- This topic has 10 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 8 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hello Everyone,
New member here but certainly new to the VP scene as I got into it and built my first VP cab back in 2009. I’m originally a MAME guy and when I first stumbled upon Visual Pinball I thought it was neat to be able to play some recreations of the pinball machines I played growing up in the arcades in the 90’s like TOM, T2 and TAF. Then as I got more involved in the VP and Hyperspin community I saw a few guys were building full sized cabs. I was playing most tables in desktop mode but when I rotated my monitor and tried full screen I was hooked and knew I had to build one too! It was such a great time back in the day as I use to always look forward to Friday because jpsalas used to drop a new table every week or at minimum every other week or check chris99’s Big Bang Pin build thread to see what toys he has integrated with his LEDWiz. It’s great to see how the VP community has grown and how much improvement had been made from VP9.xx to VPX.
I’ve been able to reset my password on the old forums to post again as I hadn’t logged in or been active since 2012. The reason I stopped was because I got bit by the real pinball bug in 2010 and by 2012 I had built my collection of pins up to 8. If it wasn’t for VP I would have never gotten into collecting real pins. I had documented my first VP cab build on several forums like vpforums, hyperspin and a local arcade/vid forum which caught the attention of a local collector named Chris. He sent me a PM asking a few questions about my VP build and wanted to come by to check it out to see how it played and felt since I had force feedback via Siemens Contactors installed at the time. I had no idea he had pinball machines and when he looked under the hood of my VP cab and said if you enjoy doing this type of work/troubleshooting you should consider owning a real pinball. The thought of owning a pinball machine never crossed my mind and I thought most of them got junked because arcades were no existent current day. I asked him a few questions like what pins he had and the following weekend I drove up to his place to check out his collection. My first visit to Chris’ I was like a kid in a candy store because he had all the pins I remembered from the arcades. I hadn’t seen or played some of these pins in over 15 years and then I started asking how much some of these machines cost in particular TOM. I always admired this game as a kid because I thought it looked like a pinball masterpiece, the spinning trunk, magnets were awesome ball interaction toys and ramps were ultra smooth and satisfying to hit. But when Chris told me an average condition TOM that needed some work was around $2500 my jaw dropped. He had other games there and one in particular caught my attention which was Demolition Man because of the top handle grips to control the flippers. When I asked him the market value he said $1200-1300ish again depending on condition. That was a little bit easier to swallow so I set my sights on Demolition Man being my first pin. It only took from my initial meeting of Chris in Feb 2010 and almost 8 months of non stop PMs/emails of how much is this pin worth or what should I look for in case I buy this pin till I finally pulled the trigger and bought my first pin. It wasn’t Demolition Man but someone up the street from me was selling a High Speed. I remember this game too from the arcades but didn’t play it much and Chris told me $1000 isn’t a bad price if it was working. I couldn’t wait to bring it home but sadly I found out it wasn’t for me and luckily someone posted on the local classifieds they were looking for a High Speed working or not and willing to pay upwards of $1000. I emailed and asked the guy what he was willing to pay for a working one and he said $1200 max and 72 hours later High Speed left. Timing was perfect too because the following week someone tipped me off on a Demolition Man for $1300 but really $1100 out of my pocket. Ever since then I’ve adopted the motto “No Ramps, No DMD, No Thanks” and stuck by it after going through about 40 different pins (see attached pics).
I sold my latest VP P2K build in 2015 because I needed the $$$ and more importantly the space to get my 12th pin which was White Water. I barely booted it up to play and all I was really doing over the years was moving it around while playing musical chairs with my real pins. No regrets and figured if I ever got the itch I could always build another one. Fast forward to 2017 my friend Brian who was also a pinball collector got the idea to build himself a VP cab since he didn’t have room for more than 2 pins. He had been reading up on a few current cab builds which used VPX. He would always send me screen shots of current WIP and finished VPX (eg. Taxi, Diner, IJ) tables on Whatsapp. At first I was like looks great but how does it play because I bet you the ball must stutter like crazy especially if you are using an LEDWiz to drive toys. Once Brian got his cabinet to a playable state I went over to see for myself. I was impressed and he even got a pin2dmd working which was pretty neat to see.
So since late last year I’ve been lurking the forums and seeing all the amazing WIP developments unfold from all the talented old and new table creators. I’ve been slowing getting back into the software setup as things seem to be much easier to get going compared to back then. I was going to use Hyperpin but it looks like everyone is using Pinball X in their cabs. So I spent a little time learning the ins and outs of it and set everything up from scratch. Fortunately it wasn’t too different and can be just as tedious to setup as Hyperpin. It looks like there are some more tools available to assist like PBX recorder which is fantastic by the way! I’ve also been slowing gathering used computer parts and put together this so far:
Intel i7 4770k with Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 120 CPU Cooler
Gigabyte Z97MX-Gaming 5 Motherboard
4x4gb (16gb) Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600
Adata SU800 m.2 512gb SSD
Asus 970GTX 4gb Strix Video Card
Seasonic M12II 620w Bronze Power SupplyThe cabinet I will be using for my build will be a WPC95 cabinet. I lucked out a few months ago and found an older Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP 30″ 16:10 LCD Monitor to use in the head. It fits literally like a glove and fills in the WPC95 head without requiring any modification or bezel to cover any gaps. There is about 0.5″ gap between the monitor and WPC95 style speaker panel with H channel. I also ordered a Pin2DMD For the playfield I am going with an LG 43″ LED 1080p tv and will be mounting it on top of the side after notching parallel with the playfield glass. I’ll post pics in a few days/weeks when I start my detailed build thread.
Anyways, I just thought I would finally say hi to everyone and look forward to contributing to the great community you guys have here.
Mike
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Welcome Mike. nice collection of pins you have there. look forward to following along on a build thread, always fun to see how others build.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Welcome! I too have many real pins but I will say I sure enjoy vp just as much! And full feedback is a must including chimes, Bell, knocker, fan, beacon, shaker, contractors and rgb’s!
i could keep going but will at least let you say hi first.
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Very nice collection!!
I am particularly interested in your Congo Backglass. (One of my favorite movie pins!!)
Love it!!!
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
And full feedback is a must including chimes, Bell, knocker, fan, beacon, shaker, contractors and rgb’s!
Funny how the chimes moved to the top of the list
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
No full feedback without proper exciters and 7.1 – right randr ?
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I’ve attached a better pic of my Congo “ass-lite” :) I was never really a fan of the original translite and just thought this one was hilarious because if you look close in the background all the guys including AMY are checking out the girl.
Congo was one of my first pins which I’ve nearly had for 8 years now. I remember when I first got into the hobby I visited a collector who had a nice collection with the usual A-list games like Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones or Monster Bash. One day when I asked him to name off his Top 5 pins I was surprised to hear him mention Congo as 4th or 5th. So next time I went to visit him I spent more time playing it and I really enjoyed it. I was able to track one down 3 months later and the thought of selling it has never crossed my mind.
Thanks for all the warm welcome guys and looking forward to being a part of this awesome community. Once I make more progress I will start a build thread for you guys to follow. I am sure I will have tons of questions along the way as so much has changed from back in 2009-2012 when I was more active in the VP community like what the heck are exciters?
Attachments:
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
1 user thanked author for this post.
I do like your “back” glass!
exciters are a poor mans version of dof but sound is a great feedback option so the mix of good sound and dof is always best.
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Amazing row of pins – very jealous, not least for the amount of space you have! I’m building a VP in the hopes I will one day decide on a firm favorite table that I will eventually be able to afford in real life (that’s the dream). Until then I can at least live vicariously through posts such as this one!
As for PinballX – I’m personally not upto the stage yet for getting the software done in my build but reading up on it suggests that many are moving on from X to the new pinup popper frontend (with hyperpin becoming the definate red-headed stepchild of the bunch)! Think both are viable solutions however!
Looking forward to further pictures if possible ;)
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Amazing row of pins – very jealous, not least for the amount of space you have! I’m building a VP in the hopes I will one day decide on a firm favorite table that I will eventually be able to afford in real life (that’s the dream). Until then I can at least live vicariously through posts such as this one!
As for PinballX – I’m personally not upto the stage yet for getting the software done in my build but reading up on it suggests that many are moving on from X to the new pinup popper frontend (with hyperpin becoming the definate red-headed stepchild of the bunch)! Think both are viable solutions however!
Looking forward to further pictures if possible ;)
Careful now because real pins can be a very slippery slope! I use to wonder why would anyone need more than one pinball machine but within my first 12 months I was already up to 3 pins and sold my pool table to make more room which I than proceeded to fill with 6 more pins few months later. The prices over the last few years have gotten pretty out of hand and I never thought I would have spent $12.5k for my original Medieval Madness which has only been home use only as I am the third owner. I wish I had chased it earlier like in 2011-12 when they were only commanding a $5500-6000 premium when Congos were like $1400-1600.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Forums are currently locked.
