I'm still alive

I've spent the last couple months getting my other pins ready for a party, and partially finishing my basement.  2 months ago it was completely unfinished and now.. well, it's... partially finished.  I replaced the basement door (it had a hole from a cat door I removed years ago), I painted the steps, I removed the stair noses, I put up diamond plate rubber sheets on the fronts, I covered the foundation wall with drylok, then studs, then insulation and drywall and put some trim up.  I also put down some temporary carpet in the main area which really makes it feel more cozy.  I'll eventually get the rest of the walls studed, wiring installed, and drywall but I wanted at least the entryway to look decent.

Anyway, since the party was last Saturday, I can finally get back on the project.  So one thing I did with the new door, I really wanted to dress it up.  Thinkgeek sells decals for doors (just so happens to be a 32" wide sticker to fit my door exactly), and they had a sale for $50.  Stupidly, I installed it dry, thinking if I went slow enough I wouldn't get bubbles.  Well the material stretched, and bubbles found their way underneath, and frankly it looks like crap (see red circle below).  I might try to remove it, put down some glue, and redo it hoping the liquid glue will float it until it dries.

So onto the cabinet, I ordered new stickers for the new cabinet.  Thankfully bannerbuzz had a 30-50% off sale during christmas, so I took advantage and got decals for next to nothing.  Now I've heard of the wet method before (water with a little soap), but it just doesn't compute to me.  I know that's how they do tinted windows, but glue and soapy water just doesn't make sense to me.  I went ahead and tried it, and I'll be damned if it didn't give me a nice smooth finish.
 
See, no bubbles!  I just applied it, so we'll see how well the glue sticks after it's cured.


I also got the brackets installed for the cherry leaf switches for the flippers.  Turns out the leaf was too long because it was hitting the shooter lane cover, but after trimming it back it fit just fine.  I really like the feeling of cherry switches, feeling that click as you push the button in.

My hope is to get the flippers and ball trough wired up, confirm my wiring is correct, and start flipping.  Once that's going, I'll truly have a flipping whitewood and can start experimenting with ramps, walls, and targets.

10.21.14 update - backbox

So got the speaker grill brackets from Marco, got the aluminum channels from mcmaster, got everything installed now.  I'll be picking up the lift channel and top trim from pinball life on friday for the backglass but I can still slide the glass by itself carefully into the channels.  I went ahead and printed a draft print of a temporary backglass on my printer (8 sheets of 8-1/2 x 11), so it looks washed out right now (especially with a single automotive fluorescent bulb shining behind it), but it gives me an idea of how it's going to look.

Speakers sound good and clear in the backbox (ran a test off my phone).  Still not as much bass as I would have liked, but maybe down the road I can buy a separate subwoofer and split the audio.

10.19.14 update

So I've done a little work.. Got the back wall, upper playfield, and speaker panel cut out.  The violin ramp is hot glued to the playfield for now, going to bend some acrylic to create a usable ramp.  I bought an aluminum channel for the "backglass" glass I got from pinball life on friday, but now I need another channel for the speaker panel to rest in.  I've also got brackets (for hanging onto the backbox) coming in from Marco that is supposed to be here on Tuesday.  Once all that comes together, the backbox will finally look somewhat finished.  In fact, I'm probably going to print a temporary backglass taping 8.5x11 sheets together so I have something to fill in.

Expo review time

Ok, time for a break from the project now that I've engulfed myself with pinball this weekend (minus saturday).

The hobbit - Not a big fan of the the hobbit as a theme.  The playfield feels too open (which of course is to make room for the MM trolls that pop up from the plafyield).  The drop targets in front of the standup targets is a neat concept, but there's a mode where they keep popping up and down, which makes a lot of noise (which is actually quite annoying), I wonder if they'll get it to be quieter?  A lot of people were expecting the dragon to spit balls, but obviously this isn't the case.

The walking dead - Hate the zombie theme, gameplay was so-so when I first played it.  After getting 3-4 games on it, I've warmed up a little bit to the gameplay but I still think the pop bumper area REALLY slows the game down too much.

P3 galaxy lightspeed - Still disappointed by this title.  It's honestly turned into a virtual pinball game, nearly all the things to hit are virtual objects on the LCD (using the drop-down targets as nothing but stopping points to reverse the ball since the LCD tracks the ball).  I think this is going to be a really hard sell.

Full throttle - Super fast gameplay, you can't look away for a second.  This was actually a LOT of fun to play (reminds me a lot of Bk2k).  It's so fast in fact I often found the ball bouncing over walls (and flippers) which would get frustrating as a tournament machine.  Also the right ramp is really tight (like less than 1.5") which makes it REALLY hard to nail this ramp.  I found the action to be so fast that having the LCD screen embedded into the playfield made hardly any difference, you really couldn't take your eye off the ball unless you were cradling it.  The fact that the 2nd title is Aliens designed by Dennis Nordman, and there IS an option to just buy the playfield if you already own full throttle for less than $4k, this company has a bright future.

The big lebowski - Quite honestly the most beautiful, most impressive pinball machine I've seen in a long time.  The fact that a new company created 3 working (mostly) prototypes in about a year is impressive.  The artwork is superb, the music soundtrack and soundbites are great, the animations are great, the detail of the backlit stars on the apron is a nice touch, the bowling alley with the lighting under the roof (which looks very model train realistic) is nice, the car that swings out from the building as a bash toy looks great.  If I could possibly make a complaint about this game, it's that the rug is nearly impossible to see (I really hope they end up adding a spotlight, otherwise owners will surely add one themselves).  If I had $8500 (or basically sold almost every pinball I owned), I would so buy this machine.

1.2 jigawatts

 So that's what I did today, added power.  First I had to make a bracket to mount the switch to (another thing the cabinet didn't come with).  Could have probably bought a bracket, but why spend $8 + shipping, and wait a week when I can get it done today?  So then  I bought a switch at radio shack, not realizing I grabbed a 12VDC toggle switch by mistake (do not wire a DC switch into AC).  Luckily, I forgot I still had a toggle switch mounted in the first cabinet I had, so I snagged that out.  It's a nice robust 20A switch too, don't make em like that anymore.  So then it was just a matter of soldering the linecord directly to a powerstrip, with the hot wire (white) going through the switch.  So now when you do the typical switch flip under the right side of the cabinet, the strip gets energized.  Right now I just havea 5v wall plug (with faston connectors) connected to the 4 measly GI bulbs on the playfield, but at least I got some sort of electrical hooked up now.  I figure I'm going to need 2 outlets at minimum on the final (one for a computer, one for the main power transformer).  In the interim, I may also keep the wall plug for temporary GI lighting, and I may temporarily wire up my mp3 trigger to some random switches just to have some sound going while I work on the layout.

 

Couple other small tidbits:
1. Backglass: Think I'm going to try acrylic. I can get a sheet for $20 from mcmaster, as apposed to real glass which would cost me $50 with beveled edges (cuts weight in half too). Then I'm going to do an array printout on 8.5x11 pages for the art (as a placeholder) before I invest money in real printing. I'm going to stick to the standard williams size that the F14 backbox had (19" high x 27" wide)/
2. Speaker panel: Going to make it the same size as the standard bezel, going to use aluminum channel to create the groove, then I need to get some brackets so it can hang onto the backbox. I'll need to re-cut the speaker holes, and an opening for the LCD monitor to show through
3. Playfield layout (Upper ramp): Since the upper playfield is going to be lower than I want, and I want the left waterslide ramp to be as high as possible so it can have maximum speed from gravity, I'm likely going to build a ramp for the far left exit so it kicks the ball as high on the playfield as possible.  This will also hopefully slow the ball down a little so it isn't slamming into that corner (though I can always add a rubber cushion stopper).  For the hidden under-the-backbox loop shot, I've decided this will be the first spot I play around with inserts.  I'd be far better off practicing on not so nice wood that I can start over with versus scrapping all the work I've done so far on the playfield.  One thing I want to try is adding switches that trigger the insert lighting to turn on as the ball rolls over it.  Sort of keep it simple, and let the ball control the lighting (I want a chase effect as it loops around so you get a cool moving background glow).  I'm picking up 30 one-inch clear inserts from pinball life on friday.  I think these aren't too terribly big.  If I really need something smaller, I can always order some 3/4" from pinball resource.
4. The ball lift to the upper playfield is going to be done with a neodynium magnet behind the back wall, which is attached to an arm, which is attached to a 2rpm geared 6vdc motor that swings it on a path (ball will appear to climb the wall).  I'll steal power from the GI line, and have it turn on by a switch (the ball activates it), then turns back off by a switch hidden in the back that is hit when it rotates so far.  I built an automatic page turner in college using this method and it worked nearly flawlessly.
5. My decals for the cabinet arrive tomorrow.  Not sure when I'll get time to apply them.  Between pinball life explosion on friday, a funeral on saturday, and expo either saturday night or sunday morning, it's not looking like I'm going to make much progress until next week.

whitewood

Still not ready to flip yet, but the playfield is where it needs to be.  The picture below doesn't look like much, but it actually took a lot to get there:

I had to move the back rails at least 4-5 times.  I started out with the playfield flat (angle only added by the rear feet),  but that only gave me about 4.5 inches of height, way lower than I originally designed.  I moved it down to give me about 6.5" of height, but then realized the rails weren't even making the left side a good 3/8" too low.  After one more adjustment, it was completely level.

So now I can actually shoot a ball, and... ram it into a couple pieces of cardboard wall.  The back wall is mounted to the playfield, though I'm pretty sure I need to lower the hole if I want the ball to pass through (unless I carve out part of the cabinet, which I don't).  I ended up routing it so I got a nice smooth and flat cut, I can always pop it back out and trim it deeper.

I may actually wire up the flippers and ball trough early just so I can start flipping (not completely happy with the way the slings are turning out).

shooter lane groove cut

This step was actually a little nerve wracking.  I was worried about not cutting straight, I was worried about getting depths wrong, but I went about it methodical.  I taped and clamped a ruler as a guide (distance from where the router tip needed to be to the flat edge), then started with a very shallow cut, going as far as I needed to make a cut.

Then little by little, I dropped the cutter and went along the same cut, stopping an inch from where I cut last.  Eventually I ended up with a staggered cut you see 



Once I got the steps, I went back with a chisel to take off chunks.  I found that scraping it perpendicular was safer that attacking at an angle which tended to take deeper chunks than I wanted to.  Then in I went with 100 grit sandpaper to smooth it out.  It's not quite as perfect as a CNC would do, but I must say it's not bad at all!

Got brackets?

I don't, at least not quite.  So I got my 3d printed brackets, yea not a whole lot better.  I mean it is, but I'm still breaking the parts just trying to clean them (which doesn't bode well for strength), so I gave up.  It wasn't a total waste, by modeling everything up I figured out what the minimal space was.. so then I went back to making aluminum brackets.  Once I got the band saw setup with guides, it went really quick to cut down the size I needed.  Then it was a matter of overlapping the 3d printed part over the bracket to mark the holes and drill it out.  I made left-hand and right hand versions for space constraints.

I still have to create the slots, but I don't want to cobble it with a drill like I did before.  I'll either beg the machine shop at work to do it for me, or I may have found a way to do it myself.  I own a drill press, but not a mill.  I had no idea a "cross slide vise" existed, effectively giving you x and y axis travel on a drill press:
http://www.harborfreight.com/6-inch-cross-slide-vise-32997.html

Granted you aren't going to have any precision (or measurement), but for machining slots and pockets by eye it's plenty.

The lockdown bar is nearly fixed (at least the plunger lines up with the ball now), but I may have to file the notch on the lockbar down a little bit (not quite latching yet).  Figured out what I want to do with the shooter rod cover, decided to put a mixing slider as the "reference scale" while still tying into the theme:


Once I get it officially mounted, and the standard V-groove cut out in the shooter lane, I'll finally be able to plunge the ball (albeit I don't have anything electrical hooked up yet), but soon.

Cobbled

That's how I'm starting to look at this project, and there's nothing really wrong with that.  I mean this is supposed to be a one-off, so I'm not worried about making extras.  If you look at Ben Heck's first pinball, his was entirely cobbled.  I mean he made his own cabinet, he made his own custom low res DMD display from a matrix grid of 5mm LED's, he made his own toys, his lockdown bar I believe is a cut up piece of aluminum angle. But he also used 24V flippers (which are very weak), and if you watch gameplay (or ever played it yourself) you'll see it's pretty hard to make some of the ramp shots because of it.  Fact is the flippers he used were likely from an EM, and there wasn't a big demand for snappy shots back then, there were no ramps to get up.

One thing I've definitely noticed is that you realize how many fit issues you have.  It's one thing to take existing parts that were all designed to fit together nicely because someone engineered them that way.  It's a completely different story taking parts from multiple machines and merging them together.  Let's take stock:

Stern early solid state trough / slings
New Williams off-the-shelf new flipper mechs. shooter rod, legs
Lockdown bar / lockdown mech from a 1978 Williams Disco fever
Coin door from a Data East LAH
1987 Williams F14 cabinet (bought all the hardware except the lockbar parts above and the side rails)

I did manage to lower the lockbar mech by creating a new hole, but that created a new problem (the carriage bolt stick in too far, so I'll have to trim that back with an angle grinder), as well as the bracket overlaps the bracket for the shooter rod by about a 1/4" that will need to get trimmed back.  With the playfield in, the shooter rod now clears it, but it feels a little low (isn't quite centered on the ball), so I'll simply add some washers under the hanger brackets and it should all line up fine.  Also by lowering it about 1/8" lower than it should be, I may have an issue with the lockdown bar engaging now.  If that's the case, I'll simply widen the slot allowing it to line up.

Keep in mind it sounds like I'm really eyeballing a lot of this, and quite frankly I am (taking ruler measurements) which is way out of my style.  I'm very much a "model it up in CAD and make sure everything lines up within half a millimeter" sort of a guy.  But to model all this up for the sake of doing it, or documenting it just seems like a waste of time.

Whenever I finish this project and consider doing another one, I may seriously think about buying stock parts JUST in case the theme is desirable and boutique pinball building is still alive.

Tomorrow I should have my new 3d printed brackets, and I'll be "re-engineering" the lockbar mech.  If I get all that done I can get everything back together.  Oh I'm also painting a shooter rod bracket (the thing that prevents the ball from dropping through the playfield in the shooter lane) tonight that I stole from an extra high speed playfield I have.  I'm pretty sure it'll mount just fine, I just have to think about how I want to do the art for the plunger position notches.

brackets printed

So I modeled up a couple brackets, one for the ball trough, one for the long switches that are going to replace your standard leaf switches (slings, targets, etc).  The ball trough mounted great and feels strong, the other bracket has strength issues.  I already have the 3d model updated,  but the printer at work had clogging issues, so although they're printing they didn't finish before I left work, so I'll have updated brackets tomorrow.  Anyway, here's a quick video:

playfield in

quick update.. Decided to pop the original backbox on, and install hangers from a spare high speed playfield onto my playfield and see how it looks in the cabinet.

Marked the positions, everything lines up... but the shooter rod position is too low, it doesn't fit underneath.  My only guess is that because the lockbar mech is from a 1978 pin that perhaps everything was higher back then (coming just out of the EM era with very flat playfields).  So it seems I have 2 options:
1. Attempt to lower the mech.  It does seem higher than usual, but I'm lining it up with the bolt that holds the coin door.  If I can drill a new hole, maybe this is feasible
2. Make custom hangers that lower the playfield.  Not something I really want to do, those hangers are pretty thick steel, and both of them have to match otherwise the playfield won't be level.

I will say, it IS nice seeing the playfield inside a finished cabinet.  I think it'll help motivate me to keep going.

10.05.14 update - cabinet

Decided to finish assembling the cabinet.  Got the legs re-painted yesterday.  Had to re-adjust the position of a couple of the inner threaded plates for the legs.  I was stupid to trust my eye to line them up, if I were smart I would have stuck a bolt into the hole to not only act as a way to hold the bracket, but to line them up.

First comment from my wife as she walks by "I don't like the backbox, it's too narrow".  Now that I see it all together, I think I agree.  I only made a narrow backbox so that the LCD wouldn't have borders, but I think it looks sorta goofy.  I think it might also look weird when it's got a gap between backboxes in a line because you need space for the flipper buttons.  So most likely I'll be soon sanding down the backbox it came with.

 

Update 10.4.14

My apologies to the viewers of the blog, particularly those that have a vested interest.  Between traveling for work, and finishing up a bathroom project that I’ve put off for 4 years, making / selling a pinball mod I started a while back (cash never hurts in the pinball hobby), I’ve had little time to work on any other pinball projects in between.  The cabinet is nearly finished, all the hardware is on, I’m just waiting for updated vinyl decals.  Even though the playfield will likely be mounted on a rotisserie for a while, I wanted to make sure I got the cabinet done first so I can occasionally drop it in to test for maximum height of playfield objects.

I’ve also been trying to finish stripping my high speed playfield so I can do the overlay and get some practice since this project will also have an overlay for artwork.

Today I didn't get much done, and I really wanted to.  I mean I got some GI installed on the inlane, I finished routing the sling slots and got the solenoids mounted, then I realized I hadn't made all the brackets for the switches on the slings (I made one to test), and looking where it is I realize the bracket is too wide and I'm not sure it's going to be ok with just one if I narrow it down.  I would make some more brackets, but I left my aluminum angle stock at work so it's going to have to wait until Monday.  The other thing I need is a way to mount the roller cherry switch for the ball through to activate the solenoid.  Thankfully I can just model that and print one easily at work.

There’s also a couple of things I felt I had to research in order to get some of the parts done in the near future for this project.  Fortunately a couple projects at work have required me to look into prototyping vacuum forming packaging and prototype molding, exactly what I need to learn about.

The first part I haven’t had much luck with in the past.  I’ve probably contacted 5 vendors in the chicagoland area, and none of them have responded (and this is from my work email with our logo in my signature).  For some reason, if you’re just some engineer looking for some info, thermoforming vendors just don’t care.  Unless you’re in purchasing and can start tossing volume numbers at them, they won’t even listen.  Well I may have found a somewhat local vendor that does both volume and one-off prototype parts:

http://www.centerlinemodels.com/vacuumforming.html

Vaccuum forming is obviously exactly what you need for making clear ramps (I actually prefer this to steel), but it can also be used for 3d plastics (think whitewater, or congo).  Heck, it can even be used for playfield toys (space shuttle).  My first “dipping my toes into the water” will probably be something I’m not just throwing money away to practice.  I’m going to try recreating one of the 2 broken ramps that nearly every Williams Fire! pinball has.  The mod I just did was some aluminum support brackets (because the hole mounted to the post always breaks), so this adds strength to tie it in, plus the way I did it makes it look like an industrial framework which adds to the aesthetics at the same time.  So basically in order to vacuum form, you need a positive mold.  From what I’ve been reading, the cheapest yet most effective way to do this is honestly just filling it with plaster (the denser the better so it doesn’t break during molding).  Once I have my positive, I’ll ship it to the vendor and have him run off a few dozen parts.  If it works out well, hopefully I can start selling them.  Not sure if I’ll sneak them on ebay as “NOS”, or try contacting Rick from PPS and officially license them.

Ok so 2^nd part.  We have a project at work that is low priority, but it’s still a priority.  We don’t want to spend money on tooling because the solution will be resolved on a future product, but that product is still a year away.  I made some prototypes from an RTV mold shot in urethane material, but vendors charge a LOT of money to do this (but 10 parts is still 1/50^th the cost a permanent tool).  So obviously this isn’t a part that we can mass produce, even in the hundreds.  Well I’ve been looking into what hobbyists do for molding at home, and it seems like the company SMOOTH-ON is one of the bigger ones, which also have very informative videos.  Now while I’m sure I’ll eventually be able to do a 2-part mold, I’d prefer one that’s one sided (meaning it’s flat on one side).  Well the part I’m working on at work I was able to modify it to do just this, so next week I’m likely going to go to the local BLICK store to pick up some materials to make both the mold and pour the material.  For about $25 you can buy enough rubber material to make a mold to fill a 32oz cup, and the black urethane is the same price.  Urethane doesn’t have quite the durability or strength as a polypropylene or a nylon, but it’s many times better than any 3d printer can produce.  So if I have the ability to start making molds, that means I can make playfield toys, I can make custom mechanisms, and I can even make inserts!  Yea, the same company sells optically clear material (same $25/32oz).
http://www.smooth-on.com/Urethane-Plastic-a/c5_1120_1156/index.html


32 ounces of material = 57.75 cubic inches.  I just modeled up a typical 1” insert, and it’s so little material.  So little in fact that I could mold about 400 inserts, or just .06 each

I’ll likely try to use standard inserts wherever possible, but it would certainly be neat to create some custom sizes, or custom patterns that nobody has ever seen before because every manufacturer uses whatever is available in the market.

slight design change

I hate being one of those guys.  As an engineer, I hate when product managers and sales guys can't decide what specifications they want to hold a product to.  Well, I figure at this stage (and because I am my own boss on this non-profit journey), might as well make changes before I get too far along.

So what changed my mind?  Seeing some of the cool stuff other pinball manufacturers and hobbyists are doing.  Started off with Heighway pinball showing off a promo video with the LCD in the playfield:

Yes!  that's totally awesome!  Ok, I'm just gonna move the screen to the playfield.  Hell if I want I can play without a backbox if I really wanted to.  Then I thought.. Where the hell am I going to put a screen in my layout?  Lose the lower playfield? (DONT COMPROMISE THE DESIGN).  Maybe just a strip of the LCD, like the lower 1/4 of it.. Ok sure, even if I go with a 15" monitor, I'm going to have to tilt it at a weird angle so I don't sacrifice the rest of the space taken up by the monitor.  Ok kill that idea.

Then I started seeing some of the cool LED flasher animations the hobbyists are starting to put in Stern backboxes:

Crap! that's so awesome.  My favorite backglass of all time is still by far gottlieb's haunted house because of how they animated a still image just with lighting:

Ok, so I'm stuck on glass again.  I'm not sure I really want to have nothing but LCD like a JJP machine.  There's a reason why people complain about it, and it's not just because it looks bland when it's off.  I want that backlit art, maybe even add some strobes that are attached to the same playfield lighting.  Then I had another idea (maybe the first of it's kind).  What if I had a mixture of LCD AND backlit glass? Keep using the lower portion for scoring, but then use the upper portion of the LCD for artwork that pops up (maybe even animate).  I'd have cutouts in the art (like they used to do before DMD days where the scores would be embedded in the backglass), and I can have various sections be blacked out when the machine is off, but when it's on, those empty areas fill with LCD dots.
This isn't necessarily what it's going to look like, but you get the gist of what I mean by this photoshopped rendering:

playfield update

So I finally feel like I've got the space filled a bit better.  I still have targets to put in front of the edges of rails, but that's a small detail.  In order to get up to the balcony, you have to aim for the orbit, which allows you to shoot into the far left with the right flipper.  This path (not shown) will go up a small ramp, and dump into a hand that pulls the ball up to the balcony.  If you drain, the ball travels down the violin neck (decided to get rid of the body as this takes up too much playfield space), which feeds into a subway tunnel and pops out into the right dead area.  I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with this space yet (if I had multiball, this would be an ideal spot for ball locks).  Couple more toys I've added since are a drum set that spins on the left, and a microphone to the right (will make the distortion sound when you knock it over).  I also want to add stage lights in the upper right to make it feel more like a concert.  Haven't decided if I'm going to just mount them stationary, or actually have them rotate during the game.


Also here's the violin neck I got off ebay

Cabinet finished painting

Not going to bother posting a photo of it, you know what a williams cabinet looks like I'm sure.  I've got the new artwork ready.  Decided to photoshop the background out this time, as well as keep the decal away from edges, legs, and rails.  Here's what the new side artwork is going to be, I think it's much cleaner:

Pays to prime

So I never really believed in primer.  I always thought it was a waste of money, if you sand a surface properly you shouldn't need primer.  Turns out, unless you sand perfectly you'll never get a good surface.  So after seeing how great the goonies cabinet looked after priming, I decided to spend the $6 on a pint.  I'll be damned if it doesn't make a difference.  It really helps level out the surface, and you can see how much more the cabinet sheens.  Granted I only have 1 coat on, it's already obvious how much better this cabinet is going to turn out.




















Also got my new aluminum angle and made another bracket, I think it will work quite fine.  I should be able to adjust the mounting screws while the switch is still mounted.

Got a new donor cabinet

So rather than trying to make my current cabinet work (which has no slant because it was built just after the EM era without ramps or 2nd levels), I managed to get a donor F-14 cabinet.  Granted it was free (and I'm grateful to my friend that gave it to me), it's so stripped it only has the side rails.  I'm gonna have to source a coin door (one on ebay for $5 right now), $16 on leg threads.  I may try to re-use the stern lockbar and lockdown mech since a new williams set is going to set me back a good $140.  I mean it's not ideal, but's not like I'm restoring a williams game, I'm building a custom game.  Standard width is standard width, so really any lockdown bar will do.

Spose it's better this way, all stripped so I can do this cabinet the right way this time.  I'm currently gluing the loose wood in the front with clamps squeezing them together.  Once that's dry, I'm going to attempt to use some bondo I bought a little bit ago.  Wood filler works ok, but it tends to be crumbly and doesn't always sand so well.  After I thoroughly sand it inside and out, I'm going to go through the trouble of priming first, more sanding, then final black coats.

Sort of sucks I'm having to not only redo the cabinet, especially the $60 in decals are going to waste on the cabinet.  I mean I'm not too bummed about that last part because honestly the bottom cabinet artwork isn't adhering so well.  This time when I do it, I'm not going to have any decals behind metal.  Heck, I'm not even going all the way to the edges, I'm literally doing a big sticker with gaps between any mating parts.  I'm also going to glue it down well so it stays stuck.

Anyway, here's the donor cabinet:

I'm realizing this cabinet is a good 4 inches longer, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I have to adjust my playfield

I've also decided to JUST order a violin neck instead of an entire violin.  I figure it will be much more flexible if I simply make the violin body out of some layers of plywood and attach the neck.  I won't be restricted by size, and I'm not ruining a perfectly good $35 violin.  I'll still have to order some tuning pegs, but that can come later

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pc-hand-carved-Student-Maple-White-Violin-Neck-4-4-size-Violin-Parts-/271539302949?pt=String_Instrument_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3f3900f225

Switch + bracket = some progress

So made my first prototype switch assembly.  Not happy with the stock material I had on had (too small and radius' are getting in the way), so I have some slightly bigger 1/8" aluminum channel on it's way (without radius').  Here's a quick video:

Leaf switch no more

So one thing I wanted to eliminate was leaf switches, and for good reason:
1. They are expensive.  $5 at a minimum, and they are essentially copper strips with carbon pads.
2. They wear out.  Those tiny pads with sparks wearing them with every hit means you'll be replacing them
3. They can get damaged.  How many old pinballs have you seen where the strip looks more warped than a noodle?
4. The contacts are exposed, so they also get dirty.

I thought about creating a mechanism to use a common cherry switch you see in joystick buttons, but then I found this:
http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/sms-196/spdt-snap-action-switch-w/lever/1.html

In small bulk (I need at least 7 for my layout), they are only about $2 a piece.  They come with nice long arms that extend almost a full 2 inches beyond the body, they handle up to 15 amps, and they are fully enclosed so they are far less likely to fail.  I plan on buying some of these, then model them up so I can create a bracket to mount it.  The bracket will have slots so that I can also adjust the position to tweak how much force it takes to set it off.  Often you have slings where the leaf switches aren't straight, and the sling solenoid doesn't always fire.


One other problem I thought of today, the cabinet I have is late 70's, which means it's very boxy (doesn't have the angled cabinet).  Because of this, and the fact that the back of my playfield has objects that are 4 inches higher than the apron, it's going to make the flippers 6" away from the glass.  This also means I have to make custom lockdown hangers to drop the front of the playfield down into the cabinet.  This isn't really the issue though, my issue is that this is if I make the playfield parallel with the cabinet, this means no playfield angle :-0

I believe I have a solution, pretty sure Sega/Stern legs have the same bolt pitch, so I can put Sega legs in the back, keep bally/williams in front (3" height difference).  The other 3" can be made up with the leg levelers (down in front, extended in the rear).  I can also buy longer levelers from Mcmaster if I need more height.

Trough installed

In order for it to fit better, I did cut a slot into the bottom rail for the solenoid to slide without hitting, but it seems like it functions nicely.  Now I just need to get the rails installed and wire up some buttons.


I also ordered a 24" LCD monitor on friday.  It's refurbished, but they took paypal and since I had funds in there it's as if it were free.  $110 shipped isn't too bad for a viewsonic
http://www.viewsonic.com/us/va2431wm.html

backbox fabbed

Well it's done.  Gaps are bigger than I wanted, I think I needed to make the dowel holes a bit deeper.  But with glue filling them, sanding the transitions, and adding some paint / decals it should look fine.  Mounted the speakers tilted down so the sound hits you.  I did have to add 4 screws to help stiffen up the joints a bit.  2 dowels per joint was just not sufficient.  I still need to drill the mounting holes that line up with the cabinet threads, and add a cutout in the center to route cables through.

Also got the siderails done.  Was going to use the bandsaw, but a co-worker told me maintenance has a shear for straight cuts.  It was only 36" wide (which makes it hard to cut since my piece was 36" plus I'm cutting at an angle), but after splitting up a 12" wide piece it fit just fine.

Basically I'm doing this to not only not worry about my gaps between playfield and cabinet, but I can add sideart without worrying that I'm going to scratch it (it's part of the playfield).  And bonus, in theory, I could play a game completely outside the cabinet since it will be completely enclosed.

another small update

So I'm building the backbox.  The right angle clamp tool is great.  I went ahead and drilled my 15/32" holes, dribbled some glue, and hammered 1/4" diameter dowels into the holes.  Once it's pounded together, I let it sit in the clamp to keep it at 90 degrees as it dries.  To be sure it stays that way, I'm going to do just one joint until it dries.  I may buy 3 more of these at some point so I can build an entire box all at once, and have a cured box in the morning.  I also cut holes in a separate piece to mount the speakers, they included a great template to mark the holes.

I checked my tracking, the aluminum sheets are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow at work, so I'm going to try to get those cut tomorrow and bring them home for the weekend.  If I manage to get everything mounted, I may be flipping by next week.. into an empty abyss :-)

Foam-core here we come!

small update

So I went ahead and ordered the aluminum sheet for the sides (going to split it myself).  Onlinemetals.com had the best price, also seem to be the most reputable, plus they accept paypal to boot.  I had it shipped to work both because it's $2 cheaper than residential, and because I'll need to cut it anyway (there's a nice big bandsaw).  $26 for 12" x 36" x 1/16" thick 5050 aluminum aint bad.

I also decided to paint the trough parts.  Even though you'll almost never see them under the apron, I just didn't like how bad they were pitted.  I debated it because I was worried the ball would start flaking off paint, but I did buy appliance paint which is partially epoxy.  If it's hard enough for appliance abuse, it should handle a shiny steel ball in a home envoirnment.

I also ordered this handy little tool I had no idea existed!
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007GIN24/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I should have figured something like this existed.  Basically it allows you to make a 90-degree joint in wood by clamping them in a perfect 90-degree vise.  This will really come in handy for the backbox, not to mention other stuff.  I'll probably use dowel pins + screws to make a nice strong joint.

speakers + amp came in

So after fedex delivered a day late, I'm definitely happy, $40 well spent.  The amp puts out clean sound, as do the speakers.  I could distort them if I went past halfway, but the sound is cranking pretty loud at that point.  I got some pretty good bass even with the speakers out in the open, it should really rumble once it's mounted in a panel inside the backbox.  Here's a quick test video:

Old playfield stripped

I'm realizing there's less parts I could use from the donor playfield than I realized.  I have completely new flipper assemblies which I'm glad I bought.  Old pinballs didn't have nearly the oomph, plus the mechs are probably pretty worn at this point.  I'm definitely re-using the trough assembly, doesn't seem like you can easily buy a new one even if you wanted to (at least not for cheap).  Going to re-use the sling mechs, but I'll be replacing the leaf switches.  Not going to have pop bumpers, and if I did I'd buy new ones.  Thought about salvaging the spinners, but they're usually a pain to work with.  I salvaged whatever screws that didn't have stripped heads, saved the dirty bands just so I have something temporary should I decide I need a wall.

I do have the flippers all assembled, in theory if I wanted to I could wire them up and start flipping, but it would be pretty senseless since there's no barriers.  At the very least I need to order the aluminum sheet to make the side walls.  I'd also like to figure out how I'm going to do the ball drain.  The trough I have actually fastens from underneath on the left, coming up to the top through a hole mounting to the top right.  I think to keep things simple (at least for now), I'm not going to have any ball save mode from the ship (like woz).  Once you drain, you get a chance to rack up some bonus points.  Eventually if I get some more channels, I may have a mode where if you hit so many targets, a door opens up that you can shoot into which launches the ball back onto the playfield.  I'd rather tackle that later so I don't get bogged down.

And so it begins

I think everybody that starts one of these custom pinballs from scratch hesitates making that first cut, but if you never start you'll never finish.  I went ahead and mounted the inlanes and the posts for the slings.  I checked to make sure the sling triangles had enough room for the kickers (inch long slot) and it looks like I'm good.  Actually the pin that I'm stripping parts from has a similar shape.  Anyway, next step is probably to mount the 2 flipper coils and wire it up to some buttons.  I think for now it's fine sitting on horses, but I'm eventually going to want some sort of rotisserie that I can play on, and spin over to the bottom easily to make adjustments.

Got wood?

After building about 9-10 six inch wide boxes for our square garden (potatoes have been growing like gangbusters), I'm getting pretty comfy with the saw.  Today I went ahead and sanded the edges of the playfield and it cleaned up nice.

 I printed most of the playfield art on the plotter at work so I can overlay it to get my hole positions.

I also cut the outer box for the new backbox, and added radius to the outer edges using my router.

I'll get the speaker panel cut tomorrow, I simply ran out of sunlight today.

I've also started shopping around for a violin for the playfield.  Looks like I want an 1/8 scale (about 5" wide).  I can buy one on ebay (natural wood, or a variety of colors including purple) for $30 + $18 shipping.  That isn't bad considering it's a REAL violin.  Maybe not top of the line, but it's fully functional craftsmanship.  Still going to hunt for something a little cheaper, maybe I'll run into a used one.  Also been thinking I should remove all the strings, paint strings back in on the middle, but then make some wireform walls out of stainless (so it still looks like strings that blend in, but it keeps the ball from falling off the side).
 

backbox

Ok so something I haven't talked about is what is going to be driving this pinball.  I was originally going to use the original Stern guts, but I made a friend that's helping me out (big time), and he's donated (I'm going to pay him whether he likes it or not) a prototype starter kit to drive solenoids, keep score, and eventually display scoring on a monitor (just like OZ baby).  This is far beyond what I thought this project would turn into.

So I decided I should probably start shopping around for a monitor just so I have it ready when I need it.  I started looking at 24" monitors figuring that should be big enough.  Then I went and actually measured the head I have.  It's fricken 30" wide!  Yea, that's 28.5" of backglass width, they didn't give a crap about size back then.  So then I'm thinking even if I go with a 27" LCD, I'm still going to have gaps on the side.  If I jump to 32" not only is it going to start getting expensive, it's not going to fit in that backbox (shy by 1/2-1"), and it seems to be overkill considering it's just scoring.  Then I started thinking so I just want the LCD to display basic digit scoring only (pop a 19" monitor 1/4 of the way up an opening in the backbox), and then still have a traditional backbox backglass with static backlighting?  I could, but then I'd be under utilizing the potential of the system.

I took a good look at the inside of the backbox, filled with everything I don't need inside for this project.  I looked at how the backbox was constructed, and it's literally just a basic box made from plywood with a couple holes in the bottom to mount the bolts to the threaded inserts in the bottom cabinet.  So I said "That's it!  I'm building a custom backbox!".  Why the hell not, that way I can make it exactly the width I need it to be so there's little to no border around the monitor.  My cabinet is 22" wide, the 24" monitor is going to be 22" wide:
AMAZON

Making the backbox 23.5" outer width.  Yes, that only leaves 3/4" inch of gap on each side for flipper button pusing if the backbox is flush against 2 other pins, but who says I can't have some gap?  I can also make the backbox lighter so it's easier to transport (if I ever end up taking it to shows), maybe even modernize it a bit.  I mean the donor cabinet is from early solid state days (no sounds but chimes in the lower cabinet), so there aren't even spots for speakers in the backbox.  Hell, since I have the space (monitor height is only 16") I think I'm going to put some decent speakers above (another thing I need to start shopping for now).

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on an amp and a set of speakers.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0049P6OTI/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0037Z1FOU/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I figure for $42  I can't lose.  Both have good ratings, and the amp is used a lot on virtual pinball cabinets.  It has that new T-class chip amp which is supposed to give you really clean sound.  The speakers are 3-way which mean they provide both tweeters and a mid-range sound.  I'm sure it's way better than any stock pinball speaker system (other than flipper fidelity or Stern).

Thinking about covering the speakers with a breathable panel (so sound comes out), but adding a decal to make it look like an amp: