Star Trek: The Mirror Universe pinball

[zitt]

A few months ago; I bit the bullet and got myself a Techshop.ws membership for the Austin/RoundRock location. While not cheap; I expect to make good use of the money spent.

For those that don’t know what Techshop is... in short it’s a “gym-membership” type of place which has over $500k in high tech machinery which the hobbyist can use once they’ve taken the required safety courses. Austin has a Waterjet, 2 shop bot CNC machines, mills, laser cutters, cnc sewing machines, tig/mig/welders, sand and powdercoating , etc.

My first course was Shopbot CNC ... Last month I completed Waterjet.
This means I’m now able to use either of these machines.

For the last couple of years; I’ve been wanting to do my own pinball table. Those that know me... will already know the subject matter in question.

About two months ago; I settled on a plan.

Goal:
Create a Star Trek: Mirror Universe pinball table.

The plan; Scan in a 1979 Bally Star Trek pinball table. Mirror it. And customize it for the mirror universe.

Before (my previous PF/machine restore):



After: (click the picture to get a larger higher rez on flickr)



Yeap; that’s right... the shooter lane will be on the left side (evil grin) and will have a negative feel. What has been done:
Re-colored the playfield; fixed worn areas (in computer). Then flipped the playfield.

Areas changed:
1) “vectorized” nearly all aspects of the PF.
2) removed “reversed” text and replaced with Star Trek: series font.
3) USS becomes I.S.S. Enterprise.
4) Space Station K0 becomes Battle Station K0
5) Transporting people become their “mirrored universe” counterparts complete with sashes and skin.
6) “enter Hyperspace” becomes “Avert Subordinate Promotion” “by thwarting and assassination conspiracy”.
7) “jump to warp” becomes “Employ Agonizer on Crewman”
8) “where no man has gone before” becomes:
“Your Mission: Conquer all worlds and civilizations to expand the empire like no man before”
(may be too wordy)
9) “Ready Photon Phaser” becomes  “ready photon torpedo”
10) Spelling “bally” becomes “Terra” (Terra meaning Earth. Short for “Terran Empire”; the mirror universe’s “federation”)
11) Removed same player shoots again language; opting for “shoot again” text over insert.
12) Drop Target Special becomes Terran Empire logo.
13) colorized planet with purple glow like the re-mastered series from cbs. Not sure I like it... may go back to original look.

You’ll note that I’ve removed all the switch lanes from the design. The plan is to design a set of hall effect pcbs which replicate functionality without slots in the PF.

I’m curious how Kevin O’Connor would have approached a project like this.

Anyway; interested in what you guys think.

[zitt]

I also did the inital CAD work on getting a CNC-ready Playfield.


My next step is to see if I can source some inserts from Pinball Resource. I'll need to do this before I commit to keeping the same sized inserts as on the original.

Merry Christmas to all!

[zitt]

I've been working on the Plastics for the machine...

remember to click the images to get larger/higher rez renderings

Here's what they basically looked like on a prototype machine ... I re-did the text here:


Why ProtoType? Well... YEllow/Silver uniforms do not fit the theme of the known Mirror Universe... That and I really enjoy the Busty Blonde.

So; now I needed to "mirror universe" it up.

However, I'm kinda torn between two designs. First; here's a screen cap of Scotty put on one of the pieces:



Changes:
1) Busty Blonde has been Mirrorized.
2) Spock has a beard.
3) Uhura has been Mirrorized - complete with black stockings.
4) Those.... um... who-knows what has been removed and cartoonized-screen-caps of Kor and the Romulan Commander have replaced them. With the req factional logos in place.
5) Scotty Screen cap from Mirror Mirror.

My issue with screencap is it kinda looks out of place with cartoonized Evil-Spock and Evil-Uhura... but "matches" the screencaps of the foes.

Option 2:


Took a screen cap of Scotty from The Animated Series (TAS) and heavily modified him to make it a mirrored version.

I'm also thinking about putting Evil-Sulu on the other arrowed plastic. But depends on which direction I got in.

Should I loose the arrows on these plastics?
Which should I go with?

[swinks]

great work, interesting what you have done and will be watching, please keep us updated.

[elkor-alish]

I reckon you should cartoon up the other images as well.
The cartoon images fit with the rest of the theme, playfield etc.

Great idea by the way.

[zitt]

I reckon you should cartoon up the other images as well.
The cartoon images fit with the rest of the theme, playfield etc.

Great idea by the way.

Thanks - yeah; I've stopped work on the plastics ... for now; because I have a better more expensive idea.
I hope to have something new to report in a couple of months (on the plastics part).

The inserts have been spreadsheeted up; now I just need to call PBR to see what they have in stock - since they aren't taking email orders until the 3rd.

[pinsanity]

Yeap; that’s right... the shooter lane will be on the left side (evil grin) and will have a negative feel. What has been done:

Progress looks great so far.

I have to ask about the shooter lane on the left. You wouldn't happen to be a fellow southpaw by any chance? 

[zitt]

Nah. I'm a righty.
I just figured it's fux with enough people to make it intersting.

[zitt]

Been in touch with Kevin at www.tavco.net ; unfortunatly - the printer purchased by the Austin / RoundRock Techshop is only 24in wide... and the 4mil pressure sensitive adhesive film I wanted to use only comes in 36inch widths. The only material that comes in 24inch is a non-adhesive roll; meaning I'd have to find some kind of adhesive to attach the graphics to the PF.

He did put me in contact with a local printing company:
http://www.aclaustin.com/
whom may have a large format printer which can print directly to the Playfield; which should make it easier to create as I won't have to "register" and "line up" the graphics to the inserts/table.

[zitt]

Mid week last week; I activated my Techshop.ws membership and schedule myself for the Laser cutter SBU on Saturday. No; I didn't feel like I needed the SBU; but given my issues with my personal laser cutter - I still needed to make some progress.

After class; I scheduled a 2hr block on Laser cutter#2. I wanted to use the Laser cutter to create the Inserts I'll need for the new playfield. I went to Regal plastics earlier in the week and got some material:

Translucent White @ 0.25"
Translucent Yelllow @ 0.25"
Transparent Green @ 0.25"
Transparent Yellow @ 0.25"
Transparent Orange @ 0.25"
I already had Transparent Red @ 0.25" so didn't need it.

No; I didn't need all these colors to exactly match the existing Inserts; but I wanted to experiment to find the right mix for what I wanted on my pinball table.

I drew up some inserts in CorelDraw X4 ... and decided that I wanted to take three different tests:
1) Try Transparent Inserts without anything. Just "clear".
2) Transparent Inserts Frosted.
3) Transparent Inserts Clear with a "spiral galaxy".
4) Transparent Inserts Frosted with a "spiral galaxy".

I figured; since I was creating my own table... might as well add some enhancements for some added details. Hence the spiral galaxy might look good.
I also figured that I don't really like "clear" inserts; some frosting would hide the bulb filament and/or the electronics/LEDs under the inserts.

Here's a Corel rendering of my work:


For the frosted; I hit the acrylic with a 220 grit orbital sander... the followed up with the sandblaster. The spiral galaxy would be etched into the acrylic with the laser cutter.

The Translucent White and Yellow look really good. Here they are compared against existing inserts and being back lit by a White #555 LED:




Now for the Red 0.61 insert test:

Top is the clear insert, bottom is the frosted insert.


Top is the clear/spiral insert, bottom is the frosted/spiral insert.

Let's try the a bigger insert... how about the shoot again insert.
Before (stock/old insert):


Clear/Spiral:


Frosted/Spiral:


Based on the current tests; I gotta say I'm diggin the Frosted/Spiral inserts. I wouldn't do the spiral galaxy for every insert... but as an emblieshment to specials like the green; red; amber inserts. I think they do a good job of defusing the led light while adding a little something extra.

I ran out time on my 2hr block in the laser cutter today. I didn't get to the transparent yellow, orange, and green. But I have a block allocated to me for sunday afternoon. As a result; I'll withhold final judgement as to the inserts until I have the other tested.

That's all for now; see you guys tomorrow.

[swinks]

looking good Zitt, I personally like the frosted inserts and love the spiral effect - WELL DONE

I am guessing you are based in the US, as haven't heard of the workshop facility that you have access to here in Aus - sounds great though.

[Retropin]

Yes... frosted ones look bloody great.
I have a Star Trek myself waiting patiently in the queue and may well do something like this myself... much much better!

[zitt]

I can’t claim originality here... as I remember the XENON machine at a past TPF which had NIXIE tubes instead of the standard VFD displays. I always thought they were cool.

Now that I’m designing Star Trek: The Mirror Universe; I’m thinking that I want to put NIXIE displays in the machine instead of stock Bally displays.

I’ve been doing some design work; and have come up with the following schematics which use the IN-12A tubes from Russia. They are nearly the same digit height as a stock display and and are relatively inexpensive compared to other tubes.

The Schematics are posted here for review... I’ve never designed a display before... so will probably need to do some design tweaks once I get the Tubes in.
http://www.Pinball-Mods.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Bally7Nixie.pdf

I went 7digits instead of 6... so they can be used in other machines. I’ll either de-pop NIXIE_A7 or figure out how to make my Bally FW run a 7digit display.

Anyone see anything obvious?

[Retropin]

Youve got to love the Ruskis for continuing to make Nixie tubes.. i love them too and is the main reason why i sourced a RALLY COMICS.

That schematic comes out far too small for my eyes.. so can i ask what chip you are using to drive the nixie?
I bought nixies etc from Ebay to make a clock.. also sourced a HV driver and the 7141(? memory!!!!!) chips very cheaply

[zitt]

Zoom into the PDF
It's a 11x17 sheet
I'm using a CMOS latch w/ tristate
And a bcd to decimal