Tilt/plumbob assembly or mercury switch ?

[spidermonkey]

I want to replace my nudge buttons on the sides of my control panel with some kind of motion sensitive switch. Happ has a tilt plumbob for regular pinball machines but unlike real pinball machines I have to create the nudging instead of just shaking the cabinet and a tilt plumbob is really designed to activate if the machine is REALLY jolted. I need a switch that activates EVERY time I nudge either side of the cab. The tilt activates automatically if the nudge button is pushed a couple times so thats not a problem because its built into the software. I just want to know if any of you guys have used some type of motion sensitive switch instead of just buttons and if so what kind ? I'm not running PINMAME yet just regular pc cd rom pinball games.

[DEMENTED]

A slam switch  might work.  SEE http://www.happcontrols.com/amusement/pinball/95417600.htm

I would avoid mercury switches out of general principles.  

[mahuti]

I have one of those slam switches on my defender cabinet...
you have to really beat the crap out of it to activate that slam switch. It's definately not for "nudging" a ball by any means,. Originally, that's for setting the machine's "tilt" option and resetting it, or turning it off, or stopping the game.

[Popcorrin]

Check out http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade_vdt.shtml

[mahuti]

Wow, that's cool. I just bought 2. That's a special order only item, though. They don't carry them in ANY of their stores apparently. Even the local real-deal electronics stor doesn't carry them.

[spidermonkey]

That thing is pretty cool however I would need three of these because a couple of my cd rom pinball games have left,right and forward nudge buttons so if I were to nudge the machine say .. to the left (for instance) how would I keep the other two detectors from tripping at the same time ? If all three vib detectors trip all at once then who knows which direction the virtual pinball table would be nudged towards ?  When you nudge a machine you usually nudge it on the side that will cause the ball to go in the direction thats in your favor but if the wrong vib detector trips and registers before the one that I intended to trip then the ball will shift in the opposite direction that I wanted it to. After thinking about this I think the plumbob/pendulum switch will probably be the best choice because it swings between two metal tabs so for the switch on the left I could remove the right hand tab from the switch so that it can only be tripped if the machine is nudged to the right. Then for the right hand switch I would remove or put tape over the left hand metal tab so that it would only trip when nudging the machine to the left. I think the switch for the forward nudge could be left alone since it would be perpendicular to the other switches so I don't think left and right nudges would trip it. Well.. once I get them and wire them up I'll post the results. Thanks for all the input guys.

[grafixmonkey]

A weight on the end of a spring is a good way to detect a nudge too.  Connect one wire to the spring, another wire to a bar close to the weight so the weight hits it when you move the assembly.  It might take some effort to make it sense different directions though, and it senses impacts not tilting - the plumb bob would be good for sensing tilting.  You could rig it to have separate tilt-contacts around the plumb bob, in three or four different directions, to let you nudge in different directions.