Wizard Of OZ Pinball

[Strangeways]

Here's a Video from Jack's last show .
Check out who's sitting on the back row jotting down notes , crazy stuff .
Anyway Jack spoke and composed him self very well.
Well

Hands glued to his pocket while everyone else applauded..

[Retropin]

Will have to watch the rest later.. bloody pinball keeps interrupting my work time!

Ive only watched half of this and a few points well worth noting..

Gary Stern stoic at the back hands in pockets.
Punter in the audience.." i can see the value in this machine.. its something i just dont see in Stern and yet theyve been going over and over and must be making money"

Jack... machine has cost me 2 1/2 million dollars.. i have people trying to throw money at me, all wanting 10% 15 % of the company etc.. i dont want their money.
Jack.. I already kinow what game #2 is.. i already know what #3 is

2 1/2 million bucks to set up a pinball company from SCRATCH.. not to make a machine.. to set up a company.

Great times ahead for pinball.. thank god Gary came back with the killer punch... $3K toy...LOL

[Caveoftreasures]

I watched the whole thing, then I watched the entire Gary Stern video from same expo.

A couple of things I got from it.  JJP is still in the learning process, and are a very long way off knowing what they are doing yet.
It will take more than 2, possibly 3 games before they even come close to being in a rythym like Stern. It will be good for pinball, but its ages away yet. If he is paying over $500 per machine for RGB Leds, he is getting taken for a ride.

Gary basically said having other companies doing well with Pinball is great for his business and for pinball in general. (I guess its llike having a Kentucky built next to a McDonalds, extra traffic for one equates to extra traffic for the other).
He also acknowledges that JJP have done well cause many others have failed.

JJP also talks about building 15 machines a day with apx 60 people on the line, whereas Gary talks about building a minimum of 25 or 26 games a day at Stern to be successful, and i counted about 80 people for the whole company.
All interesting stuff.

[Retropin]

If he is paying over $500 per machine for RGB Leds, he is getting taken for a ride.

Depends... there is a HUGE difference between China LED and German LED and he could well be paying that much for all the LED's, controller etc.
German LEd is considered the best there is.. but its expensive as its done RIGHT... Chinese make affordable LED but its quality is way way below that of the European stuff.
But even then.. no guarantee that German stuff is bullet proof as with any mass produced item

[Crashramp]

It's also interesting that he mentions the strategy behind developing WOZ as a pin theme when he talks about two associated movies coming out next year. As well as his hopes of getting in on the action so to speak, with WOZ pins in cinimas.
 I found this link to one of the movies:

&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Strangeways]

If he is paying over $500 per machine for RGB Leds, he is getting taken for a ride.

Depends... there is a HUGE difference between China LED and German LED and he could well be paying that much for all the LED's, controller etc.
German LEd is considered the best there is.. but its expensive as its done RIGHT... Chinese make affordable LED but its quality is way way below that of the European stuff.
But even then.. no guarantee that German stuff is bullet proof as with any mass produced item

Excellent point, Gav. I've seen these bargain priced LEDs in a few games now, and they are rubbish. They have a high fail rate, and are made so poorly that most "fall out" of their sockets - especially if you have a shaker motor. I refuse to install these "el cheapos" in any game I restore.

I think JJP would be looking at quality, not quantity.

[Ant68]

If Jack is using a US built Cree led chip set and the good quality drivers etc etc , you could easily blow the $500 .
There's a massive price difference between the chinese led's and the US ,Japanese Germany chips .
My guess Stern would be using Chinese led's all the way , they look ok and gets it over the line .
I can asure you that Jack's boards are all made in the US , nothing on the WOZ is out source from China .

[Caveoftreasures]

I have used/tested LEDS from cointaker, pinball-life, rtb, and I dont know where they get them from, but I have never had a failure yet on one single LED and I have purchased over 4,000 leds, in both 555 and 44 style, in all the different colours. Never had one fall out with any of my machines with shaker motors either and I have 8 different games using these Leds. I am not sure which supplier uses the el-cheapo ones that were mentioned ?.

Re JJP paying $500 for Leds per machine using RGP leds, I suspect he was talking a retail full blown price to the end user if they were to buy them for themselves, because good quality single colour leds can be had for 26 cents each(100 each colour min), and when you use say 300 per machine, its $80 worth of insert/General illumination Leds. Games like Bally/Williams get the ghosting roms so there is no ghosting, and other titles have very little ghosting if any. BUT, if JJP are using colour changing Leds for every single purpose, that would lift the price considerably, but not to $500 per machine surely, even if u add in the control gear.

Does anyone know what brand Stern are using in their games, cause I thought they were cointaker ??.
Has anyone had any failures yet, other than a loose ill=fitted Led which came good ?

Perhaps JJP couldnt waste time testing cheaper versions for the games, and since the software had to be written for the lighting, they had to lock in a Led very early in the peace.

[Retropin]

Mate.. RGB are a different kettle of fish.. each has 3 LED inside.. 1 red 1green 1 blue.. these 3 are interconnected so you can bring the red up slightly, the green more.. skip blue etc. Having all these 3 working together like this can give a choice of over 1 billion colours.. cheaper RGB less colours.
The PWM to drive these needs to show a colour differentiation that is as smooth as silk.. no jumping between colours.
Then take in wether they are 3528 LED..50/50..50/60 etc.. each draw different current.. each have a different light output.
When you buy RGB it pays to buy quality as the cheaper models tend to " lock on" and so one will always have red active etc and it throws the whole colour spectrum out and looks shit

[Caveoftreasures]

Understand that they are different to single types etc, but even if u say they are 3 or 4 times the retail price of good quality singles, it shld be less than $1 each for 1500 machines times 300 leds each. Does JJP say how many Leds are in each WOZ anywhere.?

[Retropin]

 QUOTE; 150 of the most expensive he could find.. all powered UNDER


.... this gives less heat dissipation through the back and so the LED will last longer

[Sunfox]

From Jack back in July:

"So about six weeks ago we find out that the LED's we want to use for
our GI Lights are like $6 each after sourcing them and promises of a
lower cost.....don't worry, they will be lower in quantity we are
told..... John makes a controller board (that's like a month or so out
of his life) and they work great - oops...the supplier can save us a
few pennies under $6 each and we need 30+ of them.....and it's ten
weeks + to get them all of a sudden. Bad communications on the
supplier side but who's in any type of time sensitive project anyway?

We quickly switch to the LED we are using in the feature lights...Joe
redesigns the redesign the bracket, John creates a new board for them
and Jim the method to show the light on the playfield and John has to
design another completely different driver board to control
everything...oh...Keith has to program to the different firmware and
driver board too....tidbit huh - so - we have those LED's in stock,
boards are being made, Keith has to take five steps forward and a few
backwards and we get what we want in spite of suppliers who are not
time and price sensitive....there's a tidbit for you. About another
thousand like that and a few that ended badly but we keep going, we
have an amazing team..... "

Also, Jack's mentioned that feature LEDs as seen at the shows are being driven to only 40% of their brightness capacity, but it also looks like they'll be using them to double as flashers. Last count was 150 RGB LEDs, but I think that's still in flux as word only a few weeks ago was that Joe was adding more lights in places (spotlights, another by the OZ lanes, etc.).

[Retropin]

Ok, sounds like Jack is using 50/50 LED or similar.. drive these under and they will give the light output of a standard 3528.. drive at full current and you get 3X the light output, thereby acting as flashers also... clever move.

[coon82]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-axogY3Xoy8

Just finished watching the second half of this video (thanks for posting Ant).
Personally, I could listen to Jack Guarnieri presentations all the time. Their are some people that can really hold an audience, and the way speaks he can definitely do that.

He reminds me of Richard Branson. There's a lot of similarities....

[Olivia_jason]

this machine does look like there is some good inovation as far as the layout of the playfield. however as far as photoshoped looking art and movie theme i fail to see to much difference between this new company and stern. to be honest Zombie adventure land looks from the art work and original concept seems to be the most innovative machine being made for quite a while now.
i wish there was more support for the zombie machine than there was for this machine, i think that would be better investment for consumers if they are after future more innovative pinballs.