Just came back from a nice week off in the sun. They call me gingerbread man. Sweet!
Anyway.
Progress is going slow at the moment but I've done a little reconnaissance in various hardware/woodware shops and got a couple of good candidates for my cabinet and playfield.
Still not done with the actual theme of the game yet.
So my new plan is to design a "beta" board based on the current design without any graphics just to work out the kinks and see if the game flows properly. And is FUN.
It would suck to build a table that simply isn't fun to play.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Not standing still!
Despite the lack of blogging lately, work is going steady backstage.
The new design (playfield layout, that is) is nearly finalized.
Next comes the actual theme and playfield art which could further change the playfield to accomodate new modes etc. But I'm pleased with the current layout, although not accurately depicted below.
Stay tuned!
The new design (playfield layout, that is) is nearly finalized.
Next comes the actual theme and playfield art which could further change the playfield to accomodate new modes etc. But I'm pleased with the current layout, although not accurately depicted below.
Stay tuned!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Good old days!
Had a go on a couple of pinball machines last night, and it spurred me even more in the making of my own machine. There's something truly captivating in all those flashing lights, the sound and feeling of the games. It's hard to imagine why only so few people (here at least) still play...
It's also too bad that most of my ideas seems to be done before. But I guess it's about creating a fun game more than anything else. A lot of the major companies created pinball "templates" which were used to base new games on by switching the toys, rules and graphics. But most of the gameplay remained the same.
I'm going to have a go at redesigning the playfield from scratch. The current design has four flippers, but I'm not sure about this design choice anymore. I find myself not using the upper flippers during gameplay as one probably should. But...I'm pretty sure I'll be redesigning it again as soon as I've bolted down a few parts onto the playfield anyway....
It's also too bad that most of my ideas seems to be done before. But I guess it's about creating a fun game more than anything else. A lot of the major companies created pinball "templates" which were used to base new games on by switching the toys, rules and graphics. But most of the gameplay remained the same.
I'm going to have a go at redesigning the playfield from scratch. The current design has four flippers, but I'm not sure about this design choice anymore. I find myself not using the upper flippers during gameplay as one probably should. But...I'm pretty sure I'll be redesigning it again as soon as I've bolted down a few parts onto the playfield anyway....
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Babysteps!
This, my fellow readers, is Pinball Mainframe version 0.0.1.
It's not much, but it's a start!
At the moment eight lights are connected to the Arduino via a shift register. All of them individually switchable and in the picture they are running a little "ye old Knight Rider" lighting show. My wiring and soldering look like crap, but it's called a development board for a reason...Ps. Using superbright LED's while prototyping is rather annoying.
It's not much, but it's a start!
At the moment eight lights are connected to the Arduino via a shift register. All of them individually switchable and in the picture they are running a little "ye old Knight Rider" lighting show. My wiring and soldering look like crap, but it's called a development board for a reason...
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Minimizing sparks without losing the flair...
It seems that sparking can be minimized using capacitators on the switches, as seen in this video. Too bad I didn't knew this when I placed the last order from Marco's! I could probably find a similar component locally that could be used instead of this (yellow wrapper 2.2 uF @ 250 volt axial lead non-polarized metalized polyester capacitor).
But I've probably missed a lot more stuff, so I'll chalk this down for ordering later anyway. Right know I also need plastic inlays, rollover switches, foam paddings, LED-holders and a lot more I don't know about at this moment.
I guess that's one of the problems by learning-as-you-go!
But I've probably missed a lot more stuff, so I'll chalk this down for ordering later anyway. Right know I also need plastic inlays, rollover switches, foam paddings, LED-holders and a lot more I don't know about at this moment.
I guess that's one of the problems by learning-as-you-go!
Friday, February 25, 2011
Playfield design
The playfield design is coming along nicely, having proper measurements helps a lot!
It's really hard to eyeball the flow of the game just by looking at the CAD design (well, vector art anyway) but I think this board will flow very nicely! It does in my head, at least...
Unfortunately the theme and playfield will be "secret" until the construction has come a bit further. I have currently a couple of ideas for the game-theme, but more or less all of them are copyrighted in some way... But I'm pretty confident it's ok as long as I don't sell the machine and put all the right copyrights and brandings on it.
It's really hard to eyeball the flow of the game just by looking at the CAD design (well, vector art anyway) but I think this board will flow very nicely! It does in my head, at least...
Unfortunately the theme and playfield will be "secret" until the construction has come a bit further. I have currently a couple of ideas for the game-theme, but more or less all of them are copyrighted in some way... But I'm pretty confident it's ok as long as I don't sell the machine and put all the right copyrights and brandings on it.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Sparks will fly...
Had a little fun shooting sparks and triggering solenoids via directly fed +48 VDC.
Turns out the sparks were caused by too little resistance in the coils and the large voltage difference when off/on. That's ok for the flippers where sparking is actually considered normal operation due to the way they work, but for the bumpers etc I need to either:
A) Lower the voltage over the coils
B) Increase the resistance over the coils
(A foot note: Low resistance = High power coils, so it's not all bad!)
The sparking in this case means lower lifetime per coil, more heat etc. For a normal "hold" coil, the resistance (Ohm) should be around 150-200. Mine was 4 Ohm, same as the flipper coils. A direct short circuit is anything below 1.8 Ohm, so it's walking a fine line there...
It will be easier to test this properly when it's all connected in a controlled environment.
Turns out the sparks were caused by too little resistance in the coils and the large voltage difference when off/on. That's ok for the flippers where sparking is actually considered normal operation due to the way they work, but for the bumpers etc I need to either:
A) Lower the voltage over the coils
B) Increase the resistance over the coils
(A foot note: Low resistance = High power coils, so it's not all bad!)
The sparking in this case means lower lifetime per coil, more heat etc. For a normal "hold" coil, the resistance (Ohm) should be around 150-200. Mine was 4 Ohm, same as the flipper coils. A direct short circuit is anything below 1.8 Ohm, so it's walking a fine line there...
It will be easier to test this properly when it's all connected in a controlled environment.
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