Should you buy a NEW Stern Pinball Machine? - Pinball Expert and Chief Creative Officer George Gomez

Stern Pinball·video·19m 31s·analyzed·Oct 2, 2020

Analysis

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TL;DR

Gomez explains Spike 2 architecture, modularity, and upcoming improvements in educational technical video.

Summary

George Gomez, Stern Pinball's Chief Creative Officer, provides a technical deep-dive into the Spike 2 hardware platform that powers all modern Stern LCD pinball games since Batman '66. He explains the modular architecture, including the carrier board with iMX6 ARM processor, node boards for controlling coils/lamps/switches, power distribution, and LED systems. Gomez addresses common customer concerns about fan noise, firmware messages, and LED replacement, while announcing plans for Wi-Fi connectivity and evolution to quad-core processors.

Key Claims

Spike 2 uses an iMX6 ARM Cortex A9 dual-core processor running at 1.2 GHz and supports everything from fully animated games like Deadpool to video-heavy games like Batman
high confidence · George Gomez technical explanation of CPU specs and game diversity
The next iteration of Spike will replace the dual-core with a quad-core processor to provide more processing power
high confidence · Gomez states this is planned evolution of the system
Wi-Fi connectivity will soon allow games to download updates without USB ports
high confidence · Gomez states 'Very soon, hopefully you won't be having to use those ports anymore, because the game will be Wi-Fi connected'
The 'Update Successful' error message was a miscommunication that doesn't indicate actual damage; powering down and restarting resolves it
high confidence · Gomez addresses this specific complaint and explains the message was an error in communication, not indication of hardware damage
Spike is designed to run only with LEDs; replacing LEDs with incandescent bulbs will create overcurrent conditions because power budgets are designed around LEDs
high confidence · Gomez uses specific example of attempted Deadpool mirror ball modification and explains current draw limitations

Notable Quotes

“Spike is the electronic system that we use, that we've used in all the LCD games, so starting with Batman forward. This is the system that is the basis of everything we do.”
George Gomez @ ~0:30 — Establishes Spike 2 as the foundational platform for all modern Stern games over the past decade
“It's kind of like a Lego set, you know, you add more stuff and you get more power.”
George Gomez @ ~8:30 — Describes the core design philosophy of Spike's modularity and scalability
“We're working on trying to find a power supply that fits all the parameters that are required in the games with a quieter fan.”
George Gomez @ ~12:00 — Acknowledges ongoing complaint about fan noise and signals potential improvement
“If anything happened while you're updating your game, you'd get this message, and the message was an error. You didn't damage anything.”
George Gomez @ ~15:30 — Clarifies a widespread customer concern and confusion about error messaging during updates
“Spike is designed to run only with LEDs. All the current, but all the power budgets in the game are designed around that.”
George Gomez @ ~17:00 — Provides technical rationale for why LED-only operation is mandatory, not optional
“The system has a lot of power to keep itself up and running and it will continue to do so.”
George Gomez @ ~16:00 — Emphasizes system resilience and self-healing capabilities

Entities

George GomezpersonStern PinballcompanySpike 2product DeadpoolgameBatman '66gameGhostbustersgameiMX6 ARM processorproductnode boardproductcarrier boardproduct

Signals

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business_signal: Stern acknowledges need to improve diagnostic messaging and fault communication in game displays; development phase planned
high · Gomez states: 'There is no question we are about to go into a development phase on cleaning up some of that stuff'
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community_signal: Stern producing educational technical content about Spike 2 hardware, maintenance, and troubleshooting to support operators and home owners
high · Gomez announces plans for future videos on LED replacement, firmware updates, overcurrent protection, fault detection, and ramp design techniques
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design_philosophy: Spike 2 deliberately designed as modular, scalable system with expansion capabilities to accommodate unforeseen innovations and designer requests
high · Gomez emphasizes: 'We know from a lot of experience that we're going to be inventing things that we haven't thought of yet, and we need to be able to adapt and grow the system'
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product_concern: Confusion about 'Update Successful' error message has been widespread; Gomez clarifies it does not indicate hardware damage
high · Gomez addresses: 'If anything happened while you're updating your game, you'd get this message, and the message was an error. You didn't damage anything.'
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product_concern: Power supply fan noise remains a persistent customer complaint; Stern is actively seeking quieter replacement options
high · Gomez acknowledges: 'I have seen a lot of um a lot of people complaining about uh the fan noise that it makes, and uh you know I don't disagree. Uh, it's probably noisier than it needs to be.'

Topics

Spike 2 hardware architecture and modularityprimaryNode board design and expansion capabilitiesprimaryPower supply design and thermal managementprimaryLED lighting systems and overcurrent protectionprimaryCustomer concerns and support messagingsecondaryPlanned hardware evolution (quad-core, Wi-Fi connectivity)secondaryManufacturing efficiency and testing methodologysecondarySafety standards (UL/CE/FCC compliance)mentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Gomez is proud of Spike 2 design philosophy and defends against common complaints with technical explanations. Tone is educational and reassuring. Some acknowledgment of legitimate issues (fan noise) but framed as acceptable tradeoffs for robustness. Overall message is that the system is well-engineered and future-proof.

Transcript

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hey everybody it's george gomez from stern pinball um i hope everybody's safe and uh having fun with our pinball machines at home uh since we're stuck at home i'm gonna be doing a series of videos on things that you don't normally see um like for example how we prototype ramps and uh different design things um but today i wanted to talk about one of the unsung heroes um of our world which is the spike two system um spike two is the electronic system that we use that we've used in all the lcd games so starting with batman forward this is the system that is the basis of everything we do um it's spike that gives us the power to create all those amazing graphics that you see and it's proven to be incredibly versatile considering how uh simple uh and and not uh you know not extreme it is um so spike is a networked system that means that uh everything begins life with this guy right here this is uh what we call the carrier the big rectangular board is the carrier board this small uh board right here that's attached to the giant heatsink is the graphics processor and the cpu and right now it's just an imx6 arm style processor runs at it's a cortex a9 specifically running at 1.2 gigahertz it's a dual core processor and honestly when you look at all of the things that we do uh take a look at the variety of the games the the devices on the games the video features the descript you know the the diversity of the video features across the games everything from a fully animated game like deadpool to games that have a lot of uh video clips like batman all supported out of this tiny little board so the next iteration of the of the system that you see we're basically just going to replace uh this uh dual core with a quad core to give us more uh more processing power uh to do more cool stuff but that really begins to speak to the modularity of the system from the time that we designed it so we know from a lot of experience that we're going to be inventing things that we haven't thought of yet and we need to we need to be able to adapt and grow the system and spike has pretty much done that so okay so we talked about the carrier and the cpu and then there are these guys the node boards right so um you'll see that these are populated across the play field by the way every every board on the system uh has a network address and this is always zero uh and then the note board that's down by the flippers is always node 8 and the other node board most of our games today all of our commercial games are built with two of these we call them core nodes and um uh the cool thing about spike is that it's it's a modular and scalable system so when you run out of horsepower with this you just add another node uh and you keep adding nodes until you you know you do what you need to do um but most commercial games run on two of these if you look at a pin it runs uh actually just on a single node board so a node board has a series of it basically drives coils lamps motors it reads switches so it a basic node board has nine coils 32 switches three strings of general illumination so 16 times three and five control lamps and then an expansion port the expansion port is really important because the expansion port allows us to add more lamps more switches um and then it so you see that anything on the network has these rj45 jacks so you come out of um you come out of a node with an rj45 cable you go to the next one and they get daisy chained along so everything you see here on the on the desk is basically is the basic spike system that would probably be on a pro game um and we'll talk about the differences between pros premiums les in a minute but so what you're seeing here is like i said the carrier and cpu the core nodes this is the cabinet node the cabinet knows the same game to game and it does exactly what you'd imagine it deals with cabinet related switches lights things like the shaker motor ticket dispenser outputs and just stuff like that then you've got the power supply it's a switching 48 volt power supply that's in the backbox along with uh this guy which is the power distribution board right so uh one really cool thing about putting these in the backbox is that it allows us to essentially test the backbox as a unit and the nice thing about the the real driver behind putting them back there was the fact that it really helped with our ul safety testing because all the ac voltages are contained behind steel in the backbox um it also helped when we moved the switch everybody complained about moving the switch but the reality is that that switch wire uh created a lot of uh noise and so by moving it back there we got rid of that so our our fcc uh radiation issues went away uh uh and so the compliance guys ulce and fcc were very happy with that design um so you've got that stuff in the backbox uh there's a manufacturing efficiency in being able to by the way to test a standalone backbox that means you can take a backbox marry it to any cabinet in the factory uh and be assured that even though it gets tested entirely as a game once it's all put together there's another level of redundancy in that you tested every component in the backbox by itself as as a function of the backbox um the other boards that you see here on the table this is representative of one of the led boards that you see behind inserts uh control lamps if you will right so the control lamps and this is we have smart boards and dumb boards so these little guys are dumb boards dumb led boards we have other size dumb led boards and this is a smart led board and what all that means is that it's got these 8-bit shift registers which allow this to plug into the expansion port on the nodes and allow us that level of control because if you remember a few minutes ago i told you that we only have five control lamps on a core node um by the way on a standard italian bottom those five control net control amps are controlled uh on by the note by the note 8 board at the bottom and it's essentially the outlanes and the shoot again lamp um and so all right so you got smart boards the dumb boards by the way all come back to a smart board and if we need to expand the cool thing about the node architecture is that as designers invent new devices the new devices become nodes in and of themselves and get added to the system so this guy is the uh node uh you know the batman tv set right and when i said hey we want to have a uh we want to have a tv set that uh you know has a display does these things etc um and so we just made a note board so this this node board by the way will go into the inventory and and pretty soon you know we have over the course of a few years we have a show we have shelf loads of uh very uh diverse node boards that do things that are beyond the scope of the basic system designers can grab them and implement them into games and also as designers invent new stuff we'll just create new nodes another example of this is the octogoggles uh noteboard on ghostbusters right that that's this little guy right here so both of these are noteboards that we hadn't anticipated when we designed the system and yet the flexibility of the system allows us to design it and add it um so so i was talking about this might be a pro and so now when you add one of these it might be an ali um this this guy right here um is uh is essentially a serial interface board that goes to the expansion port on the board and this allows us to add even more lights so it it you might see this on a topper uh you might also see it on a on a play field that has a lot of uh rgb lighting um and again it's it's a modular component that gets added into the system we call this um um you know the spy board um and uh in this case it refers to the fact that it's a it's a serial board not a stern pinball ink uh board um so so this might be the entire architecture of uh with the exception of of course there's gonna be more control lamp boards of it of an le and um and then it yeah we have we also have four coil uh node boards uh you might also find these on a topper so uh or in the case where like i said the modularity of the system the fact that all these things plug and play it's it's kind of like a lego set you know you add more stuff and uh you get more power so um you know we kind of love that about the system and really the the system has been the unsung hero of a lot of these games that um that we've done all right so let's um let's talk a little bit about the power supply um i have seen a lot of um a lot of people complaining about uh the fan noise that it makes and uh you know i don't disagree uh it's probably noisier than it needs to be this is an off the shelf power supply when we gave the power requirements uh and the you know the rest of the specifications uh to the power supply company including including a cost specification this is the power supply they they supplied we're working on trying to find a power supply that fits all the parameters of the that that are required in the games it has a quieter fan so that um these things don't make so much noise when they're when the games are idle by the way the the reason that they make noise is because of the fan speed and the fan speed is controlled by sensors inside the power supply and when we do the design of something like the backbox we send the the proposed design once we're feeling pretty good about the system doing what it does we send the proposed design to a laboratory and at this laboratory they put it through a series of stress tests and one of the stress tests that it that that it passed is a test that imagines a game at a laundromat in los angeles with its back to a plate glass window uh no air conditioning sun beating down on on the black uh surface of the backbox if the temperature of the air is you know 87 degrees and the temperature inside your backbox is going to be substantially higher and yet the game has to run in that scenario so um uh the power supply while it's noisy it's also incredibly robust and it manages to maintain a game in some some pretty tough extremes uh like the one that i described and that's we we basically do that uh to assure that you know it may not be a game in north america it might be a game in in south africa maybe a game in uh uh in south america and uh with a completely different environment that it has to operate and yeah it still has to work um so let's talk about uh the other thing that that i hear a lot um i hear about you know how come there aren't any fuses on the system so we have something on here which is actually a lot nicer than a fuse because not only is it more capable in a fuse but it also it's it's a very modern solution to a prop to an old problem and that is over current protection so a lot of things have over current protection a lot of consumer products in your life have over current protection and so what happens is that this uh an overcurrent protection circuit on this note board senses what what uh what it's seeing and it and whenever it sees a fault uh potential over current it basically shuts down in milliseconds and it protects things like these um these fets these uh field effect transistors right so all these transistors and so every coil output every lamp output all protected uh the switches are protected up to the 48 volts that's available on the play field by the way that 48 volts the fact that there's only 48 volts uh in the cabinet uh on around the play field is also a safety feature for somebody working on the games and the cool thing is we'll show you a little video later on of us purposely shorting like a flipper coil and you'll see that uh the really neat thing about it is if that was a fuse situation you'd have to go dig in your toolbox to replace that fuse um let's see other other things that um you know other things that i get asked a lot about i get asked about uh the the notion of some of the messaging on the um on the display relative to faults in the system and we have to do a lot of work there is no question we are about to go into a development phase on cleaning up some of that stuff the game actually has a bunch of built-in diagnostics as you know and those diagnostics can be better integrated into the display and into the system so early on we had a we had a message that i've heard a lot of a lot of complaints about um the update on successful message if anything happened while you're updating your game you'd get this message and the message was an error you didn't damage anything uh typically if you just reset your game or you know powered it down power it back up the message go away nothing's damaged you're back up and running it was an error on our part where we put up the message not realizing how people were going to interpret the message so uh no you know no noteboard has ever been damaged in that situation the note boards all have um the system when it was when the system boots it pulls every node board it says you know where are you who are you what do you do um and it also checks the firmware that node board if it doesn't have the correct firmware for example you you uh you damage something and you replaced it it goes out gets it and puts it on and you don't know the difference so um um it's a it you know the system has a lot of power to keep itself up and running uh and it will continue to do so one of the one of the thoughts that i hear a lot from the uh from the service guys also is the notion of replacing leds with incandescents um had a had a gentleman who thought that he could improve the lighting condition on a deadpool um mirror ball by uh adding an incandescent from you know like a uh one of the old uh williams games not gonna work so it draws too much current you're gonna cr you're gonna create an over current condition spike is designed to run only with leds um all of the all the current but all the all the power budgets in the game are designed around that so when you replace an led please replace the led with one of like kind hey everybody so here we are at my deadpool game i'm going to show you the location of some of these features that we talked about um so you know here's the power supply and and the power distribution board and then of course all the ac remember i said was right behind steel nice and safe that's right there um of course the lcd display and the speakers which all come back to the carrier and cpu assembly which is this guy right here of node on this guy the rj45 connectors uh the sd card slots um and then of course the usb ports which you use to update um very soon hopefully you won't be having to use those ports anymore because the game will be wi-fi connected and you'll be able to download your updates um and then let's go to the bottom of the play field i'll show you some stuff there all right so now we're going to look at node boards on the play field and some of the other boards on the play field and also the cabinet node right so the very first thing right here is the cabinet node and like i said before it handles switches coin door stuff your shaker motor anything that's related to the cabinet is going to that board that board doesn't change typically from game to game it's the same board for all the games um and now we look at the the play field and remember i said that most games are done with two core nodes and there's almost always one up here this is the address eight node board um and then this would be the address nine node board toppers topper nodes are typically 12 and the only reason we've left out those numbers in between is to have room to expand uh a potential board that we might invent that would be a standard some you know some new thing that will be a center in every game would occupy one of those other uh addresses those addresses by the way on the node boards are controlled by the dip switches that you see on the nodes um so and then you have a smart board right here like we discussed with the 8-bit regis shift registers um and that that board jumps up to the expansion port on this node board all of these little guys which are dumb boards would go to one of the expansion ports on a node i think um that is uh pretty much the general overview on on spike architecture and i hope you understand now a little bit more about the system and why we why we like it so much it's really has enabled um an entire generation of of amazing games and it's about to continue to do that um with the with uh sort of an evolution of it once we go to the quad core and and this as designers continue to invent new stuff so uh we'll show you some uh videos on how to replace uh for example the surface mounts and we'll show you some videos on how to update games we'll show you some videos on the over circuit protection and also how to detect faults with the games but uh and then um one of these days uh i'll i'll show you some more fun stuff like you know how to build ramps out of foam core and how to build ramps out of plastic and you know how to rapid prototype stuff and we'll show you some cad stuff we'll show you some sketchy stuff and and just uh the notion of development um so i think uh in in an effort to help you pass some of this time while you're stuck at home i hope you like these videos and stay safe and thanks a lot