If you are reading this, you are an awesome pinball tech!

The fact that you found your way to this blog post means something.  You have the interest and desire to fix / repair your, or someone else's pinball machine.  That's good.  What you may not realise is just how valuable your time and abilites are.  I am here to assure you that they are quite valuable.

My first lesson:  Cheap Components - Stay away from them!

It's so funny to me that some repro boards are already showing their age.  Several companies make a "Flipper Board" for Data East and Sega pinballs.  I make a flipper board myself.  You can find it here

But let's say you have a competitor's repro flipper board, and it's broken.  You want to fix it, and that's great!  It's got a blown fuse, right?  You put in another fuse, and it immediatly blows.  Unless you own stock in a fuse company, maybe you want to stop doing that.  Pull the board, and I can guess that the MOSFET driver is shorted.  You look up the part, and you find it at your favorite, reputable supplier for 4 buck plus shipping.  Four dollars for a single component?  That's outrageous!  You browse to your favorite Far-east supplier and find the same part number in a 50 pack for $1.99.  Plus, since your already buying some parts from the same supplier, the shipping is free!

Don't do it

If you are a good enough tech to pull that board and gracefully replace the bad component, then you are a good enough tech that your time is better spent not to replace that bad component over and over again.  And you will

I give that MOSFET from the cheap supplier 2 weeks on location before it blows.  You might think that's ok - after all, you have 49 more of them.  But what is the true cost?  You could be doing something else, instead of doing the same thing over and over.  Of couse, in this scenerio, you do need to make sure the corresponding coil isn't damaged.  But once you do, make sure you replace wtih a quality part.

I did mention that these are "showing their age."  More and more I look up the original MOSFET to find it's already out of production.  So I look up the substitute, and it's almost out of production too.  You may not have much of a choice later except buy them from the sketchy supplier