Leon Borre DIY Mini Sound Board

Add-0n mini sound module users manual

At first thanks to " Cliffy" from California who did the corrections of the English translation.

This module may be purchased as a complete working PCB unit. For the do-it-yourself types you will find the complete schematic in this manual. However, I recommend that you purchase the completed PCB as it is just economically more practical. The price is only $50 US built tested and comes complete with built-in microphone, loudspeaker and postage worldwide. Paypal is accepted.

Installation:

Connect the supplied miniature speaker to the connector SK7 using the supplied wire. Other speakers can be used but must have an impedance of 4 or 8 ohms and power rating up to 2 watts.

For use in a pinball machine there is a line out connection to use with the pinball's own sound amplifier. The output has a potentiometer to allow equalization of the extra sounds to the "normal sounds " of your machine. how-to; is explained in further detail for all pinball models and types later in this document.

Power supply, Three possibilities;

For first testing use a wall adaptor DC out 8 to 15 volts. The center pin MUST be positive!

For 6-volt battery operation use connector SK2 and watch polarity!

In the pinball machine, use excisting 5-volts, available in any electronic pinball. Connect using SK2 and again watch polarity!!

How to record , sound or speech;

Press and hold the record button, LD1 will light. The built-in microphone will capture your sound or speech. Be aware of surrounding noises during recording! If LD1 turns off during recording the memory is full and recording is stopped. Maximum time is 20 seconds. Release the record button as soon as the recording is complete.

How to play back, hearing your newly recorded sounds;

Push the play button once and you hear the sounds or speech via the small speaker. LD1 will flash once to indicate end of message.

For several successive sounds recorded one after another playback or recording selection is done by selecting message 2 to 5 MES. Connect appropriate MES 2/5 pin (SK3/SK4) to pin C of SK3 and then pushing record or play button. In a pinball machine the selection and play buttons will be replaced by extra switches. See examples later in this document.

There is no memory loss at power down. Any recording can be repeated or replaced by a new recording.

Extra's

If you want to use this add-on sound module for other purposes there are some extra features.

To play a sound once use P-E

For continuous sound use P-L

To repeat a sound use the Repeat switch and it will be repeated endlessly

A vieuw of the completed add-on sound module.

Dimensions of the PCB are about 3 by 4 inches.

Schematic

For those how want to know all about the ISD 1420 chip, or would like to make another add-on sound board , here are the data sheets ... a better copy of the schematic in PDF here ...

Connection to your pinball machine.

WPC games

The first thing to find is where to inject the sound on the existing sound board. Let's start with a few WPC games and their sound boards. The WPC games had three generations of sound boards.

The first one is type 16917 as found in Theatre of Magic,Twilight Zone, etcetera

Look about in the middle of the board above capacitors C11 and C26. Connect the shielding of the wire to C11 underside at the negative (ground). Now solder the hot (positive) wire at C26 on the upper side. On the photo you can see my thin gray wire hanging down.

The second as in Scared Stiff type 20516

Find near the middle of the board R14 and solder the hot wire at the upper side of R14 and the shielding of the wire at ground. There is a good ground soldering point just at the left of R14 on the existing ground trace (see photo, gray wire hanging down)

And the third type 12738 a in Terminator and Addams Family, et al.

Look about the middle of the board at the left, find C30 and a bit higher C34. Solder the hot wire to C30 underside and the shielding at C34 ground underside.

POWER SUPPLY

The add-on sound module requires 5 volts dc. You can find that at several places in the pinball. The best is to put the extra sound board in the backbox. This to help keep the wiring to the existing sound board as short as possible. On the power driver board of WPC games there is a marked test pin for 5 volts it's easy to make a connection at that test point. As for ground just connect at a grounding trace anywhere.

Williams System 3 to 6.

We have two different types of sound boards possible. Both will be connected in the same way. The signal is connected to pin 1 of connector J4 (hot wire) and the shield wire to a ground.

Williams type 1 board.

You can solder just under pin1 of connector J4 and at the right you have a ground trace to solder the shield wire.

Williams type 2 sound board

Pin 1 of connector J4 cannot be found at the front of the board. This time we have to remove the board from the pinball and solder at the rear side at pin1 J4 and again, shield to ground as above.

Bally sound board type A52888

Connect shield to ground and the hot wire to the jumper wire that you find between R38 and R37.

Data east type 520-5050-00 as in Star Wars et al.

The Data East sound board has three channels, three separate amplifiers! I chose the one that drives the big speaker in the bottom of the cabinet.

We connect the hot wire at R23 at the side that is closest to the cooled amplifier IC and ground is nearby on the grounding trace. R23 is at the upper left side of the board, near the cooled amplifier IC.

Zaccaria type 1B11136 or 1B13136 as in Farfalla, Magfic Castle ..

Some of these sound boards have more or less components mounted, depending of the pinball type, Farfalla has less, Magic Castle using more speech and different sounds has more. Still, it is the same board. Connect the hot wire at C49 upperside,sometimes this C49 is not mounted on the board ( Farfalla) still you can connect at that point. Ground is nearby on the grounding trace of the board. C49 is at the left corner at the underside of the board.

Zaccaria type 1B11178 as in Clown ,et al.

Here we connect at R72 underside and the nearby grounding trace of the board. Again we find R72 at the left corner at the underside of the board.

More to come .. Other Bally's, williams , Zaccaria, Gottlieb..

Inputs

The last thing to do is to insert command contacts wherever you like to 'start' the extra sounds. For sound 1 (one) you need only one contact (start) that closes. For additional sounds (2,3 up to 5) you need two contacts (double blades) one contact that replaces the start button between ground and P-E and a second contact that allows selection of the sound (Mes2, Mes2...) Make sure one contact closes just a bit sooner than the other and use the first closing contact for the selection (Mes2, 3...) and the last closing contact for 'start'

Here is an example as wired into my Scared Stiff. I connected extra sound at the slingshots. The left slingshot cry " YES, YES! YEEEESSS!!!; and the right says " GO, GO! GOOOO!!"; using a sensual female voice. Very nice effect, as the slingshots are frequently hit.

Here you see the single contact blade under the actuator arm of the slingshot, as long as the slingshot is at rest the contact remains open. When the solenoid pulls the lever down, the upper blade is no longer held by the lever arm and the contact closes. The contacts are wired to C and P-E on the add-on mini sound module.

Here a double contact blade is mounted under the second slingshot, the photo is not very good but you see clearly the little (white) wooden block mounted to the playfield. The double bladed contact is screwed onto that block because here the lever arm closes the contacts when the solenoid is activated and the contacts had to be beneath the lever arm. I raised the blades by putting the wooden block under their mounting point. Yes you will have to use some imagination to mount the command contacts at the places you wish. The first closing contact is wired between C and MES 2, the second between COM and P-E of the add-on mini sound module.

And there you have it !

How to connect the sound, the power and the command inputs. The only thing left is some initiative and imagination!!

EXTRA.

If you want to add some sounds to an EM pinball that's easy now! Use the 6 volt of the lamps to feed the sound board but use a bridge rectifier and a capacitor to make DC from this 6 volt AC. Add a speaker in the cabinet; the amplifying is done on the sound module. Use the speaker output to a 2 watt, 4 or 8 ohm speaker. For the input signal you can use the contacts that drive the bells or chimes. These are on the 10, 100 and 1000 points relay's.

As I said before, use your imagination and you will be busy!! Good luck and most of all HAVE FUN!