door actuator pinball - part 2

So even though I have so many projects, I've been jones-ing to finally hook up the stronger 10lb actuator to real pinball parts (stopped by pinball life today).  I have to say it's looking promising.  I need to still hook up the other side, wire it up to buttons, build a border around the edges, perhaps some slings, but at least this project is going somewhere.  Here's a quick video:

blue october pinball - quick update

So I got the front coin door finished, the backbox finished, and all the cabinet clearcoated.  I still have to re-locate score displays and get a translite printed, but I did photoshop the backglass in to see how it would look:

basement layout

Ok, so now that my basement crack is getting filled in next week, I'm already planning the layout.  I've had an idea on where I want things, but it's nice to actually visualize it by modeling it in solidworks:

Once you start laying things out in actual scale, you realize how some things fit great, and others don't.  For instance, in the upper left corner you can see I have a drain pipe that runs along the upper portion of the wall (but not high enough for pins to clear it).  So either I have to loose 5" of space, or I have to consider having it modified to raise it up.  Then there's the matter of the water softner.  Could they have installed that next to the water heater?  Heck no, it needs to get installed at the main, which is RIGHT next to the bottom of the stairs and eats up more precious space (I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem, but clearly architects never intend to maximize basement living space).  I have some industrial shelving I bought from costco (each shelf can hold up to 2,000lbs), one of which fits nicely at the end of the stairs.  This shelf is for storing things that get accessed a lot (bags, overflow of food, toiletries, etc).  Then there are 2 more of the same shelving that I currently have next to the water heater / HVAC system.  I have a feeling a chunk of this side of the basement is simply going to become an unfinished storage area that will get walled off.

I'm figuring for flooring in the finished area will be some engineered wood flooring.  You can usually buy it for $1/sq ft, pins slide nicely on it, it wears well, and it gives you a nice warm feeling.  I've looked into how to fasten down the stud framing, and a lot of people swear by the masonry screws (drill a hole, gently torque the screw into the concrete), but I have read a couple bad reviews about how the difference between the minor and major diameter are so minimal that screw holes strip easily.

high speed project

I hate to detour this blog with restore projects, but it's the only blog anyone follows.  So I bought a high speed from a semi-local guy that I've bought from before.  He restores pins on a consistent basis (probably has more than a dozen projects in queue), which is probably one reason he let this one go.  Paid $600 for a fully working high speed.  Now you may say "wow! what a deal".  Hold your horses, the playfield looks horrible (which he warned me about).  While a lot of people would rather fix issues and have a perfect playfield, I'm finding I'd rather have a working pinball and fix up cosmetic issues (especially after I've put off fixing black knight for a while after replacing every board).  So the cabinet is in decent shape, all the artwork still looks great, but I'm gonna have to bondo the areas by the legs since it's chipping away (easy fix).  Backglass looks awesome, displays bright, sound works, flippers flipping (does need a rebuild).

Now for the playfield, you might even laugh at this.

So let's start off with the fact that it appeared all the plastics were in good shape, until I lifted this one.  Since the plastic was cracked, the previous owner decided the best fix was to just glue it to a piece of galvanized steel (which is great for allowing light to shine through):

All the rubber was so aged, it was flaking off into a fine powder.  My favorite though, the flipper rubbers were falling off so badly he decided that rather than spending $1.50 that he would simply wrap them with electrical tape:

This is my favorite though, this artist has decided to touchup the center playfield with what looks like a hobby paint set (thankfully this was not directly on the playfield, but on a top mylar layer):

So aftert stripping all that crappy plastic off (which was also scotch taped on the edges), I finally have a cleared off playfield.  Granted the paint is still missing, at least you can see the playfield instead of a muddy mess:

I removed the rest of the plastics and posts (still have a few things to remove).  Just as a test, I printed out a chunk of the center of the playfield (I'm working Photoshopping a clean play-field by starting out with a playfield image from visual pinball, and merging chunks from the web).  I simply printed it on photopaper and glued it down with some wood glue.

Obviously this isn't permanent, photo paper (even if it were cleared over) is too thick and would tear easily (and the inserts would need a lot of filling).  Plus I plan to sand the playfield completely before doing an overlay.  Really I wanted to see how bad it would be shifting and lining up an overlay, and rolling it flat, and making sure glue wouldn't seep through holes.  I'm trying to avoid putting more work than I need to.  The professional way would be to completely strip both sides, remove inserts, replace them, then overlay, clearcoat, and re-assemble.  I may still do that (I would want to connectorize and serialize every part so it can easily be re-assembled), but if I can avoid it I will.  I've clearcoated a playfield in the past just by filling any holes with foil (which works better than you would think), and it seemed to work pretty well.  I priced out a vinyl print, and I can get it done for $16 plus about $7 shipping, which I think is really reasonable (same place that printed the blue october cabinet artwork).

Cabinet halfway done

So I ordered the decals from a website. What was nice is they let you upload your work ahead of payment so a proof can be completed. After I paid for it, I literally had vinyl printing with adhesive in 3 days (shipped from India of all places). $62 later, I have a tube of artwork delivered to my door. I was worried about bubbling putting it on after hearing horror stories of applying decals, but using a spatula it went on pretty much smooth. I still have to sand and paint the backbox (I have decals for that too), but now that the main cabinet is done, and the legs and siderails are painted, it's starting to look pretty good:

Update... sorta

Since I actually have followers (hi followers) figured I should make an update.  I have almost no progress physically, unless you count the fact I shorted something out on my lamp driver board (the multiplier no longer lights up after knocking down the 3 drop targets).  A lot of time has been spent restoring my black knight (currently it boots, but game doesn't start and my bottom flippers are stuck on).

Anyway, I'm convinced it makes no sense to retheme the current playfield (too constricting) so I know I'm going to have to make a completely new playfield.  I also need to drop the playfield down a good 4-5 inches, but again I don't want to do that till I know everything is working 100% again.  Since I'm dropping the playfield, that also means I have to move the plunger down as far (which means new hole, fill in the old one).  I also want to break down my components to make wiring simpler and simply have a terminal block under the playfield.  In other words:
spinner switch
target (50 point, 100 point)
rollover switches
drop target mech

The original schematic may have run separate wires for each target, but if there's redundancy why not just have those values, and then I can tap into that terminal for as many targets as I want anywhere on the playfield (makes wiring and troubleshooting simpler too).

One last thing, since I'm integrating the mp3 trigger into switches for sound, I have to have a separate shielded contact (if I wire it into the same switch, it will trigger loop sound as soon as it boots up).  This means replacing every single blade switch with a 2 terminal blade switch.  These aren't cheap, in fact even by Pinball life pricing I'm looking at $9 a piece!  Also, I freaking HATE these switches! They've existed for over 60 years.  They're archaic, they get pitted, they cost too much because they have copper and tungsten, and they wear (and flex out of position and need readjustments). a MUCH better switch that is proven and has been tested up to a million cycles is the microswitch (AKA cherry switch).  Also, if you design a mechanism to use them, they are cheap (46 cents a piece), and will handle up to 5 amps a piece.  So even with a double throw, I'm looking at less than a buck.  I've got an early mechanism designed that looks like it should work, I just gotta prototype one now:

re-theme project

Now that I got my early solid state pin working (installed an Alltek MPU, fired right up), I'm starting the process of figuring how I want to do the artwork.  I'm going to start with the cabinet and backglass first, so it actually starts looking like a theme (and because the playfield is going to take the longest, and I don't want to lose steam).  Last night I started working on it, and my wife asked what I was doing.  I was tracing an image to do a 3-layer mask for the cabinet artwork, and she said "yea but both the cabinet artwork and backglass have the same band members.  Could you include both versions of the band for each piece of artwork?".  I said "sure, this is your pinball afterall".  Felt good to include her on something, especially something I'm so passionate about.  So we started google image searching for some good images.

Since I'm back to photo artwork (not mask layers), I can no longer just spray it.  I thought about maybe just going the vinyl route, but I had another idea (I've done this in the past on other projects).  If you print a good image, then apply it to wood using elmer's glue, not only will it stick really well, it will seal itself in a transparent coating (If you use a nice rubber roller, it will give a much cleaner even layer than a brush, plus you'll be less apt to tear the paper while it's wet).  I think I'm gonna try this technique to see how it works.

For the backglass, I found a good shot of them, but I cropped out the background and photoshopped a stage behind them.  I also used a program called "rasterbator" (yes, it's a real program, and it's not dirty).  It will take an image, and do a tile print (so you can print a large format photo with a regular 8.5x11 printer).  It does create dots so it will affect the image quality, but it's fine for a preview.  Also because it works by number of sheets, you have to allow for it.  So for instance, since my backglass width is 28.5", I have to have some gap on each side to allow for the 4 pages (8.5 x 4 = 34").  That way when it prints, it will be 1:1 scale.  My printer ran out of ink this morning so it started looking like crap, but you get the gist of it:

Anyway, the beauty now is I can figure out where the displays and bulb items like player, TILT, MATCH will show up on the artwork.  Also since old machines like this are so simple, I'm not against completely re-laying out the board  (I.E. cut new piece of wood, cut out holes for the display locations, cut holes for the general illumination, move the locations for TILT/MATCH).  I'd rather not have a display overlapping one of their faces.

Here's what the side cabinet artwork will be:

And here's what will be on the sides of the backbox will look like: