Print reels in white -> yes! Keep in mind that so far I had been printing in PLA which as I understand it deteriorates over time and the plan was to print them in white ABS eventually (now ultimately it would be to have them injection molded at some point but the price is way out of the equation at this point).

Here's what my first order of ABS white reels looks like.
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The finish is much rougher than I was expecting though:

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I've read about smoothing with acetone fumes, but I've had another idea I want to try first.

I did think about that but I think they'd be too hard to work with for this application - I won't make you guess too long, what I'll be trying is transfer stickers.

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Yes, I think there's probably room to add something of the sort - it only runs on 9V, so it would have to be a smaller a solenoid (I don't think people want to be woken up by a full on extra game knocker anyway... the Stern screech maybe? That'll wake you up angry ).
For now though, my focus is keeping things simple and making this iteration sturdy and dependable, and getting some feedback from a few people, as there seems to be some interest. Extra features will be further down the line.

Looking at how rough the reels were, I decided the best way to go about it at this point was sanding. I was worried that if I did it by hand I might end up with something uneven, so what I did is routed some support for my belt sander so that it lies horizontal.
Then I can set the wheels down on the support and slowly turn it to get an even sand. One problem is that the plastic seems to clog up the sandpaper pretty quick, so I'll have to see if I can somehow clean it or else I'll just eat through sandpaper pretty quick.

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And now with the stickers - you can see there's some thickness to it but it's definitely something I can live with. I went for a font much closer to the originals as well.

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Alright folks, this is it!
Version 2.2 is done!
The next chapter of the story will be to produce a short run if I have enough interested peeps. More details on this in the next few posts.

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Here's the whole family

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*TAKING ORDERS*

Ok, so after running through the numbers and the plan, here’s what I propose.

-First, some of you have asked about kits - this doesn’t save me anything on the BOM, only on labour. This is going to be my summer project and I don’t really mind the labour at this point. I also want to see how much effort it actually takes to build these in small batches, so unless you would specifically rather have it as a kit (for the same price) I will send a fully built unit.

-12 units is a reasonable number I’m confident I can ship by September without getting in over my head. Once that’s done I’ll see how much I enjoyed myself, and see if there’s another batch down the pipeline.

-The V2.2 model is what I’m shipping - I don’t have the rights to the Gottlieb artwork so I can’t ship the Atlantis theme. Of course you’re free to customize it and to share with all of us. I’d love to see some other Gottlieb classics!

-The price is 219$ USD + 30$ USD shipping to the US and Canada. 100$ non-refundable deposit now + the rest when your machine is ready to ship. PM me for information.

That’s it, I’m excited to see if we can make this happen!

It looks like the post where I give a timelapse of the Atlantis translite creation got wiped out during the outage, so here it is again.
Basically, find a half-decent scan of the backglass (since you're scaling it way_ down, it can be pretty low res) then cut out the parts you want and "reconstruct".
I used GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/
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Seems like the GIF isn't working again. Here it is on YouTube:

Very easy. There are 4 screws at the bottom you undo, then the top just pulls off. I'll post pictures later.

Yep.
Edit: to be clear, I can provide a digital template!

Yeah that's what I figured... here's one:
https://www.amazon.ca/Abrasive-Cleaning-Sanding-Sandpaper-Skateboard/dp/B08CNNM96B/ref=sr_1_7

I didn't think those "dild" things were shaped like that

Here's how you slide the top off to access the inside (including the translite if you want to slide one in).

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*3 spots left!*

Alright, all 12 are spoken for! If you're interested for a potential second run or somebody forfeiting their spot, please PM me.

Getting ready for the next chapter of the story - the first batch!

== PART V - The First Batch ==

Alright, super excited at the response, I wasn't expecting this to go this fast - when I saw the spots filling up I quickly went over the thread and tried to poke people that mentioned they were interested, but I just went over it again and I think there's 1 or 2 I may have overlooked. Really sorry about that, if you would have liked to be in please PM me and I'll put you on the list for the next batch if there is one.

Now so far I've done a lot of iterating and testing, and I've had both versions of the clock running for weeks on end without issues, so I may be doing a few tweaks here and there, but only minor stuff. What I'm really interested in at this point is figuring out the effort and how much I enjoy it before I see what the next step is.

I typically do a pinball restore every summer - I don't have one lined up now so this is my summer project, and I'll be super proud to see these end up in peoples' homes.

Thanks again to the Dirty Dozen!

You got it!
Thank you!

A quick update - parts have been ordered, I will start posting again as I begin the builds.
Stay tuned!

Parts are starting to come in - here's a big ole sack of motors to get started.

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It's an industry term. In the pinball clock biz, 50 of something is called a "sack"

PCBs just came in - I went with a white batch this time.
I should be able to start putting together electronics pretty soon.

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Big pick up today!
I went and picked up the cabinet parts from a local CNC shop. I opted to go with the order right away without prototyping since I had already done my own prototype. Because of minimum order price, the prototype from the shop was a third of the price of the full order so I was willing to take that calculated risk.
I'm very happy with the quality, and there are no major issues. I was hoping the front panels would be clean and chip free, and they are.
The only thing I'll need to rework (which I wouldn't have had to do had I prototyped first) is that the side panel fit is too tight - I'll just reroute them myself, should be an easy fix.
This is one of the reasons I didn't want to get too carried away with the number of units - at this volume I can fix issues I find along the way.

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Alright!
Took the day off today to begin on the cabinet assembly.
So first I had told you about the side panels fitting a little too snug. Fixed that with the router:

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S'all good, man!

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Then to check if all the pieces fit together as they should before I start gluing stuff.

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Yup, good to go, except for this - too snug again. Will shave them off with the saw.

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Done!

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Ready to glue things together - 12 glued cabinet tops, the train is coming!

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While this is drying, I figured I'd give a slight mineral oil wipe down to the inside wood panels. Some people will probably do translites, but if you don't I want it to look good.

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With the glue dry, the cabinets then need to be sanded flat on all sides. I wish I had a large industrial belt sander, but for now this is what I'm doing:

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That poor vacuum can't keep up:

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I have brown hair by the way, this is MDF dust

Merry Christmas!
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Then after blowing compressed air to clean them up:

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Next up is wood filler to get everything nice and clean, but no pics of that yet.

I'm taking note of the time it's taking me to build things - I like to have stats for a "post mortem" once the project is done.

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That's it for today, will post when there is more progress!

For this run they all are, but if everything goes well enough and it takes me a reasonable amount of time to produce them I will probably be up for a second run. That's also why I'm tracking closely cost and time to produce. I'll put your name on the waiting list!

Done!

12!