I do my own stuff, I really enjoy it. My rotisserie is such a whore, never spent one night alone since I picked it up years ago...

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A little of both.
I run a full time business (non pinball related) that eats up a lot of my time. Between that and family, I simply don’t have enough time to allocate to repair and restoration all by myself.

Besides pinball I also collect arcade games and EM games and that part of my collection is much larger than the pins and requires a ton of maintenance as well. Add it all up and I own close to 100 machines in total which is more than I can take care of by myself.

In a lot of ways it boils down to how much value I think my time is worth. I love working on games, but on an hourly basis this is a money loosing proposition for me. I can make much more money if I focus on my business than if I goof around in the garage working on games.
Hence I will outsource restoration and major repair work.
Once a machine is dialed in keeping up with the basic maintenance is normally pretty easy.

Of course! Half the fun of the hobby is the repairs and tinkering.

Best money you will ever spend. Not only in the huge time savings, but wayyyyy less risk to mess up and make something worse. I only regret not getting mine sooner.

I do all the work on the EM games. I think most people could learn to shop and get en games running with time and patience. With my SS games, it's trickier. There are plenty of online tutorials etc to diagnose board issues and I have successfully repaired some issues, but at times it feels very hit and miss to my uneducated self.

Dave

I'm not much of an artist, so repainting worn down playfields is not my strong suit, but as far as any other repair, be it an old EM, solid state, or modern games, all the info on how to diagnose and make repairs, even board work, is usually one or two clicks away. And the tools required to do so are simple things I already have, so there is nothing I haven't been able to learn to fix on these machines yet.

I only paid a guy to come over once when I was a rookie, and it was something he couldn't figure out. Finally, after much ado, I fixed it on my own.

I'll take a shot at anything (been in the tech/electronics/computer) field pretty much my entire life. Thought I have noted as I have gotten older an increased ability to admit when I'm either in over my head or it's a "you just should not go there" item. May not stop me from trying...

Pins anytime, and I love figuring out mechanisms so I'll have a go at things like vendors, slot machines, jukes... Pretty much anything that crosses my path. You never really know until you try!

Bingos probably are the most challenging. Really got to get to my Zen place before I dive in there!

Need a starting point? These guys got it down!

It sounds like most everybody here qualifies to be : Jack of all trades---Master at none

I do - I’ve done repairs and playfield swaps. I’ve done some board work, but I would not consider it heavy duty, mostly replacing transistors and header pins. For more delicate work, board work gets sent out.

But I consider repair my favorite aspect of the hobby.

I've been called worse.

I try and it’s always something simple. Getting better. Currently have a Sky Jump and a Wizard down. Something I’m looking forward to fixing.

Not to mention no self respecting motherboard re-worker uses a radio shack iron anyway.

Beat me to it!!

I didn't add the extra "f" because that's against pinside rules and you know how I like to follow all the rules.

No, thank you! But it's 5:00, so my work day here is done.... for now.

Chow!

I do my own repairs. All my machines are relatively new, so a major repair for me has been to reflow an opto board, replace a power supply or re-solder a broken connection. I don't use my local vendor for support even though I buy most of my machines thru them. My other hobbies include Ham radio, restoring military test equipment and old radios so I have the ability and the test equipment to fix most anything. I like the challenge of diagnosing a problem and fixing it, though I still consider my self a newbee when it comes to pinball. I don't post much, but I enjoy the forum every day for tips that have helped me improve my games, solve problems and to play better.

I've always done all of my own work including electronics.
Its a key part of the collecting/restoring hobby for me.
Steve

SDTM Cary Hardy: Pinball Clear Coating Booth on a Budget aka Kill Room