The Hobbit Underside Tour | Episode 5

Jersey Jack Pinball·video·7m 57s·analyzed·Jan 28, 2017

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.018

TL;DR

Jersey Jack Pinball underside tour showcases The Hobbit's complex coil, switch, and lighting architecture.

Summary

Butch Peel from Jersey Jack Pinball provides a detailed technical tour of The Hobbit pinball machine's underside, explaining the playfield mechanisms, lighting systems, coil architecture, and switch types. He highlights the game's 11 drop targets (requiring 22 coils), dual magnet system, RGB LED insert lighting, and various switch technologies (micro, leaf, and optical). The video emphasizes the complexity of the playfield engineering and sets up future detailed maintenance and troubleshooting content.

Key Claims

The Hobbit has 11 drop targets requiring 22 coils (one to kick up, one to knock down each target)
high confidence · Butch Peel explaining drop target mechanics; he counts them: three on left side, three on right side, five across middle top, three on lower left, three on lower right, five in center = 11 total
The Hobbit uses more coils than The Wizard of Oz due to the drop target system
medium confidence · Butch Peel stated: 'there's a whole lot of coils more coils even than on The Wizard of Oz used in The Hobbit'
Drop target shuffle/walk feature is patented
high confidence · Butch Peel: 'that we patented that it's a great great feature in this game'
The Hobbit has two magnets mounted on the same bracket at the top of the playfield
high confidence · Butch Peel describing magnet placement and function for ball control into hobbit holes and pop bumpers
Smaug motor is almost entirely above the playfield, with only the motor sticking out underneath
high confidence · Butch Peel: 'this giant Beast that spins around and talks to you and all this thing he's virtually all above the Playfield the only thing you see here is the bottom of his motor'

Notable Quotes

“there's a whole lot of coils more coils even than on The Wizard of Oz used in The Hobbit because we've got to set drop targets and knock drop targets down each one of those drop targets is going to take two coils”
Butch Peel@ 2:10 — Explains the engineering complexity and mechanical intensity of The Hobbit compared to previous Jersey Jack title
“every one of those drop targets has to have a single coil to kick it up and a single coil to knock it back down again so that we can individually control those and kick them up and down and walk them around the Playfield and reset them like your shuffling cards just real fast motion”
Butch Peel@ 3:10 — Details the patented drop target shuffle mechanic that defines The Hobbit's gameplay
“all of the inserts on the center have RGB LEDs that we can make any color we like”
Butch Peel@ 1:09 — Describes the lighting architecture separating general illumination from playfield inserts
“an opto is an infrared Optical switch has a transmitter on one side a receiver on the other side anything that breaks that beam in between there makes the switch”
Butch Peel@ 6:18 — Educational explanation of optical switch technology used extensively in The Hobbit
“I'm all for those so kind of a special sort of coil is a magnet we have two of those in The Hobbit game they're up here at the very top they're mounted to the same bracket”
Butch Peel@ 3:32 — Personal endorsement of drop targets combined with magnet system explanation

Entities

Butch Peelperson Jersey Jack Pinballcompany The HobbitgameThe Wizard of OzgameSmaugproduct

Signals

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design_innovation: The Hobbit features a patented drop target shuffle mechanic that allows individual control of 11 drop targets with 22 coils, enabling 'walking' effects across the playfield
high · Butch Peel explicitly states drop targets are patented and describes the shuffle feature: 'kick them up and down and walk them around the Playfield and reset them like your shuffling cards'
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technology_signal: The Hobbit uses a dual-lighting system: white general illumination LEDs (non-color, separate voltage controller) around playfield edges, and RGB LEDs on all center inserts for color-changing effects
high · Butch Peel detailed separation: 'General illumination have white LEDs that do not change color all of the inserts on the center have RGB LEDs that we can make any color we like'
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design_innovation: The Hobbit incorporates dual magnets mounted on same bracket at top of playfield to intelligently route balls into hobbit holes and pop bumpers based on shot direction
high · Butch Peel: 'two of those in The Hobbit game they're up here at the very top they're mounted to the same bracket and they actually have a big screw on the end of them...can grab the ball when it comes around and drop it into either a hobbit hole on this side or drop it into the pop bumpers'
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gameplay_signal: The Hobbit has substantially more coils than The Wizard of Oz due to drop target architecture, requiring 22 coils just for the 11 drop targets plus additional coils for other playfield mechanics
high · Butch Peel: 'there's a whole lot of coils more coils even than on The Wizard of Oz used in The Hobbit because we've got to set drop targets and knock drop targets down'
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Topics

Drop target mechanics and patented shuffle systemprimaryPlayfield lighting architecture (RGB vs general illumination)primaryCoil systems and electromagnetic mechanismsprimarySwitch types (micro, leaf, optical/opto)primaryMagnet system for ball controlsecondarySmaug motorized toy designsecondaryFuture maintenance and troubleshooting content planningsecondaryComparison to The Wizard of Oz engineeringmentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Butch Peel is enthusiastic about the engineering (particularly drop targets), professional in tone, educational in approach. No complaints or criticisms present. Emphasis on feature innovation (patented shuffle) and technical achievement.

Transcript

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[Applause] [Music] hi Butch peel with Jersey Jack pinball again in this video we're going to tour the underside of The Hobbit Playfield I've got a game here with The Hobbit Playfield pulled up against the backbox and on the side over here I've got a rotisserie device set up with a hobbit fully populated Hobbit Playfield that we can reference back and forth and remember everything in these videos are with the players perspective in mind so so this is the bottom of the Playfield and the top of the Playfield kind of messes it up when we tip it up like that so let's take a look under the Playfield first the pops out of you here is all the wiring boy that's a lot of wiring a lot of big mechanisms here a lot of things going on under this Playfield as uh you notice the first thing of course that comes to your eye is the lighting you got a color lights in the center of the Playfield and you got white lights going around the outside the white lights are the general illumination lights and on Hobbit that's a separate system so those are run off of a different uh controller and voltage so General illumination have white LEDs that do not change color all of the inserts on the center have RGB LEDs that we can make any color we like so when we look on the upper portion of the Playfield to show what that looks like down here at the bottom here are three acrylic rods that go up through the Playfield they have a single white LED behind them that we can control the intensity on and so we can turn those up and down make them blink on and off do all those sorts of things but they don't change color and so on under all the Plastics on the Playfield are those General illumination bolts in the center of the Playfield all of the inserts those are going to be RGB LEDs so every one of these is on a a big board here if I look back onto the main Playfield here this board here has this giant printed circuit board has all of these inserts on it so every one of those has an RGB LED associated with it so we can keep track of the locks and all those types of things change color so all the color in the center of the Playfield white around the Ed edges and that gives the whole Playfield a lot brighter look so next thing we see on here is a lot of coils there's a whole lot of coils more coils even than on The Wizard of Oz used in The Hobbit because we've got to set drop targets and knock drop targets down each one of those drop targets is going to take two coils now so the coils are these big drum looking things here under the Playfield every one of these is going to kick and do something on top of the Playfield make the ball move really fast they're very powerful they're going to do some really really cool things with the ball on the Playfield surface some of them are going to push things up out of the surface some of them are going to reset drop targets some of them are going to kick flippers so this motion right here under the Playfield kicking this coil is going to cause this motion so each one of these drop targets there's three here there's three here there's five here go back to the main Playfield over here there's three on this side there's three on this side and there's five across the middle up here so those 11 drop targets take 22 coils to control so every one of those drop targets has to have a single coil to kick it up and a single coil to knock it back down again so that we can individually control those and kick them up and down and walk them around the Playfield and reset them like your shuffling cards just real fast motion very cool feature again that we patented that it's a great great feature in this game and I love drop targets personally so I'm all for those so kind of a special sort of coil is a magnet we have two of those in The Hobbit game they're up here at the very top they're mounted to the same bracket and they actually have a big screw on the end of them cu the pole in that magnet goes up through the Playfield surface so that magnet can grab the ball when it comes around and drop it into either a hobbit hole on this side or drop it into the pop bumpers on this side so what that looks like over here on this play field you have the magnet here way up at the top here that drops the ball grabs it on an orbit shot drops it into the pop bumpers and then one through here that grabs it when it comes by here and drops it into this Hobbit Hole down here so it can come up one of the vertical up kickers so Motors in this game there's one big motor to talk about that's the one for smouth so this small little square motor here is all you see of smog underneath the Playfield so what do you see above the Playfield this giant Beast that spins around and talks to you and all this thing he's virtually all above the Playfield the only thing you see here is the bottom of his motor sticking out from underneath the play field three screws right there he comes completely out the top of the play field so next up is switches if you look through this this massive wiring and and mechanical Mayhem here you can see a switch here every once in a while most of them around the edges if you look at these switches here on the edge When A ball rolls over these they have they're a micro switch they stick up through a slot in the Playfield surface when the ball rolls over that it depresses that and makes the micro switch click and that's all that it takes to register a switch those on the Playfield look like these two little Rings sticking up through these slots right here all the ball does roll over one of those and it knows it made one of those switches another type of switch under the Playfield are Leaf switches a good example of those on the Hobbit are these four rollovers here in the center those are the rollover buttons in the center for lock and that's where you see above the Playfield are these four rollover buttons and they're clear so they have an RGB LED behind them and we can light them in whatever color we want too so all you see those those uh buttons sticking up over the Playfield very much like The Wizard of Oz with the characters and the Toto in the in the outlane same sort of of of feature there but now what happens the ball rolls over that and it it makes the uh metal contacts of the switch come together and makes it contact so another another leaf type of switch would be our our slingshots they're up here alongside the the slingshot coil they show really well over here you got these two switches one bottom one top that come together when the ball hits the the sling forces them together and tells the slingshot to kick the ball away from there so the last type of switch underneath the Playfield are optos there's a lot of optos in The Hobbit game because every single one of these drop targets has its own opto associated with it an opto is an infrared Optical switch has a transmitter on one side a receiver on the other side anything that breaks that beam in between there makes the switch so in the case of an opto on these drop targets we use a U-shaped opto so the transmitter and receiver are here and opposite one another we have a fin on the back of the drop Target when the drop Target raises up it breaks that beam and tells the the game that the drop Target is in the up position when it falls it knows the beam is open and it knows the drop target has been knocked down a great example of optos in The Hobbit is the ramps the steel ramps have holes cut in them on either side and they have a pair of optos a transmitter a receiver so you have an optical infrared switch here the transmitter and receiver going back and forth when the ball goes in between it knows that that beam has been broken and can tell you that the ball went up this side of the ramp and there's also a setup back here for making it all the way around that ramp same thing on this side so there's opos all over on this Playfield surface also so we're intentionally staying at a very high level on this overview I want to tell you in great detail about all the coils in the game how they all work how the switches and everything is wired together all the all the RGB LEDs and the GI system we're not going to go too far into that in these videos we're going to do that in videos down the road and show you some more in-depth information about this let you be able to see when problems are coming see when you when you have a problem how to fix it how to get it working again and keep your game running tiptop shape speaking of a game running in tiptop shape get out there and play it challenge somebody to a game of [Music]