(Topic ID: 328734)

Rush Node Board 10 issues list and research

By Jamesays

1 year ago


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“Rush/Godzilla Node Board 10 issues and Non issues list”

  • Rush LE/Premium with issues 66 votes
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(Multiple choice - 187 votes by 186 Pinsiders)

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#351 1 year ago

If a node board is failing after the fix has been done would it be possible that the node was spiked or weakened under the previous faulty condition?

#352 1 year ago

Opened and setup my brand new in box LE his weekend and did the cutout of the molex connector with soldering of the wires along with cutting and redoing the zip ties. All done before I ever turned the machine on for the very first time. 10 games in and so far so good. Will update as I get more games on it. Thanks for all the amazing info and pictures for this issue!!

#353 1 year ago

Anyone have any experience with these? They seem user friendly.

https://kuject.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2.jpg

#354 1 year ago

They look hokey to me. You want a good physical connection between the wires before you add solder. Those things look to be relying on just the solder to connect the wires, which is not ideal. Could introduce the same sort of problem you are trying to alleviate. If you have no shrink tubing, I'd use electrical tape before I'd consider those.

#355 1 year ago

Maybe I should bring the game to TPF, see if someone can fix it TPF ?

#356 1 year ago
Quoted from Enchantress:

Anyone have any experience with these? They seem user friendly.
https://kuject.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2.jpg

I use these all the time for various projects outside of pinball and actually used them for my Rush LE this weekend. Key to using them is making sure the two wires do not move when doing the process and then letting it cool before moving it at all. I use a heat gun and you really have to make sure solder melts down. Had my wife hold a small board behind wires to make sure heat was blocked from everything else besides those wires. If done correctly, you are not pulling those wires apart and they are locked down. One they were fully cooled, I wrapped in electrical tape for each wire and then took all four and lightly zip tied them together again to prevent I needed movement. The heat shrink on those connectors also has little bands on each end that close down on the wire and help lock it in as well.

#357 1 year ago
Quoted from Enchantress:

Anyone have any experience with these? They seem user friendly.
https://kuject.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2.jpg

One of the main rules of a good solder job is the solder isn't the thing supporting the physical connection. These types of corner cutting things just aren't needed... solder two simple wires together and use heatshrink. This is childs play.

#358 1 year ago

Rush Premium
Game Mfr date: 04-26-22
Games Played: 102
Node 10 Fail? No

- Just took the plunge an removed the ramp connector and direct soldered the wires. Poor contact found on two of the connector pins when I pulled it apart.

- Cut zip ties and found some minor (seemingly) insulation damage evident on the black wire under one of zip ties (closest to motor). NOTE: Inspection under a 30x loupe revealed EXPOSED bare wire; shrink tubed it up. The softer insulation on the motor wires (on motor side of connector) is much more pliable (delicate) and really conceals small insulation breaks; Highly recommend inspecting under magnification.

- Lowered ramp power raise/hold values on the menu to 120 / 100 respectively w/ no noticeable effects on gameplay. They were factory set about 30 units higher. I feel any opportunity to lower the amp draw on those tiny motor-side wires is well worth it. Noticeable difference in the number of wire strands between them and the harness-side wires.

IMO - underrated pins on the connector / breaks in wire due to overtightened zip ties COUPLED with the lack of overcurrent protection on the Node 10 board are the likely culprits. I think I’ve reduced my risk as much as possible until Stern can devise a protective fix for the Node board. My thinking is they should be able to design an inline protective module (small directional cap bank?) inserted between the node board and the ramp/clock harness connectors as a potential fix suitable for most owners to apply.

The following photos show the fix and the damaged wire...couldn’t get my camera to focus close enough to show the bare wires exposed. Also took a pic of the tools I used for this little rainy day ‘project’:

B24EF0CC-263E-4BF5-84E2-133C841CC488 (resized).jpegB24EF0CC-263E-4BF5-84E2-133C841CC488 (resized).jpegC34D0EC2-FEAD-4B23-BBD9-76B6343AE6FB (resized).jpegC34D0EC2-FEAD-4B23-BBD9-76B6343AE6FB (resized).jpegE6EF116B-73E2-4B78-B890-D7A8E30E06E6 (resized).jpegE6EF116B-73E2-4B78-B890-D7A8E30E06E6 (resized).jpeg
#359 1 year ago
Quoted from Mjesposi:

you are not pulling those wires apart and they are locked down.

That would be great if that was all that mattered. Don't take my word for it, this is straight from the NEC: "Soldered splices shall first be spliced or joined so as to be mechanically and electrically secure without solder, and then be soldered."

Solder is there to keep the wires together, not to be the actual conductor between the wires.

#360 1 year ago
Quoted from Mjesposi:

Had my wife hold a small board behind wires to make sure heat was blocked from everything else besides those wires.

Get a reflector attachment for your heat gun, and you dont need any external blocks. Also makes the heat more even. Good for heat shrink tubing too.

https://www.amazon.com/Steinel-Reflector-perfect-soldering-fitting/dp/B0041G5ELO

#361 1 year ago
Quoted from Djurgens:

Rush Premium
Game Mfr date: 04-26-22
Games Played: 102
Node 10 Fail? No
- Just took the plunge an removed the ramp connector and direct soldered the wires. Poor contact found on two of the connector pins when I pulled it apart.
- Cut zip ties and found some minor (seemingly) insulation damage evident on the black wire under one of zip ties (closest to motor). NOTE: Inspection under a 30x loupe revealed EXPOSED bare wire; shrink tubed it up. The softer insulation on the motor wires (on motor side of connector) is much more pliable (delicate) and really conceals small insulation breaks; Highly recommend inspecting under magnification.
- Lowered ramp power raise/hold values on the menu to 120 / 100 respectively w/ no noticeable effects on gameplay. They were factory set about 30 units higher. I feel any opportunity to lower the amp draw on those tiny motor-side wires is well worth it. Noticeable difference in the number of wire strands between them and the harness-side wires.
IMO - underrated pins on the connector / breaks in wire due to overtightened zip ties COUPLED with the lack of overcurrent protection on the Node 10 board are the likely culprits. I think I’ve reduced my risk as much as possible until Stern can devise a protective fix for the Node board. My thinking is they should be able to design an inline protective module (small directional cap bank?) inserted between the node board and the ramp/clock harness connectors as a potential fix suitable for most owners to apply.
The following photos show the fix and the damaged wire...couldn’t get my camera to focus close enough to show the bare wires exposed. Also took a pic of the tools I used for this little rainy day ‘project’:[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]

Nothing original for your first post, but it's a good recap. Welcome to Pinside.

#362 1 year ago
Quoted from MJK-911:

Maybe I should bring the game to TPF, see if someone can fix it TPF ?

I will be at TPF Friday and Saturday. Leaving Sunday morning.

#363 1 year ago
Quoted from pinballplusMN:

If a node board is failing after the fix has been done would it be possible that the node was spiked or weakened under the previous faulty condition?

Not likely. Semiconductors usually don't get weak. They're good until they aren't. The problem is going to be a bad crimp connection somewhere else in the chain, probably at CN1/CN3 or maybe a bad connection inside the motor. I haven't taken apart one of the motors to see how the electrical connections are being handled in there.

#364 1 year ago

Sounds like George may have misunderstood the question, or jumped the gun a bit - he’s not over “support” so it makes sense to me that he may not be 100% in the loop.

Paraphrasing the response received from Stern regarding a motor fix IN ADDITION to my existing node replacement ticket, Greg at FnO said that Stern gave him a “we’re working on it - nothing permanent has been developed - stay tuned” as a response to Greg’s question about George’s comments.

#365 1 year ago
Quoted from Vespula:

Nothing original for your first post, but it's a good recap. Welcome to Pinside.

Thanks! Yea - I should have mentioned the good work everyone on here has been doing researching this issue on this forum...it's been an incredible resource for this newbee. I think the only novel thing I wanted to bring to light was the importance of inspecting the wiring under magnification (and lots of light). I never would have seen the exposed wire strands on the motor side without it.

#366 1 year ago

Ramp motor wiring is pathetic,, looks like strands of cat hair. Copper must be too expensive for a $10,000 pinball machine

#367 1 year ago

I had a 30-min conversation with Pablo at Stern Tech Support this morning, He assured me Engineering is working on a solution. He wasn’t aware of the letter that was sent to me with the new Node-10 board,telling me to install it, kinda has me confused about what is really going on. Why send a new board if it self destructs? Almost like nobody read the chain of emails describing everything that has happened. If the game was horrible this would have been so easy, but I absolutely love it. Just wish it would work correctly. The LZ expansion lights look great and work perfectly. Lights are coded better than LZ in my opinion. Such a shame the intended Expression Light kits haven’t been released or may never be released?

#368 1 year ago

I don't have any issues with my Rush Premium atm, but all of this has me worried.
I sent an email to their tech support asking how will I know if my machine has the problem, and is stern looking to proactively fix it.

I got this response from Eddie at Stern:

"Our engineers are working on developing a final solution regarding the root cause of the node 10 failure.
Once we have more information, we'll be able to start submitting orders through distributors for what replacement parts will be needed to go along with a replacement node 10 board.

We appreciate your patience."

#369 1 year ago
Quoted from Sloshy:

I don't have any issues with my Rush Premium atm, but all of this has me worried.
I sent an email to their tech support asking how will I know if my machine has the problem, and is stern looking to proactively fix it.
I got this response from Eddie at Stern:
"Our engineers are working on developing a final solution regarding the root cause of the node 10 failure.
Once we have more information, we'll be able to start submitting orders through distributors for what replacement parts will be needed to go along with a replacement node 10 board.
We appreciate your patience."

I did the same, trying to be preemptive before the issue arises. I literally got the same copy and paste message you posted.

#370 1 year ago
Quoted from SterlingRush:

I did the same, trying to be preemptive before the issue arises. I literally got the same copy and paste message you posted.

I feel the same way, and crossing my fingers and hoping they have a "solution" soon. Is it worth emailing tech support if I've read the current answer here already? George Gomez said they think it's only on a limited number of machines, but here they say every one looks bad.

#371 1 year ago
Quoted from CrashJT:

I feel the same way, and crossing my fingers and hoping they have a "solution" soon. Is it worth emailing tech support if I've read the current answer here already? George Gomez said they think it's only on a limited number of machines, but here they say every one looks bad.

I contacted my distro and he got the same standard sub-standard response from Stern. "We're working on it".

I took Gomez's comments to mean the only some Node 10 boards have failed. But the problem is all Node 10 boards are in danger. They will all fail at some point given the current wiring issues. They realistically have to replace all the motors with bad crimps regardless of Node 10 failures. But I think they are trying to avoid that.

#372 1 year ago
Quoted from CrashJT:

I feel the same way, and crossing my fingers and hoping they have a "solution" soon. Is it worth emailing tech support if I've read the current answer here already? George Gomez said they think it's only on a limited number of machines, but here they say every one looks bad.

I think you should email them. The more questions they get in my opinion the better.

21
#373 1 year ago

Please treat the people in the support department at Stern with respect. They are just "the messenger". Those folks didn't build your pinball machine and they don't work in the engineering department. They already know people want node board 10 answers. I doubt at this point, after 10 months (?) that anyone is keeping count how many people contact them regarding this issue. If I worked in support, I'd copy and paste the same replies, too, because that's the current answer.

#374 1 year ago

While I agree with this, I wish it was a two way street. I cannot tell you how many times emails to Stern have not been responded to. Even a simple acknowledgement of recipient with saying no new updates would go along way. I feel like my emails go into a black hole of randomness.

#375 1 year ago
Quoted from OSUBuckeye98:

While I agree with this, I wish it was a two way street. I cannot tell you how many times emails to Stern have not been responded to. Even a simple acknowledgement of recipient with saying no new updates would go along way. I feel like my emails go into a black hole of randomness.

I think it might be the workers they hire:

download (resized).jpgdownload (resized).jpg
#376 1 year ago
Quoted from DanQverymuch:

Can you tell the difference without extracting the pins? They look suspect on mine, right? Top crimp doesn’t touch insulation? Has solder sucked up under the insulation and made it bulge? I think I even see some solder on the black wire's pin.
Looks like surgery time tonight, one connectorectomy coming right up!
[quoted image]

just so that everyone is clear, in the image that DanQverymuch provided above, the areas that I've highlighted in orange (shown in the image below) are the crimps that are meant to secure the insulation of the wire to the terminator (preventing the wires from being strained on/pulled out if tension is applied to the wires themselves. the smaller section, highlighted in green is the forward set of crimps that are meant to bind the terminator with the exposed wires.

as Peak-Pin has pointed out, many of the wires leading from the motors used for the ramp were terminated with the wrong (larger) pins and subsequently, do not provide a good connection between the wires leading from the motor with the wires in the harness after the molex mini fit jr. connection.

crimps (resized).jpgcrimps (resized).jpg

the best thing that all LE and premium owners could do would be to take photos of this connector to submit to stern along with their serial no. from their machine to give them an idea on just how many machines were impacted from this incident of "someone grabbing the wrong pins".

peak-pin shows the "correct size" pin and a good crimp (bottom). it's obvious when you look at how the left end is supposed to be crimped, clamping around and securing the insulation on the wire, not riding above the insulation and curling onto itself like the image from danqverymuch.
incorrect vs correct (resized).jpgincorrect vs correct (resized).jpg

#377 1 year ago
Quoted from j_m_:

just so that everyone is clear, in the image that DanQverymuch provided above, the areas that I've highlighted in orange (shown in the image below) are the crimps that are meant to secure the insulation of the wire to the terminator (preventing the wires from being strained on/pulled out if tension is applied to the wires themselves. the smaller section, highlighted in green is the forward set of crimps that are meant to bind the terminator with the exposed wires.
as @peak-pins has pointed out, many of the wires leading from the motors used for the ramp were terminated with the wrong (larger) pins and subsequently, do not provide a good connection between the wires leading from the motor with the wires in the harness after the molex mini fit jr. connection.
[quoted image]
the best thing that all LE and premium owners could do would be to take photos of this connector to submit to stern along with their serial no. from their machine to give them an idea on just how many machines were impacted from this incident of "someone grabbing the wrong pins".
peak-pins shows the "correct size" pin and a good crimp (bottom). it's obvious when you look at how the left end is supposed to be crimped, clamping around and securing the insulation on the wire, not riding above the insulation and curling onto itself like the image from danqverymuch.
[quoted image]

Point to you sir, exactly what I did. Already sent them a pic of my connector showing wrong pins used, and my serial # for the machine.

I even asked if I(the owner) should address this, before it becomes an issue. And if so, would that void any warranty with them. Had no response to those questions, other than the copy/paste shown by others.

I agree with being decent, and not coming across as a prick, I worded my email very nicely

It would be really nice for them to address this already, too many downed machines, and too many customers left in the dark about it.

#378 1 year ago

Just got mine. Definitely over tightened zip ties. Wrapped them in a bit of electrical tape since I don’t have a pin extractor for this type of connector.

88AB5388-F010-4D56-9D7A-D2CEA08E2645 (resized).jpeg88AB5388-F010-4D56-9D7A-D2CEA08E2645 (resized).jpegE6D53BAD-5EBA-4584-880F-6FA4B5C7F436 (resized).jpegE6D53BAD-5EBA-4584-880F-6FA4B5C7F436 (resized).jpeg

#379 1 year ago
Quoted from bigguybbr:

Just got mine. Definitely over tightened zip ties. Wrapped them in a bit of electrical tape since I don’t have a pin extractor for this type of connector.
[quoted image][quoted image]

What was the manufacturing date of your machine? The pattern I'm seeing is that the over-tight wire-ties occurred before June, 2022. The machines that I've seen after that don't have this problem. I'm guessing maybe all of the LE's have this problem since they were made before the Premiums.

#380 1 year ago

I can say for certain that the issue with the connector pins was NOT the only problem. I did the connectorectomy, subsequently played for hours, and thought all was good...

Quoted from MJK-911:

Ramp motor wiring is pathetic,, looks like strands of cat hair.

THIS! Those motor leads are like the wires inside headphone cords, with rubbery insulation and whisper thin conductors, designed to survive repeated movement, but not stretching. These deliberately flimsy wires certainly aren't designed to take this kind of abuse!

ouchouch

I had been skeptical about the problem being from general wiring bundles being squashed by overtightened zip ties. Some smooshed plastic didn't worry me much, particularly if the bundle in question was not even related to the ramp motor.

However, the squishy insulation on this motor's leads is another matter entirely! That zip tie is so tight, it is actually stretching the wires inside lengthwise, and those tiny wire strands wound up being stretched to, well, the breaking point. I doubt removing the zip tie would have mattered once the damage was done. Once the wire has been tortured so that only a couple strands were still keeping the connection, they are going to eventually fail like a bad GI connector, dropping voltage, heating up and finally going open.

So, yep, my Node 10 has gone poof! At first I was confused when I realized the ramp was not raising, as the game was not complaining about Node 10 and still doesn't. It would seem that Stern had already made the code change I was saying earlier that they should, to at least make it playable without Node 10, but still - not even a tech alert? Does anyone on the latest code with a bad Node 10 still have the game complain about it?

So here we are. If Stern is only going to fix the ones that blow up, maybe everyone should just keep on playing until theirs does. But if they decide to avoid having to replace all those boards on top of all those motors, by replacing motors before the boards blow, they may come out further ahead.

It would be nice to know which tack they are going to take, since owners could voluntarily disable the ramp and prop it up in the meantime and save all those boards, if they knew a new motor would be forthcoming anyway. Quite a dilemma for now.

Hard to imagine that no games failed right away at the factory from this! Major facepalm if they did and the issue was glossed over.

At least the game still plays at 99% with the ramp propped up!
It's even a little easier this way, no dead end sending balls right back at you down the middle, and more top flipper shot setups. Although a downside is when a ball gets caught on the lip, since ball search can't free it obviously, so you have to risk tilting or pull the glass if it's not during a multiball. I might just have to disable that tilt bob for now...

Quoted from Peak-Pin:

The pattern I'm seeing is that the over-tight wire-ties occurred before June, 2022. The machines that I've seen after that don't have this problem.

Nope, mine was July 1.

#381 1 year ago

Argh, dupe.

#382 1 year ago
Quoted from Peak-Pin:

What was the manufacturing date of your machine? The pattern I'm seeing is that the over-tight wire-ties occurred before June, 2022. The machines that I've seen after that don't have this problem. I'm guessing maybe all of the LE's have this problem since they were made before the Premiums.

Mine was manufactured July 1st 2022
.

#383 1 year ago
Quoted from DanQverymuch:

I can say for certain that the issue with the connector pins was NOT the only problem. I did the connectorectomy, subsequently played for hours, and thought all was good...

THIS! Those motor leads are like the wires inside headphone cords, with rubbery insulation and whisper thin conductors, designed to survive repeated movement, but not stretching. These deliberately flimsy wires certainly aren't designed to take this kind of abuse!
[quoted image]
I had been skeptical about the problem being from general wiring bundles being squashed by overtightened zip ties. Some smooshed plastic didn't worry me much, particularly if the bundle in question was not even related to the ramp motor.
However, the squishy insulation on this motor's leads is another matter entirely! That zip tie is so tight, it is actually stretching the wires inside lengthwise, and those tiny wire strands wound up being stretched to, well, the breaking point. I doubt removing the zip tie would have mattered once the damage was done. Once the wire has been tortured so that only a couple strands were still keeping the connection, they are going to eventually fail like a bad GI connector, dropping voltage, heating up and finally going open.
So, yep, my Node 10 has gone poof! At first I was confused when I realized the ramp was not raising, as the game was not complaining about Node 10 and still doesn't. It would seem that Stern had already made the code change I was saying earlier that they should, to at least make it playable without Node 10, but still - not even a tech alert? Does anyone on the latest code with a bad Node 10 still have the game complain about it?
So here we are. If Stern is only going to fix the ones that blow up, maybe everyone should just keep on playing until theirs does. But if they decide to avoid having to replace all those boards on top of all those motors, by replacing motors before the boards blow, they may come out further ahead.
It would be nice to know which tack they are going to take, since owners could voluntarily disable the ramp and prop it up in the meantime and save all those boards, if they knew a new motor would be forthcoming anyway. Quite a dilemma for now.
Hard to imagine that no games failed right away at the factory from this! Major facepalm if they did and the issue was glossed over.
At least the game still plays at 99% with the ramp propped up!
It's even a little easier this way, no dead end sending balls right back at you down the middle, and more top flipper shot setups. Although a downside is when a ball gets caught on the lip, since ball search can't free it obviously, so you have to risk tilting or pull the glass if it's not during a multiball. I might just have to disable that plumb bob for now...

Nope, mine was July 1.

What’s a tilt bob…

#384 1 year ago
Quoted from Peak-Pin:

Please treat the people in the support department at Stern with respect. They are just "the messenger". Those folks didn't build your pinball machine and they don't work in the engineering department. They already know people want node board 10 answers. I doubt at this point, after 10 months (?) that anyone is keeping count how many people contact them regarding this issue. If I worked in support, I'd copy and paste the same replies, too, because that's the current answer.

The tech support department and the parts department are different. I never had issues with tech. My issues are waiting on parts and not receiving responses from the parts department.

#385 1 year ago
Quoted from DanQverymuch:

I can say for certain that the issue with the connector pins was NOT the only problem. I did the connectorectomy, subsequently played for hours, and thought all was good...

THIS! Those motor leads are like the wires inside headphone cords, with rubbery insulation and whisper thin conductors, designed to survive repeated movement, but not stretching. These deliberately flimsy wires certainly aren't designed to take this kind of abuse!
[quoted image]
I had been skeptical about the problem being from general wiring bundles being squashed by overtightened zip ties. Some smooshed plastic didn't worry me much, particularly if the bundle in question was not even related to the ramp motor.
However, the squishy insulation on this motor's leads is another matter entirely! That zip tie is so tight, it is actually stretching the wires inside lengthwise, and those tiny wire strands wound up being stretched to, well, the breaking point. I doubt removing the zip tie would have mattered once the damage was done. Once the wire has been tortured so that only a couple strands were still keeping the connection, they are going to eventually fail like a bad GI connector, dropping voltage, heating up and finally going open.
So, yep, my Node 10 has gone poof! At first I was confused when I realized the ramp was not raising, as the game was not complaining about Node 10 and still doesn't. It would seem that Stern had already made the code change I was saying earlier that they should, to at least make it playable without Node 10, but still - not even a tech alert? Does anyone on the latest code with a bad Node 10 still have the game complain about it?
So here we are. If Stern is only going to fix the ones that blow up, maybe everyone should just keep on playing until theirs does. But if they decide to avoid having to replace all those boards on top of all those motors, by replacing motors before the boards blow, they may come out further ahead.
It would be nice to know which tack they are going to take, since owners could voluntarily disable the ramp and prop it up in the meantime and save all those boards, if they knew a new motor would be forthcoming anyway. Quite a dilemma for now.
Hard to imagine that no games failed right away at the factory from this! Major facepalm if they did and the issue was glossed over.
At least the game still plays at 99% with the ramp propped up!
It's even a little easier this way, no dead end sending balls right back at you down the middle, and more top flipper shot setups. Although a downside is when a ball gets caught on the lip, since ball search can't free it obviously, so you have to risk tilting or pull the glass if it's not during a multiball. I might just have to disable that plumb bob for now...

Nope, mine was July 1.

Just to be clear, you'd removed the connectors but the cable ties are still in place ?

#386 1 year ago
Quoted from insight75:

The tech support department and the parts department are different. I never had issues with tech. My issues are waiting on parts and not receiving responses from the parts department.

Yeah, sometimes it’s months for parts, sometimes days. Never any knowing once it goes to them.

#387 1 year ago

Adding my stats to the thread.

LE owner, February 2022 QC date.
~500 plays and no issues as of yet.

When I checked my Ramp and Clock motors, both had over tightened zip ties, and the 4-pin Molex MiniFit Jr. in-line connector had the wrong pins/insulation crimp along with tinned wires. I suspect the motors come with their wires pre-tinned (a lot of parts manufacturers do this) and instead of cutting, stripping, and crimping, Stern cut corners.

Since I had no confidence the wires would hold up over time, I decided to remove the Ramp and Clock motors, cut and strip their wires above the first zip tie, and then splice in my own stranded, 22AWG wire to replace all of the existing wire. I then crimped Molex KK pins on the ends and re-used the existing 4-pin housings that connect to the Node 10 board. Since I work a lot with arcade stuff and make my own harnesses, I tend to keep a lot of wire and various Molex, JST, TE, and Hirose connectors/pins on hand.

So far, so good.

#388 1 year ago
Quoted from DakotaMike:

Yeah, sometimes it’s months for parts, sometimes days. Never any knowing once it goes to them.

Same experience ,I asked for a part and was surprised it shipped right away.1 year later same part arrives from a different Stern employee.Another part was supposed to ship in 2 weeks its been a year since then.Stern lets solve this issue with Rush PLease.

#389 1 year ago

I guess we can't tie anything to the manufacturing date on the back of the cabinet. The motors and connectors were assembled separately on different dates (or maybe different people on the same date) and then pulled from a pile and installed in the machines on another date. I've worked on two premium machines from June 21st and July 6th which didn't have cable tie issues. Yet two people here have bad cable ties from July 1st which is in between those dates. The two LE machines I've worked on recently had cable tie issues. I don't know their dates but they were on the line prior to the premiums.

On the last 3 machines I've looked at, I've extracted every pin at every motor connector (CN1, CN3 and both sides of the inline connector) and each seems to have at least one pin that wasn't crimped correctly -- the wire inserted too far and the center crimp area going down on part of the insulation instead of the bare wire. It's crap. Doesn't anybody working on Stern's production line know how to crimp a pin on a wire?! Perhaps they have an outside vendor doing this?

My customer who's blown two node boards is still going strong after a month after I re-did his connectors (soldered the crimps). He didn't have cable tie issues.

I'm sorry that the in-line connector issues I've mentioned is not solving the problem for you guys. It's gotta be one of the other crimp connections or over-tight cable ties. Obviously, there are different things affecting different machines.

The bottom line is to redesign the node board with protection, which is probably why it's taking a long time to resolve the issue. In an earlier post, I think I guessed April.

#390 1 year ago
Quoted from benime:

I suspect the motors come with their wires pre-tinned (a lot of parts manufacturers do this) and instead of cutting, stripping, and crimping, Stern cut corners.

The drum/clock motor is the same motor as used on the ramp and its wires are not pre-tinned.

#391 1 year ago
Quoted from Peak-Pin:

I guess we can't tie anything to the manufacturing date on the back of the cabinet. The motors and connectors were assembled separately on different dates (or maybe different people on the same date) and then pulled from a pile and installed in the machines on another date. I've worked on two premium machines from June 21st and July 6th which didn't have cable tie issues. Yet two people here have bad cable ties from July 1st which is in between those dates. The two LE machines I've worked on recently had cable tie issues. I don't know their dates but they were on the line prior to the premiums.
On the last 3 machines I've looked at, I've extracted every pin at every motor connector (CN1, CN3 and both sides of the inline connector) and each seems to have at least one pin that wasn't crimped correctly -- the wire inserted too far and the center crimp area going down on part of the insulation instead of the bare wire. It's crap. Doesn't anybody working on Stern's production line know how to crimp a pin on a wire?! Perhaps they have an outside vendor doing this?
My customer who's blown two node boards is still going strong after a month after I re-did his connectors (soldered the crimps). He didn't have cable tie issues.
I'm sorry that the in-line connector issues I've mentioned is not solving the problem for you guys. It's gotta be one of the other crimp connections or over-tight cable ties. Obviously, there are different things affecting different machines.
The bottom line is to redesign the node board with protection, which is probably why it's taking a long time to resolve the issue. In an earlier post, I think I guessed April.

So to clarify, we should address both the ramp and clock molex connectors!?

#392 1 year ago

DanQverymuch If your Node 10 is still good (check if the status light on the node board is blinking with coin door closed and playfield raised up a bit), then maybe the motor wires themselves are the issue... maybe the wires are truly broken. You can check using an ohm meter. With power off and motor unplugged from node board, you should measure 9.2 ohms between the red and blue wires and 9.2 ohms between the black and green.

#393 1 year ago

I saw the links on here for the proper pins, but does anyone have a link to the right molex housing? I figure it will be cheaper to snip off the old and recrimp the connector than buying the right pin extractor to only use it once.

#394 1 year ago
Quoted from bigguybbr:

I saw the links on here for the proper pins, but does anyone have a link to the right molex housing? I figure it will be cheaper to snip off the old and recrimp the connector than buying the right pin extractor to only use it once.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/molex/0039013043/1118561

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/molex/0039012040/61376

#395 1 year ago

It still looks like 1/3 of the machines are already a problem with more blowing as we go.

#396 1 year ago

Lets get it done STERN

#398 1 year ago
Quoted from Jamesays:

Lets get it done STERN

49oltz (resized).jpg49oltz (resized).jpg

#399 1 year ago

Just had it confirmed that the price of this node board has been pushed up to $300 from $175. I have no other comment to make

#400 1 year ago
Quoted from ian866:

Just had it confirmed that the price of this node board has been pushed up to $300 from $175. I have no other comment to make

this is insane. if anything, the price should be going down if stern is having to manufacture a larger quantity of them at the same time.

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