Hollow Knight Pinball

Ship #1 Pending review

@AgentAxolotl on Hollow Knight Pinball · about 1 month ago

What I Made:
I used CAD (onshape specifically) to model my custom pinball playfield for my Hollow Knight Pinball Machine. It is based on my original physical rough draft prototype and also expands on it with more holes for things like inserts that are too complicated to cut by hand. It will be CNC cut and will be populated (have other components like the mechanical pieces and lights) in a future project. The main goal of this project was to learn CAD while also reducing the time, effort, and errors caused by trying to do this by hand. Some of the models for the holes of various features can be reused by others in the future.

Challenges:
Learning CAD was definitely a massive learning curve but luckily I know a decent number of people who were able to answer all my questions. I think this is pretty obvious in my devlogs as you can see how I got significantly faster and more capable throughout the process. Modeling the inserts and target cut outs were among the more complicated shapes and were quite a challenge especially for someone who had never done CAD before. I had dimensions from other people in the space but free onshape can struggle with dxf files. I do think templates were very helpful and I hope someone else will also use these in the future, especially the target which I did from scratch.

What I’m Most Proud Of:
I am most proud of the shooter lane, I go into it in more detail in my readme but I basically used a tilted plane and a v shape and then curved the edges and I think it turned out about as close to a real machine as possible while matching the shorter length I need for my specific design. I am also proud of the target design which I did all on my own. My measurements were also very accurate when I came back and checked it against my physical draft when I was done and I was quite worried it would not match up. Finally I am most proud of basically learning CAD from the ground up which is a major skill that will help me in the future and make many future projects easier.

How You Can Machine This Yourself:
The onshape files are linked here and there is a .step in the github. The general process is that it should be machined out of plywood on a CNC machine however there are more detailed instructions in the readme. The other thing you may find useful is the templates for inserts and targets (you can find them in the onshape) as this will make it easier for you to make your own machine with your own design if you want. Other components like slingshots and lower plainfield third (which is fairly standard) can be found in there as well.

Thanks for rating and good luck on your own projects!

5 devlogs
0h build

Video of Project → See source code →

Open comments for this post

@AgentAxolotl on Hollow Knight Pinball · about 1 month ago

3h 58m 49s logged

This will probably be my last devlog before I ship. Most of time was spent on fine tuning positions, remeasuring things, and checking that I had all the holes I needed. Some of the more major changes included the ball trough (the big oval thing at the bottom for holding balls when they are not in play), the holes in the corners to let wires through for lighting (top right has two one for 5v and one for 48v since the 48 can sometimes mess with data to the RGBs on the 5v), and fixing the shooter lane insert. By being set into the playfield the plunger can hit it better/more consistently and it was definitely up there for one of the most difficult things I have done for this project. In the end I used a very slightly sloped plane with a shape of a V on it which I then extruded forwards and backwards. I then curved the edges to be a bit smoother though it did require me to be creative.

Open comments for this post

@AgentAxolotl on Hollow Knight Pinball · about 1 month ago

11h 2m 38s logged

I have made a lot of progress and am probably getting close to shipping. In the past couple days I finished adding all the inserts (I think) as well as almost all the posts I have two left but they will be hard to measure. The only other things I have to do is put a slope for the shooter lane (like where the ball comes from), add a couple more cutouts for switches, and add some holes at the bottom and at the back for some wires since I’m sure I will need that at some point and if not they will covered when I build it out.

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@AgentAxolotl on Hollow Knight Pinball · about 2 months ago

4h 30m 11s logged

Well I had some major setbacks unfortunately the model I had used as a base for the shooter lane and other standard stuff like the holes under the apron (metal piece at the bottom of the games where your ball drains through and a new one pops out of) was measured wrong and by a significant margin so I had to restart that and try to work from a different file type to try to create one that has unfortunately a lot less that I can reuse meaning I had to remeasure and remodel a lot of that myself and then reposition everything I had already put on their. At least I had the shapes of inserts already and obviously me CAD skills have improved a lot so it was fairly doable. I learned my lesson I guess 🤷‍♂️. I also quickly threw together some more groups of inserts that will go in soon.

Open comments for this post

@AgentAxolotl on Hollow Knight Pinball · about 2 months ago

4h 13m 36s logged

I finished modeling the last rounded rectangle along with some more complicated shapes I will need in the future then designed the layout (for the map not the shots) and added some inserts to the map as well as putting some in the inlanes though those were easy next up is adjusting a couple of other positions since I screwed up my side rail measurements (they should be 3/4 and I though they were 1/2 inch).

Open comments for this post

@AgentAxolotl on Hollow Knight Pinball · about 2 months ago

3h 58m 44s logged

Working on modeling holes for the inserts it was coming along well though I did have some problems with onshape not liking some of the file types I was giving it. The labels on the circles are kind of hard to read but basically tell me what diameter it is so I don’t use the wrong one. One more to go thats a 1 1/2 by 1 5/8 rectangle but I’m definitely getting much faster. (idk why my images are being weird maybe try opening them in a new tab)