Here's the socket I made to remove the tournament blank 'insert' on the front of the Sterns (I always install the remote volume control from PBL).

After reading all the comments about the speaker lights, I'm sure as hell not going to make a version that has LED's.

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Picked up a Creality Ender 3 Pro for ~$180 off of woot a couple of weeks back. Thus far I'm very pleased. That said, there is a newer rev w/ an upgraded controller & screen ... Maybe a couple of other improvements.

Don't want to sidetrack the thread (which was already seriously sidetracked), but I will throw this out real quick just for a FYI...some versions of the Ender3 (which I also have and is fairly new) didn't have the 'over temp' option enabled in their software. Meaning if the thermocouple in the extruder went bad, the heating element would be on 100% and could cause a fire. For that reason, I stopped running prints that went overnight. Aftermarket boards had that feature enabled, along w/some other upgrades as well. If I'm not mistaken, it simply limits the time the extruder heater can be turned on continuously.

Back to the speaker lights discussion.

Nice. On the printer now. Thanks for the file!

Recent Enders can be upgraded to include thermal runaway capability with Marlin, and there are newer boards which use much quieter motor drivers. You’ll eventually outgrow it but it’s a great starter to learn about all the parts of the printer!

Yeah, I've seen the threads about that. I'd probably just buy an aftermarket board instead of going the Marlin route. Had an Anet (Pursa clone) prior.

Marlin’s fine, but like the Ender in general, lots of tinkering.

Finally bought a Prusa, and now I just print, instead of messing with it all the time, preparing to print.

Prusa is the way, but it's quite a bit pricier, so I don't go straight to recommending it to people who are curious about getting started.

That said, if dropping $1000 isn't a problem for you then just get a Prusa and have the best reliability and experience.

I’ve been wondering how dangerous it was to run my ender3 during the night.. I hate doing it but also don’t want to pause a print and leave it on all night waiting either... maybe there’s really no danger to that and I shouldnt worry? Or if you pause a print and kill the power does it still resume? It would be great to feel 100% safe with it and not feel a need to babysit, or at least be ‘around ‘ checking on it from time to time.

You could put Octoprint on a Raspberry Pi with camera.

AFAIK Enders do not have print resume capability. But even on the Prusa it’s hit or miss. A lot of times mine will resume but there’s a gap or layers don’t melt together well.

There are 3 options if you don't want to upgrade your mainboard:
1. Put your printer in an enclosed metal box. If it catches fire, it won't have anywhere to spread.
2. Buy an extinguisher ball and hang it above the printer. If a fire starts, it will auto extinguish (restaurants use these)
https://www.amazon.com/Extinguisher-Suppression-Device-Safety-Product/dp/B01JVXFQ6E/ref=sr_1_1_sspa

3. Build a system that shuts itself off

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2148191

I modded my ender 3 with a filament runout sensor. It was nothing more than a pinball microswitch and a simple 3D printed part. I do have an aftermarket mobo. It resumes after you load new filament, not sure if it works for a power outage as well. I wasn't printing anything intricate so I didn't notice a layer gap. It helped me use up scraps while printing mask straps.

I was specifically talking about a stop when filament gets tangled or runs out. When it gets tangled, you’re going to have issues because the printer thinks it’s still printing but it can’t thread filament because it’s caught. Not much to do about it, but it’s happened to me twice, and only with ABS.

The Prusa (and your modded Ender) seem to recover fine when filament runs out because the sensor trips, and the printer immediate stops printing - there’s still some slack left in the extruder.

I’m not aware of ANY printer that can recover from a power outage without some sort of external monitor. Maybe Octoprint would help, I’ve not investigated that.

That enclosure is amazing. Did you build or buy?

Raise3d Pro can power off for a week and continue exactly same spot. Love these machines. Have 4 now and looking at one more,

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One of the easiest option might be to just upgrade the little motherboard since they are pretty cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/Creality-Motherboard-Mainboard-Customized-Non-Standard/dp/B07TZDJTKL

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089CQ3DHB/ref=twister_B08NW4QMXZ

Ender 3, at least the newer ones, have a resume. But my aftermarket build plate (forgot who makes it) makes it easy to remove prints when cool. Problem is when my print would start back up, the print wasn't adhered well and just pop off. If you're using the stock build plate, maybe that isn't an issue.

If you do decide to replace the motherboard, you'll have to do some homework to figure out best fits your needs and has all the options. Lot's of YouTube reviews regarding the Ender 3 upgrades.

Apologies to the OP if I steered this thread off topic a bit with the safety issue.

The Artillery Sidewinder can continue printing after power outage. You do need to press confirm for "resume print".
Here I made a hexagon post sleeve for Star Trek.

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Some neat stuff here-for anything that's been painted, are you finishing with acetone and then just using standard acrylics to paint? Also, for the drink holders, is that ABS or PLA, and how is the part durability?

I've got a Snapmaker 2 A350 on the way (hopefully here by the end of the year). Looking forward to messing with some of this stuff!

I ended up not liking the hexagon post sleeve at layer height of 0.2. So I did a round post sleeve at LH if 0.1.

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Holy crap. Ok clearly a $5,000 printer is going to have some advanced features! That is cool as hell.

I printed the Hobbit / POTC barrel pincup in PLA at about 100% infill (I don't advise this) and it's ROCK solid. Literally. If I did it again I'd print the bracker in PETG with a lower infill.

This is great. Much smaller and a whole lot lighter than the socket I keep in my tool box. Thanks!

I print most things at 15% infill and have no problems with strength, just as a point of reference. You definitely don't need a brick of solid plastic to have strong parts.

I installed LED's in the rear deck speakers of my first car when I was 16 that pulsed with the beat of the bass (that was almost 30yrs ago), if I had owned a pin back then, I would have installed them in there as well.

Absolutely agree. I did the actual cup at 100% accidentally - set it and left for the day ... when I came home I had a solid rock. I printed the bracket at 15% originally, and it ripped off the game when someone moved it - so I reprinted that at 100%. No issues since! Lol

New here to pinside, but I own two different printers, wondering if anyone has any good stls I can test, playfield toys or parts or whatever, mostly to show what kinds of results I cam get and therefore offer my help here with anyone who needs it. I've got lots of free time!

I also print custom band logo keychains, do I'm sure I could offer something like that with pinball company names or game names for your coindoor keychains

Ha, I printed all my cup holder brackets at 20% infill, bam, snapped one like a twig. Had to reprint all of them 95%

That's what I'm saying! Next time I'll print in PETG.

Another cool story, but another on that is not relevant when talking about PINBALL speaker lights. There's a Toronto band called Diemonds that I like and their guitarist puts LEDs in his amp (which has speakers in it). This has nothing to do with pinball speaker lighting (though he is a pinball fan), but I figured I might as well mention that before someone else tries to use that as an example to somehow try to expose I wasn't the first one to come up with the idea of PINBALL Speaker Light Kits.

All we need is one picture, website mention or forum post from before October 2012 showing or talking about lighting up the speaker holes of a pinball machine. Otherwise I will still have beef with Darscot posting "that you think this is your big idea is laughable." as that is where things got out of line for me.

Hey what was the first game you created led speakers mod for? Tron?

Darscot is right. It's not a big idea. It's a simple shape, a plastic washer. Took me about 30 minutes to create a design for WPC.
It's not an engineering masterpiece nor an art, therefore doesn't matter who came up with this first.

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The first acrylic designs we made for the light kits were Spider-Man (as my friend's were taking their Spider-Man to Expo) Playboy (as I was taking my Playboy to Expo) and AC/DC because I knew my friend Trent was going to have an AC/DC at the show in the main hall. Though, the original light kits covered all of the Sega / Stern games that used the wood speaker panels with the square speaker holes. So 1998's Lost in Space - what was available then in October 2012.

I got the idea on October 1st and we had the 3 prototype light kits and acrylic designs ready to show off by the 17th when the show kicked off. We left for the show a day or two early so it was basically 2 weeks from concept to showing them off. No tease or anything....just "Here they are!" They were like nothing that had been seen or done on a PINBALL machine before. Look at the announcement thread....you won't see any "I've seen that before" "My friend Joe did that on his game" or "Anyone could have done that" to be seen. We were selling them like crazy because not only had no one seen anything like them before (IN PINBALL MACHINES!), but as I said....they covered 14 years worth of games on day 1.

It's disheartening to see it being disparaged and infuriating to have people call me a liar about being the first to do it IN A PINBALL MACHINE.

The point of the discussion was about the idea, not about who was the first one. Again: it's a general item. Like a screw.
Instead of downvote, please tell us, why do you think this thing is so special, and exclusive?

I don't remember saying it was a masterpiece or art. What I said was I was the first one to do it. What have you come up with that is in 1000s of pinball machines? I will say your design looks different than any others I have seen. Let's see how yours looks lit up. I'm really interested.

Yes....I am talking about the idea also. I came up with THE IDEA. That is my claim. I also did the first design and carried out the first implementation of it being done IN A PINBALL MACHINE. That is my point.

EDIT ELABORATION

Back then (2012) there were no cheap 3D printers....I'm not sure if their were 3D printers at all. So to copy the light brackets was not as easy back them. You would have to make something by hand or take my design to a metal shop and say "Here...copy this"...which was done. In any case, with no lead up tease showing them off....the copying crew was caught completely off guard. It took the first of them months to get their hands on them and then longer to get their copies made. This left a nice time gap between me showing them off and even the most handy of copy cats or DIYers to get any made themselves. This is part of the reason it's so easy to check and see that IT WAS ME that come up with the idea first. This was largely never in question before, as most people remembered...or the ones that didn't were quickly educated about it. You can search to your hearts content, but you will only find that no one else was doing it until months after I had done it, shown them off and was selling them. The first 3D printed copies didn't show up until about a year and half after initial release and I'm pretty sure those were the craptastic ones that mattosborn described earlier in his post. I'm expecting I lost more sales from their crap scaring any potential customers away from speaker light kits in general more so than the simple loss of sale from a person buying from them. I can see them making a whole lot of "one time customers" out of people with their poorly thought out design and implementation. I'm pretty sure they found a 3D file for a speaker spacer online and simply edited a slot in it to run a wire. Too bad they didn't move the holes to make it actually fit on the Stern panel as it should have....or made their design square or round instead of strangely ....rectangle??? Add a whole lot of speaker wire, probably including the wrong mounting hardware and power connection and it was far from the "Top Quality" speaker light kits as they claimed. Of course they were too lazy / dumb to rethink things when the SPIKE 2 games were released so they still sell their shit-tastic old frames to go behind the SPIKE 2 panels....and looking like crap. Low lifes even tried to trademark "speaker light kits" from under me. So they buy my light kit, make a crap copy of it and then try to run me under by stealing my websites name....class acts.

So don't get me wrong here.....I am not REEEEEeeeeeing and screaming to stop what you are doing. I'm not in here claiming I have a right to anything and others must cease-and-desist. I stated that I wasn't a fan of it and didn't really like people sharing the files to recreate a product that I originally created and currently sell. Don't try to fool yourself...every one printed and used is a potential lost sale for me. It may not be many, but it is something. Nothing I can do about that and I didn't come in here to try to do that. I was just stating my opinion and answering questions that were asked of me...until I was ridiculed and told my claims were "laughable". .....yet not a single picture,example, post or piece of evident that opposes what I claim and have substance to back up.

Ok, great. Good. I don’t think anyone here really gives that much of a shit tbh though. I get being annoyed that people are doubting your claim and what not.. but this was 8 years ago and it’s not like you invented a new vaccine or discovered a parallel universe or something.. it’s a $30 pinball accoutrement. I have no reason to doubt you were the first to think of it, nor do I care enough to waste time trying to research it to prove or argue your claim. You’ve made your point 20x now. good job —you thought of it first and it makes my pinballs look oh so fancy (I do enjoy them) but please, let’s move on now.

Lotta posts here lately lol— thanks all for the safety tips on the ender. I have reservations about the metal box — how do I build it and does it keep enough ventilation going? The auto extinguisher is cool — does it leave a giant mess when it goes off? My printer is next to two PCs.. probably the auto shutoff or MB upgrade seem like good choices, I’ll have to research more. Was also concerned about filament roll binding, as I got a bad roll recently — just seems like there’s so many scenarios where something could go wrong.

The ender3 does resume on power drop out— I’ve had my circuit blow mid print. Came back on and did fine, noticeable pollute print ‘blip’ on the layer but nothing major. Haven’t tried a pause and shutoff/on yet though

That PAL nut remover is a great idea! Coulda used that last weekend, just switched to led buttons on a couple games.

I'm ready to move on, but they just - won't - let me. How about....no more lame ass examples (that are not in a pinball machine) and if anyone does find an example, picture, post of lights being in a pinball speaker before October 2012...I will shit in my hat and fold it. Sound like a plan?

Hey I'm getting what Dugfreez is trying to say.

He's afraid of losing sales because someone is going to download the files share here, and sell things on ebay and profit of the work without contributing anything to this hobby.

But honestly, that is always going to happen. There's not much you can do to stop that.

There are examples enough of where it happens - see here: https://www.edcheung.com/album/album08/pinball/tz2.htm
Ed developed the TZ tv mod - it soon was copied and sold on ebay (as written on his page), and even still today other mod makers sell their version.

Being first with an idea ? It doesn't give you any extra rights (except for bragging rights).
I was first to document on my website (didn't invent it even myself, some friends did) using a led on the playfield of a pinball machine:
https://www.flippers.be/lotrled.html
Not much later US pinball shops started to sell this multicolor led for lotr and soon leds as replacements for lightbulbs became available..
Should I try to stop everyone now of using leds in pinball machines ?

Anyway, if you're first with an idea and want to commercialise it - then there are legal ways to do so. Patents / trademarks / ..
That's what colordmd does if I'm not mistaken.. you can't copy their way of interpreting the signals, they filed a patent.

If you don't bother to patent your idea, then don't complain that your idea gets copied.

If you're first - then can still try to make a good name and reputation for yourself. Be first and different.
That's what Dugfreez did - he had a good product, not too expensive, and seems to hold a good part of the market for a long time.
Cheap knockoffs will happen, and usually go away because they're too cheap or the person behind them find an easier more profitable product to copy..

But this hobby for me and a lot of other people was never about profit.
Part of this hobby is tinkering with stuff, trying to improve and invent things, share ideas.
That's what most people here in this thread have as mindset.
We come up with ideas to improve things, want to share the files, get inspired by it and come up with even better ideas.
And if someone wants to copy and profit from it - who cares, most didn't plan on starting a store and sell things.. so nothing is lost.
But if you try to stop sharing the files, talk about ideas, put dlc on things, .. then the whole mindset of inventing things will disappear
and not much new things will happen to this hobby, and that would also be sad..

Did Dugfreez also invent the piano tie? Seriously, I'm curious if he sells anything besides speaker lights.

I'll give you another example of not caring. I owned a williams fire! for 5 years (just sold it). Right away I saw how badly the ramps were designed, all that force from the ball slamming into the plastic as it came around the orbit. I decided to design a metal bracket for each side that distributed that force to prevent further damage. I sold like 40 sets and easily paid for the cost of the game (and my sales slowed down because I saturated the market) so rather than be a miser and keep the design to myself I made it open source (DXF's, list of hardware, instructions on my website) so anyone could contact a waterjet or laserjet vendor and make their own and save their game. I still sold like another 20 sets after making it open source (because again, 99% of pinball players would rather someone else make them a kit so long as it's reasonably priced).

Good God, no one cares. I'm sorry your idea wasn't patented, and it can be easily produced by anyone. I really had no interest in ever seeing a tacky light in the speaker of any of my pins, but after all your, "I was first, I was first, I was first" whining, I'm going to print the free file provided today and install them in my ST. If this is your only source of income, I believe it's time to find an actual job.

Let's better the hobby...

2 designs, I uploaded to Thingiverse:

1. Judge Dredd gearbox cover:

During my JD restoration I realized that the deadworld gearbox is open. I learned that at some point Bally changed to open version as part of cost cut.
I think open gearbox is not a good idea: no dust protection, and risk of fallen screws, washers while the playfield is lifted.
I created a perfect fit plug. Now my gearbox is closed.
(In the opened pic, originally there are 2 shafts and the screws to the motor.)

JD open (resized).jpg
JD closed (resized).jpg

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4678895

2. Indiana Jones drop target stop

This a known issue. The coil is not strong enough and/or the spring is too strong.
I've printed a mechanical stop, the actuator can't go back to full end position. This helps to the coil at the beginning, and able to move the actuator.

IJ drop1 (resized).jpg
IJ drop2 (resized).jpg

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4228366

I was downgrading my flipper mechanisms, on my centaur, from linear to conventional pawls, like Vid shows in his flipper rebuild page.

I made an arm to hold the extension spring. It seems to work fine. Not really tested for longevity yet.

Printed at .1mm,40% infill, PETG If anyone wants the Solidworks(2018) or the STL pm me.

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Bold. PETG?

All too often files get lost here, suggesting you all archive your designs on Thingiverse to make it easy for people to get files and provide modifications (remixes). Everything I design I will upload there.