Ultra beginner need help with pinball controller project

Hi
I am ultra new to this hobby and to this forum, so forgive if I posted on the wrong sections please.
I wanted to make pinball controller for my pc and I have found explanation and diagram, but I am not sure about the kind of wires I need to use and also, I attached the diagram and it looks like most of the connections are simple (from one end into another), but the launch button connection looks like it goes into multiple ends, so what kind of wire or splitter do I need?

I suggest you to start your project on breadboard and use jumper wires.
Start small with just getting the Arduino board working and then add components. Once the whole project works on breadboard you can solder a more permanent project together and perhaps drill some holes put it all nicely into the casing of the keyboard.

If you follow the wires to the Arduino board, you can see the label on the board is GND for the the purple wire. This is a common ground pin. Then, like the two flipper buttons, the launch button has a blue control wire that is connected to an i/o port. Looking at the labels again you can see numbers 14, 15 and 16. These are the port numbers that are used to identify pushing those three buttons.

Good luck and have fun!

So, about the launch button, I see it goes from it's left end to the right flipper and to the left into the ground on the board and continue to the right flipper (purple wire), so it is kind of split wire that goes into multiple spots?
p.s - thank you very much for the useful tips and quick support :wink:

Although on the image the purple wire seems split, you can see a small dot to signify that the different wire sections are interconnected. In reality when using the breadboard you just use a common row to connect multiple jumper wires to the same GND pin.

When soldering things together you could use experiment board that has many holes, make your own PCB, or just solder the wires directly to the components. In all cases the purple wire represents multiple connections from the GND pin to each of the components.

It doesn't really matter how you make the connection, as long as all three buttons have one wire going to GND and another wire going their respective i/o pin.

Look at it this way: each of the three buttons is wired between a pin and GND.
So basically 3 signal wires and 3 ground wires.

Ok, thank you for helping me to close this little gap about the diagram with my self :slight_smile:
just wanted to make things clear in general before I start.

btw, from your experience, is it ok (safe) to buy the boards from aliexpress?

I don't know, I don't buy on Ali.

No, it's not safe. There is a higher risk of receiving a faulty or incorrect item, compared to buying direct from Arduino, Adafruit, Sparkfun and other well-known stores. But it is much cheaper. It's your decision whether the saving justifies the risk. Often the prices are so low that many who use Arduino only for hobby are happy to take that risk.

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I bought many items from Ali and almost everything was delivered and worked without issues. If you want to support the Arduino organization, you can buy their hardware. Companies like Adafruit and Sparkfun also contributed much to the Arduino ecosystem. If you cannot afford to buy from them, then Ali is safe enough to start your hobby.

And if it does not work (whatever that means) those hobbyists come here asking why it does not work :cry:

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That's true.

I guess it would be reasonably good advice to buy your first Arduinos, sensors etc from a well-known and trusted source. But you don't build those items into your permanent projects, you keep them and re-use them only as your prototyping components. You buy components for your project builds from cheaper sources. This means those reliable and supportive sources get some sales and you have some known-good components to test the cheaper ones against.

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I know it as golden samples while working in the IC test industry.

They only came out of the safe when developing test programs or in the below scenario.

If you were testing a batch of ICs (that was hundreds or thousands of them) and the failure rate was too high, you tested with the golden sample(s). If those results were OK, you knew that the test equipment was OK and that the batch was bad.

It's just showing all the buttons are tied to one ground pin. With no external resistors, you would use the pullup resistors built into the Arduino like

int launchButton = 15;
void setup() {
  pinMode(launchButton, INPUT_PULLUP);
}

It is preferred to use the internal pullup resistors. You just have to keep in mind that the default state of the button will be HIGH, so in your test to read the launch button, you'd be looking for a pressed button state of LOW.

In my opinion, I think everyone entering the hobby should show at least some love and buy at least one genuine Arduino board.

An Uno R3 is a great choice, and for your project, which depicts the Pro Micro (not my personal choice of boards, ever, after having used them a couple of times), the Uno is much easier to physically work with and very reliable. I have a few Unos installed in an unheated garage in Canada that have worked great for years now.

If you want to make the build even more beginner-friendly, on top of the Uno R3 (literally), you might attach a terminal screw shield which will make easy work of all your connections, and parts replacement for the buttons and stuff simple. Something like this:

Thank you very much for your support and useful advices, I appreciate it a lot.

1 Like

As others have indicated it is good to buy some genuine parts from known sources. I have several genuine boards and a lot of Ali express boards.

When buying from Ali have a plan to test the parts when you get them. I have had failures up to 20% of the time. If you are getting processors and sensors/displays/whatever write test programs using various combinations. If they all work you are good to go. If not run the same test with your known good boards.

The handling of bad parts has changed over the years. Originally if you had a problem it was easy to get a refund. Later they required more documentation. (I think this may have been due in part to people abusing the refund policy.) I sometimes just wrote it off if the effort was too much (how much time do you spend to get a refund on a $1 part). I haven't ordered in a while, but I hear it is even harder to get satisfaction. I don't know how much of this is "just business" and how much is a change since Jack Ma disappeared for "reeducation". (He founded Alibaba and Ali Express and got in trouble with authorities for his views.)

Woah!

In theory, Uno could be used for this project, but it will make things very difficult and risky for @pikilin and I would not recommend it at all.

Uno's atmega328 doesn't have Native USB Support, a feature important for games controllers.

Uno also contains an atmega16u4 chip which it uses as a USB-serial interface chip. It is possible to re-flash the firmware of this chip, if you have the necessary tools and expertise. Get this wrong and your Uno can be bricked. Not for beginners!

A distinction needs to be made. You CANNOT buy an Arduino or any clone of one from AliExpress. They do not sell such things.

AliExpress ( or Ebay or Amazon) just provide a forum for other sellers. Some of those sellers are legit and some are a ripoff. But you must accept that there are many many sellers on that site and they are not all the same.

Your question is like asking if it is safe to buy a car from Chicago. Well Chicago doesn't sell cars, it is a city. You'd have to ask about the actual seller of the car for that to make any sense.

Ah, ok. Going off of nothing except that one photo @pikilin posted. Had no idea what the software needs to do apart from read the sensor/buttons.

I managed to use an Uno R3 with a PC to read a Nintendo controller to play emulated N64 games on my PC though. That was a long time ago and I didn't write the code, nor what was required if anything to connect the Serial from the Uno to the emulator.

Anyway, @pikilin @PaulRB seems to be sure on this and he knows his stuff, so may be a good idea to take heed.

Good catch, Paul. Actually come to think of it, I saw that board in the picture and immediately thought of the Pro Mini, which I did not enjoy using. I didn't realize the Pro Micro is a different animal altogether until you just pointed it out (ATmega32U4 vs ATmega328P).

Wish they'd name these things more distinctly sometimes. Another example being the Uno R4, when it's not really similar to the Uno R3 at all apart from the superficial stuff.

Good point. When looking at a seller I check what other products they sell. If they only sell an Arduino clone and the other products are lawn furniture, makeup kits and skimpy women's clothes I move on. On the other hand if they sell a range of electronic boards and parts I figure they might have a clue about the products.

Another thing to look at is the part description and pictures. There are maybe dozens of manufacturers and hundreds of seller of the same parts at wildly different prices. I usually end up in the mid price range based on the "feel" of the site.

Keep track of the sites you buy from. Go back to the ones that were good and avoid the problem ones.