Scratch Build – In Progress Project: 'Troy's Pinball' - Arcade Sequel Build

The back box is assembled, now to put the side panels onto the table starting with the back. I also bought a seven outlet surge protector for the inside of the cabinet to replace of the six outlet adapter type I had originally planned to use.



Below shows where the surge protector will be installed, I will use the heavy duty double stick tape to hold it in place. The biggest selling point for this surge bar vs. what I was going to use... it has a 10 foot cord.



I installed both of the side panels and then finished with the front. Once it was all together I couldn't resist plugging it in to check out the lighting.



Here is a look at the front, it looks good and I had no idea at this point, but I had the legs installed and started putting the front together when I realized there was a problem.



The plunger is too long and sits too high, as such it is directly in the way of the TV, the plunger will need to be relocated lower on the panel... below is a freshly cut new front panel.



I used four screws and large washers to hold the old front panel securely on top of the new one, it is now just a nicely painted hole saw template.



Fast forward and the new panel is cut, masked off and ready for vinyl color.



I took the redo as an opportunity to fix a few things I wasn't happy with, the top panel in the picture below is now scrap and is only shown for comparison. I cleaned up the plunger hole and put the buttons below the plunger back into two separate holes, I also made the left side lower button hole smaller and fixed the edges of the speaker holes.



Next up are the legs, I could have just bolt them on the way they were but I want to make sure that the legs won't scratch up my machine over time. Below shows what I came up with...



Here are the four table legs, all felt up and ready to go.



Mounting the legs was no easy feat, dipping the bolt threads in petroleum jelly finally helped them go in easier. With all four legs installed it is actually starting to look like something...

 

I bought a few more parts for the pinball machine, two 6" USB extension cables five blue and five black SPST NO buttons, a 1.5" square blue LED pushbutton, a twenty LED automotive dome light, a metal plunger back plate and four rubber feet.



I rivet together a couple pieces of aluminum angle and attached the 20 LED dome light to it at the level of the side Sapphire logo, below it is the acrylic mount I made for the Pinball Wizard PCB.



I had to modify the metal plunger back plate and a few pieces of acrylic to mount the plunger. I also installed the side buttons and the front speakers.



Below is a shot of the front, I installed SMD LED strips to the underside edge of the table all the way around.



Here is a 3/4 view, ignore the wiring hanging out the bottom, it will all be neatened up closer to the finish.



Next up, another LED test video...

http://youtu.be/GG1IDoAcJRQ

 

Great build, can't wait to see it up and running.

Sub'd

 

Great to see that the project is moving along. I'm bit sad that I had to rush to finish the project for the event and then had no time on upgrading it with the thing I wanted to do to it. I'm actually in the process of taking my pinball apart. It was fun but it is taking way too much space.

 

I am saddened to hear that your pinball is being dismantled, hopefully you will be recycling those parts to create something else that is equally inspiring.

 

This is a brilliant project Troy.
Stars rep subbed

Oh wow, it just said I have given too much reputation in the last 24 hours.

 

The front blue LED button and LED jumbo push button are wired to power. I didn't like that when standing and looking at the machine the LED strips I installed on the table underside were visible, moving the strips back an inch did the trick.



In a darkened room the blue glow under the machine is pretty intense...

 

looks good mate!
subbed!
- Dan

 

looks cool, pretty keen to see how this turns out.

 

The black tubular thing below the blue square push button is an arcade push button wrench, it only cost a couple bucks and for getting buttons fit tight it's worth every penny.



In the following picture I have all of my buttons and plunger wired to the Pinball Wizard/Mot-Ion controller, I also installed four push buttons into the bottom of the machine and wired up the square blue push button. Two 120mm fans were installed in front of the freshly meshed bottom vent/access hole



The TV controls were mounted on the inside edge of the front access/vent hole, beside the TV hand controls sits the IR remote receiver/power LED PCB.



Here is a bottom up shot of the TV controls and remote control PCB.



I cut a length of adhesive backed felt to line the back brace where the 16" monitor face will rest, the area under the sub woofer and any piece of aluminum angle that makes contact with the sub woofer were also lined with felt to prevent unwanted vibration.



The sub woofer and power supply are installed...



Motherboard, video cards and lighting are wired and installed. There are three separate lighting elements that make up the Sapphire window effect, two are shown below and one still has to be wired, each has it's own on/off switch on the back of the machine.



Here is a nice shot of the window...



Here's why two-way mirror was used, the video cards reflection in the picture below appears to go on forever.



I turned on all of the blue SMD LED strips to make sure they would not interfere with or over power the window.



The blue LED strips and window lighting work really well together...



It's starting to fill up with hardware, other than the 40" TV the table part is fully assembled and ready for some wire management.

 

I almost forgot to show that the Sapphire window is a mirror when the backlighting is off...



I mounted the 16" monitor into the back box and laid down some 3M screw strong tape along the top and side edges to hold the 23" LCD in place.



The back box is installed but the side LED lighting still needs to be wired, here is the view from the back...



With the back box attached it looks like a pinball machine, better yet it feels really solid. The two wires dangling from the front are USB extension cables that will be tucked away inside when it's finished.



The back box SMD LED strips are wired.



Here is another LED video, this one shows all three of the Sapphire lighting effects, the back box lights and the sound activation module that controls the blue LED light strips in the mirror illusion as well as half of the back box LED lighting.

http://youtu.be/c-8FXe7-seI

Here is a shot of the whole thing all lit up...

 

Oh wow! That's stunning!

 

The cables inside the pinball machine are out of control, a good part of the mess is from power cables. I ordered three one footers to cut down on some of it, now the 16" monitor, Antec PSU and the power brick for the LED lighting all have short power cables.



I attached two strips of 3M screw strong tape to the backs of the speakers, this stuff is great and it really helps move fabrication along.



Here is a shot of the back box with everything installed, I still need to make a back painted acrylic cover piece for the front of the back box.



Every pinball machine has a lockdown bar to hold the playfield glass down, below is what I came up with for the lockdown bar on my machine. I measured, cut and drilled a piece of acrylic including a button hole, I also cut to length a piece of black plastic lockdown channel and aluminum angle and then bolt everything together.



Assembled and installed for a test fit and it looks pretty snazzy, now it just needs some black vinyl paint.



I plan to attach the acrylic lockdown using auto panel fasteners, my reasoning is if I ever need to remove the playfield glass I can simply open the access door in the bottom of the machine and pop up the lockdown panel with no tools required.



Here is the finished lockdown panel painted and installed, the square blue button is wired for pausing the game, the camera flash/angle makes the square button look kind of washed out when it is actually the exact same color as the other two blue buttons.

 

Time to make the back glass, below is a sheet of clear acrylic that I copied measurements onto and then double stick taped some aluminum angle onto it in preparation for scoring and snapping.



Here it is test fit, it was too tight so I had to sand down the edges a little to make it fit right.



I removed the paper backing and set it in place, using a black Sharpie I marked the corners of both screens with a dot and measured/marked an X through the centers the centers of both speakers.



I put the back glass front side down on the table and using clear contact paper, a ruler and a razor blade cut masks for both monitors, wide masking tape was placed on the backside of the speaker cut-outs in prep for some 2 1/2" hole saw action.



The back glass was then back painted with Plasti Kote vinyl paint and test fit again, I have a couple more things to do to the back glass before it can be final installed, but it's not far now.

 

Below is a side edge view of the back glass panel, it is a friggin' dust magnet and the worst part is that no matter how much I dust it off it keeps coming back... I have been down this road before though and know exactly how to handle it.



Time to cut out for the LCD screen faces, in the next picture I taped thin lines to the exact edges of each screen in preparation for cutting.



I used my Dremel and a ripsaw blade to make the cut outs for both screens, then the edges were sanded and it was sprayed with black vinyl paint on both sides. I cut the top edge of the back glass panel a hair short by mistake, so I used a length of black automotive door edge trim to fix it.



My back glass is now more of a trim panel, but I don't mind because it will make cleaning the LCD monitor screens a lot easier, and with the acrylic removed the monitors won't have as much reflective glare.

 

Nice to see this progressing, I'm glad that you were able to fix your trim piece so that it fits.The project looks great so far keep it up.

 

This is coming along so well now! The new cover looks awesome!

 

Looks excellent, I know It might be a bit late but one of these might look cool somewhere in the design:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1uxzy0WIwA

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-An-Infinity-Mirror/