Sunday, September 21, 2014

The problem with being addicted to pinball is that very few of us (pinheads, addicts) have the space, money, time, patience (and understanding spouses) to be able to collect all of our favorite tables. Currently, I probably have over a dozen pinballs on my "must have" list and probably space for only a few. One, depending on who you ask. :)

I was browsing videos on youtube of pinball restoration and I stumbled across a corner of the internet where people make virtual pinball machines, using haptic/force feedback, television screens and computer hardware to simulate 100's of pinball tables in one place. Immediately I was hooked and started looking into what I would build, and crafting a parts list.

Of course, my virtual pinball needed to be "All-Out". Solenoids, Cabinet Knockers, LED's, strobes, sound system, LCD TV's, shaker motors, the works. In order to accomplish this, I'm going to need to accumulate the parts over time. Only buying what I need to complete the next step in the process.

While there are a lot of people that have accomplished this and the community is well established (in fact I'm probably considered a late adopter) there are a hundred different types of cabinets and ways that people have done this in the past. I see lots of photos and videos of gameplay, the end result, even complete parts lists but very little documented the build. So, that is what I'm setting out to do. Document my build, the good, the bad and the ugly. Enjoy.