Alternative visual/future pinball plunger

[thomas_surles]

Does anybody have any creative ways to use a pinball plunger with visual pinball? I know there are the fancy pre made ones specifically for that, but I am looking into making one of my own.

Do you think an IR sensor like this: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2168
Would work?

I know I could probably get away with using like a coin door switch or something.

Anybody have some good ideas?

[PL1]

Does anybody have any creative ways to use a pinball plunger with visual pinball? I know there are the fancy pre made ones specifically for that, but I am looking into making one of my own.

Do you think an IR sensor like this: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2168
Would work?

The question here is what kind of plunger do you want:

1. Simple digital
This can be done with a microswitch or the make/break sensor you posted.

It works the same as pressing and holding the ENTER key until the plunger reaches the desired strength.

The downside to this approach is that it requires precise timing -- if you overshoot, there is no way to reduce plunger strength.

2. Low-res analog/optical (probably not worth the effort)
You can probably put several of the make/break sensors side-by-side with dividers between them.

The resolution is limited to the plunger travel distance divided by the width of a sensor+divider.

For example, 4" plunger travel / .5" sensor+divider = limit of 8 sensors.

3. High-res analog/optical
IIRC the VirtuaPin plunger uses a proximity sensor (can be tricky to get this working decently) or you can use an optical gaming mouse like I did here.



A possible downside to the mouse approach is that analog nudging uses the mouse y-axis same as the shooter.

Not sure if VP has the equivalent of MAME's "multimouse".   


Scott

[thomas_surles]

Yes the optical mouse is exactly the out of the box thinking I was looking for. I totally forgot about your build. Thank you. I believe that is the way I will go.