Zen and the art of pinball maintenance

I installed a shaker motor in the pinball machine today. It's a pretty straight forward affair, since the mounting holes and electronics are already in the machine. The only thing difficult was understanding that you shouldn't crank up the power because it just rattles everything. You can keep it pretty low to get the desired effect. These guys come with the limited edition version, along with a special lighting package and different color legs and armor, but at a cost of $3k extra. I wasn't going to do that. Honestly, I like the premium version better (what we have) because the cabinet art is more of a classic Darth vs. Luke scene, instead of a Hoth battle. But I really like the tactile feedback of the shaker. For $140, it's not a huge upgrade.

Modding and augmenting pinball machines is apparently a pretty huge thing, with a ton of aftermarket stuff out there. This motor is an official Stern part, but there are others. You can get chrome legs, anti-reflective glass, the limited edition lighting packages, art blades for the inside of the cabinet, extra figures for the playfield, custom toppers... there is a lot out there. I am curious about the cost for the additional lighting, which isn't out yet because this is the first game on their new platform, but I'm not super married to it.

Because pinball is so kinetic in the real world, I get why it's becoming so popular relative to things on screens. Nothing on a screen, especially a phone screen, feels and looks like pinball. That's why I was attracted to the shaker. After playing the LE version in the arcade, I remembered how great it felt. My Jurassic Park machine had one back in the day.

There's also a maintenance commitment, but one rooted I think in a joy that's similar to what people used to feel when tinkering with cars. I've had the "hood" up on the machine a ton. At first it was to diagnose the short in the general illumination loop, which I wasn't going to fix because I didn't think I should have to on a new machine, out-of-the-box, and also because I didn't have a replacement lamp socket. But diagnosing it made it easier for the distributor to fix, so it helped. I also got in to figure out what the problem was with the Death Star ramp, because it was rejecting balls and almost impossible to hit. It's a narrow ramp, but the real problem was the alignment, which I fixed by loosening the screws, and jacking up one side by putting a washer under it. (Stern is allegedly working on a real fix, because it's a common problem.) Most of the time though, you slide off the glass to clean it. We've already logged more than 800 games, and it started to develop ball trails in the various lanes. You can also see the normal "dimpling" in the playfield start to develop, which happens when a steel ball is moving 70 mph+ and impacting a wood surface. Eventually, you need to replace the linkages on the flippers, which are like changing your breaks. The rubber bits also eventually need to be replaced, like tires.

Admittedly, I'm a little disappointed about the lighting short and the ramp alignment, but with so many moving parts, it's not that unusual to have some initial problems, especially with the first runs off the line. That's why arcades (I'm looking at you, Dave & Busters) often don't have pinballs, because they require techs to keep them running. The arcade we went to last weekend had a guy working on one in their large collection. Stern machines are cool too because you can login to them with a QR code, and they have leaderboards in the venues.

I don't have the electronics expertise for these, but I imagine that most of those parts are simply replaced entirely. Their platform consists of a central CPU, and then nodes on a bus that in turn connect to all of the lights and mechanical bits. I get switches and solenoids and stuff! I shouldn't have to spend a ton of time maintaining the machine, but at the rate we're racking up plays, I imagine there will be regular cleaning and certain parts replacements.