Mini Pin (Pinball) cab

[vidmouse]

After visiting the Pinball at the Zoo last weekend I finally decided to take the plunge and make a whole new pinball cab.  Originally I wanted my Captain Arcade project to be it, but I think it was a bad decision... trying to make a spare 4-player cab work for vertical shooters and pinball just looked too weird and took up too much space for what it was.  So I decided to scrap that project and start over, this time building a mini pin cab from scratch.

On Saturday 4/23 I got the plans drawn up, side panels cut first.  It was a little tricky as I was using my circular saw and the table has a 6 degree angle on it, but it worked out.  When I was drawing up the plans (will post later) I had to do a little trigonometry to figure it all out.  Then I had to see what wood I had left.  At the time it was still Lent, and I had made a vow during Lent not to buy any new toys, so it was a bit of gamble.  Luckily I had just enough wood to get started.  I had a piece from a crate from work, and several pieces from a computer desk my neighbor had disassembled and thrown out.  The bottom was a piece leftover from when I made a safety gate for my kids!    Saturday ended with me finishing the main pieces and gluing the support 1x2's in place.  (sorry no photo)

Today 4/24 I started assembly, and got decently far.  I glued and used 1 1/4" screws to hold in some of the panels.  I salvaged the coin acceptor and coin return off my junk cabinet and plan to use them as a coin button and USB port, respectively.   That's why there's holes in the front panel.  Had to use my forstner bit to drill a big hole through, then used my router to square it up.  I also used my router to cut slots for T-molding on the side panels.

Unfortunately I'm out of wood glue and screws so will have to make a hardware run tomorrow or by next weekend to continue work.  But you can see some of the results here.  The lockdown bar is from the computer desk ... the rounding on the desk makes it a fairly nice piece!



Here's a shot where I was test-fitting the monitor mounting into place:

[homertv]

Very cool!
Keep the pic comming.
What size monitor is that? And what size monitor r u going with 4 the back glass?

[vidmouse]

Thanks!

The monitor is a 24.9" Hannspree.  They billed it as 25" though.
I'm looking for a 17" monitor for the backglass but don't have one yet.
I may forego the backglass until I can get one on the cheap, the
design will allow me to made modifications easy enough later.
I also don't have a video card yet to allow two monitors...
here are the PC specs I'm running it with:

Athlon x2 dual core 6400
1 GB ram
128 MB Radeon 9200 SE
300 GB hard drive
IPAC 2

[vidmouse]

4/25/11:  I had an idea today on how to do the legs cheaply yet functionally.  Awhile back I took down some decorative posts that were on our 30-yr old house to open up some space.  I saved them but really never intended to use them ... till now!  I had to use my circular saw to cut them in at 23" resting length then use my table saw to make the vertical cut to form the "L" shape... I figure it should give plenty of stability with glue and 3 screws apiece holding them in.  After it was all done I was happy to see that it went as planned, and my palm resting height is 38" from the floor, which I believe is the same as a Williams cab.







Also shown here is the mounting block for my playfield monitor.  The block rests on top of two rails I've affixed to the side panels.  The whole thing can be removed at any time for service.

[yotsuya]

You could probably make a really cool looking steampunk pinball cab with that wood!

[vidmouse]

Actually I'm planning on a red and black scheme w/ a Space Invaders graphic,
but your idea is neat if I wasn't planning one already.

Non-work update:
Originally I was going to go with a no-backbox design on this but
after finally trying out hyperpin I decided I couldn't live w/o it.
Luckily my mom had an extra flat panel she's letting me have!
Score!

Had to buy a second video card for it, but that's a small sacrifice.

[vidmouse]

I did some paint work on the cab in the last couple of days.  First pic is just with one coat of red,
the 2nd is the 2nd coat of red plus one coat black, just done this morning.  I plan to add some
hand-painted art (similar to what I did on the control panel on my Captain Arcade cab) later.

[vidmouse]

4/30/11:  Today I began painting the side art.  I decided to go with a Space Invaders theme similar to what I had on my Captain Arcade cabinet control panel:


Except that this time I used spray paints to make the sun and added some stars too:


In this photo you can see one of the nudge switches I put into place.  I'm not sure if they will really work or not yet, but it's a good stand-in until I get a real motion sensor.  I don't really nudge all that much while I'm playing anyway.  I tried to take a better photo of it, but it was all blurry.  The nudge switch is basically a microswitch with an extended arm that I weighted by cable-tying a heavy bolt to it.


The biggest headache ended up having the simplest solution... I had to fit the coin acceptor into a hole that I had made that was a little too big.  Ended up using hot glue epoxy to fill the gaps and make the housing adhere to the front panel.  Worked for the coin return as well.  I also hooked up a spare button as a credit button behind the coin acceptor.  It works, but you have to only lightly push it otherwise it will jam.


I also ran a test with my new Geforce FX5200 256MB video card... it has dual VGA outputs so I was able to hook up two monitors, one for the playfield and one for the backglass.  I borrowed my desktop monitor over to the cab temporarily to use as a backglass monitor, just to test it out and it works great.  Can't wait 'till I get the final one from Mom!

[vidmouse]

5/1/11:  Moved my cab down to the basement where it will be when I play it.  Drilled new holes for the service panel (power switch, power cord and access hole).  Removed the panel connecting to the backpanel and drilled a hole for speaker cable and eventually the backglass monitor cables.  Decased my PC and installed everything down in the cab.  Most everything is either screwed and/or glued in place:



No wires to the IPAC yet, that'll have to wait 'till my next free day.

[Zebidee]

'tis lookin' real noice, Vid.

[vidmouse]

5/15/11:  Finally got the 2nd monitor, and couldn't wait to set it up.



5/21/11:  Got a chance to start building my backbox.  Luckily I still had enough scrap wood left to do the job!



5/25/11:  Last night I finished the speaker panel except for the speaker covers.  Added my last (?) coat of paint and today I got it up and running on my cab.  My daughter discovered that it plays really well for her, look at her score!  




Take that, Black Knight!


Still to come:  adding speaker covers, t-molding, glass, removing the protective film on the playfield, making a bezel for the backglass, and final touches on the art.

[njay]

Good work i like your recycling use of wood

You are ofcourse forgetting one thing a ledwiz with some nice cree led's or like i did just rgb pushbutton leds from GGG

[upprc04]

How are the viewing angles on your playfield monitor?  I'm dying to build a mini-pin (can't justify spending the money on a full size one right now, especially after the last couple of projects I've worked on).

[vidmouse]

How are the viewing angles on your playfield monitor?  I'm dying to build a mini-pin (can't justify spending the money on a full size one right now, especially after the last couple of projects I've worked on).

They're great for playing, but if you're standing to the left of the person playing, then
it is difficult to see the playfield.  If you're standing to the right, no problem.

(admittedly I stood to the left of my daughter when taking the pics but
the camera sees different than the eye)

[extendedplayarcade]

awesome stuff.  I so want to make one of these.  Seeing I am fresh out of pinball machines (sold them all for various reasons through out the years)  I actually had a total of 15 machines at once.   Ok i am getting sad now 

anyways great job my kids would love something like this.

 

[vidmouse]

Update:
Here are some pics of my overall arcade cabs incl. the pincab with the backglass bezel in place.


My Gauntlet Legends cab... used to be "Arcadia 2007" but I wanted more of a castle theme to go with my conversion to 4-player.


My racing cab marquee:  finally got the software reloaded on this since the pc swap.


My nudge switches.  These are simply a metal weight (a heavy nut and then a bolt) attached via wire to a screw, which acts as one contact for the IPAC.  Then I used aluminum foil glued to wire for another contact.



More to come!

[vidmouse]

I finally got around to finishing this with a new trim piece between the top of the glass and backbox.

[mwong168]

Lookin' good and can't wait to get back to my cab build once I get my parts from GGG.  Is that the VP8 version of Safecracker you converted to FS?

[extendedplayarcade]

Awesome job.

Man I so wish I could build one of those.  I still haven't even finished my cocktail table.   

I just lost interest.  How do you keep the motivation?

[vidmouse]

Lookin' good and can't wait to get back to my cab build once I get my parts from GGG.  Is that the VP8 version of Safecracker you converted to FS?

Yes it is.  At some point I need to ask permission and then post it on vpforums.org, because
it plays fantastic.

Awesome job.

Man I so wish I could build one of those.  I still haven't even finished my cocktail table.   

I just lost interest.  How do you keep the motivation?

Thanks!  It helps to space some things out and really play it a lot... then you
just won't be satisfied 'till it's done.

[BobA]

Looks great.  Nice finish work.   

[abispac]

i wish i had the money to build one of this, it looks so nice good job. 

[vidmouse]

Thanks!

Here's some more related items:

Measured plans for my cab (per request from a PM):




And some videos of the startup and play (albeit poor play b/c I'm doing it 1-handed):

[extendedplayarcade]

awesome of you to give us all the cut outs of your project.

wow now it takes a lot of the guess work out.

what size monitors did you use?

oh man i can't start another project with out finishing one.  i can't i can't i can't 
 

[vidmouse]

awesome of you to give us all the cut outs of your project.

wow now it takes a lot of the guess work out.

what size monitors did you use?

oh man i can't start another project with out finishing one.  i can't i can't i can't 
 

Thanks!  I didn't include some of the cutouts for the joining pieces.  I used 1x2" wood for that.
My playfield monitor is a 25" Hannspree monitor and the backglass one is 19" (I think) that I
got as a hand-me-down from Mom.   

[extendedplayarcade]

That is awesome

nothing way to expensive either.

seems like a great deal.  If you had to say (and if you don't mind me asking) what do you think your total cost was?

 

[vidmouse]

That is awesome

nothing way to expensive either.

seems like a great deal.  If you had to say (and if you don't mind me asking) what do you think your total cost was?

 

I don't mind at all.  Here's the breakdown:
PC Specs
$50 Mobo: Biostar K8M800 Micro Motherboard - Via K8M800, Socket AM2, MicroATX, Audio, Video, AGP 8xk ...
$60 CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Processor 2.40GHz, 1MB Cache, 1000MHz (2000 MT/s) FSB, Brisbane, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket AM2, Processor with Fan
$36 Memory: 2GB (2x Patriot Signature 1024MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Memory or similar brand)
$25 Video Card: PNY/Nvidia 256MB FX5200 PCI w/ dual VGA outputs
$200 Monitor: Hannspree HF-259HPB 24.6" Widescreen LCD HD Monitor - 1080p, 1920x1080, 16:9, 1000:1 Native, 3000: Dynamic, 2ms, 60Hz, Integrated Speakers, VGA, HDMI
$--- Backglass monitor: unknown, about 19"
$100 IPAC2 (which in hindsight I didn't really need, I have a spare gamepad I could've hacked but oh well)
$22 Altec Lansing Speakers w/ sub from office depot
$10 Logitech keyboard
$--- optical mouse

Note that most of the ocmponents I already had laying around. The only things I bought specifically for this build were the playfield monitor, the 256 MB video card, and one of the GB's of memory. But I included the original prices I paid back when I got the
other components as well.

So, about $770, assuming 170 for the backglass monitor and an $8 mouse. Luckily I got the bg monitor for free from
good ol' mom...

Build-wise, all the wood was free or leftover from other projects. Literally, some of it came from an old computer
desk my neighbors threw out. I think i did have to buy some wood screws and glue, and two $1 picture frames to use as speaker hole covers.

[extendedplayarcade]

Great build on any budget.

But you did a great job keeping cost down.

I am sure My kids would love this build.  They love pinball more than video (because they are still very young)