great guy and great products
welcome jeff

He is 87!

Amazing really.

Wow what a difference a week makes.

This pinball is a giant piece of junk.

I thought I was buying a commercial machine. This is nothing but a toy. And it doesn't even work.

I can't get pinball star to call me back or answer my emails.

I had a broken rail that I had to get welded myself. The coin door doesn't work. I'd have to spend money to buy parts to get to operate it.

Now that I got the play field back together. The ball constantly gets stuck under the up down ramp when it goes down. The ball falls out of the Tracy Island mech and into the bottom of the cabinet most times it loads.

There's almost no software, it just turns on and flips. The center ramp is thinner than most packages that are vacuform you buy at Walmart. An angry child could rip the plastic lockbar off. Speaking of ripped off...

IMG_20180929_163315 (resized).jpg

Ouch, this is very disturbing. Hope you can get some satisfaction from it.

This is exactly what im talking about. I guess there are people who think we say these things because wr have so.e kind of grudge against homepin. That unfortunately isnt the case, and more and more people will realize this once more games get shipped out.

Seems out of character for Joe.......
Im sure he will do whatever he can to try and make it right.
Mabye he is just having a super busy week?

What does the plastic lockdown back look like? I don't think I have seen a detailed picture of it

Dangerwill - first of all YOU didn’t buy this machine from me you bought it through someone else who bought two. You are not the customer of record so excuse me for not knowing who you are off one voice mail with no info. My order records are through the other person and the game is under his name. So when I got your voice mail you said - I’m calling you about a TB but made no mention of who you were etc... I assumed it was a price quote call and I had deliveries all day today and didn’t get a chance to call you back. Secondly I did reply to my customer of record DAYS AGO when he reported a problem and told him days ago ‘i am on it’ and will get whatever parts were needed ASAP. So please before you come in here with your tirade give me some detailed info on who you are. I didn’t sell you the game you didn’t pay me the order is not under your name, so I didn’t match up your call since you gave no details. Now at this time I do realize called you me a month ago to chat. So, again I’m on it getting you the replacement parts you need that I didn’t even realize was for your game. I’ll call you tomorrow. Sorry for confusion, but there was no delay on my part. Maybe check with my customer who you paid for the game (not me) and is my customer of record that I’ve had numerous emails with before coming here with a tirade. Still, I care and will address what I now know are your issues with the expediency I always do.

Homepin Warranty

BCF94B7F-EDE8-45B7-A9C4-6A49444D2A53 (resized).jpeg

Joe

I don't want to get in a pissing match with you. I have no problem with you. I called you three times and I emailed you with my problem. After a day or two with no response, the only recourse I have is to post on a public forum that I am not getting response from my distributor.

Below is a copy of the email which you received stating the fact that we were both buying Thunderbirds pinballs. It was just more convenient to pay you at the same time. Also to combine shipping.

I do have some questions about the machine that I would like answered. If you could still call me back that would be great. As you may have read I am less than happy with this purchase, I hope you and homepin can help make this game work , so I can earn back some of my investment.

Thanks Bill... can I get your address too please ?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Thunderbirds pinball pinball Palace
From: dangerwil <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, August 24, 2018 1:14 pm
To: [email protected]

Hey Joe this is Bill just dropping you a line. I'm getting one of the Thunderbirds pinball machines that's going to the pinball Palace in Brunswick Georgia. You wanted to get my information so here it is. We sent you ten thousand dollars yesterday via wire transfer. Looking forward to seeing my new pin. thank you

Bill LaCovara
Jacksonville pinball repair.com

You left me a voice mail ‘This is Bill from Florida about the TB’ that’s it, yes or no ? As a result, I literally looked up my records today to see who you were - I know I sold no game to anyone in FL. Let alone thought your call was about a game we shipped. I shipped them to GA. I was paid by another person. We had one phone call like 1-2 months ago and yes I asked you for your info to avoid something like this where I don’t know who the actual owner is. You left me no detailed info in your voice mail. If you’d like I can post your call it to prove my point like you are posting my emails. I take care of my customers. Period end of story. To come here and bitch after one day after you left me no details is not cool. Still I’ll do everything to make things right as i told my customer who reported this issue days ago. Maybe ask him for those emails so you know everything before you go public trying to disparage me for no reason. Still I will call you tomorrow and take care of your concerns directly with you. Or you can keep posting here if you think that’s best.

I sent this Saturday, no reply. I'm done posting. Please help THIS customer

dangerwil [email protected] Sat, Sep 29, 2018 5:42 pm
To sales [email protected]

Hey Joe this is Bill I got Thunderbirds number 24. Have a broken Playfield rail need to get a new one. Please let me know what we need to do.

MY customer was told I was on all these issues including this one which I didn’t know was yours. There’s nothing you need to do it will taken care of as I stated. You left me a 19 second voice mail yesterday with no last name no details at all no idea who you were or what your issues were. I stand by I communicated with my customer immediatly who paid me and who’s name the order is under. Of course now that I see who you are and understand the situation you will get same priority. I’m done posting too. Ty

G’day Jeff,

Welcome to Pinside!

You sure did pick a hum dinger of a thread to first post on.

Lots of Aussie’s here!

Congrats on supplying such wonderful products and offering free advice to enthusiasts as you have to me on the past, with a great attitude that demonstrates “people and passion before profits”.

Enjoy the ride...

You are Welcome!

PS you are welcome to bring your products to Flipout to sell if you wish

Now that'd be great

Everyone with a Gottlieb System 3 needs to get a set of fresh rails from Jeff

Hi and thanks Pinball Syd here on Pinside. We try and help when we can.

Thanks Dave. We love shiny stuff.

Thanks for the warm welcome to pinside on this thread. I did an intro post about us but I can't find it - LOL = noobie still finding navigation.

Anyhoo, In my best Creech voice, "On with the show", back on topic??

^ Ok I’ll bite, excuse my ignorance but who are you and what do you make/supply?

Ball keeps getting stuck on middle ramp, right above pop bumper. It doesnt matter what pitch we set it at. I tried to give this game a chance in a tourney last night. I should have known better. Never again, it had too many issues.

Side note, I do really like the shiny plunger!

IMG_20181001_093619_358 (resized).jpg

If I recall, Homepin has made newer, thicker plastic ramps. So if you got an early machine with a thin plastic ramp, they'll send you a replacement through your distributor. Also, on the metal habitrails, they discovered a problem with a ball getting stuck. Contact your distributor for a retrofit part that corrects that problem.

Wish this was the case. Theyve already retrofit everything they could. This isnt a proto machine. This is the production version. Ramp is a fractuon better than proto version, but this one still stinks. This is actually the second thunderbirds we have had. The first was the prototype version.

Why does this thread sound like another manufacturer thread that are no longer

Parts replacement and customer support is 100% what needs attention

Where is the manufacturer or worldwide distributor support in this thread, stop posting where you can see one at what show and sort out problems with these games on site.

You think HE is going to put you out go business, laughable
Do you honestly think this will be the reason, c'mon man.

Yep, Mike has done more damage to his own brand than 10 Ballypinball’s could ever do.

Pop bumper pete was accused of the same thing.

yeah, but PBP is an asshole

The only person copying anything is you, you copied bally Williams parts, photos of bally Williams parts and you taking measurements, I didn't copy anything I had all original parts. I have built original games and authorised 1,000s more, you have no idea what rights I retained in the assignment.

You didn't design anything you copied most from other manufacturers even data east pop bumpers and ben hecks boards

We have problems with every hankin table we sold, god help distributors with this machine.

I don't want you out of business, I want you to build the machines you owe people, but at pinfest you were overheard saying you need another 1.5 million to get another factory and more staff, and only had parts for 50 games, and once returned to china you would need to order more.

You need to shut your mouth, stay in china and get out what you have already been paid for in full.

Stop spending money that's not yours on flying around the world with 2-3 people promoting something that needs quality Control with rust and metal fatigue.

Spooky can do it, why can't you?

No pop bumper Pete is a good customer

I doubt that!

Overheard? These things were openly discussed by Mike from Homepin at his seminar at Pinfest.

The bit about things being 'overheard' is definitely misleading

Funny, American pinball does just fine on social media and this forum.

Spooky, CGC, JJP, and deeproot all post here as well.

It's a myth that manufacturers aren't on pinside.

Wait... did I read that in order to upgrade the software you need to mail chips back to China?????? Even if you didn’t have to mail them back and needed a rom burner, that’s just flat out unacceptable. This isn’t 1997. You don’t buy a vehicle with a tape deck. I guess that’s what happens when you have a creator who has a “get off my lawn” attitude about technology.

Orange DMD’s
ROM chips

Do the coin slots take doubloons and can the bill acceptor read social security checks?

Pretty sure it was return to a local distributor not china. I Don't think its rom chips but the actual microcontroller it self (code stored in flash)

All microcontrollers these days support DFU via sd card/usb so is rather weird they went down the send whole chip back vs just adding a usb connector to the pcb and writting some dfu firmware. (user just plugs in a usb stick with a firmware file)

It was either an extreme cost cutting measure, extreme lack of knowledge or an extreme case of wanting to keep people from adding their own code to a machine. Take your pick.

You forgot: Stopping another Chinese company from copying their product. Almost every manufacturer we deal with in China and Taiwan refuse to send us binary files when their microcontrollers die or require updating. Many of them farm Programming out too. And the programmers don't want their work pirated.

Some also use STC micros which usually can't be programmed by most "universal" programmers.

cant be cost cutting as adding a 50p usb connector is cheaper then building a special daughter board.