@Nedreud @Moonraker - Do you either of you guys know what this 'buffer' might be and how it might be helpful, and can explain it in very simple terms?
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So how much is too much for a NIB?
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@Nedreud @Moonraker - Do you either of you guys know what this 'buffer' might be and how it might be helpful, and can explain it in very simple terms?
Something for jim to redesign [emoji6]
i agree. i was so excited when Jack first announced his plan to enter the market. everything was fresh and exciting, the 'build quality' everyone goes on about was there to see at an EAG show about 5 years ago, it was the first and last time i ever put down a deposit for a NIB. then a few months later i started seeing early prototype models and was seriously unimpressed by how much stuff broke easily. delays of months turned into years. the thing looked like a schmancy Christmas tree but sounded like crap. most importantly i found it slow and boring to play - so Phil kindly let me back out, and i got a refund as there were other suckers standing in line to take my preorder place.
now years later the first game i still find pretty but a boring horrorshow; he price gouged everyone by selling all the LEs then announcing a new greener LE that cost even more to pi55 off the fanboys who bought LE. and we hear the technology is failing and he makes the customers foot the bill for that. the second game is also out, it gets 9.5/10 on PinballNews review, but to me is about as fun and exciting as an XPiles-Freddy hybrid. game 3 i like the most of all on first impression, with a great designer, an original theme (why is everyone so down on the theme, i don't get it?) with new features and looks like lots of fun to play .....but too expensive for the currrent model of manufacturers> distributors> operators> home users to remain feasible. his greed apparently knows no limits now - he could singlehandedly kill the operator market and try instead of selling more and better games, to be happy to maximise profits by selling *fewer* games and only to rich and stupid gotta-have-it-all home owners.
**** you Jack you ******. Saviour of pinball my ****, you'll be it's undoing. thanks for prompting Stern to up its game, but your taxi will be here soon. you ****ing ****.
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Are you all ****ed on a Friday night?
@stoptap can you tell me what experience you have of JJP customer care? As UK distributor I should be your first port of call. I don't know your real name and as such I have no idea if you even own a JJP product but I can say that none of my customers have had appalling JJP service.
@cooldan we are friends Dan but you are pushing this JJP hate now more than I am comfortable with.
You are aware how totally **** stern were before we had they had competition...
Those morons banned Martin Ayub from the batman VIP party I got him a ticket for because he dared to suggest Batman was a touch pricey... yet hail Stern. Stern who really have bad customer care.
Phil
@stoptap can you tell me what experience you have of JJP customer care? As UK distributor I should be your first port of call. I don't know your real name and as such I have no idea if you even own a JJP product but I can say that none of my customers have had appalling JJP service.
@cooldan we are friends Dan but you are pushing this JJP hate now more than I am comfortable with.
You are aware how totally **** stern were before we had they had competition...
Those morons banned Martin Ayub from the batman VIP party I got him a ticket for because he dared to suggest Batman was a touch pricey... yet hail Stern. Stern who really have bad customer care.
Phil
Sorry Phil, bad day, bad month. Your reputation at PH is second to none. This new price structure has upset me, and reading just now for the first time about these boards, and Jack taking on none of the cost for them just hit a nerve.
Don't want to affect your bottom line. Nobody takes me seriously anyway, and I hope everyone makes up their own opinions of which games they like or not.
And you're quite right, Gary Stern is as much to blame for the current SLE money nonsense. I read about them banning Martin and couldn't believe what I was reading.
Don't want to affect your bottom line. Nobody takes me seriously anyway, and I hope everyone makes up their own opinions of which games they like or not.
And you're quite right, Gary Stern is as much to blame for the current SLE money nonsense. I read about them banning Martin and couldn't believe what I was reading.
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I also have to say to Robert Lucas, that WoZ was not one that came through me originally, it was a parallel import. If it were not, you would not have had a £400 bill....
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Dan, like I just said to Robert. If the game had come through me originally, he would not have had these issues. Parallel imports get zero PH support whereas PH games get lifetime love.
I have never felt like I have been had with JJP, I wish I could say the same about Stern. They sent me a GOT Premium, you can see it Tilt, its got 2 or 3 massive blobs of gloss paint on the playfield like they were decorating that day, GLOSS F C K ING PAINT! Have they done anything to rectify this in nearly 1 year? have they ****e.
Phil
I have never felt like I have been had with JJP, I wish I could say the same about Stern. They sent me a GOT Premium, you can see it Tilt, its got 2 or 3 massive blobs of gloss paint on the playfield like they were decorating that day, GLOSS F C K ING PAINT! Have they done anything to rectify this in nearly 1 year? have they ****e.
Phil
Please free to tell me to feck off 'cos it's none of my business, but do you have to pick up the pieces with these problems @philpalmer - basically it just hits your profit?
Also, like I was wondering before, you know about how to repair this stuff - are repairs out of the question in this case because of the nature of the problem; if not, is there a market for any of our more technically minded members to either do repairs, or design more reliable replacements at a better price?
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Ah, I was being dumb - it's just the grey imports that get no support, from you or JJP, and ultimately cost individuals. Buy through you as the distributer, replacements are free no problem. Sorry, I guess that's what you said above, I just failed to read it properly.
I wouldn't touch a Jersey Jack pinball with a barge pole (that is a reflection on Jersey Jack, not you Phil).
I have read plenty about the 'quality' of this superior product and as an engineer I think they have successfully created a myth about their achievements.
Also they way in which Jack stiffed some of his long invested customers in the US for newer buyers was a disgrace. The continuous stream of new 'limited editions' is also a joke.
As for Stern ? Well I am surprised they haven't been sued over the playfields fiasco.
OP
OP
A bit confused here. Robert, was your WOZ bought first or second hand? If first hand then surely JJP will be liable for the board repairs even if it didn't come via Phil.
If 2nd hand then I can understand why they won't get involved, It might suck that they have designed something badly but that's the risk you get buying 2nd hand. I've bought enough second hand stern games that developed issues but wouldn't expect Stern to mend them.
I'm by no way a cheerleader for Jack but he's not going to be responsible for machines that are 4 years old and not bought directly from him.
Part of the issue for me is that none of the manufacturers want to be responsible for high quality products. PPS pretty much said it was tough **** that all the UK buyers got iffy insets on their MMRs. When you are talking about such expensive items people are going to be pickier. If I bought a £400 TV and it had a scratch on the case I'd be wanting a replacement. Why do the manufacturers expect us to be less fussy over a 10k game?
If 2nd hand then I can understand why they won't get involved, It might suck that they have designed something badly but that's the risk you get buying 2nd hand. I've bought enough second hand stern games that developed issues but wouldn't expect Stern to mend them.
I'm by no way a cheerleader for Jack but he's not going to be responsible for machines that are 4 years old and not bought directly from him.
Part of the issue for me is that none of the manufacturers want to be responsible for high quality products. PPS pretty much said it was tough **** that all the UK buyers got iffy insets on their MMRs. When you are talking about such expensive items people are going to be pickier. If I bought a £400 TV and it had a scratch on the case I'd be wanting a replacement. Why do the manufacturers expect us to be less fussy over a 10k game?
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Indeed John
R
robertlucas1970
Its a used pin, had 2 owners so I was told, apart from the LED boards everything else is mint.
If this was a part that has just gone after a couple of years thats a different kettle of fish and no big deal, but I am moaning about the LED light boards which owners have had fail from day one.
They know all about the problems and have tried several different solutions, I believe these should be supplied FOC, some of these boards are hundreds of pounds and when you have somebody from JJP telling you that they will fail sooner or later until I change all the boards then this is just not right.
And if they are working on yet another design then the ones I am buying now must also fail.
I can live with spending £400 on boards, its no big deal, but what about the next time and the time after that...........
I have not once moaned about Phil, I ordered parts and got them fast, I dont expect Phil to offer any support on a used pin that is a couple of years old.
But I do expect the makers of the pin to offer support and help on a problem which was there from day one.
I have been in contact with JJP who explained about the problems they have had, but offered no help, if they offered 50% discount on a complete set I would of been happy.
If this was a part that has just gone after a couple of years thats a different kettle of fish and no big deal, but I am moaning about the LED light boards which owners have had fail from day one.
They know all about the problems and have tried several different solutions, I believe these should be supplied FOC, some of these boards are hundreds of pounds and when you have somebody from JJP telling you that they will fail sooner or later until I change all the boards then this is just not right.
And if they are working on yet another design then the ones I am buying now must also fail.
I can live with spending £400 on boards, its no big deal, but what about the next time and the time after that...........
I have not once moaned about Phil, I ordered parts and got them fast, I dont expect Phil to offer any support on a used pin that is a couple of years old.
But I do expect the makers of the pin to offer support and help on a problem which was there from day one.
I have been in contact with JJP who explained about the problems they have had, but offered no help, if they offered 50% discount on a complete set I would of been happy.
The top and bottom of it is that it is a shocking design. Not only are the boards crap, they took the utterly bizarre decision to wire them in series thus ensuring that any boards downstream of a failed board will go out too.
One of the first things you do when designing anything electro/mechanical is to introduce (where possible) failure isolation. You essentially design it to keep running as well as it can if something fails.
They have been failing since the game was launched. How the hell did they not pick up on it ? The game was in development for years.
Only people working on it would know that. Maybe something in testing the parts changed or acts differently in a completed production machine.
Does anyone know what's causing the ICs to fail? Over heating or over current? Or just cheap chips?
Does anyone know what's causing the ICs to fail? Over heating or over current? Or just cheap chips?
Would you be willing to send me one of the dead boards so I could take a closer look please (I'll cover postage)? I'm flabbergasted at the price of these boards (I understand they're from the US and there's a poor exchange rate and import costs, etc.) but unless there are custom chips on them I just don't understand why so expensive? The surface-mount devices (SMDs) should make production costs cheaper because they're easier for pick and place machines to work with.
My job is as a product development engineer on electro/mechanical devices. If a part fails on a production model but not on a prototype then they have bigger problems than I thought. It would mean they have under specced the components and then compounded that by not testing the parts under full load and in a final production configuration.
There is a process in design called P100 which means that a number of pre-production models are built to (hopefully) finished spec and under manufacturing conditions. These are then tested to the limit, preferably in the field by non-company trialists.
This is what Williams did when they sent out games on trial before release. The idea is that any glaring design faults get picked up before full production commences as mistakes after this point are expensive and damaging to the reputation of the company/product.
So you don't think they bothered to make a test batch and had people abuse them before starting full production?
The amount of failures they have had would suggest not. From what I remember at the time they seemed more concerned with the aesthetics than the robustness of the design.
Ok, had a look at the schematics and think I've worked out what the "buffer" is.
On page D-103 of the current manual is the WOZ Single GI RGB LED Board 15-0019-00, Revision 1.3 which is the part you showed a photo of. This is a simple RGB LED driver which can be daisy-chained together:
Next is the manual is WOZ Single GI RGB LED Board 15-0019-00, Revision 1.4:
The core functionality remains the same but there are improvements and additions. First up the power supply section is more complex and also generates an additional 5.1V supply. Then there are some new capacitors on the data input lines next to J101. Interference suppression? And then finally there is the new buffer section containing a 74AHCT125, which is a QUAD BUS BUFFER. This chip is commonly used with Raspbery Pi projects to convert the Pi's 3.3V GPIO logic to 5V logic. Basically it's improving the output of U100 before it gets passed on to the next device in the daisy chain.
From you photo it looks as though they've added this as a daughter board add-on to a Revision 1.3 board.
One thing I have read whilst reading up about this is the Allegro A6821 3-Channel Constant Current LED Driver is now discontinued...