When I planned and built my cab, playing the 90s DMD classics was of utmost importance to me (still is to a large degree). In a world dominated by LCD displays -- seriously, try to go 1 hour without looking at something that's LCD -- a real DMD was just more intriguing at the time, and I wanted at least that aspect of the cabinet to be authentic looking. They just look cooler to me... and different. Also, at the time there were performance implications with three LCD cab setups. A lot of people had problems getting it to work well. A side benefit of the PinDMD is that it took that additional load off the graphics controller(s).

Also, I think the color DMD stuff for real pins was still in its infancy at the time. Admittedly, I wasn't paying close attention to the trend, but it seemed like there was maybe 1-2 games that it worked with. Certainly didn't seem like a 'game changer' to me... more of a novelty for all the guys with real pins that were tired of the same ol' and itching to add something 'new' to their 20 year old machines. I still think it's mostly novelty... the real game changer is the big LCD displays like WOZ has. Fortunately when PC sims eventually replicate that style of scoring (on a second monitor), I'm covered.

Anyway, as far as the real DMD, I think it's partially just a perspective thing. To pinheads, adding new toys, color DMDs, etc., etc. is how a lot of guys try to continue getting fulfillment out of machines that in many cases they've had for years on end. To people like me who do not have the luxury of owning any real pins, simply attempting to replicate the nostalgia of the original pins is fulfilling enough.

Now all that being said, if I was building a virtual pin again today, I would probably just stick an LCD in there and be done. There have been several advancements in the virtual pinball world recently that do make it a better overall bet. In the meantime, I'm not ditching my $400 Vishay DMD and redesigning my back box to fit another LCD screen, so I'll hold out hope that Zen will eventually add PinDMD support. They were interested enough in the idea of supporting real DMDs to purchase one along with a PinDMD board. That's obviously no guarantee they'll move forward with it. But if they eventually do, that's great for me and the hundreds of other people that have real DMDs in their pincabs...

Anyone local or semi local to Columbus, Ohio looking to get into a 2/3 size machine for a good price? Asking $2100 for a show / demo model that has been to a couple of pinball shows. It just has a tiny scratch near the rear and side of the unit on the left backbox side, but other than that it is in super excellent condition. Looking someone local or semi local to Columbus, OH. Can deliver within 2.5 hours for a delivery fee of $1.33 per mile (charged just TO your location only)

Processer is a 3.4ghz i5 with 650GTX video, 64gig SSD, 4 gig RAM, 32" playfield and 23.5" backbox monitor. PM me or post here if you are interested or for more pics.

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This unit is SOLD.

Anyone know whats the best type of paint
to use on a VP Cab? going to have some custom
decals done on it. thanks

I sanded down an old Panthera cabinet and then just used Wal-Mart brand black spraypaint on the body before applying my decals made by Gameongrafix with little issues. However if you are looking for a little more strength, this is what a professional sign company uses on their outdoor signs. Loctite spray adhesive.

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thanks for the advice. iam using a new cabinet. the custom decals have
adhesive on them. was wondering what type of paint work best

Primer then light sand is best

As long as the wood is sanded smooth and dust removed I've had great success with just applying directly to the wood with the adhesive that my printer puts on the back of the decals. Spray paint actually creates a bit of a roughness after you paint... so unless you paint and then lightly sand again it won't be as smooth as I personally would like it to be. FWIW some of the wood I've been using lately has been pre-primed on one side, but I hate sanding primed wood... gunks up your paper real quick... so half the time I actually try to put the primed sides on the inside of the cabinet because they are just more of a pain to sand compared to regular flat black.

Can anyone here who has built a few of these give me the details of their build. Right now I have a widebody cab, the computer works and various decals that I am going to put on the cab. Various build rundowns or lists would help out right now Im trying to figure out the best way to get the moniter into the cab.

Thanks Bub2010. Do you suggest painting the
cabinet by hand than spray painting? what gloss
of paint would you recommend? sorry for
all the questions. the decals are going
to be spendy and wanna do it right n not
have to reorder new ones haha

If you want a perfectly smooth finish on your graphic then I would use a flat primer applied with a foam roller followed by a light sand and then apply the graphic. We did 50 or so this way before switching to factory pre-primed plywood.

this is a old site with alot of info
http://pinacolada.danielpotter.com/cabinet-parts-guide/step-2-pinball-parts.html

…..not mine just a cool one I found

Thanks Shakenbake for the info. I"ll try
that..

great pix and designs.

thx

All my monitors have been gravity mounted. Just screw a couple 2x2's to the inside and rest the monitor on it.

Flat paint is always best for anything you want black.. Touches up basically perfect. Spraypaint followed by brillo pad body sanding style pads gets stuff SUPER smooth and takes off very little material overall. They sell 3 different colors... gray, green, and red. I've usually used the gray and red pads... never tried green. They are all different "grit levels".

Here is one I just finished for myself. Went ahead and did the side rails a matching custom color. Was thinking about doing the orange/dark blue thing, but thought this looked better and more uniform.

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Looks Sweet! does yours have force feedback
and all the extra toys. does anyone sell a kit with force feedback thats easy
to install? would like to add it on mine. thanks

Here's my virtual pin...VPCabs mini. Quality build and great company to deal with. Thanks, Brad!

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The only thing I dislike about these vpincab builds is the orientation of the playfield monitor. It is deeper in the back perhaps to simulate a real pinball playfield. But unfortunately, that makes it significantly more difficult to view the back of the playfield on the monitor. If anything you want it steeper in back so it points at you better. Then raise your leg levelers so the back is as high a possible and the front as low as possible. It may be less noticeable on a 24" mini but for sure a big deal on a full size build.

I've always wondered about angle of the monitor. I can definitely see what you mean. I also think it looks best to at least tilt set the monitor into the cab at least a little bit. The cabinets with the screen set flush to the top (or close to it) look pretty unnatural.

We've experimented with a lot of options and this one seems best. When Kinect head tracking is implemented on some future builds this angle will prove to be best. I hear your point though Markmon.

I agree, the tilted monitor about 3 inches lower at the top gives the best feeling of depth to your senses. My first 2 cabs i used had flush monitors where the top was flush woth the sides and i prefer the sunken config. I also prefer the pin2k style cab with reflecting monitor, which is what my current rig is configured.

I don't expect kinect head tracking to *ever* be implemented in pinball fx2. There's some discussion on it for VP but that isn't nearly as cool as the other platforms coming out.

I just can't see how any of they helps with the sunken monitor, though. It's simply hard to see what's on the screen at the rear. Its wonderful to walk up to the cabinet and think it looks natural. But that doesn't hold up to a bit of time playing the game. The monitors don't handle off viewing angles that well. Even ones with great viewing angles are still better straight on. Why would you add to this problem further by sinking the monitor into the cabinet? The ideal viewing angle for the monitor would be if the persons eyes were centered to the center of the screen and if the top and bottom of the screen were equidistant to the eyes. This view is impossible as the player is closer to the front. So the least you can do is angle the monitor to help, not hinder, the problem.

Unless there is an unforeseen compatibility issue this will be happening very soon. Zen & Microsoft Gaming both have one of our machines in R&D right now.

I understand what they have. But they don't prioritize this stuff. The last effort to just to move the dmd
Window was when they had only 1 day allotted.

Gregh43.. No.. I haven't gotten into force feedback and I do like the flush mount monitor for the reasons that markmon mentioned. I actually think the sub and the internal sounds provided by the games is feedback enough without all of the extra gear. I did put a motion board in this particular one for myself, but I'm not a big pin shaker FWIW.

I build functional budget model machines for folks. I have played and talked to shakenbake about their VPCabs at a couple of shows and like Lonnie. Nice guy. I think we both agree that each other build a solid machine that appeal to different folks for different reasons. Ones like I've shown here are $2500-2600 pending a couple of small options.

Everyone I've ever talked to.. both previous customers and people that check them out at the pinball shows really like them.

A few pics of the new TWD mini.

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Cool, nice side art on there.

You guys should really offer your mini with a choice of your Zombie Madness side art too... I like it better than the "standard" art that came with my mini.

Any of you guys willing to give some specs/dimensions/plans on your builds? I'm contemplating building one...I would buy one, but (call me cheap) I can save a few hundred bucks by just doing it myself. Besides, I'd rather get the experience of building it and piecing it together. The computer part isn't hard, it's just the cabinet and monitor setup that I'm trying to figure out.

Ours are CNC cut so there's not a plan per say. I'd recommend hitting up mameman on the Hyperspin forum and see if he will make you a flat pack.

Oh cool - thanks. Yeah, if I could just buy a cab, that would help me tremendously as I can get refurb LED TVs for cheap. The cab though...Goodness, ha.

Thanks Bub for the info. it was helpful. It would be nice to see a fully loaded VP in person. but iam
not close to any pinball shows in my area. Theres a VP for sale on Craigslist Minneapolis for
$5000 with everything. seller says he has $8000 in it. iam in the process of getting one put together. but appreciate
your opinion on spending the extra money for the toys. What Sub and Speakers do you recommend. I would like to have a kick ass sound system. Also having a cabinet decals done by DFWARCADE(Hyperspin Site). He does excellent work if anyone needs decals. Thanks 85Vette for referring me..

Here's a link to my ongoing build. I've included parts list, price and link for almost everything. It's playable, but not finished.

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?30147-MORTAL-(pinball)-KOMBAT-a-build-thread

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http://www.woot.com/plus/vizio-led-smart-tvs

I'm thinking of buying a playfield monitor from these options. Super cheap Vizio LED TVs? Yes please. Will these work?

I've owned a few real pins including an ACDC with a Flipper Fidelity system and honestly the sub and sound quality out of quite a few small 2.1 systems costing around $50 or less sound better than even a FF system. The FF systems sound good, but the bass you get out of a real sub.. (even a small one) is just un-matched. Another nice thing with virtual is potential for using headphones easily. The sky is the limit, but just think.. you're not buying a home theater setup here.. the quality of even a stern of FF system is not home theater quality.... let alone that most music and samples in a pin aren't what you'd call THX quality either.

You have to know what size cab you are making/getting before looking at tvs. It matters.
Generally a pin2k style uses a 37 inch, standard width uses a 40 inch and widebody WPC uses a 42 inch (or 46 if you want to cut down the sides). Figure out the style you want before looking at the tvs.

Pin2k is standard width. You can use a 39" for a pin2k or standard width sized cabinet.

Yeah, I really have no idea what size I'd want to make at this point. Ideally, whatever is closest to a standard pin. Do widebody pins look odd on a non-widebody VP?

Nothing looks odd. It's all naturally scaled. Zen pinball are all wide body games. Id go as big a monitor as you can fit in your cabinet. You should also buy a monitor, test to make sure there's no noticeable input lag before you install it.

Has Pinball Arcade for PC updated to allow the DMD on a 2nd monitor yet?

Problem is that I don't HAVE a cab to work with. I'll have to build my own or buy a cab kit!

Not that I have seen

If it were me, I would go with standard width cabinet, 39" led tv, then build the cab a bit short so there is no need for extra dead space and so DMD can be right at end of playfield. It gives a cv type play effect. You should build the PC first and get say zen pinball working on it - since its super easy to install and test with. Make sure to set max pretendered frames to 1 in vid card settings then test tvs as you buy to insure no lag. Once you find a tv without lag you can build your cab around it. Sticking to standard with cabinets lets you use standard lockdown bars though.

I went with a 46" tv. That's almost perfect width for a widebody game. Even then, the tv is about 6" inches to short in depth to match a real pin. I plan to fill this space in with instruction cards for the virtual cabinet. If you go with a smaller tv then your cabinet will be stubby or have large empty spaces in front of, or behind the playfield.

If you plan to place your virtual pin inline with other games, then I believe that anything smaller then 42" is unacceptable. I've played 37" cabinets and their noticeably smaller then a real pin, if everything is proportioned properly.

Most led tvs have a "game mode", this is best. It usually has the fastest image response time, and to do this reduces the refresh rate to 60hz. So a 120hz tv is overkill. I spent my money on a good 60hz led sony. The playfield is the one thing you don't want to cheap out on. Your cabinet is built around the tv. Other components can be switched out easier.

Thanks. Yeah, its tough. Really, I could care less if it LOOKS authentic, as long as the playfield, back glass, and DMD screens are all good. I don't need authentic side rails, hinges, lockdowns, etc. Just a good cab to store the goods in.

Ok if you want to design for optimum playability rather than looks, try to keep these things in mind:

1) low input lag monitor
2) keep monitor near glass so you can view the back easily
3) keep dmd monitor as close to the very back edge of monitor as you can
4) 40-46" all provide very good play experiences.
5) do not design for only visual pinball / hyper pin. There are better things out and you want flexibility to run everything. I think pinball fx2 is the current best thing out.
6) keep the monitor as close to the lockdown bar as possible. Do not move it back or center it.
7) use authentic flipper buttons such as leaf switches, pin2k buttons rather than arcade buttons. This helps prevent some perceived lag. Microswitches engage at the end of the press while leafs can be calibrated to engage at the start.

This is a custom built cab that has to fit under my wall mounted tv. The placement of the DMD monitor is awesome for game play.
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Here is a pin2k conversion with 39" monitor and closely mounted DMD
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Thanks - yeah, I will be designing with FX2 in mind. I've built my fair share of gaming computers. That's one thing I CAN do, haha.