Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always wanted my own arcade, but who has the money and space? Not me, well not exactly. Pinball machines especially can be expensive, need a lot of room, and then there’s maintaining them. So the first time I found out about virtual pinball and could play some of my favorite tables on my computer (Star Trek: The Next Generation being chief among them) I was blown away! Then I saw how people took this software and applied it to a full size table and suddenly you have every pinball machine you want in one space.
Unfortunately, at the time I was living in our quaint house and after squeezing a pool table into the basement (another item I’ve wanted to own forever) there wasn’t enough space and resources for me to build one.
Fast forward to now. I kinda forgot about this until I saw a “Weird Al” pinball table announced, but the price tag is a bit…oof. It’s an interesting idea, modular pinball table. Similar to the virtual concept, being able to switch out parts so you have multiple tables in one box. Of course switching them isn’t as easy as clicking a button and you’re limited to what they offer, so no ST:TNG. Al’s table isn’t available virtually (yet?), but it still led me into looking into this again.
Today I’m in a bigger house. I have the space and resources to put something together. As a test run I took my old Sony KDL-40W3000 TV and put in on the floor, propped up at an angle with some books, add another old Dell monitor to act as the back glass, hook it all up to my existing seven year old gaming rig and voila!
You can play by keyboard, but to make it easier I used an Xbox360 controller and it works well! I even got a high score as seen above. So assuming I can stop playing for long enough, I want to take this basic design and put it into a table. First step is research and design. Luckily, there’s a good community and various resources to help. (Any links I throw in next I have no affiliation or preference, just examples I’ve seen.) You can go ahead and buy a complete table from places like this. This is the easiest, but most expensive option. Plus it’s a little frowned upon for places to sell the actual virtual tables already installed instead of going to the people who spent many, many hours creating them. So that’s out for me. Next you can buy a cabinet Ikea style and put the pieces together yourself, then buy each other component separately and put it all together. Still pricier than building your own, but easier and then still need to buy the monitors and PC. I’d rather save the money for the guts and I’m confident enough in my woodworking skills to build a box, so this is out for me as well.
This leads me to designing and building my own cabinet. Resources like mjrnet.org (considered the bible for vpin cab builds) and individual projects I’ve found here and here really gave me ideas and confidence to move forward with this. And of course there’s vpforums.org where I got some of the software and most of the tables themselves, not to mention their forums for info. You can really go crazy. LEDs that react to the ball, feedback devices so you can feel the bumpers and even the ball rolling, but I’m going to start super simple.
First step is getting a playfield monitor. The TV above was just a proof of concept. Want something newer, lighter, 4K. There’s just a few other details I need to decide on and of course how much am I willing to spend. Chief among them is the refresh rate and how much will really matter. Is 60 Hz good enough at 4K? Or is 120 Hz at 1080p better? (Video card prices are stupid, so going 120 Hz/fps at 4K is probably a no go). Do I splurge on a gaming monitor or get a much cheaper TV? Thanks to my sometimes useful, but generally annoying, habit of overanalyzing and researching all tech purchases so I can make sure I get every ounce of goodness at the lowest price, I’m currently paralyzed in indecision. This Sony X85J seems like a nice compromise, and others have used it with success. Or slightly more gets me this ASUS XG438Q. or do I go the used route and wait for a good deal on eBay or Facebook Marketplace or whatever?
Once I have the playfield, the rest will fall in place. Will design the cabinet itself around it then acquire the parts to put it all together, but I’ll detail that later. Wish me luck! Oh and time. Also, some more money would be helpful.