B bye Jack. You had your chance to get it together. You had these issues Starting with WOZ and you fucked us. You kept selling games with issues. " Its a pinball machine, what do you want me to do". Isnt that what you told me? Now people are mad and you are losing money. I know you are reading this but you don't have the integrity to speak up. B Bye now. I bought my first NIB from you and you made it a terrible experience.

So on a machine like you describe you are saying I couldn’t replace the boards and have all the lights work again? How do you fix a bad PF with paint missing again? Right you don’t......

ding...ding...ding....dong.

This isn't true. Get your facts straight. We've had every JJP except Wonka so I've seen it personally. EARLY WoZ had playfield issues (with Bader playfields, BTW), and that was corrected. The majority of WoZ made (because they came after Bader was dumped) do not have playfield issues. Playfields were then FINE all the way through Hobbit until Dialed In when chipping reared its head, then the clear pooling became a thing with jjPotC. So for about 2 YEARS there were NO PROBLEMS with playfields until Mirco decided to change they way they were making perfectly acceptable playfields for some reason. WHY Mirco decided to change things that WORKED for no obvious reason is the great unknown.

Dont act in haste, its the *spotty cell service*.

I hear they now have Wi-Fi overseas. Hopefully Jack's phone has wi-fi calling capability.

Jack doesnt carry a sat phone? Pleb

Folks, I have been asked in numerous PM's sent to me... "What is the washer part number for the Slingshot Post Mod you used"?
Scott at Magical Productions, who produced the POTC kit with 6 Marco Star Posts and 6 washers was kind enough to reply back to me with where he obtained
the excellent Rubberized Post Washer. I believe these help to also minimize ball impacts better than hard teflon, as they are better shock absorbing. FWIW. - Murphy

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L1IZL4A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title

IMG_3783 (resized).JPG

You can get at Lowe’s or Home Depot too. I think its 2 for $1.

Progress has been made a little. I still dont have the big drop that was by the post but there is a slight lip that I had to use the back of my knife to feel. We will see how it progresses. Still way better than it was. I may repeat the process again this weekend.

Dual purpose pirate knife. Plunders and repairs.

Yup!

Some more information on the playfield issue. Mirco is experimenting with different clearcoats on Wonka. They are also making 12 more CE JJPOTC playfields, I assume as spares for customers. There is a supply of LE playfields left at JJP, no guarantee that more will be made with a different clearcoat. I also asked Ron Kruzman about clearcoating a JJPOTC playfield. He has done only one. Apparently he sands down the existing clear before applying his clearcoats. I forgot to ask about ink adherence. All this to say, I may just take a chance that they will make more with better clear in the future and get a backup at that point. It would be an option, although not cheap, to have a backup playfield with high quality clear by experts like Kruzman or Hutchins. Getting an uncleared playfield from Mirco isn't even an option and would get damaged in shipping without protection.

What is this solution for customers that is apparently going to be announced via podcast?

If it’s not populated PFs it’s not what is called for.....

I'm with you. Unless jjp says the issue was insufficient cure time and we guarantee this replacement playfield will be ok now, I'm going to wait too until whatever the issue is is figured out and fixed before I consider buying a replacement (if they won't supply one free of charge or do more)

Be prepared to be disappointed... I HIGHLY doubt you're going to see that for people with rippling. People with issues down to the wood perhaps but not with rippling alone...

Jeff

I don't condone or plan to do this - but I suspect if JJP went that route people would start poking at the rippling clear until it chipped

Yep if I was told that players with chipping were getting playfields and people with rippling were getting the shaft I would be inclined to do some major maintenance that required removing posts. Like for example I might need to wax the machine and with my OCD Ill pull stuff so I can get everything. Pretty sure ill have signifigant chipping as soon as I pull the posts again. As it stands now I installed the fix and I have rippling around some of the washers in the fix now.

I was thinking the same thing. That will absolutely happen.

To solve the issue properly, JJP will have no choice but to take a huge hit on this. There's just no way around it.

The line should have stopped the moment the very first post sunk into the clearcoat. They allowed it to continue and they're going to pay the price for that terrible decision one way or another.

Doesn't matter. If you have a bad batch of clear it will still manifest itself. I moved my post on GOTG 18 months after it was built and pooling happened in new location.

Moral of the story, Mirco's process is flawed. Whatever clear coat accelerator, magical slime mixture they are using to rapidly get the playfields off the line is CLEARLY not working and needs improvement...this will fall on deaf ears anyhow.

So in other news, I love my Pirates!! So lucky I found one.

I would like to make a suggestion to all the POTC owners who have the pooling/chipping problem. I received my game NIB in January and totally love it. However I have noticed the pooling problem and did the post/washer replacement. As I placed the cliffys, I noticed a chip around the Tortuga hole. Am I bummed? Of course. Do I have any regrets buying it, never. It's too great of game for that. To be honest, I really don't think JJP is going to do anything about it because everyone is complaining about this on Pinside. When it came to fixing some things, JJP responded with such things as BP Opto protector, posts and washers and such. But we are talking about a major part of the game that even unpopulated is a lot of money and populated, a lot a lot a lot of money. I am going to follow HarryHoudini's example and write a letter sent registered mail to JJP with documentation of my game serial number, purchase date, photos of the damage and what I think is fair compensation for the damage. I hope any WW owners who are having the same problem do the same. This will give JJP proper notification of what the problem is and what they are facing from the owners of the game. It may be a small handful of owners or it may be numerous. It's way to difficult to determine accurately by going by the post here. What happens after that? Who knows. They may respond, or they may not. But at least you have documented it and officially notified them. Again, I love love love this game.

Corrected as in they stopped using Bader. It happened very early in the process.

No, they also offered half or more off playfields (some might have received them free, I'm not sure, but they were cheap) to those early WoZ buyers that had issues. It wasn't just stickers to cover the chips.

I ship playfields with just ink if a customer wants to do it themselves or send on to Ron. I wrap the playfield in brown paper, 2 layers to ink side. Same with clear coated playfields. Then it goes into double cardboard box. Same as CPR, I like to think I do a fraction of 1% of their huge parts business.

Don't forget!

1. The WOZ light board issue occured over 5+ years ago, it was on JJP's first game, and it occured on the most complex lighting system ever created for a pinball machine
2. JJP resolved the light board issue permanently with the 2.0 lighting system
3. WOZ's with 5.0v unbuffered light boards experienced issues early and JJP warrantied the boards for my customers
4. A vast majority of WOZ's with 5.0 buffered, 7.5v buffered / unbuffered boards have never had an issue in 5 + years (mine included with 7.5v boards)
5. JJP came up with the 2.0 light kit for WOZ owners and offered it at cost (how many companies would do something like that?)

JJP can get hammered for the playfield issues but I think they handled the WOZ light board issue very well. No one has to pay $800 for a 2.0 kit if they don't want to. As I said a vast majority of WOZ's with 5.0 buffered, 7.5v buffered / unbuffered boards have never had an issue in 5 + years.

I just put in a support ticket for my pooling. Figured I should make them aware/document it before it gets worse. From the looks of it, doubtful they will do anything but can't complain if I don't file a ticket...

Yes they offer a $800 kit many years later.. and how much drama and pain did JJP drag customers through when it refused to replace boards except AFTER them failing? And after MULTIPLE designs that were better, but not solid until the 2.0 design. They had a known bad design and would not bulk replace them. And years later, their solution was to sell a kit that customers could install themselves..

Point being, the argument that people will hold JJP at gunpoint unless people get full swaps just doesn't hold water. JJP dragged all their customers through the mud with WoZ lighting and people don't care anymore.

I'm confused. Are you saying your RR with a 2.0 lighting system had TWENTY GI boards out? Or that the "2.0" WoZ RR with the 1.x buffered lighting system had boards out?

I called to ask about another playfield and was encouraged they are working on it, hope things get fixed!

Wow, that's literally the only incident I've heard of with more than 1 or 2 boards going bad on a 2.0 system - but it's 10x more! I wonder if maybe a bad power supply was blowing them out (or under-powering them?) on the route and the power supply didn't get fixed until later. The WoZ we have out is on 24/7 which usually shows up problems (like the WoZ lockup or the Iron Maiden lockup) that home users don't see and the 2.0 system has been rock solid in it since it was installed.

You're a great person to ask this question too because you DO THIS type of work. Ink adherance issues. Why would this be happening and how do you fix this? Is it the quality/brand of ink or? And believe me, I wish like hell these manufacturers would offer a custom shop option. JJP sends a bare inked playfield to Kruzman or HEP or whomever else of your choosing to do the clear. Kruzman has proven that dimples aren't "normal" and that quality clear does exist and is absolutely obtainable. He would get my business every single time. However I can absolutely see theyd have to train the assembly people not to go hulk mode either.

They're 24/7 locations, down for like a few hours in the wee morning, so we just leave them on.

Having installed the 2.0, the power supply was the obvious weak point, so that's why I thought of that first as a potential point of uncharacteristic, massive board failure if it was putting out too much or too little power (out of spec).

It's not a pinball place specifically, but a bar/restaurant combo. Truck stops are also 24/7, but equipment gets destroyed at those.

Can you imagine a Truck Driver that has just driven 6 hours or so on the highway putting up with the idiots we have on the road these days - walking into a truck stop to play Pinball? Whew! You're exactly right... it would be destroyed! LOL.

I don't have to imagine, I've SEEN it. The operator I help now USED to have machines at a truck stop - not anymore. They are massively abused, not just by truck drivers, but homeless people that try to break into them since the game room at a truck stop is a low-supervision area.