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Ball density

davidpizon

I never cared for the physics of smaller steel pinballs. They lack of control and wild ricochets cheapen the play experience.

A denser material should be used for the ball. Ben briefly mentions lead in the second video. I would have gone with depleted uranium. If those are inappropriate for a toy, what about tungsten?

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    I don't have an answer to your question, but an interesting snippet of info.

    The pinball machine Twilight Zone, used regular steel balls, but during a special part of the game

    it would release a ceramic pinball onto the playfield. It was much lighter than the standard ball, it moved a lot

    faster and also played more erratically adding to the challenge of the game.

     

    It was then used as a bonus multiplier, so the longer you could keep it in play, the higher your score became.

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    The weight of the ball is just one factor. The ball also needs to be conductive so it can trigger the pop bumpers, which would probably rule out tungsten (it's a semiconductor...), and the ball needs to be durable, which rules out soft material like lead. I don't know much about uranium other than that the word scares me, so I think that's ruled out from the get-go.

     

    Brass might be an option...it's a touch heavier than steel. I'm not sure it's enough to be noticeably different. Brass also corrodes over time...

     

    I agree that I haven't liked the physics of the "mini-pinball" found in the family guy game or the shrek game (although, there's a lot of factors that make those games not so good), but this game (the ball and playfield) doesn't look to be nearly so small so I'm hopeful. Steel balls are cheap and easily replaceable so it makes sense to use them. The physics will be tuned by changing the angle of the playfield and the strength of the solenoids.