DIY pinball table

DIY pinball table
founder:	czestmyr
depends on:
interested:	chido
software license:
hardware license:

I have always wanted to create a real pinball machine. There are a lot of companies that sell pinball table hardware, but it would be cool to create all the bumpers, traps, targets and other stuff ourselves. I'm still not sure how big this project would be, so some analysis would be needed.

• Creating the mechanics could be challenging and help the project's participants gain some hardware-related skills, which would prove useful in other projects, for example in robotics.
• If we came up with an open and modular design that would allow other people to create their own tables, it would be even more cool
• Stunning graphics and sound. We need artistically gifted people on this one.
• Most of all it would be fun to have our own pinball table to play on

• If we added a coin mechanism to the table, we could profit from people playing on it
• Before doing anything in hardware, the design's gameflow has to be tested on a simulator
• I can imagine some matrix of holes where we will be able to put all bumpers and traps. It can be very modular pinball, so we will be able to change the maze very easily when we'll got bored. harvie

There are two ways to do this. We can either buy an old machine and start refurbishing it or we can begin thinking up a design in a simulator and try to create the needed board elements and electronics one at a time.

Currently, a week-long pinball hacking session is planned in November 2010. We will probably take the road of creating the table from scratch using an existing design.

Interesting forum post http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=23428.0
Commercial pinball parts for inspiration http://www.marcospecialties.com
Wikipedia has a nice article with description of some board elements http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pinball

Ben Heck and his Bill Paxton-themed pinball machine from scratch
Jerri Elsworth was also designing a table. She made a few videos
Felipe Sanches is building a remake of the Party Land table from the Pinball Fantasies computer game

Future Pinball simulator. It's a Windoze app, but has a nice editor. http://www.futurepinball.com

Or, just Google “DIY pinball”, “homemade pinball”, “pinball repair”, etc…