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Try This Quick Qwiz


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I'm sure I'm not the only one that remembers this.......

 

1&t=15

 

No just joking. What I want is your honest opinion on something I thought of and some helpful input into whether it would be a good idea, could be made better or basically anything regarding this feature that may be helpful.

 

I think by now most of you would know my love of pinball but I seriously think something new needs to happen and we also need new blood coming in to replace all of us that have been lifetime players of these machines.

 

This feature is not something you would go putting on the new Batman 66 pinball as the whole machine has to be designed around these 3D flippers as I decided to call it.

 

The idea come about while I was riding around on a paddock mowing and thinking what would make a version of a battle pinball more intense but easy enough for a 1st time young player to comprehend and possibly get young players, once they leaned what flippers can do, move onto more conventional pinball designs.

 

I then thought maybe this is something all pinballs could do with and it could be the one "new" thing the industry needs to strengthen the pinball marketplace.

 

Anyway, I ask you not to imagine this on your current pinball but more imagine this feature on a new pinball design that has no return lanes or slingshot kickers. This idea does not allow for either.

 

What it does do however is open one side right up meaning ball times will be reduced for the incompetent and lower multi ball times will result.

 

I figure the only real time a player is really controlling the ball in a pinball game is actually using the flippers and this way the flippers will be used a lot more often.

 

A good player should be able to hit that sweet spot on the flippers a lot more often when he can control the location of the flippers themselves

 

Also, what about activating the slide?

 

- Would it be best using another flipper button like Black Knight that moves the slide electrically towards the button pushed and the flipper button remains the same.

 

- Activate the flipper slide by moving the slide drawn in on some of the pictures and use a mechanical link so the flippers slide at all times while leaving the flipper buttons on each end of the slide itself like the flipper button current location only on a bar that slides sideways

- Use something like Hyperball used to activate the flipper slide by leaning the joysticks with a mechanical link and activate the flippers using the joystick buttons again, like Hyperball used.

 

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures to give a better idea of what I'm thinking. Don't hold back. I really want the feedback whether it is good or bad. More important to me to hear your honest opinions.

 

1009843492_3Dflippers1.JPG.ca6e903732e2aa112d98b42b10c5b3db.JPG1405665549_3Dflippers2.JPG.61223a9b6c0bd12f8ca3527300b0fb6c.JPG336882218_3Dflippers3.JPG.55b71bc879c29e37556a9df3d0b951b7.JPG1235869506_3Dflippers2slide.JPG.9469b475f42b374c498799a096f0dd33.JPG1660286257_3Dflippers3slide.JPG.3a5f25b01e85bc21f4244d4a4788422d.JPG798340486_hyperball3Dflippers.jpg.35000b2c8989f3ac6d00c39f64c117b2.jpg

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It's all good hypothetically but I think you'd struggle to design it physically. where does an extra 8' of pf go? How do you fold that away when it comes to transport? What happens when drunk someone decides to karate kick their way through it and break the board sticking out the side of the machine? Is there tolerance so if the game isn't level the board still slides properly? Mechanical movement isn't going to be fast enough and I'm pretty sure physical movement is going to be quite hard to get accurate as you can imagine a ball travelling at light speed coming at you!
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It's all good hypothetically but I think you'd struggle to design it physically. where does an extra 8' of pf go? How do you fold that away when it comes to transport?

 

The playfield is still the same as in all inside the machine under glass, there is just no slingshots or return lanes allowing space for the flippers with there same flipper spacing to move to the left or right, ( like a foose ball machine), except the flipper bats.

 

What happens when drunk someone decides to karate kick their way through it and break the board sticking out the side of the machine? Is there tolerance so if the game isn't level the board still slides properly?

 

I'm not a fan of the sliding board idea to move the flippers myself. Making it the same size as the cabinet would be better so in transport it, in the center position does protrude but that could create finger squash points where the bar moves but using a bar with mechanical link allows for more precise movements of the flippers and I thought faster to react.

 

Mechanical movement isn't going to be fast enough and I'm pretty sure physical movement is going to be quite hard to get accurate as you can imagine a ball travelling at light speed coming at you!

 

I can design it with electrical movement using actuators to move the flippers sideways but would that give the small movements like when you only want to move the flippers 30mm say to the normal centered position?.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

You could do this with a type of rack & pinion setup, then the board would not extend past the machine sides.

 

That is a good suggestion actually. A rack and pinion would allow for less sideways motion of the bar resulting in a larger movement of the flippers themselves.

 

I could use a far smaller bar.

 

Moving the flippers electrically would mean no bar at all but can I make it sensitive enough but still quick enough for game use?.

 

 

I know this idea has a lot of problems to overcome but there are actually a lot of pluses if I can sort out something that is arcade worthy. Pinballs will suddenly have a much wider variety of flipper shots. The flipper shots won't all be center playfield based. It will allow playfield designers far more use of the lower sides of the playfield for ramps etc. Parts of the lower playfield that at the moment are to low for a flipper shot directly at them.

 

Doing this feature makes me think of when machines went from no flippers to having flippers for the 1st time. I can imagine there would have people opposed to pinballs having flippers at all then because it wasn't the normal.

 

I'm foreseeing problems like the best way to cover the slots in the playfield that need to be in the playfield to allow the flipper shafts and bushing to move sideways when the flippers are required to move sideways.

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I thought the part where the flippers are would be on seperate board that slid so the mechanism was fixed to something otherwise you're going to have to move EVERYTHING and I don't know what kind of power you're going to get from your flippers if the machanisms have to move as well

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I thought the part where the flippers are would be on seperate board that slid so the mechanism was fixed to something otherwise you're going to have to move EVERYTHING and I don't know what kind of power you're going to get from your flippers if the machanisms have to move as well

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Yep that is pretty much as I imagine I would do it. The flippers and the flipper return lanes all travel sideways on an island that is flush with the play field.

 

Here's a bit more detail of what I think would work. Weld two, probably Williams flipper assemblies together so they are fixed together.

 

Mount them on round rails like an old skill tester had the gantry hanging from and weld tubes on the ends of the now welded Williams flipper mount brackets.

 

Fit these tubes with nylon sleeves so the flipper assemblies can slide sideways on the round rails with minimal friction but still travel true.

 

As for how the player actually moves the flippers is where I am. Do I do it using an electric actuator and you control it via switches or mechanically do using something like the sliding bar arrangement I roughly drew in.

 

Electrically would mean no real cabinet mod required, just another button on each side of the pinball cabinet but I fear that would result in a jerky operation of the flippers sideways movement.

 

The slide would allow for more precise and direct sliding.

 

Not sure whether you guys noticed but I did include flipper return lane guides. These travel sideways with the flippers so you can still trap the ball by lifting the flipper but you can then side the flippers across to the other side of the play field and shoot off that trapped ball.

 

I'm not set on the length of the flipper return lane guides but naturally, the longer they are, the less the flippers can slide sideways. The machine could also still have normal drain lanes each side but it again will limit the flipper slide travel.

 

An easy way to picture what I'm thinking overall is the video game Pong but you have flipper bats rather than a flat panel.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not sure what your idea is exactly.

 

The way I read it is that your idea is a combination of pinball and pong (or breakout).

 

Am I reading right?

 

If so, your idea actually opens up the possibilities of 360° pinball machines, no backglass (holograms lol), and four player simultaneous play (battles).

 

Cheers,

 

G

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I'm not sure what your idea is exactly.

 

The way I read it is that your idea is a combination of pinball and pong (or breakout).

 

Am I reading right?

 

If so, your idea actually opens up the possibilities of 360° pinball machines, no backglass (holograms lol), and four player simultaneous play (battles).

 

Cheers,

 

G

 

The possibilitys are endless I guess. My main thoughts were a better Head to Head concept at the start but then I realized it would allow designers far more flexibility in lower playfield layout.

 

Where as a normal pinball can only have lanes and ramp shots in the upper half of the playfield because you can't actually shot and aim at locations in the lower sides of the playfield, this design changes that.

 

Just need to work out a more user friendly way of shifting the flippers from one side of the playfield to the other.

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