Hello everybody,
I was just wondering wich company (Stern Gottlieb) or system ar the more reliable and wich ones are the worst.

Bally are rock solid, Williams are the easiest to fix and Gottlieb have the best play

But that's just when talking about EM's. I have no clue after 1977

I prefer Williams.

I have had SS and DMD machines and found Williams to be the least troublesome..... but perhaps am lucky (Hope I don't jinx myself... DAMN!!!!)

It's a pinball machine...  Doesn't matter the make or model, at some point it will break.  I find that the later model games have more robust electronics than the earlier games, but they are a lot more complicated to repair when something does go wrong.  That isn't to say the earlier SS games are not good, because once all the known issues are dealt with on these they are just as reliable.

I will say that if you don't want to lose your hair fixing / troubleshooting games, stay away from Gottlieb Sys1 / Sys80.  Mechanically they are built like tanks, but the electronics seemed to be an afterthought.

Any of the other systems / mfg's all have their own quirks, but there are lots of resources available when it comes to repair.

Oh, and TGlover... last I checked DMD games were SS.  

D

In my experience:
For early 80's pins the hardest electronics to repair is cpu board, but with time and patience they are also not too hard to repair. Lot of infos about how to repair them on the web. Other than that, electronics problem are easy to fix on early 80's pins.

If you perform boards ground mods, change transistors for lamp and solenoid, connectors, diode under playfield, capacitors and etc those pins are very reliable. They are 30 years old and lot of parts cannot live long like that and it is normal to change them. I found Bally as-2518-35 , Gottlieb syst80 and Williams system 6-7 reliable after restoration and mods applied.