297 replies to this topic

[maxxsinner]

Havent cut mine in yet , but i found marking the radius from the corner and putting the button somewhere on that radius makes it more comfortable as opposed to just dropping the hole a bit.

I am going to add that into the electrical guide. That is a great way of positioning your flipper buttons.

[Darkfall]

Got the little cooling fans for the topper today, and mounted them with my fancy mesh grills. I made these type of grills previously for the backbox and cabinet. I grab a hole cutter of the right size, cut a hole and keep the waste piece, then put my mesh over the hole and bash the waste piece back in, taking the mesh in with it. It works pretty good!

I expect I'll have it painted tomorrow, with photos and stuff.

I also got test prints of my artwork, too. I'll post a photo of that in a few hours - time for the little dogs to go to the park first!

[Darkfall]

Some photos of the art test prints.

The art will be on reflective paper, which will catch the light and sort of sparkle.


The whole test print sheet. The cabinet side art looks pretty cool.


A close up of the backbox side art.


This is with the flash on. It totally over saturates the image, but you can see the glass beads in the paper reflecting pretty well.

Havent cut mine in yet , but i found marking the radius from the corner and putting the button somewhere on that radius makes it more comfortable as opposed to just dropping the hole a bit.

I am going to add that into the electrical guide. That is a great way of positioning your flipper buttons.

It really is. Genius!

[chriz]

that looks fantastic! can't wait to see it on your cab

[Darkfall]

that looks fantastic! can't wait to see it on your cab

Thanks, Chris. Me too!

[mameman23]

Should look cool. Nice.

[Darkfall]

Lots happened today - we're at that stage when several pieces come together and things start looking like a pinball machine!


Cabinet with no backbox, but it's finally standing on it's own four feet! No coin door or front button holes yet. The custom lockdown bar is waiting for me to pick it up, which I will do tomorrow. I need that to make sure I'm positioning the lockdown mechanism properly, which also determines the position of the coin door, since they share a bolt.

I'll have to pull the legs off to put the artwork on, but that's ok - it's not terribly difficult. I managed to put the legs on by myself, without too much trouble (back legs first, then lift the front and put it on my knee while I put on a front leg, then throw on the last leg). I can stick something under it now and pull the legs off for the artwork application when the time comes.


Here is the custom enclosure for the Logitech subwoofer, since the original enclosure wouldn't freakin' fit (see previous entry). This is way better anyway - no rattles of sticking a premade enclosure inside (or trying to pad it with foam and stuff to avoid noisy vibration), and I expect this will sound better anyway. Years of car stereo builds prepared me for this! The silver box next to it is the amplifier and controls out of the original Logitech enclosure, and the transformer next to it was inside the box in-line with the power cord.


Here's the outside of the subwoofer solution. That's the original Logitech ring and grill, mounted onto a 3/4" ring I made. This served two purposes - one, it moved the speaker farther out of the cabinet for extra clearance, and two, it covered the hole I made while trying to stuff the original Logitech enclosure in there.


This is the inside the cabinet so far. As you can see, I put the service door from a few posts ago on, with all of the electronics and the PC mounted to it. It looks very neat and tidy, I think. I'm happy with it.


Here we see the service door open, from inside, viewing from the front of the cabinet. I just turn a couple of locks, and the door swings down so I can sit on the floor and deal with any issues.


Another shot of the service door open, from the inside, viewing from the side this time.


The view from the floor, with the service door open. It's a piece of cake to reach everything, for the odd time that I'll need to get in there. The glowing thing closest to the floor is the test print of the cabinet art - I cut out the logo and slapped it onto the service door for kicks.


And finally, the service door closed from the floor. When closed, the service door's lock tumblers fit quite snug, so the door doesn't rattle with bass and nudging. It looks like the near corner is hanging down in the photo, but it's not - that's just the gap around the door, which is about 1/8", so the door doesn't stick shut and make me fight with it to open it.

The service door thing worked out exactly as I planned. It doesn't cause any structural weakness that I could detect. I grabbed the cabinet and shook the hell out of it (fit to tilt any table 2 or 3 times in a row) - nothing budged. Even with the door open, it's solid enough to play roughly. I'm very pleased with it.

With the two 46" screens in there, it'd be difficult to get at things any other way. I could have put a slide out drawer for the PC, like some have done - but it would have been tight, and it doesn't address access to anything in the middle of the cabinet (shaker, perhaps, or subwoofer, or solenoids/contactors). The bottom door was the best solution I could come up with (coupled with a door on the back, and the coin door on the front, plus a door on the backbox). I'm glad it worked out.

Edited by Darkfall, 04 August 2011 - 06:33 AM.

[DedRok_V]

Amazing, glad it all worked out.

Thats the easy part finished.

Looks great, coming together nicely.

[maceman]

..Hey man,sorry i haven't chimed in yet. This looks GREAT so far!I love how tidy you are making everything. Very nice indeed!

Maceman

[Darkfall]

Thanks for the kind words, guys!

No worries, maceman - glad you're here now.

[maxxsinner]

Coming along brilliantly darkfall.

[mattdavis]

The service door thing worked out exactly as I planned. It doesn't cause any structural weakness that I could detect. I grabbed the cabinet and shook the hell out of it (fit to tilt any table 2 or 3 times in a row) - nothing budged. Even with the door open, it's solid enough to play roughly. I'm very pleased with it.

A swing down door instead of a pull out! That is great. It sure seems to offer a lot of advantages. VERY NICE. I am stealing your idea, and when my friends tell me how cool it is, I will tell them I made it up :-).

The whole thing looks great!

How's the topper coming along?

[Darkfall]

A swing down door instead of a pull out! That is great. It sure seems to offer a lot of advantages. VERY NICE. I am stealing your idea, and when my friends tell me how cool it is, I will tell them I made it up :-).

The whole thing looks great!

How's the topper coming along?

Thanks, Matt.

If I stole the idea from you, I'd tell everyone that it was my idea, too! *laughs*.

The topper is coming along pretty well. I haven't taken any photos of it yet, because it's sort of ugly looking with one coat of paint and no speaker grills, and stuff. I expect that I'll have something presentable over the weekend.

[Darkfall]

Not much to report - just some wiring. I installed the 4 flipper/magnasave buttons, wired them up to the IPAC and LEDWiz, then ran wires for the front buttons / LEDs and the coin door (service buttons, coin door open/close, insert credit).

Wiring is time consuming, if you're picky like me. Clean wiring will make life easier if I have to diagnose anything, though.

I plan to wire the topper next, and play with the solenoids - trying different surfaces for it to hit. I'm hoping to find something that is more "thud" than "thwack". The game itself makes the right noise, more or less - we're just looking for some vibration and some extra thump. I don't want them to sound like an extra game knocker going off constantly, if I can help it.

I decided not to pick up the custom lockdown bar - I have another parcel due from Pinball Life, and I might as well just make one trip. Stupidly, I selected the more expensive FedEx shipping option when I ordered from Pinball Life, thinking it might be a day quicker than USPS - wrong. 1 week to make it to WA, as it turns out. USPS is about 2 days. Bummer. Oh well. I'll grab everything on Monday or Tuesday, and work on the topper and wiring over the weekend, instead.

[Darkfall]

I'll have photos of the topper this weekend. I just finished another coat of paint, put in the speakers, put on the speaker grills, and glued in the dome bases (except for the 4 strobe dome bases, which I haven't picked up yet - that's part of the Pinball Life order I will grab Monday or Tuesday).

More wiring today, too. The backbox wiring is mostly there - I just need to put on the connector, and that should be good to go.

Getting close!

[Darkfall]

Got a bunch more wiring done, and the topper is nearing completion - finally!


Flipper and MagnaSave buttons mounted and wired. Wiring for front buttons and coin door are there, but those items haven't been installed yet. In the meantime, I just bridged the LED common and button common across to the other side. Once the front stuff is there, each side's commons will connect through those buttons and LEDs. You can see the slots I cut for the playfield glass plastics, too. Those took forever to do with a little Dremel - at least an hour for both sides. I could have gotten a slot cutter for the router, but I didn't feel like running to Home Depot (again!) and I don't remember seeing any there, anyway. The dremel got the job done, but it was slow going. I had to stack 3 cutting wheels to get the right thickness, and clamp a metal guide in place to keep me on target and straight. For a one time deal, it was ok - if I was doing this a lot, I'd be getting the right tools for the job, let me tell you! *grin*.


The fans are hooked up, and the thick group of wires in the right corner head up to the backbox. There's 24 wires there - 5 x RGB for the CREEs (15 total), 1 common +5 for the CREEs, 2 for the strobe CREEs when they're installed, 2 for fans, 2 for left speaker, and 2 for right speaker. Dual 12-pin connectors did the job perfectly.


Here's the topper, with the domes for the flashers installed (the CREEs are in there, too). The strobe domes, bases, CREEs, and heatsinks aren't there yet - but the wiring is in place for that when the parts arrive.


Lots of wires! The yellow and red wires twisted together on the right that go nowhere are for the strobes. You've got to love my solution for mounting the CREEs *grin*. I wasn't sure what I planned to do about that until 10 minutes before I executed the plan - blocks of wood on either side of the CREE heat sinks, with screws going through them at an angle (so I can get the screwdriver in there) that crank down on the heat sink from each side. Worked great! It's a little ugly, but no one's going to see it, and the CREEs are in there solid as a rock, which is what counts. You can see the 40mm fans on the bottom of the photo (which is the back of the topper, of course). One fan pulls air in, and the other blows it out.

Next is the solenoids and mercury switches - though I did order real pinball tilt bobs, as well, to test. They're cheap, and I was ordering domes for the strobes anyway, so I grabbed some bobs. I'll play with them and see what I like best - though I'm leaning toward the tilt bobs - it's hard to beat a tried and true real pinball part, is my thinking. We'll see!

I'm looking forward to finally getting to my delivery place just over the border to collect my lockdown bar, so I can line up the coin door and lockdown mechanism, which in turn will tell me where the buttons should go and stuff, too. I really want to get the front of the machine done.

Edited by Darkfall, 08 August 2011 - 05:18 AM.

[Rawd]

Looking great!

All these new projects makes me want to start a new one.

[Darkfall]

Looking great!

All these new projects makes me want to start a new one.

Thanks, Rawd. It's addictive - though I'm thinking once is enough. My next project will be a cocktail table, instead.

Went and picked up my parts today. Got the coin door, buttons, lockdown bar, and lockdown mechanism installed. Looks pretty good!


Countersunk buttons (except the Launch Ball - I don't have a forester bit that large - but it looks ok, since it's such a different looking button). I countersunk the coin door, too - it bugged me sticking up 1/8" on top of the wood.


A bit better of a look at the custom lockdown bar. It's very nice - Noah did a great job! It even has the little dimple across the edge, where the glass goes (the other custom lockdown bars I've seen don't have that). Lots of fingerprints - I groped it a lot, trying to get it lined up before I started making holes.


I added the coin mechanisms for the coin door. I don't know if I want people sticking money in it, but if I decide I do, I can do that now. The buttons are mounted, but not connected yet (I'm tired - I'll do that tomorrow and maybe see it lit up if I get energetic enough). I had to cut the lockdown bar mechanism on the right side (from this view), because my top button (Start button) was in the way. Measure first? Hell no! I wanted the button there, and so I shall have it! Ha ha.

I'll probably finish up the button and LED wiring tomorrow, and play with the solenoids to get a sound I like before installing them. I may play with the tilt bobs, too. It's coming down the home stretch now!

Edited by Darkfall, 09 August 2011 - 05:14 AM.

[Darkfall]

Zebulon made a nice HyperPin wheel for his machine over on his thread that really brings the cabinet art together with the on-screen look. I loved it, so I did the same thing, only with my "fire" theme.

Here's a shot of the new wheel:

[chriz]

WOW, that looks awesome!