Yup, same here. Just got the replacement board and motor. Everything updated etc before install on the 27th. Maybe 50 games so far and it blew tonight. I was really hoping it was figured out finally. Uggh

Did not do any fixes, just trusted Stern did a better job at the crimps. Looks like they did not.

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Nope, nothing else.

I asked Stern about possibly getting a discount on the topper due to the Node 10 issues and was denied. Didn’t think it hurt to ask.
We’re waiting on our 5th Node 10 board.

Let me start by saying this is our very first pinball machine so this is all very new to us. We have learned a lot but I’m still hesitant to dive in and try to self diagnose/fix and have been relying on Stern mostly. Probably a huge mistake but they have been quite helpful and responsive in trying to resolve and keep us up to date on what they are doing on their end to figure out this issue. Frustrating to say the least but I feel like they are working on figuring out the cause and eventually will figure it out finally.
I may have miscounted after going back through my back and forth with Stern and its 5th, not 6th. Feels like a hundred. Machine arrived late August and the original board failed mid-September. Stern sent a replacement board which failed 2 weeks later. Couldn’t find anything wrong with the exception of the way over tightened zip ties on the motor wiring, which I think began the whole looking at the zip ties theory. Stern sent new board and new motor which failed after 2 games. Stern again sent new motor/board with supposedly redone pins. Board failed again. Crimps on the pins apparently were still not done correctly according to Stern after they looked at pictures. So now we are waiting for the latest motor with the wires going directly to the board without the connector involved. Not convinced that will be the end of this issue but hopefully. My husband is an electronics engineer although not usually dealing with boards etc but he is convinced the issue is with the design of the board itself.
It’s frustrating as like I said this is our first machine. We’ve talked about owning a home pin for nearly 30 years because back when we were dating, we spent a lot of our dates playing pinball. Great memories! We were never settled enough to buy one. Decided this year we were in a good position to finally buy one. We each had milestone birthdays last year and thought it was the perfect gift to ourselves and took the plunge. Wanted to buy the Creature machine as it was what we spent so many dates playing and always wanted to own. Distributor thought a NIB machine would be better for us as it would be less maintenance over a used machine. Haha. So now here we are with this fantastic machine with nothing but issues since it arrived.

Stern has been great. Distributor has been MIA through all this. What little response I have gotten from them has been less than helpful. Hoping to add another machine in the near future and it will for sure NOT be through them.

We did. Closest we could find but still 3 hours away.

We’re pretty remote so 2-3 hours away is the norm for anything. It’s all good though. I’m learning tons so far regarding maintenance and troubleshooting and it’s actually become quite a fun little hobby for me which I wasn’t really expecting. Definitely has become less intimidating to me. Have already replaced coil stops, replaced all the black rubber, ninjacamp scoop fix, installed a shaker motor, etc and unfortunately getting to be a pro at swapping out the node board and ramp motor. Just ordered the expression lights so will get to install them and planning on ordering the Pinwoofer kit hopefully soon. The machine is playable for now with the ramp disabled and will just wait for Stern to get the motors in stock and give it another try with fingers and toes crossed. Not sure there is anything else we can really do at this point. And hey… if I can score over a billion without a working ramp I can’t wait to see how well it plays with a working ramp.

Haha, not giving up just yet. It’s a pretty awesome game and despite all the issues with the node 10 we have no regrets.

Of course! I love a good pun.
Yeah, I’ve heard that too. It’s still on my wishlist but now far down the line. Received this as an anniversary present a few years ago and have it hanging near our Rush machine. It will have to do!

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You couldn’t get it to work or you blew the new board you just received?

Has anyone who installed the “new fix” kit had issues calibrating the ramp and drum clock? Both of mine have seemed to have lost their minds. Up when supposed to be down, clock off time by 20 or so minutes. Get them calibrated and seemingly working ok only to have them both end up way off again. Can’t figure it out.

Yup! Everything is set as it should. Stern now says probably bad node board. Back to the waiting for a new one. This is now board #6. I’m kinda over this game now.

Yup! Everything is set as it should. Stern now says probably bad node board. Back to the waiting for a new one. This is now board #6. I’m kinda over this game now.

Yes. New Node 10 board and new ramp motor without the connector. Just received it Friday.

Yes, that fix. Even pulled the motor back out and reinstalled it in case I did it wrong. That’s the response I got from Stern after a few back and forth emails. Must be the node board.

I wasn’t convinced that the new node 10 board was “bad” right out of the box. Waiting for the new one to arrive. I played around with the bias settings and got the clock working just as it should finally and not losing time. I got the ramp finally going up and down as it should but it eventually would only come up about halfway about 3 balls into a game. But I was just playing a test game where so far everything was working fine until I noticed the ramp didn’t come up. Blew the board again same way the last ones all blew. There has to be something seriously wrong with our machine.

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I agree. I’ve been trying to get some options from the distributor but he just never responds.

I posted earlier about our ramp and clock acting crazy after installing the new board and newest motor fix. I was able to get the clock working properly but the ramp was still not working correctly. Finally the node board blew. Got the replacement board yesterday and after installing, the ramp works just fine now. So it must have been a bad node board right from the box. Stern suggested leaving the drum clock unplugged for a couple of weeks to see if the new ramp motor and board work properly. If so and we plug in the drum clock and the board blows, then we’ll know it’s the drum clock and not the ramp.

That is exactly what mine was doing too. Didn’t change the motor but replaced the board. My ramp is still acting screwy.
So do the people in tech support share info between each other? The guy I have been emailing just throws new node boards at mine.

Here is what my ramp is doing now. Works fine but then doesn’t come up all the way and drops a few steps. You can see in the video the 3rd time the ramp comes up (around 1:30)it’s lower than the hole and drops when hit. Can’t physically push it down. Then next ball it’s fine.

This is different though. The ramp isn’t coming all the way up even before it gets knocked down a little. Like 1/2” below where it should. Enough that when a ball goes up the ramp, it hits the bottom of the hole and ricochets back up into the glass hard.

Careful… this seems to be inevitable.
Had ramp working for a couple of games after playing with bias.
On to the 8th board maybe?

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Because they don’t stay where they are set. And adjusting the bias shouldn’t blow the node board.

It’s not the clock motor on ours because it isn’t hooked up to this board as requested by support to try and isolate the issue. And we’ve been replacing boards since the machine arrived in August.

2 months ago I asked Stern if there was any protection on the board from back EMF from the motor and this was the response I got.

“Technically it's the chip (U1) that's getting blown from the feedback, which is the motor drive chip. It is sensitive to that stuff, and one of the things we did try was adding in some extra protective circuitry to see if it would help. It did not, those boards blew just as fast as the rest. I'm not sure if the node 10 boards have that extra protection added in since it didn't help in testing, but I think the next revision will have it anyways since it also didn't affect performance of the board and should technically help against EMF.”

How many here are still sitting on machines with blown node boards waiting for replacement from Stern? Just curious.

I don’t believe it is. When I installed the last motor/node board fix, I was told to leave the drum clock unplugged from the board to try and isolate the issue to the ramp motor. Never plugged in the drum clock and still blew the node board.

What surprised me about the new motor was that it got EXTREMELY hot in a very short amount of time. After installing it and testing it with 1 quick ball, I lifted the playfield and the motor was so incredibly hot I couldn’t even touch it. Seemed WAY too hot for a stepper motor in that short time.

Looking at the previous post picture, I notice that there is no little filter board. Those that had problems with the latest motor fix, did you have this little filter board installed on the board?

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It makes me wonder if they are doing anything at all or if the tech people are even sharing the issues. I’ve been told that the latest motor fix has resolved the issue for almost all the games except for ours. I’m not buying that at all.

Same here. Last board/motor replacement we did and left the drum clock disconnected and board failed anyway. We’ve gone through 9 or 10 boards since we’ve gotten the machine a year ago and have yet to have a working ramp/clock. Been down again for 2 months now and no idea when or if it will ever be fixed.

Stern told me they have 2 they’ve gotten back with the same issue that their engineers are working with to figure out the issue. I offered them mine as I am sooooo over this it isn’t funny. Can’t sell it, can’t trade it and am stuck waiting for them to figure it out. They just keep telling me they will let me know when they figure it out.

Isn’t it? We now have what we call “the graveyard box”. This doesn’t include the ones I sent back to stern or the current blown one still in the game.

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They need to redesign the entire board.

I asked about this back in March and this was the response they gave me.

-Technically it's the chip (U1) that's getting blown from the feedback, which is the motor drive chip. It is sensitive to that stuff, and one of the things we did try was adding in some extra protective circuitry to see if it would help. It did not, those boards blew just as fast as the rest. I'm not sure if the node 10 boards have that extra protection added in since it didn't help in testing, but I think the next revision will have it anyways since it also didn't affect performance of the board and should technically help against EMF.

After burning through numerous node 10 boards and motors since day 1, we finally replaced the node 10, ramp motor and that little filter board that goes on the node 10. Don’t want to jinx anything but so far so good and it’s been a couple of months now (we play just about daily). The only thing we did different this time is replacing the little filter board with everything else. We had board failures before with just the ramp connected and no clock and never could find much wrong with the wiring that would point to a definite cause.
The only issue we are having now is the ramp not raising fully during certain modes or multi balls on occasion. Still can’t figure out why and it’s kind of frustrating.

I knew I was going to jinx it. Blew the node board this morning. This one worked much longer than any of the other ones. It was fun to actually play the game for a little while with the ramp/clock working. I think we’re done at this point. I’m so freakin’ tired of trying to fix this game.

I am curious how many of us are still stuck with machines with blown boards. Ours is still broken and I can get absolutely no response from Stern. I don’t know what to do anymore. Thinking about a lawyer at this point.

I’ve been trying to return the machine to them but they haven’t responded to me in over a month. Nothing but crickets. Can’t resolve anything if they won’t respond.

Mine said he didn’t have another Rush and would only take it back if I brought it to him. He’s 3 hours away and I only have a sedan so would have to rent a truck to do it. He’s been less than helpful through all this. (Actually looking to purchase another machine if anyone has distributor recommendations… refuse to buy another one from him after this).

I did hear back from Stern and they are going to replace both motors and node 10 but are waiting for someone to test the whole setup together before they will ship it out. Because obviously we’ve just been unlucky with poor crimps etc on the handful of motors we’ve already replaced.

What is the definition of insanity?
Replaced the entire ramp assembly, ramp motor, clock motor and node 10 board. Parts were “tested” before being sent. 30 games we got to play before it blew.

Thanks for the info, I will have to take a look. Aside from the node 10 issue, I have only had one other weird issue with the machine that Stern brushed off. I’m not convinced it’s not related to the node issue. Just above the power supply there was a bunch of black dust. Looked like it came out of the fan and was enough to cover the translite to the point it was noticeably dirty when it was lit. It wasn’t from the rubber rings as I swapped all those out right away. I swiped my finger through the dust and touched it with a magnet and it stuck. Asked Stern and was told “no idea” and that I must just have it in a dusty location (it’s in my living room and the dust is only inside the back box). I cleaned it off and it never returned. I think it came from a capacitor. I asked Stern a handful of times if it could possibly be related and still told it shouldn’t be.
I’m going to look through that thread and see what I can find. Appreciate the info!

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I think you’re right. The fan isn’t working. I’m guessing it hasn’t been working since shortly after we got it. Frustrating since I’ve asked about it since I noticed the dust back in early April and asked again as recently as early December only to be told it can’t possibly be causing the issue.

Thanks for the info again. This is all above my head but looks like the fan isn’t working at all. My husband is the electronics expert around here so he’s going to open it up today and take a look. I bet this is the culprit.

No clicking that I could hear. Nothing noticeable inside the power supply so I am guessing it’s the fan that failed and it’s just getting overheated. My husband is testing it now.

Well everything tested fine. Fan IS working so it wasn’t that. Still no idea what the source of the black dust was. I’m back to being clueless.

Thanks! Yeah, we realized that pretty quickly about the fan. Just grasping at anything at this point as to what’s causing this board problem. We were hoping it was something stupid and obvious we may have overlooked because we can’t be this “unlucky” with bad motors etc.

It just stuck in my mind because it seemed like an excessive amount in a very short amount of time right after we got the machine. There was none in the cabinet, only in the back box and once I cleaned it all off it hasn’t returned. I’m just trying to find some source of the issue outside of the motors/board because that’s clearly not what’s causing the problem on our machine.

Just curious if you heard back from Stern yet.

Yup! We blew one of our boards while the drum clock was unhooked. The problem is most definitely outside of the board/motor setup… at least on ours and I’m sure many others.
Stern now is wanting us to send in our playfield so they can look at the wiring. I am quite hesitant to do that.

I would rather swap the playfield but they said the only one they had the playfield itself was in bad condition and did not come close to passing inspection. So they are supposed to be sending a box.

Haha, had a spare one handy. We replaced it 3 or 4 boards ago.

I have no choice really. I just want to return the machine and get our money back and am frustrated as hell that this apparently isn’t an option.

We starting failing node boards in our stock premium right out of the bix. Added shaker motor after the 3rd or 4th failures. Blew a couple more before adding expression lights. Then a couple more after.

Did they ship yours back fixed? Last we were told is they still have no ideas on the issue. So how can they be “fixing” them?

Exactly!

Stern told us months ago they had a routed machine back and stated they fixed it and it’s back in route with no further issues. Of course they couldn’t say what that “fix” was just that it gets heavy play in location and has been fine.
Keep believing their “working on it” answers if you want but don’t be surprised if you are still waiting for the fix months down the road.

Have you contacted Stern?

We usually get the node 10 error on startup and in the service menu when ours goes except for this last board. It blew 3 months ago and is still in the machine. Never got an error and still shows nothing on the service menu. Yet there is a burnt mark on the chip and the ramp/clock both died in the usual fashion.

At least you were able to get a dealer to come solder yours. They asked us to solder them ourselves knowing NOTHING about what soldering skills we have. I refused mostly because we KNOW it’s not a connection issue. They won’t move past them. Sorry it didn’t work on yours but it’s not surprising.

I agree… they are full of it. They told me there were around 2500 premium and LE machines sold and only a dozen are having issues. There’s no way! I told them I wanted at least a refund on the $2000+ difference between the cost of pro vs premium because we have yet to enjoy the premium features we actually paid for. I don’t even care about the ramp working anymore. It does absolutely nothing for game play and there really is no reason for it to actually move. I at least want the clock working though.