Why NOT to buy a Stern pinball (vid)

[Chief]

Both were bought used, the DP was a Euro import with less than 100 plays when the board died. My IMDN (which I still have) had over 1k plays on it when the cabinet node died.

Liberties. That’s proper unlucky

 

[Andydn]

I’ve owned 2 Stern Spike 2 games and both of them have had Node Board failures, these are incredibly expensive to replace.
I was kind of lucky on my IMDN where I only had to replace the cabinet node which I managed to get from Germany for £130. Electrocoin wanted £300 plus vat for the same part [emoji33].
The main board on DP was another story, over a grand for a replacement, or slightly cheaper to swap the faulty board over with Electrocoin.

And no they weren’t under warranty unfortunately, so anyone thinking about buying a near new Spike 2 game without a warranty, I would suggest pay the extra and get it from Phil with the 2 year warranty.

It has put me right off buying anymore Spike 2 games for a while.

You could pay the extra and buy NIB with a warranty to protect you, or wait a short while and buy used - save a grand and have that ready should you need to replace any node boards - works just as well both ways in my opinion. Either way, keep buying & playing pins, enjoy the hobby & keep it alive [emoji106]


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[Fubar]

Has no one decoded the node bus protocol yet? I wouldn't be surprised to find 3rd party replacements/mods/etc.