The New Pinscape Build Guide
by Michael Roberts
First edition, October 2019
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Copyright and license

Copyright ©2016-2022 Michael J. Roberts.
This book is licensed under a
Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. In brief, this means that
you're free to use, share, and adapt this work for any purpose,
without seeking further permission from the author, as long as you
give appropriate credit and pass along the same permissions in
your adapted material.
The Pinscape Controller firmware and the Expansion Board hardware
designs have similar Open Source license terms. See their respective
license files for details.
No Warranty

Just to be sure there's
no misunderstanding, I want to spell out that this documentation and
the related mechanical and electronic designs and computer software
have NO WARRANTY of any kind. This entire enterprise is a hobby
project, and I don't have a Quality Assurance department to
independently test any of it, so the material undoubtedly contains
numerous errors.
I'm making all of this available at no charge in the hope that it's
useful, but I can't guarantee that it'll work or that you'll be
successful building any of it.
Work involving electronic
circuitry has the potential to damage other connected equipment,
including expensive items such as computer motherboards.
Proceed at your own risk.
THIS WORK IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE WORK OR THE
USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE WORK.
Caution

Building a
virtual pinball machine involves some inherently dangerous equipment
and activities, such as power tools and high voltages. Read the
manufacturer's instruction manuals for your tools and follow their
safety precautions. Wear safety glasses, hearing protection, and
other appropriate safety gear for each task. Don't attempt anything
that you don't understand or don't feel comfortable with.
Be extremely careful when working with electrical circuits, especially
high voltages. Anything above about 20V can pose a risk of
electrocution, and even low voltages can start fires and damage other
equipment. Always turn off the power and unplug the wall plug before
doing work on anything electrical.
About the "section incomplete" warnings
If you find a box like the one below, and click the "more about"
link, it'll bring you here, to this explanation of what those
boxes are about.
This section is incomplete and will be expanded when time permits. Material to be added: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
From October 2016, when I started working on this guide, to October
2019, when I declared the first edition finished, I posted material
online as I wrote it, even though the overall guide was a work in
progress for all of that time. I placed boxes like the one above
throughout the material, in part as "to do" reminders to myself of
what I planned to add, and in part as placeholders so that the
omission wouldn't look accidental.
As of October 2019, there are exactly zero of those boxes left (apart
from the example above). Even so, I'm leaving this explanation in
place, just in case I missed any to-do boxes, and in case I add some
new ones in the future. The virtual pinball community is an active
and creative group of people who keep coming up with new ideas, so I
expect I'll continue to find new things to add to this guide as time
goes on. New "To Do" boxes might therefore pop up from time to time
as I make notes about topics that should be revisited, expanded, or
added to keep the guide current.