Deep Crap for Deeproot

If you’ve ever listened to interviews between various pinball personalities and Robert Mueller, he talked a big game. Deeproot promised to revolutionize pinball manufacturing, flood the market with games and blow our minds with new experiences.

Run faster, jump higher. Increase flavor and lower calories. All the things!

There was to be a big deep root event adjacent to TPF back in 2018. Lots of hype. They hired and contracted a stable of actual talent since 2018, including laid-off Disney Interactive animators. I paid extra attention to these 2017-2018 interviews and podcasts because I was considering a career change and thought it might be interesting to go work in the pinball industry. A new pinball company might have been a neat opportunity. I didn’t pursue it; weird vibes.

One claim was that deep root would ship more pinball machines per year than all other manufacturers combined. That struck me as a pretty fantastic claim. I also wondered if there was demand to support that release cadence.

Well, it seems like deep root is in trouble.

In a filing over the weekend the SEC is charging Robert Mueller (and by extension: Deeproot) over fraud claims valued at nearly $58Million. These charges are civil in nature (not criminal) at this point. Among other things, the filing accuses Mueller of misappropriating funds from two investment funds for personal trips, property and gifts; as well as a “Ponzi-Like” payout scheme. Scuttlebutt being that at least some of those funds probably went to the pinball venture.

This is ongoing and Mueller has every right to defend himself. Either way this is a bummer for pinball. More drama for the sharks.

For more details, check out the excellent article at Pinball News or your favorite pinball news podcast.

Monster of a Game

So... two July's ago, I had this machine set up from SFGE and Marshall comes over and drops a 62,700,000 point game on the board. I had it set pretty hard but there was some scandal from those that witnessed the game that maybe one of the multi-balls lasted an unnatural time. Hard to say since this game offers the ability to extend multiballs through spider wheel awards but I always took the score seriously as the one to beat.

Maybe too seriously...

For nearly two years at least twice a week, I go downstairs, put on some tunes and have a go at his score. Down to the point that I really didn't want to change the rubbers and swap the original pcb back in until after I beat that score.. After dozens of 50million point games and even one 60million, 96 million finally happened.

Game details:
3Ball Game. Earned an EB from the Bat ramp, another EB from the leaper mania. Finished the Stiff O Meter/ Monster Multiball twice and finished Spider Mania. The trick to the spider wheel I found is there is a bounce off the locked crate from the left flipper that usually deflects into the pops and dribbles into the spider hole. I also used the monster lab orbit shot as a spider hole technique. I think my GoPro battery died sometime after spider mania - will check in a bit. All this time I was focusing on Monster Multiball but Spider Mania - is where the points really happened.

Just glad to knock that one off the OCD/ bucket list 😜

Now, time to freshen the rubbers and put the WMS PCB back in..

3D Printed Scared Stiff Slings (cont’d)

About a month ago, I started down the path to try to create:

(in my best sarcastic George Carlin voice) Scared Stiff Inspired, Slingshot Alternatives

You can follow along the first part of this adventure by clicking here.

front: single color extruded, masked then painted back: dual extrusion Red and Grey Kodak PETG.

First, I tried a transparent red PLA from 3D Universe and dissolvable PVA for supports.
This yielded a really decent single-material result, though the inclusion of PVA pushes up the build cost by a couple bucks.

-Not a huge deal, these are just for me… or friends that ask for them but it also takes a bunch of time to clean up the PVA boogers or let them dissolve all the way. It ties up a build plate for 12-24 hours while it dissolves.

But what I really wanted to do is to get a decent dual-extrusion print template, separating out the transparent red from the original from the opaque parts. The idea being, if I could match the red translucent and print the rest in grey, each one is just a little detail paint work away from being closer to the originals.

In order to do multi material / multi extruder prints, you need a model that dissected into pieces.

Though not perfect, I eventually ended up with decent enough cutouts for a multi material print.

Getting the model broke into components pushed the limits of the capabilities of Shapr3D and my skills in this arena. Shapr3D doesn’t give you a great way to perform contoured or free-hand cuts so I ended up duplicating the model into three copies and erasing away portions of the model with varied overlapping edit-cylinders used to mask out subtraction zones.

I tried an EDU copy of Solidworks as well but I have more learning in that area before I can be effective. A couple days ago, I ran across Mesh Mixer, which may end up being a better solution for my use case in the future.

Kodak makes filament? Yep and it is really quite decent too. Good price, the spools have smooth cylinder walls and roll well and the material properties are very consistent. They are even food safe.

I’m mostly okay with the luminosity of the translucent PETG. The color is a little off from the original but a stickler could print on clear and used translucent hobby paints to tint in the red.

I still need to paint the feet lime green but so far my play testing set is holding up.

Have a Scared Stiff and need slings? You can pull down my models from here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0t7wzhce1593ljl/AABL449nCkC3ols3Zp2hge2ba?dl=0

(please note the current prototypes still have a few small flaws but they are definitely playable)

Williams Indy Roto Lock

On Williams, Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure, the Roto-Lock is a plastic ball diverter atop a metal shaft connected to a coil. It is used in the rotating idol mech to dispense and lock balls.

When it breaks and you try to find a replacement, you might see the same thing I did. Some guy trying to sell a used one for $75 on eBay.

I thought: $75? No way! I want to spend $3500 for that part and get threatened with a lawsuit, so maybe I can pay my attorney a couple thousand too and bring the TCO to around $6500.

Yea, Let’s do that, instead. Companies apparently don’t like you 3d printing their parts even though they aren’t making them available for purchase.

(sarcastic guy, is sarcastic)

So, I reproduced the part for my personal pinball machine and created a model so I can print a spare whenever I want.

Because my caliper-based measurements are always off by a few fractions of a mm, I glued, taped and painted a broken original and scanned it in.

Using the scan to get measurements and angles exactly right, I recreated the part out of primitive shapes

It took several test prints, I had some sort of vertical dotted line that would appear in the prints but not the model. I eventually solved for this by fusing the primitive shapes in the model into a single body.

After a bunch of test prints, I finally got a usable result and fit-tested it.

The original part is translucent yellow. I’ll probably grab a roll next time I’m ordering filament and make a closer version from that translucent PETG.

Want this 3D model for your own personal use to get your Indy Operational again?

Enjoy! - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lhoboi7ekkyvibf/AABO0BAPum7rI5t55TDHgQsxa

No Good Gofers Reconstruction

Typical “don’t sue me” stuff applies, here.

A friend of mine sent me his broken gofers and some non-painted reproductions. I used the facial details from the broken original with the structural benefits of the reproduction to create a couple models for 3d printing replacements. You can grab the models for your personal use and printing, here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/06tmsbnqvcm2ncz/AAD-tWBVPFfBnVCCPDQoOioJa?dl=0

I’m not interested in doing this for cash but if you are desperate, need a set - I’m happy to help you out as a favor, just email me.
I also found this thread on Pinside, recommend you reach out - their results look many times better than my scans :)

PLA Print w/ PLA Supports - these turned out pretty good

PETG Print w/ PETG supports. The PETG support boogers are too difficult to remove to be practical.

PETG Prints w/ PVA SUpports

The results are good pre-painted, extremely tough. The print layer lines are obvious, in this batch.

Scared Stiff Sling Reconstruction

Scared Stiff Sling Plastics… They are getting to be rare finds. The last set I found (and won) on eBay, they told they couldn’t mail to the US because of COVID-19. (?) Something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile is to devise a way to make more. Not like.. to sell or anything but just to have and help others along the way…

Granted, probably the solution involves making a mold.. But I’m the kind of guy that uses racing drones to cut down trees, so you know.. I went down a nerdier path..

3D Printing as a Vector for Replacement Parts

3D Printing has come along way in terms of available materials. The challenge comes from getting a usable 3D model. I’m a reasonably capable novice for modeling and CAD but trying to model something with lots of detail and contours is a real challenge in the CAD apps that I’ve used.

Attempting to get a 3D Scan..

My first thought was to try to use the new LiDAR camera stack in the 2020 iPad Pro.

via LiDAR scan

via TRNIO

SOL 3D Scanner by ScanDimension

3D Print / STL Files can be found at this Dropbox Link.

The Importance of Setup: Indy Adjustments

I’ve noticed lately that my Indy gameplay has been a bit of a struggle. This is weird because for over a year I played Indy every morning, almost as if it were a ritual. Get up - > do hygiene thing -> take the kids to school -> get coffee-> Play Indy -> get more coffee -> Log in / go to work.

Now, I can’t hit anything and worse, I can start a mode if my life depended on it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Pinside has the usual ratio of buttholes suggesting you Google before posting a question, mixed with a potential fix that involves yet-another-$5 thing that isn’t in stock anywhere.

(Also, I found that via Google, so… good job internet forum snake for eating your own figurative tail.)

I event went so far as to design a rail and ball-stop brake pad to be printed on TPU95.

3D print file here, if you want it.

I have a playfield protector and a Cliffy but the mode-scoop start issues didn’t start until recently and both have been installed for awhile. Once I got the POA off, you can see in the pic above what was happening. Over time, the Cliffy had actually moved. Which.. kinda / shouldn’t happen with the adhesive on it - but it did. So, the ball would hit the ball stop and deflect back down but the front edge of the scoop was partially obstructed by the Cliffy.

The solution was to pull the Cliffy, re-flatten it on a vice. I slotted the screw holes in the Cliffy to allow more forward placement, put new adhesive on it (3m spray adhesive on a paper plate, then brush on), re-center and re-install it.

I also re-leveled the game while the glass was off, it was leaning a smidge to the right.

Huge difference right?

Review Shenanigans

In the coming weeks I’m posting a series of arcade and pinball reviews of games that are currently being fostered in the basement. Ten minutes (+/- a few minutes) with each game to talk about gameplay, maintenance or whatever comes to mind.

As I post them, I’ll go back and make the game entries below clickable.

Pinballs

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Attack from Mars
Medieval Madness
Indiana Jones The Pinball Adventure
Scared Stiff
Tales of the Arabian Nights

Arcades

Cocktail Table Arcade-SD Multigame
Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 - Review completed on 4/19/19
Ms Pacman (Cabaret)
Centipede (Cabaret)
Donkey Kong (Multi Kong w/ Arcade-SD)
Namco Reunion
Tapper
Tron
Q*Bert (Mylstar FPGA)
Robotron (Multi-Williams FPGA)
Tempest
Mortal Kombat 4 (and MK1, MK2, MK3 w/ RiddledTV Switcher)

Console

Nintendo Entertainment System Online (Nintendo Switch Online Service)