297 replies to this topic

[Darkfall]

Spending money again!

I just ordered some leg protectors from Noah (and got my Launch Ball button from him, too!).

On Noah's recommendation, I popped over to Pinball Life and grabbed some rubber feet for my leg levelers (so they don't trash the new floors going in downstairs), a set of Williams service buttons, the bracket for the service buttons, and the sticker that goes on the combo, and finally - my 5 clear twist on domes (and the bases for them) for the backbox flashers (the CREEs mentioned earlier).

Yay goodies!

Edited by Darkfall, 30 June 2011 - 07:37 AM.

[DedRok_V]

All coming together nicely so far. looks good.

[Darkfall]

All coming together nicely so far. looks good.

Yeah, so far so good!

[rascal]

Very nice work!

Have a video of a girl undressing playing on the nonvisible part of the backglass screen that screams "Close the door!" when you open the coin door and peek inside. LOL

Link it to a switch on the coin door.

[Darkfall]

Very nice work!

Have a video of a girl undressing playing on the nonvisible part of the backglass screen that screams "Close the door!" when you open the coin door and peek inside. LOL

Link it to a switch on the coin door.

Thanks for the kind words.

Haha. There's no end to crazy things one could do. That would definitely be unusual! I like it.

[gStAv]

*lol*

Very nice work!

Have a video of a girl undressing playing on the nonvisible part of the backglass screen that screams "Close the door!" when you open the coin door and peek inside. LOL

Link it to a switch on the coin door.

[Darkfall]

Hey, guys,

No new photos today, but I did manage to sand the backbox (which took for freakin' ever!), and mount the piano hinge and keylock for the backbox door. I'll grab a new photo as soon as I can paint the backbox and have something interesting to show *grin*.

I did play around with some of the cabinet art, though. I wanted pinball manufacturer logos on the backbox, and just for fun, I threw the Attack From Mars playfield and backglass on the LCDs in the rendered image. You can see the updated image in the first post.

Edited by Darkfall, 03 July 2011 - 07:37 AM.

[Darkfall]

Hi, guys,

No new photos of the pinball machine (though I did cut some holes for the big fans, did some more sanding, and mounted the hinge for the rear door on the cabinet body). I spent the day today using the left over wood to build a little corner shelf for the laundry room that I was asked to build about...oh...2 years ago or so? *laughs*.

Anyway, I thought some people might be interested in how to make perfectly round circle cuts in plywood. I wondered, too, since the jigsaw produces crappy circles, unless you're very,very focused while guiding the saw, or you want to spend a bunch of time after sanding out the wiggles in the edges. I figured there had to be a way to use the router, which I used to cut the slots for my displays. Google tells me there is - with a circle guide. I didn't have a circle guide, but my router came with an edge guide. I did some Mickey Mousing, and came up with a solution of my own that works flawlessly:


You can see that I've just started a new hole, and a previous hole has been cut. The holes are absolutely perfect.


This is a closeup of the jig. It's just a block of 2"x2" with two holes drilled in it for the arms of the edge guide to go through, two wood screws in the top to clamp the arms in place securely at whatever radius is needed, and a nail through the block as a pivot. I drill a hole in the center of the hole I plan to cut, push the nail into the hole, slide my router into the block and line it up at the edge of the hole, then clamp it in place with the screws.

The router can't cut all 3/4" of wood in one pass, so I set the router blade to cut about 2mm deep, lift the router up off the wood, start the router, then lower it into the wood and turn the router around the nail pivot. I stop the router, lower the blade another 2mm, and do everything again. You can't cut all the way through with the router, or your pivot will move around on you on the last pass - and that'd screw up your perfect hole, so I keep going until there is about 1mm of wood left to cut through, then shut the router down and wiggle it back and forth to break the thin remaining wood and pull out the circular middle. A quick sand around the edges of the hole, and it's done.

My next task is to install the lock on the rear door on the body, then do the door in the floor of the body - then sanding on the body, then paint. Somewhere in there, I'll have some photos worth showing, I'm sure. Probably photos of the cabinet with all the doors open, so you can see what I did.

I have a bunch of parts about to arrive, too. I know some are already waiting for me to pick them up, and the rest should arrive by Friday (though I don't know if I'll get a chance to grab them before the weekend, but I'll try). With those, I should have all of the parts I need to finish the cabinet except playfield and backbox glass.

Edited by Darkfall, 06 July 2011 - 05:23 AM.

[Lobotomy]

You can use another leftover piece of wood, clamp it to the plywood (going across underneath), and fastening it with two screws in the middle of the piece that is beeing removed. Now when you route all the way thru the piece wont move
Remember to use two or more screws, otherwise the piece can move. Oh, and ofcourse no screws in the path of the routing

[Darkfall]

You can use another leftover piece of wood, clamp it to the plywood (going across underneath), and fastening it with two screws in the middle of the piece that is beeing removed. Now when you route all the way thru the piece wont move
Remember to use two or more screws, otherwise the piece can move. Oh, and ofcourse no screws in the path of the routing

Yeah, that'd work. I found it easy to cut until there was just a paper thin layer left, then just break it free and clean up the edges. Either way seems to work good *grin*.

Made some progress today, getting the various doors set up with hinges and locks. Here's a photo of the body and backbox with the doors open, so you can see how it turned out:



The body is up on it's nose (front end on the floor). It looks funny like that, but I couldn't show you the bottom door otherwise, since the legs aren't here yet.

I also cut the 4 fan holes in the back. I plan to make some air inlet holes at the bottom of the backbox, and on the bottom front of the cabinet, as well, and cover them with mesh. I have a visual in my head as to how that's supposed to look - we'll see if it turns out as planned *laughs*.

I can do some sanding and stuff while I wait to pickup the cabinet parts (legs, rails, coindoor, etc.) I might get some of that done before the weekend. I plan to pick up all the parts on Saturday, so that'll be exciting.

Edited by Darkfall, 07 July 2011 - 05:34 AM.

[mameman23]

Looking good

[DedRok_V]

Lookin good Darky

Lots of opening doors, hope its sturdy enough.

[Darkfall]

Lookin good Darky

Lots of opening doors, hope its sturdy enough.

It seems to be. It did lose some rigidity when I cut the bottom door, but not enough to be a problem. You may have noticed that I did not make the entire bottom a door, like I had originally planned. I decided to make the door smaller, so I could have static parts on either side to brace the corners of the body, which worked pretty well.

I placed the body on the ground and grabbed it by the corners to see how much it'd wiggle, and it's very slight. Once the playfield display is in there, I don't think it'll move at all.

[Lobotomy]

I see that you have'nt stabilized the decased tv?
Even though my cab is like a rock, i felt i had to stabilize my tv, it was a bit... "wiggly".
I was just thinking if your cab is a bit "wiggly", and the tv is too, they might wiggle.
(ohmygod, english is NOT my native language, so be gentle with me )

Would be a shame if the tv broke when things got rough, having a party and playing Getaway II

[Darkfall]

I see that you have'nt stabilized the decased tv?
Even though my cab is like a rock, i felt i had to stabilize my tv, it was a bit... "wiggly".
I was just thinking if your cab is a bit "wiggly", and the tv is too, they might wiggle.
(ohmygod, english is NOT my native language, so be gentle with me )

Would be a shame if the tv broke when things got rough, having a party and playing Getaway II

I found the Sharp was more flexible than the Philips. The Philips has a thicker edge around it, both the gauge of aluminum used is thicker, than there's more of it, as well. I didn't find it wobbled much, so it should be fine.

I considered bracing the display from below, and I still might - but it seemed to be pretty solid. If I was using the Sharp for the playfield, I would have braced that, for sure - it's far weaker than the Philips is.

The cabinet doesn't wobble, really - but if I really try to twist it (as though I was deliberately trying to break it), it will move a tiny bit. It doesn't flex any more than it did when the floor didn't have the door in it. It's very solid, but anything will flex slightly if you really push in on the corners enough.

If it comes down to it, I'll put cross bracing inside the cabinet, from corner to corner - but it doesn't appear to need it at the moment.

[Lobotomy]

If it comes down to it, I'll put cross bracing inside the cabinet, from corner to corner - but it doesn't appear to need it at the moment.

Kinda hard when:
1. You got a big fat 46" in the way.
2. The floordoor

But i trust you got things under controll, I'm not telling you how to do it ofcourse =)

[mameman23]

The leg bolt brackets will also add some strength if you are using the Williams ones that connect to both sides

[Darkfall]

If it comes down to it, I'll put cross bracing inside the cabinet, from corner to corner - but it doesn't appear to need it at the moment.

Kinda hard when:
1. You got a big fat 46" in the way.
2. The floordoor

But i trust you got things under controll, I'm not telling you how to do it ofcourse =)

There's loads of room across the middle of the cabinet body, between the underside of the playfield display and the floor - more than enough for bracing and components. I don't think I'll need it, though.

The leg bolt brackets will also add some strength if you are using the Williams ones that connect to both sides

Yes, I will be using the Williams braces, and I have corner pieces to put between them and the corner of the cabinet, which helps, too. Even without that, though, it's not in danger of coming apart.

I tend to overbuild everything, just to be certain that I'll never have to worry about it. I'm pretty confident with this, and I'm hard to please.

[Darkfall]

Hi, guys,

Didn't do too much today. I laid out all the new pinball parts for inspection (all looks good!), made a few decisions based on the parts:

1. I need longer backglass guides on the left and right than comes in the kit, since I don't have a speaker panel - I ordered 2 more top pieces (same thing, just longer) for the job.
2. I need a wider rear playfield glass channel - my cabinet is a little wider than a typical widebody, so I'll need a second piece to make the span - already ordered.
3. I need a drink holder (a PinGulp). Already ordered.
4. While ordering extra parts, I noticed brighter LEDs for buttons that'll fit my buttons, so I ordered a bunch to replace the ones in my buttons, plus 3 extra red ones for the new Launch Ball button, and the 2 coin return slots on the coin door (I did put LEDs in the coin door already, but if I'm going bright on everything, I might as well on those, too).
5. I am never going to find a good spot to put real speakers in the backbox, and there's nowhere for the heatsinks for my CREEs to stick down into the backbox with my display in there (I'm slotting the top of the backbox to slip the edge of the display into, to get as much screen visible as possible). My solution is to build a topper with speakers on each side, and all 5 flashers on top - that way the flashers are toward the front of the backbox, and I have a spot for speakers. I'll put a "Wildfire Pinball" logo between the speakers, so it should look good.

I have some extra parts - backbox pivot (I can't pivot my backbox, obviously), an extra set of maintenance buttons with bracket and sticker (the coin door came with them - I wasn't expecting that!), and two backglass side plastics. Nothing serious - all inexpensive parts, so I ain't too worried.

Noah tells me that the custom lockbars are looking awesome, and mine should be on it's way to me at the end of the week, or early next week. Yay! I need that part so I can figure out where to position the lockbar release mechanism and the coin door (since they're all related - the top bolt of the coin door goes through the lockbar release mechanism, which of course needs to be positioned for the lockbar. I need to get the playfield glass guides installed, and the side rails, before I can position the other parts anyway, so the timing is probably about perfect.

Anyway, today I cut my vent holes in the bottom rear of the backbox and bottom front of the body, and installed mesh into them from the inside, then added little door handles to my doors, so I can get them open without using a screwdriver to pry the edges *grin*.


There are my vents (made of standard mesh from Home Depot) and door handles (made from small corner braces, with the handle side shortened to get rid of the screw hole and keep it from sticking out too far).


There's the vents from the inside. I just took the round scrap from the hole cut, put the mesh over the hole, then hammered the scrap back into the hole, pressing the mesh in with it - worked like a hot-damn! You can also see that I've added 45mm edges on either side of the backbox, ready to be routed for the glass guides. That should put the edge of the guides within 1mm of the edge of the display's picture.

My next thing is to make a jig to drill the holes for the legs. Drilling into the corner of a cabinet is tricky - a jig will make sure my holes are angled right and in perfect position, so they all match.

Edited by Darkfall, 12 July 2011 - 04:30 AM.

[Darkfall]

I did the final art for the backbox door, with the yellow warning text (resized to work around the position of my fans and air vents, of course):



The Adobe Illustrator file is here, if you want it. If the fonts aren't embedded, they're available in this zip file.

Edited by Darkfall, 12 July 2011 - 08:18 AM.