A kit based pinball machine for you to build

Hi,

We're in the process of designing a pinball kit. What's a pinball kit?

Basically it's the IKEA of pinballs. We will supply everything you need to assemble a pinball table. This includes the flippers, pop bumpers, posts and rubber, lights (LEDs), scoring display, electronics, wiring and power supply.

The kit does not look like a full size machine with legs and back-glass. However, it is a full size table at the correct angle. The base is wooden and covered in an acrylic overlay that has the play-field artwork on the underside. All holes are pre-drilled and LEDs are mounted to the wooden section, as are the solenoids and other mechanical components. An 8-digit LED-style scoring display is mounted in the bottom section of the table. We will use a mix of our own parts and real parts. Major components like flippers, pop-bumpers, posts and rubber will be real. No glass will cover the table. We think it's more fun to play without the glass anyway!

We can't copy existing tables due to copyright restrictions so the first table we're designing is original. But, it does have the things you've come to expect in a great table. Lanes, targets, gates, roll-overs etc. as well as bonus multipliers, extra ball, specials and more. Our first table will be retro-looking, like the tables of the late 70's and early 80's.

As we progress with new tables we'll be adding drop targets, ramps, captive balls, multi-ball etc.

What makes this unique is that we're going to open up the design of the pinball tables to the public and build kits based on submitted designs. Not all designs will be manufactured but we'll select the best from the bunch. It only has to be a rough drawing with notes about game-play. You're welcome to submit artwork ideas too and our artists will design them properly for the table. Having said that we're not after designs at this stage but we do want to know what you think and if you'd be interested in this product.

Pricing is expected to be around US$800-$1000 for the first table.

We want this to be fun to build, fun to play, and fun to customise.

Let us know what you think.

Regards,
The Pinball Kits Team

spunds great! will there be international shipping?

Will it be spam-themed? Neh just kidding.
But I do think people would need to see more to place a proper verdict. A prototype in action would be nice.

Lts see some pictures. I like the idea

Hmmmmm. Price is good, my first mod would be adding legs!

The idea might have merit, but I'd really need to see a prototype to know if I'd be willing to drop the money on something like that.

I can tell you this:
If it was a kit that let me build and design my own table I would be far more interested.
For example: I can buy ramp styles A, B and J plus 3 bumpers and a saucer. Habitrail kit A and K plus 1 extra ball return that is clear (maybe one with neon tubing in it). Insert package D plus a toy spinner set up (like the genie lamp). Ooh and 3 "custom toy" target mounts and some drop targets set A (squares) and set C circles.

Instead of a solid whitewood for a table make it a full sized lattice that all the parts can be moved around on and snapped into different positions. Once you're done you buy covers for all the open bits so it's solid then program it etc... I buy the table playfield decal from you or you can print my own custom design.

Modular design (like legos or an erector set) with tons of parts and pieces and a system to program it (also modular like lego Robots or Little Big Planet).



Hell... I would throw money at you for something like that.

Any pics? Website we can check out? The price sounds too good to be true.

Interesting concept and good price point. Thanks for posting.

Addendum: As others have said, the option to have it customizable would probably draw the most appeal to pinheads. Also, I would suggest having the option of providing glass to cover the playfield; some prefer playing with it on and the occasional airball off of a target can be an issue without it.

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. We'll try to answer some additional questions.

Prototype
It's in construction at the moment and we too would hold out on buying one until we saw pictures and a video. No point ordering something you've never seen working.

Glass
Sounds like it's mandatory. We were trying to keep the costs down with the kit. We may have to offer this as an option. Yes, there is the noise and dirt factor that glass can reduce.

Size
The table will be a standard table size based on the Gottlieb 70's/80's EM machines.

The Look
It looks like a real pinball table, it just doesn't have the cabinet. We've done this because we want to keep costs down and because if you're really serious you could use a real cabinet and mount the table into it.

Mechanical Assembly
The nuts, bolts, screws, playfield assembly is done easily with a screwdriver and a spanner. There won't be any drilling. That's all done. Just mount the components.

Electrical Assembly
We're still discussing whether to supply a pre-made wiring harness with screw-in terminals, or a pre-made harness with soldered terminals, or a pre-made harness with connectors. There are some things to consider here. 1) not everyone can solder, 2) screwing wires to terminal blocks is easy but time consuming, 3) using connectors is even easier but without a locking mechanism they could fall out. Our prototype is hand soldered at the moment of course but we want to make this simple for the end user. We're probably going to select option 3. This option also means there can be minimal mistakes when you connect electrical components. There's nothing worse than building something and it doesn't work. Connectors would mostly eliminate this problem. Naturally each kit would be tested before leaving us.

Game Play and Computer Software
This is not based on a PC. This is a stand-alone system. There is nothing to code, we do that for you and the system comes pre-programmed. Plug in the micro-controller and switch it on. We're basing the system on the popular Arduino open-source electronic platform. Why? Well there are a few reasons. Firstly, there's a lot of code available at the moment to speed development. Secondly, a lot of people can program using this micro-controller. Thirdly, we're looking at releasing the source code so you can tinker, modify and share your game/scoring with others. We think this is important. Rather than just building the game and playing it, we think updating it, changing it, or making the game-play better is also half the fun. It's also fun to share with the rest of the pinball community. It also makes the game more accessible to those that never thought of building a pinball machine but have a love of the Arduino. So, the electronics are made in-house based around this system. We do not want to use existing pinball electronics or systems from a third party supplier. We want to keep everything in-house.

Power
A sealed 110-240 volt switch mode power supply is supplied with the kit.

Customer designed play-fields
No, we are not making individual play-fields for customers. Yes, we will accept designs from customers and select a design that we think will be popular. We'll probably open it up for discussion and feedback and only then put it into production. We will design a production version for each game and test before releasing it.

Deposit?
We're not sure what you mean by this. We're not taking deposits at all. When the kit is ready to ship only then will we take orders and payment.

An Atari?
No, we're not making anything like that. We're using mostly real parts (pop bumpers, stand-offs, rubber, flippers). It's also a full size table.

Table layouts based on existing machines
We know that the artwork is copyright and we're investigating whether game-play or play-field layout is also copyright. However, we're in two minds here about existing layouts assuming there are no copyright issues. We could design the kit to be just like a real layout. Let's pick Playboy for example. Everyone knows that machine. 1) Why would we want to make Playboy when the actual machine already exists? People could simply buy a second hand version. 2) If we made Playboy people would compare it to the real one and pick differences between the table layout, the artwork, the materials used. Discussions would descend into the usual level of negative comment. 3) Perhaps people would buy a kit version of Playboy because the real one is too expensive or not available. 4) Why try to make an existing machine when we can make something completely new and perhaps a lot more fun and challenging to play? As you can see there are a number of things to think about. We're concerned that negativity towards a 'clone' of an existing table would hurt what we're trying to achieve here, which is, to make a pinball machine at home accessible, fun to build and great to play.

Our prototype play field
We've incorporated elements from Firepower, Close Encounters and Duotron into the prototype. This is more a proof of concept rather than a final design. No doubt there will be people out there that have their favourite machine, or like elements of that machine. A captive ball, a rotary target, spinners etc. However as we first mentioned we'd like to base our first kit on the classic tables from the 70's and 80's. Given the modern electronics we have now, we can build a machine that has a more complex scoring system, is more interesting to play and has more flashing lights!

By the way, we're based in Sydney, Australia and have no connection with any past or present pinball companies. We have done a lot of electronic/interfacing projects before on complex avionics systems and we're pretty excited to bring this one to production. Yes, we like aircraft, but we like pinballs even more!

Thanks for all of the comments so far.

Regards,
The Pinball Kits Team

Certainly sounds interesting. Please keep us updated.

Kickstarter candidate if I ever heard 1!

Sounds to me like they're already in a position to make their product at a reasonable price, so I don't see why they would need to go down the kickstarter route. I'd prefer to just see more businesses do it the old fashioned way. If the product is good, people will buy it.

I hate to be the sole negative nancy, but unless the table is well designed I'm not really interested.

Pinball is a lot more than just slapping pops and ramps on a piece of wood and calling it a day. Good tables take years to design and produce.

I edited out, what I think, is a really good idea that I may want to pursue myself, or with the collaboration of forum members. Dare I say its kickstarter worthy. If anyone is interested in hearing what it is drop me a line.

tried to send you a PM Mark, but it says your box is full... I see maybe there are others that share this same idea...

SKILL_SHOT said:

Kickstarter candidate if I ever heard 1!

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Aye!

I hope you'll base your assembly instructions off LEGO rather than IKEA

Advalle said:

Yeah! Kick starter

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Sumez said:

Aye!

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But why? It's much more respectable if a company can get off the ground on its own, IMO, especially when they haven't mentioned anything about lack of finances. It sounds to me like they're moving forward and will do just fine, as long as the product quality is there.

So will non-tech savvy people rely on others releasing their configurations so that they can make their playfield?

Jeff Strong said:

But why? It's much more respectable if a company can get off the ground on its own, IMO, especially when they haven't mentioned anything about lack of finances. It sounds to me like they're moving forward and and will do just fine, as long as the product quality is there.

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I don't disagree with that. It was my way of saying that here's a potential kickstarter worth supporting unlike so many others.