This Maker was able to recreate an arcade classic using commercially available parts and an Arduino Mega.
Pinball machines might not be a common sight in America anymore, but if you’re nostalgic about these ancestors of video games, chances are you’ve thought about owning one yourself. Since you’re reading this blog, there’s also a good chance you’ve thought about building one!
Bob Blomquist decided to go from thinking about it to actually constructing his own using commercially available parts, including an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560). As you might suspect, as shown at 9:10 in the video below, even a relatively simple table like this requires a massive amount of wiring.
Blomquist’s project features several interesting techniques, including the use of an off-the-shelf voltage divider too step down the 24 volt power used with the “pop bumpers.” This allowed the bumpers to be powered by 24 volts, while this output is reduced to 5 volts for Arduino input. In this case, the circuit tended to leak current, so an analog input was employed to filter out false signals.
The voltage divider is a very useful concept in electronics, and more information on building one of these yourself can be found here.
Besides showing off a few electronics tricks, this detailed video also reveals all kinds of interesting components used in a standard pinball table. They are quite interesting in their normal use, and for that matter, some of them could certainly be repurposed for other Maker projects!
Atmel | Bits & Pieces 