Building a virtual Pinball Cabinet
As far as I can remember as a kid, I have been fascinated by pinball machines, so when I discovered we could build virtual cabinets, I knew it would be a project for me, both for the final satisfaction of playing, and for the journey itself as it involves touching almost everything.
Here is a recent photo of the current state of the machine, as of August 2025.
Although not fully complete, and maybe never really finished, the project is already well advanced and fully playable. I started in summer 2023 and, by the next year, it had already reached this well-advanced state, built progressively over time. Some cabling still remains, such as the front door, along with more proper mounting for some of the electronic boards and, more importantly, the final theme and visual finish.
Over time, I want to document the different steps of the process and gather the content that is currently scattered across notebooks and design files, mostly for self-reference, but also in case it proves useful to others.
Current state
The cabinet is already in a satisfying playable state, but it still feels like an ongoing build rather than a finished object. The remaining work is mostly in the details: wiring cleanup, cleaner mechanical integration for some boards, and the final visual theme.
What makes the project interesting to document is precisely that it sits across several layers at once:
- cabinet design and assembly
- sourcing or adapting hardware parts
- software setup around the virtual pinball stack
- occasional development work when existing tools need adjustment
Why this page exists
I want this project page to become the long-lived reference point for the pincab itself. Short notes or one-off investigations can stay in blog posts, but the overall build story, the structure of the machine, and the most useful practical lessons should live here.
Published material
- Setting up a development QEmu VM on Linux with nested virtualization for Windows 11 with WSL2 - build-environment notes used for the Windows side of the virtual pinball toolchain
Planned structure
- Introduction
- Inspirations and useful references
- Photos of the build
- Building the cabinet
- Metal parts
- Glass
- The community
Blog posts
All posts in this project. Posts not yet covered in the narrative above are marked.