what brand/model rework station did you get?
been thinking of dabbling, I know they are super expensive. Soon the majority of games will be using primarily surface mount devices, figured it'd be better to start learning now before it's to late. luckily everything that might have needed repair has been warrantied, so I haven't needed it yet.

I own both remakes, the only issue I have with them is the proprietary boards.

they will be impossible to do repairs on unless you have a rework station.
had to replace multiple boards from other manufactures that use primarily SMD under warranty, so I haven't needed repair yet.
Sucks also because the game is down longer while your waiting on the new boards.

very similar to every other manufacture now, except spooky (think they are using p-roc which is at least used for a few other things).

I hope your right and everything will be hunky dory for our lifetime, but I wouldn't put all your eggs in that basket.

so it's ok to have lower standards for longevity since it's only going to be used in the home and not commercially ... got it.

if you look at who is buying these things (where they wind up), it makes sense from that standpoint that manufactures are going away from "easy to repair" to "easy to replace". There aren't many pinball people that would dive into board repair.

sucks all the same though.

guess what I meant to say, is to be concerned about longevity due to the nature of repairs on SMT since it's mainly going to be used by consumers.

I don't think we really need to be concerned about CGC anyway, because even if for whatever reason CGC does go bust they will still have PPS making parts for the games and vise versa. Plus I've had my MMR on location for 2 years before I rotated it, no board problems. Just a couple of broken pop bumper brackets. AFMR is living up to the same standard. They did a great job building these games, I'm not contesting that.

spooky is fine in my book, because they have pinball life and they are now using proc as a universal standard btwn games.
If both companies go bust then... but I feel better that there are 2 companies supporting parts and not just one.
Not sure about JJP yet since they don't really have a partner company, but they haven't made it difficult to get parts at all.

So that leaves one manufacture, I know if you try to get parts for some games that are 7 years old, you might have luck or might be SOL. Plus you need to go through a distro to check on the availability on anything, otherwise emails go unanswered. So the newer games are a bit concerning to me, especially since there are so many different revisions on the boards, no schematics & no compatibility chart. With 3-4 releases a year and sometimes different model boards between the tiers of games. That's an ass load of boards to keep up with. Is it going to stop me from getting them.... no , but I'm taking steps to be prepared for when parts aren't available.

anyway, that DMD looks really nice.