I also have some glow in the dark green plastic and I hope to make mushroom cloud-like green caps over the cooling towers on the pop bumpers but there's almost no clearance there. Not sure how that would look.

Thanks for the inspiration on that one.

Hmmmmmmm........ great idea, gonna have to think on that one.

Well ok then, if people are willing to use adhesives I'll stop looking for a mounting point.

One thing that anyone could do would be to just make a flat piece, do some Photoshop, and then print peel-and-stick artwork. I considered that but the 3-D letters on these signs just look so cool.

I've been getting lots of questions on pricing and my initial thoughts would be $25 per piece shipped using a USPS flat rate small box ($5.80). Might be cheaper ways to ship which I will need to explore but for me to take the time to go to the post office........etc..

Thoughts?

Someone IM'ed me the very good idea of posting these on a 3D printing service site but I'm confident that even if we found one that did multi-color printing they would end up being lots more expensive that way. If someone wants to do the research and skin that cat for me please knock yourself out.

$25/sign and not sure about the spaceships yet. Still a lot of work to do on those.

You guys crack me up, bless your hearts. It never ceases to amuse me that people with $5000 pinball machines quibble over a few bucks for a mod. Want a sticker? Any 6th grader can make stickers and for anyone that wants stickers just go buy something like this.

http://www.labelsbythesheet.com/items/water-resistant-vinyl-labels~inkjet-/premium-water-resistant-vinyl-rect-inkjet-label/4-x-1-rectangle-premium-water-resistant-white-vinyl-inkjet-label-sheet-br-usually-ships-same-day-wrv-detail.htm

Then spend 10 minutes in Powerpoint (or your program of choice) drawing the sign and copying and pasting it.

Then hit "print". In a few minutes you will have 20 stickers which apparently have a market value of $10 each that only cost 46 cents plus an envelope to ship. Sell one and you've made all your investment back. Sell a whole sheet and you're making decent money for the time invested. So why would anyone ever buy a sticker? Just make your own.

I'll spend an extra $10-$15 and go with a 3-D printed mod any day. Gotta tell'ya, they look pretty cool.

Finally got around to cranking out a few more signs over the holiday. The Kwik-E-Mart and the comic shop sign. The comic shop sign mounts on the light post near the comic book guy and serves the double purpose of decoration and hiding some unsightly wiring. The Kwik-E-Mart sign press fits onto the plastic above where the garage sticker is and looks by far the coolest so far. Pictures are washed out due to the flash.

This is just an update. I've had hellacious problems printing and a severe hardware failure on my printer that required a complete tear down of the extruder and a hacked in replacement thermocouple. I'll get around to offering these up for sale someday eventually.

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Okey dokey everybody, if my printer makes it through the day I think I'll be ready to start selling these.

Some good news, I comped a "days since accident" sign to jakawkai since he was kind enough to provide the inspiration for it and I experimented with a cheaper way of shipping. Instead of a USPS flat rate box for $5.80 I just taped the sign pieces to a piece of cardboard and used a standard envelope. He said it arrived safe and sound so we now have a $5 price drop.

The available signs are:

1) Nuclear conditions
2) Days since accident
3) Comic shop
4) Kwik-E-Mart

All signs will be $20 shipped in the continental US. If you want to buy all 4 I'll knock $10 off the price and sell all 4 for $70. I might even get fancy and get some bubble wrap envelopes as I saw some cheap at Walmart.

Here's the fine print:

1) All signs will be shipped in multiple pieces and will require a little super glue to assemble.
2) Signs may have small imperfections or warpage but any flaws will not be immediately apparent when installed in the game.
the comic shop signs have traces of blue painter's tape on the back side. The white plastic REALLY adheres to the tape on the build platform.
3) All signs are designed to be mechanically mounted on playfield components. No tape needed.

Well dang, apparently the tab key means "post message. I didn't get that completed.

Please PM me for ordering details. I will be able to accept payment through paypal.

Anybody know the cheapest trick to ship a small envelope to Australia? Definitely hitting Walmart for the padded envelopes for that one.

I can make it a little bit bigger, i.e. I could do an "XL" version. One possibility is that the mounting bracket that gets glued to the back allows the end user to adjust the height of the sign. The mounting bracket on that sign is about 1/4'" down the back of the sign so if you liked, on your machine you could have the sign about 1/4" lower but then the bracket would be visible. (which may not be an issue)

Hi guys, in the interest of providing as much info as possible here's some close up pics of all the pieces involved for the 4 signs. These are the 4 signs going to Gunner as a matter of fact.

One other piece of sub-optimal news is that the postage on a bubble wrap envelope ended up being $2 and I need to pass along that cost BUT that only applies to the Nuclear conditions sign. The "flat" signs/posts can still go in a normal envelope.

Soooo, everything is still $20 shipped except for the Nuke Conditions sign which is $22 (I really feel the need to ship that in a padded envelope). Price for all 4 is still $70.

As you can see there will be super glue involved in the final assembly but if you own a pinball machine you can handle that for sure. Here's some more extraneous info:

1) On the "Accident" sign you are provided with two mounting posts. It only needs one but there are 4 indentations on the back to line the posts up with so you can straddle the gap between bumpers, use a double mount on the upper right bumper, or use a single mount at multiple locations and angles.

2) The Nuclear conditions sign is mounted with a screw on the left pop bumper and WARNING!!! I designed this to be a breakaway part with a built in failure point at the joint between the trapezoid where the signpost hole is mated to the rest of the sign. Basically a really solid whack with a ball that might damage the plastic sign will cause a nice clean break that can be easily repaired with super glue. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN MOUNTING THE SIGN ON THE SIGNPOST. Press down with your thumb on the trapezoid, tack it down with some glue on the back and you're good.

3) Not much to say about the Comic Shop sign except that you may want to mount it as high as possible on the mounting post to hide the unsightly wiring.

4) Not much to say about the Kwik-E-Mart sign other than "I think it looks awesome". The slotted mounting post can be glued to the back of the sign and the buyer can set the height to anything he/she wants. Those slots had a really nice and firm compression fit on the plastic above the garage sign on my TSPP. I mounted mine low but it might look better up higher.

Cheers,

Jeff

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Thanks dendoc, I'm doing final cleanup on your pieces now and they will ship today.

And another full set sold after dendoc. Pinballpro.com just asked to be my distributor for these. Gotta tell'ya that's VERY flattering but with the legal/licensing issues with these parts I feel the need to fly really low below the radar.

Been thinking about the next sign and a movie theater marquee over in the itchy and scratchy area appeals to me.

Doing the Aztec theater marquee would be the mother of all filament changes but the googolplex might be dooable. Maybe have some itchy and scratchy episodes on the marquee.

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interesting idea, thanks!

Hate to seem like I'm stuck on signage but there's such a wealth of material to work with. For example:

http://www.verbicidemagazine.com/2013/03/11/funny-signs-the-simpsons/

Thanks Cliffy, I am seriously geeking on this. Its a lot of work but its given me the opportunity to climb up a VERY steep learning curve on my printer as well as provide something for the pinside gang.

Well $hit, I was cleaning up a bunch of pieces getting stuff ready to ship and I noticed that the signposts on the nuclear conditions signs were a little large (by a few millimeters) got the calipers out and to make a long story short they were the "production-1" versions. I snagged the wrong file when I went to print. That being said they will still work and the only real concern is that the base of the signpost is about 2 mm thicker than I'd like. There may be a mechanical interference with the wire habitrail above the popbumper but the worst case scenario is that you'll have to rub the bottom of the base on some sandpaper for a minute or so.

I'll drop by my location where my TSPP is tomorrow and verify and print out new ones if needed for current and future orders. Unfortunately I've already shipped 4 of the thicker bases (and of course one of those was to Australia). Hopefully I won't be sunk by a 2mm fuddup. Please stand by for update.

Thanks for the flexibility dendoc. As the first person who ordered you may have been bit by the "early adopter" syndrome. Just looking at the two different sign posts in my hand I think they will be ok. As measured by calipers the difference is only about 1 mm. I'll still check fit though.

Crisis averted. I worry too much. The slightly larger post fits perfectly.

Can anyone guess what is going to be prototyped this weekend? This is just a rendering of a rough first cut but it has potential.

Theatre_1.jpg

Got the CAD model of the theater marquee done yesterday and the first three print attempts failed miserably. Massive warping on first attempt, changed parameters and still warping on second attempt, third attempt was an extrusion failure, fill errors on the text on first two attempts as well. On all attempts I had lots of blue painter's tape stuck to the back. Can't wait for new printer.

Just got my first report of a broken sign upon arrival. A new one will go out ASAP. To the people I've shipped to please let me know if there's any issues with damage and if I have to go back to the $5.80 small flat rate box so be it. Just trying to save people some money.

Absolutely, but the shipping on the padded envelopes is a minimum of $2.07, I have to drop by the post office, and I'm thinking that the one that broke got bent somehow, it was a clean and complete break right in the middle, and a padded envelope won't help much with bending. And its so nice to just put a stamp on an envelope and drop it in a mailbox.

I'll see how this first wave of shipments goes, will replace parts as needed, and adjust procedures as needed. Hopefully that will end up as an isolated incident.

Just had my first report of a "premature breakage" on a Nuclear Conditions sign. The very gracious buyer was unfazed and will just glue it back together. But for safety's sake here's a picture of how to press the sign onto the signpost. If its a snug fit press on the trapezoid around the post as you fit it onto the post. It should slide right on as I've sanded down the posts before shipping and test fit them all.

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Latest mod prototype with remnants of 5 of the first 7 print failures behind it. Have a mounting system modeled but still need to print and test. Made a MAJOR breakthrough with this piece for reducing warpage in future production but I'll have to completely rebuild all the CAD models from scratch and make them a lot more internally complicated. No biggie, very excited about the discovery.

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New CAD modeling trick is working well. This sign revision can still do with refinements but for the first time I was able to do a print this large with 100% yield. I may cull one to them but I think I can salvage it.

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OK, so as soon as I get confident and try to push the envelope reality bites me in the butt. I tried to print a bunch of Nuclear Condition signs last night using the new CAD trick and apparently I pushed it too far and had to toss all of them after 5 hours of wasted machine time. Will dial that back and try again. But I did get the prototype Googolplex theatre sign installed and it looks really fantastic. This picture does not do it justice.

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