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Make It So: Table Art begins

A project log for Star Trek: The Mirror Universe Pinball

A custom / unique pinball machine. This is a 1978 Bally Star Trek table “mirrored” and re-worked into a Star Trek Mirror Universe Theme.

zittwarezittware 04/01/2014 at 21:340 Comments

Late 2012; I bit the bullet and got myself a Techshop.ws membership for the Austin/RoundRock location. While not cheap; I expect to make good use of the money spent.

For those that don’t know what Techshop is... in short it’s a “gym-membership” type of place which has over $500k in high tech machinery which the hobbyist can use once they’ve taken the required safety courses. Austin has a Waterjet, 2 shop bot CNC machines, mills, laser cutters, cnc sewing machines, tig/mig/welders, sand and powdercoating , etc.

For the last couple of years; I’ve been wanting to do my own pinball table. Those that know me... will already know the subject matter in question.

Late 2012; I settled on a plan.

Goal:
Create a Star Trek: Mirror Universe pinball table.

The plan; Scan in a 1979 Bally Star Trek pinball table. Mirror it. And customize it for the mirror universe.

Before (my previous PF/machine restore):



After: (click the picture to get a larger higher rez on flickr)



Yeap; that’s right... the shooter lane will be on the left side (evil grin) and will have a negative feel. What has been done:
Re-colored the playfield; fixed worn areas (in computer). Then flipped the playfield.

Areas changed:
1) “vectorized” nearly all aspects of the PF.
2) removed “reversed” text and replaced with Star Trek: series font.
3) USS becomes I.S.S. Enterprise.
4) Space Station K0 becomes Battle Station K0
5) Transporting people become their “mirrored universe” counterparts complete with sashes and skin.
6) “enter Hyperspace” becomes “Avert Subordinate Promotion” “by thwarting and assassination conspiracy”.
7) “jump to warp” becomes “Employ Agonizer on Crewman”
8) “where no man has gone before” becomes:
“Your Mission: Conquer all worlds and civilizations to expand the empire like no man before”
(may be too wordy)
9) “Ready Photon Phaser” becomes “ready photon torpedo”
10) Spelling “bally” becomes “Terra” (Terra meaning Earth. Short for “Terran Empire”; the mirror universe’s “federation”)
11) Removed same player shoots again language; opting for “shoot again” text over insert.
12) Drop Target Special becomes Terran Empire logo.
13) colorized planet with purple glow like the re-mastered series from cbs. Not sure I like it... may go back to original look.

To do:
A) Still need to decide on replacement text for Orbit. was: “Activate Transporter Welcome Aboard”
B) Want to put some simple-ish graphic over 5000/500 advance bonus lanes.
C) convert PF to DXF to enable toolchain to Shopbot CNC.

You’ll note that I’ve removed all the switch lanes from the design. The plan is to design a set of hall effect pcbs which replicate functionality without slots in the PF.

Discussions