Spent another evening painting up some art. Might spend one more night adding in some Teal stripes up and down the playfield... I havent decided yet. Might throw it up in photoshop to test it. Besides Ive spent more time than I intended already painting this thing.

Picked up a tripple thick krylon glaze to top coat with. I read somewhere its a quality product. Looking forward to the weekend!

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I'll give it a shot! Looks like Amazon has a 2 pack.

Ok I'm calling the test box playfield art done. Now to order some top coat and get this sucker populated.

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Yea this is actually just a test box playfield I put together to work out the bugs in programing and relaying high power to coils for the first time. The cocktail table is still sitting empty and waiting. But for the purpose of wiring stuff up easy, and experamenting with stuff I've never done before, this 12" x 24" playfield will be a lot easier for me to work on than the real thing. and if any damage occurs, I'd rather learn my lesson with this than the cocktail.

Once I'm done with this I'll probably put a battery pack on it and hang it on the wall as just a display piece.

Thanks! I saw another cocktail cabinet that was 'stripped' on craigslist for $200 last week. I was very tempted to pick it up but I have no where to put it! lol

It's very possible I'll be selling this one once I'm done with it and I'm sure its safe/reliable. That's a long ways off. but if all goes as planned I'd take the profits of this and everything I learned to make more machines.

Put that SprayMax top coat on over the weekend. Finish is very nice! That spray is gnarly though. tons of hazard warnings on it. resperator and eyewear required. Its pretty serious stuff.

Spent last night installing lighting bayonet's, and a few star posts. Will update when the playfield is populated.

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I got the General Illumination all installed and hooked up. I cut out some rough plexi glass plastics. Installed the 2 big red targets. Its coming along!

Didnt have enough warm LEDs, so some are cool. I'll order more and fix em later.

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Drilled them with a standard hand drill and some Forstner bits. Had to go slow and keep checking the depth with each insert to make sure I wasn't going too deep. then when the depth was right, used a slightly smaller gauge to drill all the way through. The arrow inserts were a pain in the ass. as were the slingshot kicker holes. dad to use a jigsaw to finish those shapes

I have a drill press but its a Jewelry sized press I got to make stop-motion armatures, so the playfield is way too big to fit under it. In the future (and for the cocktail playfield) I'm going to buy a plunge router to make my life a lot easier. I can just dial in the depth and go to town.

https://instagram.com/p/BVgB-PtAAnz/

Got the test box flipper working! The relay I'm using has too much delay when triggered, so the flipper is wired like an EM machine would be, with the relay capable of 'cutting' power to the flippers when no game is active. The slingshots will be on the same set up. All other features will be fired through their relays. Only the flippers and slings need instant reactions.

Link to video above.

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Soldered a little prototype board to hold my shift registers. Ill be writing some code for all the insert lights this week. I have some more solid state Relays on order so I can run the slingshots and the drop target.

Coming along slowly... Really want this little test box working for Tiki oasis in San diego. Gives me 6 weeks or so I think to get some rules and scoring working.

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welp, I spent some time this weekend writing some code, and trying to get the shift registers to work properly. I'm running into little problems here and there which is to be expected, but it has been taking up a lot of my free time, which I don't have a lot of. That, combined with the fact that I need to buy a bunch of parts that are very hard to find, or are out of stock, is seriously slowing my progress.

Unfortunately I am also trying to find a new job right now and so I really need to focus on building my portfolio and focus on potential employers. I think its probably best If I put this project on hold for 6 months, and get solid footing under me again. So I'm shooting for January 2018 to pick back up where I left off here. Until then I'll be gathering parts I have been waiting on for months, and sketching ideas for playfield artwork. I'll try and update here when I have anything worth showing, but I will probably be spending most of my free time for the rest of the year on the job hunt.

Until then!

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Been working hard on portfolio and job hunting over the past 4 months. Think I'm pretty solid on that front now so I've been slowly getting back into testing stuff for this table (and other projects)...

One thing I have discovered during my 4 month break is Addressable LEDs.... Man this is such a better solution to lighting. I can control hundreds of RGB LEDs with just a single data line!? this is definitely how I'm going to be running my lights in this table. I also have been experimenting in running 'groups' of lights under the inserts to get some pretty cool effects.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbFdn-7gn7G/?taken-by=scarybeardpro

https://www.instagram.com/p/Baz-EiVAAnq/?taken-by=scarybeardpro

I also got my numerical display working, so I have a legit score counter now.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BaPXKesgEJ0/?taken-by=scarybeardpro

I have also spent a little more time getting to know how to deal with the low power arduino / high power solinoids. Really looking forward to getting back into this project, and I'm sure the girlfriend will be really excited to get this cocktail table out of our kitchen... I'm going to start re-assembling the playfield as my next step, and getting the game working again without any art or rules. Once I get it functional, I'll start just shooting around and getting an idea of whats fun and whats not with the design, then break it down again, do artwork, and write the rules for the code.

The second big project I have going on is making a 'fortune teller' coin op machine. Been learning how to control servos for animatronics, and triggering sounds and music through the arduino. Also getting a lot of experience in lighting effects and that code as well.... Wish I had more free time!

also picked up a shelf for my Tiki Mugs... for... insperation...

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took advantage of the holiday weekend and got some work done on the Tiki Pin.

I cleaned out the inside cabinet. Removed the last of the connector clips, and random screws/ board rails that were inside. I brushed it all out, sanded down a few things, then masked the edges and primed the inside with a thick primer.

Then spent 2 days routing some new insert lights into the playfield, and routing some new holes to support the new multi-ball trough. Then re-populating the playfield as much as I could before the end of the weekend. Next step is putting the power supply and boards on a rack and get some 'dumb' power flowing through those features so I can just do some random flipping and get a feel for how it plays. I had originally wanted to put a few drop targets in the playfield to act much like the scolerri brothers in Ghostbusters, but I'm going to get some play time in and see if I really need them...

Hopefully it will be running and I'll get some play time in over christmas break.

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Ok, spent the holidays sick as a dog but working on the pin whenever I had the energy to. Drilled a few new holes in the play field, and got the foundation of my power supply and electrical work in there. I installed the power outlet, and plugged the power supply in and didn’t burn the house down! Huzzah!!

Tomorrow going to try and get the relays rigged, and power to the coils.

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did a bunch more work on the machine over the weekend, though it doesnt LOOK like I did...

got some proto boards mounted, and started laying out the circuit design. I have all the inputs/outputs I can think of listed, though I'm sure a few more will pop up before I'm done. I have about a dozen pins left of the Arduino so I'm not too worried about running out of them. The pin inputs on the list and the diagram dont match up because I had to re-number them once I saw the physical relationship of the board to the arduino. So don't look too close.

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https://www.instagram.com/p/BeQwuUxggSw/?hl=en&taken-by=scarybeardpro

Got my Glowforge Laser Cutter last week. Been getting used to it and cutting my own plastics now! Progress....

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Thanks for all the support on this folks. I took a long break from this after the day job got messy and my girlfriend lost her job. We've been spinning up her new solo career as a sculptor/Twitch streamer ('MacabreShop' if you are interested) and at the same time spent the last year or so getting my career back on stable footing.

I have set a goal to get this machine made over the next 12 months, and ready to bring with me to Tiki Oasis 2020 in San Diego. I'm going back to square 1 with the boards and controller. While I think in theory an arduino could drive the machine, I am comfortable enough now with programming that I'm going to switch to PROC boards and learn some Python. I have bigger goals long term so I'd like to approach this with as professional a finished product as I can. My schedule short term is mostly to just produce art and dabble in new code. We have a lot of conventions and shows for MacabreShop in the next 2 months so thats all I really have time for. In October my schedule will free up, and my goal is to have this thing 'flipping' in November on the PROC hardware.

By end of January, I'd like to have all the switches registering. And in February begin rules code. All the while I'll be designing artwork, so I'm hoping that next August is a very reasonable time to have a polished game finished.

I'll be updating here when I have progress to share, but it will likely be just art for the next few months!

Long live the TIKI pin!

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Twitch is basically like youtube, but live streaming, and mostly used by gamers who live stream themselves playing games and people watch and communicate through a chat window. (sounds really boring, but can actually be a lot of fun). Twitch is also used for artists to live stream their process, which is what MacabreShop is using it for.

Deadflip streams live pinball almost every weekday. You should drop in there at least once to check it out, its free to watch and chat: https://www.twitch.tv/deadflip

yaksplat very cool Project! Love the wood carvings!

Nice, I'll check it out, Thanks!

OH YES there will be addressable RGB! I kinda want each mode to change the GI color when you are in it. I also thought about color-coding the player number as well.... Like pop bumpers for player 1 are red, for player 2 they are blue, etc...

No real progress other than some doodles for art/theme. We are in the tail end of 'convention season' so I've had nearly zero free time over the past month. But while we were at a show I did get some sketches and doodles made during the slow times. We have 2 more shows in September, then October Hardware/Software progress should begin for real.

I did a couple insert light artwork doodles, and started playing with a 'mash up' theme. I wanted to play with an 'Overwatch' mash up so made the character DVA with her mech. The Mech became a Tiki Idol, and instead of her callback "Nerf This!" before self destructing the mech, the callback would be "Surf This!" before the volcano explodes?

I'm not sold on an overwatch theme. Or even any mash up theme yet. But its fun to explore possibilities. I realize that I could pretty much use any IP I want since this is a homebrew one-off. So some themes I'm considering are Overwatch, BeetleJuice, Bobs Burgers, The Haunted Mansion, The Tiki Room, Star Wars..... I probably wont need to make a solid decision until next spring when everything is functional.

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Ever hear about the original Beetlejuice sequel that didn't happen? The script was called 'Beetlejuice goes Hawaiian' and had some convoluted plot in which Lydias family goes to Hawaii on vacation, and some ancient spirits/Tiki god gets angry at them for some reason, so they have to summon Beetlejuice to fight the gods?

It sounded like an awful movie... but maybe a cool Tiki Pinball theme? I'm still in 'convention prep' mode. so I've only had time for little doodles like these and daydreaming up ideas.

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another sketch with the Beetlejuice Hawaiian Volcano.

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HELP!

So I'm going on vacation all next week. Vacation in my world is just not going to the day job, and spending all day working at home on my own stuff... I'm hoping to get some physical elements squared away with the cabinet (Playfield currently does not sit properly in the cab) and maybe figure out how I'm going to add a new coin acceptor....

BUT, I'm also going to start looking for some HELP with this machine! I want to get started with the P-ROC system, and would appreciate some advice on what Hardware I should be picking up. I've been watching some streams of Jack Danger's build, and I'll be downloading the virtual software this weekend to start wrapping my head around it. I'd also like to order the boards/power supplies I'll need and possibly get them installed by the end of the week, even if they are a long ways off from being used (just one less thing to do later) So once the code is functional, I can just wire it up and get testing!

So here's the general requirements of my particular cocktail machine, if anyone wants to give advice on what Boards/Power supplies I should be acquiring I'd appreciate it:

- 48V max solinoid power.
- ~32 inputs (switches)*
- ~35 outputs*
- ~13 solinoids*
- sound system
- (LCD display? / Numerical display?)

*(numbers may change slightly if features are added)

Thanks in advance. I'll post updates next week!

also here's some work in progress on Beetlejuice TIKI art:

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Had a big week-long vacation where I tried to install the Mission Pinball software and ran into a bunch of problems. I am getting help from the forum over there but its been slow progress. Once i get that up and running hopefully it wont be too long before I have some basic code running.

I did not make any progress on the physical cabinet. I started cleaning up the workshop and found too many small projects that needed to be resolved. So bad news, Not a lot of progress on the pinball over vacation, good news, my workspace is now organized so I can actually work on it once i get some time.

living in a 2 bedroom apartment is rough. my and my lady are house hunting now. (shooting for next spring/summer) If I had a garage things would be a lot easier.