Hey everyone, just thought I'd share with everyone a project I am currently trying to complete. I am attempting to make a fruit machine emulator cab that plays, pays and takes coins like real fruit machines. I've already made a "front end" that does most of the work, but I've been trying hard to get hoppers and a coin mech going over the last couple of months.
Coin mech was easy to get going and I shared a video around a month ago of this working:
http://vid128.photob...zpswqewfdua.mp4
I've done a bit more work to this, and Ive made a proper loom for the coin mech and it takes all coins. So thats all complete now and ready to move into my custom cab whenever I get around to making it.
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The hopper was a slightly harder thing to get going. I needed an interface board to allow the hopper to connect to a PC, and the hunt for the correct type of hopper that would work with the interface board proved more difficult than I thought it would be, mostly down to not doing my homework properly. I needed either a Azkoyen or a Cube hopper as the traditional fruit machine compact hoppers sadly do not work with them (although some people would be able to engineer them to work, but that's beyond my capabilities) But then it needed to be a parallel hopper, not cctalk. and also have the exact pin-outs I needed. Anyway, Whilst waiting to find the correct hopper it allowed me to spend a lot of time developing a front end to work with MFME and the equipment I've got.
The front end allows me to:
Add and play layouts, as many as you want.
Bulk change various layout settings such as Percentage.
Hides the MFME window so it is purely the machine that is showing.
Total control via buttons so that a mouse and keyboard are not needed.
Add favourite machines so you can select them quickly without having to go through the pages.
Full hopper control including engineers menu (dump, pay balances, show machine meters.
Saves a full log file to keep track of what the player has been doing.
Full coin mech support.
Its not totally finished yet, and is intended solely designed to work with the exact equipment I have, but it does work as it stands today.
Work commitments mean this project is going to be a lengthy one, but I will get there in the end.
Anyway, a quick video of the hopper working for anyone that's interested.
Couple of things to note in the vid is that ive not got the coin mech attached at the moment so am using keyboard but coin mech does work normally.
Windows taskbar is totally hidden when in proper use.
Sorry about the lengthy gameplay on Red hot X, I was just waiting for a reasonable bank to collect.
The "Machine will pay out...." box will not appear when finished, that's just for debugging.
Hope you enjoy.
https://www.dropbox....134239.mp4?dl=0
