Hyperspace Pinball

[Gilrock]

This is not a new project but my original build thread on another site was lost.  I built this virtual pinball in 2013 and I've found most of my build photos.  I'll be posting them later but for now I took a short teaser video.  Keep in mind I was trying to play with one hand while holding the phone.  The name came from a combination of using HyperPin at the time along with being an amateur astronomer.  I thought of the term Hyperspace.  At the time I didn't even know there was a game out there with the same name.

[Arroyo]

Nice build, looks very clean.

[meltman]

That looks incredible.

Was the cabinet a conversion or a scratch build? What sort of interface did you use for the score display (and what was the display)?

[Gilrock]

It was a scratch build.  You'll see when I start posting the build photos.  I need to do a good video that shows me opening it up.  The playfield tv I mounted to a wood frame that has garage door wheels with rails on the sidewalls so I can roll the monitor back and lift it out to access the bottom inside.  The playfield is a 42" Samsung decased.  The backglass monitor is a 28" ViewSonic 16:10 ratio because 16:9 seemed to look too squished for typical backglass images.  And the score display started out as a PinDMD2 when first built so it only did shades of orange.  Last summer I upgraded to a PinDMD3 so the score can do full color.

[Mike A]

That is some nice work.

[nipsmg]

This is beautiful.  I've been wanting to build one for a long time.. this just sparked my curiosity again.

A couple questions:

Is this a widebody or a standard body?
What size TV is the playfield?
What are the 4 colored buttons on the front for?
Why 2 sets of flipper buttons?

[Gilrock]

This is beautiful.  I've been wanting to build one for a long time.. this just sparked my curiosity again.

A couple questions:

Is this a widebody or a standard body?
What size TV is the playfield?
What are the 4 colored buttons on the front for?
Why 2 sets of flipper buttons?

It's a standard body.  I used my Williams Time Warp machine to copy most of the measurements.  I just listed all the monitor sizes last post.  The playfield is a 42" Samsung but you remove the case from the TV and it fits perfect in that width and I use a piece of 1/8" black plastic as a bezel around the TV inside.  The 4 colored buttons I was pretty much following what I saw others doing on the HyperPin forum.  The top blue button is usually for Exit/Back/Esc type operations.  The other 3 I really don't use much but people set them up to do things like bring up a help menu or pop up the instructions/flyers for whatever game you are playing.  The 2 sets of flippers is because some pinball tables have upper flippers and other tables used the second button for magna save.  I have a real pinball and I still find this fun to play because you can experience other tables you could never possibly own.  And its decked out with toys.  I have 7 contactors so when you press the flippers or the ball hits the bumpers there is a physical knock inside the cabinet that simulates an old school solenoid so it makes it feel more realistic.  There is a gear drive and a shaker.  When you play Attack From Mars and hit that spaceship that shaker vibrates the table so much its sort of becomes annoying.  It decked out with a car stereo amplifier and subwoofer.  I've also run Jukebox software on this thing and it can rock out.

[Malenko]

what kind of hardware are you running, and have you been keeping up with the updates I think VPX 10.6 Beta is out meow.
I started putting the 4k tables on my machine and it chokes on some of them.


You say you run Color DMD.... use any of my colorizations? Lethal Weapon 3, Street Fighter II, Godzilla, Terminator 2, Baywatch, etc etc etc

[Gilrock]

I replaced the computer 6 months ago because I kept having issues with the PinUp videos lagging and the backglass images/videos had flashes.  Upgraded to a Ryzen 7 and now it's smooth.  It was the first time I've given AMD another try in many years and its working great.  Pretty sure I'm on VPX 10.5 I updated over the summer.  To be honest I spend more time building and designing and configuring software than I do actually playing.  I don't recall if I have any of those DMD colorizations.

[Gilrock]

I started off creating this SketchUp model although I'm pretty sure I started building before I had those graphics created.  As mentioned before most of the measurements matched my Williams Time Warp Pinball machine.



I looked at the joints on my real pinball machine and liked how the pieces locked together so I went in search of how it's done and ended up buying this router bit:



I ran spare pieces of wood through the router to fine tune the cut distance:





For the joint to work one side needs to be run through the bit with the wood lying flat:





The other side needs to be run through the router vertical.
I used my spare test boards to space a big piece of wood I had lying around that would help support the piece as I pushed it through the router.



I placed a board on top to help provide sideways pressure as I pushed the board along.



More to come...

[Gilrock]

It looks like after routing the edges I got a little slack on taking photos.  The next ones I see are after I've already glued the backbox together.  I was really just winging it on whether I needed airflow so I cutout air intake holes on top and a big hole in the middle for an 8" fan.

[Gilrock]

That is some nice work.

Thanks Mike!  Sounds like I will get to meet you at ZapCon.

[Gilrock]

Next I have photos of all the PC parts I bought but that was in 2013 and I rebuilt the computer last summer so later I'll dig out what I have for the new specs.  But here's a few photos of the original PC build all together.  I had an old PC case that I cut apart so that I could have the bottom and the back panel.  The back panel ended up flimsy after all the cutting so I had to bend some aluminum to make a U-shaped piece that helped secure it to the wood.  It just sits inside the cabinet in an open frame and I secure that board its mounted on with a single wood screw to keep it from sliding around.

Update:  I noticed there is a CD/DVD player in the photos.  I only used that to get the OS up and running.

[Mike A]

That is some nice work.

Thanks Mike!  Sounds like I will get to meet you at ZapCon.

Nice. Last year was my first time out there. It was awesome. The people are great.

[Gilrock]

And apparently I didn't take any photos of cutting out the main body.  The next set of photos the body is already built and I'm designing a system that will allow the TV to roll on a rail to make it easier to take it out when I need to work inside.

This is the part I created for the inside rails:



And here it is mounted inside the cab:



I removed the back cover from the TV.  Can't remember exactly why it could be that folks recommended it for better airflow since its inside another box or maybe it was in the way for a good fit.  I build a wood housing to mount to the TV and then installed garage door rollers that will roll on the other wooden rail pieces.





And as most things go you run into needing mods to make it fit.  The wood frame was hitting the rails so I had to route these grooves near the wheel so the rail would clear.

[Gilrock]

After designing my artwork I had it printed by a guy named Bradley who went by the profile Lucian045 on the HyperSpin forum.  Not sure if anyone here uses him for printing but he's still doing it because he printed my control panel for my MAME arcade and it should be here tomorrow.

As mentioned earlier this was back in 2013 and I was in the HyperPin forum and I was just coming off of being deep in the hobby of amateur astonomy so I came up with the name Hyperspace Pinball.

The artwork I designed (to be honest I'm not liking my lettering anymore and sometimes itch to redo the whole thing with a new theme):





I used a Hubble image for the background but that image of Saturn on the backbox was taken by me using a webcam and an image stacking program:
http://www.threebuttes.com/Saturn.htm

Photos right after I installed the artwork:





And in this one you can see my Time Warp machine behind it:

[Gilrock]

The last old photo I can find I've got the 28" ViewSonic 16:10 monitor mounted in the backbox, speakers are mounted, and the TV is up and running so the computer and button wiring was probably done.  Not sure I had any of the toys wired up yet.  After this I'll have to try to get the machine in some good lighting and photo how the inside turned out and how things come apart.

[bperkins01]

Very nice - I need to try a video pinball some day...
then build one
then find a place to put it..
great job!

[Gilrock]

One primary recommendation I have to anyone building a virtual pinball is buy your playfield TV and backglass monitor before you finalize your measurements.  You can figure out preliminary cabinet measurements and use that to help guide your TV purchase and then get it home, decide if you're removing some of the case and then take final measurements.  I believe I got the same advice before I started and it worked out well.  They probably thought I was weird when I pulled out the tape measure in Walmart and was measuring TV's on the wall...lol.

[bperkins01]

Great advice - its basically how I designed my game cabinet..  It took a while to determine a 32" screen would support the 19" vertical screen size to match the CRT's.  I loved playing pinball too

[Gilrock]

I'm moving all my pinball/arcade stuff into a different room so it gave me a chance to photograph the inside of this vpin.  Hopefully the pics may inspire someone to build one or help spawn ideas.

Full View of the inside:


ViewSonic 28" 16:10 monitor for the backglass


Open chassis computer mounted in the back


Middle area shows the car stereo amplifier and power supply, LedWiz card, ZebBoard that runs all the toys, and some of the contactors for realism feedback


Front area shows coin door, switches, and a plunger/nudge detection board


Another angle of the inside


The view from the coin door shows how I built a shelf to have room to put items under other stuff.  To the right are the shaker and gear motor, 10" subwoofer in the middle.  On the left underneath not visible is an ATX power supply to run the ZebBoard.  Air vents for intake to flow through cab and rear fan exhaust the air.


The back of the speaker panel with DMD display.  There are 2 small holes beside the speaker where I used to have PlayStation Eye cameras mounted and was fully setup to run BAM to make the tables look 3D.  At one point I thought they might be contributing to PC lag so I pulled them out since I didn't use it much.  Turned out it didn't help so I upgraded the PC which fixed it.


The speaker panel mounting cubby holes.  I must have pulled that panel on/off at least 10 times trying to get the initial fit correct.


The TV lays in on those tracks and then you lower it in place and rollers guide it backwards


TV set in place (42" Samsung):


TV cut from ABS just lays in place


Cabinet is fully reassembled

[Laythe]

I like your garage door roller TV setup.  That's slick.   

Nice looking cabinet!

[Malenko]

Awwww dude, I love it. You and laythe are gonna make me build a full sized vpin. I didn't scroll back through, but what did you use for the dmd?

[Gilrock]

I bought this one:
PinDMD v3

There is also a DIY version you can build that's lower cost.  I can't remember why I didn't use it.  I either found out about it after I had already bought the other one or it was too many hoops to jump through to get the firmware and too many posts to sort through to figure out how to get the task done.
http://vpuniverse.com/forums/topic/3831-pin2dmd-for-125-diy/

[javeryh]

Damn I really want one of these things.  Absolutely stunning job. 

Is the software tough to set up?  Seems like a lot of different things that all have to work together.

[Gilrock]

Damn I really want one of these things.  Absolutely stunning job. 

Is the software tough to set up?  Seems like a lot of different things that all have to work together.

Well there are a ton of different emulations you can run so setting them all up can take work but there are instructions for everything.  I like the PinUp system which has a detailed guide here:
http://www.nailbuster.com/wikipinup/doku.php?id=install_guide

[javeryh]

Damn I really want one of these things.  Absolutely stunning job. 

Is the software tough to set up?  Seems like a lot of different things that all have to work together.

Well there are a ton of different emulations you can run so setting them all up can take work but there are instructions for everything.  I like the PinUp system which has a detailed guide here:
http://www.nailbuster.com/wikipinup/doku.php?id=install_guide

Thanks...  I'll add it to the list of projects I want to do before I die!  Although with something like this I don't think I'd get to enjoy it that long - my wife would kill me as soon as she saw it.   

[Mike A]

By the time you finished it you would be 90 anyways.

[javeryh]

By the time you finished it you would be 90 anyways.

Maybe but I'd still get a solid 10 years out of it!

[Malenko]

I bought this one:
PinDMD v3

I prefer the Pin2DMD, I thought thats what you had. Does it play the colorized games? Ive done almost a done games now.

[Gilrock]

Like I said by the time I discovered the Pin2DMD they had locked down access and it required a PayPal donation to get a hardware access key.  I'm pretty sure I bought the card that runs it and then never finished all the hoops you gotta jump through to make it work.  I don't even remember what mine plays I've been focused on the arcade cabs the past year.