This week I worked on finishing up the play field designs. To finish off the play field I added the guides for the ball return system, designed the caps for the slingshots, laying out a twin tunnel obstacle to score points in, and designed a spinning pillar obstacle that uses a gear box and one motor to spin five pillars and fling the pinball all over the board. To simplify my design process of the gearbox a little bit I was able to find gears of the right diameter on McMaster-Carr, download the model and then tweak the model to fit my needs. The beauty of it is I have gears where I know the critical dimensions are correct and I can now 3d print them and have the shaft keyway customized to something that better fits my design. 

In adding these features I had to tweak a few things on the board to make the new parts fit with minimal interference on the underside of the play board. This further illustrated why it is necessary to take the time to make a good model and then the assembly process goes so much smoother. But after taking the time to make these adjustments I know that everything will work smoothly  when I go to build the real thing. 

After finishing off the play field I turned my attention to the actual box that will house the pinball machine and all of the electronics. I came up with a simple mounting mechanism for the box that uses a 1” dowl and some guides for the board to pivot up on for ease of maintenance with two other blocks placed at the proper height and 6 degrees to give the board the proper angle for play.