I was very skeptical ordering a playfield actually bought the package with rad cals then thinking I'd get a poor quality playfield considering the price. I was actually please at the condition of the playfield very very minor mis alignment but will be covered when populated. Over I'm happy I've bought several rad cals from mirco and I love the quality of them

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Can’t wait to see you back here after install and about a month of play

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Just don't install the PF for a good year PF not dry at all

Sigh...unfortunately, it has been demonstrated that curing time isn't the solution. Otherwise, that would be an easy fix and there wouldn't be 22+ pages and multiple threads on all the problems concerning the products from one manufacturer.

I think the year wait is mostly for inserts moving. Ron has mentioned that he likes to see what they do over a year. Sometimes they move.

Yea ether way not good ,when u got my and seen it sold it right away don’t want that grap and will never buy from him again now I restore my old instead way way better and after you got something that will last 30 more years

Exactly. Send the new playfield away and have it re cleared by a person that knows what they are doing.

Yes way way better and fix your own that's in your game then u have something that will last

Fuck that, I'm out.
I had the GFCE on order too.
Knowing that the playfield issues are still there now, blows me away.
Suck it JJP

Yeah that was bad.
I will say in Mircos defense that he has replaced playfields for me that I spotted issues with prior to install that would make them unusable for my purposes. He can be fair and reasonable but it’s hard to pin down what the criteria is at times.
He tends to have an eye or sense for what is acceptable or what isn’t of his own. It’s his product under his discretion so it’s not cut and dry.

Not sure about the history of the playfield in that video prior to but what you see there is what showed up and my gut reactions to it.
My videos capture my own challenges and thought process. I am not putting them out to shame anyone although what I run across might inadvertently do that it’s not really my intention.

I’m pretty sure not everybody can afford to send their games to you?

Cost prohibitive?

Tell me, what does it take to get a perfect play field ?

Ya don't buy the PF from Mirco

I really couldn’t tell you. I often get what I get and then have to decide how far off the mark it is and what I can do about it.
That goes for way more than just playfields.
If you look back at my input in the thread you can get a better sense of it.

just wondering whats his "donation" to pinside............just wondering

Sense of what?

Micro PFs are terrible.

What would you do and how much does it cost for a perfect PF?

That’s a tough one. I haven’t seen too many perfect playfields. It’s not a matter of dollars and cents its more luck than anything.
When I get playfields I often overlook a lot of things others might take issue with because I can take care of it.
When I can’t then I seek replacements. Not money or refunds that won’t fix my issues.
Sometimes I am successful other times not.
I know it’s not popular to say this right here but I will say I have had better luck in that department with Mirco than CPR if you want honest input and aren’t trolling. Not always but at least occasionally.
That’s true feedback from someone that has bought a lot of product with no agenda.

Good to know. So Mirco PFs aren’t total shit after all ?

Somebody actually has to produce the PFs in the first place

JJP deposits are supposed to be nonrefundable - how'd you manage that? Or is that only pinball star that makes them nonrefundable?

I only deal with Nitro Pinball, here in Canada.
He doesn't hold my deposits for any manufacturer.

Could he not give you the option to purchase playfields w/o his clearcoat ?

I don't know enough of what's involved, but it could possibly simplify what you and others have to go through before installation.

It’s not only the clear coat it’s the PF it self everything is off line with the holes and for the T nuts don’t fit in ,art is not line up lots of things just not worth a dollar

The clear is probably the smallest concern for me.
When I have real issues it is typically things like inserts(cloudy,cracked)wood quality(large knots on the exposed wood),hole locations(off center t nut through holes,missing holes,holes that should not be there,dimples that if followed create other problems),extremely warped playfields is another. I have CPRs at times that are missing shooter lane switch cut outs.
I see this issue with all playfields occasionally usually one issue at a time but have experienced all the above on single playfields at as well.
Extremely disappointing at $1000 per but truthfully even at $100 it still would not be useable.
This is why the cost is irrelevant.
I am expecting a useable new playfield that needs little to nothing beyond a light sanding and clearcoat to bridge the gaps of insert settlement.
What I state here is just what I run into dealing with these day in and day out.

Thanks for explaining that.

I always collect NOS parts for my pins, and especially for my 60's Camaros.

Aftermarket is typically good for wall hangers.

For the price they are not even good for wall hangers

Could it be that he's been more reasonable and open with you because of your reputation and standing in the community, vs the average Joe customer buying his product and complain?

Bing go

I wish that would buy me some goodwill but it rarely has any effect.
I never try to leverage that I am not that kind of guy.
It’s never been beneficial mostly a burden honestly.
Far more ask things of you than offer you anything.
I have bought a lot of playfields and any observation or criticism is coming from a point of knowledge so I definitely don’t just take any old excuse or less than fair resolution without protest.

So I got the typical response from Mirco. There are no problems. It’s in the films. Etc. he did offer me $100 off my next purchase. Blah. The only good thing that came out of it was Rick was copied on the whole conversation and pmed me about how dismissive he was, etc. So at least Rick now has a front row seat to see how his sole licensee for some products treats the customers.
Edit: I wasn’t going to quote him directly but this was too good upon review. It’s regarding my chipped clear and paint on my FIRST BALL on a Gorgar I swapped. TLDR: it’s my fault for not putting a cliffy on the scoop (cliffy didn’t make one until I emergency begged him to make one custom for me).

“As we already figured out before you did not put protectors in the holes prior to use which can result into chipping and with Bad luck into bigger chips. I have had the same situation myself when I started working on pinball. I bought a nos Monster bash playfield in 2003 and after I installed it and had the first shot into the mosh pit hole, a large Chip of paint flaked off. I took the board out of the game, touched the area up and put it back in. It is what it is but this is nothing new or only happening with our playfields. “

"in the files" lol
So; yeah... um... you don't own Photoshop or some other vector editor and can't fix it for future people.

Is anyone really surprised by this? Did you really hope that Rick would actually add any value.
By value; I mean remove Mirco as a licensed provider? Nope, didn't think so.

Rick; there are documented cases here after your olive branch post lawsuit discussion. This is why we don't trust you or Mirco to actually take action.
Please prove me wrong.

Fixing anything is it’s own can of worms as I said before. Denying everything is a much safer course of action…

Initially I had high hopes when both mirco and PPS responded here but now it seems we are just back to shitty, non-helping comments from Mirco (it's always our fault, not his) and nothing will change.

Makes me a sad panda

No new crappy products to try and pawn off on us at TPF this year, he brought the TOTAN kit and it didnt work right at the show, never heard about it again after that! Maybe they can give him a twipy for single most hated person at a pinball show, other than j pop at chicago.

We all need too don't buy anymore grap from him

Just curious here, why not just write "crap"?

For what it's worth... all the dev has been done on a P-ROC board but was migrated to a FAST board shortly before the show. An issue we had, at the time, with the FAST board was that it was heating the coils very quick . This was a common issue with other (same kind of) projects, it has been fixed since then but the FAST team with their firmware. The TOTAN at the show was unplayable from what I've heard and was turned off.

To be fair, I can do things with FAST board I couldn't with the P-ROC, for instance with GI, my project can still handle the 2 and I switch the 2 times to time. I might be the only one in this case... lol
I never noticed significant issue other than this heating thing since then.

I don't have a kit at home and never had. I'm doing all my code and tests in my home environment with my own hardware.
I have my own feedback and burdens. I prefer staying positive and moving into the right direction with new projects, that's all I can say.

Stern isn't using Mirco for Foo Fighters. This is just a common issue when using plastic inserts in wood. It's probably very difficult to get perfect, which is why is happens for more than one company.
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Serious question - have you ever bought and installed a micro product?

Yeah. The pooling and chipped paint was a problem, I don't know if it has been fixed?? I saw this post about Godfather and it looked like a different issue trying to be blamed specifically on Mirco.

With no agenda, I have had dozens and dozens of WPC and newer NOS Playfields in my hands at one point or another. Prototypes, Production, Sample, Diamond Plate, LS Topcoat or whatever you can label everything. I've seen playfields from nearly all the restorers out there. At no point have I ever come across a perfect playfield. There is always something you can find if you want, depending on how anal retentive you want to be that day.

That being said, there are some things that can be tolerated and obviously some things that are not, but I do feel that whether it's IPB, Mirco, CPR or whoever, there is no exact science that will produce a perfect playfield every time.

As was mentioned by Chris H. earlier, there is quite a bit of luck sometimes involved to get the very best playfield you possibly can. I have installed Mirco playfields for what I guess has been over 15 + years and if I've had an issue, I've approached him in a way that would find a resolution and be fair. I'm appreciative that someone is investing tons of money and resources into producing fields for all these blown out games and through these efforts, games are getting rebuilt to new condition after nearly 30 - 50 years out of production.

I do feel that the situation has not become easier with companies gouging hobbyists for 'Collector Edition' games at outrageous prices, yet, they don't want to listen to 'Collector Level' demands. If I pay 15 K for a new game, I damn well better have a perfect playfield. At 8-9 K, my anal retentiveness is dialed down a bit.

For what it's worth, If I was a playfield manufacturer or pinball manufacturer, I would simply upcharge for the perfect playfields that do seem to luckily present themselves and then the rest of the playfields in the world that have issues are just at the regular price. If there none out there, then people know they are getting fields that are 2nd rate.

I remember everyone back in the day buying the IPB seconds and thirds, they were happy to get a replacement field, knew it had issues and thankful to fix their game. They were advertised that way and really were not that much cheaper than the perfect ones. Once the 'firsts' were gone, they were gone. Everyone knew what to expect with what was still left to be purchased.

Problem I see is, people pay $800-1000 and all of them want a perfect new playfield and that just is not realistic. Too much random luck involved. I'm sure if these guys want to produce "magnifying glass level perfect fields", the cost would be astronomical and then most hobbyists wouldn't be able to afford replacement playfields. Then nobody is fixing their blown out games and companies are not producing fields.

Not sure if any of this helps, but just my thoughts.

I think you've pretty much nailed it. Is Mirco perfect? No, but neither was the OEM. Misaligned artwork, dimples, holes, T-nut concentricity, etc. is often tough to pin down on incompetency, OEM & sample variation, or expectations. Mirco was completely clear with me about what I submitted as a sample and what would and would not be returned. Was I 100% happy with what I got back? No, it took hours of coil tuning and plastics manipulation to make the PF work mechanically. Did the new PF look 10x better than the original, absolutely! That said, the horseshit clear coat should not be accepted by anyone. Nor would I recommend anyone buy a Mirco PF until he gets his process and materials straightened out. Maybe he has, idk. No doubt that is a tall order, I'm sure JJP has more stringent requirements than me the Joe Blow basement restorer. That new playfield looked damn good, for a while. Eventually it looks like shit and those dozens of hours you've spent restoring a game go down the crapper. Fine for some, not for others. I hope Mirco gets it figured out, everything but the clear can be dealt with until that skin starts pealing.

I'm sure you're not doing it on purpose, but the fact remains that I have seldom heard of customers getting satisfactory support from Mirco on what would be otherwise called "defective products". This thread is full of people posting his response. So there's no deniying that if you managed to get some support from him, it's likely because he's considering you as "someone to care for"

I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree.

There is a difference between "small tolerable defect", "perfect", and "defective". Are we asking for Mirco to provide "perfect" playfield, I'm sure none of us are. However, we expect them to provide playfields which cannot be considered as "defective".

By defective I mean:
- Material that is not durable over time
- Obviously incorrect artwork (lettering, colors, etc). He has the files, he can fix them. And his excuse "it's in the files provided to me" is kind of silly... If it was there in the original production of the machine, then... this means the file he's got are incorrect and he needs to fix them.
- Holes position that prevent usage of the playfield

Fortunately, 3/ above does not seem too frequent (although, I did have an example of a MM playfield with a massive hole where there should not be one... and to be fair, he did provide a replacement as far as I know)

But 1/ and 2/ are all too frequent.

Missing text on the TZ playfield: would you consider this as acceptable ? If it were coming straight from a manufacturer, when buying a machine, would you accept this ?

Willie's vampire teeth on indiana Jones (on top of that in an area which is very visible by the player), again, easy to fix, just need to spend the time doing it (although looking at the post earlier it seems he might actually have fixed it ?).

All the more since the feedback has been made to him on multiple occasions, and he's simply dismissed it.

Color reproduction was perfect on his first runs (I happen to have a picture of a first run MM Mirco playfield), but has major issues since he changed his production process, probably because he did not bother recalibrating it (take a look at the paved road at the bottom on MM). To be fair, CGC remake are not good either in that department, but they perfectly align (again, I have access to a CGC NOS playfield, you can clearly see the quality of the alignement vs Mirco)

And lastly: material not durable. I would guess this is the number one complaint. Buying a 1200 euro playfield, going through the pain of swapping it, only to find out that the clearcoat cracks/peels after a few weeks/months is not acceptable.

Buthamburg has stellar quality compared to Mirco, AND they are cheaper. If only they had more capacity (and hopefully they will after moving to their new facility), and resource to offer more models, we would not have this conversation because everyone would buy from them with no second thought.

If PPS was enforcing some level of quality control in his licencing contract (to avoid brand reputation damage for ex), then it would force everyone to at least pay attention. For that matter, "licensed" now holds no meaning to me whatsoever. There has been examples in various groups of licensed product having subpar quality compared to non licensed products (not all, I won't go as far, I'm just stating that "licenced" does not mean "quality").

There's no secret here. Mirco runs a Pinside shop, and pays a commission over his sales. He gets no special treatment, and the mere fact that all these threads are allowed to exist (rather than being removed for monetary reasons) should be enough evidence that I'm always on the side of the Pinside community. I hope you realize this.

I have been asked numerous times why I allow Mirco to keep selling playfields via a Pinside shop, in light of the complaints and issues people have been posting about. The simple truth is this: the number of orders/sales Mirco gets via Pinside do not match the number of complaints I see on Pinside. Far from it. That tells me that the issues are still an anomaly and not the norm.

That's not to say there are no issues! There are plenty of documented cases here on Pinside (some posted by respected Pinsiders) that tell a different story. And especially in the customer service department, Mirco's reputation on Pinside isn't exactly immaculate.

...

It is my hope that by allowing constructive discussion, manufacturers can learn and improve their products and, maybe even more important, their customer service and QA. On the other hand, mob mentality can sometimes over-amplify rare issues which is also undesirable.

To level the playing field (pun intended) for manufacturers and Pinsiders alike, I have been considering adding the option for product reviews to Pinside Shops. It will help establish a sense of which products are good or, uhm, not so good. It will award good customer service. It will disclose bad business ethics. And by only allowing actual customers to post reviews, you can be sure the review is legit. The system could also show when people send stuff back or if they got a refund, i.e. full transparency.

...

In closing, and for no particular reason other than to look cool, I'll end with a great quote from Warren Buffet: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

Pinside is english speaking centric. I know a lot of FR pinheads who are not on Pinside, because they don't speak/write english. Likewise in Germany, Spain, Italy. And given that Mirco is EU based, a lot of PF are being sold across Europe, for which it's unlikely you will see complaints here on Pinside. Also, people might post of an issue into the relevant owner thread, and not in this particular "Mirco focused complaint thread".

Also, it's not only the product quality which is being questioned, it's the response given when an issue arise which is problematic.

But to be able to move forward, having a "review" section on Pinside would help, especially if pinsiders were informed about it and could write a non biaised review (positive or negative), as long as they provide detailed information (pictures, good or bad, etc).

Works both ways, at least there will be some statistical data (if reviews are in high enough number) of whether there are really widespread issues, of if the issues are anomalies.

Ok for those of us that have Mirco playfields that are not installed yet, I have an early Quicksilver without the black rings around the rollovers and a Nineball. I am planning to reclear with 2PAC before install, but what is the best method of prep on the playfield before reclearing?

I would imagine, the reason you don't see more complaints to match up with sales, is that most of the playfields sold just sit and never get installed. Many people buy with the intention of swapping and then it never happens. Those playfields still look great, because they've never had hardware installed or games played on them.

There is a lot of truth to this across a wide gamut of parts that are problematic (ramps that fit poorly,plastics that crack upon installation,cabinet art that wears off like a scratch off lottery ticket come to mind also)but especially playfields.