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: