A few months ago; I bit the bullet and got myself a Techshop.ws membership for the Austin/RoundRock location. While not cheap; I expect to make good use of the money spent.
For those that don’t know what Techshop is… in short it’s a “gym-membership” type of place which has over $500k in high tech machinery which the hobbyist can use once they’ve taken the required safety courses. Austin has a Waterjet, 2 shop bot CNC machines, mills, laser cutters, cnc sewing machines, tig/mig/welders, sand and powdercoating , etc.
My first course was Shopbot CNC … Last month I completed Waterjet.
This means I’m now able to use either of these machines.
For the last couple of years; I’ve been wanting to do my own pinball table. Those that know me… will already know the subject matter in question.
About two months ago; I settled on a plan.
Goal:
Create a Star Trek: Mirror Universe pinball table.
The plan; Scan in a 1979 Bally Star Trek pinball table. Mirror it. And customize it for the mirror universe.
Before (my previous PF/machine restore):
After: (click the picture to get a larger higher rez on flickr)
Yeap; that’s right… the shooter lane will be on the left side (evil grin) and will have a negative feel. What has been done:
Re-colored the playfield; fixed worn areas (in computer). Then flipped the playfield.
Areas changed:
- “vectorized” nearly all aspects of the PF.
- removed “reversed” text and replaced with Star Trek: series font.
- USS becomes I.S.S. Enterprise.
- Space Station K0 becomes Battle Station K0
- Transporting people become their “mirrored universe” counterparts complete with sashes and skin.
- “enter Hyperspace” becomes “Avert Subordinate Promotion” “by thwarting and assassination conspiracy”.
- “jump to warp” becomes “Employ Agonizer on Crewman”
- “where no man has gone before” becomes:
“Your Mission: Conquer all worlds and civilizations to expand the empire like no man before”
(may be too wordy)
- “Ready Photon Phaser” becomes “ready photon torpedo”
- Spelling “bally” becomes “Terra” (Terra meaning Earth. Short for “Terran Empire”; the mirror universe’s “federation”)
- Removed same player shoots again language; opting for “shoot again” text over insert.
- Drop Target Special becomes Terran Empire logo.
- colorized planet with purple glow like the re-mastered series from cbs. Not sure I like it… may go back to original look.
You’ll note that I’ve removed all the switch lanes from the design. The plan is to design a set of hall effect pcbs which replicate functionality without slots in the PF.
I also did the inital CAD work on getting a CNC-ready Playfield.
My next step is to see if I can source some inserts from Pinball Resource. I’ll need to do this before I commit to keeping the same sized inserts as on the original.
I’m curious how Kevin O’Connor would have approached a project like this.
I’ve also been in touch with Kevin at www.tavco.net ; unfortunately – the printer purchased by the Austin / RoundRock Techshop is only 24in wide… and the 4mil pressure sensitive adhesive film I wanted to use only comes in 36inch widths. The only material that comes in 24inch is a non-adhesive roll; meaning I’d have to find some kind of adhesive to attach the graphics to the PF.
Kevin did put me in contact with a local printing company:
http://www.aclaustin.com/
whom may have a large format printer which can print directly to the Playfield; which should make it easier to create as I won’t have to “register” and “line up” the graphics to the inserts/table.
