Two sd cards, 4 node boards, 1 power supply, 2 link cables and 1 gi problem currently not solved.
(Topic ID: 148304)
Linked Games
Game of Thrones (LE)
Stern, 2015-
Game of Thrones (Premium)
Stern, 2015
-
Game Of Thrones (Pro)
Stern, 2015
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Ghostbusters (LE)
Stern, 2016
-
Ghostbusters (Premium)
Stern, 2016
-
Ghostbusters (Pro)
Stern, 2016
-
KISS (LE)
Stern, 2015
-
KISS (Premium)
Stern, 2015
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Quoted from sandersj:holy crap.......
Multiple games, sorry should have stated that.
Quoted from PinB:Is this related to WWE Wrestlemania? If so, that's a known software bug that will be addressed in the next code update (coming soon).
Quoted from Slim64:Mustang?
It's in a kiss. Mustang I have had problems with before though, that stupid two pin connector they used is always the culprit.
Quoted from ngoett:Have a GOTLE on location and lasted about 2 weeks before a node board died. Still waiting on a replacement. Havent had a problem with our Kiss Pro on same location.
Number 8?
Quoted from frunch:Are those all recent problems? How many games are affected? Is Stern helping out?
3-4 games have had issues. I'm sure I missed some. Stern always helps out, they are fantastic for that. These are all problems in the past 6 or so weeks, there are more but my memory isn't the best.
Quoted from cfh:There is nothing in a spike system, and I mean nothing, that helps the end-user. The spike system only takes care of manufacturing and save them money. To think that the spike system would be more robust than any prior pinball system is just silly. The spikes system was developed to save stern money. It was not developed to make their games more reliable.
Actually I disagree. From a design standpoint this system provides for endless combination or switches and coils, reduces heat a ton, makes it very easy for novices to replace and swap node boards, and as they continue to develop this system diagnostic abilities will increase.
Why do people constantly think everything is money related? I'm not saying if they save money with this system or not, how would anyone know that other than stern? How do you know that?
The fact of the matter is there is a ton of development into this system and as games become more complex, integrate into networks and grow, a system like this is needed to progress what pinball machines can do.
Quoted from robotron:what happens when the led for backglass go bad? replace the whole board? or hopefully somebody makes a mod that will bypass those leds and you wont have to buy a new cpu.
Stern will accept it and replace it as a swap for a nominal fee when outside of warranty. In warranty, free replacement. You can do this with almost all data east, sega and stern board sets currently. Talk to your distributor.
As technology and engineering advances it's only logical that all item on a pin become thinner, lighter and smaller. The spike games I have on route have with out a doubt held up better than any prior system.
Who is pricing these node boards at 300? If it's Marco we all know that's just like seeing msrp pricing for a nib pin. Node boards are MUCH less than 300.
Quoted from cfh:Tell that to the Stern trough opto boards that fail very quickly. All surface mount, and i can't tell you how many i've had to re-solder due to vibration issues.
Once they changed the design (added rubber) I have very few of them fail.
Quoted from sandersj:That was $300 Au.
That's not really sterns fault as they do not control the exchange rates.
Quoted from chuckwurt:My guess is they are still working out the kinks of the new system. What was SAM like on the first few games that were released under it? I bet it wasn't perfect.
They are. As these continue to fail and Stern can look into what happened they will continually revise the boards and they will become even more reliable.
Quoted from Slim64:Curious, if I eventually buy a newer stern used, where would I locate a replacement if not from Marco and other regular retail outlets?
Will stern sell direct? If they do, I'm surprised they would undercut their distributers of parts.
They do not sell direct but your distributor will be able to sell them to you or work with the exchange program Stern offers them on boards. You on the other hand can send me a text if your in a bind.
Quoted from Rob_G:As long as Stern keeps replacing the failing node boards for free until they figure out (and maybe tell us) why they are failing. I know it's a small percentage, but it's a consistent small percentage.
Rob
Its an annoying small percentage as well. I have another thread I started about GOT LE. I lost three flippers and replaced node 8 with a brand new one from stern, didn't fix the problem. Lead to hours of additional inspection and testing of other parts of the machine, reverting code back, etc and turns out the brand new replacement node they sent was defective. UGH that sucked but the good news is I am up and running now.
Quoted from DNO:So are the node boards interchangeable throughout the game? Flipper nodes included.
Seems you could swap them around to test them out in a game, narrowing problem to the node.
I have GOT on location, no problems.
I don't know how many different node boards there are but I know of three. They are interchangeable as long as you change the dips to the correct order. Kinda nice to be able to carry three or so to swap out at any time.
Quoted from hoby1:Oh yeh great. I work for the largest amusement vending operator in the US. And there is NO WAY each service tech would carry two or three extra boards at 200 a pop. Get a grip...... Throw away boards might be great for Joe blow that cant do his own repairs but its not cost effective for OPs.
So your techs have surface mount equipment with them on site?
The choice for your company to fix boards on site with out further game down time is there, it all depends on if they feel it's worth it to have a few extra boards or not.
Do you not have extra white star and Sam board sets for the techs? Those board sets were much more expensive. For under 500 bucks you can have a set of node boards for all spike games.
Quoted from hoby1:First and foremost, we would never RT pins...... tried that. Never a winning combo when you take all expences into consideration. After the split, vehicle costs, insurance, fuel and tolls, repair, parts, commissions, employee benefits and just the lack of money they produce.( You may have 1 good for every 10 dogs on location.) At 5-7K each game its for Mom and Pop vendor at the local pub not for large operators Thats a fact.
So your first post was complaining how they are not serviceable on site and then you follow up by saying it doesn't matter anyway because you don't route pins. I guess I don't understand the point of even bringing it up.
Quoted from pinballkyle:No need for whitestar and Sam boards on hand. They seem to never die....and they aren't surface mount so onsite work is easy.
They die all the time. Your games are not played enough. Stern boards on occasion need more than just a transistor, not all the time but it happens. So far no more or less than the spike system.
Quoted from sandersj:So for the record, and a slightly different perspective, I'm an operator but not a "real" operator. I used to run a 45 piece (mainly redemption) location on the side that killed it on earnings but got out (day job too important and the location owner was a douche). Now I'm back to collecting pinballs and operating them at local microbrewery taprooms mainly to expand my hobby. But...... I pride myself on maintaining my games at a totally unrealistic level of up time (I slightly freak if a bulb burns out) and I'd really like to have a spare board set for quick board swaps. I own mainly modern Sterns and I see a lot of Spike games in my future BUT I'm not thrilled about spending $200+ for a small board that shouldn't have cost more than $50 to make. A 100% mark up on production costs I'm cool with, but a 400% I'm not.
One factor is that now that they are going to smaller boards in higher quantities the prices per board real estate and parts count should be coming down. But it seems that they are going up. I'd really like to see someone generate a bill of materials for a Spike board so we can go from just guessing to speaking from an informed position. But this is Pinside so I guess that's not needed. I was really expecting these boards to roll in at about $125-$150 at worst.
They are that price. If your distributor isn't trying to make a killing off of you.
Quoted from pinballkyle:To inhomearcades:
I route almost 40 pinballs - run 1 pinbar with 11 pinballs, another with 10. SAM is pretty bomber for me. Spike nodes are going, but with time and revisions I think it will be an awesome system. But It's clear there are bugs that need to be worked out and boards need revisions. Growing pains, that's all.
We are operating similar number of pins about 70 on free play so they get a large number of plays. I haven't come across a system by any manufacturer yet that doesn't have board problems, but I agree with you that the node growing pains should pass and we should have a pretty solid system on our hands.
Quoted from o-din:So basically as opposed to the early days of pinball up to the 90s when things got heavier and more robust, now we are going the other way. Just like everything else in this world. A throwaway item.
Who said anything about the system being throw away? There is not one item on a 90's pin that hasn't gone bad on my games.
For instance the use of the latch versus slide mechanism for the lock down bar. The latch system is much stronger, lighter and better than the slide system all while being much less expensive.
Quoted from cfh:In Stern's effort to make everything cheaper and crappier, they have changed brands of microswitches. Their current manufacturer just sucks. I would suspect the switch itself. I bet they saved a whole five cents per switch. This is what you're up against with Stern... What kills me is you guys actually think that Spike is a good thing. Trust me it was just a way to save money for stern.
Sterns are holding up way better than any other pin out there on location.
Please enlighten me with your expertise on spike and sterns manufacturing/sourcing methods.
Quoted from bobbyconover:My GOT LE on location has blown 3 node 8 pcbs. I'd be willing to bet that we would be seeing far more failures if there were more LEs on location, but since most of them are going to collectors that level of stress isn't being put on many of them. If the problem hasn't been figured out by the time Premiums hit (which I'd imagine will be more common on location than LEs), we could be seeing it happen a lot more. It can happen on Pros as well, it just doesn't seem imminent like it does on the LE. An op I know down in Portland had one blow on his Pro recently.
To Stern's credit, they are definitely aware of the problem and seem very motivated to figure it out -- they just had me ship my machine back to them to try to figure out what's going wrong. They actually approached me about it and seemed to really want my game to help with the diagnosis. Hopefully a solution is on the way!
Same here on my LE. I have sent the. Defective boards so they can figure out what went wrong. They want it fixed more than we do. With a new system and new applications it may take a dozen titles to figure out what this system is capable of and how to modify the system to be more robust.
Quoted from CactusJack:As I recall, Williams would field test their new systems by only putting them in to 100 of the normal production games. And almost always, with a distributor customer base where they knew they would get feed back. It would happen with a few models before they would officially roll it out in all production games. And, of course, back then 100% of production were operated on route.
Other than "The Pin", any one know how much field testing did SPIKE get before it was rolled out?
Ive had spike on location with acdc in it. You wouldn't imagine the number of problems that game had.
2 months later
Quoted from hd60609:Got a new Node 8 board today from Stern. Installed it and game booted right back up. Played it hard... banged on the flippers. First noticed the lower GI bulbs had a slight flicker with each pulse. This increased as play continued until one of my original problems...
Right flipper-dead, left flipper in spasm-then drops dead, lower GI (2 bulbs under each sling, 2 on each side in front of the apron) all go out for a second. Then game returns to normal. Power loss became more frequent with continued game play and flipper use. Finally, game cut out and won't boot past the Stern logo. Similar to previous video I posted.
For those with Node 8 failures, was is just a Node 8 failure or did you find a different cause forcing Node 8 to fail?
Same thing happened to me a few days ago. My lower gi was flickering, then going out for some period of time after each flipper hit. I assumed it was a loose connector, reseated all connectors no change and a game or so later, all flippers dead. This will be the fourth node 8 board my game gets.
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