PinHeck System
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1 Introduction
This is the first boardset system used by Spooky Pinball. Designed by Ben Heck. Based on a micro controller, everything other than the switching power supply is contained on board.
2 Games
| Title | Date of Release | Model # | Production Count | Current Code Version | Board Set | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| America's Most Haunted | 2014 | AMH01 | 150 | 22 | pinHeck 1 | |
| Rob Zombie’s Spookshow International | 2016 | ??? | ??? | ??? | pinHeck 2 |
3 Technical Info
3.1 Boardset
The boardset is contained within a single multi-function CPU board and a switching power supply. America's Most Haunted uses the original pinHeck system. Starting with Rob Zombie’s Spookshow International, pinHeck 2 has been used. This update was minor, mostly to support a color LCD display.
3.2 MPU
The pinHeck system uses a single board design for the CPU, coil, light, switch, sound, and video controls. The CPU is based on a PIC32 architecture, running at 80Mhz. The CPU controls game logic and everything except audio and video. All Audio and Video (A/V) is controlled using a Parallex Propeller processor (Prop for short) running at 104Mhz. The Prop is connected to the CPU using an SPI based communication. This allows the CPU to say "Play sound 3", "Display Video 7", etc. This was offloaded from the CPU to allow critical timing for the game code to not interfere with keeping smooth and clear video and audio.
3.3 Power Supply
3.4 Lamp Matrix
3.5 Switch Matrix
The switch matrix consists of an 8x8 matrix for game switches and then 16 dedicated switches for various cabinet switches, such as coin door, flipper buttons, coin switches, etc.
3.6 Diagnostics & Bookeeping
The coin door buttons for pinHeck are shown to the left. The function of the two buttons (left to right) are:
- Red - Menu
- Green - Enter
4 Problems & Solutions
4.1 CPU Board Issues
4.1.1 Relocating Batteries
The pinHeck system does not use any batteries to hold information and incidentally will not suffer from acid damage that most games have issues with.
5 Game Specific Problems & Fixes
America's Most Haunted has been found to have a very reliable and well standing design physically. No manufacturing changes have occurred during production and no service bulletins exist. The game software however has significantly changed since the beginning of production to fix bugs in the code and allow things like ball search to work much more successfully. Updating the code for the game is will significantly help with any issue you may find in your game.