Compy

I found the P3 power supply fan to be distractingly loud. This is the first pin I've owned, so I don't have any basis for comparison, but after a few weeks it was still driving me crazy, even when I was in another room, and even when someone was playing a game with the volume cranked. My wife and kids said it didn't really bother them, so perhaps I'm just highly attuned to and annoyed by those fan frequencies. I'd never noticed the noise when playing at shows or in bars, but boy it was a killer at home.

Anyway, I took the plunge and ordered the PinMonk fan. I installed it in my P3 over lunch today. The instructions were very detailed. It took me a while, as I wanted to be careful and this was the first time I'd really dug into the guts of the P3. I guess I managed to do it all correctly, because I gave Cannon Lagoon a whirl after it was all done and, outside of the pirates yelling and the clacking of the balls, there was just sweet, sweet silence. I even did the "put a paper in front of the fan to make sure it is working" test like TheCapn did in his review of the fan because it was sooo quiet.

Now, did I void my warranty? Probably. Will I feel better about the thermals when I've played two hours straight of Weird Al without issue instead of just one round of CL? Absolutely. Am I glad I did it? Oh, yeah. For 20 bucks I just eliminated the one thing about the gameplay experience that I really disliked.

It is mounted on the floor of the cabinet on the left side, a foot or so back from the head. The cabinet is tall and deep, and I am short, so it was somewhat difficult to get down in there. Fortunately, they only used two mounting brackets, one on either corner. I put the playfield into the first service position and with a stepstool I was able to reach down and unscrew the two screws that held it to the floor, though the one closer to the front of the cabinet was really difficult to reach. Then it was just a matter of removing the clear plastic covers from the screw terminals and unscrewing the seven terminals that were used. The side that has six connectors (of which four are used) was hard, as those wires have very little play. The side with the three connectors, all of which were used, had a lot of slack in the wires, so those were much easier to undo.

Once I got the supply out, the directions included with the package match my experience pretty much exactly. I did have a little difficulty with Step 5(c) (removal of the old fan) even with moving the circuit board a lot, but it eventually popped out. I ended up lifting the metal lip of the frame that was above the fan up slightly to provide a better angle to get it out. Getting the new fan in was also a pretty tight shove.

For reinstallation, I was unable to easily put the mounting screw that was closer to the front of the cab back in with the playfield in first service position. At that point my wife was available to help, so I moved the playfield slightly further towards the front and had her just hold it in place while I reached down into the cab and screwed that other corner in.

I do have some, though they were strictly business, so they aren't great. These first two are photos from above of the two ends of the power supply when it was still mounted in the cabinet. The first one is the end of the PS closer to the front of the cabinet. One of the mounting brackets is on the top right corner as pictured here. The small strip of wood you see at the top is a bit of the playfield module that is raised up in service position 1. The second photo is the end of the PS nearest the back of the cabinet. The other mounting bracket is on the lower left of the PS as pictured here. You can possibly see it if you strain
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Here are photos of the wiring after I unscrewed the brackets from the cab but before I removed the wiring. The side with three connectors was easy, as all of the wires were unique colors. The side with four connectors had two red wires then two white wires. I marked the leftmost red wire and the leftmost white wire with painter's tape to avoid confusion. The outermost two terminals are unused. The terminal blocks on either side of the PS are covered with a clear plastic shield that you'll need to pop off before you can unscrew the terminals.
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Finally, here are a couple of photos of the PS after I moved it to the table, removed the cover, and had already unplugged the fan from the circuit board. Fortunately, unlike with some of the Stern fan upgrades I've seen, this one did not have any sort of adhesive on any of the wiring, so it was simple to just lift the old wire out, remove the fan, put the new fan in, and run the new wire in the same way.
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I haven't yet watched the videos (I intend to, but I'm currently speaking from ignorance about their content!), and I haven't owned my P3 as long as SantaEatsCheese did (coming up on 4 months now), nor have I sent it to shows or put it on location, but just as a counterpoint I've found my system to be quite low maintenance. I didn't even do most of the suggested items (e.g., never dialed in my VUKs) and it has worked nearly flawlessly from day 1. I just plugged it in and played pinball. I've had zero problems with Weird Al or CL. I had one habitrail weld on Lexy that broke loose (since fixed), and the crane on Heist started having some retraction problems after 3 weeks (needed some adjustments), but otherwise it has been 100%.

I've been in the hobby as a player for many decades, but this is the first machine I've owned. After reading tons of NIB horror stories from all manufacturers over the years, I was braced for the worst when I finally took the plunge. I've been pleasantly surprised at the overall ease of ownership of the P3. Even when a module was out of commission, I could just pop in another and play it while the broken module was being repaired. I only have room for a single machine, so this is a killer feature.

All that to say that, despite the negative stories which have taken over the last few pages of this thread (and I don't want to downplay those--they certainly are terribly frustrating, and I don't blame those who are ready to move on after repeated downtime), there are many of us out here that have been quietly playing our P3 systems with little-to-no problems. I'd hate for you to forgo your deposit simply due to complexity when that complexity often has no bearing on the actual experience.

Disclaimer: I live only 20 miles from Multimorphic, so I transported the base system and all of the modules myself. They weren't subjected to the vagaries of commercial transport. Maybe coincidence, but it's a pretty big variable that I thought I'd point out.

I just move my finger. I've never considered any other way to do it. Just now I walked over to the machine and tried putting my index finger on the white button and my middle finger on the red button. It was painful, plus the idea of pressing a flipper button with my middle finger just seems suboptimal.

I just went down a rabbit hole reading a number of threads on the topic of "Which finger do you flip with?" I assumed that a vast majority of answers would have been "index finger," but I was very wrong. I tried playing a few games with the middle finger, and it wasn't bad. I still didn't keep fingers on both white and red buttons at the same time, though. I'd move up to hit the white when needing to use the upper flippers.

The only problem with using the middle finger was the the corner of the lockdown bar would slightly painfully dig into the middle bottom of my palm. I could probably adjust to get around this, but with using the index finger my palm rests cleanly on the lockdown bar.

Also, there were more than a couple of answers that said "middle finger and ring finger," which I completely failed to wrap my mind around. I didn't try that. But I've veered way off topic now...time to stop.

This comment didn't age well very quickly. (Check your e-mail for MM's latest update.)

You know what they say about assuming...

That brings up a question, though: Are credits for the voice actors listed anywhere?