Stationary Posts

A stationary post is a fixed upright peg set into the playfield — a small metal or plastic pillar, usually wearing a rubber ring — that deflects the ball on contact and never moves.^[1]

Posts are the cheapest shaping tool a designer has: they anchor rubber rings, fence the sides of a lane, shield a delicate mechanism from a direct hit and turn away a poorly aimed shot.^[1] What separates the stationary kind from its relatives is that nothing about it is powered. Up-Posts rise and drop on command from the game and Spinning Posts swivel when the ball strikes them, while a stationary post is a screw, a sleeve and a rubber ring.

Most of a playfield’s posts are structural and pass unremarked. The placements that change how a game plays stand the post between the ball and the drain. Center Stationary Posts sit in the gap between the flippers, where a ball coming straight down the middle can strike one and bounce back within reach;^[2] Right Outlane Stationary Posts sit in the lane that carries the ball past the flippers, where hitting the post can send it across into the inlane instead.^[3]