It's 2011. How hard is it to design and build a custom pinball machine?

hisnice

Well-known member

Donor 3 years: 2013-2015
Joined
May 27, 2005
Messages
5,686
Reaction score
1,538
Location
Crystal Lake, Illinois
It's 2011. How hard is it to design and build a custom pinball machine?

We've all heard how Mrs. Spelling paid through the nose to get some Aaron Spelling custom pins made, but it's GOT to be getting closer to being affordable/possible now, right??

There's free design software, people have CNC's, programming languages are easier, processors are faster/cheaper, you could create animations in flash and use a computer LCD display. Toys are plentiful online. You could probably reuse ramps and parts from other machines if you didn't want to custom make one.

At least one company is making custom pins today (i have no idea how much they'll do or what the cost is).

But is it really feasible to make one-off custom pins yet?
 
But is it really feasible to make one-off custom pins yet?

Sure - but it might suprise you know - for a 'one-off' you are looking at around $25,000.

If you take labour costs out you are STILL looking at around $10K

We have done the sums here at Homepin
 
If you take labour costs out you are STILL looking at around $10K

What are you spending the $10K on? If you're doing a one-off you could start with a working WPC machine and P-ROC hardware and still be under $2K on a good day. You could probably spend $2K+ on art and other crap but you're still under $5K.

You could start with a System 11 and P-ROC for under $1K.
 
We've all heard how Mrs. Spelling paid through the nose to get some Aaron Spelling custom pins made, but it's GOT to be getting closer to being affordable/possible now, right??

There's free design software, people have CNC's, programming languages are easier, processors are faster/cheaper, you could create animations in flash and use a computer LCD display. Toys are plentiful online. You could probably reuse ramps and parts from other machines if you didn't want to custom make one.

At least one company is making custom pins today (i have no idea how much they'll do or what the cost is).

But is it really feasible to make one-off custom pins yet?

Building one-off pins has always been possible. How difficult it will be depends on what you want to do but it's certainly possible to build a custom pinball machine today. It wouldn't even be that difficult, other than the creative part of designing a fun game with good art and sound. That part would be really difficult. It would also be extremely time consuming. Like hundreds of hours.

Check out the P-ROC board if you have not already. It's a programmable MPU that's designed to be relatively easy to program.

http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/index.php/products/p-roc/46
 
I think you need to quantify your concept, big difference between building a "new" one off verses re-working an old machine.
 
ok here are 3 scenarios, all include new sounds, voices, rule sets, art, etc.
1) rework a game without a dmd. I happen to like high speed and cyclone. I wouldn't invent other devices/ramps, just use the ones on there.

2) rework a dmd pin. leave the ramps etc, but make new animations.

3) start from scratch. new designed playfield, etc, but use common parts, flipper assemblies, reused stripped cabinet, and so on. That option could have a dmd or do the jersey jack thing and put in 23" LCD computer monitor.

any of those 3 would be interesting...
 
Back
Top Bottom