PHOTO

My attempt at duplicating the experience of playing pinball at home.

UPDATE 2014

The latest revision supports the HyperPin dynamic menu system and Visual Pinball 9 features for emulated Pinball backplane — including Dynamic Digital/analog displays and backlighting effects. HyperPin integrates video clips showing each table in action as you scroll through with the flipper buttons. The overall effect is very clean and visually stunning.

Changes made:

Replaced main video display with a larger screen, rotated longways
Removed static backplane artwork; installed a second flat monitor as dynamic backplane
Upgraded internal PC to Windows 7 i3 processor with dual-monitor PCI video card
Added internal fan for airflow to cool the backplane monitor

VIDEO

Pinball Machine

Electronics

Approach: 800MHz PC running Win98 (TweakUI configured to hide boot/shutdown screens). For buttons: KeyWiz Eco2 encoder (solderless) board.

Software

Uses Visual Pinball — tables that don't require PinMame so there are no ROM licensing issues. Currently emulating 498 tables. The machine boots to a menu navigated with flipper buttons; select tables with the ball plunger button.

Hardware Cost

Cost for entire cabinet excluding PC, coin door, and trackball is approximately $140. Used plywood (slightly more expensive than MDF but lighter). Buttons ordered from the same supplier as the KeyWiz Eco2. Legs from eBay ($8). Coin door from eBay ($9). X-arcade Trackball ($49).

Design

Design drawings done in Paintbrush.

Updated Machine Photographs

The marquee is a poster with a Dragon and Tiger circling a yin-yang symbol — the dragon holds a large silver ball (purchased from Walmart, $3.99). String of colored blinking Christmas lights behind it for sparkle.

Updated Modifications: Painted top plate black, replaced marble texture with textured black, added extra flipper buttons for smaller children, table nudge buttons (up/down), and a ball plunger using a normally-closed switch in a 2×4.