Alrighty! My first post! Ive been playing pinball for a while now, and i decided to take a crack at constructing one of my own. I started with buying an old water damaged Star Wars cabinet i bought from a local arcade that was gonna get scrapped, and luckily It had the transformer still inside. I cut out and replaced all the damaged wood, slapped some legs on it and got started. I used an old F14 Tomcat playfield i had laying around to establish the flipper layout and the trough setup.
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As for the transformer, i just used some old bridge rectifiers and made DC power circuits for both my 50v solenoid and flipper power.
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I wired both left and right flippers analog style, using the end of stroke as a switch between the high power and hold coils.
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Now the real fun begins! I constructed what i wanted as ramps and orbits out of cardstock, so i could get an idea what kind of basic layout i wanted.
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After that, i constructed the ramps out of plastic i bought from the local plastic store and installed them. I also started adding some rubbers and posts here and there. I constructed and installed my subway under the playfield from the building to the scoop as well.
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It was onto wireform ramps. The copper ones i made and installed are only temporary, eventually they will be stainless steel. I just needed something i could whip up and play on for the time being. I also added some stand up targets here and here.
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Then! I got my slingshot and ball popper assemblies, and im using an arduino relay board to drive them. Eventually it will be transistors driving them but for ease, relays were the way to go.
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I had a metal shop in town cut me stainless steel bands, and i made my previously plastic guides into some slick metal ones.
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The ball lock i also finagled with and i ended up crafting my own assembly to make it work.
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Other than all of those things, i have set up the trough and ordered a bunch of switches and other things. I went for more of a simple design to learn how to construct things, after all its not the last machine i'll be making
As of the moment, there is no concrete theme, it seems to change week by week.
Im entirely open to criticism, advice or opinions!
i have a quick video with a little gameplay at the end here if you are interested:

-JVB

Thank you for all the nice comments! Yes I am planning to use Mission Pinball as the software framework, especially since I can keep my board setup the same. Thanks for the suggestion. As for the theme, I was previously thinking about a 1950's private eye that would go around and solve various silly cases In the same comedic style as Medieval Madness.

Just an update! had some time on my hands recently, so i funneled that into making a proper playfield for my game. Unfortunately i did not have access to a CNC router, so i did it all by hand. I started with scanning in the old playfield and digitally plotting all the holes, then i had a friend make a large vinyl sticker so i could spray and mark all of the plotted hole locations onto a piece of 1/2" plywood.
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The inserts were a bit tricky, i ended up 3d printing router guides for my 4" router. I glued them in and sanded them all flush. Finished up with cutting out the switch slots.
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Its not perfect, but for my first handmade playfield i am very pleased with the outcome

Just waiting on parts for now.

Thank you! The only thing that really matters is that you have a round base and the cutting edge of the blade is the same to any edge of the base of the router. If you know the distance from the edge of the base of the router to your cutting edge of your router bit, that's all you need. Just take the insert shape and add that distance to the edge of it in all directions and viola! there;s your router guide. I used a Fusion 360 (a free tool for home use) and it has an outline function that does all that work for you. But I ended up printing a router base as well to go with my insert templates so i could keep it exact. if you use the same model router as i did (the Makita RT0701C) i would be happy to give you the files for the router base and the guides i have already made.

No way what a coincidence! Sounds good to me.

Another update!
I took some time to give the old star wars cabinet i had some attention. There was evidence it was sitting in water at one point, and both the back panel and the panel where the backbox usually sits on were completely de-laminated and destroyed. I ended up replacing it all with 3/4 inch plywood.
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Both back edges were completely de-laminated, so i spent some time gluing all the loose pieces down and patching the damage with epoxy wood filler.
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After that, I loaded up the orbital sander and went at it.
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The other issue i had was Data East's Star Wars comes with a handle rather than a button for launch, so i made a wood insert for the old handle-hole and drilled a new setup for a pushbutton.
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Primed and painted after that. Dressed the cabinet with new lockdown bar, new side rails, new coin door, new buttons, new legs and leg plates, and williams slide rail assemblies for the playfield (they really are the bees knees).
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I filed a ball guide in by hand for the shooter lane, and cleared the prototype playfield for now.
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Slapped that baby into the cabinet and now im starting the re-assembly process. Also I attempted to 3d Print a ramp, but i get the feeling learning how to vacuum form will be in my future.
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