Dial of Destiny Prop Build

This covers the initial, Mk1-Mk5 builds. For the most recent project updates, check this post.
Already have one and looking for support guides or parts? Click here for assembly instructions.
Want to buy one? Click here for ordering options.

Just here to see what went into making it? Welcome to my first adventure in prop making.

Mark I

Based on a the single still frame of a (mostly) assembled "Dial of Destiny" from the upcoming Indy movie, I wanted to try my hand at creating a basic approximation of the prop for my basement, bar, gameroom.

A few challenges:

• I only have the single still frame grab from the movie trailer to go by

• I have a somewhat limited 3d modeling skillset

• I have a very limited artistic skillset

This is a timelapse of most (but not all) of my first attempt at generating a primitive test version of the prop to hold us over until someone more talented can make a detailed version.

STL Files:
https://github.com/graffitilogic/3dPrintStuff/tree/main/Indy/DoD

Prototypes

Top: 144mm Test, Bottom: 200mm Test

Top: 144mm Test, Bottom: 200mm Test

“Compass Dial” Workaround

The dial for the center compass-like mech is very small and the post that engages from it is entirely too small to reliably function. The first time someone turns it and it catches any resistance, it will snap off. As a workaround for now, I glued a part of a paperclip to the dial.

240mm Build

Even at 240mm I think the dial rod is too small, so “paperclip thing” was used again.

Insets

I’ve always been bad at art..

Assembly Instructions

Mark 1.5ish

Late May 2023 Update - 6 sides, Side details

DOH. It’s not 8-sided.

An anonymous emailer, supposedly familiar with the production told me the prop was going to be octagonal in shape. This rightfully jived with my confirmation-bias as a programmer that likes math-by-eights. This last trailer gives a better view of the assembled mechanism and it uhh… isn’t octagonal. So… yeah.. Need to fix that.

A new promo trailer came out with some new stills to potentially harvest some early details about the prop.

Central glyph disc from the bottom of the Dial? (Or…. map that leads the heroes to parts of the artifact?)

Assuming this is related to the bottom glyph disc of the prop, we can extrapolate some rough sizing estimates..

The Upper Compass-like mechanism perhaps?

Additional Side Details

The additional details set me down a path to adjust my own personally-built model above with additional side details and some slight size adjustments.

Told ya by art-fu was weak! :)

The biggest issue that I’ve had with the side details was printing them with supports. The channels are so small between those chiclet pieces that I cut myself a few times on the tiny support wires that were generated to fill the channels.

The May 2023 Dial turned out pretty good., except that its the wrong shape! :\

Mid June Update

To work around the support headache of the side details, I separated the chiclet-box-things into their own prints and left inset cutouts for easy glueing and snapping of the details into the box-sides. In order to accommodate this, it was necessary the expand the box sides a little while trying to preserve the internal scaling ratios.

By mid June, I started trying to add in some of the extra detail from the top of the box design. Each point of the hexagonal box has an elongated pyramid with tiny details. Looks a little like a landscape, sun-ray pictograph to my eyes. If I did the smallest lines as cutouts in the print, I’m not 100% sure it would translate well in larger layer-height and nozzle-size print configurations. For now at least, I’ve added a small cutout in the shape of the pyramid but missing those fine line details. I exported glue-on outset versions of those top details.

The early screenshot of the assembled dial also shows perpendicular seams on box. I thought it was odd that these seams were not symmetrical points of the hexagonal structure. I’ve resisted so far the urge to add these cutouts until I can see the film and see how persistent the seams are within the film. I suspect that the assembly in film will slide together and these will be left as seams but not necessary raised relief as pictured here.

At this scale, drawing the little sun + raw pictograph would be a challenge for me. I enabled Archimedean Chords for the top layers and the printer at least gives me this effect. It isn’t perfect but I’ll take it, for now anyway.

As of mid-June I’m starting to run out of ideas for this current design. I’m mostly happy with it, though. The weak spots are my lack of hand-drawn art skills. Once the movie comes out and I can get more detail on the glyphs I might end up trying to build something that is printable for the glyph areas. (Like a transfer sheet or transparent decal)

Mid June Update 2

Well, I put out into the universe that I was running out of inspiration and ideas and the universe answered the call. In a recent Blog Mickey Post, they announced the reopening of the small Indy store at Hollywood Studios as a temporary bar and snack shop. It has been re-christened the Den of Destiny and features a Dial of Destiny Prop giving us plenty of details to obsess over. I’m told this isn’t a film model and that it was made specifically for this Disney Parks location by local talent. The creator(s) are a professional and unable to spill the secrets, specs and dimensions of the model, totally understandable, that.

I think we can infer that this model was likely derived from privileged access to production design notes. While it is possible, even likely that the film model and Parks model might differ in finish and details, I think we are safe to glean some details from this model for our hobby build.

Well, all that detail work.. felt a little like work. But the result is worth it, I think.

Splitting the Box

Having recently built the basement bar, I was thinking about the prevalence of jigs, cutouts and other build-assistance. While working out the line pattern in the upper white ring, I noticed that it is also based on a hex shape. So, I started to wonder if this is the answer for the the box split.

I’ve waited this long to tackle this particular problem b/c I think I secretly hoped the box would snap together and the seams would more or less disappear. I don’t think that’s the case, though. In fact I’m mostly sure of it after seeing these photos of the premiere model. I suppose it sort of tweaked my sensibilities that the box would be split where it is split but now I’m thinking this was another hex-jig-derived design decision. It seems like you can work out the cut points to separate the box by overlaying a 1:1 scale hex and positioning it so that the points no longer intersect with the inner inlay rail and rotate it so that it doesn’t interfere with the gear-box-cutout on the bottom side.

Dealing with Spares

At this point, I’ve printed a few prototypes and in some cases have doubled-back on design philosopy. Originally I printed the smallest prototypes on Bambu Iridium Gold Filament. Once complete, I wasn’t thrilled with the color match so I started painting them in either Rustoleum Gold or Krylon Golf Leaf paint. I found a Champagne Silk Gold filament that I liked for the smaller parts but the filament is inconsistently available and the brand name is very um.. Shenzen diversified whitelabel-ish. I’ve also been printing these in Antique Gold Silk Filament after a friend found a roll of something similar at a Thrift Store and sent it my way.

Why so many? Sometimes the filament is too dull or the paint is too shiny or the filament is tonally incorrect and the paint obscures detail work. A necessity of my work and family schedule is I seldom have more than an hour of uninterrupted free time to sit and design or experiment, results in an iterative design process. A byproduct of the iterative process is that I ended up with a scattering of parts printed or processed through varied combinations of material color and paint color choices.

Enough so that counting the three models I’ve printed for my own display since April, I have parts or have built more than a half-dozen of these. What to do with the spares? I gave one to a friend and two out on Indy and prop builder forums. I’ve listed the rest on eBay with 50% going to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the American Cancer Society or American Heart Association. Kind of cool to clean out my parts clutter, deliver some cool props to fellow excited Indy fans and get a little charity feels in the process.

Update 7/16/2023
.. all of the Charity-share auctions sold. Raised a couple thousand for several charities. eBay’s charity fund isn’t quite as automatic and hands-free as I’d hoped. There are steps.. and fees.. so many fees.

eBay Results

The eBay sales of prototypes and partly finished props yielded the following:

1 @ $910 with 50% to American Cancer Society
1 @ $356 with 50% to St. Jude
1 @ $699 with 50% to St Jude
1 @ $245 with 50% to American Cancer Society
1 @ $1225 with 50% to St. Jude
1 @ $305 with 50% to American Cancer Society
1 @ $315 with 50% to American Cancer Society
___
$4055 /7 = $579 average

Not bad but I don’t think we’ve solved Cancer with this. Outside of the charity split, I also traded one for a metal-plated Coronado Cross and one for an improved Grail Diary. I’ve given a few away, as well. I started getting 100+ messages per week: “Make me one, sell me one, make me one, ship it to Germany, Italy, Australia, France”. eBay gets grumpy about those side deals, international shipping is atrocious and frankly 100+ messages per week is a bit too people-y for me. I kind of prize my quiet, simple existence.

Scarcity and release timing pushed the average sale per Dial up over $1000/per prop briefly. That’s the cost of scarcity and impatience of early adoption. Which is somehow both too much but also not enough to be worth my time as a side-hustle. 30+ print hours per dial + assembly time and other materials and trying to fake customer-service and sales skills that aren’t in my wheelhouse.

Eventually, I expect the usual prop-making Etsy crowd will start to fill this need with highly accurate original prop designs and prices will stabilize towards more reasonable levels. My plans will become the Great Value alternative to the AAA props. I’m cool with that.

After seeing the movie..

With the film being out and production secrecy embargoes starting to lift, more details of the prop have been trickling in. Folks have sent me stuff from twitter, forums, facebook - one person super sleuthing screenshots during the film which has been really helpful.

Observations looking at these is.. I got that bottom disc wrong, it looks like what I thought was the Glyph disc is actually a different prop from the movie, the Graficos (?) I think they called it. It looks like the glyph disc at the bottom is a fair amount simpler in design but it and the white rings are actually pearl which is a really nice touch and to my mind makes sense thematically. Seafaring ancient Greece would of course use Pearl thanks to its material properties as reasonably hard but still workable. Would could imagine that Archimedes might have come to appreciate pearl for the concentric nature of their development.

The internal mechanisms of the production prop seem reminiscent of a planetary gear, to my untrained eyes. Though, I’m not entirely sure it functions like one, if at all. if you look there are certainly a number of static gears in the assembly that seem to be just there as interesting bits.

working on refactoring the center area, improving the split box design.

Mark 3.5

This iteration smooths the out inset slope, adjusts the ring diameters for lost consistency through over-processing and scaling mistakes and adds some of the side plate details by borrowing from the Disney Parks prop and the film prop. (Their plate layouts are different) Combined with the new compass design and the split build, I think this looks alot like the film prop, minus the internal gearing complexity that doesn’t seem to actually have any function.

Completed Assembly for the Mark 3.5 Design. This is my stopping point for awhile.

Remaking my own Dial based on the new designs.

Side A Print

Side B Print

Outer Inset Ring

Scammy McScam-Face

This site is a scam. It will disappear under this domain and pop up under a new domain with similar style, layout and copy.

An idle Saturday enjoying the backyard with the family while we have a brief reprieve from the extreme temps to just regular jungle-like Alabama normal temperatures. I come in to fetch some ice cream and I see an angry message notification from someone who bought one of my Dial prototypes on a Charity-Split auction on eBay. The person is pissed because they found a site (probably a facebook ad) for a Dial of Destiny Prop for $38. When you click through there are various screenshots of various iterations of the prop harvested from eBay and therpf.com prop builder forums and other sites.

One of the fake reviews if even from: -BillD

must..not..shift..into.. super-asshole mode.

.. a little known weakness to PayPal’s buyer protection is this:

The scam seller can ship an empty envelope or box to anywhere in your ZipCode and that suffices as “proof of delivery” for a giant, understaffed and over exposed payments processing company like PayPal.

July 28th Update

My interest in this has plateaued but I did find a few minutes to tinker around the spiral design. It still isn’t 100% movie accurate but it is an improvement.

Final eBay Activity

I have material enough for maybe 4 or 5 more, 2 of which will go towards funding some printer maintenance and/or a cheaper secondary workhorse printer for future projects, probably a P1P and to pay down my eBay fees invoices. I’m not ordering any more material after this run. Anything I have available should be gone by mid-to-late August but fret not fellow Indy fans, rumor has it in the prop-maker-forums that even more accurate versions are being made and sold, coming soon to the Etsy-verse. That’s awesome.

Fall, 2023: Project Conclusion, Final Thoughts

Time to move on from this project. Had some laughs, learned a few new skills, raised a little money for charity and achieved the primary goal of making a beer-goggles passable Dial of Destiny Prop. There are still plenty of prop details left to resolve and there are some creative and highly detailed props out in the wild from more talented folks on the horizon.

When this project started, I just wanted a thing and couldn’t find anyone from which to buy thing. Over the 3 months of effort, a few meta observations have come into focus.

Acts of pure creation are fun and talented people are amazing.
Just like walking through an arts and crafts festival, poking around the prop maker forums on the internet is a fascinating exercise. The amount of care, time, expense and level of detail that go into these efforts are impressive, if not intimidating. Just like the arcade and pinball restoration scene, actually.

In-group cliques w/ protectionist concerns, outsider-skepticism & fear of commoditization amongst prop builders
Early on, the only Dial for sale on the internet that I could find reference to was located on a private facebook group. A particular subreddit required a portfolio of related work prior to joining. Some forums were more open to outsiders than others. They have their own lexicon, their own set of taboos and their own [implied] blacklists of taboo-violators. There was an underlying theme in these communities of concern about Chinese scam sites like the one above and more generally the commodification of the work as hustle culture and collectibility sensibilities collide.

A narrative of a hyper-competitive, often mean-spirited and darker side of the Etsyverse that I wasn’t aware of formed. I guess it never occurred to me that Etsy sellers would be sniping at each other but they do. Paranoia around trying to maintain artificial scarcity fueled by fear of a diminishing or saturated market keep some of these folks up at night trolling forums in classic keyboard-commando fashion. Just like the arcade and pinball restoration scene, actually. I almost started an Etsy store to sell these things but decided against it. Anything that might invite drama and work opposite of my love for the franchise is a big no-thanks.

Although, zooming out a bit: There is comical irony in a bunch of prop nerds and artists building a recurring revenue stream from recreating replicas of actual Hollywood prop masters who were paid once for their work. Being so precious with their own copy of someone else’s’ original work while being aggressively protective of their own copycat coke formula.

methinks thou dost protest too much.

This, I think is a unique aspect of commercial art vendor circuit. A nugget of a thought that occurred to me walking through the Epcot Arts and Crafts festival watching vendors sell for a premium their own interpretations of other artists’ and animators’ work. I wonder if those original animators (many of whom were laid off a decade ago) are getting a cut of the licensing? You don’t have to hang around long to hear the vendor in one booth talking shit about the vendor from another booth. I guess capitalism isn’t a team sport.

Thinking on the protections that these artists try to mask their work with and all of the signs saying “no photos, please.” That’s ironic right? No photos of my copy of a thing that was derived from something that literally aired on ABC during the Wonderful World of Disney.

People are weird animals.

This is an abstraction of the AI conversation in the current Zeitgeist. If a drawing of a drawing is art, is a photo of a drawing still art? If you stare at enough art, it creep into your own creative output, just like the training data for generative models. These are complex topics for a blog about retro-nerd stuff, so.. I’ll leave it there for now.

Our princess is in another castle
Just my opinion: considering the box-office take of Indy 5 and how promotional budgets in the studios work, I don’t expect to see an official prop anytime soon. Hopefully I’m proven wrong.

Throughout this post and to this point in time, I made a prop that was “close enough” for my own purposes and with enough whiskey your mind will resolve it as accurate, even though it isn’t really accurate. The dimensions were a guess, constrained by build-volume. The glyphs were pixel-peeked from theme park photos and further extrapolated by astrological signs. The internal dimensions were resolved through relational geometry and natural constraints and the hidden internal details of the film prop are far more elaborate.

On the OCD scale, where 1 is a deformed pizza box and 10 is the film prop, this is a 7 by my estimate. Keep an eye out and I’m sure the real prop makers will eventually rise to the challenge.

December 2023: Getting Pulled Back In

I thought I was done! (again). I guess not! (Again)

Social Media. I should stay off of it. Around early December on one typical four-espresso morning waiting on a meeting, my phone vibrated with a social media message from across the Pond. Summarized as follows:

”I’m in [exotic place] (by standards of South Alabama, anyway) I’d like one of your props.. but there are two issues I’m concerned about. Layer Lines and Support Scars. “

In my little mental red flag push-pin map of places that I’d sent Dials, this particular locale spoke to me. I’m being vague here… on purpose. Just to highlight the innovation-motivation without calling attention to an individual in the Indy prop communities.

I know that I could make a Dial without layer lines and without support scars, I made plenty of them but it was hard work; a lot of sanding and post-processing of the parts, which drove the time (and price) up. But, since I took a break over the fall from making Dials, a few things didn’t set right with me about the model as I left it.

Issue: I wasn’t happy with the way the conversion process, particularly the danger of breaking the eyepiece part while unscrewing the compass mount. No one (but me) appears to have broken one but still, I wanted to improve this mount.

Proposed Solution: A slight redesign of the screw-plug to introduce a magnetic coupling. Working on my Johnny Five project, I’ve been experimenting with magnets to give some parts a natural resting position and to aide in disassembly and storage. Its something I saw Titan Ross do over at Titan toys on his smaller J5 builds to hold the arms into the shoulder sockets while still allowing rotation.

Issue: I wasn’t happy with the FDM print process. I mean, the bambu printers are great but the post-processing steps to add weight were cumbersome. When someone would buy a Dial from me, I added pour-channels and plugs to the Side A/B parts and filled them with a concrete-like mixture. The weight was good but the balance was off. Also, it was messy.

Proprosed Solution: (Read in Austin Powers voice) Resin, baby. Yeah.
(Resume normal internal monologue voice of George Carlin) In order to build a Prime Radiant, I finally picked up a resin printer. Then another. Then another. Then another. The full-sized / large Dial wouldn’t fit on my Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra but does work out on an Elegoo Jupiter.

Issue: I know I was missing some details like: the edge ripples on the box and the lines on the viewfinder disc.

Proposed Solution: Adderall and design-focus-time.

Issue: I wasn’t happy with the organization of the project on printables. It was clutterd.

Proposed Solution: Declutter it while also adding additional build sizes. (200mm, 205mm, 210mm)

Mark 5

Mark 4 became Mark 4.5 which became Mark 4.6 which eventually became Mark 5. Mark 5 is the Mark 4 design with a few details added to the box corners and fixes for the 3 items listed above that are backward compatible with the older designs. MODULAR, FTW.

I’ve mailed off a few samples but I’m pretty excited about this update. It just “feels” right.

Mark 4 Corners

Mark 5 Corners

BitKit

Left the dust because - it is real dust. Collector dust. This way, you know it is real! :)

When I was growing up, my mom had this sister, that wasn’t actually a blood relative. Through the transitive property of whatever, that made her sister’s three boys my cousins. They were a bit older but were cool to me and I always liked to visit them.

I’d loose innocence by the centimeter every time we’d hang out.

In my memory at least, every one of them was a different avatar of a Jack Black character. They were raised by MTV and Basic Cable, Rock Posters on the walls of their cluttered rooms and the kind of energy you get with three teenaged boys resonating off of one another. I’d spend every car ride home mentally digesting another discovery in heavy metal or some sex-joke I didn’t quite understand yet but knew must be hilarious.

That tangent to express my notion that Bitkit was a secret all the cool kids knew about and I’m just now really discovering. I sort of feel like Bitkit is to my arcade-discovery as Queensrÿche was to my cousin-imposed music discoveries. I knew of the Bitkit, even had one tucked away for later-use for over a year..

But having the Bitkit tucked away is like hearing a single on the radio and playing it is like listening to the full album.

When I first was introduced to Bitkit and started to find out its capabilities as they pertain to specific games, large parts of it go unspoken, I suspect in a deliberate attempt to stay under the radar or not court the wrong type of licensing attention. In this post, I want to shine a little flashlight on the Bitkit. Not a bat-signal to wake the neighbors but maybe a bit of clarity for those of you who know where to look. I don’t want to blow up anyone’s spot here but I do want you to see the potential in this awesome little card and hopefully feel compelled to support the developer of it.

CraftyMech

CraftyMech is among a short credit-roll of stand out names in this hobby for creating awesome tools and being a positive influence. Back when I was struggling to find an MCR Compatible monitor to finish out my Tapper, a friend suggested this neat little tool that I just absolutely had to have. The tool, was the CraftyMech TPG.. I knew the name CraftyMech from numerous helpful KLOV posts and some Broken Token Podcasts.

The TPG is an essential tool for monitor troubleshooting and dial in. Really glad I bought it!

Anyway.. back to Bitkit. Bitkit is a JAMMA-based FPGA of various popular early arcade hardware. If it had a Z80 (even.. 3 of them..), the Bitkit is probably technically capable of playing it. It is sort of similar to the popular JROK-designed wSYSFPGA Multi Williams PCB or the Clay Cowgill designed ArcadeSD PCB (although ArcadeSD is actually really-good emulation, not FPGA).

In a sentence: It is a modern board that can mimic (note, I didn’t use the work emulate) classic arcades with near perfection.

FPGA

To understand what separates boards like Bitkit from the old 60-in-1 Chinese pirate rom PCBs, you need to at least understand what FPGA is. Field Programmable Gate Array’s are user-customizable chips that can be programmed to mimic other hardware.

Imagine the original Atari Centipede boardset where you have a main game board and an audio board / amplifier. The Atari Centipede PCB had something like 32 distinct IC’s, half a dozen ROMS, 3 distinct classes of RAM in 11 different configurations, a micro processor, host of capacitors, transistors and resistors.

Well, if you have sufficient IO & behavior specs for all of that hardware you could arrange it all into a workflow in something like MatLAB and essentially design the entire Centipede PCB as a bin-file that can be flashed into a single chip or chipset. That chip/chipset is the FPGA. Any code the game might have used is missing but you would have recreated the entire hardware platform with the benefit of modern chip design and a placeholder to insert the game code in a ROM slot.

That’s about where my knowledge stops. I do know a dozen or so programming languages from three decades but if you brought me a chip or a populated circuit and said “fPGA this thing” - I wouldn’t know where the F to begin. I’m just going to assume as always that step 1)Drink Bourbon. From there, I’m out of my experience.

In the same way I once blew the mind of a C-Suite exec by explaining on a plane ride to China that I had a near-enough copy of their AS/400 dataset on my cheap laptop, if you really stop and think about it:

We can put 8 billion transistors in your $700 iPhone. We can put 92 billion transistors in a $9,000 industrial fPGA. Of Course we can put a couple million transistors in a $18 FPGA chip like the Spartan-6.

Bitkit, Specifically

On the surface, Bitkit targets some lesser-known titles from the 80’s; games you aren’t likely to see the Stranger Things kids playing or see referenced in 80’s pop culture digests. CraftyMech’s original release of the Bitkit card targeted the SNK 6502 arcade hardware that was used for games like Nibbler, Vanguard, Pioneer Balloon, Satan of Saturn, Zarzon & Fantasy.

Since that initial release, the developer has added support for Pac-man arcade hardware to bring in games like Lizard Wizard, Abscam, Eyes, Pac. I’d personally like to see Van-Van-Car added. I love that game for some stupid reason.

Within a year, the developer added (a targeted subset of) Namco-Galaxian arcade hardware to get games like Scramble, Jump Bug, Amidar, Anteater.

By the end of 2020, he added support for Galaga-alike hardware, which opens up future potential for 3xZ80 games.

Bitkit, Reunion. Reunion, Bitkit

The 20yr Namco Reunion cabinet is an odd duck. Galaga’s sounds were just a little off in ways I’m not experienced enough to describe and the decision to hide Pac-man on the game board only to be accessible by a sequence (Up, Up, Up, Down, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left) is bizarre to me. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

The Reunion PCB isn’t known for extreme durability and reliability, either. The giant vertical-orientation monitor makes it novel, as well.

It may be the perfect cabinet for Bitkit.

The Bitkit came in a USB model originally and now comes in a Bluetooth model. You initially set up the card (upload game roms, download and upload High Scores) from a well made Windows or MacOS app, Bitkit Manager. I have one of each type of card and my general impression is that while Bluetooth sets up easily and works well it does have range limitations, at least for my use-case. I’d hoped to be able to connect from a tower PC in my Gameroom that is 9 ft, 6 in from this cabinet without obstruction. It did connect but the transfer times were painfully slow. It would take over an hour plus multiple re-attempts per ROM file upload.

For comparison, I can use an xBox One Controller on the PC from the same distance and bluetooth transfer between IOS and Android devices in that same distance. All that said, I don’t necessarily fault the Bitkit for Bluetooth range, it is possible that by placing the Bitkit farther from the monitor chassis frame I could have improved the distance but I didn’t feel like redoing all of the cable management in the cabinet, at least not right now. Long term, I’m either going to need to drag a USB extension cable with another bluetooth radio nearby the cabinet or switch it over to my USB spare. All doable and unique to my gameroom layout.

All that said, Bluetooth is cool if you are within a few feet of the cabinet. Once I resigned to carry a laptop over to the cabinet, the setup went smoothly. There is rumor of an IOS or Android version of the Bitkit Manager App - that would solve my distance snafu with style, here’s hoping it happens I have spare iPads and Android tablets coming out of my ears from past dev projects.

The on-screen setup menu system is well appointed but not cluttered, self explanatory features for enabling the ability to boot straight to a game, rearrange or hide game slots and assign buttons. The BitKit is sold as a home-use JAMMA card, so there aren’t pricing options to adjust through menus but since it is full-hardware FPGA on a JAMMAS harness, the coin up buttons do still trigger a credit advance in games I’ve tried. That’s handy if your game room has tokens or a bucket of quarters for guests to play out of.

The game selection menu system is a carousel style left or right selection of the game title art. It has an appealing star field and simple font selection that feel right for this era of games.

The Bitkit can be put in single game mode and set to boot to a particular game, making it a handy solve, alternative or replacement for older hardware, in a pinch. MsPac board on the fritz? Get a Bitkit. Galaga acting up? Get a Bitkit. I have a friend right now with a stack of problematic Bosconian PCB’s patiently waiting for support to come to Bitkit.

In my cabinet, I have the Bitkit booting to menu and with the full romset and exploring some of these lesser known games will be a large part of my Q1. In Summary: I freaking love this PCB.

Got a Bitkit and looking for roms? Let me save you some time. Go here -> Bitkit/Roms

3D Printing Monitor Adjustment Tools

CRT Adjustment tools are often made from Nylon or Plastic. Being a natural insulator, it decreases your changes of shorting out something within the monitor chassis. Being made from the same material as the adjustment pots, it prevents you from damaging the on-board adjustment pots with sharp metal tools. Finally, some adjustment coils (like the horizontal width adjustment coil on common G07 & K4900’s) are often ferrite core - metal tools can demolish them.

Before I set out to create one, I did a quick search and found this set:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1802360/files

2.5mm is close enough to the .100” adjustment tool for a horizontal width coil adjuster.

I scaled it on the y-axis to give myself a little room to maneuver around the yoke assembly.

Slot head for nylon adjustment pots

For the nylon adjustment pots, a small flat-head tool is handy.

I found this one and scaled it down to about 25% of the original design size.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3916160/files

3D Printing Connectors

The connector dilemma.. How often when working on games do you find yourself in the position of “dangit, I need connector x in order to be able to proceed.”

On the hack side of the decision matrix you can go with twisted connections, solder and shrink tubed, electrical tape or wire nuts.

On the OCD side of the decision matrix you place an order for the connectors, pay $8 in shipping for $5 in parts and have to wait a week for them to arrive so you can finish your task.

Eventually, you end up with something like this. Varied pins and housings. Some for DC applications, some for AC applications.

Once you get bitten by the “I need this one part” bug enough times and you end up over-buying spares or mixed-lots that include dozens of varieties of pins and connectors.

Cost Considerations

$.14c in material cost for a connector is a pretty decent deal.

Working on Ice Cold Beer, I recall paying ~$8/each for the 18 position dual-leaf PCB edge connector housings and around $70 for 30Au Gold 22-26AWG pins. (Sourced from arcadepartsandrepair.com )

Working on my first pinballs (Data East Star Wars, Sega Star Wars) I recall waiting a week for appropriate .156 IDC connectors or .156 molex-equivalents to improve interconnect reliability.

2 or 3 position Molex connectors are often used in arcade / pinball power or modding situations. I’ve paid $.50c up to $2 for individual Molex connector pairs. $.14c for a 3D printed pair in under an hour is pretty nice!

Originality Vs Pragmatic Convenience

Detail-oriented collectors might focus in on sourcing exactly the right connectors, something like the Red AMP connector that was manufactured in the middle-80’s. Profit-oriented operators would often direct-solder wires to board pins or use electrical tape and shrink tubed solutions in order to keep their amusement machines in service.

I’m not wholly opposed to a wire nut or compression slice with the justification that most of the wiring in our homes use these methods inside of electrical boxes for switches and plugs.

But mostly for arcades and pinballs I try to use connectors when it makes sense.

Finding Models

Connector-housings are actually pretty easy to “eyeball and approximate”. Taking measurements or looking at the spec, there are alot of connector-housing models on thingiverse to support peoples’ electronics projects. The two sets I found below were some of the most impressive in terms of quality and closeness to originals.

3-pin Molex
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4139433
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4131380

2-pin Molex
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4139450
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4139409

Searching around, it turns out the CAD models for Molex (and other) connectors are available from the official sources

For example, the commonly used .093” pin connectors often found on the AC lines of arcades:

Plug Side
Receptacle Side

Broader categories
- you will recognize alot of these from wiring harnesses in cars, common appliances in addition to arcade and pinball uses.

AMP Dual Leaf 28 Position (like a JAMMA card edge connector)

The file formats are common CAD formats that can be converted to printable .STL files pretty easily.

I’m not sure around the legality of using them but for the sake of this post we are going to assume hobby use one-offs won’t be a problem.

Finally, GrabCAD has a really handy library of all sorts of engineering CAD models, connectors included.

FINDING THE CONDUCTORS

There are so many different connector and mating-conductor standards used in Arcades & Pinballs, I’m not going to even attempt a comprehensive list but here are a few that you will probably run into frequently.

MOLEX .156

Molex .156 are often used in Arcade monitors (RGB, G, Sync) connections. The .156 size is also what most Bally, Williams, Data East, White Star, Sega and SAM Pinballs use for power interconnects. Though the pinball applications are typically as IDC (vampire tap-style) connectors. Molex is a solid upgrade and will mate perfectly with the .156 header pins on those boards.

https://www.aaarpinball.com/TwilightZone/TwilightZone.htm

https://www.flippers.be/basics/101_general_illumination.html

Some sources I like for these pins and connectors:

https://www.arcadeshop.com/search?q=.156%22

https://www.arcadepartsandrepair.com/product-category/connectors-sockets-pins/156-kk-molex/

MOLEX .100

Yellow one is .156 spacing, red one is .100 spacing.

http://www.ukvac.com/forum/connector-idsolvednow-id48-drive-board-versions_topic359385.html

Molex .100 are often used for lower voltage interconnects or in cases where component spacing was tight on the original board designs. Stuff like, Controlled Lamp to Cabinet Harnesses for Pinball and IO interconnects on some arcade cabinets.

https://www.arcadeshop.com/search?q=.100

https://www.arcadepartsandrepair.com/product-category/connectors-sockets-pins/100-kk-molex/

MOLEX .093

https://primetimeamusements.com/tech-tips-monitor-issues/

https://www.pinballlife.com/power-tap-and-8-way-power-splitter-board-for-williamsbally-wpc-pinball-machines.html

Molex .093 are very commonly used in 2 position and 3 position AC applications in arcades. Usually from a power tap before the isolation transformer running to the marquee light.

https://www.arcadeshop.com/search?q=.093%22

https://www.arcadepartsandrepair.com/product-category/connectors-sockets-pins/093-molex-connectors/

AMP and MOLEX Leaf Connectors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=WYi6_xv1mSY

https://www.instructables.com/install-a-JAMMA-harness-in-an-arcade-cabinet/

These edge connectors are the basis behind the JAMMA 56 pin card-edge connector found in many arcades.
Taito’s Ice Cold Beer uses three partially populated 36 pin card-edge connectors. I’ve also seen them used as beefy interconnects between some multi-board stack arcade PCBs.

https://www.arcadeshop.com/search?q=edge

https://www.arcadepartsandrepair.com/product-category/connectors-sockets-pins/edge-connectors/amp-twin-leaf-edge-connectors/

That’s enough to get you started though there are obviously others. As like most things in the electrical component space, you can also find these things at mouser.com, greatplainselectronics.com, digikey.com and other electronics suppliers. Personally, I try to support arcade and pinball specific suppliers when shipping is convenient and pricing isn’t out of hand.

A Note ABout Materials

Did you know PLA thermoplastics come from corn? PLA is formed from the sugars in corn starch by immersing corn kernels in sulfur dioxide which breaks down the corn into starch, protein and fiber components. Sort of like a fermentation process.. The oils are extracted into long-chain polymers that behave similarly to fossil fuel byproducts that can be made into plastics, polystyrene and textiles.

The most common thermoplastics used in 3D printing tend to be great insulators. The exception being, any filaments that might be reinforced with metal fibers and some carbon-fiber composites. Heat is the largest concern. You wouldn’t want to use 3D printed connectors in a service environment where it might be exposed to heat greater than the material tolerance.

src: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/materials-guide/properties-table/

PLA is a solid electrical insulator but only within a nominal temperature range. You can use PLA but understand that applications above 125F degrees carry risk as PLA starts to break down and loose structure at higher temperatures.. A moving truck or storage unit can reach temperatures of 120F degrees. You can use PLA to print connectors but it isn’t the first choice for electrical applications.

ABS can keep its properties above 200F Degrees. going to have similar temperature properties to PLA but a flatter melt-curve at the melting temperatures. (It will deform less)

PETG falls between PLA and ABS with support of temperatures up to around 160F degrees.

Nylon, which also support 200F+ Degrees (often much more) is commonly used in electrical applications. Wall plates, even some electrical wall boxes are constructed from Nylon or Nylon composites.

I make most of my connectors from Nylon, ABS, PC, or sometimes enhanced PLA. (ToughPLA or PLA+)

Hobby Tools Finding a New Use

As an avid listener of The Broken Token Arcade and Pinball Podcast I’ve enjoyed following Brent’s adventures into getting into 3D Printing and Vacuum forming. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how the ability to make your own parts at home can be handy.

I’ve had an eye on 3D printing for hobby usage back since a really insightful article from Microsoft Developer Blogger, Scott Hanselman back in 2015.

My takeaway from both, broadly, was that 3D printing would be a massive time suck. Who has time for that?

Well, it turns out we are quarantined at home now and my social calendar just freed up for 30-90 days. Time to jump in.

Three different printers had my eye.

Budget Conscious: Creality CR-10S

I see lots of forum posts where people struggled to get started with the Creality CR-10 and CR-10s printers.

“Please refer to the 50 page sticky post about common setup issues and how to solve them”

Once running and once the material specifics are worked out, most owners seemed thrilled with their choice, though. Almost to the point of shilling for the machine and overlooking minor flaws.

Pros:
Nice Entry Price (~$500)
Impressive build surface ~(12.75 x 12.75 x 15.5) inches

Cons:
Kit-built
Easy but fidgety assembly and setup
Machine footprint, Spool placement
Looks like the offspring of an erector set and Johnny 5

Middle of the Road: Prusa i3 MK3S

Time and time again the only bad thing I could find about the Prusa MK3S was that it wasn’t a major change from its predecessor. Usually with a footnote of “but we can’t really think of anything we’d like changed” though. The Prusa came up time and time-again as the winner amongst Maker enthusiasts in posts and articles, based on my research.

Pros:
Reasonably priced (~$750)
Good (but slightly compromised) build surface ~(9.8 x 8.2 x7.8) inches
Flexible options, available as pre-built or as a kit
Good Software
Exceptional reputation amongst enthusiasts, known to be a workhorse

Cons:
Occasional failures on long prints
Still has the erector-set aesthetic.

The ”All In” Option: Ultimaker 2+ or 3

The Ultimaker was the only one that seemed to offer a hassle free setup process from the beginner’s perspective. Most of my research landed on “we love it but it costs too much” as the shared consensus amongst Maker enthusiasts. The Ultimaker machines support NFC chips installed in the Ultimaker material spools. This means that the machine has built in profiles for Ultimaker materials and automatically adjusts by reading the NFC from the installed spool. It seemed to me that the vast majority of bad prints come from improperly calibrated settings in respect to material type, so extension of that logic is:

Foolproof material settings means less fouled prints.

Pros:
Easy setup
Comes pre-assembled
Well-supported by manufacturer
Parts availability
Automated print settings when used with Ultimaker Materials
Gold-Standard in Slicing Software (Cura)
Helpful companion apps for iOS and Android (monitor prints, reprint, pause - resume

Cons:
Highly priced (UM2+ is $2500, UM3 is $3500)
Slightly smaller build surface ~(8 x 8.5 x 8) inches
More expensive parts and consumables

Ultimaker 3

After much deliberation I went with a refurbished Ultimaker 3.

I chose the Ultimaker line (among other reasons) because it seemed like a more self-contained machine, something I’d be apt to just leave set up on my desk. I chose the UM3 specifically because it was Wifi capable, supported dual-extrusion: the ability to print with two materials at once. I chose refurbished because of parts availability, factory warranty and because my Amex reward points only go so far. :)

Software Stuff

Slicing

Slicing is the process of ingesting a model and material properties and building a print plan for the printer to follow. (GCode File)
If you’ve ever done professional publishing where you send off print-ready file formats to the publisher - this is basically the same thing, at the high level anyway. Ultimaker Cura is a gold standard solution for Slicing, it is made by Ultimaker and is free even if you aren’t using Ultimaker printers. Having a 1st class slicing experience contributed to my decision to fork out the extra dough for an Ultimaker printer.

Design

SolidWorks is the Gold Standard Engineering and design solution. At $3400/year for the Standard edition, I can’t even consider this right now. <Closes Tab>

Tinkercad is an awesome solution for building printable 3D models. Schools often use it in STEM or Gifted labs as an introduction to engineering and design concepts.. It is cross platform and has AutoDesk support behind the product. It’s also free. The limitations will come in on high-polygon count or heavily complex models as well as certain import interpolations. But for simple 3D printing, TInkercad is the goto.

If you have an iPad and Apple Pencil, Shapr3D is very powerful middle-of-the-road option.

Shapr3D shares the same solid modeling Engine as SolidWorks (Siemens Parasolid™). It is iPad-only and requires the Apple Pencil but since I’m an iOS and Android Developer I didn’t have to look far for an iPad to commit to this use. The software is free to try and is about $240/year for the pro version. $1 apps might make that seem like a lot but taking in the app’s powerful foundation, level of polish, performance and extensive training library - $240/year sounds like a bargain to me.

Future versions will support object import via the iPad Pro’s new LiDAR camera. (There are videos of this in beta available on Youtube). So, I’m using a combination of TinkerCard and Shapr3D for modeling work.

The Tools are Here, Now What?

This is the point in this story where I’d normally be showing you 3D printed realized objects created from scratch in service of the pinball and arcade hobby. Things like that hard-to-find coil bracket for Ice Cold Beer or 3D printed unobtainium replacements like the Data East Star Wars Death Star plastic that I once paid $175 for.

But first, the ongoing global pandemic and the shortage of PPE have me focused on trying to be helpful in some small way in aiding those efforts.

Make the Masks

The Montana Mask is a 3D-printed mask initiative started by three medical professionals and tested at a clinic in Billings, Montana. The design includes a two-part reusable mask with a place for a filter insert.

Complex prints with overhangs and suspensions will be printed with scaffolding or support material (dissolvable or break-away). This mask design was clever in that it attempts to keep the angles shallow enough to prevent the need for support material, decreasing print times. Currently I’m at about 4 hrs to print each mask at a reasonable quality. I add window seal from MD Building Products, which is a super-awesome company - they donated two cases to me for this cause. Finally, I add in filter material: Flowmark Filters if you can get them. Blue shop towels or tripled up coffee filters can also work.

Stack o’ Completed Masks from Easter Afternoon

Other Opportunities to Help

In addition to masks there are clever initiatives for creating face-shields, respirator parts, ventilator valves and more.
It’ll be neat to get to work on the printer in the future for more entertaining purposes but for now, it whirls away 18 hours a day making stuff related to the pandemic, trying to show appreciation and aid protection for those who aren’t as fortunate as I am to be able to shelter in place and play on the computer all day.

If you know of any front-line medical workers or first-responders with a need for parts that I can print, reach out to me by email and I’ll get something sent your way.