Talking with a few people that have businesses (that COULD have pins), the first thing they tell me is they want a machine not costing upwards of 6 grand!

Get rid of the steel balls.

You could build the greatest and most reliable game ever.

But you have steel balls moving around at three or four miles an hour. Eventually things will break.

Get rid of the balls.

LTG : )

What material could be used that's not so damaging? Wood?

Viper Night Driving had a pretty cool solution to the issue.

Tony

Maybe more like 10 to 15 miles per hour max

Getting rid of the steel balls would be huge towards reliability. However, we are all so used to the feel of the steel ball in the game that it is pretty much hand in hand. I'm sure, however, that there might be an alternative. I'm not chemist by any stretch of the imagination, but sure there has to be something that could be molded to the same dimensions and general weight, without being as abrasive or reckless.

There are some plastics that are almost indestructible, no?

Ball traps are one problem.

Korn clocked them and wrote up about it on RGP.

More like 3 or 4.

LTG : )

You can't. It's the nature of the beast.

Players need a steel ball.

No matter how bullet proof you make something. Enough hits will get it.

LTG : )

if you keep it the same size and weight you are keeping the same denisty. Since the mass and velocity would be the same the destruction would be too. and 80 gram wooden ball imparts as much force as a 80g metal one. only mitigating thing is the wood ball would absorb some impact and get deformed.

Smarty pants!

This was going to be my suggestion too.

I'm not claiming that there can't be improvements, but if you look at the history of pinball you'll see that things are pretty refined. The pop bumper is pretty much unchanged in its entire history. Why? Because it works reliably. Flippers have been pretty stable in their design for what, 25 years? Drop targets are all pretty refined and similar between manufacturers. Stern made some changes to stand up target's brackets that improved their reliability over WMS stand ups. WMS monkeyed with flipper buttons and optos and Stern has shown that is unnecessary by sticking with leaf switches.

Anyway, my point is that there have been small incremental improvements over the years, but current designs are pretty refined based on decades of things breaking. And stuff still breaks. And it will break. A pinball machine is a mechanical device with a steel ball bashing everything in sight. Things can always improve, but things breaking is the nature of the game and we'll never get rid of that. You're not asking bad questions, I just don't see any earth-shattering answers out there.

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/10/ff-why-products-fail/

With regards to this question:
"What are your most common and vexing mechanical issues? "

I don't really see broad vexing mechanical issues, the main generic stuff seems to work pretty good. It seems like the main issues are game specific: Hulk's arms, the breaking Tesseract, TZ's clock board, welds breaking on DE SW's center ramp, etc. I'm sure the manufacturers know how to prevent premature failure in a lot of these cases, but the decisions made come down to costs for materials, testing, and development. Since each game has new and unique features, there is always going to be a risk of things breaking prematurely.

We know crap happens.

We know stuff will break and need to be fixed.

I would lean towards making the fix easier.

Ramps or mini playfields - hinge them or something so you don't have to tear apart half the machine to replace one rubber ring underneath.

LTG : )

The only way to make a highly reliable version of pinball is digital. I know most people hate the idea and will probably flame me but I'd support a more polished and official visual pinball style pro built arcade machine for location along side real pins. Yeah it's not pinball but it would help get kids and establishments to put in pins and cause more interest in the hobby.

Make everything modular and easy to get to. No solder.

that could work, if everything was quick connects and just involved unscrewing the part. The problems with so many moving parts it may cause more common issues even if their easier to fix. I'd love a pin that's as easy as a pc to assemble and swap parts out but don't see it happening

Basically take "the pin" that stern made, and scale it up. pcb assemblies under the playfield to make matrixes modular (replace entire chunks, service them later). Get rid of mechanical wire switches, switch to proximity (no contact, no wear.. solid state). Also get rid of crappy IDC connectors, there are far more robust and reliable connectors. Have a display troubleshooting (like oz, or pin2k). I'd say that would get rid of the bulk of your trouble issues (that take time to diagnose on location).

I thought WOZ was heading in that direction...

By the looks of the new P3 apron picture the solenoids now have some type of foam stops. This would, outside of cleaning, make these mechs maintenance free since you wouldn't need to replace coil stops and mushroomed plungers! Not to mention it would make the machine much quieter.

30x.jpg

The connectors are usually the problem with old pins.

Solder is pretty much failsafe - unless it is attached to connector pins...

what about ceramic balls, they could be lighter, and not impart as much force

Reliability doesnt do anything for generating customers. Thats the real problem. You need someone to put money into the machines and they need to be drawn to the machine, and understand what the hell it is that they are supposed to do when they get there.

Current machines have rule sets that require reading FAQ's, software updates that change the rules frequently, out of date insert cards and they cost a buck to play. Most people are intimidated to even play the dang things because of all the flashing we have these days, and given that over half of all US sales go into homes, there is no reason for a designer to make a machine that will grow an operaters business.

Of course it does! Who wants to play a game that's broken??

That doesnt stop most operators. As long as the flippers work and the balls kick into play, who cares if switch 16 is broken on the upper ramp and you cant score a jackpot. 90% of your customers dont care, or even notice, so why should you? Not to mention you cant tell if its broke until you put money in.

this attitude is what kills on location pinball though. people do notice. ive had people play mine and tell me theyve never played a pin before that didn't take their money or rip them off

Yep, I totally agree. When I play pinball in the wild I usually cant wait to get home so I can play a machine that I can hear, see, know it works, know its leveled and know its owned by someone that gives a crap.

True, but I wouldn't be shelling out any cash after that initial disappointment.

it would change the dynamics of the game if you changed the mass of the ball...

also, f=m*a... if you reduced the mass of the ball, but did not also change the "dynamic" parts of the game (flippers/pops/kicks), it would cause the ball to move faster, which would put you back in the same spot you were before...

I should clarify, it doesn't generate new customers, but it will ensure repeat customers.

Have an idea in my head right now for MPU controlled expanding outlanes. Would integrate into existing technology perfectly.

Don't forget that manufacturers make things that wear so they can sell replacement parts. That is done on purpose. Profit trumps quality in their view.

credit cards readers have higher cost then coins and maybe even bill validators.

also the credit cards fees.

Now networking is nice but not all sites have wifi (open or pass worded) also may have to deal with hackers even more so if the games have CC readers on them.

Also some places with pass worded wifi have a custom login page or limited time codes.

Optional Remote Camera sounds cool but you can't count on sites having the upload bandwith for that.

On line high scores are not much for pinball as a lot can very game to game.

Novelty.

People want novelty...something new. I like the idea of in field lcd's...kind of like pinball 2000 but within playfields. Huge potential to vary and change game dynamically. Could change between several games in one. Not sure how to keep it clean though...maybe a built in cleaning mechanism, like a dishwasher. If we can imagine it an engineer can find a way to design it.

Not sure if it would be effective, but some type of internal smoke machine could be cool, especially with targets rising out of the playfield. Pinballs track a path through the smoke.

Part of pinball's resurgence is the novelty to new customers. Mods are a great way to add novelty and keep things fresh. Lack of novelty is threatening to kill video gaming. The public is a fickle mistress, and bores and tires quickly. How to keep pinball novel and fresh to casual customers is a cool thought experiment. If I ever had the financial means, I would love to just experiment with ideas like this...who wouldn't?

I think if we had better connected features in modern pins it may actually help generate some new business. If one thing is still popular, is our competitive nature. Hell, look at how many pointless posts we get here just for the lame pkp scores.

Imagine if you could use your smartphone and use the NFC feature to tag a machine. This enters you into a tourney that has all machines with the exact same settings and the scoreboards reflect this on a highscore board on your phone. It uses your FB, twitter, whatever feeds to notify your friends and you guys can compete for pin king points based on an algorithm. You don't need to offer money awards etc, you can just give player points and graphical trophies and people will sign up from all over just to beat each others scores.

And we have a new generation of players coming up that operators can't ignore.

LTG : )

So what do you think will be the next hot gaming product?

Me. Really ?

Pinball.

I saw something at the Texas Pinball Festival. Got me to thinking about 5 years ago. And the here and now.

I'm going to be moving in that direction in the next year or two. I don't have a budget, but there are going to be subtle little changes so I don't lose players now but attract more of the new ones.

They are there. Ops haven't been going after them.

LTG : )

I think rubber balls that are silver would be cool.

Things break, rubbers need to be changed. That's the nature of the beast, and that's acceptable. What is lame is realizing that some bulbs or rubbers are very difficult to access. A step towards easier maintenance would be to make sure that all routine operations are simple.

I am not a operator but in the last 3 years the painful things that I have identified that need attention and takes time is changing rubbers, playfield cleaning and resetting some mechanicals / switches and most of the time is a pain because of the access issues.

Heighway pins is going to have quick release flipper assembly including the flipper bat and I think also the pop bumper assembly so everything could be assembled and set and then installed into the playfield and plugged into a harness. Everything can be adjusted and set on the bench and just plug and play making service visits short and fast.

Agree the ramps and plastics could be designed with quick release pins so changing rubbers etc can be alot easier. The mounting pins could be a custom pin that has a hole in the top and you install a pin to release a spring and say a small ball inside moves allowing the ramp to be lifted and then just push on to fit the ramp back on and clips in.

Magnertic Proxy sensors would be cool and reduce the slots in a playfield and transfer of dirt and replacing sensors. proxy's head could sit just below the surface and once locked could operate for years and some have a small mini led in it idea for setting and checking activation.

Also as something a little different instead of solenoids have pneumatics, that would fire instead of magnetic coil system. Problem is maybe the gear is a little more pricey and you would need a small on board compressor but you can get some powerful and fast movements along with no high voltage - everything could be 12 volt so less dangerous. 2 common feed lines is installed (blue) and drain out (red) with then switching wires running to a valve bank. Or maybe the pinball has a compressor air line plug and a power plug and the compressor could be located somewhere in the arcade / shed / cellar etc. yes might be a crazy idea but sometimes looking outside the box leads to something cool.

it's straying off topic, but...

unfortunately, you just added a whole bunch of cost to a machine... and those changes you make have lots of appeal to a pinhead, but zero appeal to a new/casual player...

as noted in the "on location" thread... there are two distinct groups, "pinheads" and "non-pinheads"... pinheads need to realize the things that appeal to them (deep rulesets. etc.) have negative appeal to non-pinheads, or to pinheads who prefer simpler, straight forward pinball (like me, for example)...

imo, you'd have a lot more luck attracting casual users if you made the games simpler and less "videogame" like... pinball needs to be "different" from video games, not "more like" video games... to me, a lot of "modern" machines are simply replacing a joystick/controller with flippers/ball... that's a battle that pinball will never win vs. a videogame...

want to figure out how to appeal to non-pinheads? don't think like a pinhead...

Here's a way to bring to bring about a paradigm change to the industry and bring in new pinball fans with a focus on making the machines reliable and fun for them - kill all existing pinheads. (No, wait, wait, wait, not me, I didn't mean me, arghhhh.....)

What I mean is that so many machines seem designed with the goal of satisfying existing pinheads that they can deter the casually interested person. The industry can not ignore the existing fanbase because it is a known and reliable source of revenue. But the act of trying to stay afloat may be exactly the thing that prevents them from growing out.

There are many analogies, but this is exactly the sort of the thing that drove Blockbuster video stores out of business, even though the company was fully aware of the threat of streaming videos. In fact, they had their own streaming service under development, but had to limit its budget and then cut it altogether to divert cash towards supporting their brick and morter stores. For a company, the 5-year vision of the future is irrelevant if you can not survive the next 6 months. Pinball machines seem to have been on a perpetual 6 month lifeline since 1995.

I wonder what Wizard of Oz would look like if they didn't worry about pinheads.

Stern tried this with "The Pin", most embarrassing pinball-related product ever made. The idea doesn't work.

You've gotta fight steel with steel....Steel balls, Steel playfield, 1/4" thick Lexan plastics, grade 8 1/4" dia. pin posts, target faces made from 1" dia. 1/8" thick drillrod heat treated to 56 Rockwell and no switches......just have someone next to you with a pencil and paper jotting down which targets are being hit.