Bartop pinball

[btp2k2]

I am pondering building a new cabinet for Visual Pinball/Future Pinball.

I was going to include a pinball shooter/flipper buttons on my Seahawks cabinet, but the plunger made it look a little odd so I scrapped the idea. I still have the plunger I ordered from Happ, so I am thinking about building a bartop cabinet with a flat panel monitor and running Visual Pinball and Future Pinball.

I would like to avoid cluttering it up with extra controls, so navigation might be a bit tricky. I was thinking about maybe adding a small trackball (maybe like the 2 1/4" trackball on Ultimarc?) to act as a mouse to navigate through the menu.

Another cool idea would be to construct a full size cabinet like a pinball machine, and mount the monitor in what would be the backbox.

Man, my wife is going to kill me when she finds out I am considering building another cabinet.

[ChadTower]

I wouldn't bother with a plunger anyway.  There is little satisfaction in pulling a plunger when there isn't a real ball on it.  The plunger in VP is time based, meaning you hold down the button to "build up" power for the plunger in an "analog" manner.  You can't do that with a real plunger, the concept doesn't physically work.

[btp2k2]

I was thinking about that, and I think I found away to simulate that with a plunger.

As it stands, when you play VPin with a keyboard you hold down the button for the plunger until the desired strength is built up and then release the button to shoot.

I was thinking of setting up the plunger so it is actually pressing the button down at rest. The microswitch would be set to "Normally Closed" rather than "Normally Open". You pull back on the plunger, releasing the button and opening the switch. Let go of the plunger and the right moment will close the switch and shoot the ball, giving you the same effect of holding down a button for a given time.

It's still just a theory, but I think it will work (fingers crossed)

[ChadTower]

Could work in principle... I'll be interested to see how it turns out.

[SodaPopinksi]

 I wish visual pinball had better panorama support and dual-screen support because you could make a really nice virtual pinball table with a vertical lcd and perhaps a small lcd for the dmd screen. I have it running dual-screen in my cab but I have to click on the dmd and push it up to the other screen. HowardC's wrapper adds nice dualscreen support but the dmd doesn't come out right on the top half since I'm running the screens at diff resolutions. His wrapper software also enables you to quit games with esc. I think the latest beta versions of VP will have quit with esc built in as well but haven't tried them yet.

[GadgetGeek]

I would like to avoid cluttering it up with extra controls, so navigation might be a bit tricky. I was thinking about maybe adding a small trackball (maybe like the 2 1/4" trackball on Ultimarc?) to act as a mouse to navigate through the menu.

How about a touchpad for navigation?

[shardian]

I wish visual pinball had better panorama support and dual-screen support because you could make a really nice virtual pinball table with a vertical lcd and perhaps a small lcd for the dmd screen. I have it running dual-screen in my cab but I have to click on the dmd and push it up to the other screen. HowardC's wrapper adds nice dualscreen support but the dmd doesn't come out right on the top half since I'm running the screens at diff resolutions. His wrapper software also enables you to quit games with esc. I think the latest beta versions of VP will have quit with esc built in as well but haven't tried them yet.

I could never get Howard's wrapper to work.

[btp2k2]

I wish visual pinball had better panorama support and dual-screen support because you could make a really nice virtual pinball table with a vertical lcd and perhaps a small lcd for the dmd screen. I have it running dual-screen in my cab but I have to click on the dmd and push it up to the other screen. HowardC's wrapper adds nice dualscreen support but the dmd doesn't come out right on the top half since I'm running the screens at diff resolutions. His wrapper software also enables you to quit games with esc. I think the latest beta versions of VP will have quit with esc built in as well but haven't tried them yet.

I like the idea of a dual screen...with the right software, that could be pretty cool.

a guy at work offered me a touchscreen yesterday, he picked it up for use in a jukebox and went another route. I was thinking about making a jukebox with it...but it could serve as a nice selection screen for the VP cab. It is only a 12", so it would serve nicely as the second screen

[ChadTower]

Would be much more fun as a small bartop touchscreen game cab or juke.  Seems like a better use than a secondary control for another game.

[leapinlew]

Pinball
the next generation?

[btp2k2]

Oh wow....that is too cool.

I am not too big on the arcade controls there, but still pretty cool. Is that yours, leapinlew?

If so, please share some details

[leapinlew]

negative. It's a crapmame. All this pinball talk reminded me of it.

[btp2k2]

Well, that's too bad it runs MAME too....That would be an awesome VPin cab.

I will have to look into that. One of my wife's friends husband has several pinball machines in various states of disrepair. He said he would trade one for a MAME cab....could be worth making one for him of I could get something decent out of it....

[ChadTower]

A decent MAME cab would cost more to build than a project pin would cost.

[CheffoJeffo]

I have sketches for a table top pin that I put together after reading this thread on VPForums.

Here is a pic of what one guy threw together ... not sure if he ever finished it.

[ChadTower]

That forum is blocked by my work proxy, but if they've finally gotten to a point where you can build a good multiscreen cab like that one appears to be, it goes immediately into my project queue.

[SodaPopinksi]

I remember seeing that project and one like it, I believe the person used a desktop background for the backboard area on the 2nd screen and then moved the dmd screen up onto it.

I got HowardC's wrapper to work with the latest non-beta version of Visual Pinball and it does dualscreen pretty well (if both screen resolutions are the same, otherwise I don't know how to config that or if its possible) but it's just the dmd that appears on the 2nd screen. For an actual backboard to appear on the 2nd screen I'm pretty sure you have to use a desktop background image.

[btp2k2]

I have sketches for a table top pin that I put together after reading this thread on VPForums.

Here is a pic of what one guy threw together ... not sure if he ever finished it.

Whoa...that is very cool. That is just standard Visual Pinball?

[psychotech]

 

A bartop pinball, that's just the way to go

Me too. (Simpler, one screen solution..)

All the best with your build 

psychotech