Quoted from Darscot:I would appreciate if someone could show me the specs on the power supply and what the real numbers are. Would be nice to know how much he is exaggerating. It's way more helpful than endless posting the video and endless saying he is a liar.
Not to derail this thread, I will try to answer this question. The SPIKE system takes advantage of modern power supply technology to eliminate the old fashioned transformers, wiring and power supply boards found in older games (and some new games too) totaling about 50 pounds of useless weight all while increasing the reliability. Instead of having separate transformer taps for ac power to feed multiple separate power supplies to produce 5v, 12v, 20v, 50v and whatever other voltages are needed on the game, there is one simple power supply that takes in 120v a/c directly and produces 48volts DC. Each of the boards and node boards in the game uses that 48volts to produce whatever voltages they need on the board itself via a device called a dc-to-dc converter. This method is much more efficient, uses less power and therefore produces less heat. This eliminates a lot of wiring in the cabinet for the different voltages and thus eliminates a lot of failure points. This is the way electronics and control systems in general have gone, not just pinball machines.
There are a lot of benefits to a system like this including being able to use a commercial off the shelf power supply instead of a custom one. The SPIKE supplies are available at Digi-key for a little over $130. These are simple and reliable power supplies with only one problem: they have a one-speed fan that is very noisy when it comes on. Fortunately Stern chose a power supply with plenty of extra power, so it will run cool. It takes a long time to heat up, so the fan in the power supply doesn't come on for a very long time and when the thermostat finally does click the fan on (it only has one speed), it only stays on for a minute or so and shuts off again for a long while. This is direct proof that this power supply is not being run hard and will not fail early due to heat or being over driven. SPIKE has a 500 watt power supply and believe me this game never uses more than half of that.
Now compare my fact-based description of the power supply system and fan to the "expert opinion" in that video on the power supply and fan...
Need more? As stated above the only issue with the SPIKE 2 power supply is the noisy fan. Even though that fan barely runs because the game runs cool, it is still annoying as hell to people like me! For this reason there is an aftermarket cooling fan sold by Pinmonk which has sold many, many units over the years including to me. This product replaces the stock fan with a fan that is quieter and blows LESS air than the OEM fan. Even with a weaker fan, the fan hardly runs and the game still runs cool. See more description and actual factual research along with temperature readings here: https://pinmonk.com/collections/guardians-of-the-galaxy/products/spike-quiet-fan-plug-n-play-kit
Again, compare the above to the statements made by that blowhard about the SPIKE power supply. I could literally go point-by-point through this whole video, but I don't want to waste any more time on him. Honestly Youtube should take down that video.