Mechs

No not that kind.  Mechanisms son!
So I know once ALL my solenoids are firing again, one crucial missing part besides the left return ramp coming off the upper playfield is the route by which the ball gets up there in the first place.  I've really been struggling with this part.  One design I had a guy carrying the ball up the wall, another design I simply had a hidden magnet dragging the ball along the back wall.  At one point I said eff it and just install a VUK.  VUK's are for pussies that like to play it safe.  Plus that doesn't really fit the theme, and certainly not the song that will be playing.  So it's an 18th floor balcony, how do you get up to the 18th floor?  An elevator of course, so why don't I just install an elevator?  Now before you say "Oh nice, stealing Ben Heck's hellevator idea", I did think about an elevator early on but had no idea how to accomplish such a thing.  Also unlike Ben who decided to basically use a rack and pinion system made out of acrylic, I planned on having the elevator supported by a couple screws through a slot in the back wall, and driven up by a threaded rod underneath (driven by a low RPM motor with the matching thread).  Similiar concept, but design-wise plenty different.  Also (and I'm not sure how AMH is designed from what I could see while playing it at pinball show), I plan on making the elevator hidden, and playable over on the back orbit shot.  When you make enough orbit shots in a row, the elevator starts climbing, and the ball should clunk against it until it rises up enough to enter inside, and bring it up.  I have an idea to tilt the bottom platform away from the entrance (so the ball stays inside), and then a way to actuate it to tilt back towards the playfield to release.  Once it hits the top, it'll hit a switch, deactivate the motor.  I may need a solenoid afterall to engage/disengage the motor so that it can fall by gravity alone.

I'm probably going to build a separate mech offline so that in case it doesn't work out, I'm not killing all the work I already did.  It's extra work, but in the end it'll save time.