Speaking as the previous owner of a Williams’ “Tomcat F14”, I can only tell you that you either need very tolerant neighbors or better yet a dedicated basement room where you can put the machine, as the flippers and bumpers transmit an awful lot of noise into the floor.

And of course new pinball machines are awfully expensive to buy and maintain. The next best solution for us poor apartment bound people is certainly Virtual Pinball with PinMAME.

-thb

Speaking as the previous owner of a Williams’ “Tomcat F14”, I can only tell you that you either need very tolerant neighbors or better yet a dedicated basement room where you can put the machine, as the flippers and bumpers transmit an awful lot of noise into the floor.

And of course new pinball machines are awfully expensive to buy and maintain. The next best solution for us poor apartment bound people is certainly Virtual Pinball with PinMAME.

-thb

Hmm, yeah, I suppose it would make lots of noise indeed. We do have pretty thick walls though (close to 1m in some places) and the apartment below us is rented to some Linux User Group who are only there on some days of the week. So it would probably be okay if I only used it at daytime. But, damn, I hadn’t thought of the noise….

Do these things break often?

Well, some parts are certainly wearing out quickly: You’ve got to factor in that a pinball machine contains lots of small light bulbs, and the rubbers on the flippers and the side bumbers needs to be replaced fairly often, too. After a while, you’ll also need new magnet spools for the flippers and bumpers. Otherwise, the gameplay becomes slow and mushy - don’t you hate that?
And of course you’ll need lubricants, cleaning fluid, and possibly playfield coating… news://rec.games.pinball has a pretty good FAQ on this.

-thb

Thanks for the tips. I’ll look into this when I can actually afford to buy one :)