Something to help: http://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Can't hurt to try to make a whitewood playfield. Routing by hand is going to be a lot of work. Java isn't super difficult (and pinball machines don't require the most complicated programming, so you don't need any advanced stuff), Python would also serve you fine. The question is if you can manage to program in anything (a single language isn't that much harder than any other if you can grasp the concepts). I'd recommend you try recreating your table in Future Pinball and coding the rules. If you can figure out how to write everything in its scripting language, then you'll be able to translate it to Java/Python/etc. For workspace you don't need much more than enough space to have the cabinet set up and have the playfield out on a rotisserie next to it with room to get around both to work on them, a single stall will be fine as long as you don't need to ever put the car in there. Once you've managed to program it virtually and route + assemble the playfield, the wiring and connections to the P-ROC shouldn't be that much to worry about, just time consuming.

Im somebody that jumped into fully custom pinball building with no real knowledge of actual pinball and im now on my second build. You have to want to succeed to finish. The P-roc community is excellent at helping with problems that you may encounter. Hooking it up is pretty easy if you follow the directions for each board. I learned python pretty quickly without having any prior programming experience from looking at other peoples code and seeing how it flowed and asking questions when i got stuck. let me just say it again. You have to want to succeed

Sounds like your pretty handy but you didn't say how much spare time you have on your hands....it's gonna take a crap ton of it.

you might almost be better off re-wiring and re-coding an existing table with limited space. If you can handle that, making a pin from scratch should be a breeze.

as someone who hand routed theirs, including light inserts: find a place to CNC it

I second this. Create your game in Future pin or vpin. You'll be able to play it, make rules and see how it is before you make the actual game. WOOLY was done that way.

The only problem is that you can't really get a feel for how your shots are, since the physics don't quite line up. It's good for spacing everything out, but once you've got everything ready you'll want to mount your flippers, then start setting posts (no drilling) around where each shot is and making sure it actually works good from the flippers aiming for that spot on a blank playfield

Don't sweat the parts you don't know, there are great resources and lots of people to help when your stuck. I would agree with Toyotaboy that a retheme is probably a better step up, but I'm biased because I'm taking on a retheme before I take on my first scratchbuild.

That said, an early SS style game is a a lot less complicated than a DMD or video screen style game, so much more reasonable, so don't see any harm in starting there. I know I considered the same for myself.

If I hadn't landed on an extra playfield for the SS machine I'm fixing now, I'd gone that way myself. Looking forward to the project.

Search for habitrails, these are the wireform ball guides, there are a few people who made them from scratch and not that hard,

Also look on youtube for King of Random Spot Welder, this guy makes a spot welder from a microwave parts that I think would work great for welding habitrails and it cheap!

It isn't perfect no. But it is easier to move a virtual object, than re-drill a hole in wood Or made it in foam like jpop did/does. But honestly going the virtual route first gives you an overall feel for the game and code.....Never said it was the correct or perfect way, just a good recommendation.

Great layout! Love the U-turn and right spinner shot.

As much as John preached about using foamcore (because that's what he was taught by senior engineers at Bally), from everythign I've read he's never showed any of his 3 projects flipping on foamcore. He's always done a foam mockup, and went straight to cnc wood.. Which is yet another reason he failed.

Go slow. MAKE A FRIEND.It's tough to do these on your own. And Do it!!!!

he had kiss foam core flipping at mgc 2015, if I remember correctly. I just suggest it as a cheap way before cutting wood.

Planning, Planning, Planning. Before you cut anything have a good idea of what your design is going to look like. Go through several revisions. Although you might think you hit a home run on your first draft, chances are some of your shots just wont work out once you start to build this thing. The bottom 1/3rd of a pinball rarely changes, so you could at least make that and go from there. Not good at coding? Make friends with someone who is. The possibility of your project succeeding in a timely manner will greatly increase if you don't try to do the things your not the best at.

I don't remember it flipping, but it had flippers for visual effect. Foam core is great, even ben used it. I just find it funny he preached about it but didn't use it himself

hahah. Well jpop can be a funny guy

I've been pondering doing the same thing...but I'll probably start in vpin/futurepin and make sure the stuff makes sense/works, then go to a physical build. It can be done whichever way though!

I believe both proc and mission pinball framework both have sample code that will run a basic game (3 balls, start game, basic score assignment, etc). How deep you go into code is up to you

Cool layout, and good idea doing a simple design. It'll be way easier on code and less of a headache to tweak. Good luck with it.

Sharing this as an option to diving into a board early on.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/507097900/open-pinball-project-open-source-pinball-hardware?ref=nav_search

I found it interesting as a quick way to get a flipping game. I don't have any experience and there are other threads that tout boards and where to start. I will need a controller at some point, but wanted to try this as a way to get a whitewood up for a demo/test, plus if I cook one or a dozen with my wiring mistakes, I won't be crying too much.

Aaron from FAST to come in and derail this thread in 3...2...1...

I really like your approach... asking a lot of questions up front and trying to develop a good plan of attack. I also really like your layout, though I'd suggest tweaking things a bit to make sure the various shots return to the flippers smoothly (rather than hitting posts or slingshots on the way back).

Regarding your specific questions about our boards. The choice is between a P-ROC (built-in switch matrix, dedicated switches, and DMD support) + driver boards or the P3-ROC + switch boards + driver boards. In either case, none of the driver boards replace a power supply. You'll need to feed the boards DC voltage. Most people use an ATX (computer-style) supply for 5 and 12 volts (logic and switch power) and a switching 48V supply for coil power.

For controlling coils, magnets, motors, etc, you'll want PD-16 boards. Each drives up to 16 devices, separated into 2 banks of 8, each with the option of using a different source voltage.

For lamps/LEDs, the PD-8x8 and the PD-LED both give you programmable control. The PD-8x8 is used for matrix wiring, generally with pinball bulb-style lamps or LEDs. The PD-LED is typically used to directly control RGB LEDs and individual LED components.

If you go with the P3-ROC over the P-ROC, you'll also want SW-16 boards, each of which connect to up to 16 individual switches (mechanical or optos).

The P3-ROC solution with the SW-16 boards is more expensive than the P-ROC solution with built-in switch circuitry. The tradeoffs are modularity, wiring complexity, and ease of debugging. There's no significant trend in either direction.

Feel free to contact me at any time with more questions. If you want to chat in realtime with a bunch of pinball homebrew folks, many of whom are building custom machines now, PM me your email address and I'll invite you to the Pindev slack channel. This invitation is open to anybody.

Edit - forgot to answer the computer question. The P-ROC/P3-ROC is an intelligent interface board to the pinball machine, and it controls the low level features. Your game code will run on a separate computer that connects to the P-ROC / P3-ROC via a USB cable. This 'computer' could be as small/inexpensive as a Raspberry Pi or something much more powerful. An R-Pi is sufficient for most new machines, perhaps excluding those with high definition display needs.

- Gerry
http://www.pinballcontrollers.com
http://www.multimorphic.com

What specifically would you like to see there? I didn't copy a lot of the P-ROC stuff since pinballcontrollers forum handles that pretty well, but I could beef it up.

your first whitewood is going to be a throw away, so don't get too hung up on it when you do it, and you don't even need to do much with inserts. John Trudeau told me he would just use a hole saw on the first whitewood to throw some inserts in their for coding against.

I recommend using a cad program (draftsight is free) to layout your playfield, on the pinball makers web site you will find cad objects for the most common parts. What you have now is a great starting point, but moving to CAD you are one step closer to eventually getting in CNCd if you go that route (I have had routed by machines using templates I've created). Get the cad printed full size at kinkos/fedex and glue it on to some plywood, then put in the basic stuff to see how it shoots, at that point you really only need to wire up flippers and slings to get a feel for it, so you can get by with just a drill. You do need to start putting in your rails and some posts, but again, that is just drilling. You can also pick up aluminum slats at home depot to use for your first set of rails, pretty cheap, very easy to bend, and that will help later when you go to do the real rails. You can get stainless steal ball guide material from mantis amusement among other places. Kerry will cut to your lengths, but will not bend it, but not that hard to make bends with a basic break or just bending around nails/posts, etc.

go over to http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/forum/index.php and look at the various users projects there, You will find a bunch of different threads on how folks approached it that will certainly be very helpful to you. You can also post questions there. You an learn everything form vacuum forming in your kitchen, to making and welding metal habit trails and all sorts of other good stuff.

Since you are doing an 80s game, ramps are not going to be an issue for you, so thats good.

If going with P-roc, which is what I have used on two machines (and of course we have seen CCC, BOP2.0 and The Big Lebowski which just started shipping using P-roc as well), you have a few choices for frameworks with the most popular being pyprocgameHD (with skeleton game) and MPF, I recommend the pyrpocgameHD, it is a proven platform used by dozens and dozens of machines and skeleton game will get you up and flipping fast to test your design, with very little programming. I am one of the guys who coded parts of pyprocgameHD, so I am biased, but quite a few machines were built on that. Also depends on what type of a display you are going with. You will eventually need to learn Python, but with patience, not hard, plus there is plenty of other games code to look at that will help you. As Matt said, he knew nothing about programming and his now doing his second game.

BTW, I use the original P-roc, since it has the switch matrix built in so that keeps the cost down slightly. But the P3-roc with the switch boards will certainly reduce the amount of wiring required and that can be the biggest pain, and wire isn't cheap. You can't go wrong either way.

Good luck with your project. I really recommend reading up on the user projects on the pinball controllers forum, you will learn a lot.

I can attest that this is a great, simple to wire up, and very inexpensive option. Using it for my project (which has been on hiatus because of other projects going on):
http://homebrewpinball.blogspot.com

You can run Hugh's code (which uses an LCD for display), or mission pinball framework.

I just got the latest version earlier this week:

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If you want to make a 70 game and you have great mechanical skills,why not do a em version.
Buy a working em donor and make your one playfield and reconnect everything you need.
Ad your graphics and your done.
I did the same (sort off) with my mc.

I highly recommend you consider laying out the table in a simulator.

visual pinball 9.x is the easiest to use, but probably the worst physics of the options

Visual pinball X (10) is harder to model, but real 3d rendering of all components and people like the physics better.

Future pinball is very similar to vpx, but older. I hear that Dutch Pinball used it to model and play test TBL.

There are other editors/simulators too.

I'm not expert on these sims, but I have used VP9 in order to build a virtual Buffy so that I could keep developing the code without the physical machine (there's a "virtual P-ROC bridge" that lets you run Visual Pinball tables against PyProcGame/HD code).

I recommend VP9. There's almost no learning curve and you'll be able to translate your drawing into a virtual fliping game very quickly. Sure. It won't play perfectly, but it will give you some sense of it.

You can install windows on Bootcamp or virtual box and will be able to run VP9 on your Mac. Beats buying another machine for another purpose.

Whatever you decide, it's going to be a fun learning process!

Homebrew pinball is awesome! You should absolutely do it! I agree with the comments about finding some friends to collaborate with. Share the problem solving, the labor and the expense. But it is a great project to take on because it is something you can enjoy for years after you finish... ok, Homebrew games are never really finished. The closest thing to finished is when you shift your focus to you next Homebrew pinball project.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

how does the developer board plug into whatever as his kickstarter has me curious but lacks lots of details.

I have been thinking about building my own pinball machine also over the last year or so. I have a little programming knowledge along with some electronic tinkering here and there. I may not have any solutions to any of your questions but it looks like we live pretty close to each other. I am just a few miles south of Kings Island. If anything we should get together to compare notes. Message me if you'd like to discuss.

developer board plugs into a PC (windows). A raspberry pi can be used too depending on the framework. I haven't gotten the new board hooked up, plus I'm still in the whitewood development so I don't need code yet.

Your layout looks awesome! It will be cool to see a "lost" 70s title get made. I also have a design in mind, but nobody nearby to help! Arrgghhh. Anyways, best of luck to you! Can't wait to see how it comes along.

Did you decide which controller to use?

In that case I would suggest starting out super basic. Make sure you get the solenoids firing properly and the switches reading correctly. Then maybe add some basic scoring. After that you could work on special conditions or multipliers. Then maybe a few modes. Just work in tiers and try not do it all at once. It is for fun after all !

That layout looks somewhat like Mystery Castle so just buy mine and save the trouble of building one like it. (lol)
https://pinside.com/pinball/market/ad/30777

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They're all slightly different, but depending on which way it may work.

The Bally Playboy is one I have modeled from before. The playfields of that era have been 20.25" X 42" (at least those I have seen personally).

Aaron
FAST Pinball

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It is a Frame/Rail design I came up with a few years ago. I will be producing them most likely later this summer. It sits at 6.5 degrees on a flat surface and I don't need a rotisserie. Easy to take in and of cabinets!

I started modeling them and just decided to buy a welder and learn to weld!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

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