Another Jolt project - Ball Dropper game

[AndySmee]

I've written this up on Medium but happy to replicate here if it isn't accessible: https://medium.com/@andysmy/how-to-build-a-ball-dropper-cricket-ball-reactions-game-d52788b0780a

[gfwilliams]

This looks amazing! Thanks for posting it up! I seem to be able to see it perfectly fine here.

I like the game code too - it's nice how you just shuffle the outputs around.

Out of interest, how much power do the solenoids draw? Could they have been powered directly from the Jolt, as if they weren't more than 0.5A each I'd have thought it wouldn't have broken too much of a sweat powering them all.

[AndySmee]

I reckoned 1-2A, but really an unknown. Would I power the Jolt off 12V? I am powering it from the microcontroller slot pins directly so that relay board does the 5V regulation for me.

The relay board was an eBay purchase and has a remote control for 12 relays but it arrived with only 5 channels working so I removed the CPU and then had to rip out a bank of relays as the pcb had a short. The Jolt came to the rescue in time for my deadline!

[gfwilliams]

Glad it was able to get it working quickly for you - that was the idea!

Yes - you could power the jolt off 12v via the terminal block, it'll be totally happy with that. The coils may not be as bad as 1-2A each - if they were they'd get super hot if left on.

The only thing to watch out for is if you're driving big coils (which you would be if going direct!) the back-emf gets clamped by the motor drivers and could push the voltage rail higher than 20v, which can break the voltage regulator - the Jolt has about 20uF of capacitors on the voltage input, but I'd just stick another big capacitor into the terminal block along with your wires just in case!