Coil show with flippers

[leeoneil]

Hello !
Does anyone have made shome shows with coil flipper ?

I've tried something to make the flipper move.
It's working with my 2 flipper on the mini playfield, but not working with the 3 mains flippers.
And MPF crash very quickly after a few seconds.

My show look like this :

- time: 0

  coils:

    c_flipper_Upleft_main: pulse

- time: '+1'

  coils:

    c_flipper_left_main: pulse

- time: '+2'

  coils:

    c_flipper_right_main: pulse

- time: '+3'

  coils:

    c_flipper_petitgauche_main: pulse

- time: '+4'

  coils:

    c_flipper_petitdroit_main: pulse

Does anyone encounterd the same problem ?
MPF crashing after launching a coil show ?

Thank's for your help !

MPF 0.57 dev39 here.

[Anthony van Winkle]

Can you please share the logs that show the crash? It's hard to say what might be the problem without seeing the error. Thanks!

[leeoneil]

No log at all !

Sorry, I forgot to write it.

That's the weird part of the problem.
Everything crash, nothing in the log.... Sometimes, after a few seconds, some coils are activated (MPF already crash and shut down).

[leeoneil]

I'm sorry, I just this in one of the log, the only one with an error :

2025-02-09 15:11:00,925 : INFO : coil.c_shaker : Enabling Driver with power 0.5 (pulse_ms 1ms and pulse_power 1.0)
2025-02-09 15:11:00,925 : ERROR : root : Received second SIGINT. Will exit ungracefully!
NoneType: None

[Anthony van Winkle]

Hmm, that’s interesting that it works with some coils and crashes without error. Please share your coil configs, and run with -v -V for verbose logging. A fun mystery!

Also, is the capital U in Upleft_main intentional? I see that’s the only one with a capital letter, which may cause issues if it’s inconsistent with other places.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MPF Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mpf-users+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mpf-users/efbfdec2-cad4-4c8f-88f4-b4eead11063en%40googlegroups.com.

[leeoneil]

I havefoundanother problem, and maybe it's related !

I just tried with a "coil_player" section in my mode.
The 3 main flipper refuse to move !
Only the 2 flip from the mini playfield are moving.

From my mode :

coil_player:

  launch_coil_move_1:

    c_flipper_Upleft_main:

      action: pulse

  launch_coil_move_2:

    c_flipper_left_main:

      action: pulse

  launch_coil_move_3:

    c_flipper_right_main:

      action: pulse

  launch_coil_move_4:

    c_flipper_petitgauche_main:

      action: pulse

  launch_coil_move_5:

    c_flipper_petitdroit_main:

      action: pulse

From my config file:

coils:

  c_flipper_Upleft_main:

    number: 0-0-8

    default_pulse_ms: 12

  c_flipper_Upleft_hold:

    number: 0-0-9

    allow_enable: true

  c_flipper_left_main:

    number: 0-0-13

    default_pulse_ms: 45 #27 #35 #40

  c_flipper_left_hold:

    number: 0-0-14

    allow_enable: true

  c_flipper_right_main:

    number: 0-0-0

    default_pulse_ms: 45 #27 #35 #40

  c_flipper_right_hold:

    number: 0-0-12

    allow_enable: true

  c_flipper_petitgauche_main:

    number: 0-0-7

    default_pulse_ms: 18

  c_flipper_petitgauche_hold:

    number: 0-0-6

    allow_enable: true

I've tried to use  pulse_power: to adjust the power, but nothing happen.
And in the log, seems ok !

2025-02-10 19:23:31,246 : INFO : coil.c_flipper_left_main : Pulsing Driver for 45ms (1.0 pulse_power)

[leeoneil]

Ok so it's very weird.
I have found a clue, but not the solution.

These 3 flippers are activated at the beginning of a game, the 2 mini flippers only if we it a switch (on the mini playfield).
If I don't activate my 3 main flippers, it's working, I can move them with coil_player !
Wow !
But I can't play the game anymore ! :D


Here is an example, main flip :

flippers:

  up_left_flipper:

    main_coil: c_flipper_upleft_main

    hold_coil: c_flipper_upleft_hold

    activation_switch: s_left_flipper

    enable_events: mode_base_started, mode_carousel_stopped

    disable_events: mode_carousel_started, killplayer

and a mini-flipper :

  petitgauche_flipper:

    main_coil: c_flipper_petitgauche_main

    hold_coil: c_flipper_petitgauche_hold

    activation_switch: s_left_flipper

    enable_events: mode_library_started

    disable_events: mode_library_stopped

Do you have an idea to bypass this problem ?
I need to enable/disable the flippers, when playing video-mode, entering mission select

If I put enable_events : ball_started or mode_base_started... Impossible to move the main coil with coil_player:
If I get rid of thie line, same problem, because the default is "ball_started".

Very very strange.
Any idea please ?

[cobra18t]

When you have an autofire coil enabled and your show or coil_player want to pulse the coil, OPP is supposed to disable the autofire, pulse, the coil, then re-enable the autofire. Could you post a verbose log with "debug: True" in the OPP section? Keep the log time short. It gets big fast with verbose OPP logging. try to attach the whole log because there may be clues in multiple areas.

I suspect--though I am not certain--that the autofire rule is re-enabled before the pulse can actually finish. So you might be getting a short ~1ms pulse that causes no movement that is getting shut off by the autofire rule being reapplied since the flipper button is not pressed at the time. Flippers have a concept that OPP refers to as "CAN_CANCEL" where a pulse can be cut short by the hardware rule for the purpose of tap passing. Flippers as part of a show/coil_player are not that common so I would not be surprised if there was a bug here. Get me that log and might be able to replicate the issue here.

For any who care, I don't see any delay in the reapplication of the hardware rule in the pulse() method here:

https://github.com/missionpinball/mpf/blob/d1552a57b9ae6fabdc52ad0d028c376a42963774/mpf/platforms/opp/opp_coil.py#L94

As a work around, could you disable your autofire before running a coil_player and then re-enable it after a time delay? You could use a show to post events to control the flipper disable/enable and a coil_player within the show to pulse the coil and the show could include the necessary delay for the coil to fire.

[cobra18t]

Pops and slings don't use the CAN_CANCEL feature which is why I think those are working for you just fine.

[leeoneil]

It's working !

So if you want to use "coil_player:" in a mode, or "coils" in a show, AND the pulsing coils are declared for your flippers, you need first to disable them.
Impossible to have activated flippers AND a coil_player (or coils) at the same time on the same coil.
Probably to prevent burning.

Thank's for the help, hope it can help if someone want to do the same thing.

Example for me, machine config file.
With this, when the coil show start, I disable the fliper, so I can move the main coil.
And I enable them again at the end of the coil show

  left_flipper:

    main_coil: c_flipper_left_main

    hold_coil: c_flipper_left_hold

    activation_switch: s_left_flipper

    enable_events: mode_base_started, stop_coil_show

    disable_events: launch_coil_show