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The next project begins!


Gwendalin

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So my arcade table is like 95% done, but in my true ditzy nature i can never completely finish something without moving on to another project. Thus my next project is beginning.

I got the basic parts I need, and just need to get some wood to build the cabinet, which I'll be doing this weekend.

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Ok boys... bigger is not always better! I had originally purchased a 43" tv, but i saw the 49" go on sale and figured bigger would be better. The cabinet that I am following was an arcade/pinball cab and had a 43" tv, but had an arcade panel at the front. I confused myself and figured i dont need the panel, i'll go bigger and get more screen to fill up the cabinet. I didnt pay attention that going bigger will also make it wider. Now my cabinet is going to be 2 inches wider than a normls cabinet, and i have to get a custom piece that is going to cost $50 more. :4_joy:

The ideal size tv would be 47", but they did not have any.

This is going to be my playfield.

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That's it for my pinball project for now. next week hopefully i'll have some more progress.

 

Here is my storage bench i painted to be like space invaders for my arcade room. This room is so messy right now... i'm not exactly sure where i'm going to put my pinball cabinet.

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Here are my Donkey Kong shelves i made to keep up my arcade theme.

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Some of the gaming nick knacks

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More updates to follow! ^.^

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Ok so I got some wood and started building the cabinet. My friend had a table saw, so i thought it might be easier, and I would get better cuts with the table saw, but it didn't work out that great. I would have been better doing it myself by hand. I ended up screwing up some measurements, and wasted a lot of wood. :4_joy:

Now i have to go buy some more wood.

 

I was able to build the back box. This is the top of the pinball table. It actually turned out pretty good. I need to putty some spots where the wood splintered, and to fill in some small gaps to make it totally smooth, but overall not to bad.

 

Back. The center hole will have a piece of wood on a hinge to close like a door.

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Front

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Side

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Here is all the wood for the cab... unfortunately two of the largest pieces are bad.

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Here are my gaming tins. Camera didn't take that great of a pic

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Here they are with the lights off in the room.

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I know... I thought i had measured a few times, but I don't know what happened. I think converting my plans from mm to inches, then having to adjust some sizes to fit my larger TV, but forgetting to update some of the other matching sides, and just being out of my element and being at my friends house getting "help" got me all confuzzeled.

 

OH MY GOD this is expensive! I knew it was going to be expensive, but i didn't realize how expensive it was until I already jumped off the cliff. I probably could have got an older real pinball machine for the price I've dumped into this.

 

Thankfully i have some things that i was able to free from other sources, but I still need to dump some more money in to make this super awesome.

 

$319 - TV

$70 + more for screw up - Wood

$700 - rails, legs, bolts, buttons, plunger, digital plunger adapter, shipping

 

I still need to buy solenoids, LEDs, paint, solenoid controller relay, LED controller, upgrade my computer, other toys like shaker motor and fans. .

It's probably going to cost me about $12-1300 when I'm fully done, but i have enough right now to at least have something playable.

 

 

This is what i'm striving for. He talks a lot, so you might want to skip around if you are not that interested.

 

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Ok so new update...

 

I started building the cabinet, and got pretty far this weekend. It turned out pretty nice. I had to buy another sheet of plywood since i screwed up some pieces before... there was $30 down the drain :(

 

Cabinet

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The "top". I had to do a weird 45 degree cut in the back to make it fit right. there was a gap that i didn't understand how they covered in the plans.

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45 degree edge pieces. I am so happy with how these cuts came out. I have just a small gap that i had to fill with putty due to the wood separating when i tried screwing the pieces together. Not bad for hand cutting with a circular saw!

 

This is where the gap is I mentioned earlier. having a straight piece of wood would leave a giant chunk missing in the corner where the 45 cut is. some of my screws were a little close to the edge and split the wood a little, but nothing putty wont fix!

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Test fitting the coin door. This is mostly cosmetic. The lights work, and opening the door is mostly to get to the inside of the cabinet, but it doesn't actually take coins.

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Cabinet with the backbox

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A little leg action

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That's it for now. I still have a few more holes i need to drill for the buttons, and a little more sanding, and then I can paint it. It's looking really nice up close!

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  • 3 months later...

Ok so I finally did some more work. I had made my cabinet a little to narrow, and i didnt account for a button on the bottom of the tv,  so the tv would not fit when i tried to put it in the cabinet. I had to rout out a large groove, and now i can angle the tv in and it fits. This really took the wind out of my sails and i didnt want to deal with it for a long time, but i finally got it fixed. Now for the next part.... PAINTING the bottom cab. Really I think this is why it took me so long to fix the tv not fitting... i HATE painting, and i knew if i fixed it i would have to paint.

 

At this stage i could start playing. I just need to throw in my computer, wire the buttons, and I'm good. I can complete the top of the pinball later, as that is just eye candy, and does not affect playing the system.

 

Anyways, here are some more pics.

 

Just got TV fitted, and installed plunger

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All of the buttons added, and legs attached

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Right side with flipper buttons

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Left side with flipper buttons

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  • 2 weeks later...

Getting closer....

 

Not sure if you guys are still interested, but I have gotten closer to finally getting this thing done.

Sorry for the larger pics... not real sure how to size them... and I'm too lazy!

 

I finally painted the cabinet and added the buttons.

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Side view

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My home made power box, and start of the wiring.

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Testing a Pinball FX 3 table

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Cleaned up the wiring a little. You can see the terminal blocks on the left that then connect to the controller card.

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Front view of the inside of the cabinet.

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Got the lights working!!!!!! I have to change the green and yellow button from 12v to 5v. They are too bright!

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Painted the back box

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This is basically what the end product is going to look like. Right now everything does work. The plunger, flippers, launch ball... i can actually play a game now.

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Next I will just have to save up money and buy my solenoids to give proper feedback, and have it feel less video gamey and more like a real pinball system.

Then its back to work on my arcade cabinet to get that completed.

 

Let me know what you guys think.

 

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Even closer... I just need to frame out the top screens with some thin wood i have, and then I'm basically done. I just need to do configuration now.

Then it's just make it cooler with adding the solenoids, motors, glass, upgrade my computer... but i'm going to have to wait a while for those.

 

Anyways... here are a few more pics.

 

Top monitors added

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With the lights... kind of hard to see.

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Easier to see.

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