Why Buy a Pinball Machine When You Can 3D Print One?

[kiwi]

"Displayed at a British trade show, the machine is impressive in the sheer scope of pieces needed to bring it to life. Tony put in over 200 hours in OpenSCAD, creating 181 unique items. After the design stage was finished, the actual 3D printing took 1,200 hours, approximately fifty days.

For the truly devoted, Tony has been kind enough to put up an entire parts list and build logto his creation. It's pretty impressive. Tony uses solenoids, motors and LEDs connected to three different Arduinos. It looks even cooler in the dark, which you can see below. It's an impressive addition to wide world of pinball history."​

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/design/a23782/3d-printed-pinball-machine/

 

[Chris Bardon]

That's extremely cool. Every time I go to a show where they have 3d printers, I usually get into a conversation about printing pinball parts, especially as replacements for things like ramps that are impossible to get at a reasonable price.

 

[Fifty]

I need to get a 3D printer. Just a basic one that I can print parts and toys on. This machine is pretty incredible. The pop bumper design alone is fantastic.

 

[Rascal]

I just picked one up last week but haven't had time to play with it yet. There are some decent pinball mods and parts models available to make. I found a few ideas at Thingiverse.
https://www.thingiverse.com/search/page:1?q=pinball&sa=&dwh=4859d5915e5cc8f

I hope to have some time this weekend to fire it up. The actual designing of an object looks very time consuming, so I think I'll stick to downloading images for awhile.

 

[stiffler4444]

just got one of these at work to print hard to get mechanical and plumbing parts. I'm sure pinball parts could slip into that production line....