This would be awesome if it happened, the art could be improved a lot and a better sculpted Well Walker too.

If you're a location player, you don't often have a choice, especially if the operator is less attentive to maintenance of their pins. One pop you still get some action. If both go out at the same time because they're tied together, it's a dead zone.

A comic overlay for The Walking Dead that wasn't so gross and ugly like the art package now would substantially increase uptake of the game. I know a LOT of people who can't/won't have it in their house because of the art package. Fix that and it will instantly be more popular because the game itself is *amazing*. Probably my favorite pin, and I am *not* a fan of horror. The code is just so good.

$2 vs. $20 on a $10,000 pinball machine? HAHAHA

0.02% of the price vs. 0.2% what once every couple of years?

How often do coils go out. I have had 3 go out in my lifetime… operators with wifi IC game like James Bond should be notified ASAP. Some operators could care less if their machines are broke and dirty. Drives me nutz! I’m always like dude this is your investment. Clean it and shop it out at least once a month!

I think way too much time is being wasted on these pops. Like George said the other day, debate him on it. I’m going to go out on a limb and say George has forgotten more about pinball than most of you will ever know in 10 lifetimes.

Stern video just popped up on my phone. Video of last call for three home pins maybe it's old news but it's the first time I've seen that video.

Sounds like they did a run of Godzilla premiums recently. I just found one to buy and my buddy did too

I’m a fan of horror and I still think this game is ugly as sin! I’ll never be without one though, it is most likely my favorite game of all time.

The code is perfection.

Yeah dropping good money at an on-site location I look for clean, level, and properly setup pins. Those that don’t care are really losing income.

The cheapening of the pops mechs just shows (blatantly) the mindset of the company that we already knew was there. To me, this is one of the most blatant changes. Hell, you can go all the way back to when they decided they were no longer going to spend the money to place the on/off switch under the right front corner of the game where it was easy to reach and instead make owners shimmy between games to get to the switch... I could go on and on on where corners have been cut/cheapened. All while we've seen record price increases far exceeding normal inflation rates.

The BIGGEST concern for me now? The continued cheapening of our hobby all while paying way more. Now that they've seen they can do this to the pops, what's next? Both slings firing at the exact same time? Both flippers firing at the same time? In pinball we don't look forward to the advances anymore, unfortunately, but wait for the next price hike and exclusion/cheapening...

Not a shared coil. Separate coils, but they are triggered by the same transistor so they all actuate at the same time. This is how the Pin models function for both pops and slings (Star Wars Home and Jurassic Park Home). If you try them, you’ll find it truely doesn’t affect game play.

Is it last call, or was it that they just ran them?

That wasn’t a cost move, it was an electrical/RF change to meet UL standards.

6C93E9D9-D58B-495F-BB31-632F907DD897 (resized).jpeg

It was certainly a cost move... your assumption implies that they couldn't run a UL approved wiring setup to a switch up front or change the design of where they placed the boards to do so... instead of spending more money to do it right, they just said "F" it and dropped a switch in the backbox.

OH MY GOD 18 DOLLARS ON A $9000 MACHINE HOW WILL I AFFORD TO LIVE

2 sets of tibetan breeze $260
4 pc fans on Amazon $10
literally 26x more expensive
Your money *shrug*

https://www.amazon.com/Brushless-Cooling-Speed-Appliances-Replacement/dp/B07ZJ47Z2J/ref=asc_df_B07ZJ47Z2J/

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. That’s definitely better than a single coil.

That said, my point wasn’t really focused on the coil count (or the gameplay impact, if any), though. It just feels “cheap” that they went from “every game has a few pop bumpers in it, it’s pinball!” to “can’t fit the pop bumper outputs on the boards we have in the current BoM, so let’s just tie two of them together.”

Coupled with the rapid price increases over the last couple years and the fact that this is the Prem/LE we’re talking about and not the Pro, I’m just saying it’s a bad look. And to pinmonk’s point, George was being a little dismissive and cavalier about it. Can’t blame him though, not like he was going to be able to say “yeah, another board would have put me over budget” on a podcast…

Love George and everything he’s done and continues to do for pinball, but I think it’s pretty clear that this was a cost-engineering decision and I would wager not the way he would prefer the game actually be designed.

I once missed out on Ruling the Universe for lack of Super Jets because one bumper wasn't working and there wasn't enough action for the others to rack up enough hits.

I love this hobby, but man I hate the fact that Stern is cutting corners and doing everything they can to save a buck... all while raising prices constantly. This last jump of $700 on premiums pissed me off, now learning that they're going cheap on little things "just because the customers can't tell a difference" is just unbelievable

It was ABSOLUTELY a cost move. It's NOT that UL WON'T approve the other "classic" power switch setup, it's just that it's a more involved approval, and likely more expensive. The fact that literally all other pin manufacturers still have the power switch the "classic" way shows it CAN be done, but Stern chose not to.

Good luck with those cheap oil bearing fans. It's clear you don't know the difference in noise, reliability, or lifespan. They're not the same as the fans I have custom configured at the factory in Taiwan. At all.

If you're gonna DIY, that's great, but do it right.

No, it was an optimization to reduce the testing and approvals overhead. AKA 'change to reduce costs'. They were not forced to move the switch, they did it because it made things cheaper and quicker overall for them.

Also part of that change, they won't ship the 110V adaptor cable needed for DBVs in the game.. you have to hound the distributor to get it with your commercial game.

Yes, and THAT change really sucks. Drives me crazy for pins destined for location play.

Lol, I would think his reaction only being a little dismissive shows why he’s in a public facing role with Stern. Complaining about them solving a technical obstacle with an efficient solution that doesn’t affect gameplay seems like we just have too much time on our hands or we have another axe we’re grinding (cost of machines, etc.).

Oh, for sure. He’s the perfect guy for the job. It’s just a bummer that the corner cutting is necessary and viewed as a “solution” when it’s really a limitation of the node board output counts.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for this to be a topic of discussion, even if the perceived impact to the player/owner is minimal. It’s a pinball forum, after all.

Maybe they'll pass those savings on. Errr, nope.

Definitely a good topic for discussion but doesn't it seem like it should be it's own thread. The OP started this as what is currently on the line at Stern pinball but like a lot of threads it's totally gotten off track. Actually what is on the line this week they never had a factory Friday post.

But that's what Gomez sold previously as ostensibly the advantage of node boards being a modular system. Flexibility. Need more drivers? Add another node board (or even a baby mini-node for only a few drivers as has been done). The limitation here was Stern's profit floor. The need for more profit outweighed doing it right in the way the system was supposedly DESIGNED.

He's probably right, but I just like watching them pop off individually.

And if you bought a Prem/LE, you've paid enough to have that.

Not a happy camper with Stern’s new LE dogma of let’s “pillage and plunder” our faithful buyers at scalpers MSRP. When almost not a single one of us would ever buy from a scalper, but lets just punish everyone for the very few that do.

Yes, we are paying enough to not have $20 items cut out for Stern’s incredibly high profit margins. Not begrudging anyone’s profit margins, but there is a point of giving to the customer value added products, with a balanced profit margin.

OK guys back on topic, when do we think the first Bond LE will ship from the factory?

Likely next week. Gomez said they were on the line last week. But those may have been international, so they won't be seen in the wild for a few weeks. I would think that we'll see domestic LEs popping up by the middle of the month at the latest.

I know i asked all my operators if they needed one. I actually added one to every operator that asked for one on bond. I did this so that they don’t have to wait for the process of getting one and miss out on earnings. Just a proactive thought i did to help them. I understand you thinking of it as cost savings and i agree, but it’sa smart move. Why include in games when 80% will not need it at all (homeowners). And of the 20% out do operators, a good portion are using card readers and not needing it to

How much did that 3d printer cost you? What other stuff did you do with it to sell? Does your fan system have a thermostat on the coil so it knows when to trun on and off the fans that would be worth the $260(if so I digress some of the stuff I say later). My machines are on 12 to 15 hours a day. Only have tournaments every once in a while and Friday and Saturday are the peakest times for lots of plays no complaints. I have 4 JJPs and 4 spike 2s machines and 4 others. Even if I did just the bottom 2 flippers over 2k is not a good investment for me.
You shouldn't charge more or less for different manufacturers practically the same materials.
People on here are bad at math and creative skills good for you for taking advantage of them. I made me 1 set for dialed in 3 flippers for under $40 usb plugged in to the service plug with brick. These fans have to cool something that gets hotter than coils get. The only coils that I had to replace on route is the ones that inner winding broke at the lug. Only happened 2x in the last 2 years of my new machines.
No hard feelings. Cheers

Noise? Really? 40mm fans under 2cm plywood with speakers and coils firing and you think fan noise is an issue?

You sell a product mostly for people going out of their way, looking for problems. I’d wager less than 5% of the people who buy flipper cooling fans come anywhere near games long enough to warrant them.

Like the dual-firing pops on Bond, I seriously doubt anyone would notice the difference on a four flipper game between your $260 fans and Amazon’s $10 ones. I would absolutely love to see a real-world controlled comparison of the actual demonstrable and noticeable difference between 2 of the same machine with people trying to guess which is yours and which are the $10 fans.

But the point I’m trying to get at here is this hypochondria of pinball. “Oh no, pops are tied!” Anyone who watched Deadflip’s reveal stream saw plenty of pop action. More than most, to be honest, especially for only two pops.

I’m sick of seeing you everywhere bond is being discussed, bitching about pops, bitching about code.

By that logic they shouldn’t be including coin mechs either… or locks… etc

Yet we all know everyone believes they should be included.

I think the making of the hv cable an accessory was part of the change related to the electrical testing. But I can’t say for certain

Maybe someone who knows could clarify if removing the coin mechs would affect the way taxes are collected on pins… would they still be considered commercial?

When I was an operator, the state I live in, the attorney general’s office was a huge pain about this. Because I had all my machines on free play. My argument didn’t hold water and the state made me pay $1000 year for a gaming license. I Charged my customers a flat monthly rate all machines on free play. Machines were in homes & office settings. I was going to stay out of arcades but since they made me pay it anyhow I started leasing to arcades. So I don’t know if removing the mechs would make a difference?

Other commercial equipment comes without coin mechs at all - like golden tee. They use dbv and digital payment only.

Funny!

This reply is off topic for this thread, but I can't choose where you chose to make your post, only reply to it. So in the interests of this not going off the rails, this is the only post I'm going to make in this thread in reply to your post.

$3500. For just one. And I have many. I'm not using $150 Creality's.

Tried using thermostat switches in a number of ways, but it's an unreliable choice for coils (JJP's GnR magnet uses one and it's ALWAYS breaking because the switch sticks after a very short life, or perhaps the magnetic field affects the mechanism). Since the MTBF on the high quality fans I use are like 7 years at 24/7 usage, and most home users don't have them on all the time (even at 50% on like yours, that's 14 years), I shifted to the goal of just making them as quiet as possible (yes, quiet matters, even in a pin. Many customers have many pins. 6dB too much x 10 machines is a lot of extra noise in a quiet room). The new ZEN kits are essentially silent.

I test most new pins for temps and use that data to publish coil peak temp charts for many machines here on pinside. I usually also publish the 90 or 120 minute graph of coil temps for each machine I finish testing on. Not all machines NEED active cooling as my charts show. I don't keep it a secret which ones you can save your money on by leaving stock. My goal is not to sell Tibetan Breeze kits for every machine, whether it needs it or not, it's to help people know which machines DO need it and provide a plug and play solution. This is obvious to maybe everyone else and you missed that? Also, on games like JJP and the PROC-based ones, whether or not you're a trap player will heavily dictate how hot your coils get, so there's some personal input needed in the equation. Trap doesn't matter on Sterns because of their magic microsecond duty cycle ability. Defensive flipping will heat coils on all pins faster.

Well, I charge more or less based on the time and cost for the contents of each kit. For example, the Lebowski ZEN kit needs a special harness made just for it that is very low run (due to potential sales). While I financially support many pinball causes and sponsor pin tournaments to the tune of thousands of dollars a year, I myself am not a charity.

Seems like you're dissing everyone who's not really, really smart and resourceful like you, and therefore so dumb they open their wallet to any mod. Was that intentional?

The fact is, there's an exchange made. I'm terrible at car repair. Can I do an oil change myself? Yes. Do I think the oil change place is expensive for such a simple operation? Yes. But do I still go to the oil change place to handle that? Yes. Or what about a ring job to stop a car that's burning oil from spewing smoking exhaust? That's dirt cheap to do yourself, practically all labor. And it's a VERY expensive repair to have a shop do as a result. But, would I ever attempt that? Nope. Wouldn't know where to start. I don't have the skill set or time for it. So I'd pay someone with the skill and experience to do it.

You're into pinball DIY, that's great. Me too. I've posted PLENTY of useful pinball DIY projects on pinside here anyone can do for just the parts cost and their time, as a matter of fact. But there are plenty of people good at OTHER things besides DIY that would rather just buy a reliable plug and play kit with a long warranty and be done with it. So I make that available. And if you think I'm just farting out any old thing, I spent over a YEAR with various design prototypes and testing to make the new Tibetan Breeze ZEN kits. I started in Summer 2021 to make the next gen coil cooling kit. Thought I'd be done in 3 months. Took more than 12 more to get a product I was happy with that was truly next-gen. Some of the early tests were a spectacular failure because of the trial and error required. But the end result is fantastic.

"Taking advantage" is your opinion that ignores a lot of considerations specific to this, but it is by no means a fact. I've learned a LOT about coils and coil timing and duty cycles and fan construction differences and vibration that has been integrated in the Tibetan Breeze products as I iterate and improve them constantly. Most people aren't down to take that journey, they just want the result. And that's why I have a product they can just buy and be done installing in 15 minutes.

I would never go that route. Ever. Plugging into the service outlet with a power brick is a very kludge-y way of doing it. But that's YOUR DIY project on YOUR machine. You made it work and saved some money. That's what DIY is all about. My goal is always to keep moving towards an easy-to-install, clean factory-look product. Using the service outlet or a power brick is a design fail - in MY OPINION. But you have a different standard, and though I would never do it, that's fine FOR YOU. My new ZEN kits for flipper coil cooling are the latest step in a clean factory-look design, and they DO look like they totally belong, with some improvements to actual function outside of cooling as well. But if someone doesn't want the ultimate, but they still want plug and play, I still have the prior version less-expensive kits available. If I was really as money-hungry as you imply, I would discontinue the cheaper ones and force everyone into the ZEN kits.

Are you sure? Because it feels like you have some towards me or my customers that you allege are apparently simpletons just begging to be taken advantage of.

Hopefully I cleared up your misconceptions about my equipment, process, goals, and continuing knowledge/financial support of the pinball community. There's a world outside your personal experience, where people would rather buy a plug and play item that works great than spend time and frustration learning to DIY one themselves. Yes, that world is out there. I deal with it every day.

OT: I know I don’t need to say this but... PinMonk is one of the good guys in this hobby! His products are well thought out, install clean and to many (me) are worth the price! The guy backs his stuff and is extremely helpful on the backside of the sale!

Are prices remaining the same on Pro at this time? I searched for a topic on the pricing changes and didn't see one, so asking here.

MSRP only went up $100 on Pros (6899 to 6999), but it was posted earlier in this thread that the rumor is that MAP, MSRP and UMRP are all the same on the Pro now. Basically if you were getting a couple hundred off on Pros before, might not be an option on Bond if distribs are adhering to Stern's new policies.

Agreed. Even though he sells silent fan kits for Stern's power supplies, he will still answer questions for people who are looking to DIY in terms of fan recommendations, etc. Even posts parts numbers. I DIY them based on his info and help.

I don't think Pinmonk "takes advantage of" consumers he sell his products. He provides a great product and if you don't see the value I am sure he isn't upset if someone on route doesn't see the advantage. But they make a big difference on some games and others don't heat up that much. There are DIY routes for cheaper but he provides a very professional product that I don't think I am bad at math or creative skills because I have bought from him. He is honest on which games need it and has some great data. Just my 2 cents it is worth it to some of us.

I don’t see enough value to purchase PinMonks kits for my situation, but they seem to be well researched and a quality product. I have no idea why this guy has such a hard on to attack him in a thread totally unrelated to his product.

Not just Bond, but all pros after Jan 1st.

I dont have a dog in this hunt but it appears to me that Spike games are not approved to have wall voltage in the cabinet so Stern is actually selling you a cable that puts all the liability on you so you can use a DBV that uses AC. Did I interpret that wrong?

Back on topic...... this thread is all over the place. Tiresome of late.
Bond for the next couple/three weeks ?? LE's then Premiums ?? TY
Just the organized schedule and receiving/shipping notices/Pay for your games from distributors are what we/me are looking to read from this thread.
TY,Keep on Flippin and play nice