Borygard here on pinside repairs them pretty reliably. Note that you CAN switch node 8 and node 9 (same board) and just change the dip switches and everything may work great if the node 9 position isn't using the bad part of what was node 8. So I'd try that first, then contact Borygard to see about him repairing your node 8.

Did some digging this morning, what I have found so far.

1) Game has latest revision boards so not its first rodeo.

2) Flasher volts only 5-6 volts to ground, this looks correct.

3) Flashers 129 (left scoop) 125 and 126 (back panel) are dead.

4) Swapped node boards, flasher 129 starts working again!

5) 125 and 126 had no bulbs in the sockets, I swap in the flasher from the pops into the left side and it works.

So my only question now is.. are the flashers suppose to be this unimpressive? I know I'm use to Data East in which sunglasses are required when there is a light show but this seems excessively muted.

Thank you for your help!

Did some digging this morning, what I have found so far.

1) Flasher volts only 5-6 volts to ground, this looks correct.

2) Flashers 129 (left scoop) 125 and 126 (back panel) are dead.

3) Swapped node boards, flasher 129 starts working again!

4) 125 and 126 had no bulbs in the sockets, I swap in the flasher from the pops into the left side and it works.

So my only question now is.. are the flashers suppose to be this unimpressive? I know I'm use to Data East in which sunglasses are required when there is a light show but this seems excessively muted. I even tried turning them way down and then way back up (255) in menu settings and they are changing.

fd20cd67b57c1f86573ed8336ecc861b27ef5ce3.gif

What does he normally charge? Turn around time? Can anyone give a review ?
This thread reinforces me just to stick with Bally / Williams .

Pretty sure Borygard is now working fo Game Exchange, and they do mail in repair.
As far as the Bally/Williams comment, that just seems foolish to deprive yourself from enjoying the great games in the Spike platform.
This thread is 2 years old, and there has NOT been the flood of failed node boards as predicted. Just a handful actually, and lots of those people breaking their own shit with mods and such.
But to each their own, have fun replacing connectors, caps, and bridge rectifiers so you can play some shallow rulesets…

I've never had to have him fix a node board (never had a dead one, and I've had every Spike except a couple), but I have heard good things about his work, and he's a great guy so I have no qualms recommending him. Whatever he charges, it will likely be substantially less than a brand new node board, so it's worth investigating.

No idea. It's really hard to get an idea of how bright they are from a gif. I DO know that the first thing I do with a Spike machine is turn down the LED and flashers to 75% brightness. They're generally eye-searing in a dark room for me.

Also, note that more than one setting modifies the LED and flasher brightness. I have no idea WHY it's like that, but it is. You may be modifying only half the "formula" for the machine to calculate the brightness of the flasher.

Anything flasher related set to max or 255 in all flasher settings. Positively milquetoast compared to Data East games or even the Stern Trek premium I owned. No brighter than the GI lamps frankly aside from the exceptions I mentioned.

A friend just had his Ghostbusters node 8 board crap out. Machine was working fine a few days ago then went to turn it on and it couldn't find node 8 board. He tried the usual things like reseating all connectors and resetting the dip switch settings as well as moving the board to a compatible machine and trying it there. Still won't recognize it. So he bought a brand new board and it worked fine.

8 and 9 crapped out on mine, as you describe (board not found). And then the CPU board, which lost its 5v. £1K is around what I spent replacing them. Not good.

You might want to make sure this modification was done to the GB you got:

https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Stern-SB188.pdf

Also, make sure the node board has the diode service bulletin done:

https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Stern-SB189.pdf

Was the service bulletin modifications done on the boards that crapped out? If not, that's probably why they died...

Yes to the first one (SB188), but not the second one. Have the newer node boards had the SB189 issue fixed? I'd hate to have to replace them again!

I'm assuming so because newer machines use essentially the same node boards but don't need the fix, but I can't say authoritatively.

Yes and yes, they have been done.

If anybody replaces a board and has no use for a dead one, send me PM. I would like to build up some spike board troubleshooting experience. I have the know-how and right setup for smd rework, but not a lot of time working through the different failure scenarios.

PM sent.

Just a heads up- Everything seems to have settled down and functioning on GB and I have a question. I'd like to upgrade the spinner flasher PCB (which leaves very much to be desired) with a socketed pseudo 906 5V Spike rated flasher.

Has anyone done this? Are the board drivers for the pseudo 906 under the pop bumpers the same as the pcb mounted "flasher" ?

I know these are older posts ... and this may have been addressed elsewhere in the thread ... and I am not being snarky or stupid ... just trying to contribute.

All a big power transformer adds to a system is cost. They're also a waste of power since you have to rectify that voltage. Moreover they're heavy ... they add significant mass to the pin, so that means they're more expensive to transport. Moreover, when linear supplies fail, things are guaranteed to blow up ... most switching power supplies fail open ... that's a good thing since it won't destroy anything.

Powering coils in a pin with 48V driven by a switching power supply is fine so long as one takes the exact same precautions that have been taken since solid state pins were introduced to the masses. The diode across the inductor (in their example, the inductor represents a motor) shown in the video is no different than the ones on pinball coils. Forget those in a pinball machine with a linear supply and things will still blow up regardless of it being powered with a big ass transformer. The phenomena described in the video is identical why one needs diodes across a coil.

One can run into problems if a switching power supply output is driving a highly inductive load ... something like a long, long wire can have enough inductance to cause a problem ... some care has to be taken there of course (I suspect that is why they are using TVSes at the input of the regulators). You wouldn't run into this problem with a linear supply, but I think the benefits of a switching power supply far outweigh that risk.

One final note. 48V driving a switching regulator that regulates a voltage down to 5V or lower isn't that big of a deal these days. Switching regulators are VERY reliable ... far more reliable than linear regulators in my opinion since far, far, far less heat is generated. Heat is public enemy #1 to semiconductors in a working system. Switching regulators are extremely efficient ... far less heat is given off as a result.

Most networking equipment designed to "5 9s" (that's nerd speak for 99.99999% reliability) are designed to be powered by a 48V source (keep in mind I am talking about the big ass telecom switches/routers, not the stuff you have on your desktop ). The same voltage is standard on a lot of robots as well. Most boards (or "adaptors" as the hip and trendy call them for some stupid reason) for these kinds of systems will regulate that 48V down to 12V or 5V ... then, depending on power requirements, use additional switching or linear regulators to get the ridiculously low voltages (like 2.5, 1.8, 1V or less) to power CPUs, ASICs, FPGAs, DSPs, memories, and other devices (almost all of the time switching regulators are used).

That being said, what I don't like about 48V being routed everywhere in a pin is safety ... that's a relatively high voltage to have running everywhere in a pin w/o any safety interlock being possible (if you lose 48V, you lose the ability to debug anything ).

Switching regulators aren't perfect of course ... most problems are due to designer error though ... and most of the problems are EMI related ... if one isn't careful with the layout of the regulator on the PCB, you will see nasty EMI spikes right around the regulator's switching frequency.

If it were 1995 or so, I wouldn't be too crazy about switching regulators being used to drop 48V down to 5V ... however, these days, it's a no brainer. The technology is very mature. It is nothing like the switching power supply Atari used in some games (I, Robot comes to mind ... some Firefoxen ... and I think a couple of others) .

megadeth2600 ....you don't mention that there are very few off the shelf switching devices that will actually give a 5V etc output with an input as high as 48V.

Most specify a MAXIMUM difference between input and output of 36V - and that is MAXIMUM, not a recommended situation. Stern is proving this point with numerous blown up regulators on their Spike system that purport to do exactly this.

Slightly different, but related subject:

Mains transformers are far and away the most stable and reliable devices in a pinball machine - millions of machines out there in the wild speak to this.

Let's see how many of your mains powered switching regulators are still going in ten years time - oh, and when they stop working let's see how many of them can actually be repaired.

You talk a lot about using switching supplies in "networking equipment" and I agree - for this job they are a good fit MAINLY because that equipment is thrown away after 10 years in operation and upgraded. We expect our pinball machines to last a LOT longer than 10 years, well, I do anyway.

I don't mention that because there are many, as in hundreds, of off the shelf switching regulators out there to choose from that will easily accept 48V and regulate it down to 5V @ about 80% efficiency with a cost no more than $2.00 USD.

Here are 17 from Texas Instruments that could have been designed into any Stern node board that required 48V in and 5V out with a max output current of 2.0A ... these are the results of a cursory search too ... I'm positive there are several more ... and this is just TI. Vendors like ST Microelectronics, Analog Devices, Maxim, etc all have their own regulators available that meet or exceed requirements. I'd guess that there are at least 250 devices out there on the market that will be available until at least 2030. More if you don't care about a part's end of life. Also, many of these parts are footprint compatible ... you have a wide range of choices.

https://www.ti.com/power-management/non-isolated-dc-dc-switching-regulators/step-down-buck/buck-converter-integrated-switch/products.html#p238min=1.5;48&p238max=48;100&p634min=-3;5&p634max=5;92&p451max=2;2.5&p212max=11.704312114989733;100

A Vin/Vout difference is only considered for efficiency purposes when evaluating a switching regulator ... you tend to only insure you are not exceeding a maximum input voltage. Vin/Vout difference is more of a linear regulator constraint (and a 36V difference in that case would be horrible) ... however, a switching regulators can still regulate 5V from a 48V source with 50% efficiency if the output current is in the microamp range. Of course, current demand will be much, much higher (which results in a much much higher efficiency).

As an example, Stern's 520-6976-72A node board uses a Monolithic Power Systems MP24943DN ... it has a max input voltage of 55V which is plenty of margin. Again, only efficiency is impacted when comparing the output voltage to the input voltage (this is not a linear regulator). Looking at the curves on the datasheet linked below, the node board will have a conversion efficiency around 75% to 80% assuming an output current of about 0.5A to 1A.

The regulator also has output overvoltage protection as well as a thermal shutdown mode. If something goes wrong with a linear regulator, you're out of luck until a fuse blows ... you tend to destroy other parts before the fuse opens (mainly driver transistors ... and possibly a pre-driver or logic IC). The switching regulator simply turns off.

https://www.monolithicpower.com/en/documentview/productdocument/index/version/2/document_type/Datasheet/lang/en/sku/MP24943/document_id/1966

I remember there being problems in the early days of Spike, but I haven't heard such complaints myself for a few years now. That isn't to say that there isn't a problem ... I could very well be wrong. I just haven't seen many people complaining about node board failure. I think those early problems were due to vibration and connector issues and not the regulators themselves.

I'll agree with that. It's all of the linear voltage regulation/conversion after the transformer that I dislike. These days, it is a waste of power and money to convert mains voltage to 48VDC solenoid voltage using linear conversion and regulation.

That is after 10 years of continuous, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week operation with near or at zero mean time between failure. That is a pretty good torture test. They don't get downtime ... at all. Some places will operate the equipment more than 10 years since the telecom grade core and edge routers routers are designed to be scalable and require a substantial investment up front.

While I sound like a Stern fanboy defending their electronics, I am anything but that. They disgust me anymore. However, I don't think that their electronics will be a problem two decades from now. I suspect mechanical engineers and machinists will be saving the pinball machines of today in the future ... I find the quality of Stern's basic mechanical assemblies to be garbage anymore. I have never had more issues with coil stops and flipper links in my life. If they're cheaping out on that stuff now, wait until they apply the same kind of idiocy to assemblies that are specific to a particular machine. Their profit margin on pinball machines is ridiculously high ... they can *easily* afford to maintain acceptable quality ... however, they don't ... they seem to cut costs and raise prices on everything anymore. Disgusting.

You have too many 9’s. It should be 99.999% if you’re referring to 5 9’s.

Interesting discussion though.

You nitpicky people and your 9s .

You're obviously correct .

Thanks for the analysis @megadeth2600, It's really good to hear your take on the reliability and design of these boards. There's clearly a lot changed in power supply design over the course of pinball's history

This is a super interesting discussion, I would actually love to have failure data on recent build of node boards. There is an on going debate where people claim "Stern Spike system reliability is crap", and i'd like to have factual data to assess whether this is right or wrong

it is not in the interest of Stern to have self dying machine. They need to fix their reliability, as it has a financial impact, so I doubt they just left it "like this", but I could be wrong.

We had probably 12-16 Spike machines out on location over the years and zero dead node boards. I've never had a dead one on my personal spike machines, either.

When I worked for Chrysler, they had a formula for how many warranty repairs were acceptable vs spending more money on the cause of the failure up front.

I can assure you a lot of large manufacturing concerns have similar formulas and they look at how many parts sold after the sale as well. Selling replacement parts after the warranty period has expired is very profitable in some industries and due to increased volume can lower the BOM of a new machine if still in production. win-win.

One of the reasons Mercedes Benz purchased Chrysler years ago was to force them into using Benz parts. With millions of Chrysler being churned out it reduced the cost of some Benz parts to pennies (scale) which Benz continued to charge an arm and leg for because the box had "Benz" on it not Chrysler.

I have seen failures of node boards on numerous Stern pins over the years. Fortunately they warranty on most but NOT all of them!

My Kiss pro had a bad node board right out of the box. Maybe a quality control issue.

I don't dispute that fact at all, it's actually standard business practice. There's a reason why professional notebook are more reliable than consumer grade notebook for example, and that all boils down to warranty term and the exact calculation you are referring to.

But a car is not an electronic board. The cost of failure is not in the component cost, it's on the design. And unlike car, pinball machines are still a relatively niche business, it's not likely you have millions of Spike machines out there to justify having spare parts generating a constant revenue flow. At least unless you essentially piss off your customer base, which is not really good practice.

So I'd still like to get a sense of the actual real world failure rate of Spike 1 and Spike 2 systems, now that the system should have reached maturity. Early failures are expected (design errors, manufacturing errors, business choice - ie cost), but it is in the interest of Stern that machine do not fail while under warranty.

Reading through the threads, I have a sense that Spike 2 machines seem more reliable than Spike 1.

Following up on this, has anyone taken a look as whether the NXP UC bootloaders are readable from a functional node board, and could be replicated ?

Anyone up for analyzing the protocol (I know I will, just buying a reliable RS485 snooper just for the fun of it)

At $460 a pop I can assure you there is a tidy amount of profit in a node board.

RS485 is a just simple connection scheme that has been around 50 years or more, so a cheap sniffer could probably easily decode what's going on under the playfield. It would be interesting academically to see just how it programmatically works. I suspect a simple command/response protocol of their own design, but easily captured. Note: I believe their license agreement prohibits any such reverse engineering of it.

Per unit profit, sure. It's actually massive.

But steady overall revenue for the company to warrant pissing off your entire customer base ? That's where I disagree.

I just turn on the pin, never signed a EULA

This got me intrigued to be fair, so I digged up a little and indeed there is a licence agreement (need to Google for it though).

The terms clearly articulate "no reverse engineering", however I kind of fail to see how they can actually enforce it, given that, well, I did not sign it... Nor has anyone who is playing the machine at home. For it to be enforcable, it would need to 1/ identify the individual who signed and 2/ be applicable under the law of the country you live in

But anyway, it's a purely academic exercise of course

Haaaa.

Seriously.

I swear half the posts on Pinside are about some running defect or other with a new pin. Playfield pooling and chipping, half-assed code, poor quality control. And yet when Stern announces a new title people are like TAKE MY MONEY. They sold out Mandalorin LE without a full gameplay video being shown.

Insane to me. Nothing is going to change with this dynamic running.

Well you should take a look at JJP GnR playfield thread then

I'm not a Stern fanboy by any means, and yes QC is an issue. But it's one thing to have a QC issue, and quite another to actually take the decision to not fix design flaws in electronic circuits with the intent of generating revenue from spare parts.

Guess the distributors and operators are the one who can tell whether they have a lot of RMA on node boards relatively to older products (ie SAM).

Anyway, we slightly deviated from the original thread intent

We run about 16 Spike 2 games on route. Only node board failure we've had was on a GB Pro which I believe is a Spike 1 game.

Flaw or cheap grade parts? I suspect borderline parts more than a flaw. You make something cheap enough "x" amount of them are going to fail. The cheaper you go the larger "x" will be. Simple as that.

The protocol has already been decoded by the MPF guys. It's a simple protocol where the MPU initiates all transactions and addresses a single node at a time (except when polling).

No need to buy a sniffer either: it's easy to intercept the serial port traffic in the linux distro.

https://docs.missionpinball.org/en/latest/hardware/spike/index.html#stern-spike-features-that-work-today

The link you provided points to how to use Spike using MPF, using the USB-serial connection to the main CPU node board, but I did not really see a decoding of the bus traffic, unless I missed it ?

Also you mention you can intercept the serial port traffic, but if I understand correctly this is not exactly the bus traffic, right ?

I'd more interested into details on the bus traffic itself and the protocol used (speed, parity, handshake sequence, command sent, etc)

I didn't provide any link. If you dig into the MPF source code you will find their python implementation of the node bus protocol, it's quite readable.

Intercepting the traffic in the linux OS isn't very different from what goes down the wire in terms of message contents. It's just more convenient imho.

and the not so funny thing is mass produced it is like $30 a board.
even if 14 in a game it is only 420$ where is the Rest of the 7k Pro cost at. 35$ dollar Power supply/50$ dollar lcd screen/ 2 pieces of glass 80$ some wood/ Some coils and hardware / Lic. Labor . we at 2500 yet? ha

At one point 11-23-2020 they had all The Tech and schematics up for all boards .
i guess they changed their minds because all links are dead now.. Perhaps scared of a new Pinball browser . If people want tech that bad they can buy a game and reverse engineer it. so wtf?

Capturell (resized).PNG

Schematics are still up on Stern website (at least those that were available before), are you referring to the same content?

I found them and they work . Alas . thank you . The email hyperlinks must have changed in some way on the email recieved way back thanks. i been looking for these and apparently not good enough

.

.

Interesting discussion and feedback

If you were to assess Spike2 design from the schematics, what would be your take on it in terms of reliability ?

To me, the major issue is repairability, but this is clearly an architecture choice to favor manufacturing cost over repair.

Where is the best place to send these boards for repair? Thank you.

PM Borygard here on pinside. He can fix some (most?) node board issues.