I've added the right hand ramp, as well as placed the pop bumpers roughly where I want them.
The right ramp originally had two metal rods that would carry the ball to the left-hand outlane, and was originally placed a couple of inches to the left of it's new location. While I don't plan on re-using the rods that came with the machine (they are not as strong or stiff as I would like), I do really like having wireforms - one of my favorites right now is on Roller Coaster Tycoon, where the ball comes all the way down the side, across the area below the flippers, and back up to the opposite inlane - I'd like to do something like that as well, so I'm going to need to figure out a good way to make my own wireforms.
The left hand ramp may also get some wireform love, but I'm not yet sure where I'd have it go. I think those sorts of problems will be best addressed at the whitewood stage, where I can see how the table plays and find a sweet spot to drop the ball off.
The bumpers are going to be a pain to get right, and I'm sure that they are an item that professional pin designers have to tweak a lot as well. I'm limited in how I place them, as they are a single assembly, not individual pop-bumpers. I like my general placement, but the rotation will be the tricky part. I want to be able to shoot the ball into them, and I want the ball to kick around a few times before dropping back out, especially after coming out of the middle exit on the left ramp. Physics are the key here, so I'll just have to try it out and tweak it. The hard part is that I have to drill three big holes to put them in, so I either need to make a whitewood for each iteration (and hopefully only have one or two), or come up with some way to rotate a whole piece containing the bumpers for the first whitewood, and finalize it in the second...
I will be leaving the flipper, slingshot, inlane, and probably outlane placement as originally designed. All of these items are in standard positions, and the slings are a single mechanism, so I can't spread them out or anything. The outlanes might change - I'm not sure it I want to try and do anything interesting with them yet, but it is possible.
I also picked up some steel balls, plastic balls, and a bag o' springs at Ax-man the other day. I intend to use the springs to strengthen the response on everything from the plunger to the pop-bumpers. The plastic balls (two red, two black) will be drilled and finished to be the new plunger handle. I bought two of each because I wasn't sure what color I'd prefer, and in case I messed one up, I'd have a backup - they were only a quarter. The steel balls are almost exactly the size of the original Zizzle ball (which is smaller than a regular pinball) and I bought them for two reasons - possible multiball play, and captured ball targets. I'm pretty sure I'll do at least one captured ball target, if not two. Multiball isn't actually supported in the game PCB, but there's no reason you can't just plunge all three game balls at once for fun and see what you can do. We'll see how they work, but I have high hopes.
There is one more thing I need to replace for the new design for the new unit - the rubber. I'm not sure if the problem is entirely due to poor material (in an understandable cost saving measure), or that combined with age (this is a G1 unit, and could have been manufactured 3 years ago - which really isn't that long) - but the rubber that is supplied is very weak, and is adequate to dampen impacts, but there's no bounce to it. I'm going to be picking up a rubber set for a machine with similar device counts, and use those instead on all items.
I will be replacing the Zizzle posts with standard metal posts with rubber rings on them, and I will also be replacing the original targets with new ones.
That's about all for now - more to come soon!
By the way, this posts' title comes from the 1978 hit by Olivia Newton John, which is stuck in my head after hearing it on the way to work this morning, and the obvious similarity to the first line of this post.
Larry
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