Lighting was what was missing... All backglasses need some sort of lighting behind them.

So I grabbed some old RGB LED strips and made a harness for them. Right now the plan is to hard wire them to green, but latter on we want to be able to control them to RGB in the future...

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And here they are installed in the game.

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Connor insisted we test them right away, so here they are with the glass off..

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And with the glass on... looking quite good if I say so myself.

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Time for some more Pincraft Updates! I am going to try to split the posts a bit more so it is easier to load.

Next step was to try to install a spinner into the game. We needed a hanging spinner because of the placement on the right lane. I bought one from Pinball Life that seemed to fit the bill well.

Next step was to try to install the spinner without damaging the game for testing. I used a wood block to try to mock the spinner placement.

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Everything was testing well and great... so it was time to wrap up the game for the day...

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OPPS! It appears we forgot how short older SS games were to the glass. Clearly this spinner isn't going to fit here!

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After looking for more options and realizing that there really weren't too many out there, I was determined to make the spinner work.

The question now was how we could mount the spinner and have it still work and still fit the game.

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We added a wood block below one of the holes and then started putting spacers in to see the optimal spinner height.

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Looks like right about here will work!

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The bill still spins and the glass fits well. Now it will be a matter of routing out the hole.

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While we are at it these non-white inserts will need to go. We wanted to test how difficult they were going to be to remove. Doesn't seem too bad.

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A little cleanup work to be done and then they will be ready for the new white inserts for the RGB lamps.

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After that we got a bit distracted at the Allentown PinFest Show!

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Connor liked the new Alice Cooper Game from Spooky also using P-Roc

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Aliens was also really awesome. It is a real shame these won't be made.

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And last but not least our haul from Allentown. A Stern Meteor and a Wild Fyre.

Need to clean up the game room a bit to get back started on PinCraft!

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Time to get this spinner FINALLY in the game. Here is the new hole routed out of the playfield to mount the spinner...

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And here the spinner mounted in the game (inserts to be fixed later)

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and HURRAY! The glass clears the spinner now...

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Now we need to add the post in for the moving gate. We need one for the gate to rest against and one for the gate to open against.

Connor is busy helping to add the posts in...

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Here is the post for the gate to rest against when it is in its closed position...

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And here is the gate for it to rest against when it is open. This will divert loop shots to the scoop...

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Now we need to add some posts to direct the ball around the spinner area!

Connor working hard installing these...

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And here is the final result...

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Here is the area with the diverter gate closed ....

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And here is the area with the diverter gate opened...

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We removed the inserts to install new white ones when they arrive for the new RGB lighting

Last step was to install a gate over the shooter lane for the skill shot.

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We needed to raise it up on posts so the ball would clear under it.... yes I checked the glass height this time!

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And here is the skill shot in action!

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This will send the ball to the scoop for a skill shot on the plunge... (and maybe for accessing three ball multiball in the future!)

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That is all the updates for now... next we will be working on installing the upper gate and the rest of the playfield hardware. Then it is onto wiring!

Small update.. working on getting the new drop targets installed...

The targets behind the drops will be used in the game to collect items...

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And the targets themselves will be the various enemies that you can encounter once you entire survival mode (night mode)...

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And we also have our wall target that is used to block access to the upper hole...

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And here is the drop target bank waiting to be reassembled and put back in the game...

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Here is the drop target bank all re-assembled and ready to go back into the game...

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And here is what it will look like when the skeletons attack... oooohh, be scared...

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Time to put this big drop target mech back into the game...

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Connor helping out of course... Very proud of the targets as he made them himself.

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And here they are in the game... looking quite nice.

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And took care of the other problem as well by installing a small piece of ramp flap over the two rails that was causing an issue. Seems to have solved the problem just fine for now..

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That is all for now, till the next update.

Took a small break to finish up a Xenon project that I was working on. Clear coated and all put back together, but just waiting for a few parts to arrive to finish...

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In the meantime we also painted the front of pincraft white and re-installed the coin door:

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Time to work on Pincraft again.. Yeah!

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We previously removed the right flipper to make way for the ball trough, so we finally got around to re-installing the mech into the game. It is now turned about 45 degrees to clear the trough.

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(yes I know the coil is very broken... have a new one on order!)

Next we removed a slam tilt switch and installed a SW-16 in the bottom area. This will be used for the lower playfield switches..

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Connor doing the honors to install the SW-16 board.

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We also decided to install some test LEDs. These are from Pinball Life and are the same LEDs used in TNA.

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Just checking mounting and placement options. Seems like a standard post rubber works best.

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And finally just a picture of the flipper re-installed in the game and our progress so far!

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Next updating coming soon...

Hey everyone.. This project was on hold for several reasons but is now active again. We have made some significant progress over the last few months, so I will try to catch everyone up on where the project is and try to update this topic more often!

Time to get rid of these old Kings of Steel plastics and make some new ones.

First step is to trace the design out on some plexi-glass.

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Then with enough patience and a Dremel anything is possible!

Here is the first pass...

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And second pass with the Dremel...

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And here they are finished and polished in the game...

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Also made a small plastic above the left flipper...

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Trying to get all the hardware finished in the game, it was time to re-install the gate and add some gate posts that it would swing against.

Here is the gate in the closed position...

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And here it is in the open position...

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Also the skill shot which will drop the ball into the scoop...

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Also filled some of the old playfield holes so the ball can run smoothly across the area.

Some more plastics being made, this time for the upper playfield area...

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Well here is where we got a bit side tracked.. one of the ways anyways! I got in an EM project called SureShot, and since it was quite beat up I told Connor that it was his game to restore. He loved that and took to the project right away. It was quite a challenge but the results were amazing. From almost trash to working (mostly) game.

If anyone is interested maybe I'll do a different thread regarding restoring this game.

Playfield out for restoration..
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Connor playing the first working game on it!
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Picture of the full game...
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Lets make some more plastics!

Here is the left side plastic installed...

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And more plastics...

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Now for fun we have to build our custom plastics. We made a template out of paper and traced them out and cut them out..

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Here is the upper side custom plastics installed...

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And the custom scoop plastic installed. Although we may extend this to go past the shooter lane.

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And if you are wondering why there is a giant bouncy ball in the scoop, well it is because it is hard to get the ball out of there without power! Easier to test the game without the ball falling in.

So a couple notes about plastics.

Cutting them with a Dremel is terrible! It is not very precise and it throws hot melted plastic everywhere. I wouldn't recommend it, but sometimes you have to use the tools you have!

The plastics are clear for the moment, but we plan to add designs later on. We are focusing on functionality over ascetics at the moment. We figure once we start flipping and programming the game we may want to change things, so it is easier to do before the artwork. Consider this a white wood without being blank!

Here is Connor creating some templates for the plastics...

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After plastics we are moving onto wiring and hardware! Stay tuned (briefly)...

Thanks Dave! It has been a great project so far.. I want to move faster on it but trying to include my son as much as possible.

Time to get power to these boards! I am using a server ATX power supply (modified to always be on) as the current power source. Will work great for getting 5v and 12v to the boards (although not quietly at the moment). Will eventually replace with something quieter, but the budget is already too high.

The plan at this point is to use the original power supply board to power the solenoids, and let the ATX power supply power the 12 and 5 volt lines.

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And here is power going to our first board, the cabinet SW-16

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Now lets get some power up to our CPU board and the PD-16 boards... Running these lines down to molex connectors that plug directly into the server power supply...

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Looking good all powered up, it is neat how the status lights show through the backglass.... I think we are going to keep it this way.

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Well another distraction arrived... This time in the shape of my first NIB pinball purchase: Total Nuclear Annihilation!

Two great reasons to own this game for anyone into homebrew:

#1 - It is one of the best pinball machines ever made.

#2 - It is very helpful in using as a template for wiring up a P3 based game!

Here it is in the basement awaiting setup:

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And here is Connor playing the first game. Of course he got to play the first game, and not me! But that is okay...

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Back to Pincraft! It is time to build some wire harnesses. We are going to build some harnesses for the coils that lead down to the playfield.

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That way we can easily disconnect the playfield for servicing by disconnecting the serial line and the coil lines. These lines run from the PD-16 boards down to the playfield. They are separated by bank so we can run different voltages if required.

Connor helping tape up the looms (we will add some zip ties to these later as well)...

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I thought this would be fun? (Gets boring after a while to loom up 32 wires...

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Here are the wiring looms installed in the lower PD-16 ready to go.

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And here is the looms running down to the playfield..

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Looking good!

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Need to order a bunch of playfield parts to start wiring up the playfield... that is next!

Thanks, that definitely seems easier! I will try that for the next batch of plastics. The dremel certainly worked, it just was very messy.

Lots of work has been done, not enough posting... Will try to catch up!

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Here is one of the completed harnesses from the PD-16 board to the playfield. We color coded them so they would be easy to identify.

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Time to find some wires for use in a wiring harness. Luckily we had all the old wires from Kings of Steel floating around to use, but they needed to be organized.