Where have I been?
It has been a long time. I suppose I lost some interest in the blog. Well, here is the tale of the last two months.
School
Plenty of it. Lots of homework, lots of labs and assignments. But it’s all getting done, piece by piece. We made a function generator in Analog Circuits, and in Digital Circuits we are having plenty of fun with boolean algebra and combinatorial logic!
Pinball
I repaired part of the issue with Gorgar. A bad 7408 chip caused the smaller transistor to stay on, thus keeping the large transistor locked on, thus keeping the solenoid on. The current drain damaged the solenoid, and destroyed both transistors. After replacing the transistors and the logic chip, it fires properly now, but the solenoid is having issues kicking the targets back up (perhaps it melted inside the shaft), and the drop targets aren’t scoring points (perhaps dirty contacts, or they are bent a bit too far back).
My dad has shuffled around the machines in the garage, and we’ve got a nice new solid state machine, Comet, and another project machine we grabbed for $160, I believe it’s called Gold Rush.
Music
Allan and I are starting to work on music as a band together, we will see where it goes. So far, one piece is based off the theme music for the Comet pinball machine, and the other is an acoustic sounding song. Hopefully this takes off!
Perhaps a more detailed post of the pinball machines is to come!