As a long-time fan of Primus, we decided to purchase this little majestic piece of fan service to put inside our Arcade bar that rests in the sunny, coastal town of Dunedin Florida. Currently we have a Ghostbusters LE, Star Wars LE, and a modded out Tron that everyone enjoys. Needless to say we were very excited to add this machine to our collection, and to our absolute amazement the machine was going to arrive in time for our New Year Eve extravaganza! We paid the exorbitant "White Glove" service fee of nearly $900, and promoted the heck out of having the machine in time for our party. I've put together these machines before, and while it isn't difficult, I simply didn't have the time to assemble it since we were scrambling in preparation for our event.
The delivery company arrived, and while they were very cordial and nice, I noticed immediately that they weren't adept at putting these things together. It took them about 2 hours to assemble the machine and plug everything in, but to their dismay they simply could not fire up the machine. I inspected to make sure everything was plugged in, re-read over the manual, and began the trouble shooting process. "Did something shake loose?" I thought, so I began tightening everything. The delivery guys sat confused, unplugged and plugged the RJ45 jacks out a couple of times, and said "stern will probably just send you a new one." The noted it on their delivery form, told their superiors about the issue, and said "sorry" and left. Upon them leaving I noticed the back box was leaning to the side and did not sit flush. They ratcheted the back box down on top of a molex power connecter, so I had to take it off, fix the cord and it sat flush.
At this point we are about to open and people are at the door ready to come play this thing. After checking all the leads once again, plugging them in and out, and in and out again, I thought "maybe the spark plug is bad." Upon opening the socket I noticed it was fairly loose. I pulled it out adjusted it, and boom, it worked! All pleased I scurried to assemble the machine, level it, and gently placed it against the wall in preparation for play time. However customers started noticing that the mini-display at the bottom left of the machine didn't work. They didn't mind and started playing. After a few hours when the machine got a break I checked the display leads from the bottom left circuit board, the ribbon and molex, and plugged them in and out on the bottom and back box. Nothing worked, so at this time I can only assume the cables are faulty. I don't have a voltmeter in my proximity to test whether the circuit boards are bad, but at this point I'm just happy it's working for New Year's. A few hours later, the left flipper starts loosely moving up and down. I open up the machine and the flipper is totally loose, and just pops right off. However it was held, whether by glue or solder, was done so in a very shoddy manner. I then turn off the machine and put place a "sorry, out of order" sign.
Needless to say this has been a pretty disappointing experience. The machine shows no signs of damage, and it seemed to travel well. At this time I can only attribute all of this to shoddy Stern quality control. I'm certain I can jury-rig the flipper with an adhesive but I really don't want to do anything until Stern hears about this tomorrow (they are closed today). I'll keep you updated
Tl;dr New Primus pinball machine has a broken display, left flipper popped up, and white glove technicians are a disappointment