Avatar says it all ...

Patently false. Think of how large the testing departments would need to be to test several hundred games per year. Without violating my NDA I can't post the exact description of what lot check at Nintendo did, but I can guarantee you it did not involve bug testing each game that came through. Of course your publisher hopefully tested each game submitted to the extent you described above - unless you were LJN... Again the Nintendo seal of Quality served 2 purposes. 1) To verify that the software was compatible with the hardware and met certain functional and content guidelines. 2) To limit the number of 3rd party releases on the NES system to 5 titles to avoid what happened to Atari and the subsequent video game crash. The publishing limits were gradually relaxed over time to what you see now on the eShops.

Does the ball roll down the PF? Did the original wear out? So is the repro. Seems to be functioning normally, not optimally, but normally.

Because people putting new playfields in games that had decent originals want it to look like its underwater. This has been an issue for about 15 years, people wanting these clears that are way thicker than the spec'd film thickness of the products being used. Then complaining about failures.

because mirco was using combined processes on some playfields. Which is also why he has glitter playfields, etc. These examples do not negate what Forceflow was talking about when answering a question about the two different printing processes. It's just Micro has used more than one process in several of his products to get the end result.

... and yet somehow Ron Kruzman (among numerous others) seem to have a excellent track record for re-clearing with the same high gloss wet look, and enthusiasts knowing that this will hold up.

Your condescension is winning you lots of new friends, I’m sure.

Original playfields wore out after several years of intense service, often with less than adequate maintenance.
Seeing playfields fail within a couple of months of use, not from wear around inserts but from actual art delaminating from the playfield *is a failed product*, full stop.

I’ve gone out of my way to politely describe why I have become wary of these products. This isn’t a case of people with unrealistic expectations, at least not all of it. There is legitimate cause for concern. I do t have it in for Mirco, I want to use his products with confidence, because what I have seen I have been very impressed with. But I can’t invest other peoples’ money in a product that has such an unreliable track record.

But sure, you go right on trying to make everyone raising concerns sound like fools. Truly, you’re advancing the conversation.

Don't misunderstand, I’m not trying to challenge the validity of your statement. I'm glad you've got a trouble-free playfield!

From my experience (as someone who likes to think he knows what he’s doing (couple dozen full restorations, full spray booth, taught by a professional finisher), it’s hard to imagine how anyone could remove all of the topcoat without damaging the art layer below. Again, I say I "like to think I know what I'm doing" not to be snarky, just by way of saying I do this work as well. I'm always ready to learn new things though, and reach out to other people doing finishing. I'm by no means an expert.

On the other hand, what you're bringing up raises interesting questions for me: was your playfield one that would have held up well regardless? It isn’t *every* Mirco that fails, after all.
Or, did the finisher’s work help the playfield longevity more from removing some of the clearcoat? (i.e., a thinner layer is less prone to cracking or lifting.)
I agree with other comments here that clear coat applied too thick invites problems. It didn’t seem terribly heavy to me on the WH2O playfield I installed, though - but that's only an isolated example.

Kruzman’s process is highly regarded, but it also takes a few months. On the other hand, given how many people are allowing months or a year of “cure time” on playfields anyway, if new playfields needed that from the factory, I bet buyers would respect a lag time between time of purchase and date of delivery. Certainly better than feeling like they had to then spend additional money to have someone redo the topcoat.

Mirco, if you are listening: there are people out here like me who see the quality you are striving for and respect it. If you cannot work with individual owners to replace defective playfields - you say these are very few in number, so it shouldn't be enough to hurt your business - then you shouldn't be selling playfields, just stick with JJP production runs. I want to buy your products, but I need to know that they are reliable and that on the rare chance that I receive defective merchandise, you will stand by your product. Seriously.

That may well be true, and I definitely look askance at people who boast about putting 10 coats of clear on their playfields. Using more clear than what is needed to protect the artwork can reach a tipping point where it's more liability than protection.

That's beside the point when it comes to Mirco.

If Mirco agrees with your point here, then the playfields from the factory should have a thinner clear layer, and the playfield warranty should be voided if additional clear is added.

That isn't the situation.

Well, now what you are describing are two different things.

The "Lot Check" procedure (and it was only called that informally) did only test certain elements for conformance to specs (mostly having to do with having the proper product codes for boot up and serialization). This test was usually done a few weeks before actual game submittal - just to make sure that your game did not get rejected for some simple reason.

But to get the game approved for production (remember that in the cartridge era - and also well into the CD era 3rd party publishers did not get to manufacture their own games, but had to have Nintendo/Sega/Sony manufacture the games for them), they had to go through full game testing as I described.

Games did not get manufactured until approval was obtained from their testing department - and yes, their testing department was huge. Even so, it would often take several weeks to "make it to the front of the queue" when the testing department was busy (usually during the late summer - early fall when lots of games were trying to get approved and into the stores for Xmas). Furthermore, if your game got kicked back, you only had a few days to re-submit a new version - or you would get sent to the back of the queue again - which could be disastrous for your shipping schedule.

Now, maybe that's all changed now that everything is "soft" and you can issue patches on top of patches. But back when it was all "hard" on cartridge or disk, the game had to be perfect upon release.

To give you an idea of the kinds of things they would find -

On Pilotwings 64, they found that if you flew into an Ice Cave and turned to face the wall at a particular point, the ice on the walls would form an image that vaguely resembled the face of Jesus. They made us change the ice texture so that wouldn't happen anymore.

On F1:World Grand Prix, they found that if you pressed the button to save your game to the cartridge memory, AND simultaneously turned the console off AND pulled the cartridge out of the console (which was hard to do with just 2 hands), you could corrupt the saved file. I had to come up with a kind of funky way around it.

I'd be happy to discuss this further, but I'm not sure what it has to do with Mirco's playfields...

No offense - but he has already answered this question. He does not care about you or any of his customers. He will not stand by his product. This has been documented over and over again.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine that's what's going on but my experience is mostly in auto body and some furniture restoration.

Also, it's hard to imagine that it's this hard to get the clear right in the first place, there have to be multiple proven options.

How about a compromise, have a playfield with no clear coat as an option. Have the buyer do it themselves.

It would never survive shipping

Yeah I wondered about that myself.

Stern seems to have little problem churning out games with few (not zero) problems. Same for CGC.

Wouldn't use the word churning out games for CGC, but the quality is there .

Thinner clearcoats?

They had some fairly common issues with 2019 era games, Deadpool, munsters, Sword of rage for pooling and chipping, but seemed to get that resolved for the next runs etc., and seemed to be mostly around printing art to the edge of the playfield cuts etc.

This right here is why I cancelled my GFCE.
Not playing the playfield lottery with JJP and no warranty on it.

Yes very true with them PFs like they are its just not worth the money anymore when they don't last very long anymore

Glad to hear it ... but the first step is to never order a Mirco or JJP product. No loss of deposit. No loss of sleep. No stress of worrying about what garbage your going to get.

I can state with 100% confidence; I will never own either of these companies products... until they demonstrate a complete 180% on customer service and warranties and a documented history of flawless products for several generations.

Pf integrity was done decades ago for far less money.

Almost everything was done better and cheaper decades ago. Manufacturers are always trying to produce "more efficient" aka cheaper.

Are there other examples of playfield issues on GF out there? I thought Mirco improved the process on Toy Story.

Has anyone had any personal experience with White Water? I'm curious how the Mirco WH2O playfield is. All good and awesome, or has there been any issues, especially over time?

amount I care about that? 0

Kruzman, someone who follows the manufacturers protocols? yeah, not surprised. The yahoo's doing their own "8 layers of heavy wet clear with an hour between them" have the same issues but you don't see it because they don't post it. The fields are not failures, the coating sucks. but the games play. Stop asking for mass produced versions of things that can't be done that way. Go back to thin clears and mass production isn't an issue. Fast turnarounds on thick clear is always a recipe for disaster.

LOL, uncleared paint jobs ship just fine. I have test boards from CPR that were used never cleared, or even fully cut, used for testing printing and they shipped just fine. I could clear them today if I wanted.

excluding missing things, white on the lock text, hat band etc. its perfect. mines been to multiple shows with 1000's of plays at those shows in total.

Sorry, but "missing things" isn't perfect. Even if you put them 'aside'.

I have a Mirco White Water playfield from 2018 (2nd generation).
No clearcoat issue (curing time was 1+ year) so far. Very nice and vivid colors. No issue during installation.

Artwork issues:
1st generation playfields: lock text, hat.
2nd generation: misssing orange line between pop bumpers.
Those Williams files are very changeable

Thank you! Very descriptive and helpful. Is there a 3rd generation?

Well if he did, why is it still happening on GF.
Still has issues, no warranty. Easy pass.

That's not good maybe if lot of people stop buying them they just might fix all theses things with the PFs

I installed one about a year ago and it was exemplary. Beautiful topcoat, very smooth, minimal expression of seams at inserts, and the dumpling was 100% accurate both front and back. A total slam dunk.

The only problem is, knowing what I now know about the longevity of these playfields, I worry about how it will hold up. I delivered it to the owner back in October. So far he has t reported any problems. It’s probably fine (I mean, it isn’t as though Mirco playfields are *all* defective.) But he also has a very big collection and probably hasn’t played the heck out of it. It certainly seemed fine when I worked with it and the installation went more smoothly than any of the other playfield swaps I’ve done.

Oh, I don’t think you actually care, condescending people are condescending because they think of everyone else as inferior.

But it’s interesting that in the 10 years I’ve been on Pinside, you’re the first person I’ve felt actually offended by.

Hopefully this is the only thread where that happens. Otherwise this forum is full of friendly helpful people.

I hear what you're saying I've done a number of complete resto's also, there is no way I could have resolved this myself though.

The "trouble free" playfield was actually a massive pain in the ass. I got absolutely shafted by Mirco, he refuted my claims, refusing to acknowledge any issue, leaving me to spend MANY $100's of dollars to resolve. I've since gone out of my way to turn people away from supporting this monumental ass clown. Regarding your questions of my playfield. I had line art missing which I don't care too much about, the clearcoat however after waiting 6 months to cure was still soft. Like soft soft. There was also distinct sinking of clear around majority of the inserts. I know another Aussie who bought the same repro approx the same time. Did a full playfield swap only to have excessive pooling on every post, resulting in clearcoat cracking, absolute mess. From memory, Mirco did offer a solution of sorts with him. Still a disheartening and huge waste of time.

In all honesty I probably shouldn't be promoting re-clearing so haphazardly as a reliable solution. My clearcoat guy was very hesitant to even touch it. I do know however, majority of the Mirco clearcoat was removed. Exact details I don't recall, but it's thankfully been perfect since. Kruzman seems to be the world guru on all things clearcoat, pinball is lucky to have such experts to clean up the inadequacies of douche bags like Mirco.

That's the thing: the cure time is hours/days, not weeks/months. If it's soft, it's because it was mixed inappropriately. It will NEVER harden properly.

This is the issue that's causing all of the problems with pooling/chipping around playfield posts.

perfect as in no problems with the playfield wearing or flaking, clear is smooth. Holes were aligned well, dimples were not an issue at installation. Neither missing bits of art are problematic for playing the game. The missing white is the bigger issue of the two, but still not an issue.

My day is complete.

The clear formulation he uses changed at some point, IIRC he said it was because the good stuff wasn't available in Germany anymore. The 2 PF's I have from him (AFM and TZ) - I know I got the AFM with the ceramacoat, that's in the machine and is fine. The TZ I don't remember if I got that option or not, and it's been on the shelf ever since. These were both 10+ years ago; I'm sure there's SOME kind of better clear he can use even with the environmental restrictions.

I bet the softer stuff is a bear to sand off, clogging the sandpaper constantly.

He also hates hardtops even though the art is typically more accurate.

Hardtops are fantastic. I'd take one any day over a mirco mess.

Sad too say for sure way too go

per·fect
adjective
adjective: perfect
/ˈpərfək(t)/
having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.

So... Perfect as in the "not perfect" sense of perfect. Got it.

No, I despise hardtops put on games that were still in good shape. For severely worn games they are fine and I've said that repeatedly.

perfect, functions exactly as it should, installation marks were perfect. There is no issue with the usability of the field as delivered. It was perfect. It's a repro, not an original (which were also not flawless by any means).

Damn, any photos ....in on a CE, thought this was resolved.

People saying that they dont have issues with their mirco playfield is sorta dismissive.

Yes.... pics please