[37"/24"/15"] - '77 Bally Power Play "Donor" Visual Pinball Build

[mwong168]

I have my pinball project which I started a few weeks ago posted on the HS forums so I am going to post a copy of it here in case some of you don't make your way over there.  I spent some time to create screen shots that hopefully someone new to this will find helpful and save them time by learning from my mistakes.  I might have to split this into multiple posts as I have close to 60 detailed screen shots...so here we go!





First you will need to grab these files shown above.  I got almost all of them from this installation guide on the VPforums.org under the "Experts" section:
http://vpforums.org/index.php?automodule=downloads&req=idx&cmd=viewdetail&f_id=2990

Then for the VPinMAME cabinet DLL file I got it from here:
http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?automodule=downloads&req=idx&cmd=viewdetail&f_id=967

Next step was I extracted the vpsetup8_1_1.zip to a temp folder and then ran the installer by double clicking on the file VPSetup8.1.1.msi:



Then just follow through the wizard and keep on hitting next as shown below:







Now for this step the default location is C:\Program Files\Visual Pinball but I installed mine right on the C root folder.  This is better if you are running Vista or Win7 cause anytime you make any changes, copy files or run anything from C:\Program Files, windows is constantly asking you are you sure and stuff like that unless you totally disable UAC which I don't recommend.  Up to you if you want to install for yourself or everyone.




Visual Pinball has been successfully installed and now onto installing VPinMAME.  Going back to your list of files from the beginning, extract the file vpinmame_22.zip to where ever you installed Visual Pinball, in my case it is C:\Visual Pinball.

[mwong168]

Then extract the file VPinball907.zip which contains the latest version of the Visual Pinball executable to the same folder.



Then extract the file VPVBS3_32.zip to the subfolder under your Visual Pinball folder called tables, so in this cause it would be C:\Visual Pinball\Tables as shown below.



Now you have to install some fonts and this can be done in many ways and this may or may not work for you but I extracted the file vpfonts.zip into the C:\Windows\Fonts folder.  If this doesn't work then extract it to a temp folder and then copy and paste it to the folder manually.



Then copy the file s3250u3.zip to the C:\Visual Pinball\samples folder.  Very important you do not extract to this folder and keep the file zipped.



Then extract the file bally_6803_gts3_nvram.zip to the C:\Visual Pinball\nvram folder.



Now here is where the actual setup of VPinMAME actually starts.  Go to your Visual Pinball folder and look for setup.exe



Now the setup can go one of two ways depending on your phyiscal monitor setup and availability.  If you aren't using Visual Pinball in a cabinet then you can proceed by running setup.exe or else you will need to replace the VPinMAME.dll with the cabinet version of this.  You can make a backup of the file or else just rename the file extension from .dll to .old and then extract or copy in the file from this link (same one as above, for those lazy to scroll up):

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?automodule=downloads&req=idx&cmd=viewdetail&f_id=967

Now in order tell if you did this properly when you run setup.exe and click on the Install button you will get a dialogue box that looks like this for the cabinet version, note the 3.00 version number:



If you are not installing the cabinet version of the VPinMAME.dll file it will show version 2.2 like this:



Now once you have sorted out which version you are installing click on Yes to proceed, the screen shot below shows me using the non cabinet version but the settings I will point out apply or work for both cabinet and non cabinet setups.  I believe the main difference between the two DLL files is that the cabinet version remembers the DMD size and monitor designation.





Now check the default folder locations just to make sure the roms, config, tables, etc paths are all correct.  Make sure Always run full-screen on this display is unchecked and Allow write access to Game Settings and Controller settings is checked.



Now this step here is what killed me the most and I lost a lot of sleep over this.  Make sure you have the Display set to Default!  THANKS RAWD!!!
If you don't and later when you drag your DMD over to your 2nd or 3rd monitor and notice is is black or frozen and when you drag it back to your main playfield it works again this will most likely be the reason.  The other one would be using the wrong Nvidia driver.  I am using 182.50 for my 250GTS and 8800GT.



This is pretty straight forward and leave all defaults.





Almost there, now both Visual Pinball and VPinMAME have been installed and setup properly to work in a cabinet!

[mwong168]

Open up Visual Pinball and make sure you setup your Video Options under preferences as shown below and make sure you pick the correct resolution in 32bit or else you might not see any flippers



Now go get your favorite table and rom to start playing.  I am going to use The Simpsons Party Pinball.



Now take the The Simpsons Party Pinball.vpt file and copy it to C:\Visual Pinball\Tables folder.  I renamed the file to look clean and match my XML configuration files for HyperPin which I will explain in my later posts.  Then copy simpprty.zip to the C:\Visual Pinball\Roms folder.  Make sure you don't rename it and keep it zipped.  You can change the file name but then you will have to find the reference in the table script so always leave the default naming for any roms that you download from ipdb.org.





Now I have to mention a point here if you are running Vista or Windows 7 is make sure you right clicked on the VPinball.exe and ran it as an Administrator.  I have forgotten to do this and for some reason the table wouldn't load or you get an error even though you have all the required files for the table.  A simple way so you don't forget this is to simply right click on the



Once that is done, go to the Table menu and select Play or hit the F5 shortcut key to start the table.  Now you might can an error that looks like this:





Don't freak out or get pissed like me, it either means your video card sucks or the table doesn't require HD rendering.  To turn it off just uncheck it or if you don't see it click on the options button on the left to display the panel.





If all goes well you should get prompted with this "nag" screen, check off Yes I am and click OK.





Now we are talking   Notice the DMD on the top left corner, resize and drag it out of the way or to your 2nd or 3rd display.
Now here is some advanced information on how to manually change the size and position of the DMD using the windows registry editor.  If you are not familar or comfortable with working with the registry then I suggest you stop reading.



Click on the Start button and select Run.  Type in regedit to open the registry editor.



Navigate yourself to the tree node HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMAME.  Everytime you run a table once for the first time it will create a subfolder usually the same name as the name of the rom.  In this case we have a simpprty for The Simpsons Party Pinball.  I have highlighted the attributes for the DMD size and position. 



To change these values simply double click it and the window above will appear.  Make sure you check off decimal when keying in your coordinates or size.  100 in decimal is 64 in hexidecimal.  This is only if you want to change the DMD position or size for all of your tables without having to actually load them in Visual Pinball and VPinMAME.  Now when you drag the DMD when the table is loaded it will save these settings in the registry if you are using the cabinet version of VPinMAME.dll.  Also another thing to look for is some tables in the script the size or coordinates are hardcoded which will reset everytime you start the table so check there is you notice the size or location of your DMD is not saving.



Now lets say you have loaded all your tables and setup your DMD the way you want it.  To make a backup of all these settings right click on the Freeware node shown above and select Export.  Now select a location and filename you want to export to.



Now to show you how this works I have deleted the Freeware node as you can see above.



To restore my settings I simply double click the file I exported earlier.



Don't worry about these nag screens from Windows, you will get them regardless if you are running XP, Vista or 7. 



Once the registry keys have been imported you will get a message like this to let you know.



Now if you go back to registry editor and tree node HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMAME you will see the Freeware and all subfolders have been restored.

This pretty much covers all the setup I did to get Visual Pinball and VPinMAME working.  Here is my hardware specs for reference and everything is running at stock speeds:

Intel® Core™2 Duo Desktop Processor E8400
ASUS P5K Deluxe Black Pearl Edition
8GB OCZ DDR2 PC2-8500 1066MHz "Reaper" (4 x 2GB)
XFX Nvidia 250GTS + BFG Nvidia 8800GT
Samsung 750gb SATA HD

HP 15" LCD @ 1024x768 (DVI)
Samsung 24" LCD @ 1920x1080 (DVI)
Vizio 37" 1080p LCD @ 1920x1080 (DVI to HDMI)

[mwong168]

First you will need to down the HyperPin setup file from here:
http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/downloads.php?do=cat&id=70



Now run setup_hyperpin.exe to start the installation process.







Again I think I mentioned this before to install it on the C root folder instead of say C:\Program Files to avoid any stupid Windows Vista or 7 UAC pop ups.




This step here is optional if you want the installer to create the shortcut or not because it doesn't work but I will show you further down how to fix it or else you can create the shortcut manually yourself.




HyperPin has now been installed successfully (sort of).



To fix the shortcut on the desktop, right click on it and go to properties.



The reason why the shortcut doesn't work is because the Start In folder is blank.  That is why when you double click on it the first time nothing happens and when you do it again your screen goes black.


Put the location of your HyperPin folder, in my case it is C:\HyperPin then click Apply and OK.



Now go to your HyperPin folder and there should be a subfolder called Settings.  Inside there is a file called settings.ini, double click to open it and it should look like what I have above.  Pretty straight forward and if not there is nice documentation provided with HyperPin.  All I had to change was the folder locations for both Visual Pinball and Future Pinball.
This next step if you read carefully can save you a lot of grief and time.  Under the Visual Pinball section notice there is a line for the Exe and Vpinball.exe.  Do not change this because it won't help or do anything.



Instead go to your Visual Pinball folder and delete if you plan on running the latest version of VP or rename the file.



I renamed mine from Vpinball.exe to Vpinball.old.  You might not be able to rename the file extension like how I have my windows setup so you can just rename it to Vpinballold or something different.




Now rename Vpinball907.exe to Vpinball.exe and it should work just fine in HyperPin.  If you changed the Exe line inside the settings folder to Vpinball907.exe it wouldn't work cause it must be hard coded to look for Vpinball.exe.  If you do what I mentioned above and your table still doesn't load in HyperPin it is most likely because you didn't launch it initially in Visual Pinball first to get by the nag screen once and for all.  That is the only pain with VP tables is you have to do this once and then it gets saved in the registry but also good cause it gives you a chance to move the DMD and size it without having to go through the windows registry.

That's about it for setting up HyperPin and sorry if some of it seems pretty straight forward but I someone will find both of these write ups helpful.  Just keep in mind all the sore points I stressed out and you should be fine   Good luck!

[mwong168]

Alright now that I have finished both write ups, if I am missing a step or to mention anything let me know via PM and I will revise it to avoid any confusion.

Now onto the beginning of my VP cab journey.  A few weeks ago I was reading over some of these marvelous builds such as BBB, H4CKER, 1up, Rawd and many others and was undecided on whether I wanted to the cab around my main playfield LCD or find an old gutted or non functioning pinball cabinet.  After doing some research on pinballlife.com I quickly saw how fast things add up for legs, bolts, lock down bars, etc... I was at $287usd shipped and that didn't even include the glass and many other components. 

I searched my local craigslist and saw one vendor called DC Amusements, which is about an hour north of me, selling many functional pinball machines so I thought I would email him and see if he had any old cabs that weren't working.  Later on that day he emailed me back saying he had some machines that were not functional and needed a bit of work for $200 but came with everything I needed.  My choices were between:

1977 Bally Power Play
1972 Bally Monte Carlo
1972 Williams Honey

Fast forward a week later I went with my good friend's Toyota Matrix to check each one out and in the end I decided to pick up...



The reason being was that it was already missing the backglass which I didn't care for since I would have trashed it anyways and also made a deal with him to knock another $50 off if I let him keep the playfield for parts.



Chicago Blackhawks vs Canada?  They couldn't think of one Canadian hockey team eh?  I'm sure it was more to keep licensing costs down









So in the end $150 got me everything shown above which was great cause not only did it save me a lot of money but time.  Also another big bonus is this cab was built to last from pine where as if I built my cab from scratch it would have been with MDF like my other projects to just keep costs down.

[mwong168]

Now as you can see from my VP testing rig I had my old PC gaming computer in an Antec Sonata III case which is overkill and pointless to only lay down on it's side inside a pinball cabinet.  So I found an old generic case at my office and gutted it.











This works out perfect as I was planning to mount the motherboard on a piece of board but this way I don't have to worry about mounting the power supply, optical and hard drives properly.

[mwong168]

Now last Saturday I started to work on my cabinet now that I had the hardware and software side of this build under control.  I honestly thought it would take me half a day to sand the cabinet and backbox but I managed to borrow a belt sander from my friend next door.









Took me around 25-30 mins with the belt sander so now I started mudding the corners, dents, chips and edges that have been damaged.



While I was waiting for the mud to dry I stripped all the existing wiring, grounds and brackets from the cabinet.







The mud still wasn't ready to be sanded so I started to remove the buttons and plunger so I could use them as reference for my pinballlife and lizardlick orders.







The buttons I will be replacing with standard HAPP translucent ones with micro switches.  I was going to use leaf but they are really expensive and hard to find so sticking with what I am comfortable with for now cause I know it works.  I saved the old leaf switches that came in the cab and might play around with those later on once my build is done.

[mwong168]

All posts made now will be real time or current progress. 

T.G.I.F!!!

Just got two boxes delivered to my work.





Pinball Life order was a new Williams complete plunger, Stern 3 button service panel, 8 black leg bots, Launch Ball and "Rock Me" button, leg leveller and rubber casters.



I ordered two mercury activated switched from ebay for $10.89usd shipped too.  They don't quite look like the ones used in 1up's build but hopefully they do the same thing.  In case anyone wants to order it here is the ebay link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mobilistics-Mercury-Tilt-Switch-Alarms-Lights-etc-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem2c53db4100QQitemZ190385438976QQptZCarQ5fAudioQ5fVideo

I will post later on how effective they are.  I sent my legs out to get refinished and straightened as well so hopefully I will get that back next weekend.  Two more shipments to wait for from groovygamegear.com for the LEDWiz+GP controller interface and all my HAPP translucent buttons from Lizardlick.com

Have a nice weekend everyone!

[mwong168]

So I received the last of my goodies in the mail yesterday, LEDWiz+GP interface controller and all my HAPP translucent buttons.



Last night when I got home from work my daughter was still taking a nap so I took advantage and started to relocate the plunger on my cabinet.  The original plunger was mounted higher and would cause problems for my flipper button on the right side.



I didn't even attempt to cut out the shape of the back of my Williams plunger and just ended up cutting a hole out the size of it.  I already know how I will be securing it on the other side since I forgot to order the mounting plate and will take pics later once it is mounted.  I filled in the old plunger hole with some mud and will sand it tonight when I get home.



The HAPP button and plunger now should be an issue since I plan to hook up a leaf style microswitch in reverse for the plunger.  Another member on here posted a video and the end result looked like it worked very well.

Last night before I went to bed I started playing around with artwork cause that is the next step I want to get done before I start moving in the hardware.  Here is what I came up with, I also lowered the resolution from 300dpi to 100dpi and size to make the image file smaller for viewing.  The final image will be sharper and more crisp for printing.



The idea I wanted was I wanted the background artwork to continually wrap around the machine so where the sides and coin door meet the lines match up.  That section in the middle is where my coin door is going to be and there isn't much space for artwork so going to pretty much leave it blank.  Please don't make fun of my photoshop "skillz" as I need to probably spend some time watching all the tutorial videos posted by Billpa.  I tried my best to cut out each one of the characters from a 300dpi flyer source to a transparent background.  Nothing is final yet so let me know what you guys think.  Thanks.

[mwong168]

Anyways, last night I got bored and thought I would attempt or at least start to de-case my LCD so I can know if it will fit inside my cab or not.



Took out the obvious screws first and I was pretty much done de-casing in <5 mins.  I left it sitting in the housing for now cause I don't have my cab ready or brough into my game room downstairs yet but I was able to lift all 4 corners up.  The nice thing about my LCD is there are no seals which I broke so my 2 year warranty will still be in tact cause I can put everything back together without them even knowing :thrasher:



Another 5 mins I had removed the bottom bracket for the stand, speakers and side control panel with IR sensor.



Good news is the LCD measures at 20 1/4" wide and my cabinet is 20 3/4" :party:  My friend who has a metal shop is bringing me back my pinball cab legs which I dropped off to him last week. 





Originally I was going to just have him sandblast and freshen them up, after all these are over 30 years old.  I also had to ask him to straighten one of the legs which I didn't realize was bent till I took these pictures.

[mwong168]

Took advantage of being home alone all day yesterday and my friend brought my legs back refinished and straightened.  I also put on my new leg levellers and rubber feet from pinball life order as well.





The weather has been really weird up here in Toronto lately and in some parts there was even snow!  So before my brother in-law went up north I asked him to help me bring my cab inside so I can work on it.  So the moment of truth was here to see how my de-cased 37" LCD fit in the cab.



I was pleasantly surprised and my brother in-law said it was as if this cabinet was designed for this LCD  I also put the computer inside as well to see and plenty of clearance.



Now next item up for test fitting was my other two monitors in the backbox.  I didn't want to half the DMD monitor half in the backbox and half in the pinball cabinet so I started de-casing it too.





Guess I won't be needing these anymore.  Now on to the testfit.





I am going to see if I can get away with no having to de-case my 24" monitor but also I don't know how to do it either.  There are no screws on the back and all I can see is an arrow pointing to one corner.  I took a flat head and popped it but couldn't get the test to go and I don't want to be prying or pulling on it.  I will just end up shaving a few mounting metal tabs on the HP 15" so it can sit closer to the 24".



I made a cardboard mock-up of the back box to give my friend who refinished my legs an idea of what I need as well as a few other metal goodies for my pincab which I will have done by next weeked as he promised to deliver so stay tuned.



Lastly I finished drilling the holes I needed for my buttons and exhaust fans for the back.





Lastly I went to town with the black paint on my cab





Next up is wiring and planning out where everything is going to go inside my cab.

** Sorry for the many posts but I started this about a month ago and wanted to bring everyone up to speed on where I am on my build. **

[javeryh]

Incredible post.  Great info - your cab is off to a very nice start and I love all the pictures and attention to detail.  THis will be a reference guide for many people I'm sure.   

[opt2not]

BOOOOO Chicago Blackhawks...

yeah, strip 'em from the cabinet, STRIP EM GOOD! 

<exhale>

Awesome post, thanks for the detail, looking forward to tracking this project for sure.

[markronz]

Amazing post! And a great start on your project!   I was a bit scared to start a pinball cabinet like this, but with info like this, it'll be a LOT easier!  Thanks again and I will be watching this progress!
 

[mwong168]

Well I am glad this information will be useful to come of you and make the jump over to the "dark side" a lot easier.  It wasn't fun at first but the pay off once you figure everything out and get it working is very rewarding.  I have met many great people on the HS forums, such as H4CKER and Rawd, who have both helped me tremendously and also have inspired me very much to start this project of mine.  There are also a lot of great contributors bringing out many great tables such as South Park, Monster Bash and The Addams Family to name a few.  I hate to say this considering how much I love playing with MAME but it is quite refreshing to work with something new and different.  Once a ROM has been dumped for MAME that's about it but for a visual pinball you always have something to look forward as there is so many tables that are being re-created.  I am really looking forward to unclewilly's Xenon full screen table and oooPlayer1ooo's Dr. Who shown below





If anyone has any questions feel free to post them or send me a message.

-Mike

[HaRuMaN]

  

[SpaceHedgehog]

Very useful and informative. Thanks mate 

[Generic Eric]

Very informative post.  Will come in handy for folks setting up the various Pin programs

*thumbs up*

[mwong168]

Thanks for the comments guys, I can't wait till this weekend when I get all my custom made metal goodies  

Anyways, had a bit of time to kill last night after I put my daughter to sleep at 11pm.  Since I haven't decided on an artwork theme I thought I would just paint the rest of my cab including the bottom black to keep things looking decent for the time being.





Looks really rough in the pictures and I didn't spent much time trying to smooth it out with it being plywood makes it even harder cause I would have to mud, sand and repeat.  Besides I figured artwork or the legs were going to be covering the really bad areas and after all this cabinet is older than me.



I picked these up from a local computer shop down the road from my work yesterday.









I installed the fan grills on the bottom and rear of the cabinet.  I ended up going with a pair of 80mm for intake on the bottom and a pair of 120mm for exhaust on the rear.





Installed the legs and came up with a pretty creative way to mount my plunger sing all I did was use a forstner bit to drill a hole big enough for the plunger to fit through.  I forgot to snap a pic because I didn't secure it yet in case I come up with an alternative way but I think it should work.



Good thing I didn't toss my box of garbage I ganked from the cabinet and found the plate to mount and secure the new switch I picked up as well to power the computer on and off from the bottom of the cabinet.



It's almost 1am now and still not tired so I started to do some work on my HAPP translucent buttons and took them apart.  I also picked up a bag of LED holders from the local electronics shop and started drilling holes.





I messed one up drilling and I guess it didn't require a lot of pressure or weight to go through.  Good thing it was a color I had three of so I guess I will be installing a second set of flippers later when I make another order from lizardlick.  



At this point I was a bit nervous cause I had 8 in total to drill and some I only had one of.  Took it nice and slow and everything worked out.





Still not tired and it was nearing 1:20am, I was curious about how the LEDWiz worked because I had read people have had problems on this forum and BYOAC so wanted to see what the fuss was about.  

I decided to warm up my soldering iron and installed the resistors that came with my super bright LEDs from groovygamegear into a breadboard I picked up from the electronics store as well.  I wanted to keep everything organized and clean instead of soldering the resistors inline directly to the wire which could come apart.  I didn't solder the wires to the LEDs on my buttons just yet because I want to make sure I do it properly so it doesn't interfere with the micro switch.  

I plugged in the LEDWiz+GP controller to a USB port on my netbook and let Windows XP do it's thing, so far so good.  Then I unplugged it and hooked up everything to the screw down terminals as per RandyT's instructions and plugged it back in my netbook.  Then took the two wires and touched each end of the LED and no luck.  I then tried switching the wires on the LED ends thinking about the polarity and still no luck.  Thinking maybe the LED was a dud I went and got the other buttons and same thing.  Alright, 1:45am and calling it a day now and felt I had accomplished enough in just under 3 hours.  



But before I went to bed I quickly installed the backbox and played a few virtual pinball games in my mind   I can't wait to get everything wired and installed to play VP properly.

Got to bed but couldn't sleep so fired up my netbook in bed and wife just shook her head when she saw me surfing on BYOAC and went back to sleep

Noticed RandyT was online so sent him a PM to see if he would reply since it was almost 2am and sure enough he did.  Turns out I need to have the LEDWiz software installed to enable the output ports.  5 hours later wake up and installed the software and it worked!  Thanks RandyT!  

[DillonFoulds]

Damn nice! I'm fixing up one of these pins currently, so it sucks to see one gutted for vpin

If you got any parts left over, let me know!

So far it looks like you're making great progress on your machine!

[kizer]

One suggestion. Please take your entire how you set that up in text along with images and put them in a zip file. Host them somewhere as a backup or also host your images on Photobucket or something because as great as that writeup is some day people fade away and it would be shame to loose all that effort you put into it because I'll be damned if I don't want to build one now seeing how easy you made it look.

Of cours I know its work, but wow thanks for the info.

[njay]

yo  moogster

Nice work m8

about those mercury switches i also ordered them by the link you provided but you can supply more info? on which wire is ground and how to mount em ?

[mwong168]

about those mercury switches i also ordered them by the link you provided but you can supply more info? on which wire is ground and how to mount em ?

I know about as much as you do about these mercury switches and I am also not at the point in my build yet.  With the weekend coming up I might just hook them up quickly to my LEDWiz+GP controller to see how well they work.  I don't think it really matters which wire is ground and which one is positive as all the mercury is really doing is sliding over to one side to make contact and complete the circuit.  I think chris has these mounted and installed in his cab so maybe check his thread or hopefully he will chime in after reading this.

Thanks again for the comments guys, expect to see an update by end of the weekend.

[mwong168]

Didn't make as much progress as I wanted to and my friend wasn't able to make it over this weekend to drop off my metal goodies   Tonight or sometime this week as he had an emergency call he had to tend to yesterday.

So I started to install the intake and exhaust fans for the cabinet.





Then I started splicing the wires for each fan and then ran them all neatly to a terminal strip.









That is how it will connect to power once the computer is in place.



Going back to my plunger mount, I found metric allen key heads screws from Brafasco down the road from my work and re-used the leaf button mounting plates that came on the cab.  Works pretty good and the plunger is solid.



Since I won't be locking my coin door I came across this neat little barrel lock switch which I plan to use as my "END" key to get into the admin menu once the table is loaded.





I started to do a bit of wiring for my LEDs before installing them in my cabinet.  I was going to solder the wire right on the LED ends but didn't think it would be very sturdy so I ended up using some buttend connectors with a bit of solder.  I also wanted to future proof it for later so I am going to be using some .187 male and female quick disconnects so the LEDs can be detached just like the microswitch should I have to replace a button or LED in the future.

I need to go pick up a few things from the electronics shop later during my lunch so I will have all my buttons and LEDs connected just in time when I get the rest of my parts.

[njay]

Awesome work m8 ! 

[mwong168]

One suggestion. Please take your entire how you set that up in text along with images and put them in a zip file. Host them somewhere as a backup or also host your images on Photobucket or something because as great as that writeup is some day people fade away and it would be shame to loose all that effort you put into it because I'll be damned if I don't want to build one now seeing how easy you made it look.

I have everything backed up on my external hard drive as well as my media server RAID5 partition which is also where I have my MAME and Visual Pinball setup as well.  It's not as hard to build one of these but the most challenging part so far has been figuring out the software setup for 3 screens.  I have documented it fairly well in my initial posts so hopefully it will save lots of people who are ready to take the plunge time and frustration.  The rest of the work like the cabinet is just being patient, doing it right without rushing.  I don't need to use terminal strips, bread boards, quick disconnects or zip ties but I like to take pride in my current and past work.  If only I had the male quick disconnects this past weekend I would have finished wiring the buttons and LEDs to my LEDWiz+GP interface.  I will always try to be an active member on this forum as well as the HyperSpin forums so if you have any questions or need to see a picture of anything let me know.  I can't wait to get this done because I can see the end is near and I'm not talking about 2012 

Awesome work m8 !   

Thanks!

[kizer]

Nice Job on the quick disconnects in the cab. I might have to barrow that idea.

[mwong168]

I picked up a pack of male/female quick disconnects to use on all my LEDs installed in the buttons.  Then proceeded to install them into my cab and had to use a dremel to trim down the old flipper button holes since they were smaller.





I made a hole for the power cord from my Belkin power box and mounted the Stern 3 button service switches to the back of my coin door which I will use to adjust the volume.





Right now I am just going to light up the existing insert coin area using two LEDs and driving them from my LEDWiz.  I had to drill out an existing hole bigger to fit the LED holder in place as you can see.  



I might replace both of these with two GGG Nova CDRs.





I finished soldering the rest of the wires to the breadboard with all the resistors and attached it to a 8 port terminal strip.  The other two wires just hanging there will be for the coin door LEDs.





I <3 terminal strips and since all the buttons will require a +5V line I made 3 ports I can tap off of for it and used the other 3 ports for common ground later for the buttons.







I tried my best to keep the wiring as neat as possible and made each wire to measure so there is no extra coiled anywhere but enough slack to work with in the case I have to disconnect.  I grouped each and zip tied them together to keep it looking neat.  I will put some electrical tape around all the connections there in case any of them touch as well but wanted to make sure it all works before I do that.



It was 2am last night when I finally powered it on and glad everything worked on the first try cause I would have most likely stayed up to troubleshoot if there was any problems.  I don't know what problem another member had before with their LEDWiz but once you install the software and enable the ports you have LEDs hooked up to it works marvelous.  I just have to finish up wiring the coin door LEDs and tonight I will probably wire up the micro switches to the GPWiz.

[shilmover]

Quick questions...

Why do you have a "Launch Ball" & a "Rock me" button?  are they not the same?

[mwong168]

I am going to use the "Rock Me" for Tilt    Then I also have my mercury switches for left and right nudge.

[Pinball Wizard]

Thanks so much for your guide. I used it to set up a pc with 2 monitors. Currently downloading Hyperpin and grabbing a few tables. I even thought of giving the computer the finger when I ran into the "cannot create offscreen texture" issue. Might finally be investing into some displays and a more permanent computer than my mame pc.

[njay]

Hi ,
about those mercury switches

wel i got them installed on is on the top left and the other one top right under my lockdown bar

but i am having major headaches adjusting them

usually left nudge works ok but the right one usually give me left and right nudge together

do you have any tips on adjusting? when you install them?
let me know i think we can help eachother out on this !

[mwong168]

Now I am in the home stretch and my cab is pretty much nearly 100% done.  Here are some pics as promised of my custom made metal pieces for my cab.





Here is what it looks like from behind and did a test fit on the backglass box.  Fit pretty snug but I will have to do some touch up but it's ok.





He also made two other custom pieces for me, one of them was a metal apron for the instruction cards and a metal frame to cover the ugly LCD bezel once de-cased.





The fit for both monitors is so pricise and tight but I removed them for the next step.





This stuff is amazing and dries in 10 mins or less.  So after I did a quick blast of Krylon glossy black I went downstairs to mount the speakers.







Since my Logitech X-540 has a center channel speaker I mounted in between the cabinet and backbox as you can see from the first two picture.  The two main ones I just lined up behind the speaker hole cutouts with mesh.  The remaining rear I just mounted near the coin door area facing each other.





Now my original idea was to have the Belkin power box inside the case next to the sub but that would force me to turn the sub the otherway effectively blocking one of the exhaust fans so I decided to mount the Belkin power box outside in the back of the cab.  This is fine since I would never have the cab right up against the wall anyways and also gives me access to one since switch to turn off all three of my monitors.  I was also pleasantly surprised that once they are plugged in they turn on automatically and I didn't have to re-connect the control panel for the power button control panel.











First boot up into Windows XP since 2 weeks and launched HyperPin.  Everything works just great and played a quick game of The Simpsons Party Pinball.  The last few things I had to do now were tidy up some cables inside the cab and level the playfield LCD.





Final money shot with my custom made instruction cards 



I still have to figure out the keys because I am using a GPWiz which is essentially a USB gamepad controller along with Xpadder.  Seems to work fine on some tables and not on others.  For example in The Addams Family and Guns n' Roses when I hot both flipper buttons together it tilts the table even though each button is mapped to left and right shift respectively.  I also have my plunger and the "Launch Ball" button mapped to the ENTER key and sometimes it works fine in Hyperpin and sometimes it brings up the Generes menu??  So not sure what to do about this, anyone have the same issue using Xpadder or can suggest another program?

[Pinball Wizard]

Is it just the pictures or are the DMDs out of proportion? Otherwise great, thorough work!

[mwong168]

Is it just the pictures or are the DMDs out of proportion? Otherwise great, thorough work!

Yeah the opening for my DMD isn't the standard size and I wanted to make it a bit bigger then normal.  I could resize it to the proper proportion and leave parts of the screen blank but right now I have all my DMD sized to fill from border to border.  Stretched full size for the older DMDs looks really bad and I might go back and make those a bit smaller.

[njay]

mwong
open the table scripts and look for some line that says if vpmnudge key is blabla use key45 , comment the line out usually JP tables and some others use hardcodes lines for keys for nudging

did you install the mercury yet

[mwong168]

The mercury switches have been installed in my cab and appear to work in Windows when I initially tested out all my inputs on my netbook but haven't had a chance to test it out in Visual Pinball yet but they seemed to respond well when I nudged them.  I will get to that a bit later, right now I am trying to resolve some issues mapping my keys in Xpadder.  I have mapped all the visual pinball default keys and they all works fine.  For example the left and right shift keys work 100% in Visual Pinball but inside Hyperpin it only seems to recognize the left flipper button and when I press the right flipper it is as if I am hitting the ESC key instead even though it is mapped to the right shift key.  That was my tilt problem before actually cause initially I had remapped the right shift key to "." but haven't figured out how to change the key inside Hyperpin.  What I find odd is that either all keys should work properly or none at all.  I'll figure it out and will definately share in case anyone else used the LED+GPWiz or GPWiz which are both USB gamepad encoders.

[HaRuMaN]

Is it me, or is the LCD lower on the left edge than it is on the right edge?

[mwong168]

Is it me, or is the LCD lower on the left edge than it is on the right edge?

The initial pics I took of the Simpsons Pinball Party was when I just threw everything inside to try everything out and the playfield was lower on the left side.  In my later pics with The Twilight Zone I have shimmed it so it is level using the existing play field mounts.  It's sort of ghetto but the only thing I could find that was just right was a paint stir stick    I will fix this later but right now I am just trying to figure out my HyperPin issues with the button mapping in Xpadder.  Going to dress the cabinet up in some nice artwork too once I come up with a theme.

[njay]

check your hyperpin ini file for the key settings
its called settings.ini