MPF compatible control systems / hardware¶
MPF controls a pinball machine by interfacing to a modern pinball control system. (See the MPF Overview for details.) MPF itself is hardware-independent, meaning that MPF (and the configs and code you build) runs on a normal/embedded PC and can work with lots of different kinds of control systems and hardware devices.
Not only does this give you a choice of what type of pinball control hardware you want to use, it also means that you have the flexibility to change your hardware at any time without having to change any game code. You could even release a game code update that works on multiple platforms—all with the same code!
Here’s a demo video of us switching out a P-ROC controller for a FAST controller in 3 minutes and running the same game code on both.
It’s possible to mix-and-match multiple types of hardware in a single MPF machine config. For example, you could combine the SmartMatrix RGB DMD with a FAST Core controller, or a FadeCandy LED controller with a P-ROC, etc. (You can even mix-and-match platforms within the same type of device, meaning you could have some LEDs attached to a FAST Pinball controller and others attached to a FadeCandy. See the Mixing-and-Matching hardware platforms guide for details.)
MPF currently supports the following hardware control systems. We are always adding more, so if there’s a hardware device that you’d like to use that we don’t support, let us know. (Or better yet, write your own interface to it and submit a pull request to the MPF codebase!)
Also see our guide on voltages found in a pinball machine.
List of supported control systems & hardware¶
Here’s a list of all the different types of control systems and hardware that MPF currently supports. If there’s a type of hardware you’d like us to support that you don’t see on this list, please post a message to the MPF Users Google Group and we’ll go from there.
Primary control systems¶
You’ll need to pick one of these three as the main interface between MPF and your pinball machine.
- FAST Pinball
- Core Controller, Nano Controller, WPC Controller
- 0804, 1616, 3208 I/O Boards
- Servo controller daughter board
- Power Filter Driver Board coin-door interconnect
- Plasma & LED mono DMDs (Core & WPC controllers)
- FAST RGB LED-based DMD
- Multimorphic
- P-ROC with PDB driver boards (PD-16, PD-8x8, PD-LED)
- P-ROC in all supported existing machines (Williams, Stern, etc.)
- P3-ROC with PDB driver boards (PD-16, SW-16, PD-LED)
- Plasma & LED mono DMDs (P-ROC)
- Accelerometer-based tilt (P3-ROC)
- I2C slave boards (see below for which I2C boards are supported) (P3-ROC)
- Alphanumeric displays via aux port (P-Roc)
- Open Pinball Project (OPP) controllers
- Gen 2 OPP hardware, with many combinations of wing boards for drivers, switches, switch matrix, LEDs & incandescent lights
- Stern SPIKE / SPIKE 2 machines
- New in MPF 0.33
- A computer running MPF can directly connect to a SPIKE machine with a simple “USB to serial” converter which you plug into the SPIKE main board.
- LISY
- New in MPF 0.50
- Gottlieb System 1
- Gottlieb System 80
- Segment displays
- External sounds
- Switches, rules and coils
- Lights and enable triggers
- Virtual (software-only) controllers
- MPF includes virtual hardware interfaces you can use to run MPF when it’s not connected to physical hardware. (This is good for working on your game when you’re not around your machine, or if you don’t have real hardware yet.)
- The MPF Monitor is a graphical tool you can also use to visually interact with MPF which is especially useful if you’re not using MPF with physical hardware.
Additional supported hardware¶
The following hardware devices can be combined with primary control sytstems to provide additional functionality.
- Snux System 11 driver board
- Supported in combination with the P-ROC or FAST WPC controller
- Supported for System 11, 11A, 11B, 11C
- Should work in Data East machines too, though it’s never been tried
- I2C Servo Controllers
- Servos connected to I2C-based servo controllers
- Fadecandy RGB LED controllers
- 512 RGB LEDs per Fadecandy
- Can connect multiple Fadecandys to support more LEDs
- Pololu Maestro servo controllers
- Supports up to 24 servos per board
- SmartMatrix RGB LED display controller
- Supports a “real” color DMD made up of RGB LED matrix
- RGB.DMD RGB LED display controller
- Supports a “real” color DMD made up of RGB LED matrix
- MyPinballs Segment Display Controller
- New in MPF 0.50
- Alphanumeric segment displays
- Trinamics StepRocker
- New in MPF 0.50
- StepRocker stepper controller
- Raspberry Pi
- New in MPF 0.50
- Local (MPF on the RPi) or remote via ethernet
- All inputs and outputs
- I2C and SPI
- Native I2C on Linux
- New in MPF 0.50
- I2C devices on any nativ I2C bus
- MMA8451-based accelerometers
- New in MPF 0.50
- Connected to I2C
There is a hardware roadmap for other hardware which we want to support in the future.
Configuration Guides¶
We have configuration guides which show you how to setup and use different types of pinball mechanisms with the various control systems and hardware that MPF supports:
- FAST Pinball
- P-ROC/P3-ROC
- Open Pinball Project (OPP)
- Stern SPIKE / SPIKE 2
- Gottlieb System 1 / System 80 (LISY)
- Snux System 11 Driver Board
- FadeCandy RGB LED controllers
- 1. Understanding all the parts and pieces
- 2. Download the FadeCandy package from GitHub
- 3. Install the FadeCandy drivers
- 4. Setup the fcserver
- 5. Set your LEDs to use the “fadecandy” platform
- 6. Understanding FadeCandy LED numbering
- 7. Launch the fcserver
- 8. Additional FadeCandy LED options
- 9. Color Correction
- I2C Servo Controllers
- Pololu Maestro
- SmartMatrix RGB DMD
- RGB.DMD
- Raspberry Pi DMD
- MyPinballs Segment Displays
- Trinamics StepRocker
- StepStick Steppers
- Computer Requirements
- Native I2C
- Raspberry Pi
- MMA8451-based accelerometer
- SPI Big Bang Switches
- Virtual Hardware
- Existing Machines
- How to use MPF with WPC machines
- Controlling Stern Whitestar Machines
- Controlling Data East Machines
- Controlling Williams, Bally System 11 Machines
- Controlling Gottlieb System 1 Machines
- Controlling Gottlieb System 80 Machines
- Controlling Stern SAM Machines
- Controlling Stern SPIKE/SPIKE 2 Machines
- Controlling Pinball 2000 Machines
- Voltages and Power