Wayyyyy back in time, Minneapolis airport had a great arcade in it, or at least I thought so as a kid. Travelling back and forth between NY and the Dakota's I played many a game in that arcade. One of them always stood out more than any other, and really fueled this entire hobby for me. The Beautiful Beast as some call it. Haunted House. It is one of three machines that are my core, the games that brought me here. Haunted House is the first pinball machine I remember ever playing. This game, above all others, has held a very special place for me ever since. There is just something about the artwork, the back-glass, and that basement playfield, that have called to me for nearly forty years.

Surprisingly I've never owned one, and I honestly cannot remember playing one since then. But I have never forgotten.

I've lurked for a long time. I've studied. I've watched the marketplace. But the timing never seemed right. As some people say, you should never meet your heroes. I feared disappointment. I feared that golden part of my childhood would be broken, and the whole house of cards would follow. This isn't a mere 'Grail' machine to me. Haunted House is the foundation by which my EVERYTHING pinball is built on. I resisted with every fiber of my being.

But some things cannot be forgotten.

And some things cannot be denied.

Temptation has won and a project has come home.

It is time for me to take on this beautiful beast.

But let’s not forget that this is me we’re talking about. If I’m going to do this, it’s going to be MY way. This will be my 'Magnum Opus', throwing everything I've learned into one single project.

Right now I am sitting on an original playfield set that is as dirty as it is stunning, and I have a lower cabinet en-route to me. This of course leaves me some significant missing parts. I have no head, no backglass, no boards, and no displays. So I am going to have to scavenge and create the rest of this game, and I think this is a perfect opportunity to improve upon the things that are lacking in the game.

My plan is to use a P3-ROC controller to build new rules, new lighting, and new sounds, into this cabinet. I'll use the soul of the original game as my guide, to mold it into something worthy of that pedestal I have put it on. There will be a lot of custom stuff under the hood, but anything visible MUST be worthy of the original art design work. There will be no multi-ball. Any changes to the appearance will blend with the 1982 style as best I can. Sounds and music will change in quality and how they are used, but all the beloved elements of the original will still be there. Speech is undecided at this point. The thought is something along the lines of Vincent Price and Orson Wells for style, and it will be minimal if there is any. I want anybody who plays this game to think it's a natural and worthy extension of the original.

Also, this will not be a fast project. I'm going to work on it when I am inspired. I'll take breaks when needed. But I will see this through to the end.

In my next post we will start getting to work.

Haunted House

Reserving this post for a few things. Staring off with parts for sale and parts needed.

Currently for sale/trade.
Playfield wiring harness, appears to be complete. Includes all lamp sockets, does not include any coils or switches.

I know multiball does work well with the game, but I've got two reasons to keep single ball. One is sentimentality, which plays a big part in this project as a whole. The other is an explanation I heard once, that is part of what I'm using as my guiding muse.

The single ball represents you, the person lost in this grand mansion. You are exploring all the dark areas of a place you shouldn't be, lost, alone, trapped, and lonely for help. This is what I'm going to use as the basis for the narrative, which I'll build my rules around, that lost soul looking for an escape.

Here's a couple teaser photos of the playfield set I'm working with. You can see how dirty it is, appropriate to the theme I think, but the basement playfield is flawless under all the grime. And look at the secret passage entrance on the upper playfield. All this time and nearly no wear on the holes, and the plastic is unbroken.

Unfortunately there are a few flaws to correct on the main and attic playfields, but still a phenomenal original set to start with.

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Framework is the first big decision hurdle I need to solve, thankfully I’ve got some time to sort that out. Code is a weak point of mine so I need to be pretty deliberate on my choice. Both mission and skeleton have their apparent advantages, not leaning either way yet.

Lots of easy, but time and money consuming, things to sort out before that. First things will be playfield tear down and starting the shopping list. I’ll also be doing a paper version of the basic rules concept too. If I don’t have a solid conceptual framework I’ll just be thrashing around pointlessly. I need to go at this like a project manager, not a technician.

The more I look at it, the more I'm going to at least start with the Mission Pinball framework. From what I can tell so far it's just better documented and more user friendly. I've never worked with Python before so the higher level environment is more beneficial to me.

From what I can tell it also better supports non-LCD style displays. I'm not 100% sure what I'll be doing for displays yet, but I do know I won't be doing an LCD system. Anything I do will still need to fit inside the original plasma display openings in the backglass and playfield. I am leaning toward some kind of alphanumeric setup at the moment but that's still wide open as I haven't done any actual work in that direction yet.

-Hans

Whichever style the displays are, I'll be avoiding any kind of high voltage plasma displays. Trying to keep the power distribution simple.

-Hans

Holy Moly, the harness on this game is a pain to remove. I'm used to Williams stuff where the lamps, switches, and solenoids, are all in their own bundles and can come off in layers. With Haunted House it's all one giant bundle that's all completely bundled together. The only thing that came off separately was the wiring for the score display.

Photos tomorrow, I'm wrapping it up for the night.

-Hans

Teardown is always fun. I'm absolutely gobsmacked at the sheer volume of wiring on this game, no wonder it's considered to be a maintenance nightmare. I'm just glad it doesn't have to go back onto the machine, and I feel deep pain for anybody who does a playfield or restoration on one. It took me a good evening just to get the wiring off the main playfield. I've barely even touched the upper, and haven't started the lower at all. This harness is massive and not very maintenance friendly to work on or around.

It's also incredible how much functionality the designers got from the system 80 board set. For a driver board that was only made to support 9 discreet solenoids, there are 27 in this game (including flipper). I can really see the benefit that came from using matrix layouts on lamps and switches, would have saved a lot of complexity.

The crazy thing is, with all the stuff on this playfield, I've removed all the lamp sockets already. So this is just solenoid mechanisms and switches.

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Lower playfield is here, I just haven’t gotten to it yet. That’s next on the list for pulling the wiring.

-Hans

Wiring harness has been completely removed. Without all the relays, transistor boards, pop bumper boards, diode boards and so on and so on, some of these playfields look pretty stinking sparse on the bottom side. Particularly the lower playfield, though that one is missing a drop target mechanism at the moment. Only a couple pieces of it were present, I'll have to source one and I think I have a lead on one already.

Looking at the top side of the lower playfield it's an interesting comparison between the clean and bright artwork where I've wiped it down, compared to the areas I haven't yet. You can't even see the bat on the kicking target at all.

A depressing amount of the plastics are broken, so I likely see a repro plastic set in my future, which isn't terribly upsetting. I can probably sell the secret passage plastic alone for a good price. All the rubbers are complete trash, no loss there as I'm going to replace with titan rings anyway. Missing a couple proper pop bumper caps, but I'm going to be changing the bodies and caps to different colors. The stuff I really need though all looks to be in great condition, which is the playfields and the mechanisms. I appear to have all the posts and wireforms too.

At times I was thinking with absolute dread that I was taking this all apart, clipping the braided wire for the lamps, and clipping where the harness attaches to the switches. But the more I went through it the less I was worried. The lamp sockets are all essentially trash from corrosion, though the wiring itself all looks fine. I think the P3-Roc conversion is actually going to be easier than piecing together a full machine and restoring it with original wiring and boards.

Next step is going to be labeling all the mechanisms and parts, and getting down to completely bare playfields.

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I may change my mind later, but right now I don't think the wear and damage on this playfield justify the risk of removing the mylar to do a full restore and clearcoat. I'm not a phenomenal talent at playfield touchup, but I'm getting better, and I'm not afraid to do some small spots here and there.

Here's the upper playfield after a wipedown and spot touchup this evening. Perfect? No. Improved? Yes. Just needs a coat of wax and I can set this one aside and move to the next. I'm not too worried about the mismatched colors behind the pop bumper mounting holes, those will never be seen due to the angle. Nor will I do anything about the chipping under the inserts. For a 1982 playfield I'm quite happy.

If this project goes extremely well I do think I'll pull the playfield again and send it out to get done professionally. Right now I'm just looking to get it presentable enough for starting the later development.

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The original clear posts are really dirty, and in this game I think the white rubbers and clear posts stand out too much. In fact, I think any of the transparent colored posts will be a bit too obvious, and I can't find colors that I like.

So I made my own. Printer will be busy for a bit. The green and black are going to be the best match on the upper playfield and lower playfields for sure. Main playfield will probably end up with reds and oranges most likely. Upper playfield is going to need 20, so I'll be printing most of the day, but I can at least get a good view of what it will look like before I take my week off.

I've also added these to the website for sale if anybody wants oddball colored posts. I can make different designs as needed too. A bit softer patterns than injection molded, but sometimes you just gotta compromise if you REALLY need that unavailable color.

https://www.siegecraft.us/presta/index.php?id_product=87&controller=product&id_lang=1
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20 printed posts later, and we can cover up the only real damage under the old posts. It really improves the look of the playfield, and for now I'm only going to lavish my attention onto areas that will be visible. Nice thing is, if I want to change any colors it's quick and easy to just have more of them.

In person, the green is nearly a perfect match to the darker green on the playfield, though photos do show the plastic is a hair brighter than the paint, but not by much.

Unfortunately, as I'm tearing down the playfields, every single plastic is broken on the lower and upper playfields. So I'll be needing a complete set it seems. I'm sure I can get a few bucks for the secret passage piece from this one, but I'm going to wait until I've inventoried all of them before putting them up for sale.

I might keep the broken ones though for photo backdrops and things like that, or make something else out of them. Haven't decided yet.

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I was away for a week, so didn't get any work done until today. Mainly a teardown of the lower playfield. This seemed a lot easier than the upper for some reason, probably because everything came out the bottom and there was no wiring to worry about on the top. Unlike the upper playfield, there really is no damage to the playing surface, only some crackling under the posts, and of course it's extremely dirty.

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This is about 20 minutes of work with Naptha and Griot's cleaner wax, which I've taken a liking to. I'll probably give it a bit more buffing tomorrow but no touch-up is required on this playfield. The flash catches a bit of uneven color, but in person it's not foggy at all. Once it's all polished up I can make some new posts for this one and them move on to the upper playfield.

I've also received word the lower cabinet I'll be using should be here in about a week.

-Hans

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Another batch of playfield posts are done on the 3D printer, and I even managed to figure out how to import from CAD to Blender, and make up a Siamese style post fairly easily. Now that I know I can do these in blender, I can maybe make them even fancier.

This playfield looks awesome when it has a fresh coat of wax on it, but going to take a bit more work to really get it looking good normally. Once the wax dries the shiny black goes foggy again on me and won't polish up. After the PRoc stuff is done, I am definitely re-pulling the field and getting it done professionally.

Either way, progress is being made.

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Also had this delivered today, so I can start doing a bit more in earnest. Came with a new CPR spiderweb plastic, and the 5-drop target bank that I am missing parts for. SCORE! A buddy of mine may have some generic legs I can use for the time being until I get a proper set sorted out.

Solid, no repairs needed, artwork is fantastic condition, one of the best coin-doors I've received on a game.

But.... well.....

It might have to go into the garage for a bit before I can keep it in the basement shop.

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Hmmm, I'm tempted to make some Stern styled coin door entry plates, so I can put some different pricing sheets in there without the red tint.

But I also need the best method on the interweb's for ridding a cabinet of the smell of mouse pee.

-Hans

I’m just starting to use blender, and haven’t quite got dimensioning figured out yet. So I did the initial post design in freecad.

Couldn’t figure an easy way to transform it into the Siamese post in freecad, but was super easy to do in Blender by just grabbing vertices in wireform.

No updates at the moment, I've been absolutely swamped in orders the past few weeks, and probably won't be at this one again till next week. The good news is that the smell has died down considerably in the cabinet. I really need to get myself a more organized workspace for all this before doing much more, it's turned into a mess in a hurry. So that'll be my next step.

Then I need some legs for the cabinet, and I can get moving again. I have been slowly tinkering around with teardown on the main playfield as well, and working on a parts list to get the mechanisms in shape. Pretty small list at the moment.

I am wondering though, and Gottlieb die-hards may consider this the talk of a heathen, but I may use some Williams style pop bumper bodies instead. I just think the bright white bodies on the pops on this game are a huge negative in appearance, and I want something that blends better with the playfield and plastics. I can get transparent green and other colors for the Williams pop bodies. Still thinking on that.

I do also need to order some different filament colors for the main playfield parts on the 3D printer, as I'll need red and orange posts instead of the green and black I've been using. I also need a set of drop targets for the lower playfield, but really any Gottlieb part will work since you can't see the faces anyway.

-Hans

Oooooh! I was actually going to ask what I could use for dye. That looks like a perfect idea.

-Hans

The baking soda is working to get the smell down pretty quick, but when it gets warm out I might bring it to the garage and let it sit in there close up, sans playfield, with a few lightbulbs inside to bake the heat out. I did also finally get some legs under it, and mounted the playfields. So I can start stacking them up and visualizing things.

Still working at the teardown on the main playfield as time permits. Whatever made this thing dirty is annoying. When I wipe it with Naptha, and while it's still damp, the colors all look fantastic. But it's some kind of dust that just won't really let go from the playfield wood, though it comes right off the mylar.

I've also been doing some behind-the-scenes work upgrading my 3D printing capacity to do multi-color prints. My brain keeps coming up with ideas on this one and I'm looking forward to implementing them.

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Ok, now on to some of the FUN stuff finally. I've been researching lighting methodology, and at the moment I'm going ahead with serial indexed RGB lighting for a good pile of this machine, if not everything. Even lights behind colored inserts will still get RGB's, because I want the ability to do a proper lightshow on this beast. I've settled on WS2815's, instead of the more common WS2812's. This way I can drive them from the 12v rail on the power supply and not overload the 5v. Going at 12v also reduces the overall wattage by a considerable amount.

This means a lot of custom PCB work, which "I know a guy" who can handle that part pretty easily. Here's my test-fitting of the dimensions on the first three before ordering the boards. The pop bumpers are getting 4 each, because that means I can do some lighting effects inside each bumper too. I'm going to get things running with all the insert lights before handling the GI, mainly so I can see where I need to do the GI lighting. All the GI is also going to be serial RGB's as well.

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I'm going to have a dedicated power bus for the LED's, probably split between the GI and inserts, so only the data signal is going to come from the PRoc controller. That eliminates worries of drawing too much amperage. That's the beauty of using these particular RBG serial LED's, data and power is split.

Every LED, GI and insert, will be individually controllable though.

-Hans

Non-Photo update for today. The three PCB designs have been ordered. Assuming they work, this will cover all the pop bumpers, the 1-4 inserts on the top playfield, and all the 1" inserts.

I've been cleaning mechanisms and re-mounting them to the upper playfield. That and a lot of cleaning and waxing for the main playfield and main playfield plastics. I'll probably also re-mount all the plastics for now, even the broken ones, just to get an idea for colors and such, but eventually I'll need all the upper and lower playfield plastics.

Oh, and lots of 3D printing of playfield posts. The red and orange arrived the other day.

-Hans

All the standard posts are printed and installed, and I've done a lot of cleaning. So I've been re-assembling the upper playfield assembly, and will tackle that one first for wiring up. Just waiting on a couple payments to arrive and I'll start ordering the main P3-Roc board, and an SW-16. I don't know yet for sure what I'll be using for the serial LED controller, I'm still trying to sort out how a PD-LED board handles the serial LED's.

Today I'm dipping my toes into the Mission Pinball Framework to start defining things and laying the groundwork for the control systems.

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Yowza! Working on the config files now for P-Roc, and 8 flippers is spendy on hardware and code. Since they're dual-wound that's 16 coils to define, and 16 coils to drive! A coil-heavy game like this is sure going to need a lot of drivers. In the P-Roc hardware set, that means it'll consume an entire PD-16 driver board just for the coils.

Then again, I want to have the flippers also driven by other events than just the flipper buttons, and I want to activate/inactivate them based on ball location. That and I want the ability to individually control flipper strength based on the needs of the playfield. Complex features aren't cheap.

-Hans