Pinpedia - Blog - Custom Pinball Machines

Custom Pinball Machines

You take a standard pinball machine, flippers, ball, targets. Take away the games orginial theme, rules, and sound, and replace with your own. Now you have one of the most orginal machines around, and one noone has played before at the local arcade. Here is a list of the best looking custom pinball machine around.

Ultimate Gold Ball Frenzy (Originally No Good Gophers)	The mischievous squirrels are back – and they’re building a custom EDS Byron Nelson Championship chopper. You heard us right – a chopper. In 2006, their custom pinball machines raised more than $35,000 for the Salesmanship Club of Dallas, but this competitive trio couldn’t stop there. They invited the folks from Orange County Chopper to pose for the 2007 edition of Ultimate Golf Ball Frenzy Pinball machine. And the results were amazing. The 2007 custom pinball machine tells the story of three choppers being built in the basement of the Golf Ball Works factory – the same factory the infamous squirrels have called home for the past four years. Orange County Chopper stars Paul Sr., Paul Jr. and Mikey have assumed the identities of Earl, Pearl and Mearle and are working away on the custom EDS Byron Nelson Championship Chopper. And if you look closely, you’ll see the Orange County Chopper logo hiding in the craters on the moon. The pinball machine backglass shows the finished product as Earl, Pearl and Mearle roar down the golf cart path at the TPC Four Seasons Resort Las Colinas, the official grounds of the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. [Source]
Futurama (Originally Superman)	It all started when I bought a weathered Superman Pinball Machine for the parts. When I gained access to the head I found the boards to be in good shape. I pulled the PCBs to see which ones worked and after a little fiddling and small repairs, they all fired up and the displays worked fine. So, I had a fully functioning board set with a ravaged cabinet and playfield. I decided to use the boards to make a design station to experiment with possible playfield toys and devices. The playfield is made of 3/4" Birch Plywood. This meant the height critical components had to be counter-sunk, but I thought the additional rigidity would be a bonus. At this point I had a full length blank playfield with working flippers and slings to play with. I started sorting through the wire harness and decided, in an effort to avoid trouble, an 8-letter title would be in order. By chance one of my favorite shows "Futurama" had just that. I started buying posters, calendars, toys and anything else I thought might integrate well into a pinball machine. When I purchased the Futurama Space Pilot movie poster I was set. I could then determine the insert locations and component placement to conform to the art as fluid as possible. New inserts were unavailable to me at the time, so I had to salvage them from the donor game. That's when the router got a workout. The inserts got inserted and sanded. The poster went down. Then I trimmed the holes for visible inserts and installed them. I then applied nine coats of Verathane. It was needed to build up around a few added elements. The software remained the same but some circuitry was added to the switch lines to perform certain functions and intergrate the multi-ball feature. [Source]
////furminator (Originally Terminator 2)	The ////furminator is a pinball machine that puts the player in a first person perspective similar to modern "EGO Shooter" video games. Like being inside a huge VR-helmet, the player's head is stuck into the ////furminator capsule. His nose is situated right behind the flipper fingers, only centimeters away from the ball. Sealed off from reality and with his head arrested inside a force-feedback-helmet, the sound- and lighteffects, the mechanical noises of the pinball and the absorbing perspective create a highly immersive mechatronic environment. In the traditional pinball perspective - looking at the playfield from above - the perception of the gameplay is almost two-dimensional. The ////furminator however unifies the origin of visual perception and the physical vanishing point of the ball. Ceaselessly the ball is rolling towards the player's face which is protected only by a small plastic screen. The high velocity of the approaching ball poses a constant threat to newbies, but the experienced ////furminator pilot will quickly appreciate the improved aiming possibilites the perspective provides. The main idea behind behind the furminator was to create an immersive space which does not rely on computer generated images. Nowadays, the term "virtual reality" is instantly associated with rendered 3D graphics, projected onto walls surrounding the spectator or displayed on head-mounted LCD screens. Not only do most of these synthetically generated environments look non-real, they also leave most of the spectator's senses outside in the real world. By combining the perspective of an EGO-shooter with a mechanical pinball machine the ///furminator creates a "virtual reality" that incorporates the full body of the player. The "man against machine" setup provides an unparalleled experience and the interaction is not limited to pushing buttons: the whole body can be used to move and tilt the pinball until the ////furminator admonishes you to "chill out". [Source]
Big City Zoo	Henk de Jager had brought this pinball machine with him to the Collecter Fantasies Show in Mechelen, 2005 edition. Many people probably saw it, glanced at it, and walked further without really knowing the story behind this machine. At first sight the machine is not impressive at all: it's small, electro-mechanical, and hand-painted. It looks as someone put flippers, targets and bumpers on a playfield, hooked them all up, and made a backglass and playfield drawings. Just a small project someone did in a few hours of time ? The truth couldn't be more different. Don't let looks deceive you ! What looks to be a simple machine, is maybe the most complex electro-mechanical pinball machine ever made ! Once Henk lifts the playfield, you start to get respect for the work he has done. Just look at all the different wires.. it must have taken days to solder them all ! And they're all new wires, an unusual sight, I always see old, dirty and faded wires in e-m pinball machines. Henk also explained the rules, as they're quite complicated.. and if there was any more room left in the cabinet they may have been even more complicated ?! The game is very drop-target based. Scattered around the playfield are many drop targets, each one spells a different letter. In the middle of the playfield are lights which spell animal names: APE, BEAR, ZEBRA, GIRAFE and PANTHER. So i.e. hit the drop target for the letter A, and the light of A will lit in all these animal names. Once you have spelled all letters of one animal, the cycle ends: you get the points for the name you spelled, all targets raise and letters dim again. If you check the names of the animals you see there is one major problem: PANTHER contains all letters of APE. So it's impossible to spell panther because ape is always triggered first ? Well, there is a workaround for this. At the top of the playfield there's a rollover which closes the zoo. When it's nighttime, you can spell every letter and it will not activate the animal. Once you've spelled the PANTHER, wake up all animals using a different rollover which opens the zoo again, and you'll score the panther points. This also enables the targets which score the extra ball (the game is add-a-ball) and the special. A final detail: at the bottom right of the playfield there's a gate. Nowhere on the playfield are instructions on how to open or close this gate. Though, it's simple: spell g-a-t-e by hitting the correct drop targets. [Source]
Hellacopters (Originally King Pin)	For those of you who do not understand what this show is about, Artist Dirty Donny has teamed up with Pinball Artisan Wade Krause to take a vintage pinball machine, reproduce a new playfield with their own modifications and artwork, screen the back glass with custom artwork, repaint the cabinet and head and playfield to create a one of a kind, interactive kinetic art piece. A labor of love that has been months in the making. On top of all that, Wade has added his own extra play features improving on the games original play and increasing the complexity of the strategy. It is a big plus for Hellacopter fans everywhere who now have a pinball machine to grace their collection of tributes. This is a first of what I hope is to be a trend in the pinball art community. Re-themed Machines. I am thrilled to have Donny and Wade's creation debut at the Ju Ju and would like to see many more in the future. A brave new step indeed! Thank you gentlemen!!! [Source]