(Topic ID: 147597)

What did Santa bring you for Christmas? (Pin, arcade, gameroom related)

By arcademojo

8 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

You

Linked Games

No games have been linked to this topic.

    Topic Gallery

    View topic image gallery

    IMG_20151231_150054521_(resized).jpg
    santa_baby_002_(resized).JPG
    santa_baby_007_(resized).JPG
    santa_baby_006_(resized).JPG
    santa_baby_001_(resized).JPG
    image_(resized).jpg
    FU79HFVG33OQ7QC.LARGE_(resized).jpg
    IMG_0104_(resized).JPG
    IMG_20140914_092330_(resized).jpg
    IMG_20140803_195042_(1)_(resized).jpg
    IMG_20140730_203227_(resized).jpg
    2013-09-04_22.22.23_(resized).jpg
    2013-09-30_10.26.43_(resized).jpg
    2013-10-03_21.31.25_(resized).jpg
    CBA_(resized).jpg
    pinball_003_(resized).JPG

    You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider forceflow.
    Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

    #129 8 years ago
    Quoted from Compy:

    Santa brought me a Wizard Blocks!

    IMG_0104_(resized).JPG

    What's the story behind this aquisition?

    Any more photos or gameplay footage? I think the most I've seen of this game are some low-res photos and video.

    #137 8 years ago
    Quoted from Compy:

    Well, the story behind Wizard Blocks isn't really all that complicated. It is worth noting that the Wizard Blocks that I have is not one of the six original whitewoods that WMS had in their possession when they shut down pinball.
    The process goes something like this:
    1) Start out with a rough sketch of the playfield. The dimensions aren't exact at this point, just testing to see if the shots worked and what the rough insert layout looked like.
    2013-10-03_21.31.25_(resized).jpg
    2) Start documenting the cable run and switch matrix ordering to get an idea of what your wire lengths will be and what the logical order of the cable run will be. Repeat for lamp matrices.
    2013-09-30_10.26.43_(resized).jpg
    3) Do a really cheap test layout on MDF to get the shot layout correct and really test how the entire playfield kit fits into the P2K cabinet and make sure the hardware components on the playfield clear and line up.
    2013-09-04_22.22.23_(resized).jpg
    4) I then started designing the entire Wizard Blocks playfield using playfield scans of the existing whitewood and effectively tracing the result into CAD. The result after several iterations is a playfield that is identical to the original in geometry.
    IMG_20140730_203227_(resized).jpg
    5) I then fit the CAD playfield to the P2K side rails and playfield skid rails to test fit them into the cabinet and straighten the CNCed board out.
    IMG_20140803_195042_(1)_(resized).jpg
    6) Inserts were a bit of a trick. I was presented with multiple options. I could try to source inserts from Marco or Bay Area or PPS, but inserts in low runs are very expensive, and many of the inserts (lightning bolt and pill inserts used for the X) were either insanely expensive or unavailable. So, I went ahead and used the same CAD file I made to have inserts laser cut at a thickness slightly greater than the lip of the playfield insert route. This resulted in inserts that fit exactly into their respective holes and could be sanded level to the playfield. Overall this playfield has over 100 inserts.
    Ball guides and other weldments were either custom made or sourced from similar games from online parts suppliers. This was a trick, but having a spot welder handy has really been a saving grace.
    IMG_20140914_092330_(resized).jpg
    7) The current playfield uses bayonet style sockets for ALL lamps which makes wiring a nightmare. I have since then redesigned the electronics to use under playfield lamp boards to clean up the wiring and make things neater overall.
    IMG_0104_(resized).JPG
    The current iteration uses no original software from Pinball 2000. The original software, in fact, was never burnt to any ROM chips but must be run off of a standard P2K FLASH development board that WMS had used internally. This is basically the same thing but uses flash chips rather than ROM chips. The software in this version is powered by Unity3D so we can do all of the 3D rendering in real time. The parallel port interface has been scrapped by introducing a small custom parallel interface board that sits between the game PC and the driver board and communicates over USB.
    9) The next step was to get the spinning flashers working. Those were one of the most wicked things I'd ever seen on a game. So I went to visit a friend who has a tiny "maker space" in his basement to whip something up!
    » YouTube video
    All in all, I managed to get the whitewood flipping by Christmas which was a great gift! So there's a bit of history

    That's really cool You should start a dedicated thread about this project.

    How you handled the custom inserts was a clever approach.

    A lot of work sure went into this. Kudos

    Did you manage to obtain a copy of the software for the game, or was it built up from scratch?

    #139 8 years ago

    Have you thought about trying to contact the original designers? It might be worthwhile to see if they had any notes or ideas about certain areas of the game, theme, or modes.

    You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider forceflow.
    Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

    Reply

    Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

    Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

    Donate to Pinside

    Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


    This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-did-santa-bring-you-for-christmas-pin-related?tu=forceflow and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

    Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.