Wizard Of OZ Pinball

[Retropin]

Jack's ok , they are all well .
The power is still out .
No flooding.

Good to hear!

[chillie]

Boards being in the cabinet rather than the head is not a mistake it is fantastic.

Unclip two clips and a cable lift the board set out and straight to your workbench. Fantastic maintain ability.

[swinks]

Jack's ok , they are all well .
The power is still out .
No flooding.

glad to hear it, Sandy has caused some incredible damage.

[Caveoftreasures]

Boards being in the cabinet rather than the head is not a mistake it is fantastic.

Unclip two clips and a cable lift the board set out and straight to your workbench. Fantastic maintain ability.

yes, BUT, you cant work on the boards when they are out of the machine and not connected to the harness or powered up for fault testing, plus the fact JJP cant build machines until the software is complete because boards are in base of cabinet versus headbox, and as stated beore, just doing a software update will mean lockbar off, glass off, playfield up, lockbox undone, then u have to reach into a confined dark space to try n plug the USB in, and try n look at the LCD screen which will be covered by the lifted playfield while u try n do the software updates...

This seems to be ALOT more negatives/drawbacks than positives compared to computer boards in the backbox like Stern....
What benefits do u get from the boards being in the base of the cabinet ?? and, I noticed they have 2 x computer cooling fans cause the boards are enclosed in a hotbox with little or no cooling features. We all know what happened to Pinball2000 when the cheap $20 cooling fans failed after time. Why not design out the need for cooling fans like Stern has done by placing boards into the headbox for easy access and greater cooling without the need for cooling fans.

If someone can give me a few valid reasons for placing the boards in the base of the cabinet, I would like to hear those ideas caise I havent been able to come up with any.
JJP could have built a thousand machines by now, and added boards/software to the headbox if boards were located here, but board location to base of cabinet alone have caused production to not even start. I cant see honestly how in hindsight this wasnt a big mistake.  
But I am open minded if anyone can raise some relative benefits of boards in bases of pinball cabinets......

p.s - glad to hear the JJP factory is safe n sound.

[coon82]

http://www.lakewoodlocal.com/2012/10/30/photos-sandy-hits-lakewood/

This is the link to the website I found about the Lakewood area of New Jersey (where Jersey Jack Pinball is located).

It says the following:

While other areas were harder hit from Hurricane Sandy Lakewood did see its share of damage, mostly downed trees. About 75% of Lakewood is lost power and JCP&L tells us they don’t have a timetable on when power will be restored. Just under 21,000 of 28,000 customers are without power in Lakewood. Crews from as far away as West Virginia staged in the Blueclaws parking lot to begin repairing downed lines as soon as the storm ended.
85% of JCP&L’s customers in New Jersey lost power.

The areas in Lakewood that still have power are the developments on Route 9 south of the Kimball hospital, the Pine St and MLK area, some pockets in the Forest ave area, and some areas in Raintree.
Kosher Village, Super Stop, Circa and the Cedarbridge Marketplace, Rimon Steakhouse, Kosher Taco and Four Corners are all open for business.

Then I went onto the Jersey City Power & Light’s (JCP&L) website and found this:

Estimated Restoration Times
Estimated restoration times are now available for parts of our service territory.
Additional restoration estimates will be provided as soon as they are available.
New Jersey
•   As of Wednesday evening, power has been restored to approximately 20 percent of affected customers.
•   The majority of customers will be restored within the next seven days.
•   Customers in the hardest-hit areas are expected to be restored in an additional seven days.
•   Remaining customers will be restored once damaged roads, infrastructure and homes are rebuilt. Downed trees and branches have made many roads impassable, and flooding has been a major issue in the aftermath of this storm.

The good news is Jersey Jack Pinball is not under water (amazingly seeing as they are only a 15 minute car ride from one of the worst hit areas in NJ – Mantoloking). The other good news is that if they lost power in the storm there is a pretty good chance that it will be back on by now or will be within the next 7 days.  They were pretty lucky considering the news footage. Will be a huge clean up. Terrible situation for those in affected areas.

[chillie]

If you want a great big display screen in the headbox then the boards go elsewhere. The head basically has nothing except the screen in it and an interconnect cable. I love what they have done, this is a commercial machine and from an operators perspective the way this is done is fantastic. You need to see it in person be allowed to pull it apart then you may form an alternate opinion. No dispute lock bar off and glass off is needed.

One thing to think about is when you are working on the game Williams Ball stern any thing. You will have the glass off most of the time. If the playfield is up uou can not see the display, you can not access the baords. WOZ you can have the glass off get to the boards see the display and work on everything with awesome access. Of course if and when you tilt the playfield up your access reduces but you can access the boards and still see main parts you need of the screen for work.

There are many many reasons for the game being delayed the main one being that Jack refuses to short cut anything, he wants it done right and this is a ground up build. Jack has also only just received first runs of production board sets.

You can take the playfield and computer out in literally two minutes awesome access.

Playfield is on slides like pinball 2000

Everyone has an opinion I love the quality and attention to detail. I was at expo I palyed the game I was in the seminar i talked to Jack a lot. whatching video and listening to audio is very limited compared to being there.

I for one love what is being done here however still am not a great fan of the theme

I guess next year when there are a ton of games out there we will have just as many opinions good bad and indifferent.

[Strangeways]

I think that boards in the lower cabinet is a great idea. EM's have had most of the hardware in the lower cabinet since the 30's. It is nothing new. Using history as a guide, if a location has a line up of games next to each other and you need to access the boards in the head, then you need a trolley or you can drag the machine forward to access the head. If the boards are in the lower cabinet (like an EM), then you lift the playfield and away you go.

Regardless, while games are on location, boards are rarely repaired. They are swapped over with a working board. No-one does board repairs on-site. Swap them over and return to base for repairs (unless the operator is unprofessional and likes to hack the boards while in the game).

If the standard for JJP is to access the boards via the lower cabinet, then I assume that doing a software update etc would be as simple as opening a coin door, and sticking in your USB.

P2K and the issues with the fan - I can't see that as being relevant because Pinballs were only designed to last 5-10 years MAXIMUM. I wonder if anyone still owns their Computer they bought 10 years ago ?

As I've stated before, I am not a buyer due to the theme, but I think that with JJP taking time to make sure everything is 100% instills confidence for buyers. Ironic that Stern rushed out AC/DC in anticipation of WOZ, and there were many problems. I don't see JJP having these problems. Should also be VERY interesting to see if the next Stern title has the same pricing as AC/DC - or will that be another "rush job" to hurt potential WOZ customers ?

I love the competition !

[Sunfox]

WOZ will be updateable via network/WiFi/Internet, so there is no reason to have to physically access the board - especially not the actual manufacturer. And even if you don't have a network where you are and must rely on USB... then why not run a $0.99 USB extension cable from the back of the motherboard right up to the coin box?

Blew your brain right there! ;-)

Reasons I can think of for computer box in cabinet:

1) (The Biggie) Not enough room in backbox with LCD also in there (it's fairly deep).
2) No need to run mass quantities of cables up through the connection between cabinet/backbox, allowing for easy backbox removal.
3) Allows for very easy disconnection of playfield from electronics and vice versa.
4) Permits shorter wires (money savings).
5) Keeps center of gravity lower in machine (no extra heavy backbox).

[ktm450]

Whats the big deal about taking glass off and lifting the PF, no different to taking the backglass out and swinging the lighboard out   

[chillie]

An obvious error in my post I said remove computer I meant remove board set which is mounted in a case

[Caveoftreasures]

A few points,

1. Yes, an extension USB cable will be the answer if JJP dont have a production cable or port already designed into the coindoor area which Beaky and I were wondering about the other day when I was talking to him about his opinion re the boards being in the base of the cabinet versus a headbox.
He like me, thought headbox was better for access etc.

2. It will only have Wi-Fi access to download data n game updates IF JJP has a inbuilt modem/dialler ,or a GSM (mobile) sim modem will be required. This will not happen. The costs are way too much and the problems assosciated are too many. There is no evidence or previous JJP media about any modem being included to date at all, so it will have to be a USB stick/cable unless they decide to add something not previously discussed which i bet will not happen.

3. The cooling fans are worthy of discussion and relevant because getting rid of them or redesigning them out is important to consider, because unlike a home computer, a WOZ machine is going to cost people close to $9,000.00 (9 grand plus) and unlike a $1500 home computer, people will expect it to last 10 yrs plus (like every other pinball out there has done/lasted since the 70's, 80's or 90's which fill most peoples collections...people expect 10 yrs minimum. If a fan fails, will it be Pin2000 all over gain with board excessive heat n replacement required...if it needs 2 x fans, things must be getting hot, why not redesign it with better self cooling....

4. The X Men title wasnt rushed out the door to my knowledge, and the price has gone back to the normal $6200 price, excl delivery/excl shaker motor. The $5950 AC/DC price was Australia only and because of seafreight savings on a whole container. AC/DC was never discounted in the USA when released, and was the same as any other Pro model pricing before it, as I know it...

5. I like what JJP are doing too, but I think the boards in the base was a mistake. If JJP are only just recieving the first small batch of game boards now in November, 2 yrs after start, they are alot more behind than i previously thought...hope the design is right, cause its not like they have 3 or 4 months to test them 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week before they go into machines.....everything is either going to take another 6 months, without rushing, or everything will have to be rushed which may have consequences because people are already very restless waiting..either way, I hope they hit no major design snags, and they find out early, rather than later... I hope everything runs smoothly.

I am still positive about JJP and WOZ, but just had a different opinion about the board location design/placement etc. Hopefully in 6 months I will be proven not to have any real concerns. Bring on the release/full blown production. Wanting to see these machines out in the wild asap.

[Olivia_jason]

why would it need in inbuilt dialer or need sim card? if it works on wifi,it would work like a pc's wifi which connects to your wifi router,a mobile phones these days can act as a internet wifi network and access to the net for it even. you could drag it to maccas to do your update if you are the only person in Aus not to have a wifi router or a smart phone.

having it wifi is brillant idea, it probably even allows for world wide scoring if thats the case just like a xbox game. i said this before about stern, why dont they have a server settup with their pinballs connected to it via wifi so you can compete against the world

[Caveoftreasures]

because mobile phones have simcards to access wi-fi, the modem will need to have a sim to grab the wi-fi. they wont be putting simcards in pinball modems....wont the cost of a laptop type modem be well over the top $$ wise...

[Olivia_jason]

because mobile phones have simcards to access wi-fi, the modem will need to have a sim to grab the wi-fi. they wont be putting simcards in pinball modems....wont the cost of a laptop type modem be well over the top $$ wise...

does your pc have a simcard to connect to the internet?? mine doesnt, it connects to a wifi network from my router.

my ipod is wifi driven again no sim card, connects to my wifi network. pinball machine that is run by a computer isnt going to have any trouble connecting via wifi when my blue ray player does it daily for its auto updates.
My blueray player isnt magic or have a simcard it has wifi connection and it connects to my wifi network and does updates, same as my tv when it finds new firm where from samsung.
this is a great idea from JJP as stated most house hold electronics now do wifi updates. all it needs is access to a wifi network and who doesnt have one of them these days?

[Caveoftreasures]

(you changed your 2 x prev posts after i answered so my prev posts may not make sense now) no big deal...lol

remember, your router is directly plugged into a phone socket...which gives u dial tone, then u wi-fi anywhere in the house to the router which is connected...or if u have no phone line onsite, u have to have a gsm simcard to access internet without a phone line.

The only way JJP can do a wifi update, is if they incl a expensive inbuilt modem/router like the one people have in laptops like u mentioned, or if a gsm dialler is added (which is just not cost effective and simcards are a pain in the ass for fifty reasons incl connection/monthly plans or pre-paid etc).

JJP will have to have a wi-fi modem in the WOZ machine just like a laptop has, or same type as hidden in a norm computer case etc. They might surprise us and incl it, but i thought the costs would be too high, and nothing has been mentioned to date....you mentioned the blu ray player doing updates etc, its plugged into a expensive Samsung TV which has the router incl (I have same TVs here).. so cheap devices dont have the router inbuilt, only expensive $1,000 laptops or TVs etc.. i wonder what the cost to incl the wifi to a Woz will work out to be...