Bring on the SR Maiden!

Wow, that is tiny.
Why do we even need a backbox anymore?

For the flat screen monitor

Very small board. Awesome. Up the Irons, indeed! \m/ \m/

We've been hearing that since Transformers! lol

image-518.jpg

I saw this picture and still think it looks fake. Where is the light for the backbox? Why waste extra wire and grounding strap to mount it so high up? It just doesn't feel real.

Yeah, time to narrow it down to the width of the lower cabinet like a wedge-head.

Looks like MMr boards to me

so does this mean noisy PC power supplies (the one in WOZ drives me nuts when it's in attract mode) and under pf mounted driver boards (bad idea as vibration will knock stuff off of it)

Then I can fit more of them in my game room!

Stern has had the new boardset on location for a while now in various SAM games for testing.

Looking at the size of this, hopefully a price reduction to scale

If the backbox lights are SMD LED's on the board, that would explain the lack of a separate light and would also explain the reason that the board is mounted in the middle of the backbox.

--Luke

If they do eliminate the huge regulator/driver pcb the will be little point to mounting it in the head. With a simple metal RF cage (which might be required any way to pass FCC) they could mount it on the floor and move the transformer to the back wall. The only wires that need to go to the head are Monitor cables and power for LED lighting and flashers and speakers. This cut cable loom length a lot. And copper costs a lot these days.

I would think the other reason to have the boardset in the head is for USB updates.

If they stick a tv in the backbox im done (should be optional). To me, its not pinball anymore. Hybrid mess to add to the already jacked up prices.

Wait, Borgs game will be a DMD? Not what I heard many times .... I heard (from several vendors) Borgs game will be the first LCD. Maybe they didn't really know?

Yes.
The people at PPS talked about LED lights on the board to spot light the backglass during their Texas Pinball Festival Speech.

That's like the board that is in "The Pin" transformers game. I've worked on a couple of them and the architecture of "The Pin" is remarkably like that in MMR. Tis the future IMO.

Parker

There ain't NO WAY that little rinky-dink board is going to have bright enough or QUANTITY enough LEDs to adequately light a translite or backglass. My understanding was that they were talking about doing this previously as a way to re-implement flasher type effects...Ritchie mentioned that like 2 years ago. No way is the translite going to be lit properly by anything SMT'ed on that board...

Boo rumors are supposed to be made up on Monday not on Friday

You're right ... that's exactly the same board in The Pin. It was talked about 17 months ago in this thread. The pin was the testing platform for the new boardset.
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sam-20

Here is a pic from a Transformers "The Pin"

Note: still running an Atmel processor. This is a good think IMO (likley no underlying Linux to boot and deal with).

20140118_141301.jpg

I like it!

4 little LEDs...lol...

I wonder how many people said "it's not pinball anymore" when EM score reels changed to digital, then to alpha numerical and then to DMD? 10 pins with big LCD panels from now, it will seem normal. As far as the "jacked up prices", I don't like it either, but it's what the market will bare and apparently there are a lot of folks willing/able to pay the new pricing platform.

If this is the case then it will suck when something breaks. Everything is surface mount. Right now my AC/DC is dead because of a surface mount chip that I cant change. I had to send it back to stern where its been for a week. All this because the game thinks its in another country and refused to boot. What happens now if a coil gets locked on? Is there another driver board in the game like a pin2K?

You have games with video modes. You should sell those non-pinball hybrid messes.

Agree on the surface mount issues but that is the way things are going. Just like MMR there are several driver boards, mounted near the components they drive. They are surface mount but also probably pretty cheap because they have fewer components. As you noticed on your game the current lamp drives on Stern driver boards are surface mount and that big driver board is not anywhere near cheap.

I am sure it would be very easy and likely that secondary lighting will be added for the translite - there certainly is plenty of room to do so.

The amount of wiring goes down exponentially (well maybe not that much) with the new design. No transformer either. Will be a MUCH cheaper BOM in my opinion. But development has been both time consuming and likely not cheap.

I find it ironic that MMR may get out with an iteration of this first.

So, Steve Ritchie doing Iron Maiden with an LCD - hmmm, that might sell well.

Do what?

Ha Ha - i can 100% assure you it isn't fake - someone has reposted my picture i put on an Aussie forum. I still have the photo on my phone.

A local guy bought an ACDC premium about 6 weeks ago, and out of the box it was firing balls from trough continually. I knew him so went around to have a look. I have not had a look inside a Stern since LOTR, so i assumed this was a new system. I had limited time, so didn't get a real good look. There were a number of boards mounted under the playfield (i don't recall if there were any more in the cab itself), all joined by data type cables - from what i understand hearing 2nd hand from a tech - if one of these cables (or boards) fail, then the whole thing may go down - depending on the issue.

The bloke ended up getting a ACDC Luci as a replacement

I really hope they make the right choice and go with a 14 inch LCD and stick with a real translite. The new cabinet implies that. Last thing I want is an oversized LCD like in WoZ. To me JPop has the right idea for where to put the LCD and how to size it...

Just get rid of the backbox alltogether

How about no?

Backbox and translite/backglass are a must. Its is just not kosher to do otherwise even if the box is empty.

I'm with JohnI on this one. A nice small lcd display with graphics you can actually see what's going on with during gameplay is perfect in place of the DMD.. a huge screen is pretty much not necessary or beneficial for the player. That and a huge part of pinball at least for me is the amazing backglass art that comes along with it, big empty box or not

not sure why there still mounting it in the backbox

Ugh, terrible. His Kiss game looked pretty, but what? You want games with no ramps and nothing in the middle so you can see that whole big LCD clearly? It worked for CV, but that was a smaller screen.

Looks like Stern is going to a system very similar to what MMr has. This could be a great move on a whole lot of levels.

Yeah, good point. As long as they stick to a size that will fit on the new display panel from Star Trek and Mustang and keep the full size translite I am happy. People can always put there own big screen in if they want. Just like people can always put a fart-can muffler on a Corvette, but it should not come from the factory that way.

Interesting... I never considered new hardware running old games from stern testing POV. That actually makes a lot of sense. That way there isnt a huge "cliff" event where they have to switch over to new hardware. Maybe they put out some new runs of recent games with new hardware...

Also means that with this hardware it
-can run old code natively,
-they can compile/build old code for new hardware, or
-can emulate the old hardware so the old code runs emulated on new hardware.

If you pay attention you might understand that his KISS is nothing but an art mock up……….his "games" will be fantastic but then again I don't expect anybody who hasn't seen progress on MG and RAZA to get it….

If Stern actually creates something new, anything at all, it will be a circle jerk fest on here, no doubt!

Are there 2 USB ports on that board on the lower middle area or are there no USB ports?

I 100% agree. I don't care what is in it, but a pinball machine needs to have a backbox. For me it can be a static picture with displays or reels in it, a DMD with a picture above it, a little LCD, a big LCD (I know you don't like that one), or anything. I just expect that form factor for my games. Just stand in front of a game with no head on it, and its awkward.

Everyone knows that. If you pay attention you might understand that my point was a general one utterly independent of the KISS concept. Maybe read a little more, and do less "look what I have and you don't" parading, it's childish. No one cares about your sekrit Jpop blog access and the nonexistent games you don't own.

Looks like. And a connector for a Sta Brite header for TOPS too ? Or a duplicate of the other one for LEDs.

LTG : )™