Heighway Pinball Production Update

[mwong168]

After over 3.5 years of intensive Research & Development - where we literally re-designed, and modernized, many aspects of a pinball machine - we are finally at the point where full production begins of our first game, Full Throttle.

We will start off slowly - to make sure we get it right. 20 games will be in the first run, then 40 a month later ... and on from there.

Quality control will be a huge part of what we are doing - so we will be concentrating on this every step of the way.

We will share with you photos and experiences along this journey.

There are many passionate members on Pinside who have an amazing knowledge about pinball. As many of you know, we have listened to your voices over the last few years and have brought about many changes as a result of your feedback.

So we thank you for your input, and look forward to sharing our journey with you as we begin shipping out games in the near future.

Please keep an eye out for a YouTube video on our official channel before the end of the week. We will post the link here.

Thanks for reading.

Heighway Pinball

 

[Chris Bardon]

Great to see them getting games built. Did they ever change up the backbox design to incorporate a second LCD for spectators, or is that planned for the next game?

Anyone here getting one?

 

[mwong168]

April 10, 2015 Update

 

[REVOLUTION]

I can't pinpoint it but there's something about their cab design i find really... Aesthetically weird?

It looks like they were designed by Ben Heck.

 

[mwong168]

I can't pinpoint it but there's something about their cab design i find really... Aesthetically weird?

It looks like they were designed by Ben Heck.

I think the reason for this is because the cab designed to be modular so you can easily swap in other future games just like Pinball 2000 was trying to do towards the end. They have even made certain parts of the playfield modular such as the flipper mechanisms.

You can drop the whole mechanism out and rebuild it outside the machine and the only downfall to this is that it leaves a big exposed hole the shape of a flipper bat which can be visible when the flipper is in the full up position.

I believe they did the same for the slings and pop bumpers which I think makes more sense and historically are a pain in the ass to rebuild on B/W games. Anyways, looks like these guys are on schedule and going to be delivering on their promise in a few weeks so looking forward to seeing this make it to the hands of collectors.

 

[REVOLUTION]

Here's hoping someone local has theirs express shipped in so we can see an unboxing video

 

[mwong168]

 

[Menace]

Is it me, or does that LCD / backbox setup look kinda home-brew / micky mouse? I can't put my finger on it, but something about it just isn't sitting right with me...

D

 

[REVOLUTION]

So it plays Youtube clips?

 

[dnewman]

The LCD / backbox reminds me of a laptop computer... It looks like it should be folded down when not in use...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Pinball Sales]

This looks amazing. Really fascinating how much pinball has come to in terms of technology and better playing etiquette. Can't wait to see more!

 

[mwong168]

PRODUCTION UPDATE

As we get deeper into our first production run, we thought we would share some photos and information of the build process so far.

Production is coming along nicely. There are a few small delays. The playfields are 95% perfect but are going back for slight re-work to make them 100%. This vilifies our decision to make all of our playfields ourselves in the future - so we can keep a check on quality control at every step of the process. The playfields should be back on Thursday/Friday of this week. Everything is pretty much ready to assemble onto the playfields now, and this build should be a quick process

We are waiting on a few parts to be re-worked and these should also be finished within a week.

The first build is always by far the slowest - especially as suppliers often have to re-work, or in some cases, remake, parts that they have never made before in production quantities.

Pop bumper mechanisms ready to be installed

Up/down post mechanisms

Flipper mechanisms about to be built

Some more power supplies arrived

Side panels about to be fitted

More wood arrives for the next run of 40 games

Side panel LEDs installed into cabinets

Backbox panels and speakers installed (but not wired in yet)

Playfields being lacquered

Main cabinets

Our boxing/shipping solution. Game as it will be shipped - box printing not present yet

 

[mwong168]

 

[spiroagnew]

Well placed Ghostbusters and Back to the Future posters hung in the background of that video. Is it a coincidence those two franchises appear on the walls of this pinball factory in two separate workspaces?

 

[tim.sanderson]

Well placed Ghostbusters and Back to the Future posters hung in the background of that video.

How great would those titles be? I think GB might actually be a bit better of a theme. Although the BTTF song is one of my favs from any moving...

 

[REVOLUTION]

MJ Fox wouldn't allow his likeness in the original BTTF, so who's to say he'd change his tune for this one? Chris Lloyd also wanted wayyy too much for his likeness on the Pinball Arcade TAF release.. this game wouldn't be a BTTF without them

 

[mwong168]

Another update posted yesterday by Heighway:

A long overdue update here.

We are expecting the first 10 SEs to be built by the end of this week, and the next 10 by the end of next week.

The big delay was having to scrap the first 20 sets of ball guides because the quality wasn't good enough, and the supplier put their hands up and said "that's the best we can do" So ... that meant having to find another supplier at short notice. This would normally add another 4-6 weeks on top, but we got the new sets turned around in only 2 weeks - and they look great. A polished stainless steel finish on guides for a change!

Without guides, its impossible to fully build up playfields, but that's happening now.

Once the build on the first 10 games is finished, they'll be programmed and tested for a week. IF there are no glitches, then the first 10 will ship out approximately 2 weeks from now ... with the next 10 a week later.

Then will come the next 40 games - which will include LEs. This extra time will allow us to finish work on the fibre optic wiring and the shaker motors.

In the meantime, we hope to announce our participation at a major U.S. show coming soon. We are trying to get 2 x production Full Throttles there in time.

We are planning an update, with photos and a new YouTube video, this Friday.

This update will include news of some MAJOR new machinery arriving at the factory (3 pieces, one of which is arriving and being installed tomorrow)

Thanks for reading and sorry again for the delay in this update.

 

[mwong168]

 

[mwong168]

Just posted by Andrew on pinside:

It's a very proud moment today for myself, and everyone associated with my company, as we complete our first 2 production games, box them and ship them out.

This event also sees us making history as we are now officially the UK's first ever mainstream manufacturer of coin-operated pinball machines.

It has taken 3.5 years to get to this point, but we have designed what we believe to be a truly innovative pinball system that will be used for many years to come.

We would like to thank Full Throttle customers for their patience, as their games will start to be completed from next week onwards. The first 2 games are USA show games, and these games are heading for Boston for the Pintastic New England show early next month.

From this point onwards, we will be concentrating on upscaling our business. Much of the hard work has been done now. We have our suppliers, we have a lot of parts in stock. We have also fine-tuned a lot of our manufacturing processes, which will see us complete many of these processes in-house from now on. More news about this shortly.

Our factory and our facilities are set up to allow us to make hundreds of games a month. This can be increased to thousands of games a month by using the second half of our factory, if the business dictates it. We have started slowly, and will start upscaling from this point onwards.

So - thanks for following us so far and we all hope you enjoy the game we have now, and the games we have planned for the future.

Andrew Heighway
CEO

 

[Chris Bardon]

Good for them-hope the game is good. Are those pictures of the production game though? Seems a little risky to have the exposed PCBs in the bottom of the cab like that...