I'm about a year into building my homebrew pinball machine. The theme? Who knows, but maybe Dune. I started playing around with this idea mid 2020 and have been working on an off since then. As of now, I've built the cabinet, have the electronics ready, have a fairly complete model of the final design, and am in the process of hiring someone to cut the playfield.

I'd love suggestions and advice, but mostly want to share my build. I have no formal education in engineering, computer science, etc. but have tinkered all my life.

Anyway, hope you like my build.

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Here are some photos of the cabinet construction. I really like the contrast of the black and white. Everything is made from 3/4in plywood.

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Here is a view of the electronics as of now. I'm using a P3-Roc system with Mission Pinball Framework.

In the top left are two power supplies for 48, 12, and 5V. I have an old motherboard in the top right that will run the program, and its power supply below. The main P3-Roc board is in the center, and a stereo amplifier is below it. The only thing I have left to add are the fuses, but I'm going to wait until I decided how to split up/separate the power rails. Thankfully, I've been able to 3D print a lot of the supports/mounts/devices for this machine. You can see that the ATX power supply is mounted with a printed part, and all of the PCB's have printed supports under them.

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All of the electronics are in the back box. I actually did not know that. Is the reason for putting that plexiglass for electrical protection or physical protection?

Glad to hear it works well! I've tested it with two woofers, but don't have a subwoofer yet to hear how it all sounds. I've seen a few people use those "Lepy" amplifiers, but glad to know it works well for you.

I am tracking most of it. I have a pile of receipts the keeps growing haha. Sometime I will put all of it into an excel file to tally up the total cost, but you can't put a price on a great experience and (hopefully) a lifelong game, right?

Happy New Year! I've been working on the speaker panel for the past day or so, and have mounted it onto the backboard with some surface mount hinges. I made the board from MDF because that's what I had on hand. I may end up redoing the board later because MDF is a pain to paint well, and I'm not happy with the finish, but this will do for now.

I printed a little jig for the router to cut the large speaker profile, then cut a circle through with a scroll saw. I did the same for the two tweeters. The large rectangle cutout is for the LCD. I needed to print a cover for the tweeters since there wasn't a good way to mount them. You can see the cover also protects the tweeter from someone accidently pressing in the diaphragm. I also printed a cover for the larger speakers. I found a cool design online that I tweaked to look like little diamonds. I think it looks great, and I assume it shouldn't have too much of an effect on the sound, but I will see when I get it running. Good thing is that I can always reprint.

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Update:

I've been back and forth with the guy who is cutting my playfield on a CNC, and we are meeting soon to test fit the inserts on a test board of MDF. My plan was to have him cut a few different profiles for the inserts on a scrap board because I really didn't want someone to cut the whole playfield just to find out that the insert slots are oversized. As long as they fit well or are a little undersized, I can sand the inserts to their final size for a good fit. Depending on how they fit in the mdf, I should have the cut whitewood in the next couple weeks! In the meantime, I put the backbox on the cabinet with some clamps and it's starting to look like a real machine. The speakers sound great and everything is working.

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You may notice that I don't have a cutout for a coin door. That's because I wont be putting one in. I just don't see a reason to pay $200 for a coin door if I don't need one. This means I'll have to put the 48V control switch somewhere else on the machine for safety, but I haven't thought of the place yet. I'll also have to make a custom "lockdown bar," since commercial pinball machines rely on the coin door hatch to release the front molding and access the machine. My idea now is just to have holes to screw down the front molding. Definitely, a more time consuming option compared to the commercial method, but it saves me having to buy the whole assembly. This pin is also a widebody, so I don't even know if I could get the parts.

Update:

I picked up the test board from the very nice couple that is cutting my playfield yesterday. I'm very happy with the quality of the cuts and I'm excited to see how the plywood will end up. Yesterday, I tested all my inserts, pop bumper holes, and slingshot cutout. Most of the inserts fit very well, but they were too deep and too loose, so I shorted the depth of cut and offset the pocket by 1/64 in. This should allow me to carefully sand down the inserts to size. Additionally, I made some changes to the slingshot cutouts. I shortened the distance between the leaf switch holes and I changed their profile from a circle to what you see below. This gives me more ability to adjust the position of the sling. Now I am just waiting for the playfield to be cut!

I've also been working on the cabinet. I attached the backbox with hinges, put legs on the machine, and installed the flipper buttons. I've found the best way for me to cut these holes and pockets is with the router and 3D printed jigs. I started with drilling wit forstner bits to get the pockets, but the cuts were sloppy and I got some chipping. The jigs and router, though maybe overkill, turn out better and make it harder to make errors.

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Finished my shaker motor. The motor was salvaged from an old printer and I've printed the base and eccentric weights. I've added two 1/2" ball bearings to each weight to give it more mass than just that 3D filament. I've superglued the ball bearings in place and will glue a cover to ensure that they don't fly out. The shaker runs very strong at 12V constant current. I'll add some sort of PWM speed controller to lower the vibration as needed.

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It has been a while since I've been able to work on the machine, but took part of the weekend to populate one of playfield boards with the mechs and 3d printed guides. I picked up some black corrugated plastic poster board for five dollars at Hobby Lobby to make some makeshift lane guides. I couldn't really roll the ball around because of the insert cutouts not being filled, so I filled them in with the poster board. It didn't work great, but it was something.

You can see some stainless spacers that are being used as posts. I plan on using a small wood lathe to gently file a small grove for the rubber to sit in, but for now the posts are as is. Buying "pinball" posts, especially metal ones, was just way too expensive.

That's all I've got until I get the final playfield board cut and the inserts placed.

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