Other projects • Re: Arcade Ticket Payout test

This is sort of a raspi question but also if there are any arcade tech personal in here.

We are on card readers so we no longer use tickets but I want to be able to test the readers functionally. Right now I am using a old PSU from one of my old games to provide 12v to the reader, then I have a coin meter to confirm the coin up of the game is working. I would like to test the function of tickets being paid out without putting it on a game.

Is there a way I could do this with a raspi 3b+ as I have several of these around. For those not familiar there is a motor enable from the game then there's a notch read signal that goes from the dispenser back to the game. I am thinking a payout of 15 tickets on a card swipe.

Ps I would need direct code as I am not great at coding fully.

TIA

Don't worry about code yet. If you can describe every step in detail then it can be coded later with confidence that you didn't overlook something.

Based on the outline above I would guess that the controller (Pi, Arduino, Pico, whatever) determines that n tickets must be dispensed. It turns on the motor by asserting the motor enable signal, then counts the notches in the ticket strip, by monitoring the notch read signal, until n notches have been counted, then de-asserts the motor enable signal.

There may be other signals, such as "tickets empty", but that could be inferred by noting that the motor was running, but the notch read signal was not changing for some time.

Once you know exactly how it's supposed to work then you can work on the electrical interface and code.

The Pi and Pi Pico use 3.3V signalling. Many electronic modules use 5V signalling, but your module might have 12V everywhere. So you're going to need to determine that and convert the signals to something that is safe for the micro.

Unless you are linking up to some more complex system I'd recommend a microcontroller such as Pi Pico or Arduino instead of a Pi. Especially if you just want something simple and standalone to test this mechanism.

Statistics: Posted by ame — Thu Aug 08, 2024 10:29 pm

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