Hey Genzume,

Great to see someone making their own machine. A few years ago I had the same idea as you, albeit much less complex.

I went for a simple low-tech 1/2 sized pitch and batt machine using marble-sized ball bearings. I started by using an Arduino ATMega328, but it had too few pins on it to avoid a switching matrix. I'm moving to either the ATMega2560 or the Raspberry pi. Eventually I'll get sound effects and a small LCD display running on it too.

I bought a bunch of cheap long lever switches and soldered little tin tabs to the end of each for when the ball drops down scoring holes, then the underside of the playfield has a piece of wood that sends the ball back to a pitcher's mound. I have a coil that shoots it up a metal ramp out of the pitcher's mound. It uses a little flap with an embedded hinge. Strikes also are sloped to go back to the same point.

The playfield is made out of MDF, and was awesome to work with. Dremel was easy to use on this. I played around with some design ideas based on other Pitch and Batt machines. The first thing I did was install the little batt flipper to see how it would react and how wide a range I'd have. Then committed to drilling holes. I build little wood rails around the playfield to contain the pinball.

The power supply came out of an old dead laser printer, which had +5v, +12v, & +48v on it (everything you need for a machine). I put some LEDs on the bases and did a little bit of code so far to control lighting and scoring, and I did manage to get it somewhat working. It is still a major work in progress that I mess around with every once in a while. The idea was to install it into my coffee table in my man cave.