Eliminate bulbs in pinball?

What the HECK are you talking about?  I'm sure you've heard Ben talk about this many times, replace bulbs with some sort of laser projection, and you know what?  I think he's onto something.  This probably sounds crazy, crazy like computers eliminating wires and transmitting data with lasers, or cooling computers with waterlines instead of fans.  But you know, it's really not that far stretched.  Lighting under a playfield is a wiring mess that isn't easily managed.  Also wires are easily cut, sockets are easily shorted.  In fact just the other day I watched a video on Clay Harrell's pinball ninja website where a demolition man wouldn't even boot from a insert light failure.  Turns out, one of the bayonet sockets got turned and grounded to one of the playfield rails.  It wasn't until he unplugged the IDC connectors a few times and saw a spark that he started to figure it out.  Also, after resetting the fuse, he let it boot with the playfield up.  Sure enough as soon as the rail touched the lockdown bar, it shorted out and caused the machine to freak out.

So I just recently got one of those green lasers off ebay for $5.  I had one a while back but it broke, I got another one to use as a pointer during powerpoint presentations at work.  Anyway, it's amazing how much light you can get off a couple AAA batteries.  Now take that focused light and bounce it off a couple mirrors, you can light up a room pretty quick.

So I thought, well what if you did somehow shine lasers up into the inserts?  Would you need a bunch of individual lasers?  That still wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, $5 for each laser vs $1-$2 per bayonet socket plus another dollar for the LED bulb.  But then you'd still have the problem of "which laser isn't firing? Or is there a short in the wire? Or is it the lamp driverboard?" when you start having insert light issues.  So then I thought "well, maybe you have some sort of spinning mirror and you PWM the laser so it only fires at certain rotations, thereby sharing that single lasers among 12 outputs (sort of like the DLP televisions of yesteryear).  That's not a bad design if it were reliable, I think there's a reason why DLP went away (and it's not just because LCD got really cheap).  I believe the alignment of laser vs spinning motor was not very reliable and you ended up with blurred images.

So then I thought well... They do have reasonably inexpensive RGB laser projectors.  You know, those boxes that project very bright lines at clubs:


Or the vector animations, like this inexpensive $170 one from spencer's gifts:

The projector from Spencers is not only cheap, it allows you to create your own animations to put on an SD card (there's software that will convert bitmap to vectors).  This certainly simplifies it further.  If you mapped the entire underside of your playfield (so you pick a spot where each insert is), and then simply create single images for every possible scenario, you could simply load that image for whatever mode you have.  The only thing I would question is whether or not you could fill an entire playfield from only a couple feet away, even with perhaps 2 projectors to share the work?

Well let's take this a step further, perhaps we don't need lasers, maybe all we really need is a really bright display, I don't know like a video projector?  You're in a relatively dark enclosed cabinet, and projectors are REALLY cheap.  Like I'm talking about if you don't mind cheap chinese import crap, a relatively decent mini projector can be had for $60:
http://www.dx.com/p/ruiq-uc-30-24w-portable-mini-lcd-projector-w-sd-av-vga-hdmi-black-us-plug-100-240v-233749#.U0yi5qIVDD0

Even though you don't give a crap about resolution (you're only trying to get colors), it actually has a resolution of 1920 x 1080.  The specs also say 1 meter - 3.8 meter throw.  I don't know what size you'd end up with at only a couple feet, but again maybe you simply divide and conquer by having 2 displays at a short throw inside.

Another idea for video projection, animating 3d objects on the playfield.  Maybe Gerry Stellenberg has it all wrong with his flat LCD panel on the playfield?  I'm sure you've seen music videos by now where they've got a miniature foam mockup sitting on a table, and a projector starts adding animations to it, giving it an eerie 3d effect:


Mapping is really just setting up a projector, live tracing whatever object you intend on projecting onto, tracing it in some paint program, then creating animations in those spaces:

Sure seems like even in a fairly brightly lit room, the projection still shows up well (just like in a conference room where most of the lights are still on).

midwest gaming classic - I need to step it up

After seeing what Charlie from spooky pinball has come up with for his pinball zombies, I realize I need to really make sure I have a good layout.  Perhaps I should be sketching more instead of going right to 3d models, but I find it hard to think in layers in 2D.  I've done a bunch of re-configuring today, particularly with the upper playfield, but I don't want to post any photos until I've progressed far enough (I hate being the guy that bombards the audience with little tidbits).

Lower playfield - new idea

The bottom playfield was just looking bland, like I ate gottlieb's black hole and spit it back out.  Since the song is "into the ocean", I've decided to step it up a notch and make the playfield a boat that rocks on a mechanism.  Other than a local pinball guy that made a williams flash pinball rock with an ice cream mechanism, I've never seen a playfield rock (mine won't rock on axis, it'll actually roll back and forth).

plywood came - less than pleased

Well I'll say this, on the surface it was at least packaged well (double walled cardboard taped on both sides):

Then I started checking out the plywood.. Crack on this corner:

 Cracked on another side:

 And call me crazy, but this is not what I would consider 7-ply.  7-ply is usually same thicknesses, this is clearly 3-ply with 4 layers of veneer in between:

 I will say this, the board sure is straight for something that is 24" wide x 48" long:

Honestly, because I have excess wood, the dents aren't as big of a deal as they appear.  I mean I have at least an inch I can trim off each edge.

not really an update - but I'm still here

Well after being super busy at work and fixing issues with my current pins, I'm ready to get back in the saddle.  Sold a bunch of stuff on ebay so I have some free money to play with, so I pulled the trigger on what looks like good quality 7-ply maple from that ebay seller from St Louis.  Hopefully it's as good as described, anything has to be better than the warped plywood at box stores.  Once the sheet comes in, I'm going to go ahead and cut it to size, and at the very least drill my initial holes for the flippers, slingshot posts, and lane guides.  I figure once I get that much done, I can at least stick it on some sort of rotisserie and wire up the flippers.  There's something exciting about having a completely clean slate whitewood where I can start plopping down prototype parts to see how it plays.

resolve one problem, a new one pops up

Feels just like my day job.. Well it seems I've found at least one source for good playfield wood (local wood suppliers just won't respond to emails apparently unless you have a corporate email address).  There's a guy on ebay from Missouri that has what looks to be exactly what I'm looking for, which is 7-ply maple plywood and the price seems pretty reasonable:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310249372131&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

My new problem, inserts.  Yea, you'd think those would be plentiful, but seeing how I had to beg CPR to send me a 1.5" triangle insert because nobody but Australia sells them, seems that aren't as easy to come by.  I would imagine big companies like Stern probably have a direct relationship with the molders that make them, but if you're looking for replacements (or in my case new ones to make a one-off pin) your choices are rather limited.  I'm starting to understand why Ben Heck used the rectangular clear inserts on his Ghost Squad machine, they seem to be plentiful on marco:
http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/PI-112REC-CT

I'd like square inserts, but I want clear, and they just aren't out there.  I also don't like the insert above because it's got that triangular pattern like a bike reflector.  I really like the starburst pattern, it feels very retro and bright.  It would actually be easier if I used round inserts because I can cut out my own holes with a splade tool and a drill as apposed to needing to CNC route square pockets.  Problem is on Marco I'm limited to plain white ones, and they're giant (1.5").  I did find some nice 3/4" round starburst inserts on Pinball resource, only problem is you have to order $50 to establish an account with Steve Young, and there isn't a whole lot else I'd want to buy from him.  I suppose having a 100 inserts on hand wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but I also don't want to horde these.

More playfield real estate

No, I don't intend on designing this into my project, but it's a thought I wanted to jot down.  Most people's complaints about Stern is the re-using of layouts, and everyone's argument is always "well, there's only so many ways you can lay out a playfield".  To that I disagree, there is ALWAYS room for innovation.  If you've ever seen Zaccaria - Time machine, you know this is the pin where there's a bank of pop bumpers below the playfield (with a clear top) so that the ball can loop around, then that section of the playfield raises and suddenly you have pop bumpers accessible (Perhaps this is where John Popadiuk got his idea for Circus Voltaire?)
Anyway, I thought what if you took this idea a bit further and did a much bigger chunk, but instead of just raising vertically, you had 2 playfields that swung up on hinges on opposite sides?  That way you aren't limited to just a feature and a surface, you could literally have playfield chunks that swap out with anything on them (within small limitations).  Be it pop bumpers, drop targets, perhaps a bank of ramps that disappear out of the way, but re-align when they pop back up?  I have no idea how well you could get things to line up, but I know on my Williams Fire! it has ramps that lift up so you get a big horseshoe turn-around, and then when the ramp lowers it allows you access to a ball lock ramp.

Anyway, here's a quick 3d sketch of what I mean (click on the first photo, then hit the right arrow):

On a sidenote, I'm still in search of some decent maple plywood.  I was nearly convinced that marine grade plywood from menards would be ok (I think the coconut island project used that).  And maybe it would be ok, at least for a first crack, but I'd prefer some good wood.  I'm going to contact a couple local lumber places that carries higher end plywood sheets to see what pricing is like.