Quoted from PinballManiac40:I did not find out he bought them until Sunday, which Pinball Basement had already packed up and left TPF sometime Saturday evening.
Classic snake oil salesman. Wagon leaves town before you realize you've been had.
Quoted from Gundam_Pilot_:How would someone file a class auction lawsuit?
Probably consult with a lawyer to see if it even meets the criteria. But it's a small potatoes case, so it's probably not worthwhile for the lawyer or plaintiff(s).
You'd probably want to look into defective products claims. You might even be able to address the grievance in small claims court.
I'd like to add for the record, Charlie finally did send me a replacement MPU board to replace the defective one I initially got, so he was true to his word.
The board took over 2 months to arrive after I first received the tracking info, but I get that Charlie was at the Texas PF and with added delay clearing customs being an international shipment. I received the MPU about 2 weeks ago but only got around to testing it this weekend. I'm happy to report this MPU appears to work fine, for the limited amount of testing I did. He even tossed in a chip/IC puller at no charge.
I do hope anyone that has customer issues around Pinball Basement will eventually be resolved. That is the only way Charlie will be able to restore our faith in his products and company.
Quoted from kungfucop:I'd like to add for the record, Charlie finally did send me a replacement MPU board to replace the defective one I initially got, so he was true to his word.
The board took over 2 months to arrive after I first received the tracking info, but I get that Charlie was at the Texas PF and with added delay clearing customs being an international shipment. I received the MPU about 2 weeks ago but only got around to testing it this weekend. I'm happy to report this MPU appears to work fine, for the limited amount of testing I did. He even tossed in a chip/IC puller at no charge.
I do hope anyone that has customer issues around Pinball Basement will eventually be resolved. That is the only way Charlie will be able to restore our faith in his products and company.
And how is the solder on the IC legs?
Quoted from PinballManiac40:And how is the solder on the IC legs?
It's the same as before, only wave soldered on the one side with minimal solder in the thru holes. But fortunately this board works as intended. Before plugging it in, I did a close visual inspection of the board to make sure there were no solder blobs or bridges like on the first board I received.
Since the double side board has thru-hole plating, technically it only needs to be soldered on the one side. But from a reliability standpoint, soldering on both sides is definitely better. Or at least if wave soldering on the one side, wait long enough for the solder to whisk up to the surface to fill in the thru-hole.
One wouldn't need to invest tens of thousands of $ into a fancy station that solders both sides as long as the boards are QA tested before selling them to customers. I would suggest setting up a rig for bench testing. Or find one of those used WMS test rigs. Yes, they are rare but do come up for sale every now and then if one chooses not to build their own rig. I realize it wouldn't be practical for the seller to be plugging the board into a game for testing as he would need to own each generation of pin for every board type he sells/carries.
PCBs are never "soldered both sides". You don't understand the process.
Wave soldering does exactly that - it creates a 'wave' of solder that sweeps across the BOTTOM of the PCB as it passes over the wave - usually dragged past by a chain. Through hole boards are NEVER soldered on the top.
If temps and speed of the driven chain are all set correctly the solder will usually wick through the holes but not always.
You are probably right. But I swear I saw long ago on some documentary using robotic / automated assembly setups where boards are dipped into a solder wave deep enough to cover both sides and then a channel of pressurized air would simultaneously remove the excess.
Quoted from kungfucop:You are probably right. But I swear I saw long ago on some documentary using robotic / automated assembly setups where boards are dipped into a solder wave deep enough to cover both sides and then a channel of pressurized air would simultaneously remove the excess.
Doubt it, it would damage components. As it is, you really have to watch temps VERY carefully with a wave soldering machine to avoid damaging parts so I can't see how dunking the entire board would ever be a thing? Certainly never in my travels over many years and to many assembly houses have I ever seen anything like this.
Quoted from pins4u:Doubt it, it would damage components. As it is, you really have to watch temps VERY carefully with a wave soldering machine to avoid damaging parts so I can't see how dunking the entire board would ever be a thing? Certainly never in my travels over many years and to many assembly houses have I ever seen anything like this.
I've seen that dunking process as well. I too was curious how they did it without harming the components.
Quoted from ForceFlow:I've seen that dunking process as well. I too was curious how they did it without harming the components.
Yes, there is a "dunking" method but the board is not entirely submerged - it is lowered into the molten solder until surface tension just prevents it from flowing onto the top of the board.
You can even do it yourself using a frypan, spray flux onto the underside of the PCB with parts then lower it so the board is just touching the surface of the molten solder. Wave the board around a little, side to side and withdraw it vertically and it should come away cleanly.
pan (resized).pngQuoted from pins4u:Yes, there is a "dunking" method but the board is not entirely submerged - it is lowered into the molten solder until surface tension just prevents it from flowing onto the top of the board.
You can even do it yourself using a frypan, spray flux onto the underside of the PCB with parts then lower it so the board is just touching the surface of the molten solder. Wave the board around a little, side to side and withdraw it vertically and it should come away cleanly. [quoted image]
I've seen the solder pot method before, and that's not the one that's a mystery.
What I was curious about was complete or near complete submersion.
Quoted from ForceFlow:I've seen the solder pot method before, and that's not the one that's a mystery.
What I was curious about was complete or near complete submersion.
Solder pots are almost always for tinning the end of wires from my experience not soldering completed boards.
Completely submerging the components would surely not be within the specs for any parts I know of. That's not to say people don't do it but it would be courting disaster IMO.
From a place I worked at, the wave solder machine had a preheating area that brought the
whole pcb up to a certain temperature before the solder chamber... then cooling chamber...
I had an issue with a pinballbasement wpc89 driver board that had sitting new in box for 1.5 years. When installed the g.i. was very dim. Adjusting the brightness in the menu didn't show any visible change in brightness from levels 6-7-8. Measuring the AC at the insert panel lamps at brightness level 8 gave a reading around 5.3vac. Put the factory board back in and at level 8 the g.i. lamps had 7vac.
Looking at the triacs he used on the reproduction board, they are bta12-600b. I couldn't find a clear answer, but it appears those triacs only trigger in three quadrants vs the factory bt138e triacs that trigger in four quadrants. I replaced the triacs with bt138-600e and they reach full brightness as expected.
I emailed the help line but havent heard a reply or acknowledgement of a receipt in ten days. I'm going to guess that a lot of the wpc89 drivers have the wrong triacs installed.
20220611_000930 (resized).jpg20220611_001002 (resized).jpgThis is all just very odd. If you are going to sell a product like this, get a professional assembler to help perform this work. One of my colleagues that helped lay out my company’s PCB design thought he could save us a buck using a cheap pick and place he had. And indeed he would have …. if any of the boards had actually worked. The workmanship was shoddy, the connections tenuous, even parts placement was janky. We spent hours upon hours tracking down issues. So I got a professional company that does only board assembly for a living to assemble the PCBs. All those boards actually worked. Same company that a well known pinball board manufacturer uses. There are lots of shops stateside or in China that will do a way better than what I can with my soldering iron. I’ll stick to design and let others more skilled handle assembly. Sounds like the same should have been done here. And the failure for ownership of these issues when they very clearly fall short of industry standards basically tells me they have no idea what they are actually doing. The road to hell (and customer complaints) is paved with good intentions. What people are showing demonstrates seeming incompetence at assembly. It is one thing to do bad assembly, it is quite another to do bad assembly, be shown pictures of your bad assembly, have customers yell at you for bad assembly and non working boards, and despite all that persist in continuing to do bad assembly and try to defend it. 12 step program clearly needed here.
Quoted from gutz:I had an issue with a pinballbasement wpc89 driver board that had sitting new in box for 1.5 years. When installed the g.i. was very dim. Adjusting the brightness in the menu didn't show any visible change in brightness from levels 6-7-8. Measuring the AC at the insert panel lamps at brightness level 8 gave a reading around 5.3vac. Put the factory board back in and at level 8 the g.i. lamps had 7vac.
Looking at the triacs he used on the reproduction board, they are bta12-600b. I couldn't find a clear answer, but it appears those triacs only trigger in three quadrants vs the factory bt138e triacs that trigger in four quadrants. I replaced the triacs with bt138-600e and they reach full brightness as expected.
I emailed the help line but havent heard a reply or acknowledgement of a receipt in ten days. I'm going to guess that a lot of the wpc89 drivers have the wrong triacs installed.
[quoted image][quoted image]
Early WPC89 drivers had some boards go out with this part on accident, recommendation is replace with the BTA16
Quoted from kungfucop:You are probably right. But I swear I saw long ago on some documentary using robotic / automated assembly setups where boards are dipped into a solder wave deep enough to cover both sides and then a channel of pressurized air would simultaneously remove the excess.
No, covering both sides of a board in solder in not done.
Quoted from Crash:Yeah I was about to say, how convenient they left before the end of just the second day of TPF.
After X hours of no sales, we leave early at the end of the convention. Sales go in spurts, and most happen first day and the setup day.
Lets revert back to the [email protected] for now,
any product is eligible for exchanges, customer pays for shipping back to pinballbasement.
Quoted from Pinball_Basement:Early WPC89 drivers had some boards go out with this part on accident, recommendation is replace with the BTA16
That’s your response, what great customer service 
Just found this thread today. I wish I would have found it sooner.
Agreed to buy a bunch of boards from Charlie at Texas, he was to make a couple of alterations and send them to me within a couple of weeks. Weeks turned into months. He was answering messages through pinside.
After reading about quality issues and how people got strung along I went straight to a chargeback. I sent him a message asking to not send my stuff, that I started a charge back and if he could in any way expidite the process on his and I would appreciate it. He immediately answered that a refund would probably take a while and that he was sorry for the inconvenience.
Very glad I paid with a credit card in this case. Usually I'm a cash guy.
Quoted from Butch2099:Just found this thread today. I wish I would have found it sooner.
Agreed to buy a bunch of boards from Charlie at Texas, he was to make a couple of alterations and send them to me within a couple of weeks. Weeks turned into months. He was answering messages through pinside.
After reading about quality issues and how people got strung along I went straight to a chargeback. I sent him a message asking to not send my stuff, that I started a charge back and if he could in any way expirate the process on his and I would appreciate it. He immediately answered that a refund would probably take a while and that he was sorry for the inconvenience.
We were supposed to meet at allentown, then I wasn't able to attend and your original boards got diverted to other orders. The next batch of drivers took longer than expected so shipping them kept getting delayed.
Sorry for the issues.
Refund timing through credit card chargeback process takes longer than when I hit the refund button.
Quoted from Pinball_Basement:your original boards got diverted to other orders
I have read this a few times and keep trying to figure out what you are saying.
If those boards are for his order, why would they go somewhere else? If you don’t have all of the boards for his order, why wouldn’t you ship him what you do have, and not send them to someone else?
Am I reading that right?
Quoted from Pinball_Basement:We were supposed to meet at allentown, then I wasn't able to attend and your original boards got diverted to other orders. The next batch of drivers took longer than expected so shipping them kept getting delayed.
Sorry for the issues.
Refund timing through credit card chargeback process takes longer than when I hit the refund button.
Wait, so first you delay his refund then sell his boards (that you took his money for) to someone else??
Quoted from Crash:Wait, so first you delay his refund then sell his boards (that you took his money for) to someone else??
He never intended on going to Allentown, just more excuses...
Multiple people contacting me about him, all similar story, lots of promises, no product and if there is product they have to pay someone else to repair it.
Quoted from Pinball_Basement:Refund timing through credit card chargeback process takes longer than when I hit the refund button.
It's even longer when you deny the claim even though you still haven't sent me anything (I don't want your product, just my refund). Should have stuck with sorry, here's your money back.
Well, if there was ever any doubt Charlie is either in way over his head or a flat out scam artist there shouldn’t be any longer.
Too bad, this was a great idea for needed products. Anyone that orders from Pinball Basement deserves whatever they get (or don’t get). Buyer beware indeed.
I can only say that in my 20 years of collecting and buying parts from people all around the world, my experience with Pinball Basement was the single worst transaction I've ever had in my life -- in any industry. I cannot stress enough that people should stay far, far away from this business. We need the parts, but Charlie is the epitome of unprofessional - crappy communication, crappy product, crappy service, and just a shit show all around. Yikes.
And Victor Tan is the complete and total opposite. Give him your money instead! Same product Charlie Peterson promised but the difference is Victor is a real businessman, not an imposter.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dumbass-test-and-reproduction-pcbs
I had a bad experience with him but got a refund. Ended up buying a board from another builder and worked perfectly. Hope all goes well for people that have ordered from this guy.
Quoted from Crash:And Victor Tan is the complete and total opposite. Give him your money instead! Same product Charlie Peterson promised but the difference is Victor is a real businessman, not an imposter.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dumbass-test-and-reproduction-pcbs
THIS! Victor is amazing. His board are beautiful, work fantastically, and his follow up afterwards when I have questions is just top notch all around. All hail Dumbass!
Chris
I can also add that we have not recieved our boards we paid last year for from Charlie.
Tried to reach out to him in multiple ways to honor our order and send the parts. We have been met with complete silence, even on the "support mail" he told us to use for such problems.
Now a year after we still havent recieved our full order.
Will give him the possibility to respond to this comment with a solution for one last time. Pinball_Basement
Quoted from XatchieS:I can also add that we have not recieved our boards we paid last year for from Charlie.
Tried to reach out to him in multiple ways to honor our order and send the parts. We have been met with complete silence, even on the "support mail" he told us to use for such problems.
Now a year after we still havent recieved our full order.
Will give him the possibility to respond to this comment with a solution for one last time. Pinball_Basement
Wow! Over a year? I hope you get some resolution! International makes it that much harder.. Too late to do a chargeback?
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