Pinball Coffee Table

[DrewKaree]

Sweet, although I doubt many of the wives will let this go

http://www.instructables.com/ex/i/E1997D9CD7601028931A001143E7E506/?ALLSTEPS

[Luxury]

Girl in the pic looks thrilled!

[dmsuchy]

That is a cool idea, only I would hate to destroy a pin unless you couldn't save it. Wouldn't be to hard to make it working also!

[USSEnterprise]

That is a cool idea, only I would hate to destroy a pin unless you couldn't save it. Wouldn't be to hard to make it working also!

Maybe a SS machine. EM would be mega hard

[JonnyBoy]

You know what would be extremely awesome. A pinball machine that played itself, in the form of a coffee table. Add some sort of sensor and whenever the ball passes through it, the table reacts accordingly. That way you could have the lights...and the noise of a pinball machine!

[quarterback]

Materials List:

Code: [Select]

2 side pieces of wood cut to fit

2 end pieces of wood cut to fit
You don't say?  You mean you cut the wood to fit?!?  What a revolutionary idea!!

[ChadTower]

I have a pic here of a MUCH better one but can't get it out to a place to host from inside this firewall...

http://www.1stcreditmc.com/pinball/photos/details.php?image_id=176&sessionid=006596c61c6aa06f4b9b83302c73dd3c

[ClubNinja]

That one is VERY nice looking.  If that one lit up, then it would be perfect.

[romperwomb]

Girl in the pic looks thrilled!

Not as thrilled as this guys wife...

Warning: Kinda yucky (redneck turns dead wife into coffee table)

Mmm...Pabst.

[Clonedsheep]

Gross 

[Ed_McCarron]

Girl in the pic looks thrilled!

Not as thrilled as this guys wife...

Warning: Kinda yucky (redneck turns dead wife into coffee table)

Mmm...Pabst.

Snopes says... False!

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/lucy.htm

On the other hand, I'd love to pull the table off with the automated play feature.  Couple of magnetic sensors and a trigger mech to fire the flippers.

[ChadTower]

That one is VERY nice looking.  If that one lit up, then it would be perfect.

It does, just not in that picture.

[ClubNinja]

That one is VERY nice looking.  If that one lit up, then it would be perfect.

It does, just not in that picture.

Then it's perfect.

[ChadTower]

Awesome, but if you could play... that is perfect.

[ChadTower]

It would just drain almost immediately, though, if the flippers weren't active.

[nostrebor]

What if you put some sort of pop-bumper at the drain that sent the ball back up the playfield? I would suppose that making the playfield flat would extend the ball activity as well. It might work on an EM style game with no ramps and such.

[ChadTower]

That would work, though there could be a sneakier way... maybe put pop bumper style leaf switches behind the flippers.  The flippers get hit, they fire.

[nostrebor]

You could do that and put a "fence" across the drain to keep the ball in play. I'm thinking that the fence would be the chrome wire that is used to direct a ball like elsewhere on the table. Maybe make it V-shaped to push the ball toward the flippers. You could also "fence the outboard drains, or pop-bumper them ala BK2k, to keep the ball in play.

BTW, you guys suck. The wheels are really turning here, and I do not need another project right now!

[DrewKaree]

Nos, you can't build one anyway.  No one believes you can, and you're not the kinda guy to be all "I'll show THEM!"

I'll even go so far as to say I triple frog dog dare you

[ChadTower]

I wouldn't bother to block off the drain.  Just make it feed any drained ball back into the trough and fire it back up into play.  Wouldn't be hard at all, just another solenoid and a leaf switch instead of a plunger.

[nostrebor]

Nos, you can't build one anyway.  No one believes you can, and you're not the kinda guy to be all "I'll show THEM!"

I'll even go so far as to say I triple frog dog dare you

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I'm in the middle of selling a house right now. You can't do this to me!

I wouldn't bother to block off the drain.  Just make it feed any drained ball back into the trough and fire it back up into play.  Wouldn't be hard at all, just another solenoid and a leaf switch instead of a plunger.

Oh yeah. that would be the berries. I suppose that all these additional solenoids could be added into the system without messing thins up? On a SS pin, would these cause a problem? I would think that it would be no worries on an EM?

[ChadTower]

On an SS, I guess you'd have to choose your playfield based on whether or not they used the entire solenoid matrix... a lot of the earlier SS games didn't max out on solenoids compared to what the board could do.

Or, maybe you could remove a solenoid someplace else... or better yet, make them nonCPU controlled.  Switch closes solenoid fires, no intelligence.  That wouldn't be hard to do, just tap into the power line, I think.  I know some of the earliest SS pins had solenoids like that.

[PCtech]

These tables look great (although if I made one, I would be the corpse in the coffee table because my wife would kill me).  One thought about making one that plays by itself, or bumps the ball around the playfield, would be the noise.   With all the bells and pings, and bumpers "bumping", it would sound about....like an arcade.  I would love it, my kids would be ecstatic..but my wife....not so much...kinda like the lady in the 1st pic (yeah look at this wonderful piece of @#$ my man made for the living room)....dead man walking 

[ChadTower]

Yeah, I'm just getting into System 1, so I knew of the nonintelligent coils but not exactly how many the System 1 uses.  Apparently they're all self contained?  That would actually be pretty cool if you could find a trashed System 1 with a good playfield.

[GGKoul]

I have a pic here of a MUCH better one but can't get it out to a place to host from inside this firewall...

http://www.1stcreditmc.com/pinball/photos/details.php?image_id=176&sessionid=006596c61c6aa06f4b9b83302c73dd3c

THATS AWESOME!!! 

[MameMaster!]

for **ONLY**** $3000.00 you can just buy this one!--

http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?itemId=14180

bah. not even half as nice as the two in this thread! 

[RayB]

I wish I could fine the photo, but last year a guy here in Ontario was selling a Doctor Who pinball converted into a couch.

[ChadTower]

Okay now THAT is a dumbass concept.

[RayB]

Here it is:

[RayB]

last one:

[whammoed]

Okay now THAT is a dumbass concept.

Come on, tell us what you really think.  I'm tired of you holding back Chad.  No need to sugar coat things for us.

[ChadTower]

Oh, so it's just the cabinet, and nothing else?  Not quite as dumbass.  I was picturing something like sitting on an upholstered machine and if you wanted a game you had to tell people to kindly take their buttcheeks off your pinball machine.

[RayB]

That "couch" was on Ebay twice. The guy wanted $750 for it. He got no bids. (I think it was "local pickup only", which usually kills auctions for stuff like this).

[ChadTower]

It's actually a decent idea for a gameroom if the couch is in a place where the art is visible... and you didn't gut a salvageable pin to do it.

[nostrebor]

The trick would be to have the couch and the coffee table come from the same machine. A "matched set" so to speak.

Of course, you are probably well into gutting a salvageable machine at this point, so you didn't hear this from me.

[RayB]

Now what can you do with the pinball "head"? An end table?

[ChadTower]

A storage cabinet?

[nostrebor]

If you had a wet bar area, the head would be cool for a storage cabinet for "bottled items". Could probably light it easily enough.

I had several EM backglasses as a youngster. My Dad framed them and hung them in my room. All were backlit. Pretty cool stuff for a 9 year old.

[c64rulez]

That "couch" was on Ebay twice. The guy wanted $750 for it. He got no bids. (I think it was "local pickup only", which usually kills auctions for stuff like this).

That couch is worthless if he didn't leave the trigger mechanism so that you could eject guests that simply aren't willing to leave.