My cabinet...plans

[Denhomer]

Since me and my girlfriend built a house together, we kept 1 room as 'Gameroom'.
Now, one and a half years later, there's 2 pinballs, fully installed, 4 of our pachi's, just sitting in a corner, and 1 pachi still in storage.
We did however foresee a space for all the pachi madness.
Last week, I went out and bought 3 chairs (I'll post a picture later, because I didn't feel like rendering the exact thing in sketchup)
I intend to keep with these 3 chairs, because otherwise the room will get too full with things.

For about half a year I've been drawing, prototyping in cardboard and in wood, a ball feeding system.
The prototype works, next step with this will be to add it to my pachi cabinet for a single pachi and see how it performs / fits onto a pachinko.

The other part will be a wall wide cabinet holding the toys and ball feed system.
I spent 2 evenings drawing it up in google sketchup to make an impression of what amount of wood I would need to buy to build everything.
Since it all looks quite nice, I would love to share some images with you and ask for comments / ideas / things I overlooked.

This image is a view standing at the door of the room at eye level. The area above the pachi's is about 20 cm high, which should allow for a future battle counter addition. The area between the pachi's is about 6 cm, which should allow for a possible smart card system addition.
InsideEyeLevel.jpg

For the next couple of pictures, I removed 1 or more walls to have a better view.
HighAbove.jpg LeftOutside.jpg TopView.jpg

And finally some pictures of the ball feeding system.
FeedBehind.jpg BallFeedTop.jpg BallFeedLifter.jpg
Bottom thing here is the ball lifter.
The container above can hold more than 20000 balls, which is not even needed, because I only have about 7000 at the moment. (but I'm not sure that it'll be enough)
The container at the top (at the end of the tube) can hold +- 1000 balls and this will make sure the lifter doesn't need to spin up every time 10 or so balls roll of the paddle.
The rail running along all the pachi's is good for another 1600 balls.
Above each hopper is a shutoff valve which automatically blocks ball flow when a pachi opens. (I already prototyped this)

If you didn't fall asleep through all this, you might have noticed the drawings have 7 pachi's and I only have 5, so I guess I'll have to fix that sometime
Also, currently there's still a spot for a third pinball If only I could fine a super nice TAF (the addams family)

[dattia]

Looks good... I hope it happens!

[rman]

Looks like a nice set-up. Looking at the drawings and the write-up, I am not sure how the ball distro will work, you state there is a gate that will close for each machine, but it seems like the first machine will receive all the balls (until it's hopper is full). And if the gates are closed all the balls would end up at the last machine. I must be missing something ...

Ray

[MrGneiss]

Wow, that looks great..Make sure to keep us updated once you start building..And don't forget to take lots of pictures!!

[Denhomer]

Looks like a nice set-up. Looking at the drawings and the write-up, I am not sure how the ball distro will work, you state there is a gate that will close for each machine, but it seems like the first machine will receive all the balls (until it's hopper is full). And if the gates are closed all the balls would end up at the last machine. I must be missing something ...

Ray

While the balls flow on top, the first machine in row indeed takes most of the balls (some will slip through), but when that machine fills up, the rest will get filled.
If all machines are full, balls stack up in the gutter on top until it's full, then the ball lifter stops lifting.
The 'gate' is right above each hopper, so when that closes, balls will continue to flow along the gutter to other machines.
I'll make a couple of pictures to show the idea later.

[Denhomer]

Here are some pictures:
I've added colored parts to indicated what I mean: Red is the gutter, green is the part per pachi, blue is the tube that goes to the gate above the hopper of the pachi.
Ballflow from left to right... and right a couple of balls stack up to what is supposed to be the next pachi in line.
DSC00207.JPG
In the next 2 pictures you see balls coming from the ball lifter down the gutter, most of the balls go straight ahead, bump in the stacked up balls, and enter the green part.
DSC00208.JPG DSC00209.JPG
At a certain moment the green part is full, and balls stack up in the gutter to the other pachis.
DSC00210.JPG
The (see first pic)blue spiral tube is flexible (so it allows for different position of the gate according to different pachis) and has a 12 mm inner diameter, this leads to the gate above the hopper, as pictured in the next 2 pics. This gate is normally closed because it's pulled close by gravity (most of the time, this should work, unless I'm moving to the moon) as you see in the first picture. In the second picture I'm pushing against the gate, with a cardboard box (pachi hopper) and balls flow in the hopper. This gate is going to hang only 1/8 " above the hopper, so there should be no spilling as the hopper fills up.
DSC00213.JPG DSC00211.JPG

This is only in prototype, the green part is going to be much smaller because of spacial restrictions as shown in my 3d pictures a couple of post higher.
It's also this prototype, when I've got the chance to make it all a bit smaller, that I will use to attach to my single pachi cabinet to 'real world' test drive ...

[rman]

Ahh, now it does make sense, and the reason for requiring all the balls to be sitting in the upper gutter. Pretty cool. Make sure you keep us updated with photos as it goes together.

[compirate]

I see you've been studying the system well. Just keep the slope very shallow (from my calculations, it's only 3.5% or .42" per 12") and the layer of balls in the upper trough to just one and you shouldn't have any problems. One thing I don't see is a tube at the lower end of the upper trough going directly to the lower trough to allow you to empty the entire upper system is you need too. Also, in your pictures at the top, in that space to the left of the machines where it says Pachinko, put your ball counter there, with the drain into the lower ball hopper, that way they go right back into the system when counted.

[Denhomer]

I see you've been studying the system well. Just keep the slope very shallow (from my calculations, it's only 3.5% or .42" per 12") and the layer of balls in the upper trough to just one and you shouldn't have any problems. One thing I don't see is a tube at the lower end of the upper trough going directly to the lower trough to allow you to empty the entire upper system is you need too. Also, in your pictures at the top, in that space to the left of the machines where it says Pachinko, put your ball counter there, with the drain into the lower ball hopper, that way they go right back into the system when counted.

I was planning on that kind of slope, but thanks for reassuring me that it should work.
Thank you for the idea of the drain for emptying the top system, I totally forgot about that one
The ball counter idea is nice, I don't have a ball counter yet, but I wanted to add one if possible someday.
I had this plan to make a drawer under every pachinko that you could pull out to pour away the winnings so they can re-enter the system. You can (hardly) see this between the feet on the following pic:
FeedBehind.jpg
but this way, it would be rather hard to add a ball counter, unless I buy / make 7 counters...
Your idea would

• save me building time, no need to make all the drawers
• make it a whole lot cheaper to add a counter

So I might keep that in mind and add the counter in the left over space.
Until I get a counter it will just be a hole to dump the winnings.
If I ever get tired of walking over to the left side, I can still add the drawer idea later, because there's nothing that would be in the way of these drawers in the future anyway.

[Denhomer]

I thought it was about time to make a little update.
I had to modify the 'gate' shown above to fit in the existing cabinet for 1 pachi I have. I made it a bit easier to make, but I needed 2 tries to get it right, I'll add pics later. The basic idea is that the tube comes in from the side, allowing the whole thing to be shorter to fit under my ceiling.
I had a small setback with the ball lifter. I made a 4 foot plastic tube for the lifter to see if the balls could be lifter higher than the standard... but it FAILED. I have one of those silk drive ball lifters that don't have a gear, but 2 rubber bands that slide the balls in the tube. Apparently these rubbers can't really handle the 4 foot (600 grams or 1.3 pounds) of balls pushing back down. The ball lifter either stops turning or the balls go wherever they can to escape the pressure...
Does anyone have an idea or solution to this ?

Otherwise I have to fix myself a new, better ball lifter. Probably the Balldozer from one of the members here. Seeing as it can lift up the second floor it can also be used for my 5 feet I have to go up.

Soon, pics of the whole system on a pachi cabinet...

[SteveFury]

I'd make a provision(s) in the bottom skirt to recapture the balls that "Try to get away".

[Denhomer]

I got a nice update again with some pictures and a youtube video.
As I already said I had to change the gate above the pachi to take up less space. It ended in this
Side and front view: DSC00222.jpg DSC00223.jpg
Bottom view closed and open: DSC00224.jpg DSC00225.jpg
Inside cabinet: DSC00221.jpg
Rest of cabinet setup: DSC00218.jpg DSC00219.jpg DSC00220.jpg

The weight hanging below makes the gate automatically close when I pull open the pachinko. This works quite well, in the below video only 2 balls fall out. I've changed a few details and now it doesn't even spill anything anymore, but I didn't want to create another video, you'll have to believe me

[Denhomer]

Just adding a link for the members that can't see embedded video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v06BLQqxwfY

[MrGneiss]

That is pretty Rad!!

[Denhomer]

More testing had to be done, so I tested the counterweight part of my system.
Result: DSC00314.jpg DSC00315.jpg DSC00316.jpg
The pachinko can open up without the whole construction falling over.
It works with a 8 kg counterweight, but then it still feels kind of flimsy... so I set out 13 kg of balls.
Math is simple... pachinko is +- 50cm wide, so avg center of gravity hangs out at +- 25cm.
The table I'll be resting my machines on is going to be 60cm deep, weight will be at the end of this, maybe at 50 cm...
So to hold a 20 kg pachi, I'll need 10 kg counterweight... and just to be sure I'll a couple kg extra