Visual/Video Pinball nudge panel?

[Spinach]

So I wasn't even that interested in pinball until I started reading all of these threads 

Has anyone ever hooked up a thin panel in the front of their cab and placed the nudge buttons under them?  I'm thinking spacing with springs, so you could give your cab a little hip action and it would press the nudge button.  Maybe use a spacer in the middle to distinguish between left/right?

Sorry if this has been done before, didn't see it in my search.

Also, is this the right forum for this?  Please move if not.

Thanks,
Spinach

[thatitalian]

I haven't heard of that, but mountain put a car alarm senor (so if the car gets nudged or moved the alarm sounds) so that when someone nudges the control panel the nudge feature activates.

Read more here

Quite a neat trick!

[Turnarcades]

Pretty cool it can be done, but I don't fancy the idea of banging my machine and definitely not letting any of my mates do it!

[drventure]

That's pretty click to use a car alarm shock sensor.

I'm working toward doing the same thing but using a wiimote (the accelerometer is pretty sensitive in those things) or using a USB accelerometer for robotics to simulate the nudge buttons. That way, the sensitivity is completely programmable (so you don't have to wail on the cab to get it to nudge.

Still, TurnerCades has a point. Don't want to encourage bashing cabs:)

Maybe I just won't tell anyone else about it

[Kevin Mullins]

You could use something simple like a slam switch commonly found on coin doors.
The sensitivity can be adjusted a bit by tweaking the leafs.

[drventure]

I wanted to do something more direct like that originally, but every mock up I tried, I ended up getting false positives in one direction or another (ie trying to trigger just a nudge left would often inadvertently trigger both a nudge left and a nudge right with all the mechanical designs I could come up with).

Thing is, the latest future pinball actually has a nudgex nudgey option (i'm guessing to feed it analog input from a stick or accelerometer, but I'm not sure yet, just happened to notice it on the config screen).

[Kevin Mullins]

I wanted to do something more direct like that originally, but every mock up I tried, I ended up getting false positives in one direction or another (ie trying to trigger just a nudge left would often inadvertently trigger both a nudge left and a nudge right with all the mechanical designs I could come up with).

Ah.... I hadn't messed with Visual Pinball or the likes in a looooong time.
I didn't realize that it even had a distinct "left' or "right" nudge.... just figured a nudge was a nudge. But it makes sense now that you mention it.

[drventure]

Yeah, Future Pinball even has a Nudge Up, no nudge down though, guess that's more or less impossible

My prob is getting the dang wiimote to sync easily. Just not happening consistently. That's why i'm thinking the phidgets usb version might be better in this case (it's just a lot of $$ for a one trick pony).

[RandyT]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=64538.msg646721#msg646721

RandyT

[Kevin Mullins]

Don't see those too often..... didn't even think about the double button idea. 

[Spinach]

OK.  Those ideas are way cooler than mine by far.  And here I thought I was on to something.

Of course, that does leave me with more to think about and add on. 

[Ummon]

VP, of course, has always had left, right, and up.

[drventure]

Hadn't seen that idea using the carpeting for a spring. Pretty interesting. I have the pinball elements integrated into my actual control panel, so that'll take some rethinking to work into what I'm doing.

But I do like the idea. It's nice, simple and works with standard, easy to come by components.

[froggerman]

I am using an WiiMote in my Future Pinball cabinet for nudging.