[Tim Higgins] picked up an old pachinko game at a garage sale for his wife, but it ended up sitting unused in the garage for a few years. When he finally dusted it off, he decided that he wanted to restore and build a nice cabinet for it, though he thought the idea was a bit lame.
He says he likes to use some sort of CPU in his projects, and even though it was overkill, he made it his goal to add some sort of microprocessor to the game. He didn’t want to ruin the original aesthetics of the machine, so he decided that he could use an Arduino to drive a rewards system for skilled pachinko players.
Using some PVC pipe, he built a treat hopper which is controlled by the Arduino. When the player wins, the microcontroller triggers a small hobby servo, which dispenses gumballs/candy/etc.
[Tim] says that his wife loved the gift, and he was quite pleased with how it came out as well. Hit up his blog for additional build details and be sure to check out the photo slideshow of the restoration that we have embedded below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqKkjC3AJXU&w=470]
I wish I could do something like this. What a great gift.
Very cool — is there easy access to the back panel? I had a similar pachinko machine in my bedroom growing up and it used to jam up, requiring me to remove the front tray panel and open the launcher mechanism to clear up the mess.
I feel like video transitions are underused in hardware projects. Three cheers for diamond transition!
Kidding; fantastic restoration.
I have one of those sitting unused in my workshop. Thanks for providing some inspiration for me to do something with it.
What a neat idea! Perhaps it reflects poorly on my pre-adolescent playing experience as a Marine brat in Japan that I read “skilled pachinko player” as an oxymoron.