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Nexus 7 Pinball


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I mentioned in a different thread that I was in the very early stages of creating a mini pinball cabinet that will house a Nexus 7 and run Pinball Arcade and Zen Pinball. I have decided to start this thread to monitor the progress. Unfortunately I don't know of any way to run a 2nd device as a backglass so it will be for decoration only.

 

A little background

I decided one night that it would be cool to play Pinball Arcade without my thumbs covering part of the screen and wondered if it was possible to connect buttons and then thought it would be cool to make a cabinet that could house the Nexus 7 tablet. So off to Google I went to see if there was a way to configure buttons and I found THIS build which confirmed this project would be doable and also gave me an idea of what a well built cab would look like.

 

I discussed what I wanted to do with my son and he decided that he was keen to help with the project.

 

 

On with the project

The first thing my son and I did was decide that we weren't going to hack an Xbox 360 controller but instead we would use a hacked PC keyboard. We then worked out the mappings of the keys so we knew how to wire the buttons into the pulled apart keyboard. Through some testing we found that Pinball Arcade's flippers worked using the left and right arrow keys and that Zen Pinball worked with Shift keys which meant we don't need to root the Nexus (although I already did in preparation) and remap the screen touches to the keyboard. I guess earlier versions of Pinball Arcade didn't have any keyboard keys mapped but the version I have installed works so I will leave it at that. We would however need to find a way to make both sets of buttons work with both games. We tried testing pressing all the keyboard buttons at the same time and it appeared to work fine so we tested some wiring by connecting left shift and left arrow together and then the right shift and right arrow together. This however created some weird key presses and behaviour on the Nexus so we needed a better solution. We have decided that we will use a switch to do it. In one position it will be suitable for Pinball Arcade and it the opposite position it will be suitable for Zen Pinball. We have decided not to try to put a plunger on this and we will use the touch screen to control the plunger. We made this decision for a couple of reasons, one being that Pinball Arcade doesn't natively have a key work with the plunger, and secondly when when tested hijacking screen touches it seemed to have inconsistent results.

 

We measured up my full size Virtual Pinball and worked out that about 20% size will work well for fitting the Nexus 7 in.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]85145[/ATTACH]

 

We bought a few pieces that will need to fit into the cab. Buttons and micro switches, OTG cable, toggle switch and a USB hub (hopefully this will come in handy). We have ordered a different OTG cable which is supposed to allow charging to occur as well as be connected to a USB device and it that works we will connect power to the USB hub and send power to the speaker as well as for the Nexus but I am not sure that the Nexus will be able to handle that.

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We decided to do a mock up of the cabinet out of some old cardboard box to check sizing before building the actual cabinet.

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and then had a look to see how the Nexus 7 will look, size wise (the white paper is A4 so you can get a sense of the size of the cab).

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We have trial fitted a few parts to the cardboard prototype, the buttons and switches, toggle switch and speaker to make sure they will fit comfortably.

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and then sat the tablet back into the box to get a sense of it with the other parts in place.

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We need to decide what art work we will have on the cabinet, I had thought about trying to find and image of Fish Tales decals (or some other pinball that I like that is on Pinball Arcade) but I haven't been successful in looking yet and I have toyed with a couple of custom designs but I am definitely no graphic artist.

 

That's as far as this build has gone so far, but it will progress (most likely slowly) and I will update this thread.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I'll update the thread and show video once the project develops a bit more. At the moment I need to get the woodwork done which is not something I am very good at or have the right tools for so I will have to call a favour from someone. Once the cabinet is cut out I think the project will be full steam ahead.
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So I spent tonight talking to the guy who is going to knock up my cabinet. I have explained exactly what I want but given that he works for free, he has the freedom to make modifications as he goes so I'll have to wait and see what I end up with. Hopefully he can find some time in the near future to do it.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Today I got a message that the mini cabinet build is underway. Like I said in my last post, the guy making it had the freedom to make some changes to my design and it is coming along nicely. I do have a couple of concerns but until I see it in the flesh I won't know how I will deal with them.

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]85929[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]85930[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]85931[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]85932[/ATTACH]

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I have had someone offer to print some decals for me once I know the size of the finished product so that is exciting for me. I think it will be a Fish Tales print but am thinking I might also get a sticker to put on it somewhere (maybe even just on the back of the backboard) of something like this (however quality of my design might be an issue):

[ATTACH=CONFIG]85934[/ATTACH] or this [ATTACH=CONFIG]85935[/ATTACH]

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On Sunday night I stole a few hours to work on this and have made it functional. I find it fun to play on however since I have a replacement PC for my full size virtual pin and it is the silly season, finding time to do everything seems impossible.

 

Anyway, I threw this (very poor quality) video together to give a little idea of how it is going. I was going to edit the video a little so that you couldn't see me struggle to sit the tablet in place but haven't had time to edit it so thought I'd just post it as is.

 

Edited by JustAnotherRat
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Great job well done :) do you have an IPAC in there?

 

One day I will get around to doing something similar for a spare tablet we have, I was going to use an LCD but might just use the tablet, problem is it's the Sony Tablet S with the stupid "book" design making it fatter at the top so might be difficult to mount.

sony_tablet_s1_1147659_g6.jpg.03b9799f55645cb5e3a7b4597c9a3b5f.jpg

 

I like the way you left the two big piles of Pot you had been smoking in the first video background :lol :033:

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Great job well done :) do you have an IPAC in there?:

No, I hacked a keyboard. I was planning on showing how I did that but must have forgotten.

 

I like the way you left the two big piles of Pot you had been smoking in the first video background :lol :033:

That is actually my sons home made christmas wreath that he made from rice.

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  • 1 month later...

An exciting day for me today. The decals have turned up. I haven't had a chance to trim them up to see how they'll look fitted but they are looking great. I just need to allocate some time to sand and paint and sand again to get a smoother finish on the cab.

 

Thanks to the decal supplier who wishes to remain unknown and also to the person that shipped it to me. I'll need to buy you a drink or three at some stage.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So today was a day of sanding, painting, sanding, painting etc. and eventually I got to add the decals and the translite.

 

I have tried to show photos from each angle so you can see what it looks like. Where the coin door would sit, as the decal would have been blank, I had the Nexus Pinball logo added and I also put a logo on the back of the back glass. The back glass is actual translite so if I get around to putting lights in, it will look awesome. I have some small sets of battery operated Christmas LED lights for the purpose, just haven't done anything with them as yet. I have a blue set and a white set that I thought about hacking together so that there are some white lights behind the translite and blue ones lighting up underneath the pinball.

 

I did make a bit of a mistake trying to trim the decals once fitted so I need to smooth the edges somehow but I am super excited about how it looks.

 

A massive thank you once again goes out to the person who got the decals printed for me, and the other person involved in sending them to me. I'll need to buy you both a few drinks sometime... maybe at Pinfest???

 

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The difference between the photo above, and the photo below is basically just one has the Nexus in upside down and the other has it the right way. I am still undecided as to how I am going to deal with this so suggestions would be greatly appreciated. On the one hand, there is a gap at the bottom with the USB connected and needs to be hidden by a lock down bar of sorts but I can't for the life of me think of a way of making one. The other shows the Nexus with a gap behind it which needs to somehow be covered... once again I am not sure of how to do it. Essentially the cabinet should have been slightly shorted, but it isn't so I need to find a way to overcome it.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]89246[/ATTACH]

 

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The next two images are showing how I have it wired up and the keyboard circuit board that I have used to control the flippers. I said in an earlier post that I was going to advise on the keyboard hack, but I hadn't. That circuit board is all that I needed out of the keyboard, then I worked out what wires needed to go where and soldered them in. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I needed a switch to go between Pinball Arcade buttons and Zen Pinball buttons so you can see it wired in under the right flipper button.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]89249[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]89250[/ATTACH]

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Wow ... dunno how I missed this thread before now... inspiring !!

 

I didn't even know about "The Pinball Arcade" app either, so thank you..

 

I have a dilemma though ... I have a Nexus 7 (which I love), a Galaxy Note 8 and a Sony S Tablet ("snap" Rat!!) and I'm not sure which one to "sacrifice" for my own project. Any Suggestions ?

 

Sony S Tablet could be difficult because of the angled design and the placement of the propriety power connector on the long axis of the tablet ...

 

Damn .. I already have too many projects, but I really love the idea of this ...

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I have a dilemma though ... I have a Nexus 7 (which I love), a Galaxy Note 8 and a Sony S Tablet ("snap" Rat!!) and I'm not sure which one to "sacrifice" for my own project. Any Suggestions ?

 

Sony S Tablet could be difficult because of the angled design and the placement of the propriety power connector on the long axis of the tablet ...

 

My decision was based on the fact that my Nexus 7 wasn't being used for anything else as it was painfully slow to move between apps so maybe test the app on the devices and see which one plays the pinball games well but is of the least use for something else.

 

I have discovered that the Nexus 7 does not have the ability to use a OTG cable for keyboard use as well as charging. Maybe one of the others can do it? I had planned on having an outlet on the back connected by a USB charger that I could have connected to a USB hub so that I could charge the tablet and speaker while playing. Apparently this is a device limitation not an OTG cable limitation, I even tried an OTG cable that was split (from factory) for this purpose.

 

The other this to take into account is whether you want your pinball to be proportionally correct. I did, however as I had someone else make the cabinet for me (a relative who is a qualified cabinet maker) he made some changes to the design when he made it. An example of what he changes was the back board, I designed the hinges to go on the inside of the side pieces so as to not interfere with the artwork and aspect ratio would be correct but he made it so that when the back glass is folded down it is a neater size. With the final product not being a proper scaled down size, the decal size wasn't perfect. With that all taken into account, I am really happy with what I have, the only problem is how to handle the lock down bar, but that was an issue if it was to scale anyway (if it wasn't to scale in that area it wouldn't need one).

 

I guess I haven't answered your question at all, but maybe I have given you something to think about.

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