33 replies to this topic

[gerardnl]

hi guys

 

after lurking around, and reading a lot i strated the woodwork stage of my project.

 

loads of time hunting for all parts needed i gathered most of them, so i decided to get some wood and kick off !  

 

for the look, i go back to the pin i used to own that ment the most to me personally, the Bally TWILIGHT ZONE.

the memories on that game, made me plunge into this adventure.

 

 

 

PC:
-W7 64
-Proc. Intel@ 2.6 ghz Ghz dual core
-Mother board Asus P5w deluxe \THX
-4G Ram
-Video card GeForce GTX 560 Ti (however this item is not bought yet)
-Soundblaster X-fi
-PSU 650W
-pioneer 10 cm speakers and 10" sub
-SSD 120 gig samsung

Screens
Samsung ES5000 46” for playfield
LG 28" for backglass
Ilyama 19" for dmd emulation

Parts:
Widebody lockdown bar
Williams/Bally chromed legs
coin door 
Williams/Bally thin side rails
All original Williams/Bally plastic guides and strips

Replica Twilight Zone speaker panel

 

the coin door and widebody lockdown bar were a tough find, it would cost a arm and leg to get those to the netherlands, and lacal sellers ask ridicilous prices for those over here.

thankfully, a member here stepped up to the plate and got hold of them for me at a great price.

 

rob (nemo) A+ ! and thanks.

Others:
I-Pac
Led-Wiz 
bought some 3W star RGB leds on ebay, till i get the expensive cree ones
8 contactors (will use 220v types, becouse i had them)
Nanotech Mot-ion for the nudge (will probably be replaced with 3 mercury switches)
Original tilt mechanism modified in three zones

Dual H bridge

Shaker Motor and Gear emulation

 

im going for 2 flipper buttons, dont specialy care for the magna save ones.

3 buttons for the clean look (start, quit/exit and extra ball) 

 

went out bouht all the wood and started chopping things up.

as many out here i used mamemans exxellent widebody plans as a starter.

 

got too enthousiast, and forgot to take pictures of the endless sawing and fist glueing of the panels.

will try to keep them up now guys !

 

 

started the dmd panel, made it of thin mdf panel, and glued on that will be the twilight zone panel.

 

 twilight.JPG   67.12KB   78 downloads

 

time to saw it up :-)

 

 dmd zaag.JPG   70.21KB   78 downloads

 

test fit

 

 dmd test fit.JPG   78.93KB   79 downloads

 

loads of grackets and mounting plates like this lie ahead i think

 

 dmd achter.JPG   72.61KB   92 downloads

 

will mount fome guide plastics later, to make the panel slide in place.

 

started making the cabinet body

 

 cabinet binnen.JPG   74.31KB   95 downloads

 

 

the backside of the cabinet

 

 

 

 cabinet achter.JPG   81.83KB   91 downloads

 

with offcourse a hatch for the pc drawer

 

 cabinet achter klep.JPG   79.11KB   79 downloads

 

i really wanted it to stand on his new shiny legs so i started off on them

 

 bouten.JPG   76.92KB   73 downloads

 

 poten.JPG   94.48KB   79 downloads

 

 

load of guys struggled with the mounting plates for the legs, drilling in the corner.

 

 

 

this is how i tackeled it:

 

 

for the proper stand of your machine, the mounting plates go on the bottom of the machine.

 

on the front of the machine, the holes for the bolts go on top, on the back of the machine they go down.

 

this way your machine will stand like it should.

 

start by marking the plates holes for the bolts.

 

 poten afteken.JPG   88.51KB   101 downloads

 

drill from the inside out with a small drill (i used a 4mm one)

carefully make sure to drill in the right direction (CORNER !) and with the drill level.

 

 poten gat klein.JPG   93.33KB   95 downloads

 

if all went well, you should be on the corner, or very near.

dont worry if youre somewhat off, drilling them with the larger drill, can fix the position somewhat.

 

the small ones on the corners

 

 poten gat klein buiten.JPG   70.76KB   76 downloads

 

after that drill them bigger with a larger drill

 

 poten gat groot.JPG   88.9KB   73 downloads

 

if all went well, you should end up like this:

 

 poten gat grro buiten.JPG   67.38KB   79 downloads

 

 

finally the legs go on !!!  YEEEHAA !

 

 

 

 eerste poot erop.JPG   80.64KB   76 downloads

 

and on go the rest

 

 cabinet poten 1.JPG   80.03KB   74 downloads

 

 cabinet poten 2.JPG   78.72KB   68 downloads

 

now the head can be put on, a fine moment, plans start to come together !!

 

 cabinet kopkast final.JPG   72.91KB   92 downloads

 

finally, all warm feelings, big smile, and time for some beer !!

 

 cabinet poten 3.JPG   92.51KB   117 downloads

 

and i surely will need that beer when looking to this.......

 

 

 

 IMG_4875 (Custom).JPG   97.28KB   127 downloads

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Attached Files

•  cabinet kopkast final.JPG   72.91KB   102 downloads

Edited by gerardnl, 31 March 2013 - 03:37 PM.

[mameman23]

Looking good, I see you are in to rc planes also. www. Xtremepinball.com

[gerardnl]

yup, thats my other time and money consuming hobby mameman.

[uberpinball]

Looks great so far!

Few observations...

By extra ball button, did you mean coin-in button? You'll need that.

The video card. That 560ti is a little dated for the latest cab builds of today. I went with
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130825

The CPU. What is that? A i3, i5, i7...don't skimp to much on the CPU, you don't want to be disappointed with table stutter after all your hard work.

Good luck.

Edited by uberpinball, 31 March 2013 - 04:16 PM.

[Gamester]

Looks great so far! Looks like our builds are at about the same place.

[Nemo]

Well, well, well finally he started    , it's looking real good Gerard ! This is going to be a quality build, i just

hope the coindoor & lockbar are up to your standards (they are used you know).

 

This is going to be a sweet pin for sure !

[gerardnl]

dont worry rob, i will make them up to my standard    

 

@ uberpinball, i meant a real extra ball button.

although i am not sure i am going for this, could be that i end up with only an start and exit button.

 

for adding the coins i am going to rig  something up with the coin door i think.

 

the processor ? i really dont know, the pc was allready in tha house, its an dual core 2,6 ghz.

runs every game i thew at it,  so i suspect VP wont be any issue.

 

and if it does give issues ?

that is the most easy thing to swap out !  

[uberpinball]

dont worry rob, i will make them up to my standard    
 
@ uberpinball, i meant a real extra ball button.
although i am not sure i am going for this, could be that i end up with only an start and exit button.
 
for adding the coins i am going to rig  something up with the coin door i think.
 
the processor ? i really dont know, the pc was allready in tha house, its an dual core 2,6 ghz.
runs every game i thew at it,  so i suspect VP wont be any issue.
 
and if it does give issues ?
that is the most easy thing to swap out !  

I see. I doubt that mobo will support the newer i3,i5,i7 CPUs. And sure the old CPU runs pc games, but VP with some newer table builds needs a lot of CPU.

Again, just set the 46" tv on couch or table and hook up the current pc setup and try VP with some of the 9.1x tables. Just want to make sure you have the optimal setup BEFORE you finish the cab.

[gerardnl]

testing stuff is never a bad idea.
but pls see my opening post, the gfx card has not been bought yet.

so my idea is that the mobo and core surely will be enough with the right gfx card.

will look into your idea of card also.
do you think that would be enough with the asus/dual core for vp ?

[Gamester]

testing stuff is never a bad idea.
but pls see my opening post, the gfx card has not been bought yet.

so my idea is that the mobo and core surely will be enough with the right gfx card.

will look into your idea of card also.
do you think that would be enough with the asus/dual core for vp ?

 

A GTX560TI should be fine for the graphics card.  I'm using a GTX560 OC in my build, and it's handled every table I've thrown at it just fine so far, even with hardware FXAA enabled.  

 

If anything, your build will be limited by the CPU, especially with all of the toys you're planning to use...

[gerardnl]

my plan is to use it because i allready have it.

if it doesnt do the job they can be swapped out in a breeze.

[uberpinball]

my plan is to use it because i allready have it.

if it doesnt do the job they can be swapped out in a breeze.

 

Again, 'swapped out in a breeze' isn't really the case. If you find the CPU is lacking and want to swap it out, that means you will need a new Motherboard to handle the new iseries CPU. When you do that, it means you will need to re-install everything since it's a complete hardware swap and Windows won't 'just work' with a new MOBO and CPU installed.

 

The reason i posted the GPU(Video Card) I did, is because you won't have an easy time finding an old GTX560TI with at least 1GB of ram for cheaper than the newer, superior GPU card I linked. I can literally run all 3 monitors with that one card and not see an issue.

 

Just trying to save you the headaches. But you probably know most of this.

[Gamester]

 

Again, 'swapped out in a breeze' isn't really the case. If you find the CPU is lacking and want to swap it out, that means you will need a new Motherboard to handle the new iseries CPU. When you do that, it means you will need to re-install everything since it's a complete hardware swap and Windows won't 'just work' with a new MOBO and CPU installed.

 

The reason i posted the GPU(Video Card) I did, is because you won't have an easy time finding an old GTX560TI with at least 1GB of ram for cheaper than the newer, superior GPU card I linked. I can literally run all 3 monitors with that one card and not see an issue.

 

 

Availability of the model is definitely a valid point.  I thought you were implying that it wasn't up to the task from a performance standpoint, which is probably and arguable point.

 

But to qualify my own experience with the GTX560, I am only running 2 monitors with it (playfield and backglass).  I'm using a real DMD, so the video card is not having to handle that load.  It's possible with a 3-screen setup that a little more GPU power is required, but I really cannot say from my own experience.

 

And I agree with you on the CPU.  Unless you're simply upgrading to a faster version of the same CPU generation (which will not be the case here), it's definitely not 'easy' to replace.  New CPU/MB = totally re-installing Windows and pinball apps.  Not fun...

Edited by Gamester, 01 April 2013 - 05:42 PM.

[gerardnl]

had not even thought of the re-install...

when it doestnt work out, just a few more days off hobbytime required for me.

[uberpinball]

 

Availability of the model is definitely a valid point.  I thought you were implying that it wasn't up to the task from a performance standpoint, which is probably and arguable point.

 

But to qualify my own experience with the GTX560, I am only running 2 monitors with it (playfield and backglass).  I'm using a real DMD, so the video card is not having to handle that load.  It's possible with a 3-screen setup that a little more GPU power is required, but I really cannot say from my own experience.

 

And I agree with you on the CPU.  Unless you're simply upgrading to a faster version of the same CPU generation (which will not be the case here), it's definitely not 'easy' to replace.  New CPU/MB = totally re-installing Windows and pinball apps.  Not fun...

 

All good Gamester, I was agreeing with your overall assessment. No doubt the GTX5xx or GTX6xx can handle anything VP or FP can throw at it. In the end it's just cheaper, and more readily available to go with the GTX6xx GPUs.

had not even thought of the re-install...

when it doestnt work out, just a few more days off hobbytime required for me.

 

For sure, just wanted to help you avoid any frustrations. After taking all that time to build your awesome cab, it would be disappointing to have the dated hardware(CPU) be a issue.

 

Anytime you need some help/advice, be sure to reach out. Look forward to see the updates on the continued progress.

Edited by uberpinball, 01 April 2013 - 07:18 PM.

[Nemo]

As for your credit "add button", i have a coin validator that fits your coindoor,

it's  set to 1 euro, ill throw that one in for free !

 

This Friday i'll pick the door and the lockbar up (and probably some jukebox stuff)

so we'll have to plan something after that.

[gerardnl]

perfect rob !!!

got around to mount the dmd screen in place.

 

only thing left in the speaker panel is mounting the speaker mesh which wil be flush mounted between the wood and the TZ cover

 

 dmd screen.JPG   106.2KB   108 downloads

[Nemo]

Not to threadjack Gerards buildlog but,

 

Grrrrrrrr, well i'm not too happy with the parts i've got today for you Gerard ! First off, the lockbar is not a Williams/Bally but

a Stern, so with a slit in the middle, second, the coindoor is ok-ish but has a crap left coinrelease. Mind you, i have spend

the whole afternoon digging through a NON heated garage box full of arcade junk just to find these, and they were the best

i could possibly find. And ohh yeah it's freakin' freezing outside, so no, not too happy today. 

 

However, i can score some new coinreturn buttons later on so that won't be a problem, but for now: i need a HOT coffee !

 

 

The mechanism is OK, installed the FREE coinvalidator, the bezel sure needs a respray !

 

 

This needs a complete refurb...

 

Widebody lockbar from a Stern's Flight 2000, still in good nick.

[gerardnl]

rob dont worry.

the door will look great after a gerard "overhaulin"
nice respray. some new inserts and it will live for a few decades more in my cabinet.

the stern bar. just as long as its the same with in cm im ok.

remind you. i run my own technical repair department at work hehe.

a nice tig weld over the seam, some work and TLC and it ends out in the nicest mirror gloss polished bar you can imagine !!

[Nemo]

Maybe someone here can clarify if the dimensions of a Stern widebody lockbar has the same width as a Williams/Bally one. 

Researched the manuals for the flight 2000, but they don't have any measurements in it, googled for it but couldn't find it.

 

Width = 65.5 cm / 25.8 inch

 

Glad you can rework the parts, so my "quest" in the bleeding cold wasn't for nothing !

Edited by Nemo, 06 April 2013 - 06:38 AM.