Using a databus has become more and more popular in the world of pinball. Boards can now be made small enough to be mounted under the playfield, eliminating most of the wire harness as the playfield devices can now be connected to the electronics through a bunch of short wires.

So, what does it mean that this system will be based on a databus? A databus allows for splitting up the traditionally large PCBs into much smaller boards. From these boards, a large wire harness connects the electronics to all the devices under and on the playfield. All drivers and chips were placed on these boards. The electronics were mounted on multiple, sometimes large, PCBs. Traditionally, pinball machines had all their electronics mounted in the backbox. That’s why its name is PinBus, a combination of pinball and databus. One of this system’s key features is that it will be based on a databus. PinBusĪs this post’s title gives away, we are working on a new electronics system that we call PinBus. We are currently working on a more powerful and flexible electronics system for controlling pinball machines, and maybe even other devices. We eventually ended up using an Arduino Mega and some supporting electronics to control our first prototype machines. The first two posts introduced this project and the things we tried to make the first prototype machines work.

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