What's new
Pinball info

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Reliability question

MikeyG85

MikeyG85

Registered
Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
30
Location
Bristol
Hi,

I’ve just sold my first pin, the room it was in is being converted to a games room.
To say my first year with a pinball machine was easy would be a lie. It was a LW3 which had 3 or so issues over the course of the year. I loved it but would also like something more reliable.

I know reliability comes up a lot with new pin owners but I’m interested to know if I should expect the same amount of issues in new pins as the pins made in the 90s.
I’m was thinking of getting either a walking dead or ghostbusters, love the games and the themes. Surely as they were made a couple of years ago the electronics and mechanisms are more advanced and less likely to fail? Or am I just kidding myself and should go for older cheaper pins?
 
There's no constant when it comes to pinballs and reliability. I've had machines that are 20 years old and I've not had a single issue with them and I've had the same with nothing but issues, similar goes for new. Some machines just seem to want to be loved a little more than others. As a wise man once said - they're like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. ;)

Having said that, new machines from Pinball Heaven do come with a 2 year warranty so should (major) problems arise you'll be covered
 
There's a lot of moving parts.

On a long enough timeline they will all break down, whether they are brand new Sterns or decades old Bally/Williams.

Technically speaking a fully refurbished B/W pin is to all intents and purposes "new" where it matters.

There is also an argument to be made that old school B/W pins are actually more reliable than new ones simply because they were manufactured with arcades and operators in mind, so they had to be reliable as B/W's livelihood depended on it. Stern and co - on the other hand - make pins predominantly to a boutique market. That's not to say they are inherently unreliable, but it's definitely a different attitude.

In my limited experience also newer pins "suffer" from the fact that they have a lot of functionality on single boards. On B/W pins you've got discreet boards - CPU, power, audio, aux, etc. If your sound goes you might need only replace that one board, whereas on a newer pin you might have to replace the whole single motherboard in the backbox. The flip side of that of course is that OEM BW boards are not widely available, and replacements like Rottendog et al have questionable provenance.

I also happen to think BW schematics are much more detailed - again because they are targeted at people who would've had to fully maintain the pins themselves.
 
In my games room:
The 2x WPC89 games are in pieces, needing some attention, but they'd work if i put them together again.
The 1x WPC95 game is awaiting board repair.
The 1x SternWhitestar game is awaiting board repair.
The 4x Stern SAM games are working 100% - never had any issues.
 
Agree. New Sterns are by and large rock solid. I know some issues get blown out of proportion but I would buy a new(ish) stern if I wanted hassle free pinballing.
 
Own some newer pinballs twdle and gotle played many games on both no issue up to now. Also have sopranos again no issues at all. Then on the other side I have a Addams family again that’s been trouble free. Famous last words. :)
 
Fortunately there is a lot of new sterns are in the HUO bracket and not had the millions and millions and millions of hours being on , unlike a pin that has spent its life on site !!
 
Provenance is probably the wrong word. What I meant is that I've read a few threads where people have questioned the stability/reliability of the boards compared to the originals etc.
 
Ah - okay. My own Rottendog board in CFTBL has been totally fine (famous last words). Probably fair to mention that they benefit in reliability terms simply by off-boarding the battery pack!

CB
 
Brand new games have niggles associated with shoddy testing in a low volume manufacturing environment. It is risky to buy NIB (but you at least get a warranty) and it is arguably better to buy a 6m old game that has had its problems fixed by the first owner.

If you want reliability, it is hugely influenced by who you buy your game from. Your ideal seller is an ocd nerd who hunts out and fixes every fault in a game, strips it all down, cleans the mechs, replaces worn mechanical parts he sees etc

cloudburst said:
A lot of well informed points @Durzel. Could you explain what you’re driving at with the following though?



CB
Click to expand...


Rottendog = crap

I had two boards fitted by the previous owner of my tz. Luckily he also gave me the original boards as spares.

The rottendog flipper board failed when it was a few months old. The supplier kindly sent me a new one free of charge, even though I was not covered by the warranty. I just re-fitted the original bally Williams one and it has worked fine ever since

The rottendog solenoid board kept giving 5v drop issues. It also reacted marginally slower so the powerball would sometimes pass the gumball diverter solenoid before it had opened. Andy Netherwood fixed the original Williams solenoid board for me. It does not give 5V issues and it also reacts more quickly, so my powerball problem has gone too
 
In my opinion, you're setting yourself up for hell if you aren't prepared to open up a toolbox, use a multimeter and get stuck in.

That being said, how much you actually need to, depends on how well you do your homework and buy carefully. There's no such thing as a perfectly designed pinball machine and there are some frankly ****ty corner-cuts in the designs of the vast majority of pinball machines, especially the Bally/Williams fetish for using inadequate wire gauge - and not even Gottlieb avoids having 'plague' issues despite having most parts of them being overengineered to a hilarious degree... even with that said, those 'older' machines were made in a time when they had to be workhorses in extremely busy arcades, and now in 2018, the lemons have all been culled away and you're left with the ones that 'made it'. Even today at the UKPinfest you have brand new machines switched off with faults that aren't easily addressed, and you've also got 80s and 90s tables that are STILL sucking down credits non-stop, as if saying 'is that all you guys got?'

So research hard, choose your seller carefully and you will have to do very minimal if any work. Even if you do end up having to work on it - as someone that knows second-hand car work, let me tell you that pinball work is a ton easier
 
PBrookfield said:
In my opinion, you're setting yourself up for hell if you aren't prepared to open up a toolbox, use a multimeter and get stuck in.

That being said, how much you actually need to, depends on how well you do your homework and buy carefully. There's no such thing as a perfectly designed pinball machine and there are some frankly ****ty corner-cuts in the designs of the vast majority of pinball machines, especially the Bally/Williams fetish for using inadequate wire gauge - and not even Gottlieb avoids having 'plague' issues despite having most parts of them being overengineered to a hilarious degree... even with that said, those 'older' machines were made in a time when they had to be workhorses in extremely busy arcades, and now in 2018, the lemons have all been culled away and you're left with the ones that 'made it'. Even today at the UKPinfest you have brand new machines switched off with faults that aren't easily addressed, and you've also got 80s and 90s tables that are STILL sucking down credits non-stop, as if saying 'is that all you guys got?'

So research hard, choose your seller carefully and you will have to do very minimal if any work. Even if you do end up having to work on it - as someone that knows second-hand car work, let me tell you that pinball work is a ton easier
Click to expand...

I would love to have the confidence to do the work but the problem is knowing where to start. I like to think I’m pretty handy but I’ve never touched electrical work and there doesn’t seem to be any ‘Dummies guide to pinball machines’ anywhere.

When I look at the forums around repairs there is a basic level of understanding required which I don’t have. So unfortunately I always end up getting a technician out for all my problems.

I’m surprised that the mechanisms and electronics for pinball hasn’t been refined and made more straightforward over the years but I enjoy playing enough that I’ll take the hit I guess.

Genuinely though if anyone knows any good resources to gain a basic understanding of repair I’d be really greatful. Just enough to get me understanding what people are talking about in the forums so I don’t have to suck peoples time breaking down each action individually.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom