Hi,
I recently got a pretty nice Tommy which unfortunately had the complete Blinder mechanism stripped from it.
I´m thinking about having a reproduction of the blinders 3D printed and I wanted to check whether anybody else would be interested in such a reproduction.
The dimensions of the repro will be taken from an original one, the looks will be as close as possible to the original. From what my 3D printer tells me the surface may not come out as smooth and shiny as on the original. That´s apparently a limitation of the 3D printing process.
The cost will also be substantial - from what my printer tells me I´m not sure if we can produce the pair for less than 200 $. And I´m not even including all the upfront cost of getting the 3D model etc.
Once I have the 3D model I can do a closer estimation of the cost.

Just let me know if anybody else is interested in such a reproduction.

I will also try to replicate the mount and arm as they are missing in my machine, too. I will probably put not as much attention on "originality" as with the blinders, more on feasibility.
Apart from that there´s also a guy on pinside who sells arms together with a new servo. He doesn´t offer the mount, though. See https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tommy-how-to-make-blinder-arm#post-1989604

I know, it sounded like a lot to me too. I certainly will try to get the actual printing cost down as much as I can.

Well, it took a while but here are pictures of my first 3D-printed Tommy blinders. They come out quite nicely although the surface is not quite as smooth as on the originals. But we can also print them in different colors if we want some modding effect....
Here you can see them from the top and bottom besides a pair of the originals:
P1070962.JPG
P1070963.JPG

These little pieces are printed separately and then glued to the main piece. That was easier from a printing perspective.
P1070964.JPGP1070965.JPG

And another picture:
P1070966.JPG

Of course I will also make decals for the eyes and 3D print the arm and manufacture the base plate. And even the apron including the two outlane guides because all that was missing on my Tommy.....

I need to do some serious testing first because I don´t want a typical pinside shitstorm coming my way....and for all I can say right now they will be kind of expensive as stated earlier on this thread. Might go down a bit if I have 10 or 20 sets made at once which I will only do if I have firm orders in my hand (=money )

Here´s my repro blinders sitting on the original base plate (borrowed from another Tommy) and so far they work perfectly.
I´m controlling them with a board that another German forum member developed which is based on a DigiSpark Tiny85 microcontroller.
The board has the advantage of very few parts and you can attach both kinds of servos to it. So no more converters and stuff. Works very nicely (Thanks, Sven!!!).
I need to do some stress testing now but I lost the screw that holds the arm on the servo (I´m using a Hitec322 here). So the arm keeps falling off after every 2-3 cycles....
P1070970.JPGP1070971.JPG

The nice thing about our board here is that you don´t need to modify the servo. The potis control the direction as well as the end positions of the servo....

Finally managed to get the screw to fasten the arm to the servo motor. Here you can see the blinders in action:

Blinders in Action

Next step is a test that opens and closes them a full day to see if they hold up (which I expect). I´ll also be getting the eyes decals in a couple of days. More about this soon....

Good news:
I tested my blinders recently to see if they withhold hundreds or even thousands of Open-Close-Cycles and they did. I let them open and close every 10 seconds for about 6 hours or so (~2,160 cycles) and there was no problem at all. So I´m sure the material they´re made of is sturdy and light enough to work for many years.

Bad news:
Yesterday I put them into my Tommy (the above testing was done outside the machine). They fit perfectly above the inlanes and under the apron:
P1050134.JPG
P1050135.JPG

BUT I noticed that the servo arm collides with the axle of the lower blinder (see picture below) when it´s trying to close the blinders and this prevents the blinders from closing completely. BUMMER!!! This is not a serious problem, but I have to modify the model a little bit, so that this doesn´t happen.
P1050139.JPG

One question to those who replaced the original servo with a Hitec or Futaba or whatever brand servo: how did you fit the arm on those servo's spline? According to this website http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/electronics/348207-servo-spline-count-what-use-where.html they all have different spline counts (24 or 25) than the Airtronics (23)

I´m still working on the repro blinders to make them perfect. It turned out that the original blinders are slightly slanted while my repros are completely straight. The angle is almost invisible but it´s enough to make my repros touch the underside of the apron which sometimes causes them to get stuck. Of course that´s not acceptable. So we are working on giving the shaft a slight angle to make that problem go away.

In the meantime I´ve also been working on a repro of the blinder arm. In a week or two I will have the first 3D printed copy of that arm here. It will look something like this:

TommyArm1_(resized).jpg TommyArm2_(resized).jpg

It´s almost impossible to print the splines as accurate as they need to be to fit on the servo so we are using these little adapters to fit them on the servos:

ArmAdapter_(resized).JPG

You´ll find these adapters very cheaply on Ebay in the US. So far I was able to find them for Airtronics/JR (23 splines), Hitec (24 splines) and Futaba (25 splines).

Stay tuned.....

Tommy Repro Blinders are ready!!

Finally after a lot of experimenting and testing the repro blinders are ready, installed and working just fine.
Here you can see them installed in my Tommy on the original DE mounting bracket and with the original DE servo arm:

P1080018_(resized).JPG

And here is a video of the Blinders in testmode in my Tommy:

If anybody else is interested in these blinders the cost is 195 Euros for the pair including the eyes decals plus shipping.
Shipping inside the EU will be 15 Euros (tracked and insured), to the US it would be 35 Euros (tracked and insured).
There´s a cheaper option available to the US (16 Euros), but that´s without tracking and insurance and would therefore be completely at your own risk.

PM me if you´re interested.

P.S.: the repro arm is also ready, it´s just still with my 3D printer. I´ll post pictures as soon as I have it in my hands.

Thanks guys

If there should be some interest I would go ahead and have a handful of them printed. Might bring the cost down a bit, but not much I´m afraid. 3D printing larger objects like these, which also have to be pretty accurate, is still rather expensive.....

Would it be OK for you if I wait a little to see if there´s more people who want a set? Then I can produce a batch of them.

Good news: I figured out a much more reasonable shipping option. I can ship the blinders to the US for 8 Euros uninsured and 12 Euros insured up to 200 Euros.

And my blinder arm is ready, too. Here´s some pictures:

P1080027_(resized).JPG P1080026_(resized).JPG

The top ring on the right is movable almost like on the original arm, but not the full height for better stability.

Why is it white? Well, that was just the cheapest printing option and I figured that wouldn´t hurt, because the thing disappears under the apron anyway. I can also produce them in black but they will be slightly more expensive.

Here you can see the little adapter that´s needed for different servos.

P1080028_(resized).JPG

I have Hitec adapters here and Airtronic and Futaba are on the way, so I can ship the arm with the correct adapter if you tell me the type of servo you´re using.

Cost for the arm incl. adapter is 18 Euros plus shipping. International shipping will be 8 Euros incl. tracking and insurance.

BTW, here´s how I´ve gotten into all this....

My Tommy was advertised as "Blinders missing", but when I looked closer it was also a completely different apron....

P1050141_(resized).JPG

.....and when I looked underneath the apron it turned out everything else was missing, too.....

P1050142_(resized).JPG

So the options were to sell it again just at it was or take on the challenge and make this Tommy whole again.
I thought this might be fun, I would learn a lot and it might help a few other Tommy owners who are also
missing one part or the other.....

So I got myself another Tommy which was complete and borrowed the pieces mine was missing to create
the necessary 3D models from them. I taught myself to use FreeCAD and I learned a lot about 3D modeling and printing along the way, but also had the help of an experienced 3D designer because for example the apron was too difficult to model for my small brain.
Weeks and weeks went by but finally I had all models for the missing pieces together (blinders, arm, bracket, laneguides and apron) and I took them to the printing shop and the laser cutting and bending guys.

And here´s the result:

Repro laneguides installed:

P1050143_(resized).JPG

Blinder mounting bracket installed (the bolt is still missing, but I´ll get that soon):

P1050144_(resized).JPG

Apron installed (still needs the powder coating and decals):

P1050146_(resized).JPG
P1050145_(resized).JPG

So in a few weeks a pretty looted Tommy will be all complete again. Oh, btw, the previous owners had also decided that they didn´t like the Union Jack so they put in a different speaker panel.

P1030771_(resized).JPG

So I reproduced the speaker inserts, too, but didn´t look close enough, so the experts will immediately notice that my repros are somewhat different from the originals......but still much nicer than the previous ones.....

P1060757_(resized).JPG

I´ll post pictures of the final result in a couple of weeks....

Cheers
Herbert

Well, at least you have the laneguides and the right apron....
Everything for 195? Unfortunately not. Don´t forget that I´m not producing these parts in large quantities. Everything is more or less made to order.
The 195 Euros is just for the blinders (incl. eyes decals), which are the most expensive pieces to manufacture.
The arm would be 18 Euros.
The base plate I hope to be able to produce for around 30 Euros.
The spring and 1/4" E-ring you can get from Marco. No point in me ordering it from them and then send it back across the Atlantic to you.
The servo board you can also get from Marco (rather expensive) or a repro board from Pinballlife. My own driver board is only a prototype right now. No plans so far to actually have PCBs made.
As servo I recommend a Hitec 322D. I can get you one but I´m sure you´ll get it cheaper over there. You can also use Airtronic or Futaba. You just have to tell me which one so I can equip the arm with the right adapter.

Oh, I didn´t know that. Sorry for the confusion. Then the Futaba´s would only work with my driver board, not with the original one or its repros.

I just completed a stress test of my repro blinder arm doing open-close-cycles every 10 seconds for more than 24 hours (>4,500 cycles). Neither the arm nor the blinders show any sign of wear.

@ArcadiusMaximus: thanks for your suggestion but I think the durability is way good enough

I will have a couple of arms printed. Feel free to PM me, if you want one. The price as mentioned above is 18 Euros plus shipping (US 8 Euros, Germany 3 Euros).

I went ahead and produced 2 pairs of blinders and 5 arms.
One pair of blinders and 2 arms are already gone, so there´s 1 pair of blinders and 3 arms left.
I can also produce the base plate if somebody needs one.

Here´s the prices once again:

Blinders incl. Eyes decals - 195€ plus shipping (US: 12€ insured)
Arm incl. adapter - 18€ plus shipping (US: 8€ insured)
Baseplate - probably around 20€

the one Marco sold, haven´t checked whether he still has it

BTW, I can also provide the torsion spring now for 5 USD a piece. That was the last missing part to make your TOMMY look like the original again.

Hi guys,
I´m still making and selling these replacement parts if anybody needs one. They get you as close to "original" as possible.
Due to the pretty weak dollar (Thx Donald!!) I would probably need to adjust my prices a little bit to the upside (5-10%).
Cheers
Herbert

I´m still making this replacement, which is as close to original as it gets. I don´t have them on stock but rather make them on demand.

Current prices would be:

Blinder pair incl. Eyes decals 150 €
Arm incl. adapter for servo 25 €
Torsion Spring 5 €
Baseplate 30 €
Shipping 8 €
Sum: 218 €

Optionally:
Servo Hitec HS-322 20 €
Pinnovators Controller Board 60 €

Just pm me if interested.

Arms are back in stock in case someone needs one. Due to a lower price at my printer this time I can offer them for 20€ plus shipping.

IMG_0703 (resized).JPG

One pair of blinders is also back in stock

Today I learned that the times of cheap shipping from Germany to the US are over. I can´t send goods with the regular letter mail anymore, instead I have to use boxed shipping service which is a lot more expensive.
So the cost of shipping has to go up to 16 Euros (no tracking) or 21 Euros (tracked). To make it a round number I´d say 230 Euros (tracked) for the complete blinder package.

Sorry about that.....

Here´s a few pictures of a complete blinder set that I´ve shipped recently (setup on the bench because I don´t own a TOMMY anymore...):

Baseplate parts
Baseplate assembled
The arm with the adapter inserted (the little black thingy
Baseplate with servo and arm assembled
The complete setup
Extended
Folded

I have all parts in stock except the 3D printed parts which I make on demand (takes ~10 days).

For a recent order I had an extra set of blinders made, so the whole set and all individual parts are on stock right now.

Just visit my new pinside shop "TheDudeMods" to order and it´ll be shipped right away.