Support for another driver board?

[vikingmop]

I'm curious if this would be a viable option I have two of these boards, what is involved in adding in support for this to be controlled over i2c inside the pinscape firmware? is this something that I can add myself or I would have to request you to put in ? and is there a reason this would not work for vpinball cabinets. https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-i2c-to-8-channel-solenoid-driver

[mjrgh]

The actual chip here is MCP23017, which is an I2C GPIO expander, so you could use the PCA9555 code (Firmware/Devices/GPIOExt/PCA9555.h and .cpp) as a model for it. It's basically the same kind of chip with a different register set. I'd be happy to look at a pull request for it if you wanted to take a shot at implementing it. It might even be something I could add at some point, although I'm not sure this particular board is compelling enough that I'd give it much priority (see below).

As for viability in a pin cab, it's the right idea, but I'd consider the current and voltage limits on the MOSFETs they're using a little on the low side at only 3.6A at 30V. I don't like pushing MOSFETs beyond about 50% of their rated maximum, so I probably wouldn't want to use them with anything beyond a small 12V motor or one of those little mini solenoids like they depict on the product page, and I don't think those would produce any kind of realistic pinball mechanical effect. That's not to say the chip itself isn't worth supporting, because you could easily build a whole other board around it with bigger MOSFETs. but I imagine the appeal here is the off-the-shelf-ness. If you want something off-the-shelf that's more suited for virtual pinball, you might contact RickH at vpforums.org, since he was considering offering pre-built sets of my DIY Expansion Boards.

[vikingmop]

I'm just geeking out and learning and am infact using smaller solenoids in a Mini pin, so everything is a little smaller and less demanding and cheaper, picture the micro version of a full sized cab with a 21 inch playfield and a 19inch backbox and a 7 inch full dmd, i've put in the pinscape pico for nudge buttons and plunger, and have two small solenoids running of a larger mosfet board with 4 of them on it, it works fine, but this seemed like a smaller micro version that would handle more in one shot, and I liked the idea of controlling it over the stemma qt wire thing I'm a total novice at all this stuff, but having the option to use it would be cool if you ever had time to put it in.

[mjrgh]

Sounds like your mini cab is a good use case for that board, and I agree that the STEMMA connector is nice and tidy (and uses fewer GPIOs than connecting one of the generic MOSFET boards). I'll put it on my list, but it might take a while to get to it - if anyone wants to look at it and submit a PR in the meantime, let me know so we don't duplicate effort.

[vikingmop]

I'm not a coder i'm a Motion Graphics guy for my career  so i'm just a hack at learning this stuff,  so I have no idea how to start into adding the code in myself, but i'd be willing to try but i'd be starting from ground zero with it.   I do better at using the tools you magicians who understand the code make.   no pressure, its on my desk to play around with but like I said I already have it working in pinscape with my Mosfet board so no rush but ya if you do have the time someday it would be so cool to be able to make it a functioning mini version.

[mjrgh]

You could always try asking an AI to "add support to https://github.com/mjrgh/PinscapePico/tree/main/Firmware for MCP23017, based on the existing PCA9555 code". I have a feeling this is not the sort of task that vibe coding will excel at, but who knows.