I kicked off the pinball build about 3 weeks ago. I am trying to get to the point of 4 flippers flipping on two playfields as the first major milestone. There’s a few things to get there:
- Power supply – the flippers are powered by solenoids that usually run on 48-70v DC. I’ve chosen 48V DC as that’s the highest voltage that is still considered ‘low voltage’ from a safety point of view. Other than the high voltage DC; both 12V and 5V is needed to power the computer, and the pinball electronic interface (P3-ROC, driver(outputs) module, switches (inputs) module).
- Power distribution – with all these different voltages , need ways to get them to all the different areas. Using terminal blocks.
- Flipper Assemblies – bought from pinballlife.com
- Flipper Buttons – the player buttons to each side to activate flippers
- Computer – got a Low power Intel computer (AsRock q1900), hard drive, ram, case, etc
- Software – linux operating system running Mission Pinball Framework. The bare minimum software here is pretty easy in this framework: flipper button pushed = flipper activated. It’s actually a bit more complicated but that’s the gist.
Over the last couple weeks have bought all the parts and gotten some initial testing done. This weekend was getting the power and power distribution sorted, which I am nearly happy with.
There is a lot of room there left where additional boards, wiring and the computer will end up. But, there’s enough there right now to get flippers going. And no smoke was let out!
Chronic Dabbler 