That's a cool video, but why the hell did he leave that black stripe running through the center of the graphic?????

I am aware of that technique but heard bad things if you try to clear over it, where resin goes through the rice paper makes it all one

that would be the stringer which adds strength to the foam board core.

I would have painted it white than have a hockey player with a black stripe down his face, lol.

Good point but surfers see past it I suppose, I didn't notice it because it is a everyday thing but you picked it up

Isn't this how Ben did the first AMH boards? I swear there is a video somewhere of him putting down the graphic. I have no idea if they did this for all of them or not. Knowing how to clear this would be great since I have this exact project coming up fast.

It was for bill paxton

THANK YOU! I spent a ton of time one day looking for that, but was doing it in the time frame that AMH was getting worked on. No wonder I never found it. Is AMH direct printed, or did they do vinyl overlays of some sort as well?

It's my understanding AMH is direct printed, same as the woz cabinets Charlie worked on

Design question: When you compare the lanes of, say, TWD and Xmen, what gets moved to allow for the extra inlane on Xmen. I'm assuming the flipper spacing never changes and you can only go so far out, so where does that extra lane come from?

I thought of this while looking at the Stern PF file.

Flippers do move around. For example, that's why FT has the "lightning flippers" on it as the regular length ones made the game too easy due to the flipper gap being smaller.

But they usually just shorten the ball run to the flippers.

But is the spacing different on TWD and XM. I tried to pick two examples that would have more similarities than comparing a Stern to a B/W. I know about the lightning flippers and the CFTBL spacing. I'm really just wondering what shifted when you compare TWD and XM to get the extra inlane. Nothing is jumping out at me. My design has 1 inlane and 1 outlane on either side so I don't really have to worry about shifting anything on the template.

You'd probably have to measure but I bet you'd find a difference.

I have a comparison tool at work and made a PDF of Tron and TWD PF pictures that were pretty close. Using the comparison... it's way to busy to point out where the differences are.

Fortunately, I have a friend with a Tron and an IM, so next time I am over there I will measure a few things and try to figure it out.

Just look on the VP forums at all the playfield scans if you want to compare empty playfields

Usually the slingshots get shrunk a bit, things get shifted over slightly, and sometimes the rail between the right outlane and the plunger lane becomes a thin piece of metal or wire guide rather then a block of wood.

In the case of x-men, the slings are smaller, everything is shifted to the left ~0.5" or so, and the right inlanes are separated by wire rather then flat sheet metal + plastic.

So... ~0.5" added by shifting, ~0.5" added by making narrower slingshots (~0.25" from each side), and slightly thiner inlane/outlanes = ~1.1" enough for an extra lane.

This does result in the flippers not being centred in the playfield (as seen in xmen, tron, ect). If you didn't move the flippers to the left but instead changed the block of wood between the right outlane and plunger lane to a wire, you'd have centred flippers AND room for the 3rd inlane (or 3rd outlane).

like what Linolium said check out the new KISS pinball with the flippers more to the right and a wire separating the right outlane and the plunger lane

Pure Russian Machinist Porn:

Yeah, that was pretty cool. I couldn't figure out what he was doing with the hot glue until the end, then I was like ohhh yeah, right... to make sure it didn't fall/break on/onto the mill end during the last thin cuts.

I have a CNC router, I wish I had a lathe too. So cool. Machines are addictive.

edit : wow this thread has really blown up, I have not been on here much for a while. I know a local fella is trying to get people to build prototype machines, but it seems like everyone's going at it these days!

I've been using a bare Stern Star Trek playfield as a tool to get basic geometry measurements from, I figure if it's good enough for Steve Ritchie, it's good enough for me! The shooter lane had me puzzled for a minute until I just made a cone in solidworks and imported it into Aspire (on its side, subtractive). I still might let Solidworks do the machining on that part then run the rest of the file from Aspire, Aspire isn't quite as good with the 3d toolpathing.

Anyone here using SolidWorks or Vectric Aspire? I've had some personal stuff keeping me from working as much on my stuff as I've wanted to, then my CNC shit the bed due to some newb mistakes I made during initial assembly (various things), then yesterday my control PC hard drive crapped out. Fewf, one thing after the other but I'm back into it now and the machine is working like a boss.

SteveP3,
I am using Solidworks, BTW, I don't think you can make a cone and subract it from the PF.

A cone will have a varying radius, You need to take a Circle (constant radius) and sweep it along a path at an angle to the PF.

I'll do a quick SW part and attach it later.

So freaking awesome.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

here you go

PF Test1.PNG

And of course the Solidworks file will not upload. $%#$## computers.

I'll go drop it in the 3d section at Pinballmakers....

Yeah, I wish Robin would give **trusted** Pinsiders the ability to upload file types like .zip

I saw what you did in that girls of pinball thread and you cannot be trusted.

Shooter lane is pretty easy in SW. There's a bunch of ways to tackle it depending on what you want.

Most intuitive is to draw a circle and sweep/extrude it at an angle to the PF (or on a curve) like boblangelius did above. In practice this is the most realistic as far as manufacturing goes - the tool has a constant radius and simply rise out of the workpiece as it travels. The minor complaint I have with this is easily controlling the end position of the groove requires a sweep which adds a sketch for the path.

My preferred method is to do it with a revolve cut feature. You set up a plane on the center of the shooter lane then revolve a cylinder around a centerline at an angle (or revolve a tapered cone around a straight centerline - less realistic manufacturing wise). Choose your diameter and depth at the start, and make it coincident at the end. Easy to dimension, all in a single sketch.

Revolve2.PNG

Alternatively you can use a loft cut from a circle to a point and adjust the position of the end point and the "normal to profile" value to adjust your 'cylinder/cone' transition. It's fancy but ultimately kinda cumbersome.

Loft 2.PNG

You could also model a solid cone body and use the "Combine Bodies" feature and subtract it from the PF. This would be by far the most cumbersome method imo and is functionally identical to the above methods with the added 'subtraction' feature.

Sweep cut is definitely the easiest one IMO. That's what I use.

Thanks for the info. What I was trying to say initially is that as a test I just made a cone in solidworks, exported it as a part; then imported the model into Aspire and used Aspire to subtract it from the playfield wood (there's an inbuilt function for this in Aspire). I only did this because I enjoy using Aspire compared to solidworks for your everyday type of stuff like light holes, any other cutouts, etc.

I'll have to look into using a more cylindrical model instead and see what i think of that.

edit multiple days later : ah, I googled pinball makers. Thanks for uploading that file, I now know what you meant by that.

Cool beans, I guess I'll try what you fellas are doing with the cylindrical thing. The cone approach actually did give good results from the point of view of the ball rolling up it with a consistent gap (edit : ie - cradled nicely) - I must have just gotten lucky with my measurements from the playfield I'm using.

I prefer working in Aspire for almost everything, but I know my way around Solidworks well enough to make a cylinder and export/import to Aspire then go from there. Thanks.

Edit 2 : Here's my basic template that I've been using so far (the little extra bits in the holes are just waste material), this is using a cone for the shooterlane cutout. I'll post again once I have used the cylinder approach. Thanks guys.

Playfield Template 1.jpg

This new thing might be interesting for prototyping without going all-in with full CNC.

You can build a full size CNC router table for under $4000 (I've built 2 of them):

http://mechmate.com/

auto aligning router: genius. Curious what the price will be

I just broke down an entertainment center. While it's particle board, I'm tempted to take a few good pieces from it to make a playfield for an entirely-junk-made playfield and back board(as opposed to backbox). Put the Utilimarc board(s) on the backboard & wire it down to the pf.

Probably nearly as much as the CNC router vid mentioned

Finally attached some stuff. I was waiting for parts and then messing around with the electronics. Things fit pretty well. I need an extra millimeter or so clearance on the flipper feeds, but it would probably be ok if I had the right size rubbers on the slingshots. I drilled for the lane guides by hand as well, so that could be my fault.

P1000523.jpg
P1000521.jpg

nice work ecurtz

I've figured out what I want to buy from someone.

I want the bottom part of a playfield CNC'd with all of the "standard" holes, including lane inserts, between the flipper insert, etc....

But I only want the wood to be long enough to get right past the entrances to the lanes. I'm going to build a side rail system on my playfield rotisserie that basically has the playfield in multiple pieces. That way I can keep messing with the upper part of the playfield without having to have a new lower piece.

The only thing I can compare it to is like leafs in a dining room table. The leaf on the end is the standard playfield bottom, then I can swap out other panels as I fuck them up or improve them.

Does that make sense?

I put a red line on ecurtz's picture to show the piece I want. Everything below it, plus a bunch of holes that his pic doesn't have yet.

406003_cut.jpg

Yeah, that's the most complicated and precise section of the table and doing only part of it would make shipping a lot cheaper as well. I'll probably just slice this one for at least the first few revisions when it gets too messy. Another on my not really saving time/money thoughts - don't bother with MDF. Yeah it's dirt cheap and easy to work with, but it's also nasty and it doesn't cut well. Just start with high quality plywood from the beginning.

That's an interesting idea. I was looking at what I do with my FAST Frame setup and it would be easy to have the lowest 1/3 in place and swap out the upper 2/3. Easily mount it with screws or even just clamp it in place. Kind of a cool way to mock stuff up without having to pay for complete lowest 1/3 every time you are mocking up a game.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Great advice! MDF can be a mess. I end up using a hardwood plywood from Home Depot and its not too expensive.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

What about metal templates you can clamp onto any wood pf and cut as one pleases? Maybe introduce some inter-changability(multiple slides you can puzzle-piece in/out) to it so you can customize it to your project.

I would love a set of templates like that. I always tell myself "next time you do a playfield, make templates." But I never do. Too anxious to get to the playfield at hand.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I was doodling at work(computer was running stuff) and the thought came to my head. You could assemble your dream bottom layout with the metal plates, clamp 'er down, and drill away. Or before you drill out, just move them around to see you have proper clearances so the ball won't get stuck.

For edge pieces, you could just have a 90-degree bend in the part downward, giving you(hopefully) that just right clearance, at least for the left outlane.

For a shooter lane, you could just lay it down & use a scratch awl(if no CAD), or a bit more for drill holes for your wooden piece to divide the outlane + shooter lane.

For my shooter lanes I have been using a high torque drill with a barrel sanding bit on it. I clamped it to a block of wood to make it easier to slide up and down the length of the playfield for a straight shooter lane. Not perfect and certainly took some eyeballing, but it worked for whitewoods.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

that's not a bad idea actually, at least for a whitewood. once you get the lower half done, you worry about making mistakes because you're invested. About the only fix if you mess something up is to re-fill it with a matching piece of wood and level it. Hinges would only make minimal gaps (say 1/16"), and the gaps could be filled with a strip of rubber, or just use masking tape.

Exactly!

I don't even know that there would be a gap, I can easily model and 3D print some type of bracket/latch that keeps the center of the two pieces aligned vertically. The rails would clamp down on the sides keeping them aligned.

It would definitely be easier to ship too. Someone please get on this! I'd like a modern Stern style setup.

I could have cuts produced pretty easily if I had the cut plans. It's been on the long list for a while. I have unpopulated WPC, System 11 and early Bally play fields waiting to be measured and modeled, but haven't been able to get to it yet.

If I had the cut plans, I could get whatever we want cut.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Only way to make the gaps disappear would be to recess the hinges (cutouts on the sides). As far as alignment vertically, you could glue hinges temporary in place (let them rest on the surface), and let the pieces lie flat, then go back and add screws for strength.

Again, I don't think you'd ever want to build a final game this way, it would only be for layout purposes. Once your shots look good, scan the holes, make a DXF, send it out to a CNC router.

No need for hinges really. Can just put in some 3D printed brackets like Wolfmarsh was saying that screw into the bottom of the playfield to keep the center aligned and clamps on the sides. The brackets could stay in place on the lower 3rd and then screw into new upper 2/3rd section of whitewood.

I don't think it would be a perfect gap, but maybe a little work with some light sandpaper or some masking tape or something would be good enough to keep the ball from jumping when it hit the joint.

Add some power, a Power Driver 16, Teensy 3.1 and RS485 transceiver...

P1000527.jpg
Stew_Going.jpg

You use the stripe for reference when surfing. If you look at images of boards, they almost always have longitudinal stripes..