Laser is great for cutting stainless, bad for cutting aluminum.

Find a local sheet metal fab shop and give them your drawing.

I was thinking a 2 piece version could be cool but wasn't visualizing a nice way to do it. That works!

I don't have TONS of experience with laser or waterjet, but enough to know that either should work fine. Cutting metal on laser is not tricky - at least not in my part of the world. It just depends on the machine and the company - kinda like lathe turning metal is not plausible on tooling set up for wood, but both processes are far from difficult with the proper tools.

The only exception might be aluminum as I've not worked with it and laser. I've always seen aluminum waterjet - whether that's coincidence or not I do not know.

Personally I would go laser If I understand your part description.

Why is this Vid? Does aluminum absorb/reflect the laser radiation differently and/or inconsistently, or is it something else entirely?

A laser that can cut 3/4" steel will usually only be able to cut 1/8" aluminum.

Did a little research and this is definitely the trend with aluminum vs lasers.

Seems aluminum's reflectivity and quick heat transfer properties make cutting it difficult with laser energy. It reflects and transmits well enough that you require much more powerful lasers to get through any appreciable thickness. You also can run risks of damaging the laser itself due to reflected energy

Anodized aluminum cuts better as the aluminum oxide reflects less and traps heat somewhat, and aluminum alloys cut better as they tend to transfer heat worse than pure aluminum.

The more you know...

High reflectivity, I believe, is the issue. Generally lower reflective materials work better for lasers. I have spring steel laser cut with good results (not perfect by any means). Just don't expect it to look pretty. You may end up with the occasional burn marks and slag you'll need to remove.

What thickness would you get from McMaster? Also what material type? Economy Grade 430?

Would also love to get one of these if possible.

Would people be interested in a dedicated pinball makers forum with a wiki and file upload section where we could consolidate all this great info?

This thread seems to indicate there is some demand for such a thing, but I don't want to go to the trouble of setting it all up if it'll be a ghost town.

If people *are* interested, feel free to let me know what you'd like in terms of organization, etc.

Laser can be cheaper for onesy-twoseys. Waterjet is usually a minimal setup charge of $50 (but can be faster and more cost effective in quantities). However, waterjet fillets on corners are based on thickness of material and nozzle size, so if you need sharp corners this isn't going to work unless you create reliefs (a hole at the corner). Another solution is Wire EDM, but it can be really slow.

I used to build cnc router, laser and plasma machines - lasers are so cool. Aluminium has a low melting point so creates a reflective surface, basically a molten bubble and starts to refract the cutting laser beam. If a company has a big enough laser they can laser cut aluminium but water is better for aluminium. If a laser operator knows his stuff he can get the speed and air / gas mix just right so you can achieve nice clean edges and no clean up. Don't be fooled by a crappy cut.

Tip - For anyone design something for laser cutting - if possible allow a small radius (even 0.25mm) at corners as this speeds up a cutting job and removes risk of metal dags and heat marks because the laser beam reaches a corner, pauses for a fraction of a moment, often maintains the beam intensity and then goes along the next path, where if a radius is present the laser just keeps flowing around the path.

Often a company has not experimented with gases for cutting (compressed air, co2 etc). We had had to cut thin titanium sheet to make surgical heart clips and this metal is tough to cut but we learnt if we made the tray almost water proof and we used argon gas to cut with had perfectly cut material, no dags, zero cleanup though the client still tumbled with a special sterilised equipment. Bascially the argon is heavy and fills the tray and then removes all oxygen and a perfect environment for titanium. So materials like spring steel can be cut perfectly the operator just needs to have the right settings and gas. Also for glossy edges on arcylic we learnt that if we took a laser cutting tip and drilled a tiny hole in the side and cranked up the compressed air as the assist gas the edges of the cut acrylic looked like they were flamed - perfect finish.

Sorry for the education session just it helps you get good results from your cutter.

If you design a file and issue it as a dxf with room for lead ins and outs - which is a laser function which places a 1/4 of a radius leading in and out to holes and edges so the initial pierce is away from the finished edges so you job will be perfect. Often a laser operator cuts the file you issue them or draws up what they believe you need. ALWAYS tell them to cut with leads and outs. You can tell a job does not use a lead in or out as it has a bit of a blue mark or blowout mark on thicker material on the edge.

If you tell them this then they they think you know what you are talking about.

Also learn about polylines for laser cutting as take a rectangle with a radius on each corner. If you draw a rectangle and then apply a radius on each corner the shape instantly becomes 8 drawn segments. These 8 segments will be cut indiviually or the operator will charge you to join them. If you draw the shape and convert the shape to a polyline it now is one line and reduces the setup cost.

one more tip check out this file which I am sure some will be interested in

- find out what size the material is cut from - in this case 4 foot by 8 foot sheet of 0.9mm Mirror Stainless Steel
- I like to lay the design out with a 5-10mm gap between parts to ensure minimum scratching and room for piercing.
- In this case I have 2 different designs so I put them on different layers so the operator can turn notation layers off or a specific job off if I only want certain parts cut (which is rare)
- have a notation layer with important notes with even a note to turn that layer off. Then they can't say they weren't told.
- make sure when you issue them a file to make sure you have all the layers on but tell them to only keep the cutting layer on, as well issue them a pdf version of what the file looks like.
- save the cutting file as a dxf file as a old version of cad R12 or R13 then every laser machine out there can except it.

hope this helps.

Bally:WMS:Stern MIRRORS V3 Laser.png

got 5 of my RGB light boards on their way back from china. hmm chinese new year early in feb. might be time to get some stuff fabbed before the long holiday for china.

My damn camera battery died, but not before I was able to snap a few pics of some of swinks's stuff I've printed.

The ball guide parts separately:

DSC01343 (Medium).JPG

The ball guide parts stacked, they fit together well:

DSC01344 (Medium).JPG

Some of the shooter lanes I've printed. Top two are hollow, bottom two are solid.

DSC01345 (Medium).JPG

I have drawn up (ball guide dxf ready for the laser cutter) and added some generic ball guides to help people get some custom pins up and running.

- 2 x 200mm, 400mm, 600mm, 800mm, 1200mm - 7/8inch high to suit the posts on this thingi
- 2 x 150mm, 250mm, 350mm with lugs for mounting on top of dividing timber pieces (the fold line is right next to the main ball guide) - the ball guide section is 1" high.
- 2 x 150mm, 250mm, 350mm with lugs that are for mounting directly to the playfield (the fold line is approx 4mm from the ball guide - the ball guide section is 7/8' high.

Note: make sure the fold lines are turned off when laser cutting.

The sizing was taken from a Williams Congo. These are just an aid and the shapes are not made into polylines or have no radii on the corners so if you require those please perform yourself. These should fit onto a 2 x 4 foot 1.2-1.3mm sheet of SS (preferably brushed or mirror). Therefore you can get 4 of these sets onto a 4 x 8 foot sheet of material.

screen-capture-6.png

Damn, i have to get a 3d printer. All i have is a Haas VF2 4 axis

Finding myself wanting some of these for a retheme I think I will do. I've got a used Cyclone playfield. Feel like I'll jigsaw out a cut-through for a multiball trough and make some other changes while still using the basic light layout. Should be fun.

Haha, I had to google that model to see what kind of desktop mill it was. Wasn't expecting a full size mill with tool changer and everything, lol.

We actually have two of them haha but still, i genuinely would love to get my hands on a 3d printer.

10906532_10203451983164759_7155264281554625828_n.jpg

Lowes happily sold me a 1/2 x 24 x 48 flat birch plywood for 16$ (just had to go through the stack and find a flat one)...

perfect size for either a standard or widebody (except a sega widebody which is 25" wide).

you can get 1/2 x 2 x 4 pine but that looked too soft and fuzzy.

Those plywood sheets are what I use from Home Depot. They work well. There's usually enough scrap left over for 2 side rails: 46" long 1.125" tall 0.5" deep (if you make a standard 20.25" width playfield that is)

Whenever you are ready to start cutting and selling the blanks, let me know.

I absolutely hate woodworking. I can do it, I just hate the mess. I've already promised myself before I do any more major woodworking that I am installing a big dust collection system in the shop.

lol, you should see my garage "shop"... dust, wood scrap, metal bits, paper, pinball parts (bagged usually) everywhere

I should be able to cut you something around mid Jan. I'm a little busy the moment.

I paid $40 to have a piece of 1/2" x 2' x 4' baltic birch shipped from a guy in St louis, and it was JUST ok quality (but had dents and was pretty soft). Then I picked up the same size wood from lowes for $12 because I needed a 2nd playfield, and it was nice and straight, hard, and 9-ply layered. Home depot has a lot of crap warped wood, lowes tends to keep theirs flat on a shelf. If I was to redo my playfield, I'd just go to my local lowes, seriously.

I'm in no rush, even if it's summer. Just wanted to toss that out there again.

that rings a bell. Are you http://homebrewpinball.blogspot.com/ ? I remember reading that and seeing your pictures.

guilty

I think for a playfield you would want to use plywood with many plys. Regular plywood has ply's that are 1/8" thick. So 3/4" wood is 6 ply. You can get plywood that has 1/16" thick ply's. It's better quality board, used for pattern and template making. This pic is from my cell phone and pretty crappy. But the thinner board has more ply's then the thicker one
image.jpg

Choose your wood wisely no two pieces are the same.

This doesn't make any sense to me. If you haven't checked it out how do you know it's too product specific?

I have no horse in the platform race -- I'm just beginning my journey into custom pins -- but I'd feel remiss if I didn't encourage folks to check that forum out. It's been hugely helpful reading, covered a lot of the same topics that have come up in this thread and beyond, is obviously more builder/developer focused (than PinSide on the whole), and has some wonderful helpful people (many of whom are also on this thread).

There's a specific forum for P-ROC/P3-ROC topics, but the rest is about more general design and development and individual projects. I think it's too useful a resource to be discounted outright with no real, first-hand information.

I love PinSide too, and I'd even suggest a compromise -- a custom pin development forum ON PinSide. I've often looked for this kind of info in a central place here, but it's more difficult to find than on the controllers forum.

Menards around here stock Baltic birch in 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4" sizes.

http://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/panel-products/specialty-panels/hardwood-plywood/1-2-x-4-x-8-baltic-birch-plywood/p-1479673-c-13334.htm

Whole 4x8 sheet is $49

Hey swinks, I've been printing a bunch of these to mess with, really good stuff!

I also printed a 1mm thick strip of ABS to use as a temporary guide instead of the steel. It is thin enough to bend, but thick enough to mess with a ball a little (it's probably not very durable).

One thing that would be helpful would be to have another ball guide model, elongated in the direction of the pocket for the guide. Say 5mm wider, so there is room to butt two of these guide strips up to each other, in order to join them into a longer strip. Does that make sense?

This isn't true. I've never deleted posts or threads about competitive products. In fact in the lifetime of our forums, I've only deleted one non-spam thread. That specific thread was, IMO, an inappropriate post made by a competitor.

We certainly reserve the right to delete any post that we find distasteful, but I personally don't find level-headed discussions about competitive products to be distasteful. I quite enjoy them actually.

- Gerry
http://www.multimorphic.com
http://www.pinballcontrollers.com

I think the big thing here to keep in mind is (imo) this thread and what I get from it (or a subforum or whatever) is we're talking the actual mechanisms and components (and maybe art) of a homebrew machine. To me the code (C++, python, .net, VBA... etc) and hardware (PROC, FAST, PinHeck, Arduino/RaspberryPi/BeagleBone whatever) all have their own places that exist on the internet already. I have yet to see much consolidated info on PF features, dimensions, material sources, services, etc... that relate directly to machine construction, and less to the programming or powering of the game.

That said, the pinballcontrollers forum does still have a decent amount of homebrew ideas on PF construction, but it is in general very code-focussed (which is appropriate imo).

I do feel like I would love a BYOPM (Build Your Own Pinball Machine) site but I don't know how much it would thrive. The BYOAC site/forum is/was awesome to read and search back when I was tinkering with arcade and MAME builds. Still never pulled the trigger on a full machine but I learned about all the products and how things work through a dedicated arcade building forum and the companion 'Project Arcade' book(s) - I'd LOVE to read a Project Pinball book and be able to search a dedicated pinball site for standard layouts, templates, wiring, etc...

As it is right now, I feel the info is scattered (what there is at least) and a great deal of it never even makes it's way into public domain. It just gets measured/duplicated by a hobbyist and never posted for others to know. (ie - how many of us have to manually measure pop bumpers and make drilling templates from scratch for them?)

Pop bumper templat! MUAHAAAHAHAHA!
http://www.pinbits.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=59

https://howtobuildapinballmachine.wordpress.com

cool wolfmarsh

yeah pretty sure I understand you, I design it up today / tonight for you and post back here

Wow this is a great thread. I like the collaboration.

Love the insert idea for the shooter lane and the 2pc. posts for the ball guides.

Maybe the ball guides could telescope (if there was enough wall thickness) that way you can have a bit more tolerance to the width of the stainless strips.

Bob

I remember finding that eventually but I finally have a drilling template (untested keep in mind) so if anyone wants one you don't have to buy stuff

Yeah that's easily the best resource for building a machine but its still just semi-organized thoughts from one persons learnings that one has to stumble across and see value in. That said, it's certainly better than nothing, and he does share a ton of stuff so I've certainly been following.

As a side note that fellow, Brian Cox, is extremely talented and has a variety of awesome connections to pop culture in film, sfx, and music. He's certainly more talented and ambitious than I for sure. Would love to share a beer with him - very sad I missed Expo this year

http://www.space-eight.com/Daft_Punk_Helmets.html
http://www.electro-gadgets.com/portfolio/film/film.html
http://www.space-eight.com/pinballSelect.html

Drilling jet holes is really easy. It basically just requires 3 (or 4 depending) drill bits. I'll make a vid tonight.

I can verify this statement as true . Every time a post is deleted I personally email Gerry and question why a post has been deleted. And there is a post that just talks about a competitor with interaction from the competitor.

Ok ok, lets reel it back in. I don't care who does what to who in the where- it has no place in this particular thread. Start another thread about those issues please