Edit: I have decided to make a custom pin that uses Dracula/Wild Fyre roms. I'm making a new playfield with a custom layout that will have 2 tiers.

Everything below is from the original post.

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So I've got this Stern Trident. It had a pretty bad pf that I planned on restoring. After a spending a while repainting it, I'm not all that satisfied with the way it looks. On top of that, it's not even in the proper cabinet. It's in a Lectromano cabinet. I could get stencils and remedy that, but I'll always know it's not official. I took the game apart as soon I took it home, so I've never actually played a Trident.

I wanted to make a custom pin since before I even bought my first game. Considering the poor quality of my Trident, can this be considered a parts machine and platform for me to build my custom game without bringing shame upon my house by messing up a classic pin?

I really feel like restoring it, or going so far as buying a new pf won't be worth it, so I'm leaning more towards turning this into my custom pin.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Jim

No theme at this point.

I'm wanting to do something original instead of an established movie or whatever. It seems that many, but certainly not all, custom pins go the way of commercial ones, where licensed (well not licensed for custom ones, but you know what I mean) themes seem to be what everyone gets excited about.

I've got a P-ROC and have experimented with taking over Slugfest, but I'll need to invest more in driver boards to drive a fully custom game. The alternative is that I program a rom chip to drop in the Stern boards, but that will be a lot more complicated and more limiting. P-ROC is probably the way to go for a tried and true method with a supportive community in place.

I've built small scale animatronics in the past, so whatever I do, I hope to have something cool going on in this regard.

It will be a while before I really begin this project. I just wanted to feel out what others thought about destroying a classic pin. I'd feel worse about it if I had a complete game in semi decent condition. I'm still new to this hobby and don't want to be shunned!

Thanks,
Jim

I'll keep that in mind as I decide how to proceed!

I think I'm more likely to attempt to completely change the game, not just retheme the existing layout. I'm talking lowering the pf, adding in ramps and such to make it more comparable to a 90s DMD pin. The Trident would just be used for parts and its cabinet would be converted to house the new game. Now that I think about it, I could probably at least use the transformer and rectifier board to get the voltages I'd need in the custom game... Anyway, this is all talk at this point. I won't have anything to show for a good long while.

I've lately been looking at my junked up, disassembled Trident and I have begun formulating a plan for how I want to proceed to actually get something worthwhile out of it. The playfield was way too trashed and my attempts at repainting haven't yeilded results that I'm happy with, so I want to scrap it and make an entire custom game with the parts. I'm still a ways off from actually doing anything, but wanted to get some of these thoughts down.

I've got all the parts and wiring from Trident and many of the mechanical parts and playfield wiring harness from Big Game leftover from a past restore.

To keep things simpler, at first my idea is to use the roms from an existing classic Stern game that has rules I like and change the layout. I was interested to discover on IPDB that Dracula and Wild Fyre use the same roms. My thinking right now is that I'd like to use the rules from Dracula. I had a Dracula and enjoyed the rules and drop targets and such. I believe I've got enough parts to duplicate what a Dracula needs. Dracula uses a 4 bank drop target, and I don't have one of those, but I think I could convert the 5-bank from Trident into a 4-bank. Other than that, I've got plenty of light sockets, standup targets, pop-bumpers and other hardware to fill out what the Dracula roms expect.

I'm wanting to stick to an MPU-100 game for a couple of reasons. First is because I've already got the setup from Trident and I've already got some 6-digit displays to go with it. Second is because MPU-100 roms are supposed to be easier to hack if I ever want to get that deep into trying to change rules or add features.

One aspect of the classic Stern games that I don't really like is the sound. I may stick with the stock sound at first, but would ultimately like to figure out some kind of solution for better sounds and maybe even a soundtrack that plays in the background. Any upgraded sound solution would likely have to run independently from the MPU, meaning it would be driven by separate switches. Given that I'd be using an MPU-100 that basically just sends signals to the sound board that plays a single sound depending on which switch is hit or a short series of sounds at the beginning or end of a ball, there may not be a good way to intercept signals that would be sent to the sound board and reinterpret them unless I was ok with just replacing the individual sounds from the SB-100 with something else. Whatever drives the background sound wouldn't be too hard to wire up. It could just have a switch in the shooter lane to know that a ball is in play and a switch in the trough to know the ball is over. At the end of the day, there's probably not going to be an easy way to make a new sound solution aware of what's going on in the game without it having its own switches. That will complicate things. It will become difficult, for example, to have the new sound solution know when the 4-bank drop targets have been knocked down twice to play some specific sound in that instance without the sound board having some kind of logic as well as its own switches that get triggered by the drop-targets.

I could ultimately get a P-ROC and necessary parts to drive the game with that, which would make new sound integration much easier, but that would require completely different wiring, especially for controlled lamps, and I mostly want to stick to the parts I have on hand to keep costs down. When I get to the point of doing a P-ROC game, I want to make a completely custom and more complex game than an early solid state, so I don't want to go that route for this project.

With regards to the playfield, I think I'll be starting from scratch. I want to have a 2-tiered game with a metal ramp or 2, similar to the early ramp games like BK. I'd likely put the 4-bank drop targets and 3rd flipper up in the 2nd tier along with some other switches like maybe a rollover or a few standup targets. So I'd probably start with a simple whitewood to just figure out a good placement for parts. Once the major mechanical parts are in place and working in a good layout, I'd figure out the placement of lamps and switches and such.

Anyway, like I said, I'm probably a ways off from starting, but I will probably be thinking about all of this more seriously over the coming months. I have no idea on a theme yet, but probably want to do something original.

It will probably be a bigger project than I'm initially thinking, but there are a number of things I can do, at least during the whitewood and playfield development stage to make it a little less complex. For example, if I stay with round inserts, I should just be able to use appropriately sized forstner bits and get those installed pretty quickly. I can also use my existing Trident PF as a router template for some things like overall size/shape and the holes for the ball trough, drop-targets, and pop bumpers and flippers.

Sure, a CNC machine would make the PF development easier, but I've got the tools to do it all by hand. I've even got a smaller CNC machine that I could use to make router templates if needed.

I had previously done some research on the MP3 Trigger as a sound solution, but yesterday I discovered the WAV Trigger by the same creator that has functionality that is more conducive to a pinball machine. It's able to play polyphonic sounds, meaning multiple sounds at the same time. That means the potential for continuous looping background music in addition to callouts and sounds triggered by switches. It has 16 direct inputs and has some basic built-in logic that would be good for pinball in that one switch could start the background sound and another could stop it. It's also possible to have multiple background tracks that could be selected at random, so you could get a little variety if you want to have a different background track at the beginning of each ball. It also has the capacity of getting much more advanced by taking serial commands from an external source such as a microcontroller or even a PC. I've done some projects that used microcontrollers, so I can fathom how that could potentially work. The microcontroller could be used to detect multiple instances of a switch hit, such as the 5-bank drop target being dropped twice, and then send a command to the WAV Trigger to play a specific sound in that instance. Another potential would be to have the microcontroller sense when an extra ball is awarded by way of the shoot again light being on, and if that light is on and the ball drains, send a signal to the WAV Trigger to play a "shoot again" callout. The downside is that the WAV Trigger is likely going to need its own set of switches that are independent of the game's switch matrix. It would likely complicate things too much trying to integrate the signals from the switch matrix into the WAV Trigger. I'm not an EE, so if someone has an idea for how that could be done easily, please let me know. At any rate, I think the WAV Trigger is going to allow an early solid state Stern game to have a much better set of sounds with relatively low complexity. It will just be a matter of making sure each switch in the game activates a 2nd switch that goes to the WAV Trigger. The WAV Trigger is initially limited to 16 switches, but multiple switches in game could conceivably have the same sound, so it's a matter of wiring multiple switches to trigger the same input on the WAV Trigger. 16 inputs should be plenty.

One other thing I want to try with this project is DIY screen printing. I've never done it, and it seems like a fun thing to learn. I would likely keep it less complicated by avoiding doing multiple colors. I think just white and black or even just black or dark brown directly on the wood could look nice. Once I get a layout determined, I'll draw up the PF art in a vector program and go from there.

The simplest option for a backglass would actually be a printed translite. I'll likely go that route unless the screen printing process for the PF goes really well and I decide to go that route for the BG. We'll see.

First step is to develop the initial layout and get a whitewood going.

Here is my current idea for the playfield.

Playfield Lower Only.jpgPlayfield Upper Only.jpgPlayfield Upper and Lower Combined.jpg

Beginning of the whitewood...

20150808_130110.jpg

Working on ball guides.
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Edited topic to reflect the goals.

If a moderator could move this thread into the appropriate category, that would be appreciated.

I've got some of the ball guides in. I've mainly been working on the figure 8 with the ball making the orbit loop in the lower pf from the shooter lane. My next task is going to be to get some flippers wired up and installed, so I can start planning out the shots better and marking where I want things to go.

Before I can do that, though, I've got some wiring work to do in the cabinet. Some wires have been cut that will need to be repaired, the rectifier board needs at least one connector redone because someone soldered wires to it instead of repairing the connector. I had Trident booting before I took it apart, but I've swapped boards into other games so I'm not sure if I've got a working boardset. I sure hope I do, because I didn't want extensive board repair to become part of this project. A short term shortcut is that I could just pull working boards from my Stern Stars.

After that, the plan is to start with new connectors for the wires that come from the playfield and only wire up what is needed as I progress. I will pull apart the wiring bundle from the Trident pf, so I can route and wire each component up individually, and rebundle once I have my new game wired up. So at first I should just have flippers, outhole switch, and trough eject coil wired up. With no other switches, I expect the game will boot, eject the ball and stay in ball one every time the ball drains since that's how my other Stern games worked when I drained without hitting a switch. That should be helpful for initial layout planning.

I'll get some pics and maybe a video when I get flippers working.

I've ordered parts for a VUK and hope to replace the right-most kickout hole with a VUK that will plunge the ball to the upper level. That way there will be 2 ways to get to the upper level.

One challenge is going to be the depth required in the cabinet for the 2nd level. The current cabinet was designed with just one tier in mind, so the pf is pretty parallel to the glass. More modern cabinets are much taller in the back with the glass angled up a lot more and have good clearance between the back of the playfield and the glass. As far as I can tell Stern Lightning, which is a 2 tier game, uses the same type of cabinet as other early Sterns. I'm hoping it's just going to be a matter of lowering the supporting rails under the pf as much as I need and adjusting the leg levelers to get good pitch back in pf. So the front of the pf would stay where it is, hanging by the pf brackets, but the back would be tilted down much more. I'm hoping to avoid making a new cabinet or finding a more modern donor.

I'd probably have taken you up on a VUK if I hadn't put in an order with Marco Specialties already. It would have been nice to have a complete assembly. I ordered individual parts rather than a complete assembly because it ends up being a lot cheaper. I didn't order a coil though because I'm hoping one of the many I have around will work. If my parts don't come together correctly, I might be interested in one.

Luckily I have a working set of boards and displays. It still needs some wiring repairs and maybe some rebuilt connectors and headers for reliable operation, but the important thing is I've got a working platform.

An interesting idea occurred to me. It should be possible to replace the displays with an LCD or something. There are just a few wires driving the displays and it seems like it would be feasible to intercept and interpret those signals with maybe a Raspberry Pi and have it display them as text on a screen. I don't know if it's something I'll want to do, but I could put that off until much later if I decide to experiment with that. If I want to spend time getting fancy with a screen, that would be much easier to do with a P-ROC project. My thinking right now is that I want this current project to be made up mostly of parts I have on hand and to have a classic early solid state feel.

If I get a chance, I hope to get flippers installed and working in the lower pf tomorrow.

20150811_200204.jpg

I wired up and installed the flippers in the lower pf and confirmed that I can successfully drive a 3rd that's piggy backed onto another.

I didn't end up having to wire up the outhole or the eject coil. These games are fine starting without knowing where the ball is. So I can put that off until I get the game more playable.

I successfully placed my outlanes that return back to the flippers. That took a little bit of figuring out to get it right. I did the right side first, took a thin sheet of transparent polycarbonate and made a template of all the necessary holes and flipped it over for the left side. Then it was just a matter of very minor adjustments on that side.

I'm also very happy to discover that the game will successfully drive a VUK in place of a kickout hole. I know that from the game's perspective there isn't a difference, but I was concerned about the game putting out enough power to vault the ball upwards with enough force. The coil I happened to try is working great. I measured the lift at about 6 or so inches, so it should be plenty to get it up to the 2nd level from the first with some kind of guide in place.

20150815_005522.jpg20150815_005540.jpg

I mentioned in an earlier post that I hope to be able to lower the back of the pf enough to fit 2 layers in. My hope is that this will work. It looks like Stern's Lighting uses this same kind of cabinet and it has 2 layers. I guess a custom cab or finding a more suitable donor would be the backup plan. That or scrap the idea of 2 tiers for this project.

Regarding the VUK: well, if I can even fit a 2nd tier, then it would be a matter of directing the ball so that it only goes as high as needed with maybe a scoop at the top or some other deflector.

Actually it looks like Lightning is angled up in the back more than I thought. I should be able to modify my existing cabinet, hopefully.

http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=1441&picno=61028

Now I'm back to thinking Lightning is in the same cabinet as other classic Sterns. I took a better look at the profile of my cabinet and it slopes up, too. It has to be that Lightning just had the back of the pf lowered. That's what I'm going to try first. Failing that, I'll try to add to the cabinet to give the glass a higher slope.

Maybe I'm not needing as much depth as you. I lowered the back and I think it's going to work fine for me. There's plenty of room for a 2nd tier and I'm able to get slope I want by raising the back legs.
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20150816_105318.jpg

I'll see how things work out in the upper pf. For now I'm kind of going with the idea that keeping the ball up there won't be easy and knocking the drops down twice will be pretty challenging. My idea for one of the lanes where it can drain from the top is a switch that says it will reset the drop target bank. I think that's something unique to Wild Fyre, which I haven't played, because it wasn't in Dracula. I'm not sure at this point if that means you lose all progress on the drops or not. I think it would be pretty cool if it did.

Basically knocking down those drops twice activates the extra ball (maybe optionally Special?) target. I don't want that to be an easy feat.

As a moderator, do you think this thread should maybe get moved to the homebrew sub-forum? I had originally posted it in the All Pinball category because it started out as more of a question of whether or not I should restore my game or use the parts for a custom project.

I'm planning for the hardware in the upper pf to simply have a void in the lower pf below them and even a hole in the lower pf as needed. In my current drawings above, there is just a black inaccessible space in the lower pf below the upper flipper and drop target bank. My 2nd tier is going to give just enough room for the ball to roll under, so I'm not planning on it being higher than the outer supporting braces.

I've made a lot of progress. I got the upper flipper in, too.
20150817_001707.jpg

The glass fits!
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One thing I didn't account for was the clearance needed underneath for the few rollover switches I had intended to use in the upper pf. The one on the upper orbit probably isn't going to work because the lower orbit is underneath. The two lanes below the upper flipper should be able to work if I move some things around underneath and bring some things forward.

After some play testing and planning out shots, I don't think I can put popbumpers in the lower pf. They will get in the way of too much. I could probably do 2 up top. I'm still planning out the upper pf and where I want the VUK to eject.

My current plan is to have a horseshoe guide right around a kickout hole right below the upper pf. This is similar to how it's set up in Dracula. The kickout hole will collect the bonus. I am hoping with it being right up front, it will be difficult to get in the hole with the relatively high force from the flippers. In the lane there will be a rollover that advances three lamps similar to loop in Dracula. I can't remember at the moment what advancing the lights does, but I think if you do it and then collect the bonus, it's worth more.

There will also be a standup target on either side of the entrance of the horseshoe.

I'm thinking about placement of some other standups, too. I'm kind of going with the idea in the lower pf of "always be hitting something" to where most shots from the flippers hit something like a lane, a spinner, a drop target, or a standup target.
20150819_172709.jpg

Next step: collect preorder money!

I'm not going to say it doesn't require some talent, but I've found the process to be pretty forgiving up to this point. I'll want to be sure of placement for anything that will require large holes, though.

Anyway, with access to some common tools, a whitewood isn't all that hard to put together. I think if you can repair a game, you can probably make a custom game. You can keep things simpler by using rules for an existing game. I'll eventually make a custom pin that utilizes a P-ROC, but thought this would be a good entry into the realm of custom pins.

For power tools so far I've used a table saw, router, drill press, hand-held drill, cutoff saw, band saw and rotary tool. I think minimally it could be done with a hand drill and router if you don't have access to larger tools like a table saw.

I have integrated the VUK. It ejects into the upper pf through a gate.

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Awesome. Are you able to do cost effective one-offs?

I'm curious: for the playfield, would you CNC cut it, install inserts, print and clear coat? Or would I send you a ready to print pf that I've cut and installed inserts in?

I have wired up the switches for the spinners, installed the kickout hole for the center of the horseshoe, modified the shooter lane so that the ball comes out of a gate and into the horseshoe when plunged, and I slightly lowered the shooter housing to accommodate for the new angle of the pf. Oh, I also wired up the outhole and kicker so the game is playable now with glass on, which is nice for testing.

20150822_141036.jpg

I think I'll focus on drop targets next.

I got the 3-Bank drops installed. That was a bit of an ordeal. It turned out that I didn't have all the parts for a 3-bank assembly and had to fashion a few things on my own. Then I figured out where I had it installed it would hit the various tilt mechanisms on the left of the cabinet, so I had to move those forward. Now I'm fighting switches on the assembly that aren't making good contact. When a target is down, any slight movement in the game keeps making the dropped targets score. I'll do some more adjustments on those. Here's hoping the 4-bank has less issues like that since it will be much less accessible...

I've got the 5-Bank from Trident assembled with one of the targets removed. I'm going to see how feasible it will be to just mount it like this rather than trying to modify the assembly to only hold 4 targets. Things will be pretty tight in the upper pf, though and I'm not sure if I'll need that extra space for a pop-bumber or not.

With all the space some of these assemblies take up, it's going to be challenging planning inserts around them.

Didn't mean to ignore these suggestions.

With regards to moving the thread: That's not something I have the power to do, is it? When I looked at editing the first post, I didn't see an option to move categories.

With regards to the external blog: I personally am less likely to follow a link off of Pinside. I think it's easier to keep things in the thread. I've done other projects and had a thread going. I think the feedback along the way is helpful and sometimes there are suggestions for improvements, etc, that I don't know if I'd get elsewhere.

Thanks to everyone who has commented and offered services so far!

Both sets of drops are installed and wired up. I'm still wrestling with switches on the 3-bank. Something is making it so that when the target is down, the one or two of the switches keep scoring with the slightest vibration in the game. I was thinking it was an issue with the gap of the switches and it may still be, but there may also be some contact happening with the metal casing of the mech.

20150827_102507.jpg

I did end up modifying the 5-bank drop target assembly from Trident into a 4 bank in hopes of saving some space, but even then the assembly has such a huge hidden footprint, even though it looks like there's room for pops up top, there really isn't much room. It's going to be a tight fit if I can even make it work.

I have developed a better appreciation for pinball design. I don't know how designers manage to squeeze all these things in and keep viable shots open! I have 3 pop-bumpers that I can place and don't know if I can even make 1 work.

Other than trying to figure out pop placement, I think I'll start focusing on the lane switches, rollovers, and remaining standup targets. Basically all remaining switches.

Here are some pics to give a better idea of the limited space.

The first is how it appears from the top.
Playfield - layered pics 1.jpg

The second is with the mechs revealed underneath.
Playfield - layered pics 2.jpg

The third is with the mechs and lower pf displayed underneath.
Playfield - layered pics 3.jpg

The fourth highlights the available space.
Playfield - layered pics 4.jpg

The fifth shows shots I want to keep open and potential placement of 3 pop-bumpers. I don't know if I even want to have one in the bottom, though. I'll have to think about it.
Playfield - shots and potential pop-bumpers.jpg

It just occurred to me that a popbumper could probably be replaced with a slingshot... I'll have to think about if a sling would be better somewhere.

20150827_183521.jpgHere's what I think I can do. 2 pops and a sling up top. The limited play testing I can do with just the skirts makes me think they'll all play off of each other well and still keep the direct shots for the drops open.

Then there's no pop on the bottom to keep all shots open there.

Inserts will be a challenge up top. There are 8 that need to go with the 4 drops.

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the suggestion.

That's not something I had thought much about. If they're anywhere close to being as responsive as the ones in my Special Force, I think I'll be OK with the current spacing. That game has a rubber right next to a pop that bounces like crazy between them.

The good thing about the upper pf is that it's pretty small. I'm OK with committing experimental changes to wood for it. It won't be too hard to use as a template for remaking with a router.

This layout in the upper pf is working out for me.

20150831_123821.jpg

The challenge at this point is going to be fitting lamps in for the 4-bank drops. There are supposed to be 8 lamps. 8 inserts aren't going to fit well. My idea is to just do 4 inserts, which I think I can fit, and come up with a custom PCB that uses 2 SMD LEDs per insert. First round of drops lights white and 2nd round lights some color. Inserts will be white, so the difference between white light only and white+color should be obvious.

On another note, the switches on both sets of drops are infuriating me. No matter what adjustments I do, I keep getting nearly constant scoring on dropped targets with every vibration. I have a feeling at this point that I may need to wire them differently. Each set of switches shares a common wire and each switch is potentially touching metal on the mech. I don't see how that contact can be avoided. I think I need to wire them so that the common wire is the one going to the leaf making contact with the metal of the mech.

Once I figure out the issue with the drops, I'll move on to the rest of the pf switches. Then on to inserts.

There's already a mess of wires underneath. It's going to get that much worse once lamps are in. I'll do my best to bundle them nicely once everything is in.

In my limited testing so far, the 2 pops aren't getting much in the way of direct hits from the upper flipper. That flipper is really hard to cradle as it is, and keeping the ball up there is also a challenge, so I don't know if constant direct hits are going to be a concern. I don't see the ball coming at them from the flipper any harder than from pop to pop.

It's subject to change, but I wanted to record my current idea for the theme:
Dragons' Den
or
Den of Dragons

I just looked it up and apparently "Dragons' Den" is some stupid reality show that has nothing to do with dragons. I'm not talking about using a show as a theme. It would be an original theme.

The general theme would be warriors invading a den of dragons to destroy the dragons and their eggs.

The playfield would be a landscape and people and dragons would be scaled appropriately.
The upper pf would be the top of a cliff or plateau with a dragon's nest.
The 4-bank drops would be indicative of breaking eggs.
The pop-bumper caps would be some smaller elevated nests.
The various paths under the upper pf would be caves.
The lower pf would be a field or something with warriors approaching the cliff and maybe some action where a dragon is down on the ground fighting people. I'll have to figure out a way to integrate inserts into the scene.
The lower drops could be weapons or something.
I'll have to think up a cool image for the spinners. Maybe a dragon shooting flames or something.

I guess the general idea would be that you're on the side of the warriors against the dragons. As with most older pins, though, I think the story will be kind of vague, and up to interpretation.

In trying to keep an early solid state vibe to the game, I want to do 3-color stencil art on the cabinet. I'm liking the look of Catacomb for inspiration, with the black and white silhouettes over green. I'll play around with that idea. http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=469&picno=15261

How did I miss this? That would solve so many issues for me! Thanks.

For testing purposes I bought some cheap sheet metal and cut it to width with a cutting disc on my table saw. It's very malleable by hand. I nailed it to wood posts for support. The final version will use pre cut 1 inch strips of stainless steel. I haven't experimented with the stainless enough yet to know if it can work similarly.

At this point, most switches are installed and wired up.

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I've preordered one of the Bally/Stern pinball controller boards that Snux linked to. I may hold off on additional work until I get that. I might get it next month.

I've got potential multiball and all kinds of other features to consider that were out of the question before.

The addition of a programmable controller is opening up so many possibilities for this project that I'm rethinking some aspects. I'm no longer limited to the parts found in a specific game and I can potentially pull in more aspects from other games I like.

Alien Poker has individually controlled drop targets that have to be hit down in a specific order. It's a feature I really love. I have an extra 5 bank assembly from AP and want to use it to expand on the concept.

I'm thinking each target has a 7 segment numerical display in an insert in front of it. The sequence is randomly generated and displayed so you know the order they have to be knocked down.

I don't have a space for this in the current layout and may need to remove the horseshoe and kickout. I may also have to rethink the current drops.