MaxXimumPain

Wohoo! I got a design for the controller, and placed an order for 1200 LEDs. Grand total: $25.50 from China, free shipping, and should get here sometime around April. XD Once I determine the quality of those LEDs I will post the company's name, along with a happy "they rock" or an angry rant (I'm hoping for the first one). The price tag for the DMD will probably end up costing around 50 bucks once I figure in the 10 ICs, 16 MOSFETs and a couple (64) resistors.
Spring break next week, and gosh darnit, I'm GOING to be using the table saw. The plywood is here, the design is ready, now I just need to cut and assemble the cabinet. Then I can start removing things like the coin door from my room, and putting flippers and other fancy parts in.

Well crud.
The LED sign I got was a prototype, and as such, not all of the components were installed. Plus, the driver chips on it need 50 volts to run. So I'm going back to a homemade DMD. I found a supplier in China who will sell me 1024 LEDs for about 25 bucks (yay!), and am currently working on another controller for it.

Well, plywood has begun to be cut! The tv stand was removed from the garage, and I have started with the table saw.
And the display's plans have changed... I got an LED matrix on ebay, with stunning 55x8 resolution. It might not work, and I'll have to engineer some way to connect with the thing, but it cost 10 bucks. Yes, I know I'm cheap XD If it dosen't work, I plan on making a custom matrix with 64x16 resolution. DMDs are too easy XD

Well, this weekend, I get to start cutting plywood. Finally. My deisgn will stand, but I will use additional glue, dowels and braces inside of the cabinet to make sure that there is no risk of the cabinet pulling apart (I'm going to screw 2x2s along the length of all the boards)
I have decided to keep costs low and the display looking good, I'll be using a premade Red LED DMD. They're a little more expensive than making my own, but I have a higher chance of nothing going wrong.
Shopping around for flippers and slingshots is tricky, because I want to make sure everything works and is cheap - and those two very rarely go well together.
Hopefully I can get all of the plywood cut over the weekend, maybe start assembling part of it!
-Gab3

Well, Photoshop is kind of horrible :/
I was beginning my playfield art, but apparently photoshop is morally opposed to a 20x44 inch, 600 DPI design, and is being horrible about it. I may have to take the resolution down to 300 DPI just so that I can actually edit it.
I'm going to a pinball convention tomorrow, so I'll see if I can score any pinball parts.
Last night my father and I stained his tv stand, so I might be able to start work on the cabinet next weekend.
Electrical design is slow, because in addition to still being slightly new on KiCad, I am overengineering everything, using 70 volt rated parts, and I may bump that up to 250V after I learned that sometimes solenoids kick out 4 times their supply power when they're turned off.  MOSFETs, fuses, diodes and resistors, all combining together to hopefully prevent electrocution.
I found my power MOSFETs by the way, after searching through 30 datasheets. MOSFETs, forum posts about flippers and lucky guessing have resulted in this champion: www.digikey.com/product-detail… at 1.37, it won't break the bank either.
Yet another revision might be in order (but probably not). I'm stuck in a debate over if I should try to build wooden pinball legs or spend 50 bucks on standard legs. Laziness is becoming a major factor.