Project: 'Troy's Pinball' - Arcade Sequel Build

[ARTbyTROY]

This thing is friggin AWESOME!!!! The paint looks killer!
What product did you use for the black out of curiosity?

Thanks, I used black Dupli-Color vinyl paint, Plast-Kote also makes a nice vinyl color.

[ARTbyTROY]

The back box is assembled, now to put the side panels onto the table starting with the back. I also bought a seven outlet surge protector for the inside of the cabinet to replace of the six outlet adapter type I had originally planned to use.

Below shows where the surge protector will be installed, I will use the heavy duty double stick tape to hold it in place. The biggest selling point for this surge bar vs. what I was going to use... it has a 10 foot cord.

I installed both of the side panels and then finished with the front. Once it was all together I couldn't resist plugging it in to check out the lighting.

Here is a look at the front, it looks good and I had no idea at this point, but I had the legs installed and started putting the front together when I realized there was a problem.

The plunger is too long and sits too high, as such it is directly in the way of the TV, the plunger will need to be relocated lower on the panel... below is a freshly cut new front panel.

I used four screws and large washers to hold the old front panel securely on top of the new one, it is now just a nicely painted hole saw template.

Fast forward and the new panel is cut, masked off and ready for vinyl color.

I took the redo as an opportunity to fix a few things I wasn't happy with, the top panel in the picture below is now scrap and is only shown for comparison. I cleaned up the plunger hole and put the buttons below the plunger back into two separate holes, I also made the left side lower button hole smaller and fixed the edges of the speaker holes.

Next up are the legs, I could have just bolt them on the way they were but I want to make sure that the legs won't scratch up my machine over time. Below shows what I came up with...

Here are the four table legs, all felt up and ready to go.

Mounting the legs was no easy feat, dipping the bolt threads in petroleum jelly finally helped them go in easier. With all four legs installed it is actually starting to look like something...

[d_stilgar]

I can't wait for videos of this thing working. It's going to be awesome.

[TLHarrell]

This is looking awesome. Can't wait to see it finished. Nice work.

[ARTbyTROY]

I bought a few more parts for the pinball machine, two 6" USB extension cables five blue and five black SPST NO buttons, a 1.5" square blue LED pushbutton, a twenty LED automotive dome light, a metal plunger back plate and four rubber feet.

I rivet together a couple pieces of aluminum angle and attached the 20 LED dome light to it at the level of the side Sapphire logo, below it is the acrylic mount I made for the Pinball Wizard PCB.

I had to modify the metal plunger back plate and a few pieces of acrylic to mount the plunger. I also installed the side buttons and the front speakers.

Below is a shot of the front, I installed SMD LED strips to the underside edge of the table all the way around.

Here is a 3/4 view, ignore the wiring hanging out the bottom, it will all be neatened up closer to the finish.

Next up, another LED test video...

http://youtu.be/GG1IDoAcJRQ

[ARTbyTROY]

I didn't like that when standing and looking at the machine the LED strips I installed on the table underside were visible, moving the strips back an inch did the trick.

In a darkened room the blue glow under the machine is pretty intense...

The front blue LED button and LED jumbo push button are wired to power.

[Fuganater]

OOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo

[ARTbyTROY]

The black tubular thing below the blue square push button is an arcade push button wrench, it only cost a couple bucks and for getting buttons fit tight it's worth every penny.

In the following picture I have all of my buttons and plunger wired to the Pinball Wizard/Mot-Ion controller, I also installed four push buttons into the bottom of the machine and wired up the square blue push button. Two 120mm fans were installed in front of the freshly meshed bottom vent/access hole

The TV controls were mounted on the inside edge of the front access/vent hole, beside the TV hand controls sits the IR remote receiver/power LED PCB.

Here is a bottom up shot of the TV controls and remote control PCB.

I cut a length of adhesive backed felt to line the back brace where the 16" monitor face will rest, the area under the sub woofer and any piece of aluminum angle that makes contact with the sub woofer were also lined with felt to prevent unwanted vibration.

The sub woofer and power supply are installed...

Motherboard, video cards and lighting are wired and installed. There are three separate lighting elements that make up the Sapphire window effect, two are shown below and one still has to be wired, each has it's own on/off switch on the back of the machine.

Here is a nice shot of the window...

Here's why two-way mirror was used, the video cards reflection in the picture below appears to go on forever.

I turned on all of the blue SMD LED strips to make sure they would not interfere with or over power the window.

The blue LED strips and window lighting work really well together...

It's starting to fill up with hardware, other than the 40" TV the table part is fully assembled and ready for some wire management.

[Stonerboy779]

The pic of the video card messed with my head it is so sweet.

[TLHarrell]

Looks like you are mounting the 40" monitor right at the top surface? If I had space, I'd mount it inset like the playfield on a regular machine and put the whole thing under glass.

Awesome build though. Can't wait to see more. Totally drool-worthy piece of hardware.