POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

I'm a saver, I save things I disassemble. I had new windows put in years ago and removed the casement locks. Well we are getting a new heater and A/C.. I went for a heatpump with a backup based on recommendations here. Anyway, as I am clearing space for the work in a few weeks, I am going through things and came across the locks and thought great, this can be used for my sound enclosure on my vac. I currently use a simple hook and screw eye, but these would be nice. So 10 minutes of useless unnecessary work, and I feel much better that I finally used one.. way overkill as the old one worked fine. But this feels like quality... of course the job is not.. quick down and dirty.
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BGHansen said:
POTD was making a bracket to mount a DPDT switch. Material of choice was some 1/8” aluminum plate. Mounting holes were drilled and countersunk on the Bridgeport. Then, a ½” hole drilled for the switch. Then over to the Diacro brake to put in a bend.


DPDT switch, couple of mounting screws and some 1/8" aluminum for the bracket
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Drilled mounting holes on the BP
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Diacro brake for the bend
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Final switch bracket
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What’s the switch for? We have a virtual pinball machine that I was adding some solenoids to for the “mechanical sound” when hitting the flippers. The DPDT switch lets me turn the solenoids on or off.


Flipper solenoid kit; power supply and a couple of boards/solenoids
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Wired it up and verified the DPDT switch turns the solenoids on/off. And "yes", the solenoids are 12V and look A LOT like a starter solenoid.
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We host a few family functions every year and have a couple of real pinball machines for folks to play. The problem is, after a half-hour of playing a table, it’s the same old, same old table. Plus, a typical pinball machine has about ½-mile of wiring in it and decades old hardware to maintain.


What could EVER go wrong here!
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I picked up the virtual machine last year to add some variety. There’s a pretty active community who develop new tables as a hobby. There are over 1000 to chose from! So, play a table for a few minutes, get bored or stink at the table? Just hit a button and load up another one.

The tables have added sound effects through the speakers for the various bells and whistles; “clunk” sounds when hitting the flippers or the ball hits a pop bumper or slingshot. They are essentially a video game. In the “let me throw more at it to make it seem closer to a real machine” category, folks add solenoids, gear motors, shaker motors, etc. to get the same physical shake/clack noises as a real machine.

I first wired everything up to test it out before installing the hardware. Worked fine on the floor, so time to “open the hood”. Pretty simple installation, mount the DPDT switch, route wiring into the cabinet, screw the solenoids in place, screw down the power supply and wire it up to the flipper switches.


A look pre-solenoid installation under the playfield monitor. Just a handful of switches and wiring running back to the computer mounted in the back box.
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After install. The flipper switches are wired to the solenoid control boards which in turn are wired to the machine's flipper wiring. The control board hits the solenoid with enough juice to get a "clack" noise, then drops the voltage to maintain the solenoid's closed position. That saves the solenoid coil from over-heating.
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ON/OFF solenoid switch mounted to the side of the cabinet. There's also an amp there for a sound system upgrade I did earlier. This included a bass shaker speaker that moves the table so much that the internal accelerometer for nudging the table had to be disabled. Otherwise, the table tilted on its own just from the vibration from the speaker. I can still "nudge" the table with a couple of switches next to the flipper switches. It also controls a couple of "exciters"; speakers without paper cones that are attached to the cabinet and generate sound by shaking the cabinet.
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Time for the “flipping” with real “clack, clack” noises!


"Let me make you an offer you can't refuse"; play me now!
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Thanks for looking! Bruce
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gotta say, I don't play anymore, but when I do, there is something nice about the mechanical, vs the electronic. Both are nice, but old is what I grew up on and lost all my change to. My friend and I would go to a McCrory's or New???? something or other both like Woolworth and spend the day in the basement spending all our coins that we earned... It would go fast, but we had fun.. We often shook the machine too hard :(, but if you had the right touch the ball would become electric in how fast it moved.
 
During my college years (centered on 1970), one of my classmates talked the College into letting him put several pinball machines in the basement of the cafeteria. This made him a good income to pay tuition, as they became very popular and would be occupied at all hours of the day and night. At the end of his senior year, he submitted his Thesis to the Psych Department, and it leaked out that the subject was the response of the participants to his experiment in modifying the response of a device to the input from these participants. It seems that he was tweaking the pinball machines and observing the response of the players. For instance, making a machine easier to run up a score, then changing it to become far more difficult. The players were paying him to be his "lab rats." Needless to say, his popularity declined considerably.
 
Literally 12lbs of crap :D

My job yesterday and this morning was to rewire the fluorescent fixtures in the garage to use some direct wire LED tubes I won at an auction recently. They’re 4000k instead of 6500K :foot in mouth:, a fair bit brighter and use a bit over 2/5 of the power. I’m very happy with the results

First fixture done at the back left for comparison
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matthewsx said:
Not aluminum, steel. Electric can be on the surface along with air/water if needed. Don’t have to paint and white helps a lot with lighting.
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Don't forget the advantage in cleaning. I have already washed the walls and ceiling in my shop from dirty and dingy to new and clean. :eagerness:

Surface mounting the electrical and the plumbing is a huge advantage as well. I have modified my systems several times already. Remember these are working shops and not a house or museum.
 
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