This is at most a year and a half old, right? This location ST has survived a war, barely!
So how many games are on it? I find that amount of wear hard to believe unless it is more than 100K. To me this playfield looks like the clear was defective...
Couldn't tell you how many games. It's on location. I honestly did reach to open the coin door and boost the volume. Then I remembered I was not at home.
Quoted from frolic:Something tells me that machine has paid for itself.
I was going to say the same thing. It probably made enough to buy a couple new machines.
That should NOT be happening after a year and a half...not even with a crapton of plays. Something went wrong with the clearcoat.
You never know if some "tech" decided it was a good idea to clean the playfield with paint thinner.
Then..... OOPS!
If you look at the blotches by the weapons targets, it looks like something was spilled on the playfield.
Quoted from oldskool1969:no fucking way Dude! thats trashed, but maintained?
Yeah, that seems to sum it up. 100% maintained, just trashed pf. I guess you never know what it's been through. In a bar, is always possible that someone has smashed the glass and poured drinks on it. Who knows.
The balls that came with my STLE were actually rusted, I wish I had taken a picture before I threw them out. There are $4700 - $7700 pins and they can't spend $7 on a nice set of balls?
Quoted from vid1900:One nicked ball can do that in a few weeks of heavy play.
So how often should the balls be replaced and is it worth getting premium balls.
Quoted from SuperPinball:So how often should the balls be replaced and is it worth getting premium balls.
http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/PB116-SJ
My understanding is don't get these for games with magnets.
Use the super shinny ones that PBL sells
Quoted from chuckwurt:Use the super shinny ones that PBL sells
Are these the ones you mean?
Quoted from SuperPinball:Are these the ones you mean?
http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1325
Yup
I put silverjets in all my games as soon as I get them. I know peopke say not to use them in games with magnets. But I have never had an issue.
Sterns pinballs are garbage from new.
Star trek seems to beat up the balls pretty bad too.
I an on my 3rd set of silverjets since NIB.
2700 plays on my ST. So probably switched out just under every 1000 games.
Quoted from SuperPinball:So how often should the balls be replaced and is it worth getting premium balls.
I use the Super Shiny from Pinball Life.
I always replace them before and after a show, since that is the most a game will be played in a year.
But otherwise there is no set schedule. Games with metal ramps will chew up balls faster than an all plastic ramp game.
Examine your balls regularly.
I love working on older games, really old stuff and also the early SS stuff. You never see this kind of wear on the EM's, but you always see it on the early solid state ballys. You never see it on the Gottlieb System 1's... which might just be because nobody played them back in the day, I don't know.
I guess it just has something to do with the way the clear is done, which is probably similar to how it was done on the Ballys... seems like a fluke, though, because this is the only one we've seen this bad...
Quoted from vid1900:I use the Super Shiny from Pinball Life.
I always replace them before and after a show, since that is the most a game will be played in a year.
But otherwise there is no set schedule. Games with metal ramps will chew up balls faster than an all plastic ramp game.
Examine your balls regularly.
I TUMBLE MY BALLS. IF THERE ARE SMALL NICKS i WET SAND THEM THEN TUMBLE IN WALNUT SHELLS AND PURPLE POLISH
Quoted from rcbrown316:I TUMBLE MY BALLS. IF THERE ARE SMALL NICKS i WET SAND THEM THEN TUMBLE IN WALNUT SHELLS AND PURPLE POLISH
Why? Isn't cheaper (manpower wise) to buy them new? I mean; $1 per premium ball?
Quoted from rcbrown316:I TUMBLE MY BALLS. IF THERE ARE SMALL NICKS i WET SAND THEM THEN TUMBLE IN WALNUT SHELLS AND PURPLE POLISH
Hey, you don't have to get so worked up about it. It's just balls.
I put my balls in a plastic bag with pink cookies....then I crush them with buildings...!!!................Joey
I'd love to know the number of plays on that. As much of a bad rap as they get, the early 2000's Sterns seem to wear like iron. I've seen absolutely filthy, hammered RBION's and POTC's that look like they'd clean up nice.
Now I'm seeing later HUO games with alarming wear, like paint flaking off around magnets. As much as I enjoy my Metallica and ST Pro, I look at the plastics and lighting (with the apparent quality of Chinese Christmas lights) and I'm amazed any new Stern on location doesn't look like this poor Star Trek.
No idea how many plays, but I'll ask this...
What if it was 50,000 plays? And the game has paid for itself multiple times over? Isn't that how it should work? Op got a great ROI, and junks the game and buys a new one from Stern.
It might be painful for us to look at, but if the game literally got played to hell, and the economics worked out.
Quoted from frolic:No idea how many plays, but I'll ask this...
What if it was 50,000 plays? And the game has paid for itself multiple times over? Isn't that how it should work? Op got a great ROI, and junks the game and buys a new one from Stern.
It might be painful for us to look at, but if the game literally got played to hell, and the economics worked out.
Well yeah, but I think the concern is that it ISN'T 50k plays. If it is, awesome! ROI success! But if it's got a few thousand plays, it probably hasn't paid for itself...
I think the best question is what would this thread be like if this was a JJP game on location with the same plroblem
In all seriousness I have seen several ST pros on location and all looked nice still. I don't think it could have had enough plays to do this already. Either a ball is damaging it or there is a defect on this playfield or someone spilled something on it. If the machine was somewhat maintained there is no way it should have damage like this without some other story behind it.
I was at Universal in FL last week and they had a new Star Trek in the arcade there. It was in nice condition but on both sides of the slingshots had wear spots already.
Quoted from EvanDickson:This is at most a year and a half old, right? This location ST has survived a war, barely!
IMG_20150620_232655683_HDR.jpg
but no broken plastics. : P
If a gouged ball was doing this, shouldn't the wear be a lot more consistent? I'd at least expect both sling areas to have somewhat uniform wear since they see about equal action. This looks like a playfield defect that probably started small and just kept wearing outward.
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