Comment by MrMcCall | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MrMcCall | Hacker News Reader

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I'm curious if anyone has considered how to use modern electronic components to replace the old "copper coil"-based mechanisms and such that that fine gentleman uses to replace the old parts? I understand he is basically doing museum-grade restorations, and I fully respect that.

But I'm guessing that finding modern components with the same functionality would be cheaeper and longer-lasting, but that's just a WAG. I've watched a couple of YouTube pinball machine restoration vids and those old machines sure are filled with rat's nests of stuff.

It seems like finding modern alternatives would be a good way to keep the machines alive for longer while also making them more serviceable going forward. Plus, that would be a very practical and interesting project for group of mechanical/electrical engineers, that would likely have eventual robotics applications.

In that vein, I wonder if there are any companies that have created tech frameworks to facilitate creating old-world-style pinball machines with modern infrastructure.

Like others have said, solenoid coils don't have a replacement. They're the state of the art for a two position actuator.

You could conceivably replace most of an ElectroMechanical machine's steppers and relays and score reels and things with a microcontroller and digital displays, and there are transitional machines that were factory produced as EM and Solid State, but I think you loose the character of the games that way. The buzzing and thunks and the lamps turning off while it computes and all that is part of the experience.

If there's no way to make the games work as they did originally, sure, make them work again by any means, but while we can make them work like they did, we should.

There's p-roc and p3-roc that offer the basics of a computer to pinball interface board (you'll need at least a solenoid driver board, too). That would probably be the basis of control for a modern enthusiast built pinball machine. Most enthusiasts are trying to build something that fits more in the Solid State era than the EM era though.

The amount of homebrew games has been growing year after year, and the results are getting pretty impressive.

Here's a review of what showed up at Pinball Expo 2024: https://pinballexpo.com/homebrew/

The copper coils are usually things like solenoids, never going to replace that, we still use that tech.

In practice doing this would take restoring a pinball machine from a "build/repair it with your hands" project and turn it into a programming project where you are starting at a computer screen the whole time. You would just replace the "brain" with an arduino or raspberry pi, connect it to the existing lights and solenoids, but then you need to program it and then it becomes a different thing.

There are still companies making new pinball machines today. The mechanical parts are pretty similar to what they've always been. Energize a copper coil, make a piece of metal move. However, the "brains" have come a long way and are basically just modern computers. Also, everything is far more modular. Old pinball machines were a rats nest of wires. Modern pinball machines just use standard computer cables / connectors.

For reference: Stern is nearly the whole market, but there is Jersey Jack and Spooky Pinball, and a handful of smaller players in the market. There is an incredible private community over on pinside.com if you want a community of real people to chat about these machines.

Replacing a solenoid with a servo seems simple until you realize pinball machines eat servos in a few months of use.

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