DMD/price doesn't mean more reliable and working though. Anything can be working or not, and problematic or not. Whatever one's budget is, my point is it would be better to have some multiple rather than one, as no matter what the machine, you will get bored of it.

That worked for you, but I think a working machine or two first, and then a project is the most ideal situation. That is how I did it, and I was fortunate, as fixing my first machine took months (system 6 blah), and I screwed it up more before getting it to work. If you don't have the working machines to retreat to, it may leave distaste in one's mouth for the hobby on some level.

I am a firm believer that everyone eventually needs a project to f up and fix. It does worlds for you down the road.

+1

See, and the pessimist in me says "I'm not going to work on a 4000 dollar game that I know nothing about service-wise." But keeping in mind, as I said... Shuttle was 95% working when I bought it. There wasn't anything FUNCTIONALLY wrong with the machine aside from the 4p display being borked and the GI connector burned. Literally, the first was a no-solder fix the way I dealt with it, and the GI ended up being 2 solder joints. Etiher way, the game was playable and fun...just looked like crap and didn't cost a fortune.

I wired a coil backwards in Pinbot. Only lost a fuse, I got lucky, but even if it had blown the CPU or driver board, I was only out $200 to start with, so I wasn't afraid to work on it. I had ZERO soldering experience, ZERO multimeter experience, and sure as heck ZERO PCB repair experience, lol.

I'm still kind of nervous working on my Stargate and STTNG truth be told because they're a lot more complicated than these dusty old simple games like Shuttle and Pinbot. Probably shouldn't say that about Pinbot. That thing is stupid crazy with wires and crap *everywhere* under the playfield!

I have always enjoyed pinball, but it's been on a "back burner" my whole life. Last year, I finally got deep into it and bought my first machine... TZ. Kind of a crazy one to go for as a complete noob, but I did my research and knew it was the game I had to have.

I looked for a few months and finally found one in my price range that was in good shape and belonged to a collector. I took it home in September and thanks to the guidance of Pinside, RGP, IRC, and an incredible local community, I've been able to fix and maintain TZ and I'm very proud of it.

The only thing I can't do is board work - I would love to learn sometime. I suck at regular soldering too, but do a serviceable job (and I've seen way worse in other machines!)

I agree that starting with a working machine is key - projects are fine if you've got a few games under your belt and have a real plan of attack as to how you're going to fix it. Having TZ at about 90% (and being able to play it to blow off steam) was helpful.

You also have to get over the initial panic when you first lift the playfield and are met with an impenetrable nest of wiring.