Same here. 2 years with GoT Pre, and trouble free.

I got the spacer at Frys today and installed it. Took less than 5 minutes. Sterns directions are great. Super easy. My Star Wars already had the cap kit installed (build date 10/17/17).

Sorry for the focus on the wires, I wasn’t paying attention when I took the shot. And yes, I trimmed the zip tie after

A26C2357-B432-41A1-8618-79D403D2F7ED (resized).jpeg

Thank you JJ!

Any word as to KISS or GOT Pro/Prem/LE ? KISS LE . Going in hospital tonight for a hopefully simple procedure . No time to look into this issue . I never assume anything . KISS / GOT not listed . would like verification . I will add Thanks even if it took 3 years to STERN .

No it will get very expensive for the owners as warranty is only 90 days. A HUO may not see these issues for years. What other issues are lurking?

JJ,
Do you know how long this will be available? My game is at a vacation house and unfortunately I don't know when I will get back up there to get the SN#. I would assume it wont be until close to Christmas.

Thanks, Mike

Just a tip. All my STERN games bought from The Game Exchange of Colorado NIB and all STERN HUO I call Chas or Pat and give them my SN# of each machine for there system so I am on-file .

Yeah, just as an FYI. I requested the kits and was told they'll send them out, but Stern is requesting the serial numbers for the games so I'll have to get those tonight. If you want to save a step, be sure to send the serial number along.

Honestly I just peeked through the coin door to see if I needed them and didn't see caps installed. Figured I could check it out better once the kits arrive.

I checked my GB Pro yesterday and D9 was surface mount, so no spacer necessary. It is an early model so it doesn't have the cap fix.

My SW Pro has the caps, but I didn't check D9 for the spacer as I was cramped for time. I'll check that later.

Service bulletins are a normal and good thing. I guess we have to remember that pinball machines weren't home products until pretty recently. Maybe that should change how these things are designed, but that hasn't happened yet. I hope manufacturers use this to learn that mounting circuit boards in high vibration areas is a problem, however.

Mike Send me what you bought and your last name 99% of the time I can pull this up in our system, if you bought from us.

I think the kits will be around for some time. So I don't think you need to stress either way

JJ

looks real macgyver like.

Fair point about the terms of the written warranty. But for what it’s worth, Stern has consistently been replacing these node boards outside the warranty period. I haven’t seen a report yet of someone that sought and was denied a node board replacement due to age of the machine.

I emailed Stern about the kits for my GOT prem and they told me that GOT is not part of the service bulletin and does not need the fix kits.

Does Stern provide the parts for free for these?

Yes

I emailed Stern and was told they have to still build the kits for thousands of customers. No idea when these will actually be sent out to us.

My “kit” cost less than $2 at Fry’s and I have enough spacers for 4 games. It’s nice to be done and protected now vs waiting.

How tightly is your spacer between Q4 and D9? Mine moves a bit - should I make it tighter?

I made it hand tight. The spacer isn't really moving, but I did to pull it so tight that it stresses the components if that makes sense.

What's the length of the spacer in the kit, I will pick up a few, just want the right length. It's just a regular PCB stand off, right?

I am worrying about lifting the components, when pulling it tight...

And I pulled D9 when tightening the zip ties. Oh damn - is the whole board now ruined or what to do next?

Pull it tight and reflow. Should be fine.

Contact your distributor.

Odd solution, but I can see it being effective. Having to deal with vibrations on a PCB is not a new thing.
Outside of my pinball stuff my full time job is actually in a factory that builds boards used in high vibration environments.
We're talking units that are attached to pump heads, and things like that.

For large thru-hole devices like these one solution is to use an RTV silicone, applied liberally.
A common one is Dow Corning 3145. Electronics grade stuff does tend to be a bit pricier than 'kitchen and bath' types.
The good thing with an RTV is that it can usually be peeled away to allow rework of the PCB if necessary.

Given the layout of the board, and its location, I'm actually surprised there's no kind of anti-vibration materials added.
A good contract manufacturer has a lot of possible things to offer in this kind of situation.
Underfill, potting encapsulation, overmolding, heat-set surface mount adhesives, staking epoxy, lots of stuff.

Not just the TO-220's on there either. The electrolytic capacitors, connector bodies, and that inductor are all potential vibration targets.

Are the boards mounted directly to the playfield, or is there any shock absorbsion for it? I know ems always mounted stuff on spring spacers...

I am thinking of putting some rubber spacers under the screws of the PCB's (where they are attached to the playfield). The kind they use for harddisks. Question for the experts here: does that any good ?

So does this get posted in the weird hacks in pinball thread. I think it’s good that Stern is dealing with this but having to zip tie a circuit board is pretty laughable and not in a good way. The pinball business is so unique I couldn’t imagine this in any other product but it doesn’t bother me in a pin. If it happened in say a sub or some other electronics I would avoid that brand like the plague.

Why wouldn’t it be? Just trying to understand this fix. Thanks for any update.

Because GOT does not use the affected nodeboard. The affected nodeboard is partnumber 520-7017-72. Got uses partnumbers 520-6935-10 for Node 8 and 520-5329-10 for Node 9.

I think - someone correct me when I am wrong - that the failure happens because the diode body puts a bit more stress on the thinner pins that it has and therefore tends to move a lot back and forth. That is why the pins break, you know when you constantly move a piece of metal back and forth then it suddenly breaks.

By connecting it through the spacer with a sturdier component, it will not move as much anymore and the problem is solved. They could have done this much more difficult, but the point is that almost everybody that owns a pin with the affected board should be able to do this, so as it does not win the prize for good looks, it maybe the most simple way of stabilising the small pins of the diode.

Checked my October 12 2017 built SW Premium, mine has both of these service bulletins already installed on them. However, they did not use a spacer on tying the diode to the other transistor, just plain zip tied them together using the head of the zip tie as the spacer.....

I had two node boards fail on my Avengers home unit

I didn't know the SPIKE System used node boards ?

LTG : )

Just to confirm, Game of Thrones does not have anything to fix with regards to the boards?

I was told this directly from an email reply from a Dave Carver at Stern. GOT is does not need these 2 fixes.

I've sent two emails to Stern requesting the kits and have not had a response to either of them. I know they must be deluged, but at least an acknowledgement of the request would be nice.

I think the home one was on the new system and there some test games at test locations with SAM for that game and ACDC both where buggy.

GOT might not need these two fixes, but my Node 8 did fail and they said it should've been "jumped" on the back. Mine wasn't...i sent it in and they jumped it and been perfect ever since. Maybe pull the board and see if it has this fix already.

Can someone explain what this means, "should've been jumped on the back"?

Probably they jumpered two parts together on the back to fix some design deficiency

Can someone show the back of a board that has this fix, and point out how to see the fix on the board?

What is the part number on that diode? Diode in a to-220 ish package??? wth is it.

surprised its not a surface mount part (board revision incoming!)

I'm too lazy to pull mine, but if someone posts a pic of the back of theirs, I can confirm if it's jumped.

Yea this blew http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/520-5321-00 but I guess the second board isn't a node board its a board for the drop targets :/

The crazy thing is on my Ghostbusters, D9 is surface mount on both node boards.

It might not be the same diode on both boards. No reason for the numbers to match up.
Are the schematics available anywhere?