Spar 7 Rebuild using ESP32S3 Part 1/2
This is the first video in a two part series where I rebuild a 50 year old Norwegian coin game (pajazzo).The original electronics are dead and replacement parts for this game are almost impossible to find.
There is not much available information online about the manufacturer of this game, but you can find a brief history here (Norwegian only): http://www.spilledilla.com/VisArtikke...
I have previously made replacement boards for these games that slotted directly into the edge connector for the original controller board. This was in an effort to preserve as many of the original components as possible and also make it a direct replacement. My last remaining board got fried when "something" in the power supply decided to suddenly start making buzzing noises while arcing to where it shouldn't.
Since the original replacement board design was mostly an exercise in how to get started with AVR development, I decided to spin a new board and also do some major changes to the internals of this game. The reasons why I'm departing from the idea of preserving backward compatibility are explained in the video.
This time I'm going for a full rebuild.
The new replacement board is a 4 layer 57x68mm board running FreeRTOS on an ESP32S3 (dual core 240MHz MCU). This replaces both of the original boards, but will require a new/modified wiring harness. The display is a one inch common cathode 7 segment display driven by a CD4511 BCD decoder / display driver, which in turn is controlled by the ESP32 via a ULN2003 transistor array. The board also contains an Omron relay for controlling the hopper (the motor that controls the payout mechanism).
Contents of this video --
00:00 - Intro.
00:07 - Inner workings of the original game.
03:57 - Edge connector from hell.
05:48 - Ripping out legacy components.
07:59 - Cooking up a few prototypes.
09:05 - Finished board.
09:13 - Schematics.
13:37 - Watching and old man live code...
23:18 - One man standup meeting.