After 11 months my full order arrived. The first board I open it has some strange lines down the side of most of the chips. Like residue maybe?

Should I plug these in to test or does it look like there could be an issue? I don't think it looks right.

Also some boards are missing chips like U20 etc. (I know the ASIC, CPU, rom etc isn't included but RAM and the U20 I think should be)

Any guidance?

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Wow, that looks awful. The lines are probably Flux. No big deal, just lazy. That chip doesn't look like it's seated properly. What does it look like from the back? That doesn't seem like nearly enough solder either, I can see right through.

Website says should only be transferring over the ASIC and Game ROMs. I would ask for a replacement board, especially the way this board looks.

The IC soldering is unacceptable.

That's horrible & unacceptable. This guy either has problems with his vision or just doesn't care enough about the final product he's selling.

Looks terrible, wouldn't trust it - sorry for your loss.

hmm.. even hand soldering those chips I'd expect a good solder job to wick the solder all the way thru the holes.

Thanks for all the feedback.

I have taken a picture of the back of the board (which looks ok?) and a picture of the complete board. My other WPC95 MPU looks the same as this. My WPC MPU looks better, so I have also taken a picture of that one. It also does have some random chips with white stuff on them and greyish joins instead of bright silver like on others.

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Why does this type of thing continue to get past QA? Or is there any QA?

That’s quite an odd reply IMO.

You're expecting your customers to take a gamble on an untested board and reach out to you for support on the back end?

I have seen enough examples here I'd rather spend several days cleaning leaking battery debris off an MPU than gamble on a working product.

Hate to be that way man but the provided pictures speak for themselves.

hmmm

Support? What support? Sending out shoddy workmanship, then tries to claim you did not hook the connectors up right (they only go on one way). Then promises to replace your non-working board after months of messages being ignored. Then sending out a board with components not soldered on properly. Then blames the shipping, when there is clearly a problem with the soldering. Then claims it is his process of soldering that he will do better in the future. Then more time elapses of no communications. Meanwhile, you see that on Facebook he is promoting he has multitudes of boards but has not sent you one. Then you see in the above pictures of what those boards will look like if you do eventually get one. Yes, I am still angry about how I and others were treated. I pity those that are still waiting for delivery months after sending money or have not installed there boards yet only to find failure.

Pinball_Basement How are these top traces connected to the IC? You can't ship this stuff until you fix the manufacturing process.

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I agree it isn't good BUT they will be connected top the top traces via the 'vias' - the plated through holes in the PCB.

As long as they are soldered on the bottom this won't prevent connections.

I understand where you're coming from but I disagree. vec-tor confirmed bad solder connections due to insufficient solder. Ruggedbeef had chips that looked like they were falling off of the board with some kind of residue on the chip legs. When soldering components it's critical your solder bath wicks up solder into the top portion of the pad as well to ensure good electrical and mechanical connection. When I solder a through hole component on a PCB I always ensure the solder has enough time to wick through to the other side of the pad.

Thermal cycles will break poor joints sooner or later.

Yep, even if something is connected now, it likely won't be connected later if the solder is poor from the beginning. That and mechanical vibration.

Not to mention the response on what you do ask about is generalized and deferred off as being adequate or not Pb fault.

I’ve had a wpc89 MPU that was also bad back in July. I got an email about how he can replace it with no further correspondence despite sending at least 20 emails. I just gave up and chalked it to a loss that this product is just not up to any standard. As is the support given to remedy the issue.

There’s no structure for quality. It seems nobody is getting a good assembled product, and unfortunately the customer service to follow up isn’t any better.

The crazy thing is that we’re all in the thread discussing this. I am sure there’s so many more people that are unaware of the quality issues when purchasing, or are stuck like everyone here but haven’t seen this thread to comment. I don’t even want to think about all the people that order that aren’t even on pinside, or trying to keep their games going on route.

Otherwise I’ll keep watching this train wreck. Because it’s nothing shy of that.

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There is no reason for the moderators to close this thread. It's open discussion. I mean, we asked questions and gave you multiple opportunities to address the issues. You're just taking your ball and going home now? Not a good look.

Nobody likes having these conversations, especially with a new line of products that could be amazing if the kinks were worked out. We may actually need a buyer beware thread now, unfortunately.

Yes, technically the boards have solder on the bottom and the through hole plating makes the connection to the top. But I have never seen any pre-assembled boards soldered like that. It is just not normal no matter how you try to spin it. It would be better to just offer the PCB and bag of parts as a kit for a bit less cost and give people the option to build them. Soldering would be on the end user. I know a lot of people (myself included) that would enjoy that option as well as the option to buy blank PCB's since many like to build their own up and enjoy the soldering part.

Can't you outsource the assembly to a shop that does have current equipment so the soldering is up to the same standard as other boards and that people on this thread expect? What you have now isn't doing the job. If you are really serious in being a supplier of high end reproduction boards just make the investment in a new machine to do it right. Or outsource the assembly.

It looks like some of the designs you have now and others in the works look like they are well done. They have the potential to do really well. But it is all held back by an old soldering machine.....

Seems like you're trying to do too many new projects at once and that is affecting support and existing products.

You should have done a little more homework before posting

"Website says should only be transferring over the ASIC and Game ROMs"

You jest.

I guess I have if you consider single sided PCB's without plated holes...

Purchased plenty of PCB from RD, Weebly and Alltek, none looked like what is displayed here.

Gotta spend money to make money

I'm in the same boat. Purchased a new WPC MPU and opted for the fully populated board with ASIC. I specified which game it was for and the ROMs were supposed to be provided. I received an MPU with missing ROMs but he provided me NVRAM which I did *not* request for as I had my own lithium battery board that I was going to install.

Got a defective board that had a solder blob / bridge, the GI is not functioning and the dot matrix display output dots were wonky. I removed the solder blob / bridge, but the GI is still not lighting up. I had to put in my own game ROMs and I also replaced any IC's that were socketed (i.e. the ASIC) with my own from a known working board. The dot matrix display now functions normally which points to a defective ASIC that was provided by PinballBasement. However there is still something defective on the board that is preventing the GI from functioning.

I emailed Charlie with video proof of my own working MPU vs. the PinballBasement MPU. After some initial correspondence, Charlie agreed to send me a replacement board without any IC's. I was fine with that. But after months of radio silence I am still waiting in the dark. Any additional emails have been ignored by Charlie.

I was hesitant to post anything as I wanted to give Charlie a chance to make things right. But I see that he is posting on this thread but ignoring customers with issues. I understand Charlie indicated he has health issues but this has been going on for months. Should he resolve this issue I will post a retraction.

.. yeah, this response is kinda ‘if you guys want a quality product I need $45k’ …ok is that your customers problem? If you can’t provide a quality product you shouldn’t be selling. It’s all very unfortunate when you’ve got something people want — if the quality and customer service was there. 1 out of 3 ain’t gonna cut it it seems like

For the most part, I've tried to remain out of this so I wouldn't unfairly unbalance things, but honestly, this situation is simply ridiculous. I keep reading about the same pattern of behavior over and over.

I had my own communications issues with him. Several weeks of silence before I finally went public with my issue. With me, that's basically a last resort.

Then he tried to gaslight me like it was all my fault for whatever reason, and that I was causing him anxiety with all my (unanswered) messages. I don't think it's that difficult to send a quick reply just acknowledging a message even if you can't directly address it at that moment. Getting no response at all is just incredibly frustrating.

The board that I finally did receive had obvious issues--poor soldering joints, bridged connections, and numerous tiny solder balls stuck to the board. I very much doubt this board was ever tested, as it is obvious that it would never pass testing in that condition. He simply said:

That board was absolutely not in a usable state out of the box, and I would never feel safe plugging a board of an unknown and obviously defective state into a game.

Considering that several other people were having board issues and communications problems with no resolution, I just dropped the matter since a $150+ board isn't worth my time and aggravation dealing with someone who doesn't actually appear have any interest in resolving the issue. Until the product quality and customer service issues turn around, I won't be giving him any of my business or recommending his products. If he suddenly wants to take care of my issue because my voice carries a little weight, I would just ask him to take care of everyone else first who have actually been waiting on a response or action. That would be a good first step to earning back some good will.

While I can appreciate the monumental effort an endeavor such as this can take, the follow-through on communication and customer issues seems to be pretty abysmal. When you are selling a product, the actual sale is only a portion of what goes into the customer relationship.

If he really has little interest in dealing with customer issues, it might be a good idea to hire someone who can help with that. Not everyone has the skills, mindset, or interest to be able to effectively handle all aspects of running a business.

As for the poor quality control--I would never send out anything like I received or the photos that people are sharing. If the equipment you have is not quite capable of doing what you need it to do, then a new process needs to be developed and/or boards need to be inspected and finished manually. Quality, consistency, and reliability all need to be established to have a successful product. Blaming customers, blaming your equipment, or blaming your process doesn't build trust. Putting out a good, reliable product does. So you need to do whatever it takes to make that happen if you want to succeed and eventually get to the point where you can afford to scale up and get the equipment you want.

I really want to see this endeavor succeed. It has potential. But the way things are being handled right now seems like a good way to drive it into the ground.

Well said!

I was rooting for this guy

I have 2 wpc driver boards that I have in games that are on location. The first one was for a BOP that had issues when I got it, sent an email, never heard anything, figured it out and fixed it myself with no help from PB. It’s now better than the previous board in the game but still has issues.

2nd wpc drive board I received is now in a gilligans island. It had a lot of bad solder joints, now fixed with my measly $120 seller solder station but works fine. Just a time consuming fix.

I still have issues with the GI on both boards. The light flicker and strobe. Put other original boards in and everything is fine. I never reached out because I knew I either won’t get a response or get excuses. It really sucks because for operators, having parts available like this a huge time saver and helps keeps things going if we have a back stock. Unfortunately these boards don’t help.

So what should I do now? You haven't replied to my emails, you won't acknowledge me on here and now you're leaving pinside.

You're very active on Facebook. Is this the correct place to leave a review? https://www.facebook.com/basementpinball/reviews/

Been reading this thread since the beginning and things do not seem to be improving.

The idea for assemble yourself kits could be a good option for some people.

Can others with unresolved board issues speak to their credit card company to open a dispute? Maybe if too much time has elapsed since purchase you can prove you’ve been trying to get this resolved.

That's... really kind of silly. It's not difficult to send a quick reply asking Pinside users to confirm the information you need. Ignoring them for months?

I can understand why someone would prefer to get support questions all funneled through a single channel if possible, Otherwise you'd have to login and check all the different source every day (Facebook, pinside, etc) to see if any new questions came in and need to respond. Even so it is good to check the other platforms like pinside and the main Facebook page. But whatever method people use they do need to supply all the info needed to properly identify themselves and any details about the order and issue.

Not if you didn't ask for more info. I work in customer service and we always ask for more details when someone reaches out to us.

Never mind

A step in the right direction.

If you do decide to sell some blank PCB then I would be interested in a blank WPC driver. I have an original one sitting here that is really rough. Its been on the bottom of the pile for a while. I bought parts to rebuild but I would rather just move over some parts and repopulate the rest with new parts as I already have almost everything on hand to do so. Much better than a hacked up PCB as it sit now. Is that going to be an option? If so I would try one of your boards. If not I'll check with Victor and try his WPC driver PCB.

That sounds fair to me. I'd prefer this board since it follows the original schematic and I can use the new bridges, etc I already have. Thank You.

I agree. Thanks for not leaving Pinside. We just want your business to succeed. Without Rottendog I think there's only one other reliable source for OEM spec replacement boards (Dumbass). We definitely need more options.