from my childhood.
Remember the music it played too? The finger snapping?
"Voltage drop across the Darlingtons"? Sounds like something Kenneth Williams would have said. Or maybe Robo-Kenneth. OooOOooh I've got a terrible voltage drop across me Darlingtons!
lmao shart was absolutely appropriate it both took a shart by not workin then sounded like it was takin a shart lol
Clive we want to see you review
a QUEST 2 !
I've failed to buy one twice so far. They always seem out of stock of the 128GB version and I don't like being upsold.
And actually a vid on The reconditioned 64 would be awesome so we could see just how good they actually are and if it’s worth saving the $100
Whatever you decide to do, review it or not ,I trust your judgment but it would be Awesome to bump into you in the metaverse
Clive, if you're building a casino on the Isle of Man, I'm gonna have to quadruple my trip budget to get there... 🙄😉👍
" Place your bets now ", . . I can hear it.
Clive I loved this however I feel that there are Christmas lights you've not covered. I'm looking at buying a candle bridge, according to various sources the 7 LED bulb ones use 3W LEDs meaning they consume a whopping 21W over 7 lights. Surely this cannot be right? If it is is there any way to tame it down to something more reasonable like 0.5 watts per light? I also feel that the incandescent candle arch that you have may actually draw less power, i'd love to see a showdown between an LED and traditional incandescent arches.
I featured the lamps for a candle bridge in a video. They were very low power. You can't mix them with tungsten. You have to change them all at once.
Clive, you missed an important part of driving stepper motors as you ramp up the speed. To keep up the torque, you want constant current, not constant voltage due to the back EMF. Pick up a proper stepper motor driver to ramp the motor. Depending on the application, the driver may be run from 12 to 36 volts for that type of application depending on the speed desired. The driver takes care of the motor current at all speeds using motor inductance and PWM.
I've never had to drive a stepper motor in anger. Now I'm realizing why all the control circuits tend to have current sense resistors.
I've wondered for decades both how these work and who made them, so thanks for this. Like another commenter said, it'd be cool to hear the raw audio the machine played, or at least find out what the music track is.
Also, I wonder how the horse racing machines work that Whittaker's made.
Horse race machines are an absolute nightmare when they go down & an absolute nightmare to take to bits
There's a 1 in 25 chance of getting white in a TV adverts now.
MOSFETs do not need protective diodes, an unavoidable reversed diode is made into everyone. Ron W4BIN
By-gone days at Selsey Bill Caravan park! Quite fascinating to see how they ruined me out of many pounds worth of coppers.
May I inquire about the funky discoloration of your breadboard?
Sun and time.
Big Clive, wondering if you can help with this one, I have an relatively old led Christmas tree which I have just repaired ish, but I’m lost trying to figure out how it works. There are bi colour leds on the tree and the output voltage is essentially phase angle controlled ac to vary to amplitude and polarity of the output. Can’t see how that’s possible tho as all the thyristors are in parallel. Maybe you have seen a similar one?
It might be using inverse parallel thyristors to control both halves of the phase.
Are using half or full steps for the motor? Half stepping might give better high speed stability.
Full steps.
I would check and see if all the valleys on the wheel are the same depth. The highest multiplier might be the smallest valley.
They seem evenly sized.
@@bigclivedotcom: Ok. Just one of those random thoughts that ran through my head. Thanks for looking. BTW, are you helping out with any “new” lighting for the tractor parade this year? Or planning to watch it?
@@Dingomush I'm out of town when the parade happens this year.
You had me at arcade
I have a "Colorama" a similar machine.
I noticed that Colorama has a bug, where if a switch jams in it will instantly "win" as soon as the wheel stops spinning.
@@bigclivedotcom I'll fire mine up and see if I can recreate said bug. I'd love to see you explain some EM pinball stuff (steppers, simple hold coils etc) I use some of these parts to explain to school kids (year 6) how pinballs work and would love to direct them to your channel. Thanks for the reply 👍
Whittakers roulette ?? (just noticed it on the side lol) taken those apart many a time. Arcade Life...
The sensor probably flags when the ball lands on the "jackpot" position and spins again for a lesser prize
That would be obvious if it did.
"It will shart..."
*BZZRRRRRRRT*
Close enough, I suppose!
Five dollars on the ball landing in the whiffle funnel! 😂 👍
Also, did you find those fairground LEDs I sent you? Could make a nice short Xmas video... Though I imagine you're probably all planned out till summer with content!!
Yes I did. They resurfaced, so I think I know where they are.
It would be interesting to see a recording at normal frame rate (presumable 25 fps at your end), and then another recording at the same rotation but double frame rate (50 fps for most or all European countries, but 60 for people who record in North America).
3:31 i literally thought my computer shat itself to death
Cool machine. What happened to yellow that proto board? Looks like UV damage, or perhaps smoke deposits.
Sunlight and time.
Place your bets ! One moment please 😂
I think today the mounting block for the sensor would rather be a stack of laser cut acrylic pieces.
Would refitting the centre handle give it enough inertia?
Not sure.
Good Monday morning
So is this, as far as it goes, fully random? There's no control in the system for it to control the outcomes like AWPs? I thought the yellow unit might have been a solenoid and it did some kind of pulse on certain numbers (as calculated by the steps)... Interesting. What category would these be according to the Gambling Commission? I'm guessing cat D... But I dunno if it even applies!
It's purely random.
You had to Watch it with these machines some had Solenoid coils to de-orbit the ball early + others a more advanced Algorithm (orbit telemetry) ware it can time the ball and wheel just right spots to avoid wins
Some other could work out the ball Position using the steeper motors own coils with a more aware Power analyzer ESC - same tech as Balancing machines
Newer machines are starting to use MEMS (microelectromechanical systems ) - They can image 3D Magnetic fields Vary high Sensitivity - Cameras for magmatic fields
I'm not aware of any cheating with these machines. Controlling a ball in that way on a moving wheel would be quite complex to avoid it suddenly deflecting visibly.
Why bother when the odds are against you? Why is it gamblers never stop to think where the money for those fancy buildings comes from?
I've wasted many a 2p coin on these things, love finding out whats inside. I once won on white and it paid out like 50p in 2p coins lol
When we were at a show at nepcon we made a similar circuit on our placement machines as a giveaway not with the grafics tho
i remember one that had a big metal ball and it used switches in the middle to see where the ball landed
Colorama?
@@bigclivedotcom yes that's the one
Nice 👍🏻
Not sure here that optical sensor was, isn’t it normally a u shaped fork with an IR diode? You can only see two screws and a resistor
It has the fork.