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My Turner Pinball Factory Tour

Cary Hardy·video·18m 13s·analyzed·Nov 28, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Kerry Hardy tours Turner Pinball factory, documents modular board design and ~100 machine/year production capacity.

Summary

Kerry Hardy visits Turner Pinball's 3,000 sq ft facility in San Antonio for a factory tour with Chris Turner, documenting the manufacturing process across three bays: CNC playfield cutting, playfield assembly using rotisseries, and cabinet/final assembly. Turner explains their modular board design philosophy with socketed components for serviceability, production capacity of ~100 machines annually, and current output targets of 9 machines per week.

Key Claims

  • Turner Pinball is limiting production to 100 machines total due to facility space constraints

    high confidence · Chris Turner: 'I'm glad we only chose to do 100 machines because I don't think I could have fit parts or any more in here'

  • Turner Pinball uses a modular board system with socketed power supply, switch/LED driver, and coil driver boards for serviceability

    high confidence · Chris Turner demonstrates and explains the miniature off-board modules design allowing individual component replacement without board removal

  • Turner Pinball currently producing 4-9 machines per week with target of 9 going out in one specific week and 4 more the following week

    high confidence · Chris Turner: 'we've got four machines that are going to go out this week... I'm hoping we're going to have nine going out this week'

  • Turner Pinball uses reverse-mount LEDs soldered from the board back to allow hand replacement without disassembly

    high confidence · Chris Turner explains unique reverse-mount LED design with large solder tabs for hand soldering capability

  • Turner Pinball cuts two playfields at a time on CNC and assembles four at a time using rotisseries

    high confidence · Chris Turner: 'We cut two play fields at a time... we do four at a time. It's kind of all the space that we have here and it seems like batching them in multiples like this it produces the most efficient workflow'

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm glad we only chose to do 100 machines because I don't think I could have fit parts or any more in here”

    Chris Turner@ 10:36 — Indicates deliberate production cap based on facility constraints, not market demand

  • “We designed all of the components that could be failure prone as off-board modules”

    Chris Turner@ 13:21 — Core design philosophy prioritizing long-term serviceability and owner/operator maintainability

  • “I feel like wiring in the pinball machine can be one of the most intimidating parts, especially from a service perspective... So just optimizing the wiring has really helped us a lot”

    Chris Turner@ 11:29 — Emphasizes design priority for operator/technician ease of service as differentiation strategy

  • “It's a small facility but I'll show you around”

    Chris Turner@ 6:28 — Sets expectations for boutique manufacturer scale and space efficiency

  • “When I talked to the box company and they were sending all the boxes down they were like, oh yeah we're sending a 26-foot box truck with your shipment... It's all your stuff in the box truck. And I was like, oh wow, that's a lot of boxes”

    Chris Turner@ 8:25 — Illustrates manufacturing scale and inventory management challenges for small boutique manufacturer

Entities

Kerry HardypersonChris TurnerpersonTurner PinballcompanyCollierpersonTracepersonTexas Pinball Festivalevent

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Turner Pinball deliberately capped production at 100 machines annually due to facility space constraints (3,000 sq ft)

    high · Chris Turner explicitly states 'I'm glad we only chose to do 100 machines because I don't think I could have fit parts or any more in here' and demonstrates current production running 4-9 machines per week

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Turner Pinball prioritizes long-term serviceability and operator maintainability through modular, socketed board design with replaceable components

    high · Chris Turner explains reverse-mount LEDs for hand soldering, socketed power/driver boards, and simplified connector system designed to prevent incorrect assembly

  • ?

    community_signal: Chris Turner demonstrates hands-on involvement in manufacturing decisions and process optimization, personally working on facility organization and workflow efficiency

    high · Turner narrates design decisions, demonstrates equipment functionality, and discusses space optimization strategies throughout tour

  • ?

    technology_signal: Turner Pinball's modular board architecture with off-board components represents alternative approach to monolithic PCB design common in larger manufacturers

    medium · System uses ribbon cables and keyed connectors to allow swap of power supply, switch/LED driver, and coil driver boards without board removal

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.055

0:00
All right guys, road trip today. Like a part of me is excited and another part of me is not excited. Part of me that's excited is that I'm going to get to like, you know, see Turner Pinball's facility and get to see how they're put together and all that. But the part of me that's not excited is that it's six hours away.
0:39
So I have just finished dropping the kids off at school, and now I'm about to fuel up the vehicle and my stomach and begin my trek.
0:58
So I'm already in the drive-thru waiting and I feel like I'm gonna be here very long time because it's it's Whataburger and they take forever. Let's do sausage, egg and cheese, two of them by themselves please and that'll be all. Thank you. I mean what exactly is a Whataburger day? Have yourself a wonderful Whataburger day. I don't even know what that means. No, I just had the two sandwiches. I just had the two sandwiches, I'm good. I don't know why they put it in two different bags. One bag is different size, so now I'm kind of wondering if I got the right order. So I'm going through my two bags just now, and that girl cannot hear, evidently. I mean, I've got it all right here on video. I thought I spoke pretty clearly, even at the drive-thru, when she asked me if I wanted a coffee. And I was like, no, just the two sandwiches. And she's like, what?
2:01
I was wondering why my total was a little higher than expected. And I had to, like, put it together. I'm like, why do I have the two sandwiches that I ordered and a cinnamon roll? I didn't order a cinnamon roll. And I'm like, what could she misconstrued as cinnamon roll? And the only thing I can think is when I said, Bells, please, and that'll be all. I don't know how she heard and that will be all and thought I said cinnamon roll.
2:33
I don't know. But a part of me was like, oh, they gave me a cinnamon roll. Oh, that's probably because I had to wait so damn long. That's so nice of them. But no, I paid for the damn thing. So therefore, now I've got to eat it.
2:50
Reached the halfway point, guys. We're halfway there. I do have a cinnamon roll that I am really thinking about digging into. I think I'm going to stop before I planned for a couple of things. One, get me another energy drink. Two, get me some napkins so I can eat this cinnamon roll because it's looking pretty tasty right now. all right napkins energy drink cinnamon bun i think it was made fresh whenever i got there but it doesn't feel fresh anymore now it feels like a brick i'm just gonna eat till i get that gooey center and then i'm gonna call it done it's not worth it I'm not going to force myself to eat that. Get rid of some of this trash, including the cinnamon bun I just ate, and get back on the road.
3:55
We are a little over one hour out from reaching our destination. What I'm doing, it's basically, I am totally winging this, guys. I really don't know how this is going to go down, how the filming thing is going to work. I don't know. But we're more than likely going to sit down and do probably a live session on my YouTube channel. Just kind of cast it out there, get a chance for people to ask Chris some questions if they have any and stuff like that. Maybe this will be the first episode of me visiting pinball manufacturers and there will be more to come And this is obviously thanks to my patrons out there they basically paying for all of this my transportation and all of that basically the only thing out of my pocket is my time and effort but still you know by all means special thanks to them for this all right i am like 15 minutes out from my destination nice and sunny down here near the san antonio region i've got the ac going now because it's a little warm it's a little chilly this morning that's where we're at texas at this point in the time of the year is that it's cold in the mornings and when i say cold anything less than 60 degrees that's cold but it's cold in the mornings hot in the damn afternoon and then it's nice and cool in the evenings so you get all the seasons in one day at this time of year in Texas so i just entered a key code required area in order to get to my destination that required a pin code that chris provided for me and now i'm driving down a very long path i think this is him right here though this looks like what he was talking about a steel building maybe yeah we are here all right guys here we're going to do an actual tour with chris turner over turner pinball and we're walking into the facility right now and we got our tour guide right here mr turner pinball how's it going so he's going to show us basically the entire facility and how everything works let's do it. It's a small facility but I'll show you around. So we've got some of our games over here that we like to play. We've got the games that we took to TPF this past year over there in the corner and then an assembly area here. You can see we've got some back boxes that are in process there, some glass frames in the back there. So we work on this table here and assemble those and stage them and as we go around you'll see we don't have a lot of space here and so we're trying to find any area we can to build something and kind of store it temporarily. Some desks for, this is Collier and Trace working on assembly stuff. And over here, we've got kind of our computer area. We do our software development, mechanical design, and things over here. And then we can kind of go to the next bay. There's basically three bays here.
7:20
And we'll start out on this side. This is where we cut our playfields. And so we've got our CNC there and you can see the wood in the back. Those are kind of staged and ready to load on the CNC. We cut two play fields at a time and then the play fields go from this side to this side over here where we do all our play field assembly. Collier here is working on getting the underside of the play field assembled and we've got four rotisseries and we do four at a time. It's kind of all the space that we have here and it seems like batching them in multiples like this it produces the most efficient workflow for us. And then you can kind of see we've got these shelves. I went back and forth to Home Depot a lot of times to buy yet another set of shelves, but we've got part storage here. You can see all the wire form ramps there, metal parts and boxes, and then the boxes that the machines go in. I think I underestimated a little bit the amount of space that's gonna take. When I talked to the box company and they were sending all the boxes down they were like, oh yeah we're sending a 26-foot box truck with your shipment. I was like, oh okay, and they're like, it's full. It's all your stuff in the box truck. And I was like, oh wow, that's a lot of boxes. Anyway, we got it all stored up on top and then this is kind of the assembly area for things that are going to go on the playfield. We've got a lot of our wiring harnesses and the tools that are in use there and then all our circuit boards over here and then all of our fasteners and things over there. Trying to organize things the best as we can to have close access to what we need in this limited space As we go back over this this is kind of our electrical soldering area We can make harnesses and things there. We've got fasteners that go specifically to mech assembly. We'll do some of that here on this table. Then we'll go to the third bay. And this is where we're doing cabinets and then getting play fields in cabinets, getting the back boxes on, and then getting things in boxes. So here we have cabinet parts, back box parts, glass frame parts. We've got four machines that are going to go out this week. And then we're trying, we've got these play fields done, and I need to get decals on these cabinets and get them wired out. I'm hoping we're going to have nine going out this week. And then the four that you saw over there will be for next week. and tool storage, saws and things, all our clamps for our cabinets, raw parts for cabinets there, and I'm working on this area a little bit trying to get the space a little more organized. But you can see we've got the cabinet sides, some of the other cabinet parts are behind you there, and the cabinet bottoms. We'll basically put this little pallet thing down. We do all the gluing and clamping right here and then we get it on one of the rolling carts and then we get the decals on and get all the the insides wired up so it's not a lot of space but we're trying to use it the best we can and I'm glad we only chose to do 100 machines because I don't think I could have fit parts or any more in here so this one that you're looking at here it's uh it's all wired out and it's ready for the back box to go on and for the play field to go in. And so you can see the the wiring is very organized in our cabinet. This is going to go up to the play field, that's the power for the play field. This comes from the cabinet PCB up to the play field and then this will go up to the back box. And that's the entire wiring that goes to the back box. So the only other thing that comes down from the back box is there's an ethernet cable that comes down through here that also goes to the play field. But yeah, that's pretty much it. So really try to keep the wiring as efficient as possible. I feel like wiring in the pinball machine can be one of the most intimidating parts, especially from a service perspective, and from an assembly perspective too. So just optimizing the wiring has really helped us a lot.
11:42
So something I want you to show the viewers here is those miniature boards basically like that your I guess essentially your version of a node board for those that are curious on oh what happens if I you know if a lose a coil or something like that and explain how your board system works because people see these large boards here and they kind of go what's going on here kind of thing what happens if a a major component on here goes out and so you can explain all that yeah absolutely So our board really works as like a wiring harness. The only other thing that's inside it besides the wiring traces are the LEDs. And these are unique LED. It's a reverse mount LED. So normally if you saw a board like this, the LED would be mounted on the other side. You wouldn't see it at all. but these are mounted on the back, the bottom of the board, but they shine through, so there's a hole through the board where those mount, and this is a kind of a zoomed-in picture of what the LED looks like. It's got these big solder tabs, and it just kind of, it's just got like these arms out, and then you rest it on the board, and then you solder from this side of the board. So, you know, LEDs, not a high failure component, but it's possible that they could fail over time, And so we wanted to make it possible to be able to hand solder one of those from this side of the board without having to take everything apart. But ultimately this board, the wiring harness and LED board, is meant to last the life of the machine. If we had to replace it, it's not that hard to do, but I really don't want to have to do that. So we designed all of the components that could be failure prone as off-board modules. This is a 5 volt power supply, it powers all the LEDs and the microcontrollers. And what we do is we just line that up and that sockets in It got some spacers there that will clip it in And then this is our switch and LED board So that drives all the LEDs and reads all the switches And that goes right on here You line it up and press it on. And we've got screws. And then I don't have one right here on the table, but there's a coil driver board that goes right here. Drives eight coils. This machine takes two of them. And so those boards go there. And so if one of these components were to fail, you can just take this board we would sell you another one and we'd ship it out and then you'd be able to replace it. And it's just a ribbon cable that goes in between? Correct yeah I can go ahead and connect that right now we've got them right down here. So yeah this is passing all the signals between the two play fields so are the PCBs here and we just take push this in and then that jumpers over to this one here got that and then there's another cable that's for all the power and that's what this one is my clips in there You can also see we've got connectors for the coils and the switches and the off-board LEDs and they're all you can't plug the wrong thing into the wrong place so four pins for the LEDs three pins for the switches two pins and a special connector for the coils and everything is labeled in the silk screen and so everything has a number we have a lookup table that says you know switch 62 is whatever target it is and really it's like kind of the closest one to it is what it is in general because we wanted to make it easy for our assembly too so when we put this together it's pretty intuitive we just screw it all down and we just plug it in right where it goes show off these rotisseries right here that I want to have so this part's pretty standard you know it's just got the little cam lock here with the different positions sorry and so these can rotate and then it'll hold whatever position you want but I like these because you can sit down and work and I don't like standing up and like looking down just my neck after a long day of doing that so with these a lot of times I would work like this and I'll just kind of roll around I can do stuff like this and then I've got access to my parts and tools and other stuff that I can put on the shelf down here so all right so is that the the full tour of what we got going on here I think so I mean just uh 3,000 square feet is not a ton of space to build pinball machines so we're using it the best we can though you're making it work you got nice and shiny parts right here yeah
17:02
I look horrible. We'll make it work. I've got money. testing 1, 2, 3 testing I guess test your microphone testing 1, 2, 3 testing that's it stupid thing that's alright take 2 yeah take 2 on that one I hit like stop I was like, that's not what I'm about to do. You were trying to turn it around? Yeah. Yeah, I could do a flip around, but I hit the wrong button. I was like, doot. I was like, ugh.
18:04
God damn, that sun is beating down right here.