Three small changes: 1) a simple pendulum-style gyroscope to detect tilt 2) adjustable foot screws at the corners 3) integrated x/y axis leveling tubes in the front/side of the unit to verify it is sitting level before playing Moreso than a full-size pinball table your teensy table is going to be susceptible to both score abuse and damage from users thrashing it about, so verifying that users aren't "cheating" by applying excessive tilt is in the unit's favor. Likewise, the leveling feet and built-in levels would guarantee fair play at the table angle you designed the unit with in mind (or an even bias from which to adjust the table from) since the teensy table is likely to be moved a lot, and not always with a level handy to test it afterward. EDIT: perhaps do the tilt sensor entirely discreet and simply have it shut the unit off should excessive tilt be applied? A couple of simple switches that close a circuit if a pendulum contacts them, or something like a self-centering hall-effect sensor that does something similar when it moves beyond certain parameters? I don't know, I'm just brainstorming here.
Maybe just microswitches on the underside that detects if any corner of the unit doesnt touch the surface its standing on. An accelerometer would work too.
***** I'm not so much recommending the tilt sensor to prevent "cheating" simply in terms of score manipulation as I am suggesting it to prevent abuse that may damage the table itself, since a score penalty or lost score entirely might prevent someone from doing so. The teensy table will be moved --- a LOT -- and likely be played under social conditions. This is going to put the unit under enough stress already without people being rough with it to enhance their score, since there is no penalty. The drop target, for example, appears relatively delicate: abuse to the unit could damage that target in a way that adversely affects the game experience. Likewise with the feet: the last thing you want is the ball having a bias toward the left or right of the table, or too slow or fast of travel, all because your table isn't perfectly flat. This would greatly diminish the table's fun factor -- much like a nonfunctional table would.
Guerilla Grue Plays you could always have the pendulum head made out of a conductive material and just have metal plates on either side... if you tilt it will make contact with the side and complete a circuit..... much like the game "operation"
+Ortsa, Tilting is part of pinball, but it's no fun if it's completely unrestrained. In a game without a tilt sensor any kind of bumping feels like cheating. (Even if nobody's watching.) But if there _IS_ a tilt sensor, then the game gets a lot more complex and interesting because anything that doesn't trigger the sensor is fair game. TLDR : Tilt sensors make pinball more fun.
OMG! Watching you build a pinball machine from the beginning to the end, totally blew me away. It looks like a lot of time and effort going in behind it, designing it and actually building it. A lot of pre planning it looks like as well. And then when I saw the final product I was like WOW Killer!!!!!!! That definitely blew me away! :-)
There are a huge number of toy pinball machines out there meant for kids, built small and cheap. The solutions they came up with for certain elements of the game to cut costs definitely comes with drawbacks... All of them have fully mechanical flippers, thus you have to push the buttons in quite a bit and you can even push them in only part of the way and thus only push the flipper up part of the way. Many use a constantly-running motor and gearing for absolutely everything, including scoring, which is incredibly noisy. Some of the more recent ones use the electrical conductivity of the ball itself to act as a jumper when the ball hits something to score points, thus eliminating the need for a motor, but sometimes this doesn't register since it's intermittent contact. Another thing they all have in common is that the through is gravity-fed straight back to the shooter lane, though some single-player models have a manual mechanism to catch/feed the ball. Some of the motor-driven ones actually have pop bumpers which work without solenoids, but have a delayed reaction due to the nature of the gearing which drives them. Granted, despite their extreme shortcomings, these things typically sell for $25 to $100. Quite a bit less than a brand new game from Stern. ;)
We made a miniature Ben Heck, everything seemed ok, but we couldn't get the regrettable acting to scale down correctly. There are some things you wish you could un-see.
Genius work guys! It's so magnificent, only issue I see is the latency of the flippers, but screw that, it didn't seem over the top. really enjoyed these videos.
The Ben Heck Show should do episodes of single boards computer, like the raspberry pi and such. and element14 should make them easily available to get. theres so much out there that are still under the radar.
Thanks Ben sir. Great build. Awesome Possum, now that's a theme! I laughed pretty hard at the tilt/machine shake cheat. Maybe some tiny legs rubber feet on springs could give it a little 'shake' without making it a pandemonium inducing tilt, almost like what they use under the crate on Whoa Nellie. Lots of fun to watch and with room to make my own when I give it a try.
Hey Ben! This was one of your bests videos in a while! Absolutely great job. instead of a gear motor, wouldn't be better any high torque servo? It already has "a sensor position" which make it's simple. Anyway fantastic job very complete and complex, you sound like it's easy to make these kind of stuff which I'm pretty sure it's not!
@Ben Heck Show A slingshot / wrist rocket steel shot aka steel ball bearings would have made the perfect ball! Additionally it likely would have simplified some of the issues Ben had. I LOVED THIS PROJECT WELL DONE CREW!
Cool build, looks sweet. Things I would have done differently: - I would have added multi ball. That is always nice - After sensor to detect if someone is tilting the cabinet - Maybe used rgb leds, I love changing colors
One option for a heavier ball is to use one made of tungsten. (Mallory Metal) It would be about twice as heavy, still be conductive, and much harder and without the toxicity issues of lead or depleted uranium.
I don't know how light this ball was, but maybe the kind of switches you find in a mouse would've worked? Capacative sensors might've also been an option if the ball's metal?
I'd have liked to see some more traditional pinball features like a couple of active bumpers and a multiball feature. I know its supposed to be a "mini" pinball machine, but it seems to be just a little too stripped down to be any fun to play.
"Always make things you can take apart" >Glues together almost the whole playfield Kidding ofcourse. Love the project. Do you think your method of applying the playfield decal could work on a real pinball machine? (With clearcoat over it) Or is the quality not that good? I'm looking for the best way to restore the upper playfield on my Williams Black Knight 2000.
Why didn't you 3d print the play field? It seems like it would be around the size of something you could print, and printing would allow you to build in mounts for things like the LED's and motors and such thus making the machine more durable. Am I just not reading the scale correctly? or was there another reason why you didn't 3d print it?
As I said before the Gods will be very displeased, you just don't make pinballs smaller. You make them bigger!! Well at least we will know who to blame if the world ends. Great work Ben!!
What Guerilla Grue Plays says, and: If you have a Spaceship theme, then why didn’t you do a “force field” thing, where the ball is held in the air by a levitating magnetic field effect with a hall sensor? The switches could have been made with simple contacts. Why to use a microswitch for that? And if you use a microswitch, the weight of the ball plays no importance because Aristoteles found out this wonderful thing with levers… Additional it would be better to lower the tilt so the ball is moving slower in the flipper on the downhill. Makes a better feeling. And of course there are magnetic effects for this theme that would be cool like acceleration coils (railgun coils) and magnets on the bottom of the game that will distract the way the ball is falling. Maybe a good trick to throw it up again? There are missing bouncers of all kind. Like mushroom-bouncers and bouncing walls, bouncing plates, bouncing rubberbands and so on. A display to jack to the top of the thing would be nice or wait?! What about a laser projector? It’s all done with two simple mirrors… So the thing keeps portable. But man… Spaceship… Laz0rz… Have I to say more? And multiball mode. Is a must. I mean - okay. For that levitating thing you would need Neodynium magnet-balls I guess. But how cool is that?! And that would change some parts of the flipper for you must not use any magnetic parts in rails or something. But IF you have magnetic balls, how about setting them to a spin and to gyro them around in a effect? It’s not done anywhere, so I think… coolness factor would be going off the RAILS. (Like railgun!) Like making the ball moving back on the rails for you can spin it backwards. Yeah, you'll need a couple of a halleffect sensors and that, but… but… Hall sensors instead of IR light sensors. Yeah, why do we have to make flippers like the 70s hippie guys? Why do we just use contacts and that? We have way cooler effects today. And cooler sensors which can do a lot of things, that were unthinkable in those times. Really. Throw out the kicker to throw the ball in with that spring and that. It’s nice. But an other railgun would be correct. Talking spaceships… Do it with magnetic force. Do everything magnetic. Kick away the flippers and that, do it with magnets. I really like to see that. Oh yeah, and tilt-detection? Don’t penalize it. Just put a gyro/accelerometer in the box and *compensate* if the spaceship is not leveled. You have magnets or not? Make it part of the game. And yeah if you want to penalize, then just don’t turn the machine off, just make the forces evil. Dark. If we're talking of darkness, a 20 kV spark emitter would be cool. Still staying inside the space ship theme with that… Why not throwing real sparks? And if it’s tilted - make the machine kick back, tilt back. Space ship is hit, yeah?
Is it possible to have more episodes? The other footage? This is super awesome but you left out a lot of the meat of the design and considerations. Just a thought.
Hey there, how did you diverted the playfield art from the white layer? So that light red becomes more transparent than dark red? So how am i able to convert my playfield art so that it looks nice printed on transparent and fitted on a white layer?
"Possum Park" Ben, you know that the next Possumus movie needs to be about a pack of Possumus Men who adopt a Super Possumus Woman as their new alpha. Totally original idea. Nobody's ever thought of that!
why not use a coil that can be pulsed using a flash circuit from an old 35mm disposable camera to throw the ball up the play field and remove the need for a mechanical method.
I think it's cool that you use notepad++ instead of the arduino IDE. I have a cousin who uses notepad++ and when he mentions it to other programmers they just stare.
Hey Ben! Since its a space shuttle pinball, you should make it compatible for a micro gravity environment so NASA can send one to the space station. I would think some type of magnetic mat for the play floor might work. I don't think anybody has created a pinball machince for space. Can you be the first? Ricketdude307
I love it when Ben says "It's time for a tech time-out" and then something really technical gets explained.
Its a break for tech, not a break from tech
Three small changes:
1) a simple pendulum-style gyroscope to detect tilt
2) adjustable foot screws at the corners
3) integrated x/y axis leveling tubes in the front/side of the unit to verify it is sitting level before playing
Moreso than a full-size pinball table your teensy table is going to be susceptible to both score abuse and damage from users thrashing it about, so verifying that users aren't "cheating" by applying excessive tilt is in the unit's favor. Likewise, the leveling feet and built-in levels would guarantee fair play at the table angle you designed the unit with in mind (or an even bias from which to adjust the table from) since the teensy table is likely to be moved a lot, and not always with a level handy to test it afterward.
EDIT: perhaps do the tilt sensor entirely discreet and simply have it shut the unit off should excessive tilt be applied? A couple of simple switches that close a circuit if a pendulum contacts them, or something like a self-centering hall-effect sensor that does something similar when it moves beyond certain parameters? I don't know, I'm just brainstorming here.
Maybe just microswitches on the underside that detects if any corner of the unit doesnt touch the surface its standing on. An accelerometer would work too.
*****
I'm not so much recommending the tilt sensor to prevent "cheating" simply in terms of score manipulation as I am suggesting it to prevent abuse that may damage the table itself, since a score penalty or lost score entirely might prevent someone from doing so. The teensy table will be moved --- a LOT -- and likely be played under social conditions. This is going to put the unit under enough stress already without people being rough with it to enhance their score, since there is no penalty. The drop target, for example, appears relatively delicate: abuse to the unit could damage that target in a way that adversely affects the game experience.
Likewise with the feet: the last thing you want is the ball having a bias toward the left or right of the table, or too slow or fast of travel, all because your table isn't perfectly flat. This would greatly diminish the table's fun factor -- much like a nonfunctional table would.
Guerilla Grue Plays you could always have the pendulum head made out of a conductive material and just have metal plates on either side... if you tilt it will make contact with the side and complete a circuit..... much like the game "operation"
Guerilla Grue Plays Thanks for the feedback :) A good way to get Ben to see it is posting on the community: ow.ly/OGJa9
+Ortsa, Tilting is part of pinball, but it's no fun if it's completely unrestrained. In a game without a tilt sensor any kind of bumping feels like cheating. (Even if nobody's watching.) But if there _IS_ a tilt sensor, then the game gets a lot more complex and interesting because anything that doesn't trigger the sensor is fair game.
TLDR : Tilt sensors make pinball more fun.
OMG! Watching you build a pinball machine from the beginning to the end, totally blew me away. It looks like a lot of time and effort going in behind it, designing it and actually building it. A lot of pre planning it looks like as well. And then when I saw the final product I was like WOW Killer!!!!!!! That definitely blew me away! :-)
There are a huge number of toy pinball machines out there meant for kids, built small and cheap. The solutions they came up with for certain elements of the game to cut costs definitely comes with drawbacks...
All of them have fully mechanical flippers, thus you have to push the buttons in quite a bit and you can even push them in only part of the way and thus only push the flipper up part of the way. Many use a constantly-running motor and gearing for absolutely everything, including scoring, which is incredibly noisy. Some of the more recent ones use the electrical conductivity of the ball itself to act as a jumper when the ball hits something to score points, thus eliminating the need for a motor, but sometimes this doesn't register since it's intermittent contact. Another thing they all have in common is that the through is gravity-fed straight back to the shooter lane, though some single-player models have a manual mechanism to catch/feed the ball. Some of the motor-driven ones actually have pop bumpers which work without solenoids, but have a delayed reaction due to the nature of the gearing which drives them.
Granted, despite their extreme shortcomings, these things typically sell for $25 to $100. Quite a bit less than a brand new game from Stern. ;)
how about a prize claw machine, since you have the arcade theme going on
angelioto007 thats a great idea :)
angelioto007 That's a great idea
angelioto007 Thats a great idea :D
angelioto007 I don't think mechanically it would be as interesting as a pinball machine.
angelioto007 i mean thats a great idea
Wow that turned out fantastic. Can tell you're in your element with such a cool build.
Absolutely ffing amazing. The quality of this thing is absolutely amazing! Really well done!
Kits of this thing coming to the market anytime soon?
We made a miniature Ben Heck, everything seemed ok, but we couldn't get the regrettable acting to scale down correctly. There are some things you wish you could un-see.
When you got the tools and the brains, you can make it. Well done, nice.
really nice project, i would like to try my luck doing one too! nice channel man, keep going with this fun projects.
Simply awesome! Keep up the great work, love all that you do!
I really like this episode better than the normal pi or portable build.
One of the most interesting projects you have ever made guys and it came out awesome!
Love the outtakes.
Genius work guys! It's so magnificent, only issue I see is the latency of the flippers, but screw that, it didn't seem over the top. really enjoyed these videos.
That's very cool! I would love to build my own pinball machine. This just might be the size i should build. Great job Ben and Ben's team.
Very nice Episode was it worth to wait 2 weeks!!!
Memorable project. Good work!
The Ben Heck Show should do episodes of single boards computer, like the raspberry pi and such. and element14 should make them easily available to get. theres so much out there that are still under the radar.
Thanks Ben sir. Great build. Awesome Possum, now that's a theme! I laughed pretty hard at the tilt/machine shake cheat. Maybe some tiny legs rubber feet on springs could give it a little 'shake' without making it a pandemonium inducing tilt, almost like what they use under the crate on Whoa Nellie. Lots of fun to watch and with room to make my own when I give it a try.
Really great ,I wish I has it. That's a lot of engineering in this machine.
Hey Ben! This was one of your bests videos in a while! Absolutely great job. instead of a gear motor, wouldn't be better any high torque servo? It already has "a sensor position" which make it's simple. Anyway fantastic job very complete and complex, you sound like it's easy to make these kind of stuff which I'm pretty sure it's not!
I think the idea of using the gear motor was because like Felix said he just "dug it up". Using up old parts just laying around.
I never really understand what's going on, but it's sure fun to watch!
@Ben Heck Show
A slingshot / wrist rocket steel shot aka steel ball bearings would have made the perfect ball! Additionally it likely would have simplified some of the issues Ben had. I LOVED THIS PROJECT WELL DONE CREW!
Would have like to see more info on how you produced the controltac graphic overlays...
Cool build, looks sweet. Things I would have done differently:
- I would have added multi ball. That is always nice
- After sensor to detect if someone is tilting the cabinet
- Maybe used rgb leds, I love changing colors
JaapioNL Thanks for the feedback :D You should post about it on the community: ow.ly/OGJa9
+The Ben Heck Show can i please win it?
Great build guys.
One option for a heavier ball is to use one made of tungsten. (Mallory Metal) It would be about twice as heavy, still be conductive, and much harder and without the toxicity issues of lead or depleted uranium.
For version 2 have a backbox (I think that is the correct term) that folds down and covers the glass while travelling.
control tack doesnt need water, it has small beeds of glass that lets the vinyl float untill you squeegy it and pressthe glass into the adhesive layer
I don't know how light this ball was, but maybe the kind of switches you find in a mouse would've worked? Capacative sensors might've also been an option if the ball's metal?
We need a Felix show! He seems just as knowledgeable as Ben.
I'd have liked to see some more traditional pinball features like a couple of active bumpers and a multiball feature.
I know its supposed to be a "mini" pinball machine, but it seems to be just a little too stripped down to be any fun to play.
Very nice episode !!!
"Always make things you can take apart"
>Glues together almost the whole playfield
Kidding ofcourse. Love the project. Do you think your method of applying the playfield decal could work on a real pinball machine? (With clearcoat over it) Or is the quality not that good? I'm looking for the best way to restore the upper playfield on my Williams Black Knight 2000.
Nice work Felix.
Oh, btw, a really impressive project. And a nice demontration how useful 3D printing can be.
Funny I think this one would make a better kit than the new one. So nice and portable.
Love Felix's shirt.
Why didn't you 3d print the play field? It seems like it would be around the size of something you could print, and printing would allow you to build in mounts for things like the LED's and motors and such thus making the machine more durable. Am I just not reading the scale correctly? or was there another reason why you didn't 3d print it?
Now just mount a magnet to pull the ball to the center and screw with the player. Awesome!
As I said before the Gods will be very displeased, you just don't make pinballs smaller. You make them bigger!!
Well at least we will know who to blame if the world ends.
Great work Ben!!
habitrails are used to make tunnels for hamsters and other burrowing animals.
Felix should do a special. Really!
Pretty nice. I'd go with some mechanical mounting rather than all that glue though, and maybe with some adjustment ability here and there.
This is AWESOME. I want one.
I built an h bridge with one transistor and it worked. I found the parts list on the adafruit website
How long did it take to prototype things before 3D printers? Amazing build. Thanks.
What Guerilla Grue Plays says, and:
If you have a Spaceship theme, then why didn’t you do a “force field” thing, where the ball is held in the air by a levitating magnetic field effect with a hall sensor?
The switches could have been made with simple contacts. Why to use a microswitch for that? And if you use a microswitch, the weight of the ball plays no importance because Aristoteles found out this wonderful thing with levers…
Additional it would be better to lower the tilt so the ball is moving slower in the flipper on the downhill. Makes a better feeling. And of course there are magnetic effects for this theme that would be cool like acceleration coils (railgun coils) and magnets on the bottom of the game that will distract the way the ball is falling. Maybe a good trick to throw it up again?
There are missing bouncers of all kind. Like mushroom-bouncers and bouncing walls, bouncing plates, bouncing rubberbands and so on.
A display to jack to the top of the thing would be nice or wait?! What about a laser projector? It’s all done with two simple mirrors… So the thing keeps portable. But man… Spaceship… Laz0rz… Have I to say more?
And multiball mode. Is a must.
I mean - okay. For that levitating thing you would need Neodynium magnet-balls I guess. But how cool is that?! And that would change some parts of the flipper for you must not use any magnetic parts in rails or something. But IF you have magnetic balls, how about setting them to a spin and to gyro them around in a effect?
It’s not done anywhere, so I think… coolness factor would be going off the RAILS. (Like railgun!) Like making the ball moving back on the rails for you can spin it backwards. Yeah, you'll need a couple of a halleffect sensors and that, but… but…
Hall sensors instead of IR light sensors. Yeah, why do we have to make flippers like the 70s hippie guys? Why do we just use contacts and that? We have way cooler effects today. And cooler sensors which can do a lot of things, that were unthinkable in those times. Really. Throw out the kicker to throw the ball in with that spring and that. It’s nice. But an other railgun would be correct. Talking spaceships… Do it with magnetic force. Do everything magnetic. Kick away the flippers and that, do it with magnets.
I really like to see that. Oh yeah, and tilt-detection? Don’t penalize it. Just put a gyro/accelerometer in the box and *compensate* if the spaceship is not leveled. You have magnets or not? Make it part of the game. And yeah if you want to penalize, then just don’t turn the machine off, just make the forces evil. Dark.
If we're talking of darkness, a 20 kV spark emitter would be cool. Still staying inside the space ship theme with that… Why not throwing real sparks? And if it’s tilted - make the machine kick back, tilt back. Space ship is hit, yeah?
Is it possible to have more episodes? The other footage? This is super awesome but you left out a lot of the meat of the design and considerations.
Just a thought.
THe geeky thing to do would be to replicate a computer game table Like the Epic Pinball Android or Microsofts space cadet in real life.
need to add some pop bumpers and drop targets... maybe turn the drain bumpers into slingshot ones... or at least one of them.
I'd totally buy a bar top sized pinball machine that I could operate!
"Have you ever made a miniature version of something large before?" I made a baby human once or twice.
When your filming in the work shop, what is the high pitch beeping noise that's always beeping in the background? It drives me crazy.
you skipped alot of the manufacturing process at the end?
***** exactly my thought. I wish this was a 3 part one. Or 4 or 5 :-)
Hey there, how did you diverted the playfield art from the white layer? So that light red becomes more transparent than dark red? So how am i able to convert my playfield art so that it looks nice printed on transparent and fitted on a white layer?
This is so awesome !
Great project! Games are clearly your passion :) Careful with the use of that NASA logo, they protect that thing.
You guys should make a pinball machine like one of those pirates of the Caribbean zizzle pins
"Possum Park"
Ben, you know that the next Possumus movie needs to be about a pack of Possumus Men who adopt a Super Possumus Woman as their new alpha. Totally original idea. Nobody's ever thought of that!
Great work!
Helle Ben, this Video inspired me to do my own Pinball equiped with a Venyl Overlay -> @
THX!
Interesting project, did you share lines for both the PISO and SIPO shift registers?
I wish my brain was big enough to handle this information... I'd love to make one, this is just so beyond me though!
The comic sans t-shirt... Oh my.
I'd like to see a pinball machine with analogue bumpers.
This is awesome. How deep did you go with the rule sets and scoring on the finished table?
that mini pinball is beautiful I wish you sold them I think you would make a killing
Reminds me of 3d space cadet pinball.
The Ben Heck Show actually I think you should make a real life 3d space cadet pinball ;)
Looks cool, how big is the play field? About A3 size?
Would buy if it was for sale!
Poor Felix. Ben ignoring him like He's not there. What this thing would cost to build. Forget it.
why not use a coil that can be pulsed using a flash circuit from an old 35mm disposable camera to throw the ball up the play field and remove the need for a mechanical method.
gus fring is swagger af
I think it's cool that you use notepad++ instead of the arduino IDE. I have a cousin who uses notepad++ and when he mentions it to other programmers they just stare.
Haha! A machine that you actually tilt sideways XD
Hey Ben!
Since its a space shuttle pinball, you should make it compatible for a micro gravity environment so NASA can send one to the space station. I would think some type of magnetic mat for the play floor might work.
I don't think anybody has created a pinball machince for space.
Can you be the first?
Ricketdude307
You should sell kits I would love to have one but I don't have all the parts needed
PORTABLE PINBALL!!
hello what do you think about make an hibrid using a console+pc in one single system. it´s posible?
That is soooooo cool!!!
Very cool ben
Should have put in a circular bumper up top instead of the drop target.
I like the Tektronix T shirt
We need more skits
I like Ben's shirt :O
Did the screen work? I didn't see any changes to the score. It always showed 8888888
That is so cool
I like this Rob Zombie Pinball... Wait is this it?
new camera huh, nice
What's with the workshop wall at 9:56? Something we're not allowed to see??
Benjamin Harvey I don't see what you're referring to
Top left corner, the shelf fades into nothing
Instead of just the drop target it would have been nice if it would have looked like a little space ship. Very nice job though.
Or an alien monster!:)
Rikard Bengtsson Antoine Coppens or a monstrous alien space ship?
i want iiiiiittttttttt waaaaaaa
I want one!!!!!
you forgot a tilt sensor, but otherwise awesome job :)
Are you going to bring this to SFGE?
1:57 What music is this? Please!
THE MASS EFFECT.
IS ELEMENT ZERO INVOLVED ????
can this be done with a Teensy LC?