MMR Pinball

[pinball god]

But it does look nice though.

[pinsanity]

Something not right - can't put my finger on it though.

[Brunswick Brawler]

The irony of it all is the same people that designed and make the beaglebone black at $78 are the same people making the IC's in  late model pinbals...
Texas Instruments,so the same argument can be used in 10yrs time about obsolete parts.There are already parts no longer produced that have been used in the Stern Sam system,also custom PIC's on Whitestar and Sam systems.

Chips are made for many years, and yes eventually become obsolete too.  But boards made for a general market become obsolete much faster, to keep up with competition.

All the manufacture needs to do to stuff things up is do a simple improvement like change put all the connectors on a different side, and suddenly all you cables don't reach!  There are many 'improvements' a supplier can do that require the pinball manufacture to do a redesign.  The three USB ports that you use, might get cut to two.  The Standard Definition output might go to UHD, requiring you to do more with the software that now means the processor is to slow.  The list goes on.  ...risk, risk, risk.

[robm]

[/quote]


MM "ReFakes" = Rebadged Congo or NBA Jam (always very badly done) machines.
[/quote]

Can't agree on that one Nino, i will reserve commenting about mine, since it is not finished (and i am doing what i want to the machine, which others may judge as awesome or terrible or somewhere in between - which i have no problem with), however another one recently completed in Qld is amazing - in fact i would say better than original since all the under playfield wiring has been routed in a more logical way and looks much cleaner and neater (i do accept that purists will want the wiring routed originally, and thats fine, however once a remote battery pack or an LED globe goes in, it is no longer original).

I haven't seen Wally's (from USA) in the flesh, however it all appears to be pretty good, and not what i would class as very badly done. 

Dealers doing these (badly or not) for the purpose of selling and not revealing they are converted machines is a different story

[Caveoftreasures]

Rob (robm) has done some of the best restoration work this forum has ever seen so I would bet my house that Robs Medi Evil Madness conversion will be nothing short of superb.

The amount of work to pull one of these conversions off is nothing short of massive. I take my hat off to anyone who even attempts it let alone does one that is the envy of any MM owner which I am sure Robs will be when his is finished.

Just for interest, I saw someone sell a original MM which had a really really bad Playfield for a pathetic sum of only 2 grand. It was about five or six years ago roughly and it was before replacement playfields were finally made available.
The new owner knew playfields were coming so in his mind he snapped up a bargain. I remember the seller saying anyone who would buy that machine with such a bad playfield must be nuts.
The MM came in a Euro container and was thrown in as a parts machine.
The seller got his 2 grand and the buyer got his bargain. Both were happy.

I got to see the MM later on when the new Playfield had gone in and the machine was like new again.
The reason the original playfield was so bad was that someone in Europe tried cleaning the playfield with some sort of solvent and it destroyed all the artwork.

The game hadn't had that much use. The cabinet and decals were like new and the hardware was great.
At 2 grand it will probably remain the worlds cheapest Medi Evil Madness despite a bad playfield.

The owner still has it and he must have picked up a 6 or 7 grand profit on paper overnight.
Right place at the right time.

[RatBag]

The irony of it all is the same people that designed and make the beaglebone black at $78 are the same people making the IC's in  late model pinbals...
Texas Instruments,so the same argument can be used in 10yrs time about obsolete parts.There are already parts no longer produced that have been used in the Stern Sam system,also custom PIC's on Whitestar and Sam systems.

Chips are made for many years, and yes eventually become obsolete too.  But boards made for a general market become obsolete much faster, to keep up with competition.

All the manufacture needs to do to stuff things up is do a simple improvement like change put all the connectors on a different side, and suddenly all you cables don't reach!  There are many 'improvements' a supplier can do that require the pinball manufacture to do a redesign.  The three USB ports that you use, might get cut to two.  The Standard Definition output might go to UHD, requiring you to do more with the software that now means the processor is to slow.  The list goes on.  ...risk, risk, risk.

With all due respect mate I dont think you know what your talking about here, BBB has only 1 USB port and at this stage looks like it is only going to be used for software upgrades and is not used to interface with any part of the hardware,the only external cable is the HDMI lead to the monitor.The BBB connects to the pinball controller pcb via 2 rows of 46pins .
If the Standard definition output is lifted to UHD no manufacturer of this type of board is going to design it with a processor that cant handle the output,the software is already emulated to run on the existing hardware.
There is too much scare mongering going on with this technology
The cheapest I have found so far for a BBB is $64 if people are worried about them lasting buy a spare buy 2 we all spend loads more than that on basic mods for our games anyway.

[pinsanity]

My MM conversion took over 12 months on and off using the shell and boards of a project NBAFB.

It was a massive undertaking and was started well before the MM Clayton versions were announced.

At that stage I was about 65% complete so I had little choice but to finish it off even though the motivation was waning.

The task was made somewhat easier due to the fact I have an original machine to compare it to, but the real assistance were the CAD and AI files that WallyBGood from the US sent me of the various habitrails and componentry containing detailed measurements as I wasn't all that keen on tearing down the original and having two lots of parts laying around for what would be essentially the same machine.

I agree with robm, I have no problem with a machine being converted as long as there is disclosure as to its provenance to any potential buyer down the track.

For serial numbers, I just copied the ones from my original and added a +1 to the end.  

I still have both MM machines so it can be shown exactly what the origins of either machine are.

[Homepin]

I'm guessing you haven't had much to do with repair work in the real world.  Buy a spare. Board is certainly your best advice, scaremongering?  NO, facts based on real world experience rather than sales hype that seems to have sucked you in.  If toy boards are s o wonderful why isn't stern using them? Why bother designing SPIKE?

The irony of it all is the same people that designed and make the beaglebone black at $78 are the same people making the IC's in  late model pinbals...
Texas Instruments,so the same argument can be used in 10yrs time about obsolete parts.There are already parts no longer produced that have been used in the Stern Sam system,also custom PIC's on Whitestar and Sam systems.

Chips are made for many years, and yes eventually become obsolete too.  But boards made for a general market become obsolete much faster, to keep up with competition.

All the manufacture needs to do to stuff things up is do a simple improvement like change put all the connectors on a different side, and suddenly all you cables don't reach!  There are many 'improvements' a supplier can do that require the pinball manufacture to do a redesign.  The three USB ports that you use, might get cut to two.  The Standard Definition output might go to UHD, requiring you to do more with the software that now means the processor is to slow.  The list goes on.  ...risk, risk, risk.

With all due respect mate I dont think you know what your talking about here, BBB has only 1 USB port and at this stage looks like it is only going to be used for software upgrades and is not used to interface with any part of the hardware,the only external cable is the HDMI lead to the monitor.The BBB connects to the pinball controller pcb via 2 rows of 46pins .
If the Standard definition output is lifted to UHD no manufacturer of this type of board is going to design it with a processor that cant handle the output,the software is already emulated to run on the existing hardware.
There is too much scare mongering going on with this technology
The cheapest I have found so far for a BBB is $64 if people are worried about them lasting buy a spare buy 2 we all spend loads more than that on basic mods for our games anyway.

[Brunswick Brawler]

With all due respect mate I dont think you know what your talking about here...

Correct that I don't know the boards at all.  But I do know all about is designing a system and sparing it so that it can be operated for 20+ years.  I created examples of what could go wrong, when the supplier decides to change configuration.  (What if they go broke due to the increasing completion in this market?).

Consider it from a repairer/restorers perspective.  A workshop will need to keep a huge spares catalog, with a pinball manufacture constantly updating the architecture.  The board would become as difficult to source as a playfield game specific part.  ...Ok not a bad as that as these boards are much more wide spread around the world, also within some iterations of updates of the board there should be back compatibiltiy.

...Think of what it would mean if USB gets replaced with Firewire and then Firewire gets replaced with Thunderbolt.  So far neither of these two interface standards have managed to impact USB, but you don't now what is to come.  Even more simply, what if the Ethernet port you rely on is removed as a cost saving measure under the assumption that everyone now uses USB.

If you have a MMR on order, you really should buy a spare board.  The good news is that they are only about $50, which is of course why they were selected in the first place.

[RatBag]

I'm guessing you haven't had much to do with repair work in the real world.  Buy a spare. Board is certainly your best advice, scaremongering?  NO, facts based on real world experience rather than sales hype that seems to have sucked you in.  If toy boards are s o wonderful why isn't stern using them? Why bother designing SPIKE?

The irony of it all is the same people that designed and make the beaglebone black at $78 are the same people making the IC's in  late model pinbals...
Texas Instruments,so the same argument can be used in 10yrs time about obsolete parts.There are already parts no longer produced that have been used in the Stern Sam system,also custom PIC's on Whitestar and Sam systems.

Chips are made for many years, and yes eventually become obsolete too.  But boards made for a general market become obsolete much faster, to keep up with competition.

All the manufacture needs to do to stuff things up is do a simple improvement like change put all the connectors on a different side, and suddenly all you cables don't reach!  There are many 'improvements' a supplier can do that require the pinball manufacture to do a redesign.  The three USB ports that you use, might get cut to two.  The Standard Definition output might go to UHD, requiring you to do more with the software that now means the processor is to slow.  The list goes on.  ...risk, risk, risk.

With all due respect mate I dont think you know what your talking about here, BBB has only 1 USB port and at this stage looks like it is only going to be used for software upgrades and is not used to interface with any part of the hardware,the only external cable is the HDMI lead to the monitor.The BBB connects to the pinball controller pcb via 2 rows of 46pins .
If the Standard definition output is lifted to UHD no manufacturer of this type of board is going to design it with a processor that cant handle the output,the software is already emulated to run on the existing hardware.
There is too much scare mongering going on with this technology
The cheapest I have found so far for a BBB is $64 if people are worried about them lasting buy a spare buy 2 we all spend loads more than that on basic mods for our games anyway.

What facts have you offered up to back up your claims about this board.....none
My advice to you old man is to do some research on the chipset used on this board and find out what else it's used for.
Here is a pic Brunswick of the BBB installed onto the pinball controller board so you can get an idea on what ports are used

[Homepin]

 

"What facts have you offered up to back up your claims about this board.....none - My advice to you old man is to do some research"

If you think for one second I haven't researched ALL available processors and methods then you are pretty silly. I will have spent $2mill of my own money building a pinball factory by the end of this year - exactly what have you done to be so knowledgeable on these hobby boards? I'm guessing you have played with a few and think they are the bees knees. They certainly have their place for sure BUT it is NOT in a finished commercial product worth thousands of dollars and to say it is, is just nonsense.

I am sick and tired of people like you promoting this to be true - it just isn't! Again, if they were so wonderful why didn't Stern just use these - NO THEY DIDN'T because they are a professional company and know better!

You have said it all - I am an "old man" and therefore couldn't possibly know what has happened in the past 30 years in the amusement industry could I now?

I am guessing that you have zero industry knowledge (that you have shared with us, but please prove me wrong) spouting that these "toy" boards are the best thing ever made - it just isn't true and one day when you have a bit more knowledge yourself you might just realise this.

My MAIN beef is that people like yourself espouse the fantastic benefit of things like this and that is simply not true in an application like this. But you won't listen so I won't waste any more of my time - I just hope not too many have been swayed into believing your rubbish.

The best thing to come from this thread IMO is the solid advice to anyone buying one of these POS and that is to buy a spare BeagleRockPieTart board STRAIGHT AWAY and sock it away because they just will not be available in two years time and I will bet you a new pinball machine on that!

[Brunswick Brawler]

My last word on this: The photo shows just how bad the situation can be.  The off-the-shelf controller is mounted onto what looks like a tailor made pinball I/O module.  Now what will happen if in 12 months the off-the-shelf controller has a simple change to relocate a socket?  You can now scrap all your I/O module boards that it mounts onto.  A redesign of the I/O board is now required, and you hope your PCB manufacturer places a high priority on a set of replacement I/O boards.

PS.
Keep it clean - this is not pinside.  Don't make wild assumptions about people - or maybe I'll send you my CV.  I don't know who the reference to old man was meant for, but I would also take it as a compliment, having seen enough niave youngsters easily turned red faced.  But in this case, my middle age may not fit your attempt at an insult.  Always talk to people in these forums, as if you were talking face-to-face.

[Caveoftreasures]

Good to see everyone getting along.
We have a lot of passionate and very knowledgable people on here with slightly different views.
Put us all together as a team and we could work wonders and design and build anything.

The pinball version of NASA so to speak. Except we won't blow up Pinballs in badly cold weather with faulty O rings....

The one thing I was surprised about with the MM Remake is that they didn't work closer with Stern to build and design or include Sterns Boardset. It would have made sense to go that way but the new owner of Planetary Pinball is a guy who seems very very sure minded about his decisions and taking on feedback or making concessions doesn't seem to be his personality from videos I have seen of him so he did it his way with his own board and ideas.

I just hope it runs forever and replacement parts aren't going to be a problem for owners down the track.
The best advice I have read on this thread is to buy some spares now and put them inside the machine for a rainy day down the road. That seems like a dam good idea.

[Brunswick Brawler]

If Planetary Pinball were to use the Spike System, it would have come with a cost.  From my limited understanding of the Stern build, Planetary Subcontract to Chicago Gaming, which intern Chicago Gaming then subcontracted Stern to do the assembly and presumably sourced the hardware from various other subcontracts.  I don't who did the board & software porting design: Planetary or Chicago Gaming.

But the more teired levels of subcontracting you have, the more it costs for many reasons.  So to Crafty's thoughts of why not use the Stern Spike system, that answer would likely be, it would have added to the cost, such that almost everything is now Stern, so there would be no room for Chicago Gaming and Planetary Pinball to make a buck - though would be bringing nothing to the party.

But what I do wonder is if for the next Planetary Pinball game, why wouldn't Plenary just go straight to Stern, and cut out the middle man being Chicago Gaming.  Then you could afford to give Stern a bigger slice of the pie.  Effectively Planetary could just sit back and 'licence' the game completely to Stern and perhaps separately subcontract the cabinet build, and take the licence fee for near Zero work and near zero risk.  But Stern would want to do it of course.


...Stepping back a bit, the obvious solution for Planetary and Chicago Gaming would have been to simply use a Homespin board that tis design for this very purpose.  No issue is porting of software!  Alternatively there is also the Proc option which would have required the same level of effort for software porting as the current approach, but would have cost more.


But one thing we have all forgotten about is YES MMR looks stunning.  I hope I find one in the wild to play.

[Retropin]

Whats the final price on these??? Expected price was a tad under US$8K yes?... Melons is some US$6.5K.
Theres an awful lot more engineering on the MMR than Melons which would explain the extra pricing, but if a basic machine equipped with SPIKE comes in over $6K then its an expensive system.
I note that all dip switch settings etc are done via the programming with no REAL tactile methods of control... mmmm.. I hate not being able to physically do and test things.
My phone gradually faded away and eventually died after 3 years..settings are programmable. In fact everything I own that has programmable settings sort of flakes away and gets thrown out.
Yeh - I know, im a dinosaur but from experience, the less tactile it is, the less reliable it is.
I really don't like modern machines...