Star Trek: The Mirror Universe pinball

[zitt]

Over thanksgiving weekend; I worked extensively on the PF. I started by spraying backside of the PF with grey primer ... unsure why the older Bally PF had the grey paint on the backside... but I figured when in Rome; do as the romans do.

Once the grey primer was dry; Sprayed the inside of the insert holes white; partly due to the Romans... partly due to the desire to have a clean looking insert.  Here's the back of the PF trimmed up and sprayed.


With the white dry; I began gluing in the inserts. Once I had the inserts glued inplace and dry; I took a 80 grit orbital sander to the whole PF to level the inserts and remove the white primer. Here's the PF at 80 grit:



And again at 220grit:


Then I proceeded to sand the inserts to 500 and 800 grit. At this point I considered the PF ready for ClearCoat. For this I used ChromaClear 2part 4:1 automotive clear. I put down one light coat and 3 medium coats. Heres the PF after clearcoat:


I let the clearcoat cure for a little over 24 hours; then sanded it flat with 220grit orbital sander to remove the orange peel and give the inserts another flat process. The PF/inserts needs to be flat so the sign shop can print the insert circles and artwork without any gaps in the art.

Here's the PF being back lit by shop lights:


While I waited for the clear coat to arrive; I received the vinyl decals from Callie Graphics. I went ahead and installed them on the powder coated blanks:


On Friday afternoon; I took the PF and artwork files to Austin Color Labs so they can put the artwork directly on the PF. I hope to hear from them by end of week with a printed PF.  When the PF gets back from the printers; my plan it to put 4-6 coats of clear coat over the art then sand flat and polish to a shine.

While I wait for the PF; I'll try to clear coat the decaled apron inserts... if we get a warm day in the near future. In the meantime I have PCBs to assemble; including the ATX PSU board.

[goodolddays]

This is just an awesome project with an outstanding amount of attention to detail .

Fantastic to watch it all coming together

[zitt]

Unfortunately; My Stern Star Trek LE arrived late afternoon on Friday... It's been kinda hard to focus on the project when there NIB machine setting in the gameroom waiting to be played. None-the-less; I will attempt to make some progress on this project.

I've been working all week on various PCB projects; soldering PCB assembles. The ATX -> 2815 PSU board is nearly complete; but I'm missing some fuse clips which should be in Monday I hope.

While I waited on the Fuse clips; I went ahead and assembled my plan for the Nacelle Inserts I created and featured earlier in the worklog. I didn't want to just lite them with LEDs... I wanted them to be more active. I took my Bally Star Trek Flipper Button Mod
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52968060@N00/4081891273
and shrank it to fit within the insert dimensions using 603 chip LEDs.

The result can be seen here:

[swinks]

very cool, you definitely have a large range of talents there - thanks for keeping us in the loop down under.

[zitt]

Got the Playfield back from the great people at Austin Color Labs...
Remember; this was direct printed onto the Playfield:


 
Honestly; The PF looks awesome except they made an error and sprayed most of the PF white before laying down the color. I supplied the "white" file... but not sure what happened. The inserts are fine; just the shooter and a few other places were suppose to be bare wood. They said if I wanted; I could sand it back down and they'd redo it. I think I'll just leave it as-is; I could nickpick the bare wood issue; but Its brightness is growing one me.

Also something's up with the red special insert (over planet)... somehow the paint didn't seem to work right over that insert. May try to use a water slide decal to "fix" it.

I'll take some detailed shots with my Nikon SLR later... For now the PF is on the way to work tomorrow for a Maker Faire.

[swinks]

looks awesome, if you didn't like the shooter lane maybe a cool warp speed graphic or line art.

I am sure once the pf is cleared with all the plastics it will look sweet.

well done. 

[goodolddays]

Looks like your PF turned out really well    . Shame its not quite right per your vision, but with your talent I'm sure you will come up with a smart solution if you feel the need

[zitt]

Ok. Been working on the Playfield over the holiday break. Not making as much progress as I'd like... but here's some.

First; I needed to tackle the Special insert.... basically; something went wrong at the printer and it didn't come out right:


I took the graphic file back into Photoshop and trimmed a new copy up for printing on some white water slide decal paper. Some patience and water yields this corrected implementation:


Much better.

Some black sharpie on the trimmed edges and a couple coats of acylic clear and that area is ready for the 2part automotive clear coat.

While I waited for some clear; warmer days for the clearcoat... A friend (Ken) and I went to Techshop to work on the PF rails. I didn't want to put yellow painted wood back on the PF... I wanted something which would tie the machine together. I measured the wood and created a CAD file with the exact measurements. The plan was to cut these parts out of 1/2inch 6061 aluminum. I sourced the Aluminum from a local supplier in 4ftx4inx0.5in dimensions. This DXF file was then sent to the waterjet machine at techshop which results in the following parts:

If you want to watch the Waterjet in action cutting this piece; see Youtube:

I wanted the tops of the rails to look like knife edges; but no so much that they would be a danger to anyone working on the machine (Read: Me). Ken helped me put the 45 degree angles on the aluminum using the Jet#1 manual milling machine. Once the rails were milled; I proceeded to drill and tap the appropriate holes in the bottom side of the rails. For the purposes of this test fit; I used #6-32 x 5/8" machine screws. The result:


While I had the rails attached; time to test fit the apron and shooter gauge:


No obvious issues during the test fit. Tomorrow I hope to put 4-6coats of clearcoat on the PF... if the weather holds.
More later...

[swinks]

very very nice, I like the water slide decal and the aluminium rails, well done 

[femto]

This project is coming along nicely. Loving the updates and the progress.

[zitt]

Lots happening behind the curtains... but thought I'd take a break to update the worklog.

ClearCoat is on the Playfield I put about 6 coats of clearcoat on the surface to ensure I didn't blow thru the clearcoat and destroy the art underneath. I waited about 24 hours before beginning the process of re-leveling the surface.

You'll note that I still had some "orange peel" problems with the clear coat.

I needed to remove the orange peel so I started by sanding with 220 grit orbital sander:


Then the hand sanding began with 320:


wet sand 500:

NOTE: I wouldn't recommend wet sanding a traditional PF. I've had issues with the plywood swelling under the clearcoat. In this case; I used a spray bottle to wet the surface and then used the wet/dry sandpaper. I did this because the clearcoat under the art and the white under the art did an excellent job of sealing the wood around the cnced holes. The sprayed water just beaded on the surface.

wet sand 800:


At this point; with this era of machine... I might have stopped here for a "matte" finish; but this is "The Mirror Universe"... so maybe I should put a mirror shine on it.

wet sand 1000 followed by 1500:

Closer... but that still won't do.
I'd done quite a bit of sanding... all within 24hrs of laying the final coats of clear; so I decided to wait another 24hrs for the "time to decal" interval on the paint can.
So; stay tuned.

[zitt]

So I waited at least a day; but in reality... I think other aspects of the project got in the way; so yesterday I got back to addressing the playfield shine - or lack there of. I chucked a buffing cloth into the cordless drill and proceeded to use rubbing compound on the clear coat:


Then polishing compound:


And two sessions of Carnauba Wax:


Yeap; I think we'll call that a near mirror shine.

[zitt]

I wait on fasteners and other supplies to arrive from Pinball Life, PBResource, and McMaster-Carr; so let's get back to the backbox. Time to put it back together with the tin and such. First; I assembled the Fan Controller which will be used to keep the new fans in check. This designed was a KISS re-implementation (keep it simple stupid) of the Fan Controller I designed for the Captain's Chair a few years ago. Here's the TAPR/NCLed schematics for those that are interested:


PCBs assembled and tested:


Some Standoffs and Installed:


While I was monkeying around in the backbox; I needed to redo the cards which were deteriorating with age. Also; the cards were not Star Trek; but supersonic as that was the head used as a donor. So I scanned the cards into the computer and recreated the same font which a little "flair" for the Mirror Universe. I printed the cards on 110lbs card stock using my color Laser printer and trimmed them with a xacto blade. I kept the original OQA tag from the supersonic head as I thought it would serve as a reminder.



Some closeup shots:




With that update; I think we're done with the updates for the night.
Toddles.

[ktm450]

PF came up great 

[zitt]

Now for the interactive portion of our project.
Kudos points to the first poster who correctly identifies this 3D Carved Item... and speculates correctly as to it's function on the machine.



This took me the better part of 12hrs to make on the CNC mill... and I still need to figure out how to remove the items from the 0.5inch block of aluminum.