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One more option. Black with metallic silver spaceship (now with top box).
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Ha! So, cab-art before game play?  hmmm, we’re cut from different cloth.
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Ha! So, cab-art before game play? hmmm, we’re cut from different cloth.
Not so much “before” as all at the same time. I can’t generally run the power tools at 11pm or on short work breaks, but I can play in Photoshop anytime ;)
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Well, I sprang for my first upgrade. And of course it’s a real plunger.
I even got extravagant and bought the fancy 3D printed mounts.
I started with the STL file provided by Pinscape in their build guide and modified it slightly (using 3D Slash) to fit my fader. I don’t have access to a 3D printer, so I paid $13 (including shipping) to have it printed at makexyz.com. You can do the same with services like Print A Thing and Treatstock.
Grand total for the plunger was $45 (yikes that’s nearly 10% of my budget!) But well worth it and I knew if I didn’t include it in the $500 budget build, it would be the very first upgrade anyway.
I’m still doing well on the budget overall. I think I’m in the home stretch in terms of expenses and there’s still a comfortable margin to spare.
Above you can see where my flipper buttons and plunger ended up. I said it before, but it’s worth repeating. I wish I’d given myself a little more space. I’d have had more options for the flipper button locations and could have mounted the plunger an inch or more higher if I’d just made the cabinet and inch or two longer.
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Time to reveal upgrade #2.
She’s got legs!
Ok, my budget only included $40 for legs. And I’d found a couple styles of metal table legs that I thought would be OK, even though they didn’t exactly scream “pinball.”
Well, two things happened. First I’d started having doubts about anything other than real pinball legs making this look like a toy. And if that meant I’d be replacing the legs soon, I’d really just be throwing $40 away, which is the antithesis of a budget build. Second, the non-pinball legs I preferred sold out. So that clinched it.
I looked everywhere for a deal, even watching some old rusty legs in need of a lot of elbow grease sell for way too much on ebay. I found 4 legs with levelers, bolts, and brackets at Pinball Resource for $92 delivered and bought them.
I’ve since discovered that Pinball Life has a full set for just $77. I’m not sorry I bought from Pinball Resource, they were great. They don’t do online orders, so I had to order by email and snail mail a check. But it was surprisingly fast, easy, and well… human.
But spending $15 more than I had to on a build with such a tight budget still hurts.
And it *probably* means I’ll go a little over my $500 budget. But it just didn’t make sense to spend $40 on legs I’d replace anyway.
My leg drilling jig didn’t work as well as I’d imagined. This leg came out OK, but I need to do better on the other 3. More on that tomorrow.
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Honestly. I think you will find a few original parts that you just can’t be without – if you are going for a real pinball look. Next up. Lockdown bar.
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Looking great. Where in Va? Haven’t seen many from here.
Onevox
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Honestly. I think you will find a few original parts that you just can’t be without – if you are going for a real pinball look. Next up. Lockdown bar.
I had that on my possible upgrade list. But I’ve unintentionally made some decisions that will make that difficult. For one thing the cab is about 22.5″ wide, a hair too wide for a standard lockbar, but too narrow for a wide body.
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Looking great. Where in Va? Haven’t seen many from here.
Just outside of Charlottesville. You?
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Honestly. I think you will find a few original parts that you just can’t be without – if you are going for a real pinball look. Next up. Lockdown bar.
I had that on my possible upgrade list. But I’ve unintentionally made some decisions that will make that difficult. For one thing the cab is about 22.5″ wide, a hair too wide for a standard lockbar, but too narrow for a wide body.
I know VirtuaPin does do custom size lockdown bars, but they’re more expensive than regular lockdown bars.
Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Ok, as promised here are some lessons learned about drilling the leg bolt holes, from a noob to any other noobs out there following along.
Here’s my first drilling jig cut out of a 2×4. It was not great.
First off, cutting that 90 degree notch was surprisingly hard. Getting the two cuts to line up on the table saw wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Second, there’s too much room for error in the vertical spacing of the holes when the jig only drills one hole at a time. Even being off by a 1/16″ matters here.
Here’s jig #2 cut out of a scrap of 4×4.
This was much easier to make (details below) and more accurate. I drilled pilot holes based on the leg bracket before using the full sized bit (3/8″ I think) to drill the guide holes.
This worked really well. I don’t have a ton of large clamps, so I just used double sided tape to hold the guide in place. Be careful here. The tape will lose its stickiness after about two legs.
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Here’s how I made my leg hole drilling jig.
Started with a 4×4.
Then I made two straight cuts on the table saw to notch out one corner.
Then I flipped that over and set the table saw for a 45 degree cut and cut off the opposite corner.
That would have done the job, but it was a little bulky and hard to handle.
So I set the table saw blade back to vertical and cut off the remaining two corners.
The end result was something like this.
I put that on the drill press, used the leg bracket as a guide and drilled out the holes for the leg bolts (see photo above). This worked beautifully.
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Well, it looks like a pinball machine (just need side rails).
Time to start making it play like one.
Starting on the button wiring.
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Well, I’ve got lights and sound.
I’m having a hard time with Pinscape. I can’t tell if it’s hardware (my soldering or dupont connectors) or that I’m not understanding the software.
I suspect some of both.
One thing I’m not clear on is what Pinscape pinouts I can put push buttons on. Can they go anywhere (other than the ones marked ground and 3v/5v)? Or do only certain pin outs work with push buttons?
I’ve got the diagram, but I don’t know what all the abbreviations mean.
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You can put the buttons on pretty much every pin, but you might want to reserve specific ones to help drive lights (hint: they include PWM, Pulse Width Modulation, which allows for fading lights), and then there’s the recommended default connections for the plunger, I believe that takes an analog pin. The PT* are just the way they’re assigned in software, it’s literally just telling you the “name” of the pin in the GPIO, they’re in an odd order physically because of making the board Arduino-shield compatible. MOSI, MISO, SCLK labels you can ignore.
Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Thanks Lynn! Can I drive a few leds (like in buttons) directly off the Pinscape? I thought I saw something in the build guide that said you couldn’t.
For now I was just planning on powering my lighted buttons off a usb port.
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I’d recommend using one of the circuits specified in the guide rather than trying to drive them directly. Directly driving them will result in an anemic output, as the pinscape will only put out around 3v, and it’s easy to exceed the rated amperage. I was fortunate in that I didn’t have to order parts for the simple ic circuit, I had several of the chips on hand.
Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Here we go!
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At this stage I’m mostly just setting up PinballX, configuring tables, etc.
In terms of budget/build stuff, here’s my poor man’s power supply solution. My 12v cabinet fan plugs right into the computer’s power supply and my 5v led buttons are powered from an old usb cable. I cut the cable, soldered the red and black wires to my led leads, tidied everything up with some heat shrink and plugged it into a front usb port.
No need for an additional power supply or power distribution blocks if we keep it simple.
I haven’t taped everything down yet, because it all has to come out for paint soon anyway.
There’s no back to the cab, so currently this is the only fan. I have another and if I decide to close the back of the top box, I’ll put it there.
The aluminum for my side rails finally started heading my way. The seller dropped them off at the post office 2 weeks ago, but I’ve had no tracking updates until yesterday.
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