New blood here. I purchased my first machine, Sinbad, last September and became immediately addicted to pinball ownership (a very common affliction, I later found out). The machine has been a dream so far- zero issues, flawless playfield, amazing first pin experience.
Nabbed my second in November (Flash Gordon -woo hoo!) and while I'm certain this machine will probably stay with me forever, I was quite abruptly introduced to the *other* half of pinball ownership: maintenance and repair. Nothing major (in hindsight, that is. When you have no idea what is going on under there- EVERYTHING is major), but just enough stacking issues to send me over the tipping point. When I was just at the level where I thought that this hobby was not for me, something clicked- I started fixing things. First bulbs, then sockets, then wires, then drop targets, etc..etc. Every fix made me a little bolder for the next one. I bought a soldering iron. I bought a multimeter (with no idea how to use it at the time). I actually became addicted to the maintenance.
So addicted in fact, that when my FG was all fixed up, I decided to jump in with both feet and get a genuine 'project pin.' I found a Stern Galaxy that would fit the bill nicely. She needs a little bit of everything, touch ups, connectors, board work, drop target bank/flipper/pop bumper rebuild. Time to test my resilience...