Small Virtual Pinball Machine With Surround Sound!

My name is Jonathan, I am currently taking Digital Fabrication and Design at Selkirk College!

And, yep.... you read that right, surround sound!

Backstory:

I love pinball. It's one of my favorite things to play, which I do generally every single night. There's something about the fact that it's physical, the ball is actually moving around to play the game. The amazing creativity a couple flippers and a heavy steel ball flying around can bring out of game creators is incredible. They are works of art, that can fling strangely heavy steel balls for 20+ years and keep going. I hope one day to own a real machine

But sadly, A: I live in a VERY small apartment, and B: Poor Student life. So it still has to be a dream for now.

But something fell perfectly in place in January. The Student CNC Contest. I just so happened to be finishing an Entrance Way Bench while the contest was on, and decided to enter it. I'm happy to say I got a 1st place prize! I was extremely excited, and even better, the next Student Contest was going to be "Arcade". That is the moment I knew exactly what I was going to do.

(Side note: Don't be confused about the headphone stand picture in the bench Instructable, it makes sense for the story)

For the first time, I'm going to make something specifically for a contest, and try my best to make something amazing. So with the prize money in hand (for a very short period of time) all of it, and a bit more went immediately into parts for this pinball machine.

Little did I know, but my instructor would convince me to turn this into my full blown capstone. So, as of the writing of this Instructable, this is now officially a prototype.

But wait:

I hear you say.

Didn't you say one of your favorite parts of pinball was the fact of how physical it is, yet you are making a virtual machine?

....Yep....

But here's where it gets cool. I'm not the only one who loves the physicality of pinball. In fact, the software I'll be using has the tools build in, for full surround haptics for use in full size cabinets to give you all of the feeling of a pinball machine. The shakes, shocks, and even sound of wood as things happen and WHERE they happen on the machine. I'll get into more detail in a few, but I knew I HAD to have this in my machine. But, this is also where things would get challenging. (Spoiler mine doesn't have "haptics" unfortunately)

I'm glad this is a "prototype" now, although it works well enough, you will see shortly, it could be MUCH cleaner.

There's A LOT to cover, so we will be going through at a pretty good pace. If I miss something, don't be afraid to ask questions!

My aim with this Instructable is much less about making this exact machine, but trying to teach the ability to pick out your own parts that fit your budget or preferences to make a machine. So I will spend lots of time explaining why I chose certain parts, instead of the parts and build specifically

Objective:

To make a small high quality virtual pinball machine that is small enough to be used on countertops

Required Features:

All self contained. No external connections or computers

Single power cable

Both a playfield and a back-glass screen

Use as many off the shelf parts as possible

Surround Haptics

Various other bits that will vary from machine to machine

Supplies

The blessing and the curse of a virtual pinball machine, is the huge variety of parts that you can use. Unfortunately it's more difficult than you'd expect to find good information on what parts are recommended or even can be used. This is due in part by the massive variance in time that people have made virtual machines over the years

I'll go into more detail of each in later steps to hopefully guide you on how to choose for your own machine

Playfield Display: I went with a 11.6" 16:9 768p from Aliexpress. I will not link as it turns out to be TN instead of IPS as advertised

Backglass Display: Smaller 4:3

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32872767006.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.16.1b1f1802J1HN4l

Optional 3rd Display: I chose not to include this in mine, due to the compact nature of my machine, but you can get a 4:1 aspect ratio display to act as the "DMD" (Digital dot matrix) display for score and other graphics the pinball machines have (Modern sterns use 15.6" 720p screens sadly). Otherwise they are put on the backglass display

Buttons/Input: A small mechanical USB Macro Pad

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006068045032.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.5.21bd1802PoAtIE

Audio/"Haptics": I'll go into more detail later, but my machine doesn't have "haptics".

Speakers:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006116555207.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.22.21bd1802PoAtIE

Amps (in hindsight a but over spec'd):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001703862932.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.27.21bd1802PoAtIE

7.1 USB Decoder: There's usually only a single choice that is known to work with VPX

https://www.amazon.ca/StarTech-com-7-1-USB-Sound-Card/dp/B002LM0U2S/ref=sr_1_10?crid=3KMOAIWV3GE1K&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.MeytxCNYsX9n7w7uAhrCNyLppiz4auyI3jpKma79iqdAhEs8M1RsyoQdsZqFMTU8-PZHAkPXq-cFvSp5XAOGp9hw0O_KCH6pgbmz0mCFepgJAG1Dt9bUWDd1-fWM6hSa6ciWU-dBKB-rthcvVk6Rxf9saKSzztCzba3bINt0f_55Baiq7bNJgpnJRo08mQJUvRIiRotkIp8t0nzpvqwS16GI25c0Yyr2_-mEijQ3EmaXVZ2ur-ovg3iE7DQBd5q39Vm4sUAqCbN97IuOvwo4aCH_ThY5E5qt99m-neJp0PI.iIk8GwZATx_4rF03ujOOzk2rUEZS3OME_6x4bbPpMpA&dib_tag=se&keywords=7.1%2Bsurround%2Bcard&qid=1710110004&sprefix=7%2B1%2Bsurround%2Bcar%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-10&th=1

Additional Hardware bits:

M3 Screws

M3 Threaded inserts

Double Sided Tape

Screw Driver

Various lengths of wire

Heat Shrink

Powerbar with USB outputs

Small Hinge

Screws only, no glue (except the screens and speakers for obvious reasons)

Step 1: Software

First things first, Software. I intended to use Virtual Pinball X. Unfortunately how to install and use VPX is outside the scope of this Instructable. The main reason is the installation hasn't really changed over the years, and the TONS of tutorials on how to do it.

https://www.vpforums.org

For what you need to know I will be usingBaller Installer specifically. This is a tool to install VPX (and others), a front end, set displays, and bind keys in a single simple UI

https://www.nailbuster.com/wikipinup/doku.php?id=baller_installer

Step 2: Computer Choice

We need something to run the whole thing. Doing research online, you'll find all sorts of crazy opinions on what is truly "needed" to run VPX. Anything from *insert best video card at the time of posting here*, to *Insert cheap Intel i3 here*.

What you need to run, will truly depend mostly on 2 things. Which is what A: Target resolution and B: Target frame rate. If you want 4k at 144hz, yeah you'll need at least some horsepower. But if you want 1080p at 60hz, it can almost run on a modern toaster

But here is where some ambiguity comes in when doing research. Reading online, doing research if you've chosen to just go with an all in one solution with NO videocard. Some say "yeah my i3 is great!! some say "wait, no my i3 is awful!". Well the problem is, what i3? What year, and what specific model?. i3's of today are 5x more powerful than some of them they are talking about, never mind a high-end Intel i3 or modern AMD Ryzen APU's with great iGPUs

TLDR: Any truly modern iGPU should be just fine for 720p-1080p at 60hz. So what did I choose?

An Intel N100 powered mini PC with 16gb of ram. (underlined for speed readers). Things I looked for: At least 2 HDMIs, and more USB the better. I'm purposefully NOT linking one, simply because there are so so so many options that change almost daily, and have wildly different availability.

(I also like the rear exhaust more on this later)

Step 3: Displays

You can technically get away with a single display if you really wanted, but I'd recommended at least 2. Playfield and backglass.

The backglass display will change with each game, and also show the DMD of the game.

If you wanted to go to the next level, you could get a 4:1 "bar" display for a dedicated DMD display. However you will need a 3rd HDMI output from your source

I went for portable monitors since they can be USB/5v which gives me lots of flexibility for powering them. Either from the PC itself, or through (as you will see upcoming) a powerbar that has a USB output as well

A key spec to look for is IPS (or OLED if you want even). IPS offers wide view angles which is key for a virtual pinball machine playfield as it's at a fairly flat angle. However, many cheap Portable monitors (especially when looking for a non-common size) advertise as "IPS" but sadly are not....which I learned the hard way

An optional feature is touch screen. Some offer touch functionality through USB to Windows, which could be valuable for inputting something you need in a pinch

I went with small displays since I wanted mine to fit on a table top. So my Playfield is a 16:9 11.6 inch 768p display. The back glass is a 4:3 8" display. I tried to match the width of the 4:3 to the height of the 16:9 so they would look proportional to each other. People building full size cabs tend to use a TV for the playfield, and a computer monitor for the back glass

Step 4: Buttons/Input

Input on pinball machines is a fairly critical part. It is the only interface you have, and for some people and machines, can be a make or break

Many builds online tend to use some sort of custom Arduino or other custom IC solution, But I thought to myself, "wait these already exist!". Thankfully a few years ago mechanical keyboards really came to light. So I decided to use a cheap "macro pad". Uses hot swap sockets for mechanical switches, and can easily be reprogrammed with whatever keystrokes you want to use! (plus they can be pretty crazy cheap)

I decided to use the Red style mechanical keyboard switches the board came with, but because all you are doing is bridging connections, you could easily swap the keyboard switches with an arcade or other button you'd like.

The nice thing about using a macropad, is you can rebind any of the buttons to output any keystroke you want. Plus you can then map them in the software to control the game

At a minimum, you will need flippers, launch, and start. However I would recommend at least a start and exit button, add coin button, nudge, and magna save. So lets go through these one at a time

Flippers: Flippers, THE way of playing pinball

Launch: The way to get the ball in play. Some real machines also just use a button, but some have a spring rod. There are actually digital spring rods available to interface with digital machines if you want, since some games offer skill shots when you precisely control the power of your launch. I chose to go with a button for both simplicity and space. Which makes it trickier to control launch speed, but it's at least still possible

Start and Exit: Since virtual cabinets can play multiple different games, you need a way to switch between them. Having an exit button allows you to get back to the main menu

Add Coin: Since VPX (or other similar software) can run ACTUAL roms from real machines, sometimes an add coin button is required. (plus some tables people have made include this) This also adds a level of emersion to your digital machine. What's even cooler, is you can swap the simple button for a full blown real coin door if you wanted true immersion. Since coin doors just flip switch, it's just a simple wiring and done! Again I just went with a simple button due to how crazy tight my machine is

Nudge: Nudge is an important part of pinball in the more modern age. Tilt sensors started with a ball on a dish to see if people were cheating when they angling the machine to get better scores. They quickly evolved into electronic sensors, and eventually actually became part of the gameplay. Many games allow your 3 nudges before you get a "Tilt!". So having nudge buttons as part of your V-Pin is a good part of the game in my opinion

Magna-Save: Some games (particularly Williams machines) have what's called "Magna-Save" which is an additional button next to the flipper that will activate an electromagnet (after the player meets certain requirements in the game) for the ability to save the ball from draining. I chose to include these since I have lots of buttons form the macro-pad to play with, and it wouldn't really be much effort to do

Step 5: Surround Sound/Haptics

This to me is one of the most important and coolest part of my machine. This in my opinion really bridges the digital world into something more physical and immersive.

This is also what makes my machine unique. Looking at may builds online, there are very few that are this small, and just about none of them offer the surround haptics. Usually it's reserved for mid-size or full sized builds. I knew I needed this to bring my build the next level

But scaling down to this size gets difficult, either because of space, or cost. For me it was cost. I had a small budget of the $300 USD winnings from the Bench build.

So for haptics, this is usually achieved by using Exciters. These are extremely similar to speakers except instead of controlling a cone to compress air to make sound waves, the are designed to move the surface they are attached to instead. These are pretty ideal for virtual pinball machines. As they vibrate the machine itself to create the sound. Which gives you 2 things, A: The sound of the cabinet itself when the appropriate sound effects play, and B: You can actual FEEL the things that are happening around the machine. The flippers going off, the pop-bumpers resonating through the wood, the ball rolling over the playfield. All really adding the physical part that pinball is so known for.

However, due to space and cost. I went with just normal speakers. Instead of $15 for a single exciter, it's $7 for 10 small speakers.

So THE key component to make this all work is the 7.1 surround sound USB decoder. This is the interface that allows you to get 7.1 channels out of your computer to control the haptics. From research it seems the "go to" decoder is the StarTech 7.1 USB. Windows unfortunately is rather picky about audio devices and it seems not all 7.1 decoders work too well. But this one seems to be rock solid and used in just about any build you see online.

VPX supports your normal front facing speakers that pinball machines have, where sound effects of the game itself are played. But it also has the option of surround haptics. This maps the front channels and rear channels to the exciters (or speakers in my case) to the actual playfield sound effects such as flippers, bumpers, ball ect. 2 exciters are at the top of the playfield, and 2 are at the bottom, with the 2 backglass speakers in the "traditional" spots you see real pinball machines have.

VPX will use 6-channels in total. Being the stereo backglass, stereo front, and stereo rear. So you need 2-speakers and 4 exciters (or in my case 6 speakers) for everything to work.

For amps, I chose to go with amps that could be powered via 5v up to 12v. This was mostly because of my time crunch I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to power everything internally, so having the flexibility of 5v, or 12v was very valuable.

Make sure you have more than enough wattage enough to drive my speakers. In hindsight the ones I'm using for my tiny speakers were a bit overkill, but that's alright. With Audio, overkill isn't a bad thing.

Step 6: Finally, the Build Part 1: Inspiration

I have a particular love for Williams games from the 80s and 90s. My favorite being Getaway High Speed 2. But also other great games like Whirlwind or Theatre of Magic. So I knew I wanted a shape that's more similar to one of those machines

Key features being straight up and down legs, and the slightly forward swept backglass shroud. I knew these features would really make the look say "pinball machine" vs just a box with 2 screens. I also wanted the screen to be at the same angle as a real playfield which online is telling me is somewhere between 6.5 and 7 degrees. So i chose my playfield screen would be 6.5 degrees

So I loaded up Fusion, and started getting the basic shape.

It's VERY important to keep in mind the method of building in mind. This is normally called "design for manufacturing". It's one thing to design, but it's another to design understanding the limitations of how it will be built.

For me I was going to be using 1/4" ply and a laser. So everything had to be designed for a 2D cut, and sizes appropriate for fitting 1/4" ply

Note: This was laid out before I had any parts in, so I knew this would have to be the general size, but I'd have to get exact measurements when the displays and other parts came in.

Step 7: Working Out the Details

They say the devil is in the details. And oh boy, was that ever true in this build specifically.

The keen eye among you will notice the only difference between this step, and the previous step are all of the holes and coin door. Yet it looks like a completely different machine. So lets talk about one thing at a time

Bare in mind Lasers are pretty accurate, but still have a kerf, not only that, the kerf tends to be in an "hourglass shape" The size of this kerf really depends on the laser itself. I'll be using a Trotec Speedy 400. A very high-end commercial 120w laser. Specifically I'll be using a 2" lens instead of a 4". So that being said, this laser has one of the smaller kerfs, but it still needs to be accounted for. I made all holes about 0.05mm smaller than intended to make up for the material lost in kerf.

Screw Holes: I figured that m3 would be strong enough and designed all the mounting holes around that. I plan on 3d printing 90-degree brackets to put everything together. The nice thing about the M standard is the Major diameter of the screws is just that..... 3mm. So all of the holes in the ply, I made 3.1mm (not including kerf which will be true for all dimensions I mention from now on

Button holes: Thankfully since I'm using standard mechanical switches........... they are a standard, and rather easy to design for. SO I made the holes 13.9mm. 3 on each side for Flipper, MagnaSave, and Nudge. Start, Exit, Launch and Coin

Coin Door: I did want a coin door for 2 reasons. A: So I could lift up the play field when I needed to work on things, and B: Because it adds to the look. I plan on using a small hinge from a small old treasure box thing we had lying around

Displays: At this point my displays did come in. It was a simple measure the actual screen area and adjust the rectangles I had in Fusion

Speaker Holes: Along with the displays, the speakers came in. Now since I'm using speakers instead of exciters for my build, I needed holes for the speakers to go through instead of just attaching exciters to the side boards. Thankfully my speakers had built in trouble sided tape for mounting, and I simply modeled the holes around the actual speaker area. I'll get more into the details later on.

Step 8: Keep It Cool Now

One thing to keep in mind, is cooling

3 amps, power, 2 displays, computer and more all trapped in a small box.... makes a good amount of heat. So we need a way of keeping it cool

I was originally thinking having a case fan, but I realize that yes, there will be heat, but not the most crazy amount. The Intel N100 will be the thing that will be taking the most power, but at it's absolute peak we are looking at about 18 watts. Which (in theory) won't be running at 100% all the time. However, we do still need some cooling at least.

My plan? To leverage the fan that is already in there. The fan inside the Mini PC. I told you I liked the rear exhaust. My theory is that it will take the air inside the cabinet, and throw it out the back

So in the attached photos, the front you see an opening I designed in, this will be used as in intake, and on the rear you see a slot, this matches up with the exhaust port of the Mini PC. The air should come in the intake, which is large, and lower than the exhaust. With the power of both convection and the PC fan, will move up hill, and out the back. That's the plan anyways.

Now if you decide to build one yourself, keep in mind the heat your chosen components will make. For instance if you want a dedicated GPU, those tend to run over 100w alone (given it needs external PCI-e power and isn't just running from the 75w slot power)

Step 9: Connectors

As mentioned in the intro, I wanted for the whole machine to be put together with only screws. This would make it repairable and easy changed when needed.

So of course we need some way of being able to screw everything together.

You will see I have 2 main types of connectors, the 90 Degree brackets, and the T-shaped connectors.

The 90-Degree brackets are for the general purpose attaching this what nearly all the holes on the entire machine are for (picture attached again for reference). The machine uses 14 of these brackets. Each bracket uses 2 threaded inserts

The T-Shaped brackets are for the back glass specifically, however the keen eyed among you may notice, the model and final version are missing holes where these might attached..... and again my smart friends, you would be right. I only had time for a single iteration, and after initial assembly I saw the sides of the back glass were very flexy as they weren't attached to anything. So I decided to make the posts I had attaching the back glass to the rear T-shaped for holes that would be put onto the sides.

The 2 remaining connectors, are actually magnet holders. The wider one is a bracket that a magnet can be glued to, with a corresponding magnet on the bottom of the front of the play field. The intension is to have the playfield hinge up when work has to be done

It's a similar story with the other bracket, except this one is for the coin door. Magnet both on the door and bracket to keep closed.

Step 10: Cutting Time

The laser is probably one of my favorite tools in the shop. The ease of use, and the speed give me that instant gratification of quickly seeing my design come to life!

Another advantage of designing for manufacture from the very start, is also the ability to very easily manufactured (go figure, but surprisingly forgot more often than one might think). So if designed from the start with how it will be made, it's as simple as exporting your sketches into a DXF, and cutting with the laser! I'm happy to say, mine went as smoothly as it sounds.... although not all my projects go that smoothly heh

Step 11: I Heard You Like Inserts

It was now time to print the brackets, and insert.... the inserts.

I chose to print my brackets out of PETG. Most would reflexively use PLA, however PLA has an unbelievably low softening point. Once PLA hits even just 45 degrees it can soften hugely. Even with thinking about cooling, it wouldn't surprise me if the internal temperature could hit that after playing for a while.

After printing all of the brackets (plus extra) it was time for inserts. 14 brackets and 4 posts, makes for 36 inserts, plus 2 for the magnet holders for a total of 38. So I grabbed my soldering iron, and started melting them in. This took MUCH longer than I expected, but nothing a little anime can't solve!

Step 12: First Assembly and Basic Lay Out

As fun as the laser is, this was probably the best part of the whole build. Actually putting together the base chassis!

The process of assembly again went way smoother than I could have imagined. But I guess there are some advantages of designing with CAD after all!

It was simply screwing all the pieces together and BAM!

Now it was time for a simple mock up. Making sure the switches fit, making sure the layout I had in my head could actually work and on a surface level this was true. But oh boy, did I get this wrong as you will see near the end.

Step 13: Audio Plan

I told you the plan for audio above, but now we need some way of mounting the drivers themselves

Thankfully the speakers had double sided adhesive on them already so I just had to take that shape and make a mount to get the drivers oriented how I wanted in the machine. But how did I want it in the machine?

The back glass speakers were simple enough. I wanted them facing the user, but sadly there wouldn't be enough space. So I had to come up with a crazy shape in fusion to mount the drivers 90-degrees with respect of where the audio should actually be coming from. I then used double sided tape to mount the PETG print to the backglass wood, and the drivers stuck themselves on the bottom as you can see

For the playfield speakers, as simple as the brackets look, there was significantly more thought put into them. Since the user will be at the front of the machine, I wanted the audio to both be clear where it was coming from, but also directed towards the user. So First I angled the bracket to counter act the 6.5 degree angle of the playfield. They are then angled even more to direct towards the front of the machine, and then tilted slightly outwards from the center of the machine to widen the sound. It's overall subtle but if you look carefully at the last image of the speakers mounted, you can in fact see it. I'm also happy to say it does work! (slight spoilers of the wiring, but this was the best picture I had of the speakers mounted)

Step 14: Begin the Wiring

This is the moment I realized how much of a bear this might become..... yeah. Not proud of the wiring. But hey, as you will see it started of great!

First I began with the 3 amps. At this point I decided I wanted to power as much as I can from 5v. This as mostly due to the fact the PC had 3 USB ports, and I planned on finding a power bar that had some USB as well. Additionally both displays were 5v, so the only thing in the whole machine that would be 12v, is the PC itself.

So this is where I say, don't do what I did unless you know what you are doing. I am no expert. So I am not one to follow when calculating electrical loads

However, even with the power strip, I didn't have a whole ton of USB ports to work with. Only 5 in total. So I knew I had to power all 3 amps from a single port. So I had to make some educated guesses (NOT what you want to say when you are talking fire hazards). The amps were rated at 3w per channel, so 6w each, and there's 3 of them. That's 18 watts which is more than the USB ports from the power strip can provide. However, the speakers themselves are rated for much less than that. This is where the educated guess comes from, my guess is far less than the 15w the power bar can provide. (In truth after testing the speaker drivers are bottoming out at about 1/4 volume on the amps). So, I'm guessing I will take the risk on my own accord. I grabbed one of the MANY rabbit chewed USB cords I save and got to work. Attaching 3 positives and 3 negatives and attaching to the screw terminals

I also took some aux cords from my collection of post-bunny cables, and used them to hook up the outputs from the 7.1 decoder to the amps

With the amps power sorted out. It was now time for buttons. Thankfully this didn't take much thinking. As long as a button was wired into the macro pad's PCB you're all good, as you can bind the the keys in software later. So one by one, wire each switch. Yeah, that made it sound simple, which it is.... but oh so tedious

As you can see in the last picture I extended all the speaker wires and hooked them up accordingly....... you can also see foreshadowing of the OCD nightmare this is about to become

Step 15: Begin the Nightmare

With all the soldering out of the way finally, it was now time to begin the true nightmare

First we have to mount the displays using the double sided tape to the frames, and then screw on the backglass display with the speakers in place

Now, like a careful surgeon, it was time to haphazardly stuff all of the various cables that are needed into somewhere they will hopefully fit. Yeah, there's no glamorous way of doing this sadly. this highlights the downside of a small machine. Cable length is a large consideration, you don't want them too long or you will run out of space quickly. But something like an HDMI cable is rather difficult to re-solder, so I was unfortunately stuck with the cables I was given.

It was truly just a matter of plugging things in where they go. Macro USB, sound decoder, and smaller display to PC. With the Amps and larger display being plugged into the power strip which was fed through the hole in the back of the machine as you can see. the final thing plugged in was the PC itself.

I was careful to mount things away from anything conductive, as the amps specifically have open connections everywhere. Really great for that airflow I so carefully planned right?

Step 16: The Finishing Details

With the horrific mess of wires nicely swept under the rug, it was now time for the smaller details that bring the machine together

I had this small cheap chest I think we got from a dollar store a few years ago lying around, I noticed it had a nice hinge on it. The screws were nice and sharp, and easily self tapped into the wood. Perfect for the coin door!

Not pictured, I used small bits of double side tape to better secure the switches in the holes

I then added the keycaps that came with the macro pad on!

Step 17: Draw the Rest of the Horse

Now it was time to plug in, and turn on, and hope nothing explodes....

And I'm happy to say everything didn't explode and installed perfectly!!

Step 18: Closing Thoughts and Future Plans

I'm very happy with how this machine turned out. It did take a huge amount of my time away from school, but I think it was worth it. After showing it to my instructors they really pushed me into changing my final semester capstone into a bigger version of this machine, using this one as a prototype.

Things I like:

Backglass display is fantastic

I think I really nailed the look, considering the simple construction I was going for

I like the idea of using the USB macro pad. It's a flexible input option that's relatively inexpensive compared to other options

Single Cable

Audio solution is pretty great considering

Things that need improving:

Playfield display is pretty awful. The resolution is fine, but as you can see in the pictures has very bad viewing angles and colour

Wiring.... yeah, uh, enough said

Future Plans:

Now this being officially my prototype, I can take the lessons I learned here and apply them to the capstone machine. The plan is to make a larger machine using the MUCH more common portable display sizes. The plan being a 15.6" playfield with a 13.3" backglass. Down side the back glass will be 16:9 now, but being more common sizes, the prices are about the same as these smaller ones, and it's much easier to find higher quality ones as well. Heck you could even go OLED if you wanted to spend more money! I also do want to go full exciters instead of speakers as well. Thankfully a bigger machine would be much more viable for use with exciters. A more robust build and even a working lock down bar would be nice to haves!

Plus I will have significantly more room for wiring. So stay tuned sometime in April (hopefully) for a 2.0!