Rotisserie 

“Everybody needs a Rotisserie!” 

Not just for chicken dinners or roast suckling pig, a rotisserie is almost essential for doing serious work on a pinball playfield.

The internet has lots of designs for building your own, and you can buy some pretty fabulous devices as well.

I came across a design that uses a Mitre Saw Stand as the base, and I thought that was a fairly good starting point. I set about the arduous task of waiting for one to come on special (it’s a regular event), and the monopoly hardware chain¹ dropped their price to match the German supermarket duopoly challenger²

I bought the unit from the hardware store on the basis that there would be more of them out there, and getting parts would be easier. Who knows if that’s true but it felt Ok.

The outside of the box seems to indicate that it would do the job:

The idea is to replace the rollers on their square section posts with something that holds up a playfield and rotates.

I got 2 bits of Galvanised Steel Square Tube 30mmx30mm and a few bearings and 10mm bolts, a length of scrap 2 by 4³ , and 3D printed a bearing housing/square section stopper.

Sophisticated Measurements

Note: Outside 30 x 30

 |--26.6mm--|

+----+
|\   |
|36\ |
+----+ 
	  

^{Sophisticated Measurements.}

Assembly

Just bolt it together:

The bolt goes through the bearing housing and screws directly into the 2x4:

And it works:

 

The big advantage of this design is that:

• The mitre saw stand is not changed at all, so it can do double duty.
• The 2x4 is easily replaced, and you can drill and screw things to it as needed. Very handy when you need a cable tie-down or solder station.
• Everything gets held in place with steel cable when I want rigidity, or something elastic when I want to tilt things around.
• For rotation I put a screw in the outside of the arms and use a cable with lots of loops, selecting different loops gives different amounts of rotation.
• I added some L brackets (50x50x390x1.8) to support a playfield that didn’t have a top any more (it had rotted off).
• All up cost around $AU120.

1. Bunnings. 

2. Aldi.

3. Actually 70x35mm, but who’s counting?