A Home Pachinko Cabinet System

[DukeOfDelmar]

Now that I have 4 pachinko machines (at least I will come Christmas), I'm starting to put serious thought on how to display them, and automate ball return to the payout hoppers, especially on the fever machines.

My idea is for an expandable cabinet system where several machines can share ball-lifting infrastructure, and possibly, dedicated 24VAC power.

I have been spending the past week planning the cabinet details out in Blender 3D, with input from a friend more experienced in woodworking. It is still a work-in-progress, with the most attention still needed in the ball handling system.

Here is a concept rendering of what this would look like:
Concept photo 2.jpg

To flow the balls from one cabinet to the next to/from the ball lifter, a ramp would start at one cabinet and would slope gently downhill through each successive cabinet. The current cabinet design will accommodate up to 12 machines, 6 on each side of a shared ball-lifter module. (Probably the design can be modified to accommodate more, but after 24 linear feet of pachinkos, you'd probably want an aisle break anyway in a home, no?

To ensure gravity can do its job properly, and account for the inexact nature of wood and warps, the cabinets would have furniture levelers, which they should have anyway to keep the pachinko itself level . I've run simulated tests of my ramp designs for both the ball return and ball feed in a game engine, and they both seem to work well.

Here's a couple of questions I have to start out:

If I want to wire the cabinets with 24VAC, where would I find the hardware to do that? I understand that modern pachinkos have significant 24v power needs. For instance my "CR Galaxy Railways" is rated at 200VA, which is roughly 8.3A. I've found power supplies for closed circuit TV equipment and such, but those seem to top out at 3.5A per output, and 600VA overall. Where can I find equipment to handle power for 6-12 modern pachinkos at 200VA each?

My understanding of ball lifter systems is that the biggest challenge is preventing clogs of silverball. Has anyone experimented with using the guts of an unsalvageable pachinko to handle this problem? It seems to me the top part of the payout tract would be perfect for funnelling down to a single stream of balls without clogs.

I plan to share all plans on this forum publicly once I make a few more revisions. For now though, my wife really wants to see the new Thor movie, so gotta go!