I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to this electronic stuff but has there been any known reasons why these boards have failed? If it was just a need for fuses, couldn't those be added by the aftermarket?

Regardless, I don't get all the complaining. I don't know of any paperweight Spike pins and seriously doubt there will be any time soon. Sure, it will be costly to fix but guess what - they are costly to buy in the first place. Complaining that you have to buy a $400 board to fix your $8000 pin is the very definition of first world problems. Nobody forces you to buy a pin and nobody needs one. It's a luxury, niche item. The simple solution to avoid all these issues is to not buy a Stern Spike pin. If you got own one and worried about costly repairs, sell it. Problem solved.

Dayum... You guys are touchy. Guess I will take my ignorant, dumb ass out of here. My only point was the node board thing is nothing new yet a lot of you are still buying Spike pins. If I was to buy a Spike pin, I would already consider expensive repairs as part of the decision to do so. Guess that makes me an idiot.

Yeah, I get that. It's expensive to repair Spike pins. Stupid expensive. I've been reading about it for years and every post in this thread is about that. It should be cheaper to get these boards and Stern should help out with specs. But that's not reality. Reality is that one simple thing can blow out expensive boards. Comparing repairs to other pins seems irrelevant to me. It's like saying all cars should cost the same to repair. Cargument!

If people have a problem with this they need to stop buying Spike games and sell the ones they have. I just don't get expecting things to change after buying these pins. It reminds me of those that buy pins with incomplete code that don't play well and expect Stern to turn it into a great game with code updates. I just don't get it. I feel bad for those that are unaware of these expensive repairs and get stuck replacing multiple boards. If that was me, I would fix the game, dump it, and never buy another pin designed like that. I don't see much motivation on Stern's part if sales keep going up even when they raise prices.

Sounds exactly like those that expect code updates because Stern said updates every 2 weeks or whatever. I imagine someday they will release some schematics. Could be months. Could be years. I'm guessing they are not dedicating too many resources to doing so being as they are busy producing games and keeping up with demand. Like you said, it's tough when the consumers are addicts and driven by passion. We see the blinky lights and think I gotta have that. LOL

The extended warranty is a really good idea. Only problem would be you would probably be required to have a qualified technician diagnose and install the new boards. Mods may also void this kind of warranty if drawing power from system.

No idea but that's kind of the point. It must be tough for Stern to diagnose problems when so many pins are customized with everything from light up dolls to custom displays to software that hacks the rom. Who knows what happens when some novice grabs a mod off ebay and alligator clips it somewhere under the pf. If a mod did blow up their pin, I imagine most guys wouldn't own up to it and just blame Stern. Not saying that is happening in all these bad node cases but I imagine it is something Stern deals with on a regular basis.

Don't think suing Stern is very constructive unless you can prove some negligence. No pin runs forever without faults and not exactly uncommon to have an issue or two out of box. Nothing is going to change unless sales drop. People often complain about prices going up and features down but Stern sales are better than over. $9000+ for an LE? Sold out in minutes. $25k for Beatles pin based on old 80s pin with spinning disk? Gone. If the operators and heavy hitters that buy lots of nib complain to distributors and stop buying, I bet that message would get to Stern. Even if people started dumping older Spike games and used prices dropped, I bet Stern would notice that.