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Hello there, I am Gav,
welcome to the Slow Mo Guys video all about,
how a pinball machine works.
Firstly, I wanna say thanks to Jersey Jack Pinball,
for providing the machine for this video.
It's a Willy Wonka machine,
it's very nice,
very colorful.
I've been fascinated by pinball,
for quite a long time.
I was introduced to a real pinball machine
by a Canadian man named Ed,
before that,
my entire experience with pinball
was the significant percentage of my childhood
taken up by this.
And even though we live in the future now
well beyond the days of electromechanical scoring,
the actual play field itself,
uses components unchanged for decades
it's still very mechanical
and not only that,
very fast moving,
so why don't we whip out the phantom
and play a little game of pinball.
Since I got this machine,
I've played a lot of Wonka Pinball,
and I've determined some areas of the play field
that I wanna feature,
but it's gonna be an extremely fiddly job
so I've got the Flex4K with the pro blends on
and I'm gonna use that with this extremely bright light,
to really get in there.
Okay, the glass is off
I think we should start with me
just playing a cheeky game of pinball
just you can see everything that moves
and then we'll get in there for the slow-mo replays.
The game is fully functional without the glass
and now there's no glare for filming.
However,
I'm slightly worried about taking a pinball to the chin,
because they do go flying,
in multiball especially
and also without the glass,
something that I wasn't expecting
this machine is now,
incredibly loud.
There is a,
I guess a huge sound dampening effect with the glass cover
so, get ready for some clangs and clunks.
I'm not sure if you knew this about me
but I'm actually phenomenal at pinball
I'm really good at,
from this flipper hitting it
so that it bounces off this target here,
and drains about 165 miles an hour
that's probably my specialty
all right,
high score coming up.
In all seriousness
I'm a total pinball novice,
so apologies in advance
for my sorry display of skills
and potential incorrect terminology.
Starting with a gobstopper
if you hit it once it will spin around revealing a hole
and then you can hit a ball in locking it for multiball,
it's actually a virtual lock
it's not keeping the balls physically
it pops them back out into the shoot again,
just there,
but one other ways to build multiballs,
is to activate various locks,
now we're in the pot bumpers,
at the top I'm sure you've seen these,
on a pinball machine extremely fast moving,
extremely loud,
down here if the pink light is lit
the kickback will prevent the ball
from draining on the outer lane there,
when it's not lit
you lose the ball.
Locked another ball for multiball there in the gobstopper.
When the yellow light in the center middle is lit
the ball will be diverted from the gobstopper ramp
down onto magnet
to be hit through the spinner
and when the super lock light is lit
that will lock a ball for the Wonka Vater multiball
which as this machine
is the standard version is a virtual lock
on the limited edition, collector's edition
this is a physical lock
that sits at the back there
and it will physically store your balls
before dumping them back onto the playfield.
As you can see now I'm in,
what I like to call slingshot hell,
where my ball is just bouncing back and forth
between the slingshots,
finally gain control,
started gobstopper multiball,
locked three balls
and all three are now auto plunged back onto the playfield.
Multiball still freaks me out
even if I know what I'm supposed to be aiming at,
just the fact that
there's so many balls in the playfield
and you still have to keep your eye on
when a ball is about to hit the upper flippers
and the lower flippers,
it's a lot to look at,
and it didn't help here
that I actually started a second multiball
a kid multiball within the gobstopper multiball,
which crossed all six balls
to be on the playfield at the same time,
there's a lot going on.
This is actually a,
a montage of several different moments from the same,
play session,
but there are bits cut just to,
show different stuff happening a lot quicker.
So we can get to the slow motion.
If you get the high score,
when you submit your name
it'll take a picture of your face
and you'll hear a little funk inside the machine
which we'll get to later.
Grand champion.
To fully show
how this machine works,
we're gonna to need to film
underneath the play field
and thankfully you can just pull it out like this
and everything is still fully functional
I can activate pretty much everything,
you're also able to push it up fully,
the most common way for something
to move on the pinball machine
is through switches and solenoids,
and you can see a few of them here.
This empty gap in the bottom left
that's where the Wonka Vater ball lock would be,
if I had that version of the game.
A solenoid is basically very tightly coiled wire
which when a current passes through create a magnetic field,
pulling the metal rod through the center,
this one is the flipper
and this one is the vertical up kick
when the ball trough,
responsible for deploying balls,
and they work very quickly.
So why don't we get straight into slow-mo,
starting with the vertical up kicker,
of the ball trough.
Pressing the start button,
hits the switch which activates
the vertical kick trough,
firing the ball straight up into the shooter
while roll down,
and it's ready to be plunged,
by the plunger.
On a full plunge,
the ball will go right round the top,
straight into the pot bumpers
this was the part of the machine
I was most excited to see
just because the ball so quickly bounces back and forth
between these multiple times per second,
you can see the way it works
is when the ball rolls over the white plastic
the rod connected to the metal ring above
is pulled down by solenoid inside
so when it rolls over the white plastic,
this leaf switch completes the circuit,
activating solenoid
that pulls this rod down
and that is connected to the ring above
on the top of the play field
and the way the ring is angled
'causes the ball to be ejected out
from any angle that it approaches the pot bumper
you can see it now,
activating switch,
rod pulls down,
ball fires back out.
It bounces seriously fast,
I counted here that the ball went back and forth
eight times in less than half a second,
absolutely insane.
Now heading down to the flippers,
classic area of a pinball machine
as you can see
press the button,
flipper moves,
hits the ball away
it's a very strong mechanism
and there are actually two circuits regarding the flipper,
it's a solenoid once again,
actuating in this arm,
there's a circuit for the initial,
high power burst of current
which is needed to move it
and then a separate lower power circuit
to hold the flipper in place
if you wanna hold it up,
just so you're not running high current
through it constantly.
The spring will return it to its resting position,
when you physically press the flipper a button,
a little piece of plastic is pushing against,
metal leaf switches inside,
when one piece of metal knocks into another
it completes the connection.
You may be wondering
why is there three?
You can actually press just the first one
that activates the lower flipper,
when the first piece pushes
the second piece of metal into the third piece,
the entire circuit is complete
and the upper flipper
goes as well.
Usually both flippers go at the same time
'cause you're really smashing these things
this is the slingshot
slightly above the lower flippers.
You'll notice two leaf switches either side,
of this kicker also powered by a solenoid inside
when the ball approaches from either side of that thing
it will complete the circuit
causing the ball to be kicked out,
often straight into the other one
which causes a nice,
back and forth between them.
This is the gobstopper hole,
when a ball goes in
as I mentioned before the ball is locked
but it's actually just returned to you
through this plastic channel underneath
and then using another vertical up kicker,
is shot straight back up
and that is the ball that you continue playing with.
Comes out just slightly higher up the shooter lane,
then where the ball starts originally.
When multiball starts the game,
will just launch balls onto the play field for you
using the auto plunger.
This piece of metal is shaped to come out
either side of the normal plunger,
whacking the ball at full speed,
back up the shoot again.
When you hit the ball up the gobstopper ramp,
the ball can either continue straight through,
depending on where you are in the game
or if the yellow light is lit on the left there,
once the ball is detected using the optical sensors,
this divert a piece of metal will come down from the top,
slowing the ball down enough
for it to just drop through
this hole in the side.
If the ball is traveling full speed
it never falls down there.
The ball then fall down,
onto a magnet,
where it's ready to be hit by the upper left flipper,
into the spinner,
for usually some mad points.
'Cause every full rotation,
it activates this leaf switch
on the right here,
so you can see
if you hit it through there
and it spins 40 times
this switch repressed 40 times
which could mean 41 Cuba's
if you've got super spinner activated,
now we're into some multiball,
I'm honestly so surprised
at how often the ball
just leaps into the air
sometimes it will hit the glass
when you're playing.
Up here in the center is the captive ball
which operates exactly like a Newton's cradle
you have to hit the ball hard enough for it to send
the fireball into the target.
Basically just to target you have to hit pretty hard.
Now one of these balls is gonna drain out of the,
left outer lane,
which is the one that has the kickback
which when lit,
if the ball rolls over this metal roll over switch
is automatically bashed straight back out
and your ball is saved.
I spent a lot of time filming this machine,
one of the most fascinating parts of it to me,
was something I noticed when I was filming the flippers,
the ball is rarely hit just once,
the first impact almost stops the flipper and the ball,
and then as it catches up
it then does a secondary push
or secondary hit to the ball,
and not only that,
without a ball the flippers decelerate so fast,
that it ripples the rubber away from the plastic,
this all occurs in around 0.1 of a second
so incredibly difficult to see with the naked eye.
First, I thought something was wrong,
until I noticed this behavior on every single flipper
even the upper one here,
such force the rubber completely comes away,
in my quest to become better at pinball,
I was learning about a move called a live catch
where you sort of
meet the ball right as it lands in the flipper
and they sort of both cancel out each other's momentum.
It's I guess,
like the closest to a real life frame perfect trick
that there is in pinball.
So I was thinking
maybe the rubber whipping away
from the plastic on the flipper
actually extends the possible window of a live catch
because it's literally extending the flipper itself
and cushioning all around the ball,
it's actually not a good example of a live catch
'cause the ball still just rolled off the flipper
usually it's meant to just,
stop dead on the flipper
and then you haven't caught.
Now let's move on to the tilt bob,
it sits inside this machine on the left
as you can see it's swinging,
loosely and it's got a ring surrounding it
so you can see here when I,
nudge the machine
give a little tilt to try and save the ball,
it gave me a warning
'cause it detected that the tilt bob had hit the ring,
and it is a big part of the game,
sort of smack the machine around
but if the bob hits the ring three times,
you get a tilt,
you lose your current ball
and lose your bonus.
Finally,
we have the knocker,
it sits in the back box
so I've got to take this part off
and it's the thing you hear
when you get high score,
or if you roll over the special,
and it's just a solenoid with a plastic tip rod
that thumps a piece of metal.
Incredibly simple.
Well there we have it
I honestly found that so interesting,
just shoving the camera in different spots,
and learning how each piece worked,
just from the footage alone,
found it fascinating,
I really enjoyed that one,
hopefully you enjoyed it too
even if you're not into pinball
maybe you found it interesting anyway,
big fat thanks to Jersey Jack pinball,
for supplying this wonderful machine
and honestly supplying me with a new hobby
I've been in here almost every day for the last month,
just trying to get into Wonka's office
haven't done it yet
it's actually,
it's an easy game to sort of get going on
but it's a lot deeper than you think
there's actually a tonne to do
and I'm really just scraping the surface on it.
Okie dokie,
thank you very much for watching this video
make sure you share it
with someone who likes pinball
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about the sponsor of this video.
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