Homebrew Pinball #3, Part 28

Cross posted from the original Pinside thread, this is one of many posts regarding my third homebrew pinball machine, creatively nicknamed 'P3'



Got the basic habitrail installed. Made a half height, low quality mount to hold the other end, which seems to work okay.

It looks like I can make the curve on the entry mount wider for a smoother feed. This is the original:

And here's my current iteration:

Mounting the entry mount was also an issue, since I didn't really plan for that. I ended up putting it on a standoff on top of one of the existing ramp's mounting holes, but I still only have one screw holding it. It seems to work okay, so I'll leave it for now. I could probably extend another support out to the posts behind the 2-bank if necessary, but I don't want to cover the playfield any more than necessary.

I also needed a place to mount the switch, so I stuck a microswitch through a small gap. To prevent airballs, I put holes on the top to screw a sheet of clear plastic into. Still need to figure out how to attach the plastic on the left side of the ramp. I don't understand how Mars never has airball issues on its ramp... seems hard to believe that they managed to make it the exact height needed for their flipper strength, especially since I'm using the same flippers!

This is my final entry design. Looks pretty weird, but it works. :

I had to add some side rails to keep the ball from falling off, especially at higher speeds. Lock post worked on my first try with a random guess for the pulse length, which surprised me.

While it's nice to know this works, I probably will avoid locking multiple balls this way, since I don't have any way to mount a switch behind it to know if it failed to release a ball due to the ramp positioning. Sadly, this was the only position I could fit the post mech in, so I'm a bit constrained here. I'mthinking I'm going to have most multiballs work by locking one ball on the ramp, and then you get a second ball to plunge, and the ramp ball is released once you hit a switch. Maybe there will also be something to let you short plunge and combo up the ramp to lock a second ball, for three ball, or a rule about locking both balls during MB to release a third. Since there's no auto plunger I can't really have a normal add a ball. I feel like multiballs lately have been a bit boring design wise, so I'm hoping to do more stuff with multiple phases like DE used to do, or maybe more advanced stuff like a special multiball that you can only work towards qualifying while you're already in another multiball, at the cost of ignoring the current multiball's jackpots to make that progress...

For normal ramp shots, I programmed the game to engage the post as soon as the ball makes the ramp, and then disengage once the inlane switch registers, but I had issues with the ball bouncing over the switch since it was just dropping off the end.Inspired by Metroid which I saw at Pintastic last year, I made this end cap for the rail to make the ball drop nicely.

It worked, but I didn't like how it looked, so I made this instead, which seems to work fine and looks more natural:

Posted Tuesday, September 29, 2020
at 06:30 PM


Tags: Blog Post, Pinball, Project, P3,


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