Announce: Frosted “clear” Drop targets

About 3 months ago; we announced on Pinside that we entered into a distorbution agreement with Pinball.Center to begin carrying their Frosted Clear drop targets for modern Stern, retro Williams, and old school Data East Pinball machines.

You can use these Drop targets anywhere you want to backlight them with LEDs but they have much better resiliency than the 3D varieties which were available a couple of years ago. Unlike the 3D printed varieties; these are injection molded out of Polycarbonate (Lexan) in Germany for maximum resilience until man can mass produce Transparent Aluminum.

To answer the question of ultimate resiliency; we sent a set of these drop targets to @vid1900 on Pinside to put them thru some checks. He reports that after 2 months of heavy commercial use, and over 900 games none of the sample drops have been damaged. You can read more about his honest review on Pinside.

We currently offer three styles of these “clear” drop targets in our store:

Already in Vid1900’s thread, several customers have begun to show how these drop targets enhance normally dark areas of their pinball machines:
Fytr on Pinside outfitted his Iron Maiden with our Clear drops.
Stern Iron Maiden Pinball
See more on Pinside.
roar on Pinside outfitted his The Walking Dead with our Clear drops
Stern The Walking Dead Pinball
but he went the added route of installing the stock decals over the drops. See more of Roar’s work on Pinside.

As expected; these drop targets are available for immediate shipment in our webstore:
Pinball Drop Targets

Announce: Translucent Pop Bumper bodies, Skirts, and Thingys

A little over a year ago; we began distributing Transparent / Translucent Pop Bumper Bodies manufactured out of Germany by Pinball.Center. We announce back then that we were the exclusive distributor for the North American American Market. These transparent pop bumper bodies are available in 9 modder friendly colors and should fit most modern Pinball machines:

  • Bally from 1988+
  • Williams from 1976+
  • Stern (including modern)
  • Data East
  • Sega



These pop bumper bodies were imported from Pinball.Center and will ship from Austin, TX to any North American address.

Cross-Referenced Part numbers include:

  • 03-7443-5
  • 3A-7443
  • Wico 19-0155
  • Stern 545-5197-00

You can purchase these today at our store:
Pop Bumper Body

Lately many people have been asking me when we’ll restock Clear Bodies instead of the frosted Clear we now offer. This is best summed up by this response:

I can’t commit at all on the Clear Pop Bodies; here’s the reason:

I was running low; so I ordered some more Williams Clear Drops, some GID Star posts, and 150 Clear bodies from Pinball.Center so I wouldn’t run out.
The Clear Bodies arrived in the frosted appearance:

Pinball.Center basically said I could return them; but they had no idea when (or if) they could fix their vendor to get them in Clear. I wanted to be upfront and honest with their appearance and didn’t want to leave no options for those people so I added the new color and put the Clear Out-Of-Stock. If you look at Pinball.Center’s original product photo – you’ll see that they pretty much consider the two equivalent.
http://www.pinball.center/en/shop/pinball-parts/playfield-parts/bumper-parts/2420/pop-bumper-body-transparent-03-7443-5

As a result; I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get true Clear again.
When I’m ready to reorder (maybe in Feb 2019); I’ll ask again – but I wouldn’t hold my breath for future stock.

About 8 months later; I announced the immediate availability of translucent pop bumper skirts. At this time they were only available in translucent Red and transparent Clear:

These Skirts at available in our store:
Pop Bumper Skirt

Finally, to round out our Pop bumper products; we announced our own version of the Pop Bumper Thingys available in both silver and gold glitter.

Both products are laser cut here in our facility in Austin, TX and gold is an exclusive color available only from our webshop. Because these are laser cut here; we can customize the design with any color acrylic available. If this interests you; please contact us.

The Pop Bumper Thing is available at our store:
Pop Bumper Thingy

Stern Star Trek: Custom Shooter Knob & Housing

A customer of mine graciously agreed to sell me his Shooter housing decal from aurich‘s Alternate decal set; as a result, I was able to finally finish my custom shooter housing and knob.

custom Star Trek Knob
custom 50th Anniversary Shooter Knob – Stern Star Trek

I had a shooter housing custom powder coated LE blue and installed the Decal. The knob is 3D printed at Shapeways from my custom design:

in polished Nickel and I powder coated it LE blue to match the housing.

A Star Trek 50th Anniversary Pin was then JB welded to the knob and it was encased in EasyCast Clear Casting Epoxy to give it a smooth surface for the palm of your hand.

Overall; I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Announce: Star Rollover LED boards

We are pleased to make a delayed announcement of a product which we’ve had in stock for almost a year. This Star Rollover LED board fits on the underside of your Playfield under a Star rollover assembly and will bathe the Star Insert is lower power LED light. With this product you can replace the inefficient horizontal lamp socket and incandescent light bulb with this board:
Star Rollover
Each board provides 4 natural white LEDs in a non-polarized light from either a 6.3V source. Because the board has a built-in rectifier bridge; you can supply power from both a 6.3VAC GI circuit or ~6.3VDC controlled insert. You can even control the brightness via a microcontroller PWM signal or from one of the new DIY control systems such as the PROC or its PD-LED driver board.

The design also features a brightness resistor at R5 to allow you to dial the brightness to your desired level. A hole in the center of our PCB allows the actuator to work from the insert to a standard Leaf switch typically under the insert.

A typical installation may require a set of #6-32 x 0.25 inch wood screws so you can bolt it to the back of the playfield under the star rollover insert. Electrical installation is super simple; simply solder the GI connection from the old horizontal lamp socket to the JGI connection, or jump to the nearest GI socket as we did in our machine below. Here is an example installation we did on our Star Trek: The Mirror Universe custom pinball machine.


Source: My Star Trek: The Mirror Universe custom machine

This populated PCB is available for immediate shipping in Our Online store @ http://pinball-mods.com/oscom/modifications-do-it-yourself-star-rollover-led-p-17.html

Announce: Translucent Early Solid State Pinball Buttons/Housings

I’m excited to announce the immediate availability of the C904 Housings and C905 buttons in 10 different pinball friendly translucent colors. The Colors are intended to closely match the colors of many pinball plastics such as lane guides, star posts, and switched inserts and are intended to be back-lit with LEDs. These new buttons are replacement parts for the following manufacturers / Part numbers:

  • Buttons:
    • Bally C-905 button
    • Gottlieb B-16680 button
    • Stern / Chicago Coin Machine 4B-200 button
  • Housings:
    • Bally C-904 housing
    • Gottlieb C-13900 bushing
    • Stern / Chicago Coin Machine 4B-199 housing

The Gottlieb BUSHING FOR DOUBLE PUSHBUTTON #B-21018 is not currently available; however, it should be possible to modify our buttons easily to replicate them. I’ll try to spend some time in the future to publish a how-to-modify here in this blog if there is interest.

These buttons are available in the following translucent colors:

  • Yellow,
  • Amber,
  • Orange,
  • Red,
  • Blue,
  • Green,
  • and Purple.

Additionally we’ve created some unique custom colors which should be of interest to the pinball community:

  • Clear
  • Teal,
  • and Smoke Black.

We also have some limited stock of:

  • Lime Green,
  • Smoke-Blue,
  • and Light Purple.

Colors are show below and should represent the colors available. Please Note:Keep in mind your monitor and my camera’s color balance will throw the colors off a bit from the actual product you receive so use these as an approximation of what will be shipped to you.

Pinball Button

C905 Translucent Pinball Buttons

The Housings:

Pinball Button Housing

C904 Pinball Housing

C904 Translucent Pinball Button Housings

Both the Housings and Buttons are made out of PMMA (Acrylic) so they can be easily laser etched and paint filled like I did on my Original Bally Star Trek Restoration.

Please let us know if there is a color not represented here… or if you’d like to see some opaque colors made.

To buy a set for you Pinball Machine; please see the following product page:
http://pinball-mods.com/oscom/index.php/cPath/28

Bally Flipper Button Mod

I’d also like to call Attention to a product we’ve had on the website for a couple of months… The Bally Flipper Mod was designed by myself several years ago for the Bally Star Trek Restoration. Each PCB features 12 LEDs in either Red or Green and rotated the LEDs to simulate a rotating pattern. I’ve held off announcing them here because I wanted to get the companion buttons on the website so fellow Pinheads would have the option of buying them with the colored button of their choice – IE one stop shopping.

This Flipper button mod is available as a 2 PCB set and looks like this in Green:

Here are a couple of videos of the Red in action:

Green LEDs:

Please take a gander at our product page:
http://pinball-mods.com/oscom/product_info.php/products_id/5
for more information or to purchase this modification.

Rest In Piece, Mr Nimoy!

The passing of Leonard Nimoy @ 83 on Feb 27, 2015 made me want to do something special in honor of the legendary actor. I decided to give everyone ordered between his passing and 3/6 a 10% discount at my web store with matching 10% donation in memory of Mr Nimoy to the COPD Foundation. His family has asked us to do this instead of sending flowers.

This discount was site-wide; so applied to whatever I happened to have in stock. Items included:

With the sale over; I crunched the numbers and determined that the donation would have been $68.44; but I wanted to give a little more from my personal pocket book – adding another $20 to make it $88.44.

A PDF of the donation receipt is here:
Nimoy COPD DonationNimoy COPD Donation

Thanks to all my fellow #Pinball enthusiasts on Pinside for making this donation possible.

#RIP #LeonardNimoy

Stern Star Trek: Warp Ramp LED Mod

One of the items that somewhat bugged me about my new Stern Star Trek LE Pinball machine, was the LED in the warp ramp popup insignia. Specifically; I always thought the two SMD red LED didn’t quite fit where it was placed in the machine.

Photo Credit: Kawydud@Pinside
Original LED in Popup. Photo Credit: Kawydud@Pinside

The plan was to “replace” the LED round lens with a laser cut lense which duplicated the artwork on the insignia’s plastic. To this I disassembled the plastic by removing the four screws… and took the plastic to my HP scanner where I scanned the art into my computer. Then using Corel Draw, I traced the Red Arrow from the plastic art:

Portions (c)2013 Stern Pinball
Scanned Plastic with New Arrow Art

I recreated the arrow using red; then added the black border around the plastic to block light and give a round area to mount the new LED. Once I had the recreated arrow; I broke it into two laser cut pieces. One would be cut out of the matte/diffused Red acrylic which was used on the Stern Star Trek Pop Undercaps. The second would be cut out of 1/8″ opaque black acrylic – this piece serving as an outline for the red piece and support from the LED.

I took these files to Techshop.ws where I laser cut several of each piece for experimentation later at home. Once the laser cutting was complete; I used the black cad files to laser etch some 1/4″ plywood to act as an assembling aid/surface. When I got home; I used the plywood and some wooden toothpicks to clamp the two pieces together:

Acrylic Clamping
Acrylic Pieces Clamped for Bonding

With the pieces together; I used some acrylic bonding solvent to glue the two pieces together. I let the acrylic bond overnight.

The next afternoon; My Comet Pinball Red LEDs had not come in the mail – so I decided to go ahead and use the original LED for experimentation. I cut the round lens off the original LED using a new XACTO knife and then using some two part 5minute epoxy; I glued the lamp to the new lense:

LED Clamping
LED Clamped to new LENS w/ 5minute Epoxy

I allowed the epoxy to cure for about an hour. I then reinstalled the plastics and the new LED assembly:

LED Clamping
Warp Arrow LED Installed

I’m really quite happy with the way this turned out. It defiantly spruces up the warp assembly.

Stern Star Trek Pop Bumper Caps

I’m happy to announce a New Product which is available in our Online store. Immediate availability of these custom CNCed aluminum Pop Bumper caps for your Stern Star Trek pinball machine.  Fits the Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition (LE) machines. Comes as a set of three different caps featuring the Science, Command, and Engineering Insignias from the JJAbrams Star Trek Universe. Each Cap is CNCed out of T6061 Aluminum, anodized black, and then etched for the raised silver Insignia.
Pop Caps

Additionally, these caps come with a set of laser cut acrylic UnderCaps in a double-sided Matte finish to help diffuse the LED light. Several pre-configured options exist to help customize you installation of these caps.

*** This design is Copy Protected 2014 by John Zitterkopf and may not be duplicated for any reason. ALL RIGHT RESERVED! ***

Installation Instructions are provided here as a guildline for installing these pop caps.

Example Installation:
SSTPBCDSC_0504



For ordering information; please see:
/oscom/product_info.php/products_id/31

Custom Buttons & Housings (Early Bally, Gottlieb, Stern, Chicago Coin)

My Shapeway’s store should be open to purchase early SS or late EM buttons and housings. You can visit the store at:

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/Pinball-Mods

You can buy in single button / housing configurations or in pairs allowing you to configure the colors as you want. The buttons work interchangeably with the original housings and vice-versa. At the moment; I have 13 color and/or materials available:

Blue nylon
Purple Nylon
Pink Nylon
Yellow Nylon
Green Nylon
Orange Nylon
Matte Black Nylon
Smooth Black
Polished Metallic Plastic
Grey Nylon /w metallic sparkle
Translucent clear
Matte Translucent clear
Matte Frosted Translucent Clear

I do not offer White or Red Opaque buttons in the store as they come much cheaper from PBR or Marco. I understand the prices are high; it’s what Shapeways’ charges for the material. I guess it’s the cost of customization.

At this point; I offer the following part numbers at the shop:

  • Buttons:
    • Bally C-905 button
    • Gottlieb B-16680 button
    • Stern / Chicago Coin Machine 4B-200 button
  • Housings:
    • Bally C-904 housing
    • Gottlieb C-13900 bushing
    • Stern / Chicago Coin Machine 4B-199 housing
    • Gottlieb BUSHING FOR DOUBLE PUSHBUTTON #B-21018

Here’s some pictures I took of the housing in polished metallic plastic and the button in frosted detail:

Star Trek: The Mirror Universe will be at Texas Pinball Fesitival

Phase 1 of the Star Trek Mirror Universe project is complete and will be on display at this year’s Texas Pinball Festival.

You can visit the details here on this blog… or visit the worklogs at KLOV forums or Pinside forums.

Give me a thumbs up Karma Point or Reputation point when visiting these forums.