What to use on feet on thick carpet?

[Jib]

I’ll be getting my first pinball machine soon, it’ll be going on thick carpet/ underlay. What’s the best thing to use on the feet? A lot of Americans seem to suggest Teflon sliders but doesn’t that make it move too much when you nudge?

 

[Homepin]

"What’s the best thing to use on the feet?"

Warm slippers for the win!

Seriously though I would usually recommend rubber boots for harder surfaces but I'm not so sure these would be OK for carpet? No matter which way you go, the weight of a pinball machine is 100% going to leave some serious imprints in the carpet that the wife is going to be less than pleased about.

 

[G-501]

I use plastic castor cups.

They still allow you to move the machine for maintenance etc, but generally the machine doesn't move whilst playing.

 

[M4carp]

If it’s really thick carpet/underlay it’s going to dig right into it and leave an indentation, you could put a tile or a piece of thin flooring under the legs and maybe the rubber boots as well. That would protect the carpet but it doesn’t look great.

 

[Jib]

"What’s the best thing to use on the feet?"

Warm slippers for the win!

Seriously though I would usually recommend rubber boots for harder surfaces but I'm not so sure these would be OK for carpet? No matter which way you go, the weight of a pinball machine is 100% going to leave some serious imprints in the carpet that the wife is going to be less than pleased about.

I’m the wife! Lol. I’m not massively precious about the carpet, I know it’s going to get imprints, I’d rather not stretch it on nudging though. Tbh I was thinking more about the machine and play and whether a little movement on a nudge would be less impact for it and make nudging easier, but I also don’t want it ending up 2 foot from where I started!

 

[Deleted member 2463]

I'm unconvinced about those teflon things on thick carpets I've seen them cause game to be more unstable on certain types of carpet.

I think the default feet are the best but try it first. Set the tilt so if the game moves it tilts and the game won't move

 

[MartinY]

I use rubber feet on all of my machines. I don't have thick carpet though - fairly tight but I suspect it will be similar.

 

[Rob zombie]

I use the large brown furniture castors from B&Q which have a felt underside. Then I take a set of rubber pinball feet and trim the edges off them to fit inside the castors. This is what I use on wooden floors but I'd imagine it would be perfect for carpet too.

 

[BigIan]

i placed a strip of laminate flooring under rear legs running left to right, then another under the front legs as well. looks dump but has been used at a few pin meets as well

can add on feflon feet if you are afraid it might slip off the laminate plank with excessive nudging etc

 

[David_Vi]

With regards to the nudging, if you loosen the bolts on the legs slightly you can get a bit of movement out of the cabinet. It makes nudging easier and the feet won't move as much.

 

[Andydn]

With regards to the nudging, if you loosen the bolts on the legs slightly you can get a bit of movement out of the cabinet. It makes nudging easier and the feet won't move as much.

I really wouldn’t recommend that at all. I want those legs to be snug & tight, any movement could end up breaking the cabinet.


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[Pick Holder]

In all these years of having/repairing/dealing in pinballs I have never heard of anyone loosening legs to make them easier to nudge.
Wouldnt recommend this.

@Jib - those rubber feet are not bad, but like anything will 'dent' the deep carpet. I simply used to use off cuts of carpet under the feet.

 

[Jib]

Thanks all, I’ve order a couple of sets of proper rubber shoes that should fit nice and widen the area a tiny bit. I can experiment with if I want to add anything to the bottom of them with my vpin before the real deal arrives! Nudging with the vpin is different as you can adjust the sensitivity greatly.

 

[Homepin]

With regards to the nudging, if you loosen the bolts on the legs slightly you can get a bit of movement out of the cabinet. It makes nudging easier and the feet won't move as much.

Absolutely DO NOT do this under any circumstances.

Speaking with my manufacturers hat on, and the one who signs the (VERY large) cheque for our worldwide public liability insurance, I can say that most people would not believe the extreme detail we have to provide our insurer about exactly what information is supplied to the end user to GUARANTEE that they won't ever even contemplate doing things such as "leave the leg bolts loose" - OMG, my insurance broker would have a seizure if she knew people even thought about doing this.

This comment however, is a good reminder for me to add some things to our installation instructions so thanks for mentioning it - I would never have guessed that anyone would deliberately do this.

 

[M4carp]

I bolt my legs up tight as I can get away with, better if you have those metal protectors. Then nudge the bleep out of it in frustration

 

[David_Vi]

Absolutely DO NOT do this under any circumstances.

Speaking with my manufacturers hat on, and the one who signs the (VERY large) cheque for our worldwide public liability insurance, I can say that most people would not believe the extreme detail we have to provide our insurer about exactly what information is supplied to the end user to GUARANTEE that they won't ever even contemplate doing things such as "leave the leg bolts loose" - OMG, my insurance broker would have a seizure if she knew people even thought about doing this.

This comment however, is a good reminder for me to add some things to our installation instructions so thanks for mentioning it - I would never have guessed that anyone would deliberately do this.

They're not loose at all. Just tightened then a small turn left so they're not extremely tight.
I thought over tightening would be bad on the cab?
I'm still a novice really, so i appreciate knowing it's something I shouldn't have done. Although I was told the trick by other people so thought it was common.

 

[Homepin]

They're not loose at all. Just tightened then a small turn left so they're not extremely tight.
I thought over tightening would be bad on the cab?
I'm still a novice really, so i appreciate knowing it's something I shouldn't have done. Although I was told the trick by other people so thought it was common.

The legs bolts should be done up firmly so the legs cannot move. Any movement of the legs will weaken the threads on the receiving plate over time and a failure of the threads could lead to an injury at worst, damage to the machine or surrounding stuff at best.

This might seem a bit alarmist and far fetched but we do a lot of testing for fatigue of our metal parts here and you would be surprised how quickly parts can fail when exposed to stresses they weren't specifically designed to take.

I admit we have never tested our leg plates for this problem because I never thought anyone would actually not tighten them correctly - in fact, most people OVERTIGHTEN the leg bolts from our investigations. This is why you see so many machines out there with stripped threads in the leg plates.

This is one of the leg plates in one of our test machines (please ignore the dirt/dust and crap inside the cabinet, it's had a very hard life) - I will do some further investigations to see how they fare with bolts not fully tightened.

 

[strobey]

I wonder if standard fit speaker spikes have the same thread?

These puncture the carpet base and sit firmly on the subfloor. Does not damage or squash the carpet as it goes between the top & backer weave.

Pin movement obv wouldn't be possible. Wonder if the weight would cause a problem.. Probably on floorboards but concrete fine..

 

[Jib]

It’ll be going upstairs so not sure that’ll be an option. I have found these which I might give a go too