EM Pinball Online Repair Clinic

The EM Pinball Online Repair Clinic is a periodic video conference. It offers attendees a chance to get live help troubleshooting issues with their games, to ask more general questions about EM pinball repair or to just watch and learn. Each clinic is hosted by a number of experienced coaches willing to lend a hand or help those wanting to learn more.

Attendees have joined the repair clinic from the United States, Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand & Switzerland.

Note that the Repair Clinics try to solve problems and answer questions in a discussion format. They are not intended to present classroom style instruction. While we may have occasional short instructional segments, most of the time will be spent troubleshooting and answering specific questions. Beginners are welcome and are encouraged to read some of the available online material ahead of time and bring questions about that material to the clinic.

(If you're familiar with the setup, skip ahead to request an invitation.)

Participants

When you request an invitation to a repair clinic you'll be asked to identify yourself as one of the following:

A Coach who has some experience with troubleshooting and is willing to offer diagnostic help.
A Game Owner who has specific issues with his/her electromechanical pinball machine.
An Observer who'd like to watch and learn from the process.

Format

Remember the radio program Car Talk? Our approach is very similar. During an EM Pinball Online Repair Clinic, Game Owners take turns presenting their game, the issue(s) they're having, what they've tried, etc. Coaches guide the discussion with the Game Owner and might ask questions, try to explain how things should work or suggest experiments or testing techniques. The Game Owner may be asked to show video of their game or to try things while everyone observes. Or the Game Owner may be given a few things to try and be asked to experiment offline while the video conference moves on to the next Game Owner.

The intention is not necessarily to completely resolve the issue(s) but to give the owner a better understanding of how the game should work and some direction on how to proceed with the troubleshooting and diagnosis.

To make the best use of everyone's time we try to address specific issues rather than to open the floor to broad discussions. Coaches will try to keep the discussion moving along from one Game Owner to the next and may circle back to those who went off to try something offline.

System Requirements

The video conference is provided by Jitsi Meet which can be used in many web browsers or with their app. A Jitsi account is not necessary. Coaches and Game Owners need at least a device with a microphone to make interaction possible. A device with a camera too would be better. (Observers may not need a microphone or camera.) Before requesting an invitation to the video conference please check that you have a system in place that will work by following these steps:

Open your browser (Chrome, Chromium and Firefox seem to work. Others may work too.)
Go to https://meet.jit.si/

Jitsi Meet

Type a meeting name (anything will do) into the white box and and click on: Start meeting
You may be asked for permission to use your microphone and camera
If you get an error try another browser or another device. Or check that your browser allows web pages to use your microphone and camera.
If the meeting starts without a problem you should be good to go. Hang up the video conference using the red button at the bottom of the screen.

Note that there is a Jitsi app for mobile devices but if you'd rather not install it you should be able to use the desktop version of the web site in your browser.

Participation limitations

All are welcome to participate but attendance may be limited. Invitations to an Online Repair Clinic are sent to participants drawn from the list of those who requested an invitation.

Request an invitation

If there is an upcoming EM Pinball Online Repair Clinic scheduled (below) you can request an invitation by filling out and submitting an Invitation Request Form. Game Owners, please be specific about what issue(s) you're having. To be fair to everyone, those with specific issues (e.g. the bonus doesn't count correctly) are more likely to be invited than those with general issues (just got the game - it won't start) because we'd like to work through as many issues as we can in the limited time.

If your invitation request can be fulfilled you will receive an invitation via email the day before the clinic. If you don't receive an invitation please accept our apologies and try again next time.

The Next Clinic

Clinics are usually scheduled once every several weeks. The 53rd EM Pinball Online Repair Clinic is scheduled for:

Friday 27 September 2024 at 22:00 UTC
(3:00pm Pacific, 4:00pm Mountain, 5:00pm Central, 6:00pm Eastern)

Invitation requests should be submitted before:

Wednesday 25 September 2024 at 22:00 UTC
(3:00pm Pacific, 4:00pm Mountain, 5:00pm Central, 6:00pm Eastern)

Subscribe to get announcements

If you would like to receive notices of upcoming Repair Clinics or other announcements from Fun With Pinball please subscribe to the mailing list on the Sign Up page.

Thanks

Thank you to all the coaches who have volunteered their time to make the online repair clinics possible:
Howard R., Nick S., Dave A., Theron T., Nick B., Dan G., David V., Dave P., Jeff C., Tim M., Stuart B., Kim O., Danny D., Bob H. & Andre G..

Questions, Comments, Suggestions and Feedback

To make the EM Pinball Online Repair Clinic as useful as possible feedback is welcome. Please email your constructive comments.