JAMMA PCB/Supergun protector-- any interest?

[havok1919]

Hey Everyone,

So after having a Battle Garegga PCB damaged when a power supply failed, and an ST-V motherboard lose a couple input channels due to an ESD hit this year alone-- I'm finally going to manufacture my "JAMMA PCB Protector" board to use on all the JAMMA boards we run in our arcade (and in my collection).

Since I'll need to produce 100's of them anyway, I figured I see if anyone else would be interested in them?

In a nutshell it's just a little pass-through JAMMA extension circuit board (connector on one side, cardedge on the other). There's IEC61000-4-2 spec ESD protection on all inputs and video signals, active voltage clamping and reverse polarity protection on +5V, and self healing fuses with overvoltage protection on +12V, -5V, and the speaker outputs. Also a couple extra snubbers on the coin counters. Probably run about ~$35-40 in qty 1. Let's call that one "deluxe".

A second version is about the same, but only providing ESD protection on all the lines. It'll be more like $20/ea qty 1. We'll call this one "standard".

For home users you would probably just put one of the "deluxe" units in your cab or supergun and it'll protect whatever you connect to it. (That's mainly insurance against a power supply failure or ground bounce or ESD hit to the supergun or cab hitting the board.) For boards that you want some protection on during handling, the 'standard' version gives much improved ESD protection.

For arcade use (and/or paranoid collector type behaviour, like me) I'll put a 'deluxe' unit on every PCB-- that way if a tech makes a mistake during repairs, or there's some other 'odd' condition (switched up power wires, bad power supply, poor grounding, etc.) the PCB isn't damaged and it has ESD protection on the cardedge at all times while being handled. In our case, if a game is down for a few days waiting for a replacement board (assuming we can get one) it costs more in lost income than the protection board-- not to mention that I dread having a $1500 import board killed when a switching power supply decides to let go...

Anyway, that's the project. If you're interested, either reply or PM me. As they say "there's no commitment and no salesman will call". (It really just amounts to how many 'extra' boards I run since I'm already making the device for our own use anyway.) I'll have some sort of quantity discount too if you needed a bunch.

Thanks,
-Clay

[system11]

This sounds quite interesting - can you keep the thread updated when they're closer to being available? I'd be interested to know how big they'll be.

[cools]

Does sound interesting. I'd be after a few. Wondering if they'd provide some indication of over/undervoltage?

[havok1919]

To answer the previous posts--

Size should be about 4.4"x1.25" or so, although there's really no reason why it couldn't be a little bigger or smaller. (Smaller circuit boards are less expensive to produce, so I'd probably only make it 'as big as it needs to be'.) The JAMMA connectors I had manufactured for another product (the MultiJAMMA) do not have the 'ears' on them so that they clear boards that have the JAMMA cardedge recessed. The connectors are gold plate over nickel on the contacts and I'll have hard gold on the cardedge as well.

As for indicators, there's LEDs for the 5V rail indicating 'undervoltage' and 'overvoltage' faults and then a 'power good' indicator if no faults are present. Probably do green for "OK" and red LEDs for the fault conditions. Or maybe red for 'over' and yellow for 'under' or something...

The 5V protection is an active circuit which actually limits the voltage to the PCB regardless of input voltage (at least up to the voltage present in most JAMMA cabinets-- it'll be rated up to about 20V, enough to cover a bad output from a switcher or 12V->5V 'oops'). If the voltage exceeds the "power good" window the overvoltage LED comes on while the circuit is clamping the output to 5V. If the input voltage stays too high for too long, the 5V rail is disconnected from the load entirely. (This allows for it to clip short voltage spikes without disrupting operation, while safely disconnecting too high of input if it persists-- like if the 5V regulator fails in the power supply, or if the 12V line shorts across the 5V or something.) If the 5V supply goes under 5V, the board is allowed to keep running, but the 'undervoltage' LED comes on. There is also reverse polarity protection in the same circuit so that any voltage under zero volts is simply limited to 0V. (I can't think of many cases where that's likely to happen, but if you lost an earth ground and had a bunch of AC riding on the 5V input, or if someone connected the -5V up by accident it's still protected.)

The protection on the +12V and -5V rails is less high-tech (since they tend to be limited to the analog section of the game PCB which is more robust to begin with for a variety of reasons). There's simply a high speed voltage clamp that shunts current to ground as the voltage exceeds the limit. If the fault persists, the higher current causes a self-healing fuse to open up and disconnect the power. When power is removed and the fault corrected, it'll start up again normally. (Not like a fuse that you have to replace when it blows.)

I'm not real sure where I'll set the "power good" window yet for the 5V input. I'm thinking maybe +/-5 or 10%, or maybe make that user adjustable to a couple settings with a switch. (Just in case you had a boardset that *had* to run at >5.5V or something to work.)

Thanks for the questions-- helps to make sure that I've thought of everything. (...and it's easier to make changes now before I pull the trigger on the PCB fab.)

-Clay

[Artemio]

I am interested in 1 or 2 of these, would it be possible to ship it internationally? Of course with shipping covered by the customer.

[havok1919]

re: international shipping

We should be able to come up with something-- maybe I'll be able to find one or two of the more "retail" resellers to do fulfillment for international orders... This forum in particular has a lot of international coverage. I'll have to look into it more. I've been exclusively using FedEx for everything I do here, but for international they're pretty expensive and there's a lot of paperwork that has to get generated on their website (commodity codes and country specific stuff). It's not a *huge* problem when it's one box of stuff to a reseller, but it sucks up a lot of time when it's a lot of smaller orders.

-Clay

[Ed Oscuro]

I would view this as a worthwhile investment.

Will these work with Konami / Nichibutsu adapters? I wouldn't see why not, but older boards (not just the K / N ones) do draw lots of power.

[havok1919]

Will these work with Konami / Nichibutsu adapters? I wouldn't see why not, but older boards (not just the K / N ones) do draw lots of power.

Those should be fine-- it's spec'd to support ~7.5A continuous on the 5V rail and 2A continuous on the 12V rail. (Pulsed current demands could spike up around 30A without any problem.) I'll have to see if I can find my old spreadsheet with JAMMA board current consumption to look at the raw data, but back when I collected the numbers for spec'ing the MultiJAMMA I decided that basically a "5A @ 5V per board" rule of thumb was safe for 99% of the JAMMA boards out there (and close to 100% margin of error in most cases).

The worst case scenario is an older multi-board stack (think like an old three-board sandwich-- Ikari Warriors or similar). In that case I think everything I tested still passed the "2A per board in the stack" rule, so 7.5A should be plenty. (The vast, vast majority of boards were under 5A. I'll go through and re-test a bunch to be safe-- my MultiJAMMA Power Controller shows realtime current on the 5V rail, so all I need to do is plug boards in and write down the results.)

[Clifton]

I'd certainly be interested in 2 of the Deluxe and 1 standard for bench testing boards. Looking forward to hearing how you progress with this project.

[Ganelon]

I'd be interested in a deluxe, although I guess it won't be able to protect against any dangers posed by having kick harnesses plugged in the wrong way (although I don't know of any kick harnesses that could pose an issue by themselves).

[Arasoi]

.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Sign up PCE-FX! for one of those cool "deluxe" Jamma protector PCB please. It's always good to have protection with those mighty expensive and rare arcade PCBs, especially on a candy cab.

Even "tech god" Matt Ross was known to implement "quick-blow" fuse protection (on both the 5v and 12v lines) on his handcrafted Superguns. Ace stuff indeed. I had such a fuse blow and it was just a simple trip to Radio Shack to get a box of properly rated fuse replacements. Easy as pie. Better for the fuse(s) to blow than to see your precious PCB end up in smoke "big-time". Such is the nature of the arcade PCB hobbyist to experience from time-to-time. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[pcb_revival]

Two deluxe models pre-order please.

[Trevor spencer]

id be interested in a deluxe model , i do get a bit nervous when i play my ketsui board from time to time

[StarCreator]

I can say I'm interested, but at this point I'm not yet sure if I'm going to continue PCB collecting or sell them all off... if I do keep a PCB or two, I'd definitely be in for a deluxe.

[havok1919]

Thanks for the continued feedback everyone! Looks like the main interest level is in the 'deluxe' version.

I just finished up the circuit board layout and should get prototypes ordered today. Probably have something to start test/debug later next week.

I've added a few features and changed some fabrication specs (decided to do a four layer board + hard gold contacts on the card edge for durability) which pushes the price up, but for anyone that posts here that you want one before I'm shipping them I'll honor that rate. (We'll call it a "pre-order discount".) I'll probably need to add ~$10 to the price later on to cover the extra parts and higher fab costs (man, gold prices really affected gold plating!).

So right now the feature list is the same as my original post with the addition of:

* a triple DIP switch that allows options for setting--
a) how tight +5V over voltage clamping is-- either 5% or 10% tolerance
b) whether or not under voltage results in removal of +5V power (under voltage lockout-- UVLO)
c) whether or not +12V is applied to the additional coin counter snubber circuits

* hard gold plate on the JAMMA card edge to better handle multiple insertion/removal cycles (gold over nickel plate)

* Three status LEDs--
a) "Good" -- +5V supply rail is A-OK
b) "high" -- +5V supply is actively clamping an over voltage event (if the event persists, power will be removed until the fault is cleared)
c) "low" -- +5V supply is low and under voltage is detected (this will remove power to the board until corrected if the UVLO is enabled)

* Four layer PCB with internal power and ground planes

* I staggered the fingers on the JAMMA card edge so that ground will always connect first, then power, then I/O's. (so if anyone were ever to hot plug a board either intentionally or accidentally you get ground contact first so the ESD protectors work when contact is made to the signals lines-- similarly, with power contacting second you get the protection parts up and running before the I/O's make contact as well. Obviously unplugging is the reverse with ground potential staying connected until the end.)

For those of you interested in the size, it's about two inches deep (and then JAMMA card edge wide-- basically about 4.44"). Once I get prototypes in I'll post some pics.

-Clay

[Artemio]

Count my two deluxe in, I am the international guy. In case it is too much trouble I can send them to a friend in the US and he'll ship them for me.

[kebrank]

I need 2 x deluxe units. I don't want to derail the main idea behind this protector but it would be awesome to add an autofire circuit to the PCB like the one that MAK.jp is selling (http://www.mak-jp.com/ctrbox.html). It would also make the protector more interesting to other fellow shmupers.

\o/.k.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

If auto-fire option is added to later Jamma PCB protectors, it would nice to have adjustable rates of auto-fire for buttons 1, 2, 3 and 4. There are some external auto-fire PCBs that only have a fixed rate of auto-fire. Those cheap-ass Nintendo Advantage Sticks have the cool "555" timer chip which is handy for auto-fire purposes -- you'd have to desolder & extract them manually though.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[havok1919]

Heheh... interesting idea on the auto-fire. 555's work, but need a fair amount of extra components. I'd probably just throw a microcontroller at it and implement it in firmware...

The stuff I've seen all looks pretty simple-- a couple dip switches or knobs set the rate for each button-- maybe an LED to show the firing rate. Are people happy with that or would something with a little more up to date features be a welcome addition? In particular, I'm thinking of something like an on-screen display for the settings so you can set it even if things are in a cabinet (or whenever access to the JAMMA connector/harness is inconvenient)... Maybe something like holding down P1B1+P1B2+P1S for ~three seconds calls the menu and lets you set the rates for each button with the joystick? (up/down selects the button, left/right adjusts the rate)

From a hardware cost standpoint, once there's a microcontroller there''s not a big difference for the on-screen display implementation and it seems like it would be a convenient/neat way to do it... I'm not sure about adding it on the protector board though, the costs on that one are already kinda high. I suppose there's nothing wrong with just having a 'super' version of the protector with the extra stuff on for a extra $$$.

I ordered the prototype PCB's for the protector already, so I should have them next week. Auto-fire will have to wait until then, but it's an interesting idea...

[havok1919]

Oh, "P.S."...

Any interest in 'remote' volume control? (ie, ability to adjust the output volume from the game board using the same on-screen settings as the auto-fire?) We use upright cabinets for virtually all our games and having to open them up to adjust the volume is, at best, a pain.

[kebrank]

Hi Havok,

What about a voltage display on the protector? Something like: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10787
or smaller if possible. I think it would be a great addon to know the exact voltage running thru the protector. I have seem some superguns with a double digit display for the voltage. It's a great tool to make adjustments.

\o/.k.

[system11]

Definitely interested in a deluxe one, although autofire is for wussies.

Maybe you'll need to make three types Basic, deluxe, and deluxe with toys.

[Trevor spencer]

voltage display sounds cool , im with bloodflowers on the autofire tho

[havok1919]

What about a voltage display on the protector? Something like: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10787
or smaller if possible. I think it would be a great addon to know the exact voltage running thru the protector.

Ahhh, yeah... That's a good idea too. I don't want to make the protector board *too* huge, so maybe the thing to do there is add a couple connectors that a voltage monitor could plug in to as a daughterboard add-on option.

I actually have another product that has a voltage display on it, so that's all pretty much cut-n-paste for me. On that device I also show the current consumption on the +5V rail, but I'm not sure that it's much more than a curiosity for something like this. (On the MultiJAMMA Power Controller you can have up to eight JAMMA boards powered from this one board, so the current monitor is there to show how much you're pulling from the power supply so you know not to exceed the limits of the PSU). I have a little pushbutton on the board and three indicator LEDs that show what voltage is 'selected' (+5v, +12V, etc), so you can choose which one to monitor, or let it auto-scan.

I don't have a good picture of the display in question (at least not that I remember where I put it), but here's one that's better than nothing-- the little yellow/black PCB has the voltage display/current monitor on it:

http://www.embeddedengineeringllc.com/m ... talled.jpg

Keep the ideas coming!

[Ed Oscuro]

Bloodflowers' idea is amazing, I'd love to have some "native" autofire (though wish me luck in ditching PS2 controllers lol). I'd definitely get whatever version has that as a feature.

[kebrank]

Havoc,

The voltage display in that picture is perfect and quite useful.

bloodflowers, I don't know if I would call wussies the ones using autofire but it's a nice option when you are not looking to build muscle .

I want 2 deluxe adaptors but I would happily pay extra money for these 2 features on them.

Thanks,

\o/.k.

[kebrank]

Ed Oscuro, "Bloodflowers' idea is amazing". Hey, the autofire thing was my idea

\o/.k.

[havok1919]

Hey everyone...

Got prototypes of the "JAMMA Shield" in today and did a little testing.



Here's some more pics of the testing:

http://picasaweb.google.com/claycowgill ... directlink

I explained what you're looking at in the captions, but basically it's just showing a couple normally "fatal" power supply failures and what happens when the protector is in the way (AKA, nothing-- the PCB survives with no drama).

In the event of a negative voltage going to the +5V supply of the PCB, the protector simply doesn't pass the voltage to the board. It remains off.

If the voltage exceeds +5VDC, the protector limits the output to the PCB to 5V +10% (or 5% depending on dipswitch setting). That allows a temporary voltage spike to simply be clamped without harm (like if the regulation on the power supply isn't great, or the board's current consumption suddenly changed and the power supply overcompensated due to long power harness wiring, etc.). If the over voltage fault remains present for too long, then the power to the PCB is disconnected. After a timeout, the protector 'tries again' to power up the board (all the while clamping any over voltage condition). That way if you have a power supply that overshoots for a while when it first turns on, no harmful voltage makes it to the board-- but it still allows the power supply to start up with a load.

Anyway, that's seems nice and stable. I'm pleased.

I'm waffling on a couple features now. After thinking about it some more, I don't really see much value to the clamps on the -5V and +12V inputs. Failures there are pretty uncommon and those voltages are almost always just used for audio and op-amps. (Most all opamps and audio power amps have a much wider voltage input range that that anyway.) I'm thinking now that it'd be better to leave the over current protection on the +12V input (in case an audio amp shorts) and remove it from the -5V. Instead I'd put the money and circuit board realestate from that towards a little connector to allow plugging in a nice LED voltage monitor display option and maybe a second connector to allow for an autofire board for those that want one.

At any rate, just wanted to show progress so far!

-Clay

[rtw]

Looks awesome, Please sign me up for a deluxe model

It would be very good to have displays on the PCB itself since you're actually interested in the voltage at the connector NOT the voltage on the power supply since cables will have a voltage drop in them.

Please make sure you pass all wires through the JAMMA i.e. +5V on ALL 4 pins. We don't want any trouble with System 18

Autofire would be interesting but I'm not sure you have enough board space for the DIP blocks which remap all the buttons...