Are you planing on using MPF? Linux, Windows or Mac OS? Everything depends on those things imho. I use MPF and Cobra(OPP) running on Linux, can recommend.

We are pretty proud of our documentation and our FAST Homebrew Community over here at FAST! We are just home from a fun trip out to Pinball Expo and loved getting to see all the Homebrew and commercial games being built with FAST.

We have really enjoyed seeing people writing games in whatever software language they choose. There are great games written with MPF/Python (Fathom Mermaid Edition and most Homebrew games), Godot (Labyrinth, Swords of Vengeance), Unity, C and really any language that can make a high speed serial connection.

Please feel free to reach out and we can chat on a video call if you'd like to ask more specific questions and see some of the fun stuff we are working on over here at FAST HQ!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

there is an awesome website with lots of information. take a look, i think it will help you to find the board that fits your need.

https://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

I have no experience with P3, but I have used the FAST system, and my experience has been very good. Everything is pretty intuitive for beginners, and as Aaron said, a huge amount of FAST Pinball specific documentation is available for when you're ready to start building. The FAST slack group can also be a very helpful place for getting input from other homebrewers.

I used fast to make nightmare before christmas (remake). Aaron and his team (as well as the slack) are very helpful. Documentation can get anyone flipping in 30 minutes or less.

I personally believe fast has the best flipper feel - nobody believes me when I show them the JJP dual wound coils, they think I swapped the wrap on the coil to fool people. Snappy/responsive, million mile per hour ball after ball bouncing off a flipper held up (dual wound, so in hold) and it doesn't move even a tenth of a mm.

Fast flippers feel just as good as stern, a real compliment to fast.

My only issue is that one of my 1616 or 3208 boards has wonky rj45 pads/solder - at a show I was forced to tape them (only had frog tape with me) so communication would make the rounds across the whole network. I haven't reached out to Aaron fastpinball because I bought these boards 2 years ago, I think warranty for them is long gone... but otherwise, ZERO issues (they even include molex housing terminals and kk series trifurcon connectors to match whatever board you get).

Shoot me an email or hit me up on the FAST Slack with a photo of your RJ45 issue and let's see if we can sorted that out.

Maybe we meet up at a pinball show or something sometime and I can show off my board repair skillz.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

A prime example of why you should consider fast.

We’ll golly gee Zitt! I wonder why? Ain’t nobody gunna help the P3! Perhaps Homers like it fast! Defend your kin! This post has been up for a few days. Get the p3 posse over here! Let’s battle!

You will never see posts like this from people in the FAST Community.

Pick whichever platform you want to make pinball. Pick a community that encourages you to do your best.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Contribute something constructive. Tell the OP why they need to pick Multimorphic for their homebrew project.

Maybe give a link to one of your own homebrew builds and tell them why you think they should pick p-roc.

Of course my view is slanted, I used FAST for my homebrew, it works very well. To compare my main reason why I like it (flipper feel), P3 does not compare wrt to flipper drop (especially playing 30 minutes or more). I own a P3 and love it.

Edit:

I should mention, I am working toward making a module for p3.

I used the Multimorphic (p3-roc) boards for my home brew re-theme. They were easy and straight forward to use as a system to run my game. I'm sure Fast would have been just as easy to use but I had access to the multimphic parts and have friends that had also used them so I personally had more information and support going with them for my project. I did not do the coding for my game so I cannot speak about that. Just did all the wiring for my game. I believe there will be plenty of support from other people working on projects themselves no matter what you decide to use for your game. Good luck with your project!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dolly-parton-is-a-punk-/page/5#post-7728168

Cool project!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I don't comment much in these threads anymore. I think it's fair to say at this point that both board sets have been around for a while now and will do the job. They have various differences in how they work and what software can be used with them. I believe both have active communities, though I've only been in the #pindev slack channel, as it's open to anybody, and discussions span across all boardsets.

When you say "P3" and "flipper drop", what do you mean? The P3-ROC or the P3 machine? Heat buildup affecting strength or EOS-programmed knockdown (drop) resistance? The P3-ROC (the board anybody use to create homebrew machines) can drive single wound or dual wound coils. Each work differently and have different heat profiles. The P3 machine's flippers are very different than traditional flippers and also have different heat profiles than anything else out there... and some have EOS, some don't. Your comments suggests the control system results in a different feel, so can you please put that into context?

- Gerry
https://www.multimorphic.com

Sorry on my p3 multimorphic (which Final Resistance is FIRE, probably one of the best games in modern history).

As an example, ball will whip around an orbit and return to the tip of a flipper with the flipper held up will cause the flipper to drop before it recovers the hold. Happens on my Rick and Morty as well.

When the ship cannon fires a shot, sometimes the hit towards the tip and with flipper held up it wants to drop as well but then recovers (the recovery launches the ball which is an annoyance). Most of the time the ship throws them mid to proximal flipper and then it isn't an issue.

I think there is something at the low level how pulses are handled with the drivers.

As far as flipper responsiveness, P3 (and I assume p-roc elsewhere, I guess R&M was p-roc?) is snappy. Even on weird al after hours of playing I make that damned hamster wheel without much fuss.

Just annoying that drop happens time to time with a fast ball coming right for the tip.

Ah ok... Thanks for clarifying. That everything stays snappy and responsive after hours of play on the P3 is what we expect. Glad to hear that's what you're seeing.

To minimize the drop on fast incoming balls, you can adjust the EOS switch to activate quicker. That'll also minimize the rebound when the coil reactivates, though you can tweak the reflip strength in the settings too. All of that is just P3 software framework making use of various features on the P3-ROC system.

R&M's implementation is entirely differently. I can't speak to all of the specifics of the flipper design, but it's very different from the P3 machine's flippers, and the Spooky software team implemented EOS and reflip handling very differently. I believe it's software-controlled reflips, which will by definition have a bit of delay. Hardware-based EOS rules will perform better, which is why I bet adjusting your P3's EOS switches to be as close as possible to the physical end of stroke will give you the functionality you're hoping for.

The P3-ROC provides a set of tools/features, and designers can use all or some of them, as they choose.

- Gerry
https://www.multimorphic.om

Had to quote that one! Love your enthusiasm for Final Resistance! Glad you're enjoying it.

- Gerry
https://www.multimorphic.com

I've used FAST for my games, first the nano and now the neuron. It's a system I really like working with and the FAST community is great and vibrant.

I feel welcome there and have made a lot of great friends.

I’m planning on doing a retheme of an EM this year and am wondering about boardset. Basically I want the game to look and feel like an EM with solid state guts. Will be using the scoring reel mechs and the chimes with additional sounds and music over it.

Can FAST do this?

Having sold kits with different platforms and having used all of them in my own stuff, they all work to build a game. There is no negative to any of the hardware platforms at all, they all have just a slightly different approach. I have spoke to all the owners of each and all are super good people who care about helping the people using them. The fact that ole Zitt up there decided to make this a negative does not speak to any of the manufactures.

Having said that, I have used FAST on my newer stuff due to their approach with main controller / daughter cards with cat6 connections. It reduces the length of wiring. They have also created multiple boards that help fine tune what you can use for your game. I also plan to use FAST in my next couple games as well.

Beavis and Butthead uses FAST system (currently Nano but have Neuron here to swap it to) and League of Legends uses Cobrapin. I love both the same. I have P3ROCs in a couple things I am working on (not posted) and while my experience with them is less, Have not come across any issues with it either.

There are multiple communities that are available as well.

Here is the Discord channel I created:

https://discord.gg/3Jn8G6Sm

Fast has their own channel if you buy their stuff and is a group of great people.

There is also a slack group for all controllers

https://pindev.slack.com/

I don't see why it couldn't. I have used OPP/CobraPin to do so, and am currently working on a similar project with P3-ROC. Be sure to check out the Hot Rod project here on pinside if you haven't seen it, not mine but very impressive.

I can't think of a technical reason why you could not. You could also adjust the switch debounce timings and coil strengths to make it "feel" like an older game.

Brian Cox was the first person (I am aware of) to slow down the response times when using our platform to make it feel like an older game when he made Tattoo Mystique.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Yes it is possible but you will need to do some rewiring. I was involved in an EM retheme many years ago that has now since been abandoned after Stern announced Batman 66. We had the whitewood flipping and all of the score reels working. You can find the pinside thread here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/holy-pinball-batman/

I've been tinkering with the FAST boards for a long time. They have always been solid and support from the Fast team and slack channel have been awesome.

Thanks! I was planning on rewiring everything and replacing coils as needed to work with the power output of the newer solid state system.

Essentially we are keeping the baseline rules and augmenting them with some additional scoring to reflect the new theme and adding a multiball. Otherwise it’s just sounds and music changing. I’m using this as a first project to get familiar with home brew techniques prior to taking on a fully custom machine with new design/rules, etc.

In the last few years I have built three pinball machines using cobrapin board, two machines using arduino's and pi's and three virtual pinball machines.
I looked at the Open Pinball Project that lead me to the cobrapin. I did consider the other options like LISY and Arduino pinball controller.

At the end of the day, having a product that enables you to build your hobby project without overwhelming you with a steep learning curve is benificial.

Depending on your abilities of cabinet building, tech savy designing, coding, 3D Printing, vivid imagination you could find that undertaking building a pinball machine from scratch a daunting undertaking.

I find the magic recipe of building a pinball machine is to use Mission Pinball framework with one of it's supported pinball controllers (https://missionpinball.org/hardware/pinball_controllers/) and joining the associated hardware support channel.

Post and document your progress here on pinside so we can offer encouragement and support on your journey.

Good luck in what ever product you choose.

I would be curious to know what you're doing. I have a space odyssey which is basically a two-player space mission. I'm thinking about doing the same thing with this. For the record I've been a software engineer for 35 years. So I "get" most of it... I'm curious to know things like what parts of the EM are you keeping? I would assume your getting rid of all the relays, scoring motors, steppers, ball count, player up, etc, since they can all be easily replaced/implemented via the controller. So would you basically wire every switch, scoring reel, the credit wheel, coin mechanisms, start button, insert, pop bumper, etc, etc. To the controller (or daughter card, depending on the architecture/infrastructure of the particular platform your using).

Hopefully most of this makes sense. Ive only been in the hobby about a year.

Shayne

I have a similar project. I have an older EM that is limited on what the "best thing to do" in terms of rules is. So as my gateway I decided to take a busted EM that was partially burned by a fire in the backbox and start by making the old game with modern hardware. All those skill then should roll into a 2.0 type game, and then a full custom creation. Basically I scrapped everything but playfield mechs (drops, pops, slings, gates, etc.) and switches. All lights, wiring, control system, and power are new.

I like it. Having the same ideas.

Have you decided on a controller?

I’ve done the burnt out EM to custom controller conversion. I used P3 but they all seem capable. Either way you gotta gut the machine entirely and wire it from scratch

While I haven’t used Fast or Cobra, they’re all pretty similar and the differences are not that significant in my experience. And MPF plays well with multiple hardware (I added a FadeCandy to add some stadium lighting)

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Just try to keep the high voltage wiring separated from the low voltage data lines to avoid EMI

A label maker and detailed notes on wire color are your friend. Ditto for a wire stripped and nice crimper.

I used proc for the em project and fast (older system) for a different one. From my perspective, if you are planning on using mpf there is no real difference between the systems. I am sure there will be lots of nuance if you use the full capabilities of the board sets, but starting out I doubt you will notice.

Most of the difference is just how they're wired to the controllers. P3 uses discreet switch boards, power driver boards, and lamp drivers that do parallel and serial. FAST seems more like the Stern Spike system where you have different boards that have a mix of switch inputs, coil drivers, and serial lamp drivers. And then Cobra seems to combine it all into one main board, but has some expansion boards if you need additional drivers or similar. So when you plan out the wiring, you need to keep a few things in mind (like I think Fast requires autofire coils and switches connected to the same node board)

They're all very capable. The P3 has some extra features like supporting parallel lamp drivers and it has the burst switches that the Multimorphic P3 uses for it's opto ball tracking system on their playfield screen. But you're definitely paying more for that stuff.

cost wise, I priced out what boards for P3 and FAST would be for my project, there was a negligible difference. Cobra obviously cheaper than either. I currently have Cobra boards and P3-Roc boards in the house to go in different projects, and plan on getting FAST for the one after those.

I like how it seems Fast did away with one of the voltage lines. I think they just use 48 and 12 on their latest board design. Vs 48/12/5

(I say 48V, but I believe they can all do 24V as well for EM conversions. P3 def can)

Yep. You choose your "high voltage" value, which most use 48v for. You could use 24v if you like.

We did away with the 5v power supply requirement and generate 5v from the 12v, where needed. This eliminates the really long lines of 5v which are typically used for RGB LED lines. These long 5v lines weren't doing well in the FCC-style test labs, so it made sense to refactor it. We have created little 12v to 5v converter boards you can use when you need 5v for lcd displays or other things. You can pair it with a driver on one of our FAST I/O boards if you need to turn it on and off as our FAST I/O boards can switch any mix of voltages.

Fun, fun.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Cool somebody did an EM version of Hot Tip. I did the SS machine version using a cobrapin board... https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hot-tip-cobrapin-conversion#post-7650678

name the game

pasted_image (resized).png

Hmm. I don't recognize this. Any other hints? I'll get working on cup of coffee #2 in the meantime.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

the font of Game Over and the background are really the only clues in the pic. mid 90s era video game I'm working on making a homebrew out of, so DMD style seemed appropriate. going big 192x64 Sega style, but color obviously, and MPF emulated on a LCD.

Oh! I was trying to think of a game I had seen before.

Looking forward to seeing more of this!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

makes me think of Doom's font

close.

Hmm... I don't think it's Wolfenstein? Not Quake. Not Unreal. Not Dark Forces. Maybe Duke Nukem?

Hmm... must be Chex Quest

I'm just giving it away now...

pasted_image (resized).png

Ah Descent. Never played them, but it gave me Freespace 1&2 which are two of my favorites of all time

This is so fun!

Aaron
FAST Pinball