Quoted from glasairpilot:You will be buying pre 2012 pins forever then. Surface mount technology is here to stay and the throw away mentality is never going away. The "hobby" is gravitating to "bling" instead serviceability by the end user. The average college graduate cannot even operate a screwdriver correctly and the pinball producers know that. They are building what is economical and reliable from a manufacturing standpoint. They don't care that you can repair it yourself in 20 years and neither do car manufacturers, smart phone producers, or TV manufacturers.
I actually like the new technology from a serviceability standpoint. If a node board is bad I replace it. Opening up my old TZ and looking at all the capacitors and diodes that could be a potential failure was overwhelming along with the 20 miles of wire. As long as Stern will continue to support the machines I am fine with new tech, but if they don't it could be like new cars today - there will be no classics tomorrow.
I'm personally not against them going primarily surface mount, since that's where everything is going now. I just know it's going to be harder to support it 20 years down the road, unlike TZ. Especially if they decide to go with spike v 2.0 or something completely different where the parts don't interchange. They will support it for 5 years after they sell their last game using that system, and then the distributors will buyout the parts. Once the distributors run out of the node boards for that version of spike, oh well tough shit... Obviously games like TZ are still running because they are more serviceable.
I'd rather attempt to fix an SMD then spend 200 or more on a new board. The CPU board is almost 500 bucks, don't know about you but that's not chump change to me. Haven't needed the schematics yet, luckily the one node and one cpu board I've had to replace were under warranty. The time will come though, has anyone asked why they don't give them out anymore? or is there a place you can download them?
Evansville, IN
