46"/29"/15.6" Doctor Who Tribute Widebody Visual Pinball

[macattack]

Well after recently selling a batman cabinet to a fellow forum member and having a discussion around visual pinball and how I first played with it during its early years to get a feel for how the real machines played before I went and bought one, I have caught the bug.

6 years ago I used to build and sell the classic pacman cocktail tables and dabbled in pinballs on the side. Now in the final months before i relocate from the UK to the USA I bloody well get the virtual bug

I---> 2 sheet 3/4" Plywood
---> used legs
---> new widebody lockbar
---> new "old" bally siderails
---> used coin door
---> used pinball shooter
---> pinball service buttons
---> new playfield and backbox glass

- 46" 16:9 lcd Samsung full hd 1080p screen
- 32" 16:9 lcd Sony hd ready 720p screen
- 17" 4:3 lcd Dell monitor dmd-screen

- pc-setup
---> winxp sp3
---> Quad core Q6600 3ghz
---> Gigybyte
---> 4gig ddr3 ram
---> 64gb ssd Oz Agility (read: 230MB/s - write: 135MB/s)
---> nvidia gtx250 with 1gb ram (for playfield and dmd)
---> nvidia 9600GT with 512mb ram (for backbox/backglass)
---> soundblaster x-fi crystalizer pci soundcard
---> 2.1 Altec Lansing sound system with subwoofer
---> 600 watt 80+ arctic psu / 86% efficiency

- 2 industry relay for flipper-force-feedback
- 2 mercury switches for nudge left/right
- all connected to an ipac

- 3x 220mm artic silent fans for cab ventilation (2x cabinet / 1x backbox)
- Decals reproduced using Illustrator/Photoshop by myself and printed by local sign company


Build History (Days are working days on the build not calendar days)..

Day 1, Get pointed in the direction of the Hyperspin website by someone picking up an old Batman machine i had.
realize how far Visual Pinball has come since i last played with it on my pc 5 years ago. See the amazing machine
Chriz built, and get inspired.

Day 2, measure the Twilight Zone machine i have to get exact measurements and draw up dimensions.(pdf now attached for clear view)
 
[ATTACH=CONFIG]16091[/ATTACH]

 


Day 4, run down to local wood yard and get plywood cut to size.
dig out tools needed (wood glue, air compressor, air stapler, clamps, straight edges ,etc,etc)

Day 5. schedule a 'work from home day with work' and in between answering emails, start marking out the smaller cuts that need
to occur and assemble the cabinet.

Day 5, 8 hours later stand back and admire handy work.



Day 6, after acquiring the screen for the backbox, take the backbox apart and widen the top, bottom and back due to seller
of the monitor not knowing he had a 32" screen not a 30". ARGHHHHHHHHH.

Day 7, install the de-cased 32" and 17" DMD monitor.

 

Day 8, take MAC clone apart and use it for donor PC. setup Win XP and software.

Day 9 install the PC, pinball legs and take it for a test run.

 

Day 10, order up the parts i didn't have already.
Lockdown bar
side rails
Industrial relays
SSD drive
Playfield glass
Mercury switches
ipac

Away for 2 weeks due to work

Day 11, sand cabinet down and prime.
Day 12, sand primer to find low spots and fill with auto filler.
Day 13, sand auto filler down and prime again.
Day 14, sand primer down and apply 3 coats of gloss black

Day 15-17 let it dry

Day 18, test fit repro bally siderails. Find they are too long and need to be cut down, also hole precut in siderail for flipper buttons are in the wrong place. Decide to swap sides on siderails so section I need to cut off is the part with the flipper button holes

Day 19, Since the backbox had to be wider to accommodate the 32" screen I could not use a std speakerboard so I need to make one. Measure up the TZ one so i know where DMD hole needs to be and how high it is. Cut a new one out of 12mm mdf.

Day 20, decide to make dealing with DMD hole easier, I would do as Williams did and put a plastic cover over the speakerboard. Got a sheet of 2mm plexi and cut to size. Then cut out speaker holes and masked off the location of the DMD area. Sprayed inside of plexi black.

Looked for options for channel for bottom of speakerboard to sit in, found a plastic channel in hardware store that would work. Also needed something H shaped to sit over the top of the speakerboard and also accept the backglass. Could not find anything H shaped so got 2 more sections of square channel and glued them back to back to make an H. sprayed all these bits black.

Day 21, once I had speakerboard installed and found a trim piece of wood to sit in front of the top edge of the monitor, I measured the size i needed for the backglass.

Day 22, had Backglass cut by local glass company, masked of centre and painted outside edges black to hide screen surround.




Day 23, Started down the road of doing a Transformers theme for the artwork. There has never been a transformers pinball and I had access to some really high res images so thought it would look good.

Day 30, pretty much completed the artwork for Transformers and then see the sneak peak video of oooPLAYER1ooo's Doctor Who table on Hyperspin's forum. Reminded me of the Dr Who machine I had and how much I loved it. Also with the new Doctor Who series out it just felt right so I parked the Transformers artwork and started designing a close reproduction of the original Dr Who artwork from the pinball machine.

 

Day 33, send the artwork to the printers to get it printed out.

Day 34, artwork back, pinball legs off and time to sand the cabinet yet again. once sanded a good wipedown to remove any dust and start applying decals.

Day 35, Trim decals and fit legs. put playfield monitor etc back in and test run.

 
 
 
 
 

Day 36. Sit back and enjoy. Send picture to mate who has the Dr Who real table and when asked about the pictures believes it to be a real machine

finally got around to getting the coin door painted.




1 weeks from now, load into a container and ship to North America when we move

video

[jholman76]

thats pretty amazing. I'm in awe of these pinball cabinets more and more. perhaps a future build, but right now, I dont have the space.

How much is it going to cost to ship that bad daddy?

great art BTW.

[macattack]

thanks glad you like it.
Artwork I will change slightly now that I have done it as a learned a few things in doing it.

Its going into a 20foot container, so actual cost of the pinball is unknown, container cost is close to $9000 to ship it over.

[Paladin]

Yet another really impressive pinball build!  Fantastic job, and this is from someone who owns a 'real' Dr. Who pinball!

The way you posted your build progress makes it sound soooo easy. 

[macattack]

Yet another really impressive pinball build!  Fantastic job, and this is from someone who owns a 'real' Dr. Who pinball!

The way you posted your build progress makes it sound soooo easy. 

Thanks, its not that tough if your a bit handy. the basic shape of a pinball machine lends itself to a pretty easy build.  I think once I get situated in Michigan, I will likly build some cabinets to sell in my spare time to support my habbit.

2nd machine already in design phase now

[javeryh]

Very very nice - do you have any interior shots?

[macattack]

Very very nice - do you have any interior shots?

No unfortunately not, nothing exciting. simply a motherboard and power supply mounted to a spare bit of plywood that can be removed after disconnecting the cables running to the board.  A power strip and pc sub sitting on the bottom. industrial solenoids are mounted to the sides of the cab like Chriz's just below the flipper buttons for force feedback. mercury switches (nudge) are mounted to a bit of 3/4x3/4 inch wood roughly 20" long. switches are mounted at the ends and can be bent up and down to adjust sensitivity.

will try to see if i can get some interior shots when we move it.

[Smeghead]

I looked at those pictures with my mouth open agasp for 5 minutes!
AMAZING job! I would pay anything for that! wow

[DirtyDachshunds]

Amazing job!

...I really don't need another project in my head

...must resist

[macattack]

Amazing job!

...I really don't need another project in my head

...must resist

Yes you do...

I have already started picking up bits for the next one

[macattack]

finally got around to getting the coin door painted this morning.

[javeryh]

 

I can't believe how awesome this thing is.

[macattack]

I can't believe how awesome this thing is.

cheers mate, had to take the backbox off today as its being wrapped right now to go into the container for its trip to America

farewell cabinet, see you in 8 weeks.  In one piece I hope

[sangk9999]

Very nice work

[Smeghead]

How do you separate the different pieces of the game?
Like no background image to where the playfield fills the whole screen?

[severdhed]

simply awesome
 

[JustMichael]

It looks awesome but I have never seen a pinball machine with only 1 coin slot before.

[Nicodumas]

*Must resist urge to build*

I have to get started on my Mame kit 1st... I don't need to plan a pinball system too! Although....

[Smeghead]

I really might do this if I can figure out how to seperate the pieces like that - playfield etc

[broberg]

thats BRILLIANT!

Love it!

How would it look if you painted the metall covers for the top in black (as the legs and coindoor)?

[macattack]

How do you separate the different pieces of the game?
Like no background image to where the playfield fills the whole screen?

sent you an email mate.

[macattack]

It looks awesome but I have never seen a pinball machine with only 1 coin slot before.

have had a few myself, was the only coin door i had to hand at the time, may replace it at somepoint with a dual or tripple.

[macattack]

thats BRILLIANT!

Love it!

How would it look if you painted the metall covers for the top in black (as the legs and coindoor)?

Ok i suppose, i left it stainless as that what the original was. may think about getting them powercoated at somepoint.

at the moment still in planing stages of 2nd machine now.

[neil324]

Great job, did i read correct your shipping it to the US when moving? Should have waited to build it, parts are cheaper over there.

Just seen those plans for the Williams wide body table but have read that the wide body lockbars are 25"

But the measurements for the width on that drawing allowing for the mitred corners is 23.38"

[macattack]

Per the drawing the front panel is 630mm (24.8")
Mitres are on the inside face so do not effect the width of the front panel.

[Rick]

As a big fan of your machine, and a bigger fan of Dr. Who (thank God they have the important ones in there - Pertwee and Baker) I think this is the bar by which all visual pinball machines are to be judged.  Just a question (as I'm not sure if I read it or not) do you have the solenoid that gives you that 'knock' when you get a free play (or on some older games, when you put in coins)?  Is there a way to do that?

[Epyx]

One of my favourite SF shows of all time, what a great hommage to the show. Fantastic project! 

[KagatoAMV]

Amazing work there, how is the play experience?

[macattack]

As a big fan of your machine, and a bigger fan of Dr. Who (thank God they have the important ones in there - Pertwee and Baker) I think this is the bar by which all visual pinball machines are to be judged.  Just a question (as I'm not sure if I read it or not) do you have the solenoid that gives you that 'knock' when you get a free play (or on some older games, when you put in coins)?  Is there a way to do that?

Wow, glad you like it. It was a treat to build it, I really enjoyed being able to reproduce something that very closely match the real thing. It's fooled a number of people so far.

Yes it does have industrial relays fitted to reproduce the feel of real flippers. As for the knocker etc, there is no logic yet from the software to trip it, but we are looking at ways. Right now a good sub woofer does a fair job of giving the feel when you get the sound of the knickers etc.

[macattack]

Amazing work there, how is the play experience?

Play is great you very quickly find yourself deep into it and not even realizing it's not a real machine.  Even when I was in the building stages and I would hook it up for a quick game just using a keyboard, I found myself grabbing for the plunger when I had not even installed it yet!

Will try ever replace a real machine? No. But it's given us a new type of experience that is just as enjoyable and more available to the masses.

[Smeghead]

Thanks for the PM I got it figured out now, bout to start on mine seriously now but Im not going to build the cab, will use a gutted real table.

Is there any problem with the angle of the screen? I know my LCD monitor im looking at right now gets very dark when you look at it from about 45 degrees.

[macattack]

Thanks for the PM I got it figured out now, bout to start on mine seriously now but Im not going to build the cab, will use a gutted real table.

Is there any problem with the angle of the screen? I know my LCD monitor im looking at right now gets very dark when you look at it from about 45 degrees.

Cool, using a old cab gives you such a boost in the fiddley bits

No issue on mine with viewing angle. Due to the size of mine it has to sit on top of the rails. I had considered dropping my next machine down like a real machine (roughly 4" at the rear,but it I found it did make it darker at that end. So I would put the screen it parallel with the angle on the top of the sides.

Hurry up and start a new build thread

[charlieram]

Nice build, I Always wanted a pinball machine and looked at doing one of these before but 42" plasmas were way more expensive a few years ago, you make it sound so easy with your day log (are the full days ie. 8 Hrs). Maybe after my current build I could persuade my wife that we need one to 'almost' finish the games room 

[Santoro]

Just gorgeous.  

[Crayola]

You must tell me where you found all the resources/information to build this?

What websites are great resources? Where did you get the small 17" monitor.
Seems like an odd size.

I must start building one of these!

Crayola

[Crayola]

Is the 17" display mounted 1/2 way down in the body? I guess thats an easy way to get a
wide yet small height display.

Crayola

[macattack]

You must tell me where you found all the resources/information to build this?

What websites are great resources? Where did you get the small 17" monitor.
Seems like an odd size.

I must start building one of these!

Crayola

The 17" is just a STD Dell pc monitor. You can see how is mounted in the early pics, basically the top of the monitor is just above where the dmd is. The reason for a 17" is simple. 1. It's cheap. 2. A STD Williams dmd of this era is 13.5" wide, and a 17" monitor accommodates this in it's display width, so it's cheaper than buying a 19" that would not get seen anyway. Also for the dmd you don't need anything fancy . For the dmd 640x480 is fine.

[Crayola]

Can you get a close up shot of the Lower back glass? Is the lower portion a seperate piece of glass
from the upper portion? Is the artwork screen printed on plexi or just taped to the lower backglass?
Is the lower backglass backlit? You just cut round holes for the speakers? covered with something?
Tough to tell from the pictures since that area is so dark. Is the backglass painted? I assume the
backglass is actually plexi?

Is their something that covers the edge the top of the playfield glass near the backbox making it
look finished?

Crayola

[macattack]

can't get you a photo shot currently as the cabinet is still in transit.

yes the lower portion is seperate. its called the speaker board. its made up on a peice of 12mm (7/16th) mdf. its has the holes cut in it for the speakers and the DMD display area. It is covered by a piece of plexi the same size that has the speaker hole cut in it. Also the area where the DMD displays is masked off and the rest of the back of the plexi sprayed black so you get a glossy finish. In my case i then covered it with the artwork. (original machines were back printed). the speaker holes then have a piece of black screen door plastic mesh between the 2 boards.
the main backglass is connected/seperated from the speaker board with a 'H' shaped bit of plastic
http://www.marcospecialties.com/product.asp?ic=03%2D8265%2D1

The main backglass is actually 3mm glass in this case with the outer edges back painted black to hide the frame of the 32" monitor. you could use plexi here also, but glass is clearer and won't scratch when you wipe it to clean it.

currently there is no trim between the playfield glass and the back of the cabinet, as i didn't have it and the only place i could order it is from the USA so i figured it could wait till i get here and then order it.
this is what you need
http://www.marcospecialties.com/product.asp?ic=03%2D8091%2D2

I also see for those looking that Marco has now got stock back in of widebody lockdown bars.

[KagatoAMV]

If I didn't already have a pin to restore I would be very tempted to try something like this.

[JustMichael]

I just noticed a major flaw with your Doctor Who pinball machine!!!!  The flaw is that it is not in MY house...   

[macattack]

Lol, as it happens mine either still, hopefully the container will arrive this week

[drventure]

I missed this during the build. Awesome job!

[JustMichael]

Where in America did you end up?

[macattack]

Where in America did you end up?

Farmington hills, MI

[macattack]

well, machine finally arrived. slight bit of damage to the front artwork, but good news is all the screen are working. As it happened only the backglass tv needed a voltage converter, the rest of the equipment was dual voltage.

work begins on the 2nd machine this weekend. new thread to come for that one.

[Rick]

work begins on the 2nd machine this weekend. new thread to come for that one.

I anxiously await your next project!  I just re-read through this thread, and can't wait.

[Spektre]

If you are still here in this thread, might I ask a question?

How did you mount the TV?  If I am reading the pictures correctly, it looks like you notched each side piece of the cabinet the length of the case and then just sat it on top of the wood, then covering it with the lockbar and side rails.  Is this correct?

Geat looking cabinet.

Spektre

[macattack]

If you are still here in this thread, might I ask a question?

How did you mount the TV?  If I am reading the pictures correctly, it looks like you notched each side piece of the cabinet the length of the case and then just sat it on top of the wood, then covering it with the lockbar and side rails.  Is this correct?

Geat looking cabinet.

Spektre

Correct on a widebody using a 46" screen you have to sit the monitor on the sides due to it's width.
A 42" while it would fit inside the cabinet is not long enough for the full effect.

[upprc04]

So you don't actually mount it to anything?  You just rest it on a ledge around the side?

[macattack]

So you don't actually mount it to anything?  You just rest it on a ledge around the side?

In this case that correct . It's supported by it's frame and held in place by the side rails, lockbar and glass.

[Spektre]

Do you have the dimensions of the pieces for your backbox with the 32" screen by any chance?

Many thanks.

Spektre

[Spektre]

bump

[macattack]

it really varies based on what screen you used. in the case of this sony screen i used, i had to make the backbox another 3" wider than stock. you really need to measure the total width of your screen and then work out with at as the internal width, what you need to make the other parts.
with the sides going on the outside of the head, if your screen was lets say 29" wide, then the back, top and bottom would also be 29" wide. the sides would then join to this and your total width would then be 30.5".

[macattack]

I need to let go of a couple of toys to address some bills.

Dr Who is going up for sale. One of the first 46" builds and part of Visual Pin history.

46" samsung lcd
29" Haier 29" (new)
Hanspree 15.6" (new)

3Ghz dual core cpu
2gb memory
60gb OCZ Agility 3 SSD
XP Tiny
GTS 250 1gb video card


Pics as it sits today below.
There is a red line on the screen that has been there since day 1 (visible in last pic), it does not impact game play as far as I'm concerned and for the most part during game play I don't even notice it. But wanted to point it out.

Also if the buyer would like i will include the original head i built for it and dmd overlay that was designed for a 32" screen. i removed it recently due to the fact the original 32" monitor was a 240v model when this pin was built in the UK.








 $2850

original post edited also to correct missing images.

[Rick]

HOLY CRAP, I REMEMBER THIS ONE! (I never made the connection this was yours!)

Somebody - STEP UP. This one is amazing. It deserves a great home.