Arcade Collecting > Pinball
A DIY Pinball Machine
Chris:
--- Quote from: johnmartin on August 15, 2008, 09:48:12 am ---Got me wondering on whether or not VP can accept an input from a real bumper and translate that into the same bumper in the VP table.
--- End quote ---
There's be no real good reason for doing that... you'd just be using VP as a script engine. Note that VP includes NO pinball rules at all... no ball count, ball drain, scoring, nothing. You have to write ALL that from scratch in Visual Basic scripting.
I've written a "table skeleton" that does all the basic game management: driving a display, counting balls, handling credits, etc. You may want to use it to get a jump start. You can download it from http://webpages.charter.net/celamantia/vp/ .
johnmartin:
Why did I know that was the answer I was going to get. LOL It makes sense after you say it. I guess there is a reason it takes so long for a real machine to get designed.
I am still not daunted though. I am set on this. It will get built and it WILL work LOL It just may be harder than I thought. ;D
John
Chris:
You have both a Happ Controls distributorship and Marco Specialties (http://marcospec.com) right there in South Carolina so you should at least be able to get parts fast!
I still dream of making a pinball someday.. I've dreamed of that ever since a child when I would build "tables" with straight pins and rubber bands in cardboard. I may try something simpler like a pitch and bat machine.
Going back to interfacing: You say you want to use an IPac and not hack a keyboard... however, it's worth noting that modern pinballs usually used matrixed switch arrangements, just like keyboards, so you may find that a keyboard controller chip is actually easier for this case.
One of my big stoppers was having no idea how to do lamp inserts into the table without having something as precise as a CNC cutter. I never did solve that.
johnmartin:
The I-Pac is my method of choice since I can assign any keystroke to a specific item on the playfield and I can save the configuration to the I-Pac. I actually have a 1/2 dozen Happ pushbuttons sitting at home right now from my MAME build.
As far as lamp inserts, I was thinking that a Forstner bit would do nicely for that as long as you could control the depth accurately.
John
Chris:
--- Quote from: johnmartin on August 15, 2008, 10:59:20 am ---As far as lamp inserts, I was thinking that a Forstner bit would do nicely for that as long as you could control the depth accurately.
--- End quote ---
Well, Marco has the inserts:
http://www.marcospecialties.com/storeitems.asp?txtkey=insert&PageNo=4
Just looking at that page makes me want to build one!
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