Custom Pins: Impending Doom and Alien Insurrection

[spoot]

   There has been a bit of discussion in another thread about scratch built pinball machines. Some have asked about progress........so here I go. I'm the process of building two of them for twice the crazy. One is 'Alien Insurrection' and is based on the Alien franchise (mostly the first two movies) and the second is 'Impending Doom' which is based on Invader Zim.
   They are both based on the P-roc hardware to handle all lamp/switch/coil/etc events and Beaglebone Blacks for the brains of the operation. The Beaglebone Black and some Raspberry Pis will talk over an ethernet switch for offloading some of the audio/effects and embedded LCD playfield panels. I might just use I2C communication but we'll see. Still deciding if I'll have a DMD on Alien Insurrection or not and Impending Doom will not have one. Both machines will have LCD panel "backglass".
   As for progress there isn't much to display at the moment as it's mostly just python code using the pypinproc library, lots of notes, playfield design experiments, some playfield toys, boxes of parts and thoughts scattered around in my brain.
   A bunch of Molex connectors from Mouser should be here tomorrow so I can start wiring up the main boards. The python main engine is running and am currently working on the modes and general switch/lamp mechanics. Hopefully I'll have "first flip" this weekend or next on a whitewood.
   Ramps will be vacuum formed along with hydro dripping for some of the parts. Trim and legs will be powder coated. I've not done any of these things before so it should be quite a mess. 
   Anyways, this will be a “slow-burn” for progress and pics/vids will be posted now and then when there is sumthing worth showing.  I doubt people would want to see a screen shot of my subversion repository with checkins.  And that is about all it's been for the past several months.

Some pics of stuff below......then my camera battery died.....and my camcorder battery is deader than Elvis.  Sigh.

The lab of DOOM!


The beginnings of insanity:
Beaglebone Black with Audio Cape, P-roc, PD-LED, Power Driver 16, Zeb's DMD power, Plasma DMD


More power!
Power supply for P-roc and toys, containers of parts and toys, coil power supply and some flipper assemblies


More toys for playfield, lcd panels, 16 “port” relay and other misc stuff, in back you'll see containers full of posts, inserts, wire connectors, lamp covers, etc

[pbj]

Good luck, I'll be watching this one.

 

[spoot]

Thanks PBJ.  To be honest I thought you'd be the first in line to tell me I was crazy.   

[thomas_surles]

So are you saying this is going to be real pins and not visual pinball?

[ebarlow99]

sweet jesus!!! im just learning about this.....very cool! can't wait to see what you come up with.

 

[mattgold]

In the words of Paul Heitsch...

[spoot]

@thomas_surles

Yeppers

@mattgold

Hehe, nice Smash TV reference.

[m1cky69]

WOW! This looks a big challenge. HAts off ya for attempting these. Shall be following your thread for sure.

[jennifer]

       I would be one to discourage somebody from such an undertaking (Jennifer shall sit quietly and watch) .... However a few things come to mind as observations, Powder is a poor choice IMO, for the trim, its easily compromised as compared to stainless, .... The flow of the game, this would take considerable thought before the blank could be implemented as a test, or a redesign would set you back before the final build.... The playfield, This is advanced woodworking done on a milling machine, (Wisconsin maple ply) ...And finally this brings me to where Jenn is with her project, The art... Normally done with screens, The "cheap" lights aren't really an option for these exposures, so large format at  least (again IMO) in the 1500- 3000 Watt (single point MH) area is in your future, To even to begin get decent halftones and fine lines you will need.

[Vigo]

Good luck! 

[Generic Eric]

    my camcorder battery is deader than Elvis.  Sigh.

So you are saying there is still a chance?

[spoot]

    my camcorder battery is deader than Elvis.  Sigh.

So you are saying there is still a chance?

Chance of what?  Dying on the toilet?  Well, I'm out of shape and do have heart-issues so there is a chance I spose. 

[ChanceKJ]

This is the point where someone I know would make a lame pun about my first name: "Chance". Thankfully I won't. But I will say this. Elvis is dead, for good, and NEVER coming back (thankfully).

Back on topic: As a massive Zim fan all I can say is. SWEEEET!!  And it better contain a robot bee, somehow. (And maybe a moose) or it's a banishment to Foodcourtia for you.

[spoot]

This is the point where someone I know would make a lame pun about my first name: "Chance". Thankfully I won't. But I will say this. Elvis is dead, for good, and NEVER coming back (thankfully).

Back on topic: As a massive Zim fan all I can say is. SWEEEET!!  And it better contain a robot bee, somehow. (And maybe a moose) or it's a banishment to Foodcourtia for you.

Yes, minimoose will make an appearance (probably when battling santa) and robot bee?  What robot bee?  A normal non-human bee took out the voot-cruiser.  And yes.....planing a "War of the Bees" multiball.     Maybe the room with a moose can be a houseball or tilt or sumthing.

[spoot]

Total facepalm........OH!  Rainbows!  THAT robot bee.  Forgot about him.

[ChanceKJ]

Context for non-ZimFans:

[pbj]

I've considered the whole custom theme thing before, and I've even bought a couple of games to sand down and do it.  The problem is I always turd polished them up and couldn't bring myself to bust out the belt sander.  Pretty much every theme has been done to varying extents.... and man, that wiring harness.  Yeesh.

[Le Chuck]

I really want to do a "Little Shop of Horrors" pin, I feel that IP is just begging for it but I haven't found a donor that is cheap enough with a playfield I like.

[jennifer]

  The problem is I always turd polished them up and couldn't bring myself to bust out the belt sander. 

     While on that.... Jennifer must apologize, apparently Mop and glow in some circles is an accepted form of playfield rejuvenation.

[AlienInferno]

Dude this sounds awesome!  Love Invader Zim.  I have thought about doing something like this as well.  You could figure out how the game play and setup is going to be in something like visual pinball, CNC's could easily cut the play field, and you can still find people who do screen printing for the play field and back glass if you are so inclined.

I mean just look at what the guy who made the Star Trek : Mirror Universe pin did. 

[Drnick]

I mean just look at what the guy who made the Star Trek : Mirror Universe pin did.

That was some impressive work,  took an hour or so to go through the entire thread but it was worth it.

[ChanceKJ]

That Trek pin is incredible.   Hmmmm, Nixie tubes.

  you guys are jerks, I want a pin now.  Not possible given the room I have and all the other projects,  one day I guess.

[spoot]

Some of this weekends work.......

[ChanceKJ]

Haha! Don't sound so defeated.

I like the effect with chunks of the letters flashing in like that. I can see what you mean about the timing, but overall it looks great. Artistically if I was calling the shots I'd italicizes the "Insurrection" and maybe have it wipe on screen from left to right as a final animation, but that's just my own meandering, subjective opinion.

[spoot]

The "chunks" are from the original movie opening....I still need to fade them in.  And tweak the insurrection stuff.   

Anyways, here is today's work and yesterday's work.  This is the "complete" running attract sequence.  Obviously several of the screens need updated/new art.  It's been kinda weird essentially doing ascii art again in this day and age.   

[spoot]

Progress:
Moved to the dev branches of libpinproc, procgame and pyprocgame for new features and bug fixes
Moved to new PD-LED library for new features
Experimented with neopixel leds controlled by Arduino
More experimental design layouts for playfield
Lots of work in garage prepping build area
Began programming interface between Beaglebone Black and the Arduinos for NeoPixel control
Setup PyBBIO for serial communications via the Beaglebone
Soldered several shields together for controlling servos, step motors, lcds, etc.

[spoot]

After bashing my head against the table for a week trying to "talk" over USB hub to the connected Arduinos I finally get em working last night.  OTOH, I learned alot about usb bus/device/id's etc.   

Why am I using Arduino's when I'm using a Beagle Bone Black which has alot of GPIOs?  Well, to save processing power/memory on the BBB.  I'll just send short commands over USB serially to tell the Arduinos to worry about some of the lightshows, LCDs, stepper motors, etc leaving the BBB to do it's work running the corresponding pinball engine/code.

[spoot]

Heart is once again operational.  Medical bills nearly dead.

Beginning work again.   

[a1pharm]

The problem is I always turd polished them up and couldn't bring myself to bust out the belt sander.

PBJ, you're quite the wordsmith...

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