It's called venting. Also, in some cases, that is the only way you get them to take notice.

It is very discouraging to see this, especially on a machine with only 100 run? Zero reason for lack of QA.

Oh, please. There are right ways to do it and wrong ways. People acting like the world is coming to an end and expect pins to be delivered issue free are not realistic. Had I not already read the Primus flipper issues on here we wouldn't have been prepared with what happened on this game. A lot of the time folks are just helping others avoid/correct similar issues.

hassellcastle (excellent local distributor) helped with supplying some original "1970ish" shafts and the owner got the new bats attached to them (see below).

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Stern sending me new flippers and a new score reel. I will also say rubbers are sub par . With very little play i am having to change out broken rubbers

The issue with the flippers are design issues not the usual transport related issues that take a minute to fix

They probably bought them from Pinball Life.

In addition. Kudos to Stern for alerting them to the issue and them immediately overnighting our customer brand new updated flipper bats. New bats from Chicago to Dallas in less than 12 hours.

Bottom line, Stern received a bad batch of bats. It can happen in any business/industry that receives parts from several manufacturers. With a small run of 100 the problem was discovered after the fact. Stern was PDQ with helping customer get back up and running.

I think we are well over 10 owners of this machine with broken flippers in first week, or even first day of play.

2 1/4" Williams flippers on mine. Love them. The 2 and 7/8th "lightning" flippers are way to long and ruin the game imo.

My score reel 1st digit position came loose and was free-spinning. Needed a little set screw tightened. I bet all of them come loose soon. No loc-tight used.

My playing field really dimpled for only a week of play. Soft wood! Im coating mine in very hard epoxy next week.

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I love my machine and accept a few small issues. No problem for me. Others may not be so understanding

Because the pinball community needs to know about this fucking bullshit!!

Mine needs all rubber swapped with a premium material. This oem rubber is garbage and didnt make it 10 days of home use. Boo. Also splitting where ball hits after shooter fired. Same as others have posted.

Should i go to silicone?

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Clear coating a playfield is not trivial. It takes experience to get a good finish and you will need to resolve issues like the star rollover holes getting clogged up when done. Review some of posts on clear coating so your 'clear' on what is involved. They all dimple and its not a big deal IMHO.

Those Pinball Life mini flippers are great, they are aluminium and give the ball a nice pop. They were used in Rob Zombie. Made my Swords of Fury alot more interesting...

Acupuncture: Did you receive a manual with your machine? I couldn't even find any mention of Primus on Stern's website.

I haven't seen you complain when someone does the same thing with a similar JJP game related thread lol.

NIB pins cost more than ever and all manufacturers need to be held accountable. As prices have risen so have expectations by customers that quality will be upheld. A majority of NIB issues posted on Pinside appear QC related. For $6k-$13k these issues should be caught at the factory.

sorry for all the problems people are having with this pin, it would be very frustrating to deal with. On the other hand all these close up pictures of the play field make me appreciate how awesome looking this pin is. Hopefully you will all get these problems sorted out and enjoy owning such a cool looking machine.

Is there only a cab speaker in this pin?

Stereo speakers in back aimed down at glass. Sound is reflected to player.
Subwoofer in bottom cabinet.

I make things for a living way more difficult than a pinball machine. I'll be fine putting epoxy on my pinball. Its not something most people should do, i agree on that.

Im doing it though, so close your eyes if you dont like it?

Any manufacturer can get a bad batch of parts from one of their suppliers.

If any of you guys have ever bought a new $80,000 BMW, you know that a ton of stuff gets recalled. The airbags are killing people and have to be replaced, the car catches fire or stalls for no reason.

If you've ever had an older Galaxy Phone, you know the batteries could catch fire, and got recalled.

If you bought a Cuisinart food processor in the last few years, you know that the blades were putting chips of steel into your food, and all got recalled.

Recalls can happen with any company, even those much larger than tiny Stern.

Relax.

Lol ok dude. Have fun with that epoxy situation. Be sure and post your results here and keep us posted how the game is holding up in 1-2 years.

For the love of god, please do not do this...you will have instant regret, and most likely ruin the machine.

And this is why I'll never buy a Stern machine.

$8k and it doesn't even last more than a dozen games before the flippers completely break off?!?

JJP all the way.

You do know that jjp could just as easily get a bad batch of parts from China.

Also dont you remember large chunks of artwork falling off some of the woz playfeilds.

Is Primus the first machine Stern has ever manufactured? Come on, try harder.

I see a lot of hack jobs on the internet. That will not be the case with me.
Thanks for your concern regarding coating my playing field.
I have years (decades) experience working on things, and chemicals, painting, machines, electronics, etc.

Not an average pinball owner I'd say.
So, I would not recommend others doing this unless they have done something similar many times and can afford the risk mistakes or fix them.

So your saying relax cuz stern is gonna recall all the broken machines like the examples you gave above. My confidence is soaring now.

My statement was simple and to the point and I stand by it. I'm relaxed and informed thank you.

It has nothing to do with how many machines they have made it's the fact that any manufacturer can get a bad batch of parts.

Uhhh, it actually has EVERYTHING to do with how many machines they have made. WoZ was JJP's first game. If it had issues...IT WAS THEIR FIRST GAME!

Shoot, I'd even be willing to give Spooky the benefit of the doubt with AMH. First game, probably going to have some issues.

This isn't Stern's first rodeo.

And I guess there has never been a recall of a part on any vehicle you've ever owned?

As I stated above. Stern was quick to send replacement, improved parts to my customer. Their game was down no longer than 24 hours.
In actuality it was done less than that as I gave the customer some used but functional 70's mini flippers that worked in a pinch until the
new flippers arrived.

I applaud them for handling the situation so quickly.

Did you buy a Primus pinball? Oh that's right you didn't.
But you needed to make your voice be heard and piss in the Primus thread.

Bottom line. Situation/problem addressed and Stern is resolving promptly.

Can happen to any of them. Cgc, jjp, stern, spooky, etc have all had plenty of issues to work through. I guess you are completely oblivious to every early run jjp game thread.

If you want to say games should be tested better and ship working I'm with you. If you are trying to say this is only a stern problem you completely lost me.

It’s happening again on POTC!

If the pinball world needs to know this shit the 55 pages of people discussing issues and problems POTC is happening in the club thread should come out in the open and bring their discussion to "all" or "JJP" pg

LOL JJP gets by untouched although there is 55 pg of issues on the POTC club pg there is not a single bash thread in the JJP section of Pinside. The Stern section of Pinside on the other hand has several bash thread at any one time. As for who the other bitch threads were complaining about I can't say one could have been a JJP thread but starting a thread without trying to address the issue is BS

it was a problem with my Whoa Nellie as well. not right out of the box, but 6 times over 2-3yrs.

i will resonate the comments of dannylite and say that i only installed the lightning flippers in the machine at Jackbar because it was the next best option i had on hand. the game plays far too easy with them, and loses it's fun and play-ability ten fold. luckily my girlfriend works in a fabrication shop with a welder on hand who did me a favor. and as to stern's QC and product support, Chas was very responsive and helpful when i called about the issue. does it suck to have happen? sure! but sh!t happens, and i am satisfied both with the machine and the support i received. and as far as i'm concerned, only us that forked over 8G's for this machine reserve the right to pass judgement on our experiences.

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I agree, called em all out when they ship junk. My collection is mostly stern, with 1 jjp, and 3 b/w..
My preference is stern....cuz I like their titles not their quality..that's why I'm concerned there going downhill and going forward I need to be informed as much as I can as we all should be. I'm not the one going around telling people to shut up and be quiet about all these issues we shouldn't be having when were paying this much. If they wanna make junk fuck em all. Went to lift the playfield of my iron maiden and the apron came right off. Why? Cuz the hex bolts connecting it to the playfield had no threads whatsoever and never did. They didnt know this before they shipped? The worker didnt know when he tried to screw it in and it didnt screw? No because that's the junk he had to work with and thought if stern doesn't care than why should I. Pic of board I couldn't get rid of but che k out the hex bolt.

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Fingers crossed

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good luck. there's a more than likely chance of the same issues. do what i did. i took about 3-4 hours setting up the machine to go through everything and bulletproof it, best i could. for me, that's half the fun of unboxing a brand new game, so it doesn't feel like a chore. before a single ball is played, i go through the entire top and bottom side of the playfield, tightening all mechs, plastics, placing washers under exposed plastics where the ball often hits (plastic protectors would be even better, if available), flipper button protectors, and most importantly call stern and get a head start on the shipment of the upgraded flippers. remember, the whoa nellie layout is a super fun game, and the minor crap you might have to deal with will be worth it. especially when you see how beautiful this machine is in person.

my only current gripe would be that the game has flashers in the backbox that don't ever seem to flash (unless someone can show me otherwise). this is a code issue, as they work fine in test. i mentioned this to stern when i called about my flipper. the response: "well, it's not a very deep game." to which i said: "yeah, that's true, but it has flashers, they should flash."

I find it hard to believe Stern did _any_ individual QC on these; for the number (out of a small total) reported here that had broken flippers within the first few plays, certainly _any_ reasonably rigorous QC protocol would have discovered this "bad batch of parts" before they left the factory.

Exactly.

You call Sterns 800 number, you tell them that you got the bad flippers.

Stern sends you a replacement pair; right to your door.

Without even making a trip to the dealership, you have your game fixed with 5 minutes & your socket wrench.

Don't let tiny setbacks upset you.

"If it ain't broke, it ain't Pinball"- Jersey Jack

Stern has been buying those same flippers, from the same IL company, for years.

No one is going to do any individual testing on a $1 part; not Stern, not the company that made them.

If they don't they should. It costs them more to fix it later than fix it up front. Don't make excuses for poor quality on high priced items. I don't care who the company is or what their overhead is. All the companies everyone hates is due to that simple fact - they knew about an issue and chose to not worry about it rather than just fix it (because it might cost them money and time).

If this was an isolated issue, then it might be excusable, but it isn't.

If I was Primus and I had commissioned these, I would be upset and probably never do it again with that company.

Now, if Stern is quickly remediating the situation, then that is fine. However, in the bigger picture and everything else we see happening with parts it doesn't look good.

No one's suggesting they should test _individual parts_, but we've been led to believe they _do_ spend at least a minute or two flipping on each individual machine for QC purposes. Doing so, they'd have found this problem before _any_ of the "bad batch" were shipped, wouldn't they?

None of them are doing this except Spooky. Just imagine the explosion of threads screaming that their nib game came with a dimpled playfield! Oh the humanity.

It's for the best that you could not buy a Primus.

Make sure you buy all your games from a local distributor.

They will set up and test your game before they deliver it to you.

If a plastic post cracks, or a flipper breaks, they will replace it before delivery....you'll never even know about the tragedy .

I've been to Stern, at the old and new factories.

They do flip every game, and test every switch before boxing.

But welds made without the proper shielding gas are brittle. Maybe they will break in the first 20 hits, maybe they will break in the first 500. Maybe they had 49 hits at Stern, and then the dealer's 50th flip was the straw that broke the camel's back?

It's a disposable part, and Stern is replacing them for free.

Wait till you guys find out that a steel ball is harder than a piece of painted plywood - you ain't gonna be happy.....

I don't know, seems like it would make sense to play the hell out of one of them (not going to customers) to check for any bad parts, before going and making them all. This particular issue isn't a few years of play, this is a few days. It looks bad. The whole "i've been in this for decades and it is just how it is" doesn't cut it when you are dealing with people who aren't pinheads who just dropped 8k on a toy. Pride and quality is a lost art these days.