I dont even see that for sale anywhere. Wanted to compare it with others.

Keep in mind that this was not the first time he ripped off someone's board designs. I'm a little surprised to see you trying to poke holes in Rob's story.

The daughterboard can be a useful fix in a pinch and a helpful quick diagnostic tool. I don't use it as a permanent fix for issues, but it does have its uses.

I had a WPC game at a show once, but it kept resetting at the show. As you may be familiar, sometimes the voltage is low at shows, and that was just low enough to start affecting the game.

I always carry a daughterboard around in my toolkit just in case, and installing that got the game back up and running when I otherwise would not have had the time or parts to service the driver board properly.

Force you are using it as a temporary fix. Too many people use it as a permanent one. Too many people offer it up whenever someone has a 5v issue. No diagnoses, just slap it in and forget about it.

Thanks

Let’s see if the Chinese zombie goes and plays any better lol.

Tough to see many people signing up to buy another game from this upstanding individual.

Just shows your ignorance here.

Your dedication to fight this man’s (self made) battles is astounding

It takes a special kind of foul person to get Rob Khar to speak up and bad about you. One of the nicest and kindest people on the planet

And no harm in doing that either. There is no trophy for defending the antiquated and low tolerant 5v design when modern components can do the job more reliably. It’s a simple bypass for a fragile design.

Who gets a hard on for an opportunity to pull a wpc driver board out of the cabinet for a repair?

When was that cabinet first shown? I don’t even remember at this point. Has there been any new info since then? An underside playfield? Somebody play testing it? Sales of any kind? With TB being out of production, what is the pinball production side of things doing? Does it even exist in Taiwan yet/anymore? Besides making reproduction/copied replacement boards it doesn’t seem like much is going on.

People who actual learn how to work on machines instead of someone who throws money at the hobby and remains ignorant. The more popular this hobby has become the more we get of the later instead of the former.

It is a hack. The original boards are not even hard to fix. Being that pulling a driver board from a wpc is a drag for you says enough so let's leave it here.

I love doing mechanical work on my pins, but I don't have a lot of knowledge or skills when it comes to boards. Every WPC game I owned would reset with double flipper presses, while other games (Stern, JJP, Spooky, CGC, etc.) were fine. I assume it has something to do with my electrical lines? Needless to say, Rob Kahr's daughterboards were a godsend to me, because they solved the issue. I don't think it had anything to do with the boards themselves. Anyone who dogs Rob is an a-hole in my book. I also had the opportunity to meet him in person at one of the shows - great guy.

I bet you must really get wound up when you see all those replacement segment displays instead of people getting smart and just fixing the old ones! The nerve of those people! And LEDs? It's the end of the world!

Can we go back to the days of RGP arguing over if clear coating playfields ruins the game? I prefer the spot in time when people thought Tom's mods for TZ were the devil incarnate.

It's only a hack to those too stubborn to actually look at what it does. The engineers appreciate the simple elegance of the solution.

And yes, the WPC driver board is a pita... Too many screws, so many aging IDC connectors, and takes up alot of space on the bench. Snap-caps are always a risk too just due to the physical forces involved and 25+yr old through-hole boards.

But thank you for carrying the torch so the rest of us can stay on the couch.

Either way - it's a dick move for Homepin to knock off the product. Rob addressed a real issue in the hobby with a GOOD product and is part of the hobby himself. To have another insider go and knock it off is a DICK MOVE.

A knock off of a hack that shouldn't exist in the first place. I see it the same as people who solder wires to the gi plug because they dont know how to use a desoldering gun.

As for led displays, oh boy, guess what I was doing last night? Building a set of wolfpac's, which are excellent by the way. Also have two Bally Fa boards sitting on my desk needing the fpga's programmed. Don't mistake my hatred of a hack as being anti-technology. I love technology. I love all the new options people are coming up with. For example, did you know geeteoh has a replacement for the S&T sound board? It doesn't use the original chips and is playing wav files but also means it can be made on demand.

What I hate are people too lazy to learn how to fix their shit. You wanna be lazy and throw a hack in? Fine, I just don't want to buy such crap off you and if I am buying a game with that I won't be paying what I would for one that doesn't have it. That garbage is a big red flag to me saying "Owners can't maintain their games, expect other hacks"

You see this as some amazing solution to a bad design. I see it as someone too lazy to work on their own equipment. Saying the board has too many screws is all you needed to say. We won't agree and just move on. This has jack all to do with new technology, clearcoats, mods, or anything else.

Glad u have the time and knowledge to fix all your pin problems and eliminate hacks. A lot of people don’t have 1 or the other of those or simply don’t have a stick jammed up their ass about it. It’s not that big a deal, holy crap.

And in the world of ‘hacks’ - the Khar board is about the very least hacky you can get- so much so that I don’t think that’s even a fair term to use. Is it a fire danger? No. Potential to come loose and short circuit something else? Nope. Gonna blow a fuse from using it, or further damage a machine in some way? I don’t think so. It’s a solid field dressing that will last a long time if you need it to. Or it’s a problem solving tool. Whatever you need.

Hey, I'm one of those "backyard" repair guys! I've only been working on and owning pins for a year, but we all gotta start somewhere. The only way to really learn how to fix and maintain pins is to actually work on them. I don't know if you know this or not, but it's getting pretty hard to find pinball techs of any sort in a lot of places. In my case, I'm not much more than an oil-change and tire rotation guy in the mechanic's parlance. But just like plenty of car owners can't do those things, plenty of pinball machine owners can't do much more than take off the glass.

Not sure how long you've been at this Doug, but my detective skills would tell me you've been in the pinball hobby/biz a long time. Not all of us have the advantage of decades experience or the mentorship of seasoned techs. Also, it's not like there's a school for pinball repair, but hot-damn that'd be something if there was. I'd be all over that!

It's great to try things and learn but remember you are playing with voltages that can kill or hurt you or burn your house down or cause expensive damage to your game etc. Likelihood is pretty slim but nonetheless a chance. I'd rather get an expert to change my car brakes than have a go myself and maybe have an accident.

So try things if you feel confident and are careful. What khar has is great for the guy who's not sure of himself and will get him out of trouble for the short term at least.

Hi,

Got recently n°113/155.

On right flipper I have magnetic remanence because of bad quality alloy used.
Also got some mushrooming that I have corrected filling roughtly and changing the soft sleeve damaged... But magnetism remains. I have then to change at least the stop and the plunger.

I know homepin is producing his own parts, but with COVID crisis, I would avoid long deadline to recover... So I'm searching for equivalence part for the flipper... It look like Data East/Sega/Stern SAM but as I don't own such pins, I can't tell... Plunger spec in mm: Diameter 11, total lenght 60, pin drill 5 toward link...

Anyone for help?

Hi,

I got replaced plungers with DE previous 1992 and pin stops with bally to discover the right flipper was still sticking one to 3 seconds... I went to menu for test and discovered one push on the right resulted in 4 to 6 impulsions. Conclusion, no remanence... but electrical or electronical...

I then turned to the opto, surrounded by 2 coils (the walk through and the launcher)... After testing and several cleaning the phenomena disappeared. Strange disturbance as normally this I/O failing...

But with optos you never know ain't it?

Interesting...

Just listened to pinball news podcast and homepin teased that their next pin had a sub license from some company that has a 2021 anniversary. Also that it will be a fun, happy title. Makes me think they got some Disney title to license but if that was the case it doesn't really narrow down the license much. It would be funny if they did Alice in Wonderland though.

Homepin’s first game is listed as the worst pinball game ever made.

So, the sky’s the limit on game 2.
That and at least they actually put out a game.

The only way is up when people regard your last game as the worst of all time.

I played much worse pinball in GTB, bally and Williams games.
For sure this is far to be the best, but the ball flow is good. Too much multiball for me, but a rule update may change a lot of things... If it comes one day...

If anyone has a thunderbirds pin they let go at a good price lmk

Pinball is fun. Much better than no pinball.

This is one of those rare cases where no pinball is preferred.

Seems you are really bashing!!!
Have you ever played that game?

Yes, and it was one of the only times I walked away from a machine on ball 2.

I’ve played it a bunch and it deserves all the hate it gets.

It’s literally the Atari 2600 ET of pinball.

Not sure if I posted this before, but we took a look at Thunderbirds a little while back during our Tron pickup video.

This link will take you right to that part of the video.

No, ET was a much better game in general. Once you figured out how to exit the pits without falling back in, it became a reasonably challenging game to complete quickly. Use the speed boost to zip around and map the required zones, then grab the phone pieces and speed around again to set it up and phone home while dodging the agents.

Thunderbirds just sucks.. there's not much to do to make it interesting.

You’re right, my comment was insulting to et lol.

I've heard that Thunderbirds wasn't a great game but it is hard to picture just how it can be as bad as people say. It is the layout? The code? Both? Just wondering if it could be saved with alternate code and some updates. I've never seen one in person or had a chance to try it. The machine itself doesn't look bad.

i dont know much about the gameplay specifically but theres also an element of "the people" involved.

There is a certain very vocal belligerent following of butthurt "enthusiasts" ( obsessive addicts with an axe to grind) who just hate mike for being mike and enjoy popping up every chance they get to tell everyone about it.

A major element of the ongoing hate noise is personal.

One thing i have seen first hand is when you deliver this game to non obsessed people (eg. mums and dads buying a single pinball) they love it. Thats who it was built for, thats the target market and it hits the spot fine for them.

Its only the "i have to have the top 20 latest games at all costs" pinball addicts that it doesnt appeal to.

Nah, it’s a much larger group than that. I’m not a hater of the game cause of Mike, it’s just a terrible game. You could deliver any old p.o.s. to ‘mum and pop’ and they be happy for a while. That says nothing. The target audience is people who know nothing about pinball and can’t tell a good game from a bad one??!? ‘They love it’ lol ummmmm ok.

I last time I played it, it was on location with a bunch of other games. It was so bad that they set it to free play and still no one would touch it.

It’s ok though, sometimes you swing and miss. It is what it is. There are other bad games.

https://www.facebook.com/100010442866941/videos/973601496331270

You love the game Richard, especially the endless game feature lol

I've mentioned it before, but have many of you commenting played it with the hard options in the code installed?

It is a marked improvement on the standard settings. It is quite challenging to get multiballs, not easy to restart them, and harder to collect characters.

Its still far from the most amazing game to play, but hard settings make it enjoyable and challenging enough.

Rob ok the code may have had an improvement but hell its still way behind that of what is expected in todays games. Aside from that you really only have 3 shots to go for. Loop to stand up on the left (no flow, had to be modified to stop sdtm's) the centre ramp (poor design, again some sdtm drains) and the 3 bank to lower the ramp. Ok you go some "toys" on the left and right, but I wouldnt consider those shots. FYI I am not getting personal with Mike or anyone who likes this game, but hell it could have been so much more than what it is.

Not to my knowledge, but 3/4 of the issues with this game aren’t about code. It’s just clunky as hell

Agree mate, however just pointing out to those who state ball times are endless etc, some simple tweaks and its significantly improved in terms of being a bit of a challenge.

Sure but thats just one thing of many.

I saw this on Pinball Life.

https://www.pinballlife.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=HP_TB

$2500 new?!? Damn, that’s a big loss! Great deal for anyone looking though

HUO

Yes, extensively. And for the people saying there’s code improvements, that’s not even remotely the biggest problem. No amount of code tweaks will improve it.

From the moment you touch the game and feel the wobbly plastic lockdown bar and the weirdly deep flipper buttons, you are enveloped in a multi-sensory nightmare of boredom and repulsion. Every single aspect of this game is just bad - quality, playability, art, music, code, layout. All of them are terrible. This is a game designed by someone so indifferent to the idea of pinball you wonder if they’d ever seen one before.

Even someone who hated pinball would have made something engaging so as to enrage a player, but Thunderbirds can only generate confusion. I think if they tried to make a bad game it would have come out better than the end result.

I look forward to that Chinese zombie game if it ever come out.

And it will still sit a while lol. So many better games you can buy for 2500

I don't know at $2500 someone will buy it....

Maybe someone can take it on like a homebrew and fix all the issues. Like put a real lockdown bar on it a real coin door and real flipper buttons.

I played it, its not good, but I have also played worse games. I think the playfield being plastic is kind of a good idea (like a hardtop). Its not without its merits in some few little things.