But will prices go up-down or stay the same?
-Mike

Up, up, and up until that bubble bursts

I read in one of the posts that cpr plans to run new designs in silk screen. Stuff with insufficient demand and repeat stuff is going to direct print!
Got to love and support cpr !

The idea that they (CPR) are willing to do short runs for us is just .That is just great news that they feel they can do little runs and not need 100+ to make it financially viable due to this new machine they bought.
-Mike

I hadn't noticed that interesting, will have to go take a look.
-Mike

I think this is a rip to getting scalper type pricing on old cpr runs. I only feel bad for those that “invested” in cpr stuff.

The printer and ink and media is more expensive than screen print.

For replacement parts low volume digital is suitable

Large volume like game manufacture screen if cheaper and best

I'm sure some people were sad when rotary phones were phased out too. . . not exactly the same but you get the idea. Technology can make things easier -- nothing was worse than "dialing" the wrong number on the last digit and having to start all over again.

I'm still holding onto my flip phone, but I will admit for a lot of things smart phones make more sense and are better use of the technology available.

I am usually the cranky old guy that likes things how they used to be back in the day. . . but ask yourself which is better -- continuing to wait for something to be available in original form for your project or having am immediate replacement available?

I'd prefer NOS parts when restoring a vehicle, but anymore a lot of those are becoming unobtanium. Aftermarket parts are not always the same as originals but they can allow a hobby to live on and still be enjoyed.

In regards to old blown playfields, I read somewhere that CPR was willing to take them and print new art on it for you, with the digital print,and that it was much less expensive than a new playfield. If this is true (I swear I read it somewhere) then stripping down a blown pf down to bare wood, and sending it to CPR to reprint would be my preferred process rather than Hardtop. Just another possibility. Might be able to offset the cost of a new CPR this way by doing a swap, stripping down the old pf, sending it off to get new art, then reselling it or keeping it as a spare? The market would determine how much a "used" pf with new art would be worth, which I dont think really has been tested before.

Mirroring and certain colors can’t be printed digitally, as far as I know.

I’m also skeptical of repro backglasses after seeing CPR’s magenta Flash Gordon and STTNG glasses. For $300, the examples I saw looked horrible. Maybe digital print would look better though?

Also saw someone say the printed glasses can have a banding effect from the printer.

Explained here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/announce-cpr-begins-its-new-business-model/page/4#post-4473433

Yes if no calibrated correctly or an old or poor maintained can band

I still shed a tear.

Largest benefit is that every hole and dimple will automatically be in the right place! But you need to sand down to clean wood or the bare areas won’t look great when clearcoated.

Marc

My question is will the machine with screen printed play fields draw more money that the digital counterpart. Some people will use this when trying to sale machines. ( my machine has a screen printed playfield not one of those digital printed ones). I could see this running prices up on machines just for the sake of old school printing. Only time will tell.

As a certified curmudgeon to digital EVERYTHING and a traditionalist when it comes to the arts...I must admit, when I heard that my old high school silkscreening teacher passed away at the ripe young age of 57, due to various cancers from *most likely* exposure to all things silkscreening, maybe this digital way of doing s#!t isn’t so bad.

I get that digital is the best way to have small runs and 1 offs but if anybody really thinks pricing will come down you may have a surprise coming.
I think pricing may come down just a little to get everyone "on board" but then it will be supply vs demand regardless of cost to produce.

I've been waiting on Gorgar playfield for years and I think it will be several more before I actually see one. By then the price will probably be higher than screen printing.

Silk screening was the best, but good riddance. Aside from the quality, it had nothing going for it. It was costly in terms of time and money, involved films, was error prone, and the errors are costly when they occurred. In my industry, there were too many hold-overs from the 60s and 70s who sucked at what they did and expected their customers to pay for their mistakes. I’m in the midst of financing my own digital machine. Can’t wait.

any xenon hard tops out there yet?

The thing is digital is so good it can even replicate the dots that make up silk screening so oh well! Like just the right warm white led!

I'd be much happier if phones still hung the wall. On vacation and my phone has been off the entire time. Dreading Monday.

Digital resolution passed screen printing ages ago. What it can’t do well is true solid colors, you’re going to see process dithering.

Still reading posts about the death of silk screening here. As was posted above, please read this:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/announce-cpr-begins-its-new-business-model/page/4#post-4473433

“You can all rest easy that mainline CPR playfield runs will still be genuine silkscreened.”

Film is still better, Digital is great though.

I spoke with kevin about this almost a year ago when he was "testing the waters" so to speak. and believe me, he was definitely one of the doubting thomas' with regards to the technology

in fact, (and I apologize if I've droned on before about this) when we were feeling out solutions for the joust playfield plastics, there was a company close to where I live that did direct printing and proclaimed that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. unfortunately for this co., he wasn't very well versed in what or how the PETG media was used in pinball and how transparent or non-transparent and solid things had to be in order to be a viable solution. the long and short is that 4 years ago, what was available simply couldn't hold a candle to screen printing using solvent inks and thankfully kevin was there to pick up the torch

fast forward to the numerous tests that kevin, mike and stu did on playfield, plastics and backglass samples before making this decision and I think that everyone will be more than pleased with the results. as kevin has stated, screen printing will not be going away entirely (at least for now for initial runs for large numbers) and it may still around for years to come for layers requiring metallics and mirrored inks that simply can't be produced using the digital format (just yet)

Aside from the quality? The quality is the whole point.

Most of the 90s cabinet art was cmyk screened at 55dpi earlier like no fear 32.5dpi

You can scan the films into a pc and compile them into a tiff, which will then print with gradiants

Did you see them in person? I was considering ordering the sttng glass but won’t if it’s bad in person...

The test is do a print on vinyl and clear translite media , then screw it into a ball if the ink cracks off it's no good

Try it with petrol if ink comes of no good

I don't feel bad. It's pinball, not wall street.

As I was reading the post about the new CPR process, I was excited, not sad. They can do a production run of ONE! That’s freaking awesome. No more waiting ages for a new playfield. If they have done it, they can whip up a new one quickly. I doubt they would be making this switch if they felt they couldn’t hold up the quality. So it’s a game changer (literally and figuratively). If someone bought an out of production playfield and is holding it ransom for a crazy sum, they lose. I can’t wait to see for myself how good the results look.

This is why I'm excited about what CPR is doing, because for my own personal selfish reasons I'm stoked to have a company able to provide the pretty specialized printing that pinball requires, I've struggled to find a good way to do it too.

Shay still uses silk screening. And the quality couldn't be better.

JUST TO CLARIFY FROM OUR END:

Silkscreening is NOT going away. The role of the digital suite here is targeted to where it fits the scale of economy.

WILL BE SILKSCREENED:
All new first-time-run (preorder based) main playfield runs. When it's the original "big batch" being done.

WILL BE DIGITAL:
Plastics from this day forward.
Backglasses from this day forward. (except mirror is still screened)
Small-run, or on-demand one-off (legacy, sold out) playfields.

Sitting, past silkscreened stock will remain, and draw down until it sells out someday.

Hope this helps.

KEVIN
Classic Playfield Reproductions
http://www.classicplayfields.com

BK plastics are in the next wave of releases brought back out of the proverbial mothballs. Check our site by monday evening.

I think it’s very cool. It will be even cooler when it’s cheap enough to at home for free.