Scratch Built Attack from Mars 4k Virtual Pinball Cabinet - 3/4 size build

Brucey · September 21, 2025

Hi Everyone,
I scratch built my virtual pinball cabinet last year, it took me just under 1 year to complete, from research, design, sourcing parts, building, software, configuration etc. I'm still adding to it today (only recently some upgraded v4 solenoids from Cleveland Software Design - more on CSD in a future post - highly recommended).

I've been meaning to post about my build for a while, I documented the entire process with photos, so here it is - I'll upload posts periodically, following the process of the build so you can see how I completed each section (that's the idea anyway).

But first off, here are some photos and videos showing the completed build and here's the spec list - of what i can remember!

My main sources of inspiration and information throughout were: http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/BuildGuideV2/BuildGuide.php, and Way of the Wrench! https://www.youtube.com/@wayofthewrench, and https://www.clevelandsoftwaredesign.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/@rudysarcade (LoadedWeapon) and Major Frenchy and NailBuster of course!

Special shout out to Way of the Wrench, I would not have been anywhere near as successful with building my cabinet or planning out my build if it wasn't for his detailed tutorial series, if you're doing a similar build his videos are invaluable!

Spec:
⦁   Scratch built cabinet 32" ie 3/4 size build - plywood 3/4 inch, all designed in Sketchup following the Way of the Wrench tutorials
⦁   32" 4K playfield monitor, 22" HD backbox monitor, 11.6" full dmd screen
⦁   4k Gaming PC - Windows 11, i5 12400 6 cores 4.4ghz, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Nvidia RTX 4060 8GB - this was based inside the cab but i had all sorts of issues i'll go into, now it's sat just underneath the cab
⦁   Cabinet parts - Williams legs, 'real' flipper buttons with leaf switches, magna save buttons, coin door, T molding, cut down Stern side rails to fit the size, leg protectors, LED undercab lighting, customer speaker mesh, subwoofer and speakers spec below, *custom playfield lifting mechanism (tricky!), custom size cabinet tempered glass, acrylic glass for backbox and full dmd
⦁   Custom built lockdown bar from Cab Custom https://cabcustom.com/ thanks Franck!
⦁   Artwork - Alternative Attach from Mars from Retro Refurbs
⦁   Sound - speakers: Dayton Audio Reference RS100-4 Full-range Woofers, and Dayton Audio DCS205-4 Subwoofer, amplifier
⦁   SSF - all Cleveland Software Design - 2xBass Shakers - 50W Dayton Audio BST-1, amplifiers, 7.1 USB sound card, 4 x 40W Dayton Audio DAEX32EP-4 SSF pucks, 2 amplifiers for SSF
⦁   Haptics / Toys - all Cleveland Software Design - 10 solenoids, Shaker motor, accelerometer for nudge, strobes flashers
⦁   Also from Cleveland Software Design: Pinone board, expansion board, button board, all wiring, 12 v and 24 power supplies
⦁   Software: VPX 10.8, Pinup Popper, Cleveland Software Design for Haptics / Toys, Pinvol, DOF, plus many others I'm sure...

In future posts I'll go into how I designed it, built the cabinet, setup all Haptics / Toys, software, challenges etc - hopefully it can help someone else out there! If you want to see or know anything in particular just let me know, happy to help

Edited September 25, 2025 by Brucey

Brucey · September 25, 2025

One thing I forgot to mention was the cabinet height - it's a 3/4 size cabinet (roughly) but I didn't want to be bent down to play a short pinball machine, therefore I came up with a solution whereby i ensured the height of the base cabinet was a 'full size' pinball machine height - while keeping all other measurements around 3/4 scale, ...now standard pinball legs hold it at the correct height. It worked perfectly in the end, the lockbar or 'hand' height when playing is bang on, it doesn't feel like a mini machine

Brucey · September 25, 2025

The first phase was designing the cabinet and at the same time sourcing parts. It was a bit chicken and egg, as I needed the monitor sizes to scale the cabinet around them, but I also needed to design the cab to get a feel for the whole design. This whole process took around 2 months, I really wanted to get this right so took my time to learn Sketchup, not having had any CAD experience (it's easy with a little patience), Way of the Wrench videos were brilliant for this, not sure I would have designed in CAD if not for his tutorial videos - watch them!

Parts I needed dimensions of for designing in CAD - 3x monitors, speakers, subwoofer, coin door, flipper buttons, front panel buttons, plunger button, leg holes placement, clearance for cables in backbox etc

The cabinet is roughly 3/4 size, therefore I needed check whether all parts were actually going to fit inside, the PC was the biggest concern, it definitely made the designing more difficult as it posed issues that a full size cab simply wouldn't have. I still think it's the ideal size for home use - still with a nice big 4k monitor at 32". There were a lot of design decisions to make here, so it's good to take your time at this stage, it'll save you a lot of hassle during the build.

The backbox was tricky to design as it has 2 monitors, the speakers, wiring holes, removable back panel, vent holes, and the speaker panel / grill - the latter of which was a big challenge (More on this in a future post, covering the actual build.). Everything in the backbox needed to be removable as I may need to swap out one of the monitors in the future, this took a lot of thought around design.

One decision - not visible in the images - was to raise the base panel of the cabinet up (recessed) by around 20mm, this was to provide room for undercab LEDs - really glad I did this, as it gives a cleaner finish!

The two final areas that I must have redesigned a dozen times were the speaker panel and the front panel buttons placement.

Once I was happy with it all, I copied the design, pulled it all apart into a 'cut' plan, and annotated all the measurements.

I took these measurements and the cut plan and sent to a local timber merchant who very kindly cut pretty much all pieces to the exact size! Saving me a ton of time and effort, I don't have a well kitted out workshop / garage so this helped a lot. However the hard bit was to come - assembling the beast!