I will check it out,
As for a replacement playfield, a populated playfield is the only option, im not doing all that work for free after i spend 9650.00 on a game, i feel thats ridiculous. I do in home and shop repairs as a pro, I've swapped many playfields and i have also done many restorations, i get paid real money for my skill set I'm not giving that service for free.

It would be reasonable to push for a populated playfield, but in this community the value will hold simply by having a backup that can be swapped out later. The larger washers should help and the technique Zaphx mentioned to flatten the clear. I'm in line for an LE, and hope not to have to spend time on this issue.

100% Disagree

With no ability to do a PF swap myself, a replacement PF sold with a machine that has a defective PF is of Zero value to me.
I would rather pay more for a machine without the defects then be handed another PF

+1

most of us, pinball users, simply cant do a PF swap... :/

I'm with you on this one, I would have no interest in a machine with a bad playfield even with a replacement (unless it was a classic). It would be a hard pass, there will always be another modern pin for sale. I am always curious though what it's actually like in the real market. The internet puts such a strange slant on everything. I can't tell if everyone things its totally normal and they wouldn't mind at all or you are never going to sell one of these machine without taking a sever beating on the price. People freak out for putting a color LED in a machine and piss and moan about all the work it will be to swap out. A playfield though thats a piece of cake.

Just speaking from some experience with JJPOTC, as well as AFMr. Passed the extra playfields on to happy buyers, didn't impact the market value at the time, although honestly I sold both for good deals. Also, since that experience, I'm not really interested in buying machines with problematic playfields, so I guess I'm in agreement with you guys in terms of buying.

Yeah, not only would I be unwilling to do a playfield swap...I don't even know where I could hire someone to do a swap for me.

So, to me, a machine with a bad playfield (and a spare replacement field) is about the same as a machine with a bad playfield.

On a related note, is there a list / thread here somewhere where repair services (including stuff like doing a playfield swap) are advertised?

I see lots of threads about machines/parts for sale, and machines/parts wanted, but not much about "services available".

This is where I'm at, except I'm not a pin repair tech. Yet they sent me a bare playfield. WTF am I supposed to do with it?

And there it is.

I got five 2020 built Sterns with zero playfield issues. If your $10-13k game has washers around the posts that is not fixed in my opinion thats a band-aid(embarrassing)and i wouldnt buy it. The only Stern playfield i ever had issues with they replaced with populated playfield but when i had pooling issue and clearcoat sticking to star posts on WOZ they ignored me so i avoid JJP anymore unless its a Hobbit, there built like tanks!

Im not local to you, i live in the suburbs an hour from NYC. To swap a playfield its a 2000-3000 dollar job and typically takes 25-50 hours depending. I have a playfield rotisserie and proper tools.

Yeah, that is a lot of work. Sounds like you are in a good position to ask for a populated playfield. Hope you get one! I'm gonna drag my feet on getting GnRLE until we are sure this isn't an issue anymore.

I've got 2 2020 built machines from stern. My stranger things has some pooling around posts but nothing too bad. The clearcoat was soft though and with the demogorgon ramp I've got some major craters in the playfield. Looks like the moon.

My NOV 2020 built Guardians doesn't have any pooling at all but the ridges and ribbing are quite noticeable in pretty much any light. I'd rather have the minor pooling of my Stranger things than the ribbing.

IMG_20210202_130921330 (resized).jpg

not sure what ribbing is, I do not know what I am looking at at the picture.

Can you show us photos of the PF on the Strangers Things? I am going to guess that the more games you put in the better, the craters will even out.

show us some photos

In the snipit I took from the pic above you can see the 'grain' of the plywood. I believe this is what is being referred to as ribbing. If you click on the above photo and zoom in you can see this effect is several places.

When the wood grain actually starts split/curl/raise-up it is called planking.

pasted_image (resized).png

Thanks for that. Yeah it's uniform over the entire playfield. Seems too uniform to be wood grain but it's easier to see in person than through a phone picture.

For ST it's the same. Much more noticeable in person as it covers the playfield. My Munsters and Guardians have minor dimpling so I'm used to that. Nothing I would worry about. My Stranger Things you can hear the ball rolling over the craters and even see the ball be affected when it's moving slowly. I expected the machine to dimple but this is way beyond dimples. Thankfully there are so many inserts in the playfield lol. All of the pooling is out of visual areas luckily. This machine has ~3200 lifetime plays on it.

IMG_20210202_151744711 (resized).jpg

It's so weird how some machines do this, a little dimpling is normal, this is not dimpling. There was a Star Wars on route near me that was like this and in person it just looked awful, it was also very visible from any angle. Take a thousand years to smooth that out and if it does smooth out the inserts are all going to end up raised. These playfields should have been replaced.

so everyone with a fucked JJP playfield has been made good?

Someone else posted that there are not many. I disagree with that based on the number that have come to the UK and were fucked.

I have bought 11 Stern Spike 2 games. None of them have had pooling or playfield issues, My GB had ghosting Stern replaced it with a populated playfield. Not to say that these issues don't exist but you might argue that given stern consistently outsell JJP that you will see more reports.

As a NIB buyer this shit does piss me off. Instead of enjoying a new game experience I'm trying to figure out if I need to box it back up and send it back. I've got a GNR LE on the way that I think will be fucked out the box based on the others reporting it although its been stuck in storage for 3 months.

Neil.

I know of myself and 2 others that have not been made good. Its the same story the a meeting has to be had with upper management, ive been waiting almost 2 months for that meeting to happen, ive been told to be patient they are working on this for me, whatever that means. And i only want a populated playfield, i paid up this game is never getting sold so an unpopulated playfield means nothing, unless they are sending it and 3k to pay me to do the swap.

JJP?

Neil.

Not true. Stern used to use 300W Meanwells in the Pros because they had lesser power requirements due to smaller coil count, etc, and even they would reset occasionally due to exceeding the power available. One reason Stern eventually ditched the 300W meanwell and put 500W ones in all machines.

So, yes, all Spike Prem/LE and occasionally some Pros definitely use more than half of 500W available.

Ribbing or Graining is where the soft rings of the wood telegraph through the finish

1fb5387c6qwer1af6b55f44e1400b04aa5eedad5c4da (resized).jpg

Cratering is when there are not yet enough dimples to level out the field, so the sparse pattern of deep dents looks amazingly tragic

This playfield is 25 years old, and still has not yet leveled out behind the flippers:
efqwer (resized).jpg

Man you got that shovel and you dug this shit right up!

Yes, specifically GNRLE

ok, graining makes sense, it does not bother me at all. Planking is a different story and expected in an aged maybe not well maintained playfield.
As for the dimples... they bother me but hell the thing is meant to be played...

with that said, my 30 old Terminator 2 has unnoticeable dimples or the lighting in my basement is anti dimpling, lol...

The games themselves had anti dimpling lighting - some of them only had 13 GI lamps from the factory

My ghostbusters premium would like to have a chat with you...

Ghostbusters was the first SPIKE 1 game and had a ton of issues. Just like the first SAM game WPT had tons of issues. It took Stern way too long to work out some of the issues with SPIKE and they should have simply given out node boards instead of ever charging early adopters to replace a failed board. The fact remains that the SPIKE 2 setup is a really good and reliable system and has been for a number of games. There is no reason to avoid the current Stern offerings because of SPIKE.

that is true but my game has all LED and lots of playfield light added (it is quite bright), and the dimpling in quite minimal... my point being, it is a 30 year old game, the amount of plays it has are...unknown... so that should make a difference on what these look like.

My Stern Star Trek pro has super small dimpling after thousands of plays. It's real hard to even see.

Wasn't WWE the first Spike system game? GOT and KISS were also before GB, to name a few.

WWE Wrestlemania was the first Spike 1 game followed by Kiss followed by Game of Thrones followed by Ghost Busters. Then Spike 2 Batman 66.

So great news update: Stern is replacing my playfield with a new unpopulated one. I consider myself fortunate as I'll take a playfield over none at all. Yeah, populated is nice, but I can do it myself with a little work. Plus, they're sending me a shaker for it for the hassle. So I'm thrilled.

So they think a playfield swap costs $150. Got it.

That is great news Jorant! I am happy this puts you at peace.

Plus the playfield itself, which has to be 500-1000.
Remember that thing has holes cut, inserts hammered in, art + clear...lotta labor goes into a playfield IMO.

Well, I'm glad that you are happy, but that resolution would not be enough to make me happy. If you don't mind doing the swap yourself, that's fine, but I think it is unreasonable for Stern to assume that an unpopulated playfield is of use to most retail customers.

Did they say when you can expect this playfield? Some people have had to wait many months for a playfield that they have been promised.

Except that he already PAID for that playfield - it was supposed to be included with his machine. Instead, they provided an unusably warped playfield that obviously didn't have the "lotta labor" it was supposed to have.

That is great news. Good to see you are happy with the result. There is plenty of good help on Pinside if you intend to swap the playfield out.

If that was us, we would be happy with that result. We have not swapped any playfields out. We have continued to play and enjoy the games. I guarantee you the games are very easy to sell with some playfield defects and a spare brand new playfield.

No word yet on my warped Led Zeppelin replacement playfield (they won't even respond to my emails LOL)

My bad. You are correct. And it makes my statement that Stern took way too long to fix the issues even more true. I don't remember issues with WWE and KISS like they had with GB? Maybe they started having the boards built at a different vendor?

I've been waiting 13 months since Stern agreed to give me a new playfield.
They have not responded to email since July...

I think I'd be okay with an unpopulated playfield for cosmetic issues like pooling, ghosting, etc, but not for an issue like your warped playfield that severely affected gameplay.

I wouldn't be able to enjoy the game until it was fixed.

Deleted.

You are the expert, that's for sure

2049250b476721868529b308954c8bae6c47c979 (resized).jpg

Me neither. That's why I plan to fix it

What has your distributor said? Are they ignoring you too?

That was one of the 1%...

That actually looks better than most AFM and MM I have seen. AFM especially had a lot of air balls of those green targets. Air balls = dimples. It is that simple.

actually i believe the first Spike game was one of their homepins. Transformers? Spiderman? I remember seeing a one off TWD at a show somewhere that was powered by Spike too.

I'm talking about power requirements.

Little known issue is that the game can overload the 500w power supply and reset mid game.

I've had that issue, I have to run higher than factory set voltage to avoid resets.

I've been lucky to have no node board issues, knock on wood.