I'm a maker type with clearly too much time on his hands. I'm getting into home-brew pinball because it pushes all the right buttons for me: basic electronics, pc building, programming, robotics, wood working, 3d printing, LED lighting and of course gameplay. I am new to pinball, buying my first machine, Ironman about 2 years ago followed by Total Nuclear Annihilation, and most recently a P3. The other reason to to make a pin is to have a project to share with my ten year old daughter, a budding artist. We divide up the work. I do the building, and my daughter works out the theme, the art (with a bit of photoshop help) and some of the modes. And, if you haven't guessed, she is a huge Rick Riordan fan, hence, Greek Gods.

I made it as far as a whitewood which I deconstructed and and now beginning work on the the next iteration. Here is what Greek Gods will have in it.

Two playfields each with a full size ball, slings and flippers
P3-ROC
PD-16 x 3
SW-16 x 4
PD-LED x 4
Driving 4 serial LED chains and about 100 RGB LEDs
Multimorphic power entry board
PC MOBO with 4 core celleron processor 8MB RAM and ATI graphics card.
ATX power supply 600W
Start up shutdown controller board
Meanwell 48V 1000 watt power supply
29" 4 K monitor for the back box
800x1024 10" transparent LCD separating the main from the underworld's mini playfield (think Krull)
Bifurcating ramp with diverter, left and right returns
Subway feeding a scoop
Laser cut steel ball guides with perforations for serial LED chains
4 Drop targets
3 Stand up targets
5 Pops
5 Magnets
5 Slingshots
3 Ball locks (one on each ramp return and one in the subway)
2 Spinners
Caged powerball
Appearing post
Knocker
Seemingly countless optos, 3D printed parts and inserts and about a mile of wire.

The machine is being developed on top of Ubuntu 18 and MPF. Digital design is in Fusion360, SketchUp and Adobe Creative Cloud.
I'll post as I reach interesting milestones and share the journey and of course answer questions as I am able. 'Course take my advice with a grain of salt as I am just a newbie.

First some design considerations. I'm intrigued by these transparent LCDs I've seen on Alibaba. They work like a normal LCD and are primarily used in store displays. Putting one of these in a playfield would allow goals and animations to be easily communicated to the player and when the mode is unlocked a miniplayfield becoming visible under the main playfield. This fits with the theme of an underworld. But they have several drawbacks. 1. Ordering from Alibaba. 2. Cost. 3 Large bevel. 4. You can't mount any hardware through it, so all the shots will be in the upper playfield. 5. One has to put a ton of light behind them because transparent is really dark, like #7 welding glass. I tried taking apart an 11" monitor, removing the backlight and retaining the polarizing filter. This sort of worked but the image was washed out. So I ordered from Alibaba. 3 weeks later it came along with a SVGA interface board. I have the monitor glass pitched up about 5 degrees so you can see the flash light under it.

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Since Greek Gods is going to be built around the 10" central transparent LCD monitor, I'd best start with the shot layout of the "Underworld." For this I'll be using a standard size ball and mini-flippers. There won't be a trough, just a slot to catch the ball when it drains and a coil to kick it to the mini-playfield. No in or out lanes either, just slingshots right above the flippers. The visible part of the playfield has 3 targets and 4 mouths representing the four rivers of the underworld. These connect to subways which run around mechs of the main playfield. Also hidden from the player is that the subways have magnets with opto switches allowing them to either pin a ball, reverse a ball's direction or accelerate a ball. These later maneuvers take a bit of special coding in MPF. If the ball exits a lower mouth at sufficient speed it should pass from one tunnel to another. The reason for the lack of inserts on the lower playfield is because texts and graphics can be superimposed onto the playfield using the monitor. Also the light required to see the lower playfield is so bright, any inserts would have to be lit with a VERY bright LED or halogen.

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Now that I’ve settled on the basic shape of the “underworld “here is a test mock up of the mini-playfield layout including some of the multimorphic opto switches. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to put the holes for the infrared beams at the middle of the ball. It makes an annoying clicking sound as the ball rolls past. I still need to cut holes for the magnets but I’ll make sure the opto switches work as advertised first. I have some foam board to make a stand with LED lights which I’ll use suspend the monitor over the mini-playfield. This will give me a chance to test the viewing angle of the transparent LCD.

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Now that I’ve settled on the basic shape of the “underworld “here is a test mock up of the mini-playfield layout including some of the multimorphic opto switches. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to put the holes for the infrared beams at the middle of the ball. It makes an annoying clicking sound as the ball rolls past. I still need to cut holes for the magnets but I’ll make sure the opto switches work as advertised first. I have some foam board to make a stand with LED lights which I’ll use suspend the monitor over the mini-playfield. This will give me a chance to test the viewing angle of the transparent LCD.

Progress has been steady though documenting here has not. I will attempt to catch up. I drafted my play field layout in adobe illustrator and gave the files to the local Hammerspace. They cut this for me charging $100 which I felt was pretty reasonable. These small holes at the top are for magnets that feed two sets of mechanisms on the left a pop and two slingshots on the right three pops. Not sure what to do with the midsection yet but obviously the transparent LCD monitor goes in the center square.

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I have really come to appreciate the documentation on the multimorphic boards that I am using to control my play field. The documentation really is excellent although it doesn’t reach across all skill levels, of course. I will attempt to describe a couple of the pitfalls I fell into when getting it all hooked up. Maybe it will save somebody from blowing a FET power transistor.

It seems if people are going to have trouble, most likely it has to do with how they connect the power supplies to the different boards. I started off using a (capacitor) power filter board that I found through Pinball makers. After blowing it a PD-16 MOSFET I went ahead and ordered the more expensive power entry board sold by Multimorphic. Yes, I know, it seems expensive but it really has been worth it to make my how are stable.

So here’s the main pitfall. All of the negatives (GND) of the DC power supplies Have to be tied together which the power entry board does for me. If they are not tied together there is a small float voltage between the low-voltage ground and the high-voltage ground. This confuses the control on the MOSFET chips Causing them to lock on, at best blowing a fuse and at worst blowing it themselves. Seriously, if you are using the Multimorphic ecosystem spend the extra $90 for the power entry board.

You might be wondering about that large 4” round hole in the left side of the mid play field. My plan here is to have a whirl pool “controlled by Poseidon.” It will be a type of spinning cup that can trap a pinball and randomly fling it back out again. I haven’t seen something like this done before and I am anxious to try it out. I wonder what it will do to the ball path....

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More on the P3-ROC boards. I found that making quick references for each of the boards showing the function of each header to be a big help. Feel free to use these, though don't blame me if I got something wrong, double check everything against the docs. First the power entry board. Those caps are worth about 3 coil actuations before they are drained. They let you use a smaller power supply, like a 600 W 48 V meanwell and still have plenty of charge to hit 2 or even 3 coils at the same time. The 15V circuit is interesting. It does not have to cary 15V. I will end up using it for a separate 5V loop to provide power to LED strips. This will keep me from browing out the logic boards or the lights on my PD-LED when I send 20 amps to about 1000 LEDs.

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Here is the heart of the beast the P3-ROC. It has a bunch of headers used by the P3 pin that I won't be using, unless I need some kind of fancy long distance optos to detect balls in my whirl pool. Mostly I will be sticking to USB and the serial in plugs for the SW-16 boards and the serial out plugs for the PD-16 and PD-LED driver boards.

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I figure I will use 5 of these guys. They can detect from microswitches, leaf switches, optos and proximity sensors. The later two are driven by the 12V available on the headers. When connecting the SW16 to the P3-ROC controller its like jumper cables. + to + and - to -. The GND is not needed.

I have a thing against pinning headers and prefer to solder. These plugs are just the thing. https://www.allelectronics.com/item/con-2410/10-pin-connector-w/header-0.1-spacing/1.html

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These driver boards will switch any DC current from 5 to 80V. You just have to be really careful to connect the negative on the high voltage power in to the negative on the digital control (5V) power which is done for you at the power entry board. The two sides of the boards are meant to run separate from one another. I think it is a bad idea to criss cross the banks hence I maintain separate loops for the two banks. Here is why. Power comes in to bank A via J5. On this side, power flows through (and is protected by) the fuse F1. Then J3 provides fused power which can connect either "octopus style" or in a loop to each of the coils connecting to bank A via J7. If you were to connect a coil powered by bank A via J3 to an output on bank B, I don't believe the Fuse F1 would protect that coil/FET combo which could result in a catastrophic reaction maybe blowing chips along the way. The two banks are intended to be isolated from one another. To keep is extra simple when starting off I only hooked coils to one bank. For newbies starting to test for the first time, set your default pulse to 3ms. It will be enough to twitch the coil. If you can use a bulb to see if the output works, all the better then you can allow a longer test pulse. If your HV supply has a potentiometer, dial down the voltage to its lowest setting (my Meanwell supply pots down to 38V). The PD-16 comes with 4A slow blow fuses. It sounds too weak but it is actually enough since the coils are only driven momentarily.

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Finally, I am using 4 PD-LEDs. I actually plan to use some serial LED's too which the PD-LEDs will allow me to program. I was surprised how quickly power draw adds up on these boards. Each RGB-LED can draw about 20ma when "white" x 26 RGB-LED that is nearly an amp and a half per board.

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Another point about wiring which may be more of style than necessity. I'm wiring my game in small self contained "modules" for my PD-16 and SW-16 boards. So on the PD-16 Bank A goes to 8 coils, Bank B to 8. Coils controlled by outputs on B don't receive power from A or vice versa. On the playfield, there is no point where fused power out from J4 and fused power out from J3 make a connection. The loops for each of the 8 coils are entirely separate. When the card is unplugged from the playfield the A and B coils are isolated from each other. Of course its fine for the two HV power and HV GND wires from the power entry board to "Y" and supply J5 and J6. Wiring the PD-16 like this helps contain failures to a single bank and increases the chances of a single fuse saving my circuits. It also make is a lot easier to tone out a bad connection.

Similarly, I try to do the same thing with the SW16. The header plugs for the SW16 have 12V power, digital GND and the 8 switch inputs. I only connect switches on bank A to the GND provided by bank A. Optos and proximity sensors which require 12V power I only power by the same header that that switch bank provides. While I should not hurt anything with violating this principle with the SW16 boards, it contains failures to a single board or bank and it makes trouble shooting a lot easier. I just pull off the meeter and tone it out. Also, should high voltage touch a switch, I am only going to lose one input, maybe one side or at most one board, not all my switch boards together.

Here is something that surprised me. I rendered my meanwell 48V supply all but silent with a stealth fan (See TNA power supply mod). One day I forgot to turn off my meanwell and even though the rest of the 5 and 12V supplies were off when I went to solder a coil, the soldering iron sent some kind of signal down the line and activated the MOSFET and that fired the coil and locked on. It was not enough to smoke but the MOSFET never worked again. I brought it back by replacing the MOSFET.

Really this diagram crystallized my thinking as to how it all wires up. Just like in the diagram I am using an ATX supply which also goes to my MOBO.

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Did I mention about hooking up the common grounds? I must have by now. The green line represents the power entry board.

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Here is a view of the basic white wood prototype. Playing the shots, There are a couple issues. First of all it’s really dull to have the drop targets on either side. I need to liven that up. Maybe replacing one of them with a pump bumper like total nuclear annihilation will help. Also the 90° angle orientation makes them difficult to hit with any semblance of precision. Indeed, a ball can even come to rest against one of the drop targets. That will have to be changed as well. I am sure there are plenty of more experienced players out there rolling their eyes right now thinking “You idiot, of course that won’t work. “ But this is the first time through the process for me and honestly I haven’t made a study of pinball before this year. Oh, and that whirlpool cup? It will trap a slow ball just fine and using an accessory switch I can eject the ball by making it spin. But I have two major problems. How do I detect when the ball comes to rest? Maybe those long beam Optos from multimorphic will work. They will detect the ball all the way across the playfield. Mission pinball framework supports them so why not? But maybe the bigger problem is a fast moving ball dips down into the cup and shoots out the other side leaving the playfield in a graceful parabola coming to rest somewhere along the west wall of my basement. The cup may have to go.

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The ball guides I had water jet cut from 18G mirror finish stainless. I used a local shop and I think they need to dial in the machine since the edges were a bit rough. They also charged me about $300 including the metal. Next time I will go with https://www.oshcut.com Better pricing and precise edges.

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Here is a better early visual on how the layout works. The ramp bifurcates with a lock on each arm. Hmm. It looks disturbingly like something from AP anatomy.

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OK, there is no saving that whirlpool cup or the current positions of the drop targets. The whirlpool cup is an easy fix. I just 3D printed an insert that fills the space and put a magnet in the middle of it. An opto switch triggers the magnet to give the ball a random fling as it crosses in and out of the left side triad of 2 slings and a pop. The drop targets are a bit more work. Consulting a friend, he recommended filling the slot with a piece of plywood and anchoring it in with Bondo. Then, a new hole can be cut for a different mech. I am keeping the right drop target bank but rotating it to about a 15 degree angle. Just for fun, I’m going to see if I can squeeze in some kind of slingshot behind that bank so that when the bank is fully down another active mech comes in to play. Shirley somebody has tried this before but I can’t think of any examples. I’m replacing the left drop target bank with a pop. Of course there is no getting this thing back on a CNC table at this point. I will have to make the cut by hand using a router and a 3-D printed jig.

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Wouldn’t it be nice to have a subway to feed that scoop from the top of the orbit? Maybe I can even squeeze in another subway feed between the right sided pop bumpers.I really wish I had bought one of those scoops that has a feed from the back. Well, I should be able to cut door with an angle grinder.The Eastwood TIG welder I ordered came in. I think the subway is an excellent place to start to learn to weld. I am reminded of when I learned to solder as a kid and burnt myself seven times in the first hour. OK, it’s not high quality welding but I have to start somewhere.

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Time to build a cabinet if for no other reason than to contain that crazy hopping ball. My play field is built on Stern measurements so I will just measure my Iron Man cab. My other pinball machine is a total nuclear annihilation. The playfield layout has been heavily influenced by both. In retrospect it’s also bares resemblance to the Multimorphic P3 Though I like to think that this was more convergent evolution around a play field screen then my imitating another master’s machine.

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I am trying to build the cabinet such that my wife or daughter and I can load it and take it to a show. To distribute the weight better, I am putting everything I can in the back box which detaches. In there is going all of the power supplies, the audio amplifier, MOBO, P3 Roc, Power entry board, and maybe even the sub. Sliding into the back box is a 28” 4K display. I know, nobody needs a 4K display in a pinball machine. But, at this point the displays spending most of the time on my workbench and since I am doing all of the coding directly on the machine, having the 4K display is wonderful for using my web browser, terminal screens and multi tab editor, Atom. Below the display are the speakers. And, I am putting in a one way mirror with serial LED lights behind it that spell out “Greek Gods.” I swear, it wasn’t until after I got started on this configuration that I learned that Multimorphic has a display, speakers and logo in the same spots. Really, seriously, Stellenburg, seriously, I’m not trying to copy your ideas. It is just that, yet again, brighter people have beat me to it.

Back box finished (monitor out for more coding). I think I am finally starting to get the hang of Mission pinball framework. It is distinctly unlike any type of programming I have done before. Some people wouldn’t call it programming but it reaches a point where the configuration files become sufficiently complex and interactive with one another that it becomes just Another language. Fortunately, it’s a gradual evolution and you don’t need a degree in computer science to write really rich rule sets. OK, someone’s going to flame me on this one.

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Definitely, there wasn’t room for a subwoofer. It would’ve sounded like crap anyway. Those speaker grills I marked up in illustrator and uploaded to OSH cuts. A week later I had them. So much better than the water cut ball guides from before. The ivy around the logo is 3-D printed And hand painted by my daughter the pins artist. The ivy I had to draft in fusion 360 which how I plan to draft the next iteration of the playfield.

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My scoop looks a little naked. Maybe Zeus’s his head? I just started playing guardians of the galaxy. Rather than having a hinged jaw on Zeus, I will just put a smart drop target in front of it. Maybe pinball life will come out with a white or translucent plastic for it.

Welding the ramp took a lot of trial and error. The guide on pinball makers was invaluable. More than anything else it just took a bunch of practice to keep from turning the 1/8 inch steel rod into a puddle of slag.

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Those sides that come down around the scoop are not going to work out. The ball is already splitting the one on the right. Well, it is good enough for now.

More welding. Now the apron out of 14 gauge steel. This turned out to be easier than I expected. A metal blade and some oil cuts the steel nicely with a jigsaw. Thank you internet friends for guiding me on how to do it. Right angles weld easily. Much more forgiving than 1/8” rod. Wow, this stuff starts to corrode quickly. Eventually I will scrub it down and have it powder coated.

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Here is a close-up on the speaker covers. The guys at OSH cuts were able to hit it with a low power to etch the logo on the rim. Maybe they should have used a higher wattage for the etch.

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Finally, getting it all put together for some serious white wood testing.

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Wow, so many problems but none of them are game killers. That spinner has to be moved because it will trap a ball. Also it’s pretty boring when the ball is in the upper left quadrant. It just bounces around forever without any player intervention. Maybe I can control the slingshots with the flipper buttons somehow. Here is one. The Lucite doesn’t stay in position when I raise the playfield. And another. The trapped Powerball is supposed to represent Sisyphus. But it sits in the way of where the ramp needs to be moved. Maybe I can make a larger horseshoe and bring it all the way to the other side of the field. Although, I’m not sure the player’s ball will hit the Newton ball with enough force to make the power ball go one side to the other. This might be real trouble. Lastly, the lanes on the right side are just a little too narrow to hit.

People must be wondering by now what about the translucent LCD screen and the underworld? Well, that part is working really nicely. Because the screen is so dark, I have to light the slingshots with really bright 12 V flashers. They are from an automotive website. Each ear has a magnet and four optical switches that can either accelerate the ball, stop it or even reverse its direction. But the player can only see the central square area. Including the upper play field I’m up to five magnets in this beast is getting really heavy. In fact, my play field bows considerably when I lift it. I will need to reinforce that in the next iteration

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This picture doesn’t do it justice. To the eye it’s not nearly as dark down there as the camera suggests. But, I think you get an idea about how graphics can superimpose on top of targets.

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Here is a view without superimposed graphics and the lights turned all the way up. To light it I used a 5 m RGBW strip controlled with MOSFETS via output from the PD-LED. That turned out to be a mistake because I can get any color I want from the screen itself. I would have been better off just using a high density white LED strip.

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As far as Ubuntu is concerned, this is just an extension of my desktop. Being able to run two displays was one of my reasons for choosing MPF.

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I will have to do something like this to hold the lucite in place. Here I go, again imitating the best.

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Speaking of imitation, my wife really likes that ball timer countdown on total nuclear annihilation. I wonder if I can make it using a RGB 7 segment display?

This is going to require a custom board and some serious learning.

Including learning the software, this took about 3 weeks to knock out. It takes 4 header plugs from the PD-LED and uses 2 seven segment RGB modules from adafruit.

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Here is the module. Damn, I didn’t get a picture of the completed board before installing.

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Here is a picture of the underside showing the lighting for the underworld. Yes, I know it looks like a spaghetti bowl. It’s just a white wood folks. Here is the FET interface.

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Here is a close-up on the lighting of the lower play field. Around the edges are some flashers that light up the tunnels to give the player a hint where the ball will be coming from.

Yes, I know. It looks like a bowl of spaghetti. It’s just a white wood prototype folks. I’m not gonna win any respect on the wiring!

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Thanks! As you can see I am mounting all of the “daughter boards” vertically around the edge of the play field. I drafted the mounts in sketchup and printed them in either PTEG or ABS. Heat set nuts from McMaster and M3 screws hold them the boards in place. You can download the STL file on thingiverse search multimorphic. A set of left and right mounts will fit any SW-16, PD-16 or PD-LED.

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https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3518876

These https://www.pinballlife.com/britecaps-evo-pop-bumper-lighting.html bright caps are not doing it for me. I can’t control them or change my GI lighting color. I like the RBG LED in my TNA pop. But it is a little dim. I’ll try to squeeze in a multimorphic flasher in each pop. It works if I print a ring around the flasher, bend the header plug and put an “ice” pop top on it. Better but not perfect.

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Here is a closeup of my ramp and diverter. The diverter uses two 12V coils to push and pull the flap to one side or another. It works pretty well but I will probably change it to a stepper or servo. The lock works great, though. It uses 2 12V coils controlled by the PD-16 to stop the ball. The coils fire and hold for 200 ms to let a ball past. Just before the lock are two opto switches which can open the lock when triggered for non-locking mode or leave the solenoid closed to stop one or two balls. Super easy to control with MPF. And, of course indicator lights. I only wish the whole assembly was smaller and looked less hacker.

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I have an old Nikon digital SLR which I had the IR filter removed from the sensor. This lets me shoot in IR. The IR LEDs are really really bright to the camera. When I want to accelerate the ball, you can see that the ball trips the first beam on the way to the magnet and the second beam turns the magnet off so as not to stop the ball. To reverse the ball direction, first pin the ball then let it drop away from the magnet and re-fire the magnet as if accelerating. This required one of the MPF guru's to write me a few lines of python code. Otherwise all the other pinball control is just YAML config files.

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Here at the bottom you can see the RGB ball timer. It’s time to start thinking about version two with inserts and improved geometry. I am a little worried about getting the shape of the inserts just perfect so they fit properly when hammered in. I Ran a test board with some shapes I found online and they don’t fit the inserts I ordered from pinball life. Furthermore, hammer space charged me $100 for about a dozen holes in a 12 x 12” board.

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Another 3D printed mount for a multimorphic PD-LED breakout board, also on thingiverse.

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Those heat set nuts from McMaster are great. They are extremely strong and bond to the plastic when inserted with a soldering iron. I am using them all over the place. Better order another 100.

Ok, the Kansas City hammer space CNC router is not Going to work out for me. Too bad, too. It’s a great machine but they revised their pricing and I am probably looking at $400 or more to grind out the next play field with them. Double that if I screw up my design. I’ve been doing a little bit of math and for about $800 I can build my own CNC machine if I use the Root3CNC plan. This system uses a 3-D printer to make many of the parts and runs on stepper motors and belts that I am familiar with from a project in college. Another pinball friend of mine made one and it works for him. He has even agreed to grind out a couple of the wooden parts for me. I figure this is going to put my project back about six weeks to build a CNC Figure out how to use it and dial it in. https://rootcnc.com/machines/root-3/

Ok, I’m printing parts like crazy for the Root3. Some of them take up to 11 hours each. ABS plastic did not working out at all. It shrinks too much for the large parts and warps as it cools. So I have started printing in PTEG (same stuff that makes 2L bottles) it is slightly more flexible but seems just as strong. It also does not smell when extruding. But I lost more time fiddling with the feed rates, temperature and layer height.

Parts are beginning to come together. The Root3 lets you chose the size of the cutting area. I’m making mine big enough to cut a playfield in one job. Many of the parts use nuts pressed into plastic. Heat set nuts would work better.

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Coming together nicely. It’s just big enough for the job. But this on the floor stuff is killing my back. I put the 24 v supply and 4 stepper motor drivers in a Keurig Cup dispenser no longer being used at work. Yay. Saved $20.

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Welded up and painted a stand for the CNC router. It all comes apart so I can hang it on the basement wall when I’m done.

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This Root3 CNC is working great. In addition to making a test piece for inserts, I ground out this sign for my brother in laws paint shop.

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My God, but the dust! I am making a kind of boot to go around the cutting head and hooking it up to my shop vac.

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My 3 bits and a test cut to make a whirlpool light show around my magnet. I printed the inserts out of clear PTEG. Homemade inserts really open up some possibilities.

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It is time to deconstruct Greek gods version one and design a new play field in fusion 360. This baby is going to make it happen. It is a 15 year old flatbed scanner that is no longer available. I picked it up on eBay for $80. It is used by library archivists because the flatbed scanner is set on the object to be scanned.

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The playfield is scanned in overlapping pieces, 16 in total. These are imported into Photoshop and a merge algorithm stitches them together. Supposedly, it is accurate down to the millimeter. Let’s hope so because I am going to take the gigantic image and put it in as a background in fusion 360 upon which to place my mechanism holes. Along the way, I have made a ton of notes of where to move things to open up the ball path. Remember the Sisyphus feature, the Powerball in the horseshoe? I still need to resolve if the flippers can send it all the way around the orbit.

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To resolve the question as to whether or not I can launch a Powerball from one side of the orbit to the other I need to weld up the horseshoe and make and interim Whitewood. Surprisingly, it shoots reasonably well. But it requires a dead on hit against the Newton ball but then the Powerball shoots from one side of the other with a very satisfying “Thunk.” There is a downside to this design however. When the pinball hits the side of the Newton ball without the Powerball present, it is just a brick shot for the pinball. Also, I don’t see a good way to activate a light show with a dead hit.

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Ok that seems to work so I will build a new ramp around the “Sisyphus” feature. This is getting me into the sheet-metal functions of fusion 360. It’s a really neat environment where I can draft what I want the folded piece to look like and fusion 360 will flatten it out so the sheet-metal can be laser cut. Along the way I am also making new ball guides. This might look like Las Vegas when I’m done but I want to perforate my ball guides in my orbit and outlines with hole spacing that lines up with serial LED strips.

Where did I learn it? Almost entirely on the Internet. I am in healthcare. But I did have a year of drafting in high school, a pascal computer class in junior college (shows how old I am) And two years of high school electronics. Though, when I got to Kerkhoff theorem. I was completely lost.

OK I’ve got more metal back from OSH cuts. I went with 18 gauge stainless. I am feeling that this was a mistake because the ball guides aren’t quite as stiff as they should be. The mirror finish stainless that I used originally is stiffer than the brushed stainless that I ordered this time. The mirror metal must be a different alloy that is harder and takes a shine. It would have been better to use 16 G this time. Well, I will use what I have. I trusted the measurement specs on the serial LED strip. It turns out that the LEDs are ever so slightly closer than they should be. This is made more of a problem around the orbit which stretches the strip slightly. I am going to have to cut the strip about every 20 LEDs and solder in a short bridge. But, fusion 360 came through. My ramp entrance is looking pretty good.

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Ha, somehow a picture of my brother who is a private pilot got posted and I don’t seem to be able to delete it. Well, I have a brother. He’s great!

I think I’m going to use proximity sensors in place of some of my rollover switches. These 18 mm diameter sensors will detect more than 5.5 mm away from the ball. This allows me to retain about 2 1/2 To 3mm of wood above the sensor which should be enough to remain durable. This way my art won’t be messed up. I saw on the net where a guy was working on putting these under inserts. Maybe I will try that too. The sensors won’t detect a Powerball of course but are good for pinballs. They run on 12 V supplied by the SW-16.

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The Root3 CNC came through. Pretty close anyway. It seems to skip a tooth occasionally over long distances causing a bit of stairstep at the two ends. Hopefully this won’t screw things up. I welded up some side rails to go underneath the playfield to reinforce it so it doesn’t bow under the extra weight of the underworld play field. Watch your fingers when lowering playfield! And yes, I was relieved that it fits.

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My second version of the ramp is done. I would really like to get it chrome plated but nobody around here does that work. I found a guy on the Internet who specializes in chroming pinball parts but he works on his own time scale which is to say he gets to it when he gets to it. There is a place in town that does reverse electrolysis polishing but that’s mostly for industrial food handling and aerospace equipment. They’re happy to do it but will charge me about $1000. I suppose I will make do with a polishing wheel and a bunch of resin.

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Now, a few words about the art. I might have mentioned at the front that this is a project with my kids. My daughter is turning 11 and she is already a much better artist than I am. She picked the theme and has been steadily working away at features we are going to print on the playfield. So, if you don’t care for the art, please be kind.

The art process has been extremely interesting to me. I exported the line drawing of the playfield from fusion 360 to adobe illustrator. Illustrator has a iPad app that my daughter uses to draw in the individual features. I pulled these features into Photoshop, put down a color background and blended it all together.

After that the magic happens. There is an industrial printer here in Kansas City that was extremely gracious in taking this as a small job. After I prepped the playfield with a thorough block sanding to smooth out the inserts, I presented the “canvas” to them. They used a high-end inkjet printer which made two passes over the playfield laying down the graphics.

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Here is a time lapse of the print.

The actual printing took about 10 minutes and was fascinating to watch. After the first pass we realized that a couple of the inserts were not masked correctly and we had to scrape off the white background. Oh well. It was a small mistake I should have picked up prior to approval of the print. After a little work, it was ready for the color layers.

Next comes the hard coat. I don’t have an automotive paint shop set up which is the proper way to do this sort of thing. Instead, are used this product. Each can has a smaller can inside that is punctured from the bottom. This mixes the chemicals and after a good shaking you have some thing that is very similar to automotive clearcoat. And it’s just as toxic. I work at a hospital and the paint shop crew was nice enough to let me use a hood. I already had a respirator mask after cleaning up mold at my parents place in the Florida Keys when a hurricane came through three years ago.

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Burn!

OK, there were some problems with the print. It turns out that my play field ended up about 2 1/2 mm compressed on the Y axis. Probably this is from the home made Root3 CNC machine skipping a tooth on the belt. My black rings around the inserts aren’t quite right but it’s good enough for who it’s for. If I could do this part over again, I would use drive screws instead of belts on the CNC machine. Much more reliable for a longer worksurface. I would also go with a shorter CNC table and do the playfield in two cuts. The more I learn about how to use a CNC table it really doesn’t gain you very much by doing the playfield in a single run. You just have to line everything up for cutting the upper and lower parts of the playfield separately.

I think these LED strips are going to work out great behind the ball guides. The playfield says version one. I suppose that’s true for the art but I am calling this one version to four pinside.

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If you look closely, you can tell which are the pinball life and which are the home printed inserts. With the lights on there is a bit of crosshatch texture on the home and made ones. I will just call that quaint.

Back on the rotisserie. About halfway through the last build I upgraded from a swivel vice and a workbench to some gas pipe fittings. Yes, I know the wiring is looking pretty messy. I guess that’s not my talent.

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These RGB flashers in the pops are not doing it for me. I want something even brighter. It would be really cool to use LCD displays in the pops but that is a pipe dream. I found these motor cycle 12V angel eye RGB rings. They are meant to go around headlights. I’m going to try to hot glue two of them in a pop bumper top. I’ll drive them with MOSFETS controlled but the PD-LED. They have 4 22G wires I will need to bring out the bottom of the pop. That will take a little drilling and make changing the pop a (hopefully worthwhile) pain. I am using “ice” pop covers. The clear is just for illustration. If you try this yourself be sure you are getting common anode rings. The common cathode require a more complicated control circuit.

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So far, these angel eyes are looking great. Very very bright and like the bright caps, they shine both up and down.

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Oh man, I’m hosed. After finishing putting on the mechs I see that the ball won’t roll through the gap between the slingshot and the outline divider. One of the gurus at multimorphic saw my CAD online and PM’ed me that it looked a little tight through there. I had a false sense of assurance That it was fine that it was fine since I was just tracing over the old design and I had only slightly tweaked the lower slings. I mean, it had to be fine. That scanning process was rocksolid. Except, the ball won’t roll through. Going back to my scan of the first version playfield I see that there was an artifact we are photo shopped stitched the 16 images together. I lost about 9 mm along the Y axis exactly between the level of the flipper and the slingshot. I am so hosed.

OK, maybe I can sort of salvage this. I can move the post supporting the lower end of the slingshot band up about 3 mm. But I still have to move down my in line, outline divider. And I have to change the angle of the L so it still meets up with the flipper holes.The only way it’s going to work is if I fabricate some new type of divider that sits offset from the general illumination holes that are already in the play field.That could gain me the additional millimeters I need. But I will lose the general illumination.

Old, and new. Yeah, the 3D printed divider looks a little funny but I think I can make it work. I am really going to miss the illumination. By the way, the proximity sensors set just below the level of the in line and out lane indicator inserts. They work reliably.

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Here’s the proximity sensor you need if you ever want to try it. Be sure to get the PNP. To make it work, you have to hook up a 1K resistor between the sense wire and (if memory serves me) 12 V. This keeps the sensor voltage from floating away from it’s off state.

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There is just enough room to cram in a serial RGB strip, folded over to illuminate both sides. This gives an additional 43 LEDs To play with. I wrote a little python script to make light shows so that whenever the flippers are activated a pulse of light chases the ball upwards. Eventually I will add more light shows to show the ball moving down in the outline. Still looks funny but now it looks funny in a way that was possibly on purpose.

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Looking more like Las Vegas every day.

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Some spring steel from Marco and a couple rivets and I have a ramp flap. If I ever make a version three, I will press the ramp into the playfield a little bit for a tighter fit.

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A while back I mentioned that a guy was working on putting proximity sensors under inserts. Well he has some thing working and asked if I would help make a flasher board to go around the proximity sensor. This has some interesting potential. That means I can put a Sensor in the middle of the hydra and make a bottle Hydra mode down close to the flipper.We started emailing back-and-forth and I am happy to have a new Internet friend who is a great guy. Here is what we are coming up with.

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We also came up with a extra bright slingshot flasher. It rocks. It can be configured to either draw power directly from the PD-LED or from 5V. If doing the former, it’s probably better not to use more than one or two per PD-LED or it might overload the 3.3 V voltage converter. But configured for 5 V, you could put 23 of these controlled by one PD-LED board. That would be almost 100 piranhas. Blinding! My friend and I are planning on posting the circuit board designs shortly on mission pinball framework so anybody can download the plans, get them fabricated in China for less than a dollar a board And a week later solder up their own.

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Having the proximity sensor up against the underside of the insert does cast a shadow, however. The shadow is less with the inserts made of clear plastic with cut concentric circles. Not the ones I put in. I will hide the shadow with a decal in the middle of the hydra.

One of the last jobs is getting the plastics right. I started with cardboard cut to the approximate desired shape. Then I scanned the shape and moved it over to fusion 360 where I printed a sample plastic.

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After a lot of trial and error I was able to come up with this. Remember how the plastic hanging down over the side of the scoop was getting beaten up? That has been changed to a piece of steel with a blue nub of death bumper. Not ideal but it doesn’t brick the ball.

The plastics that go over my G.I. lights were made in a similar way starting with cardboard, progressing to a 3-D printed shape and then the outline was exported to the CNC router and a cutting bit was used to make the plastic out of Lucite. Using the method outlined at pinball makers, my daughters art, hand drawn on tracing paper, was glued to the Lucite and everything put in place.

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Another finishing touch: I can’t add more flipper buttons very easily with the metal side rails which I chose. So instead I am putting this giant switch at thigh level. Leaning into the machine activates a mode where are the upper slingshots become controlled by the flipper buttons and the flippers go dead. This makes a game of skill to keep the pinball in that zone containing two slingshots and the pop. Score enough hits in that zone and it opens up locking on the ramp just above the left upper slingshot. Just remember to take your thigh off the button when the ball comes zipping out past the whirl pool magnet at the real flippers.

Yep, It is going on the coin door. I guess everybody plays for free.

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After looking at it for over a year, I’ve concluded that Zeus his head sucks. I am putting in Medusa and a Minotaur.

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Oh, and did you see that PBL came out with a translucent drop target replacement for the smart target? It’s meant as a mod on total nuclear annihilation. I lit up the drop with one of those flashers I mentioned above. Now I can invite a shot to the target or the scoop by flashing the mech.

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I have been launching the ball with the auto kicker. I really would like a traditional plunger so I can reward the player with hitting one of the three upper entrances to the playfield. But, how do I get the plunger in the right spot? Maybe some archery?

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I put a drop of fingernail polish on the end of the rod. I thought it would do the trick but actually it landed a little low. This caused quite a bit of filing before the shooter right in the top centered on the ball. Guess I should have just measured that stern cabinet.

I forgot to mention up above that I re-designed the ramp locks not to use those 12 V solenoids. Instead I used traditional coils below the playfield which pole down a rod to release the ball. Also I refined the Opto boards making custom ones that have a RGB LED built-in. This slims things down considerably.

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