What Did You Buy Today?

IamNotImportant said:
that's what i was wondering, he claimed he spent 1900 on the spindle rebuild
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The spindle may be in great shape now but what about the 60 year old ways. They have to have some wear in them which will affect the accuracy of the parts that are getting ground.
 
NCjeeper said:
The spindle may be in great shape now but what about the 60 year old ways. They have to have some wear in them which will affect the accuracy of the parts that are getting ground.
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I was thinking the same, but in a essence, why are you selling after investing so much in it.
 
matthewsx said:
Happens all the time….

“Just trying to get my money back”

If the seller sees value that the buyer doesn’t it can take a long time to get a deal done. I’d just make an offer based on what you think it’s worth and let him decide.

John
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+1 on your thoughts. We have a circa 1980 Williams Firepower pinball machine. I bought the game for around $1750 a year or two ago. It gets played a lot when we host family events. I was always apprehensive as with the 40+ years old boards, it'd flake out on occasion. The game would lock up which could be temporarily "fixed" by opening the back box, pulling the connections between the various boards, and hooking everything back up. It'd work for "a while", then flake out again.

I recently decided to stop "fumble d*cking" with it and replaced all of the boards (MPU, driver, speech and power supply) with re-engineered boards using modern components for around $800. The displays were gas plasma using around 100 V and would flicker and/or sporadically lose a segment. Again, pull the back glass, wiggle the connections and all would be good for "a while". I replaced the plasma displays with modern 5V LED displays for $125. On top of that, I replaced all of the 6.3 V incandescent bulbs with LED's for another $50. The problems with a lot of these machines is they stick illumination bulbs right under the plastics which melt/distort them.

I'm sure with other nickel and dime things I've done to it, I've spent $3000 total on the machine. Does that make it a $3000 pinball machine at this point? Probably not, as I see them for sale for around $2000, sometimes with some replacement boards. Those are being sold as "everything works as it should" machines. Some guys don't mind tinkering with them. In my case, I wanted to be confident that when it's fired up this Thanksgiving, it'll work all day. I'd have to find someone like me who would be willing to pay a little extra for a "hands-free" (other than the flippers!) machine.

Probably a number of surface grinders out there with decent spindles from lower use. Because he had to fix a worn-out machine doesn't necessarily mean he can pass the repair bill on to the new owner. However, you will be getting a "new" machine regarding the spindle. You should with some confidence not have to worry about ever servicing it in a hobby shop. There is some value in not worrying about it unless you don't mind tinkering.

Bruce
 
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