I just picked up a Ghostbuster Pro, a former owner installed a shit-ton of mods and one them clipped to a lamp, shorting the leads and now Node board 8 is out of action.

Started with really weak flashers, then the flippers got strange and then the warning popped up and the flippers are dead.

Am I coughing up $400 for a new board this week? I'm ready to sell it I'm so pissed and it hasn't been here 24 hours. Does Stern offer repair service or do you just bend over and grab your ankles?

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Well the good news the Node board 8 decided to work again for some in explicable reason but the flashers are still for crap. Power is set to 255 in settings and this is what it looks like.

About as bright as a regular LED. I'll check voltages in the morning.

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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.

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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.

Yes and yes, they have been done.

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" ?

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.

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

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.

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.