Hi All,

I have a Premium and LE club/room open.

Please join us.

I have a friend who is a prop designer in the movie industry and together we are working on a cool topper. I have a poll and its a tight race to design that first or a Jeep. Please vote.

I already have a game card design that I can show if interested.

Have fantastic day.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/welcome-to-the-jurassic-park-le-club

I played about 8 games on the Pro. I had a few scores over 100M, but the rest were well below that. The Stern rep told me that they couldn’t sell the Pros off the floor because there was a mistake in the artwork screening or something. Regardless, it looked great to me.

The ramps are buttery smooth, but not wide. It takes a few games to find the shots. I had trouble finding the tower shot, but I saw my friend hit it 4 times, so it can be done. The only reliable way to get the ball into the pops is a straight shot just past the right of the truck. A weak shot through the spinner will do it, but a stronger shot feeds the ball to the upper flipper. CHAOS multiball is crazy fun. The modes are somewhat basic but fun to play and lucrative. The raptor pit on the Pro is fine to me, the control room lock does the job. I didn’t see many people shooting for that anyway, as it’s a somewhat dangerous shot.

The art on this game is second only to IMDN Premium, which I also hope to own some day. Hiring great artists was a smart move by Stern.

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I just noticed from my last picture that there’s a pop-up post that would allow a reliable feed to the pops from the spinner. I guess this only comes up for certain modes. Hmm. Anyway, nice that there’s a way for it to happen.

Thanks for your post, can you share more info on the control room modes? How are they qualified/activated and what some of they are?

I wish I could remember, but I can’t. One was power shutdown, or maybe power restore? I think there were 3 modes to choose from. And I think it took 2 shots to “C” to start a mode. Hopefully someone else can add more.

I only noticed 3 modes as well. I think it was Restore Power, System Boot and Virus Attack.

I'm not going to give my long winded review, but I effin' want one. Shoots beautifully and was smooth. The shots were very satisfying, but if you put the ball out of control, most of the time you were going to pay for it.

From the stream video, we can see a fourth mode, behind the three first ones on the selection screen, with a "?" as name on the folder.

I want to call my distributor and order the pro but I keep having fears of the node boards. Damnit why must they use this flaky system with boards that are costly. This is a killer looking game and theme and I want one I’m just don’t feel good about the platform.

If it's for home use, I wouldnt worry 1 bit. I have a Gotg pro at home, and have never had issue 1. Our local Pinball bar has weekly tournaments with multiple spike system games and I've only ever known 1 node board to fail. Plus, if you buy it new, it will have a warranty. If you really want it, I say, pull the trigger man

I don't think I would worry about it. I have a GB, GOTG, and IMDN and have never had trouble with any of them.

The node board problem has been GREATLY exaggerated.

First-
If one fails, it is usually early.

Second-
Stern has a track record of replacing them well beyond the factory warranty.

Third-
Stern has made the node board schematics available for all, for free, on their site. You can now have these boards repaired by a 3rd party if need be in the future.

Order your game and enjoy it!

What deals are other dealers giving? All dealers are supposed to be selling at the same amount.....just curious....

Apparently not the same as you, I've answered 5 private messages since ordering mine. And sent them all your way. This is Phillip

I can get a game shipped to my home from 3 states away for cheaper than I can buy from you while driving to your location with a stack of cash in hand.

I'd like to know more about this as well. From what I've read, there are chips on them that have proprietary data that has not been released. If they go bad, you gotta pay. Plus most of the boards cannot be repaired by hand. This means no repairs and no after market boards. It is a legitimate, long-term concern.

Ummm.... So what repairs them, a robot?

Are the Cointaker pins more expensive than from other distributors?

If you have one I suppose. Logic would support that repairs won't happen at all, like my post clearly states.

Best deal I have seen posted on here so far is $7300 shipped, no tax collected, pay with a credit card for a premium.

This week in pinball posted street prices as follows:

$5600 pro
$7300 premium
$8800 le

Often you will get shipping included with those prices.

Where are you getting this from? I know very little about board repair but have followed this topic on Pinside. I believe I've seen posts from Pinsiders that work with modern surface mount boards in their day jobs suggesting that Stern's node boards are absolutely repairable "by hand." The issue as I understand it is that pin owners who are accustomed to doing their own repairs on B/W, Whitestar, and SAM boards lack the equipment (hot air rework station) and experience to do it. Assuming what I've read is correct, we should see people with the necessary skills and equipment start to offer repair services on node boards once they begin to fail in sufficient numbers and are no longer being replaced by Stern under their seemingly pretty generous unwritten warranty.

This seems like the more pressing issue.

Has anyone had to pay for a replacement board yet? I mean a true replacement for a bad one, not a spare to have on hand. Honest question...not being snarky. I have only heard of people getting them replaced for free (including myself).

I think it's pretty clear I think your claim isn't logical.

I have found cointaker fair and honest to deal with and reasonable with their prices

There was a guy that bought a node board a year or two back for a KISS but my impression was he took Stern's skimpy written warranty at face value and didn't push to get it covered. I don't remember reading about others but there may have been.

More discussion on node board repairability here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/node-board-failure-how-common

If the difference is sales tax, you can't blame CoinTaker for that.

Both places have sales tax figured in. One includes shipping, no shipping if I pick up from CT.

My impression is Stern allows distributors to offer free shipping (so no one should ever be paying shipping on a NIB Stern) but won't allow them to sell below a set floor price, even on a pickup order where they don't have to pay for shipping. So you picking your game up saves CT a couple of hundred but Stern won't let them pass the savings on to you.

[EDIT: guy below me has the more logical take, Stern drop-ships either way so probably no savings to the distributor if you buy from them vs shipping]

Stern will pay for one ship - to your distributor or to your door.

I'm getting it from pinside, in threads like the one posted above. I also own imdn and can physically look at the boards. I've done alot of board repair, and these are not repairable by most who could repair Sam games. Watch the Aussie guy bitch about it on YouTube if you want to hear it from an experienced router.

I'm not trying to bash Stern or be aggressive about node boards. A guy asked if they are a potential issue, and the jury is out on it. I own a spike game, and I'm not excited about boards I can't repair. The proprietary data makes the repair discussion moot anyway.

My question to you is, do you really believe the boards are going to last forever and that Sterns unwritten warranty is infinite?

I am guessing over time solutions / services for repairing the boards will become more common. In the meantime, if you aren't comfortable with the risk sell the game you have while it is working and play more games at friends or on location and stick with older games for purchase. Not much else you can do.

There's been a lot of hyperbole on the topic of node boards. If you'd said "the jury is still out on node boards" in your first post I'd be fine with that. But there's a difference between "me and a cranky Aussie distributor that got cut out by Stern can't fix these boards ourselves" and "they cannot be repaired by human hand." Multiple people who are familiar with surface mount technology say these boards can in fact be worked on, and I haven't seen that refuted anywhere.

I agree propriety chips are a potential concern -- if you have one of those chips go bad you're probably hosed unless Stern starts selling them individually or releases the data needed to recreate them. But I don't see how that would impact other types of board repair like replacing transistors, reflowing solder, etc.

So yes, the jury is out, but there's no benefit to anyone in spreading the (seemingly incorrect) story that node boards cannot be worked on.

True, but I was responding to a guy that was inquiring about the system, not complaining about my machine. I will likely only own one spike, but who knows. I am excited with Stern lately, but I still question the viability and cost of spike.

Well, I'd say there has been a spike in interest in Stern since the recent reveal of the new Jurassic Park pin.

Node boards have a fairly common NXP ARM microcontroller on them. The data is what's proprietary. (this isn't a Gottleib spider chip situation)

Normally you can just dump the data with a programmer but most modern chips have an option to block this if the manufacturer so chooses. Even if this safeguard wasn't in place dumping and reusing the data would not be legal unless it was licensed as open source (doubt it is).

I had to replace the cabinet node board on my GOTLE, but at the time it was only about $200. It was an honesty tax...I knew it was my fault for trying to put a PWM (pulse width modulator) board in series with the shaker. Now I know better (actually it’s not even needed, since Stern handles that in software now).

I’ve had GOTLE for 3 years and AS for 2, and so far that’s the only issue. I can’t complain, but I do worry about the future.

I spoke with Rob Anthony tonight and it seems he has the ability to fix node board issues. He claims the average fix time is an hour with his SMT service being $89/hour.

So this guy can reprogram the proprietary chips if they go bad?

Is Stern not responsible for warranty on node boards? Send it back, and get a new?

Sounds like a new Node board chat should be started...

Back to JP2

Agree, so far if you can believe it not one JP2 board has failed

I wish we got those prices simply in GBP, instead we have another $1000-1200 added on before they swap the $ sign for a £ sign.

Pros here are £6600 ($8000)
Premiums £8999 ($8900)
LEs £9995 ($12160) although these will likely be £10295 + on next release depending on reseller here.

My JP2 pro cost $8340 and we live next door. Damn Americans.

That's crazy!

Yep. To think that only 5 years ago I could buy an LE for a grand more, less even. In the end though it all works out u end getting most of it back upon selling so its not that bad.

Not really. $6370 USD is just a few hundred more including importing it.

Jerry better be including delivery for that price...

Wait, so you've been given a discount when you pick up? I was told by CT that there was no discount for pickup because shipping was built into the standardized Stern price.