Pinball Fantasies

By | 7 september, 2013

Pinball Fantasies – Party Land

 

This is the page where I post pictures and updates about my Pinball Fantasies project.

My goal is to build a real version of the popular table Party Land, from the game Pinball Fantasies.

AGA main

Pinball Fantasies was released in 1992 for the Commodore Amiga, as well as other platforms such as MS-DOS.
It was designed by the Swedish company Digital Illusions, consisting of Andreas Axelsson, Olof Gustafsson, Fredrik Liliegren and Ulf Mandorff.

In early 1992, they released Pinball Dreams, followed by Pinball Fantasies later in 1992,  and then Pinball Illusions in 1995.
They later changed their name to DICE, releasing Battlefield1942 in 2006.
But enough history, let’s get on with my project.

Chapter One

2012-10-??

I started searching for information about the Party Land table, that wasn’t clear from just playing the game, such as dimensions etc.The result? I found Felipe Sanche’s pages. He had already started building the exact same table as I wanted to build – Great!

http://code.google.com/p/how-to-build-a-pinball/This  is a Google Code page, containing all of his work on this project, everything from vectorised art, to more or less complete 3d models.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/diy-pinball
And this is a mailing list, where some ideas are discussed.

I contacted Felipe and exchanged some ideas, and then found his blog http://jucablues.blogspot.com.br/

2012-10-28

I printed out one of the bumper caps

Bumper Cap

Bumper Cap

It turned out quite well, especially since I was new to 3D-printing.

2012-11-15

I purchased a 12mm thick plywood board, and got it CNC routed according to Felipes Drawings :)

IMG_20121116_161222

IMG_20121116_182552

Before and after sanding.

IMG_20121116_191740

Done

2012-12-15

I used my own CNC router for the much smaller upper playfield.

IMG_20121215_155343

2013-01-13

I made the left wire guide, just as it was depicted in the game.

IMG_20130113_161257

It did not turn out to be such a good design. Will design a new one using four rods instead of three.

2013-01-24

I bought some used parts.

IMG_20130124_174112

These will be mounted later…

2013-02-08

Printing the new Bumper Cap.

IMG_20130208_180427

Much better than the first one.

2013-02-15

More parts, yaay! :) This time from pinballlife.com

IMG_20130215_162836

 

One of the VUKs Sega P/N 500-6179-00-56 with sensor 180-5145-02…

IMG_20130215_170611

…was adjusted to fit my needs…IMG_20130215_170942

2013-02-17

Test mounting of flippers, bumpers and drop targets. (Note the christmas curtains – in february??)

IMG_20130217_114401

 

2013-02-23

Not until now did I notice there was something missing from the upper playfield – the P,U,K and E inserts!

IMG_20130223_212250

Test mounting lane dividers and switches

IMG_20130223_215418

And some Pop Bumpers, Slingshots and a VUK

IMG_20130223_212303

 

Chapter Two

2013-02-28

Most pinball machines have lights under the playfield, shining through a coloured plastic insert.
This game is no exception, however it does have some non standard shapes, so using off-the-shelf inserts just won’t do.
After many months of being unable to decide what plastic to use, I finally went for Clear Polyester Casting Resin from eti-usa.com

I took quite a while to get the polyester/catalyst proportions right – too little catalyst and it will never harden, too much and it will harden too quickly and crack the mould.

Another hurdle was mixing in the correct amount of colour pigment.

A bit of trial and error solved both of these problems though.

IMG_20130228_161936

Here’s a few different techniques I tried:

  • Placing a piece of sheet plastic on the front side of the playfield, and filling the plastic from the rear. – A disaster. It was impossible to get a tight seal between the wood and the sheet.
  • Placing a piece of tape on the front side of the playfield and filling the plastic from the rear. – A bit better, the polyester did not leak this time, but it ended up being concave on the tape side (no idea why though)
  • Placing a piece of tape on the rear side and filling from the front, and slightly overfilling to form a convex shape. – Worked well enough, some of them I hade to ”refill” a second time, but no major hiccups.

2013-04-20

Today we are mixing the red and blue plastic.

IMG_20130420_180909

 

IMG_20130420_180921

2013-05-04

Green and Yellow

IMG_20130504_171656

The green thingy in the letter A is modelling clay/playdoh.

2013-05-10

The last two colours, Purple and White

IMG_20130510_160305

As you can see, they are all above the wood surface – they are meant to be sanded down to be perfectly flat.

2013-05-17

Like this!

IMG_20130517_194858

Here it is sanded with a belt sander, and then I filled in any missed spot with some clear polyester.

IMG_20130517_194926

Looks really good.

2013-05-22

Sanded down again, and some wooden sides mounted.

IMG_20130522_182334

2013-05-26

A piece of pipe, a drill and some sandpaper can be made into a tool like this:

IMG_20130526_175843

For making these:

IMG_20130526_175800

2013-06-09

The Outhole in Felipes drawing was just a hole, and it needed to be modified.

IMG_20130609_115859

IMG_20130609_130508

It’s a bit short, since this will be a widebody game, but it’ll do.

2013-06-29

CNC routed polycarbonate!

IMG_20130629_201042

2013-07-13

Got some 33mm wide stainless steel, 1mm thick and formed that to make the outer loop.
I also spotwelded some hinges to make some sort of gate for the Drop Zone and the shooter lane.

IMG_20130713_192543IMG_20130713_192607

Also made a new left wire guide

IMG_20130713_193036

Like the first one, it’s not perfect, but it will do for now.

2013-07-19

More polycarbonate

IMG_20130719_152123

And made a loop thingy for Arcade.

IMG_20130719_161158

2013-08-02

More stainless steel (too much?)

IMG_20130802_212344

2013-08-22

Working on an apron design, might make one from stainless steel, or just use plastics…

IMG_20130822_181249

 

That’s all for now

Next up: Apron, Ramp for upper playfield.

//Emil

7 thoughts on “Pinball Fantasies

      1. Felipe Sanches

        I’m not sure if you are aware, Emil. But Daniel Forsgren is the programmer who ported Pinball Fantasies to MSDOS :-)

        Reply
        1. CyB Post author

          Wow, I didn’t know that!
          I never really played the DOS version back then, I just had the Amiga version.

          Maybe it’s time for an update here soon, I have been working a bit on the leds and a few other things…

          Reply
          1. Felipe Sanches

            Hey, there!

            I’m curious to know if you’ve got any news on this project. Mine is hanging in a wall with blinking lights as a decorative artifact in the local hackerspace. How’s your playfield nowadays?

            cheers,
            Felipe ”Juca” Sanches

  1. CyB Post author

    What a coincidence!
    I was just working on the code for the music/sound controller :)

    I have attached almost all solenoids, switches and leds to the playfield, and only the hard part (coding) is left.
    I am ready to print the playfield art onto a transparent vinyl, but there are some things missing in the artwork still (I know that I added the yellow balloon and the castle, but now I can’t find the file again. Ah well..).

    I have also bought a sheet of plywood for the cabinet, and have started some drawings on that.

    I’ll try to post an updated view here tomorrow, or perhaps Sunday.
    Have a look at this until then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D5kR3auoc4
    :)

    Reply
  2. Martin Lindell

    Hej Emil! Jag jobbar på DICE och vi upptäckte nyligen din sida! Otroligt häftigt, kan vi höras på mail? Jag nås på förnamn.efternamn @dice.se.

    Reply

Lämna ett svar till Martin Lindell Avbryt svar

E-postadressen publiceras inte. Obligatoriska fält är märkta *