Pinball Modding Group
Beaming your Pinball to another dimension
Reviews
Medieval Madness Dragon Topper
Gaming Play Score: 9.9
This dragon topper was the first topper I have ever created for any flipper and just because of this pinball, I started with modding. Fascinated about all the different already available mods, I wrote a compendium (in German) with the name "The ultimate Medieval Madness Mod Compendium", which is freely available to download, and dived more and more into the world of modding. Unfortunately, I have never seen a topper for this pinball which fits nicely into the gaming concept, so I decided to create one. On my search for some good material, I finally found this dragon as a basic; Basic, because I was not completely satisfied with the model itself : I am always trying to create something with a sort of an "eye catching" feature and had many ideas in my mind, so I went to our team mate Ronny and explained him my ideas : I wanted to have 2 LED eyes and some sort of 3D effect. Ronny took the item and first drilled 2 holes into the head. After that, he cut off the hands and reassembled them in another angle so that the figure is grapping into the backbox, which creates an awesome effect. The first model looked pretty nice, and we painted the finally model with a black and glossy color which reflects the lights. Then we created 2 models : One with RGB LEDs and one with constant glowing red ones, where the red LED one become the final topper.
Unfortunately, the enterprise stopped the production of these dragons so the availability is very restricted and people who got one are very lucky. Even we have only some left. That was the reason why I said in the video the word "lucky". A friend of mine later told me that some "I know it better" guys from the German pinball forum tried to recreate the topper and "thought" they had the correct material by buying a toilet paper dragon holder, just put 2 LED eyes into it and now thought that they are the "master of the universe"...hahaha...that was so ridiculous. Then they started to modify the arms and realized what a big mess that is, working with Polyresin : dirt and dust everywhere and the dragon head is very breakable...
The real Plug´n´Play Medieval Madness Dragon Topper consists of the following components :
Contents :
1x Dragon Topper figure with 2 red-glowing LED eyes
1x fixing bracket to mount it onto the backbox
1x connection cable with a molex plug to easy install the topper to the Power Driver Board (PDB)
2x screws
Dimensions :
Height : ca. 27 cm
Width : ca. 36 cm
Length : 8 cm
Installation time : 5 minutes
André Banderas
Medieval Madness Castle Mod
Gaming Play Score: 9.2
The Medieval Madness Castle Mod was the second mod for that pinball, which includes much more electronical stuff than the topper, and several team mates were involved. First we disassembled the castle from the playfield and counter bored the two little windows and the suggested little hole from the left tower. Since we pay a lot of attention of having a perfect result, we also counter bored the hole on the right castle as well. Afterwards we tested several different flickering LEDs in various constellations, but unfortunately, none of them created a real burning flickering effect. Insofar, I went a little bit frustrated into a model railroad shop and informed myself about the diverse possibilities. After ca. 1 hour, I bough 1 flickering light controller board and 8 special (and very expensive) mini lamps in red and yellow. Arrived at home, the soldering immediately began and the first test has been realized : Perfect ! This was exactly the effect what we needed ! So we created 2 cable trees : One for the left tower with the windows and the hole and also one for the right tower...just because of that dam small hole...but perfection must be :-) Finally we sticked the controller board with double-sided tape under the playfield and after 3 months was that mod finished.
The Medieval Madness Castle Mod consists of the following parts :
4x red special mini lamps
4x yellow special mini lamps
1x controller board
1x cable tree
1x fixing set
Installation time : ca. 30 Minutes
André Banderas
Medieval Madness Lockbar Mod
Gaming Play Score: 9.0
This mod was not planed and arose by accident. A very good friend of mine was working in a High-Tech enterprise, which was specialized on tuning car parts. One time, they received a new laser machine from china and he was the guy who had to take care of it, so he started to learn this nice gadget in detail and was totally fascinated about the possibilities it had to offer, so he showed me the laser and we lasered together different materials with custom writings and logos. During these tests, I got the idea to also laser the "Medieval Madness" writing into a lockbar. To get a better effect, it had to be a high-polished one, so I started a search. The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to buy these in shops, so we had only 2 possibilities : do it yourself with just an average result or find one, who has a machine to do the job. In the flipper scene, I met Wolfgang ("Flöte"), one of the best pinball restaurateurs I know, who took my lockbar and perfectly polished it. But there was another problem: In order to laser the writing, the graphics had to be converted into the vector format without any loss and later adjusted to the size of the lockbar. This job did Gérardo, an official Adobe Photoshop trainer, who teaches adobe products through out Europe, so that was also solved. The laser process took around 10 minutes and the result is really terrific and even more purifies the pinball.
The Medieval Madness Lockbar Mod consists of the following parts :
1x high-polished Medieval Madness Lockbar with the lasered "Medieval Madness" writing
Installation time : ca. 1 Minute
André Banderas