Stone is not a US unit of measure. Explain THAT British nonsense. At least as silly as a foot.

The pool toy looks completely AWESOME!!!!

The real crime in the sticker is that it instructs you to lift the playfield 200 mega megas, which is really a tera - these are all prefixes with no unit of measurement specified.

Agreed back to topic

Yeah, I love Sterns games, most my collection is in fact Sterns, but it definitely feels like they design a layout and then assign a theme to it, rather than assigning a theme to a designer and designing around the theme.

I cant recall the last time I saw a mech on a Stern and I instantly thought that is from..######.... The second I saw that video of the TB1 mech, I knew and even said out loud to myself "that's thunderbirds!", awesome mech and its only made me more excited for TB2 launch mech - easily the best launch in the show.

vic, that's an easy one
1 stone = 13 lbs. the british needed something to one-up us with regards to 1 foot = 12 inches. sort of like the spinal tap amplifiers going to 11, instead of 10

now that this is settled, I want to see more of the cool mechanisms in thunderbirds. that pool retracting ball lock [unlock] is awesome
they say that innovation breeds competition. maybe mike's designs will cause the other companies to quit "phoning it in" and re-using old designs over and over again

Actually about the only reason I have left for SAE tools is for my pinball machines. Everything thing else I own including my US made cars use metric fasteners.

Not as easy as you thought since 1 stone = 14lb in the UK.

Wait, so stone has different weights depending on where?

Meanwhile, back with the thread topic. Has Homepin thought about doing a reskinned version like Shrek/Family Guy? Thunderbirds/Team America seems like a natural choice.

team-america (resized).jpg

Better yet, a pin with an ORIGINAL theme.

I thought about that this weekend. I would absolutely love a TA pinball. It's 4-5 down on the list right now, but I'd design one if I had to and have fun the whole time.

I don't know why people get bent over american vs metric. Either is easily converted, and the only time I really have to convert anything is when I have to reverse engineer a part bigger than 6" (my caliper can switch back and forth) and I'm taking measurements with a standard tape measure (because our company is also on the metric system). In all honesty, we should probably have metric tape measures.

My daughter got me a metric tape measure for Christmas last year and I freaking love it.

I was bummed when they stopped selling gasoline by the liter.

Mike has mentioned original themed machines in previous threads... on here or AA, not sure which...

It's not the conversion that's the issue. It is the consistency that is the inner beauty of the SI system. As an example power is force by velocity, so if I take force in Newtons and velocity in meters per second then I get the answer directly in Watts. No special fudge factors needed, no odd things like 12 inches to a foot and so on. That's the real strength.

An imperial system equivalent for power is a foot pound force per second is 0.0018 horsepower, and we need different factors for just about every calculation.

Funny, I have never, ever seen a metric tape measure. Not a bad idea, but probably wouldn't sell well at Lowe's or Home Depot.

agreed.. when you start plugging formulas, it's way easier..

"My car gets 40 rods to the hogs head and that's the way I likes it!"

Sorry for the continued hijack, to be on topic, i love what you are doing and love even more that you are sharing with us.

I have a metric, a "standard" feet/inches, and my favorite that messes everyone up; my engineers tape. Measures in feet and 10ths and 100ths of a foot, makes for use with a standard calculator a breeze.

I think I remember there was some discussion about pinball in China in this thread somewhere. While going through some old photos, I came across this photo from a trip to Taiwan a few years back. We went to one of the many night markets, I think it was in Taipei from memory. There were various coin-op games among the many food stalls and the games shown in this pic were the closest to pinball. It was a kind of marble game where you had to direct a marble along the wooden track by tilting the "playfield" with the handlebars. Along the way there were various obstacles to avoid and even jumps to go over. If the marble got up too much speed, it would fly off the track, so you had to be careful. It was pretty good fun. The games were not all the same, there were easy, medium and hard versions. It cost 10 Taiwan dollars (about USD 0.30) for 3 balls.

Taiwan 2012 002 (resized).JPG

"Guilt free" Tilting.....LOVE IT

More TB1 launch photos and vids - this thread is way off topic, let's get back on track.

Wonder if TB4 will have a blast pad wall?

Wheres Mike .. he tapped out here ?

Yes

He has left until Robin implements a feature whereby companies can moderate their own threads. However, he hasn't posted any progress on Facebook or the Australian forums either. I think they are probably pretty busy trying to hit their deadline of finishing a prototype machine by the end of August. If he posts anywhere else I can copy and paste it here.

Sorry to down vote you Solarvalue but understand this please ;
It is unfortunate that people make personal attacks on people for their views, but no one should be given special privileges on a "forum".

FORUM
a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged

PEDESTAL
a position in which someone is greatly or uncritically admired.

Totally agree. I love the fact that you have to explain your downvote. Now that is some funny shit!

I disagree.

Nobody's free speech is being hampered by letting the OP moderate their own thread in specific cases (tutorials, basically anytime information is being presented sequentially over time). History has shown that if you rely on the good manners of Joe Public not to pollute a useful thread with their attention seeking crap you will be sadly disappointed. Anyone who feels slighted by the loss of their ability to derail a useful thread with their inane rants and personal attacks are completely free to start a bitch thread of their own, or even a whole new pinball discussion site of their own.

That's freedom baby! I love this country!!!

...wait, what "country" is this anyway??

Offender has been ejected from this thread so moving forward there are no real issues any more. I am sure that Mike will return at some stage. A few of his mates are posting his updates here for him and that is great news and great to keep this thread going. There are plenty of successful rules on this forum. There is no need to make exceptions.

I kind of agree, except that allowing mfr's to have their own space would certainly keep great threads like this one (when it was started) to remain unfettered with all this BS about who said what to whom and who's offended by what. All I want to read about is Mike's progress, and if that was in a dedicated section he could manage that would make that so much easier to achieve.

I really think the complaints about "free speech" are looking at this from the wrong angle. I believe that manufacturer-moderated threads would add to Pinside rather than taking anything away from it. I mean look at it this way:

At the moment we have thousands of Pinside-moderated threads where people can say almost anything they want, which is great, but we also have almost all no manufacturers represented on the site. If you allowed manufacturers to start self-moderated threads (which were clearly marked as such) you would still have all the thousands of Pinside-moderated threads and, maybe, the occasional additional manufacturer-moderated thread.

So, let's say that a manufacturer creates a self-moderated thread. They keep it the way they want it, as a representation of their company and brand, much like their Facebook page, except that it is here on Pinside. Everyone knows it is a manufacturer-moderated thread and is, therefore, presenting a particular image of the company but we also get more information, direct from the manufacturer, right here on Pinside. People can ask questions if they like and the manufacturer can choose to answer them or not.

You might then complain: "But what if there are issues with their product that they are attempting to hide, the public has a right to know!" OK, well then you can create your own Pinside-moderated thread, in that manufacturer's subforum, "My issues with Manufacturer X", and exercise your free speech. The manufacturer cannot delete your comments but can choose to respond in your thread if they like.

This is not a free-speech issue, there would still be free speech on Pinside, but there would also be more content and manufacturers might return to the site.

Sounds just like an advertising page to me

This is a forum remember,
just because you read it on line does not make it true, this is why we have discussion.
Manufacturers and in fact any one entity can BUY advertising and say what ever they want.
Some people just don't like it when you have a difference of opinion, me included.
But a forum is NOT a safe space for people to soap box without feedback. Positive or Negative.

Or delete them or ban them or not. Just like on fckbook.

they are not FORUM's. Social Media is a whole other kettle of fish.

I would never visit a manufacturer thread if the manufacturer could delete posts. That is totally one-sided, kind of like if a seller could delete reviews on Amazon they don't like.

Mike come back. We love your progress reports, but you have to trust the moderators to do their thing.

Exactly. I like Mike and I'm all for him coming back, but if all pinball manufacturers were allowed to have their own personal social media page on this site where they could manipulate it to their liking, then pinside would go to hell in a hand basket in a hurry.

Plenty of other sites have 'sponsored businesses' sub forums where they can moderate that particular sub forum freely. Remember, just because Homepin can remove messages he doesn't like from this particular thread, doesn't mean someone can't make a new thread on another part of pinside saying 'Homepin sucks because XYZ'.

Yes it does because by current pinside rules users are not allowed to say negative things about pinball manufacturers or their themes or will get permanently banned from those sub-forums and threads. Ask me how I know.

What could work and has sort of been done here before is a manufacturer could have a locked update thread where he or she is the only one allowed to post. And that would eliminate a lot of problems.

Yeah that's probably a better idea to be fair. I know Mike has said in the past he's open to suggestions and ideas but he's well aware of what can happen:

HomersCar (resized).png

Mike does not want to deal with people who are contantly attacking him or his bussiness (none of us do), and why should he?

you dont like the theme, dont buy the game
dont like that is made in China, buy a stern
pissed off that it has taken longer that expected. unless you have money down then it is none of your business

The pool of people that cause issues is pretty small. He could just put them on ignore.

I don't think a manufacturer should be able to moderate a whole sub-forum. For example, the Stern sub-forum should stay Pinside-moderated as a whole but I'm saying that Stern should be able to post Stern-moderated threads in that sub-forum. Other people can also post threads to the Stern sub-forum which remain Pinside-moderated.

This might be a good compromise.

over the years he has dished it out to many people on AP, AA and Pinside, things like - any company using computer systems instead of boardsets just as one example, so it might be a bit of karma coming back, sorry to say

the off subject matter could of been calmed down if he answered the question of 200MM quickly, that is part of marketing and the downside of showing bits and pieces instead of the finished pinball in one go.

last year after pinfest I shared on the other pinside unofficial homepin thread before this one started some thoughts of what of saw of the mechs (positive and negative but constructive I felt). Yet on AA he took over someone else's thread and bagged me out for sharing on pinside because at that stage he was not doing it, as well as often bagging out Pinside. Then he left the thread for the work of a few select AA guys to grill me - that's fine I just won't go back to a site that is one sided and protective of the sponsors to the point where various people are scared to ask questions hence why it shouldn't happen here as it will wreck the site.

Good points, as I recall when he first announced Tbirds it wasn't going to be available to the USA. I believe he has since said those remarks were misunderstood but to be honest they came off as unhinged. That said I love this thread, can't wait to see this pin, and understand his not wanting to put up with critics who seem to have more of a personal beef for whatever reason. IMHO he made his bed here, and as much as I hope we get updates from his facebook, he doesn't deserve to moderate his own thread. Can't wait to see his finished product, hope it is a huge success.

So that justifies sh*tposting about his dead wife? He's opinionated, sure. Do I agree with 100% of what he says? No. Does he make personal attacks on people? Not that I've seen. So to say 'he deserves it' is just uncalled for.

Is that why you setup your own website that no one goes to because those meanies at AA gave you a hard time?

I have to say, I am truely disappointed how this thread has completely derailed. Enough of the bullshit. Stick to Thunderbirds and leave all the vitriol at the door please.

New post on Homepin's facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/HomepinPinball/videos/1420196768056328/

Content:

An early prototype of the T2 ramp - note, it is working upside down on the test bench. The finished unit has much better end sensing and better adjustments for them.

More quality products. Maybe Mike could give this part to Stern for TWD

With all these mechanisms/gadgets, it looks like it will slow the game right down? Could be good if telling a story and hopefully
not Similar to Mavericks paddle wheel lock which is rather laborious.
Suppose we will see how they fit into game sooner or later.