Nice - those do you have a full size Tempest to match the mini on the shelve like you do for Centipede?

What's on top of the LOTR? soundbar?

Wow nice game room

A little timeline gameroom development. Took a wall out between a guest bedroom and a workshop. Trying to go for a old bait shop vibe. Haha1602293868342654473408960541008 (resized).jpg

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I wish!!!

That's actually the original tournament led display.

Nice work! Semper Fi!

Hoo rah!! Kill!

Star Wars next to Star Trek... I kinda love that.

My basement which is part Lego room, part toddler play area, part theater and mostly game room.

The pins are divvied up between 3 areas. Here are the games.

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Progress being made on a future gameroom...
Moved in 6 years ago and have been planning this ever since.

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Nice job on the subpanel wiring.

Thanks! Who knew years of rewriting pins and arcade would come in handy. I went with four 20A breakers, wired so I never have more than 5-6 pins on a single circuit. Never ran electric before, so this was a learning experience.

I’ve finally finished painting our small game room and moved the pins in today.

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Nice collection. What's the rick and Morty like?

Finally got my room finished who needs a dining room when you can have a game room, its not much but it is the space i have available.

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Great three games to have! looks great!

I agree. Nobody uses dining rooms nowadays anyway. Nice job!

It’s a great game, and getting better with the code evolving. The lighting and sounds are very cool. But it kicks my ass most of the time. I don’t think I’ve ever sworn so much at a game before.

It sounds like a fun game to me. Enjoy!

LOL. Try ACNC!

ACK..

I just moved down to Florida so my games were in storage for 2 months.

My game room is still under construction, had a two sided fireplace which we made into one sided so I don’t have a darn fireplace and hole in my game room wall. Also had one big wall open to the kitchen which we closed, we are still waiting for doors. Windows are covered in tint to block 99% of UV light.

Should be getting R&M next week and have room for 4-5 more pins eventually. Games are not in final position because still some work to do around the baseboards.

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Another pinhead in the Sunshine State. Welcome! You have a nice collection, btw.

Thanks I’ve had Potc for 14 years now. I hate selling but did sell 3 games before moving. Had less in storage and was unsure about moving damage. Did ok with move actually. Only damage was a bit on the bottom of a couple where they sit on the floor little plastic feet one was broken off and a few scuffs on floor side from the hand truck. But that’s all outside back don’t see at all.

I hate selling but I have a bit of room to add. I’m getting R&M next week (unsure exactly when).

Random question, but I'm putting in new flooring for the pins in the basement, how level does the concrete typically need to be for faux wood (vinyl) planks? Mine is pretty uneven, just curious how forgiving that flooring is to lay over...

Hey nighttaco ... I'm no flooring guy but I moved about 1.5 years ago and dealt with an unlevel floor. I've posted pics of my old place before, but haven't posted anything about my new (smaller) place yet.

But regarding your floor question, my new place had some good quality flooring over a poorly leveled floor. The result is squishy floor where the level changes, which I found very unpleasant. I had it all pulled out and the floor leveled.

I'd personally invest in getting it leveled.

That's what I'm worried about, I appreciate the tip!

As long as the floor isn’t Squishy the games are "300" lbs plus and the levelers will compensate for any irregularities. As long as you don’t move them much.

Depending on the size of space, floor leveling is a fairly easy diy job. My wife and I leveled out a 800sq2 basement in our first house over a weekend.

You can also go with building a subfloor. The 2x2 t&g subfloor panels can be shimmed but would be a lot of work over mixing some bags of leveler with water.

Or just pay someone to do it right

My wife and I sold our old house for the main purpose of buying or building a new one that has a pinball room. We chose to build, and the construction process has begun. Here are some blueprints. Completion expected around December/January.

And comments or suggestions are welcome.

Plans w/ dimensions. The purpose of the utility sink is to add running water & drainage for maybe a urinal on the storage side and a wet bar on the adjacent pinball room.
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Electric. 2 outlets per 15 amp breaker.
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I would recommend you add several outlets on the walls 6 feet up, along with ceiling outlets. If you decide to use a floating machine away from a wall, a ceiling drop is a good option. The wall outlets can support neon signs or other lighted signs without cords hanging all over the place.

Also, if you know exactly where your pins will be, raise the outlets to 42 inches instead of the usual 12 inches off the floor, and you will be able to hide the cords completely behind the machines.

Be careful where you position the ceiling can lights; they can reflect off the playfield glass during play and be a very irritating thing. All about angles.

If you plan to build a wet bar into the utility room, find a location and rough it in, even if it's walled over. You can always cut out a wall to access the bar up the road. Adding a vent and water supply stubs will make the install very easy.

Are you installing a ceiling, or leaving it uncovered? No ceiling will give you more head room for back boxes and toppers on your pins, but the trade-off is, it will create more noise upstairs when the room is populated. The plus side is, you can easily add additional wiring for many things you will want up the road. A ceiling restricts that in a big way.

You can never have too many electrical outlets, and if they are putting two outlets per 15 amp circuit, there is almost no limit to how many more can be piggybacked on those circuits. You might consider running all 12 gage wire and putting 20 amp circuits throughout instead. Then you're covered for worst-case load scenarios. I have six pins on a single 20 amp circuit because I have converted all of them to LEDs - never had any issues.

This is exactly what I've done. The difference in cost from 14 gauge to 12 gauge wire and 15a to 20a breakers is tiny.
I'll add that I don't think you have enough lighting for that sized space, but that's personal preference. Only 2 pot lights in a 24' long room is going to be pretty dim.

I agree, if it is unlevel because of a bad pour, it is worth the effort to use a self leveling mix. If it is really unlevel (like a roller coaster), I would consider grinding down the high spots first, then using leveler on the low spots. This is more work and makes a lot of dust (use a respirator mask, not just a N95). Did this in our basement kitchen and then tiled over it (with an isolation membrane). Looks great. If you have uneven settling (cracks) and that is why it is unlevel, you have a bigger issue to fix first I think.

I agree with @ramegoom, some outlets on the wall at pin height are good, and roughing in the plumbing now for the wet bar is cheaper and easier now.

Also, I highly recommend the 20 amp circuits with 12 gauge wire - I never run 14 gauge, even for lighting circuits. 20 amps will let you run more games on one circuit, and is better if you have anything on the circuit that has a high initial turn on amperage like electric motors.

I don't know if you are planning on double loading (pins on both sides) the 12' 4" section, but if so, I would consider making this as close to 15' as you can get for glass removal and circulation.

Oh, and leave some room for more games even if you don't think you are going to get them. I would make the utility room as small as you can, later you will be wishing you did (as did I )

GNR LE is going in the middle!

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Everything but the ST:TNG has rotated in this year. Trying to get a mix of play styles and years in. BK is "classic", TNA is "simple/fast", TSPP is "deep and impossible to beat", AFM is "objective based", and ST:TNG is "mode based". Still looking for a last few back glasses to hang up. I really want a Paragon wall hanger! Loving the hobby and looking forward to a pinball get together after COVID.

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Just food for thought, but you may also consider a paragon pinball flyer or even a paragon light up backbox (they can be found on eBay)

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I agree with this. I have this problem as well and I HATE IT. I did actually pay my contractor to level the floor (grinding high spots, leveling concrete for low spots) and he failed miserably. He installed the floor and it's still terrible. If I had to do it again, I'd find a competent contractor and either build a subfloor or put in tile if the floor isn't level.

Looks great!!

I'm trying to figure out if I should arrange my pins in a certain way such as by manufacturer, or by age or theme or something different.

Have them put a larger beam in and that column isn't necessary. I hate when architects skimp on beams. The additional cost for steel is less than the cost/labor of installing a column in such a short span.

That post might actually be a building code requirement for a basement bumpout, since the foundation walls on either side are considered load bearing. Sometimes with the building code requirements, the additional cost of steel to span over that versus the column isn't even a consideration, it's more, "we want to ensure that load is transferred to the ground efficiently and completely, and that means a column in the middle of the span."

It's actually based on the span of the joists. They likely can't span the 19'. So instead of increasing the joist size, they threw a beam in to reduce the span.
More times than not, architects spec out tiny 6" beams since they're so light and easy to install. They act like noodles when you're installing them. If you look in the lower right of the plan, there's another post in the middle of a 13' span. Bumping it up to a W8x24 beam would most likely eliminate those columns.

ramegoom made some great points.

I just wanted to echo a few of them and add my input. You'll want to think ahead before you start closing up walls. One big thing to remember is that wire is cheap so while you have the walls open run everything you can think of running. I pulled 1 x HDMI, 3 x CAT 6 and 1 x 3.5mm to each of my TV locations. I have a distributed audio / video solution in my rack, so everything is centralized.

I pulled CAT 6 to 5 other locations for VSC (Volume Source Controls) and wall mounted tablets. Keep in mind, that if you never use them who cares. You can get 1000' of CAT 6 for $160 and just leave it in the wall so it's there just in case.

I also ran speaker wires to multiple locations in the basement where I wanted to put speakers for distributed audio.

Outlets up high are a great idea for something like a RunDMD clock, or a back lit translight. I didn't raise my outlets for the machines, but I was still able to get the power cables tied up. I left them standard height for if/when I sell. Also, try to think of outlets in unusual places where you might need them later. Such as an LEDs strip to highlight crown molding, the underside of a bar, etc.

I have two rows of lights that I set more towards the center of the room to reduce the glare. I put each side on its own switch so I could turn one side on and not disrupt play as much on the other. To be honest, when you turn on 22 games and 5 TVs, you really don't need much more lighting.

I'd also go 20a for the circuits. I have 1 circuit for every 4 games, if I remember correctly. If you're hanging TVs, it's a piece of cake to throw in some blocking where you're going to hang the TV. That way you don't have to find the studs when you go to attach the mount.

If you're closing up the ceiling, take tons of pictures. When you think you've taken enough, take more. That way if something happens, you know right were to cut the ceiling out to fix the issue. I also did that for my walls, just in case something crazy happens and I need to get in there for some reason.

There's no debate on 20 amp. 15 amp is almost obselete for new construction.
$1,500.00 or more spent at Lowes got me 22% off. Made 250' of 12 gauge even
cheaper. I have an inside phone booth, and made sure I also ran that wire while
the studs were still exposed..

Run conduit everywhere. Then you don't need to run every type of wire, you can just fish it later.

I would add to make it large enough also, some of that conduit they sell in the big boxes just isn't large enough for the task of pulling multiple wires especially largeer like HDMI. PVC will go a long way here and you won't have to grease any cables to get it through long runs

More of a game corner. The battle over the tv in this room got settled by adding another one.
Now it's movies, pinball and video games all at once. A beautiful noise to hear. Definitely need more room.

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Had a couple other small things going on, and so far doing it alone,
but it's coming..

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