Hello
I?ve been restoring pinballs for a number of years and didn?t know about virtual pinball until a month ago?well I did, but the last time I looked at it was 2007? it?s really improved since then, especially with visual pinball and Hyperpin. So I thought to myself, wouldn?t it be fun to build a cabinet. As I?ve got more ?real? pinballs than I have room for them in the games room, I thought a mini pin would nice. Having a look at various forums, there are a number of very nice mini pins. The one that really took my fancy was a mini pinball woodrail built a number of years ago ? extraordinary workmanship on that one ? and I also like the woodrails, as most of my ?real? pins are wood rails.
So I decided that I?d use a 24 inch monitor for the playfield and a 19 inch for the back box. I didn?t want to spend too much on my mini pin so I tried to get the best deals that I could when buying the parts I needed. Here?s a listing of the parts cost:
One PC 3GHz (2009 vintage) $60 ebay
One Graphics driver card $60
Buttons, Ipac2, wiring, coin mech $100
Timber (plywood, solid pine, etc) $100
Glass for playfield $30
Paint, sand paper, etc. $50
24 inch 16:9 monitor $175
19 inch 4:3 monitor $25 ebay
Miscellaneous parts $50
Even though I constructed the mini pin as cheaply as possible, it still cost around $650. However, building the cabinet was nothing compared to the software side?not that?s it difficult, it?s just very time consuming. The cabinet end up being 10 inches high at the front, 12 inches at the back and 15 inches wide. The back box is 6 inches wide, 15 inches high and 18 inches wide. It?s just about 2/3rds the size of a full cabinet.
I recessed that cabinet so that the floor (made of 6mm ply) would fit snuggly in the cabinet sides. The sides of the cabinet are made of 19mm ply.
I used the concept for the front door from a Bally Bingo and also used the plunger, which I had lying around. The button on the bottom of the plunger is used to lift the balls onto the play field (some FP and VP tables need this).
I stripped the motherboard and HD drive from the PC ? threw away the CD drive and Floppy drive. I used a part of the case as a mount for the motherboard. Here's a couple of shots of the inside of the cab.
One concern was how to mount the lock down bar. I used the same principle Bally used on their Bingo ? 2 bolts with wing nuts. Not my preferred solution but it seems not to detract too much cosmetically. Also installed some instructions cards - more for me, as I keep forgetting what the buttons do!
I?ve noticed that cab builds have a lot of fans in them. I kept the original PC fan and used the same principles Bally used to circulate air in their cabinets. This photo shows the principle. The back box is similar.
Keeping with the wood rail theme, I had 1mm aluminium plates cut out as flipper cabinet protectors. Wood rail pinballs had these in the ?50s so I thought it?d be appropriate to include them.
Wanting to keep the paint scheme to theme, I decide to use the Bally Bumper graphics, only that I used white for the base coat, instead of yellow.
There's 128 tables available...could have had more...but the qulaity of some were so so.
It been an interesting project...but I don't want to do another any time soon...the amount to time involved is countless...