2014 Aug: The multi-contact point wiper fingers have worked well, but still suffer from some degradation due to accumulated corrosion or dirt. The newest Contact boards have a nickel coating with a final gold plate coat. This, combined with the new high polish stainless steel wiper fingers, is hoped to provide the next step in giving very long contact service intervals and very smooth trigger feel.
2015: The new Nickel/Gold and stainless steel has worked out well. These are now the standard materials used on all the controllers.
2016: All this year the same contact system has been used. At the end of the year a new design of the contact board meant that the cleaning of the contact segments and wiper fingers can be done from outside the controller without having to open it up. For more details with images click here.
2017: The new contact system has been working well and is set to stay that way till the contact free system is done.
2018: Once the premises move is completed this year, time should become available to design the contact free system. It is hoped that with small batteries it can also be added to the passive digital controllers.
Details on progress will be added to the blog and to the Slot Forums.
2019: A very busy year for production. All models selling well, and so much so that during November, December and January 2020, stock sold out on MT II, MT I and BP II. New stocks of components and PCB’s have been ordered. The PWM II is still not replaced, but prototypes of the replacement have been tested. The final designs should be in early 2020.
2020: Small changes to the designs have continued to make the controllers more reliable or easier to produce and maintain. No corners have been cut to reduce quality, but attention has been paid to the construction to find better ways of manufacturing which speed up the process.
This has enabled prices to remain pretty static of last few years.
Some increases will be unavoidable for 2020, but they will be kept to a minimum.
Prototypes for the replacement for the PWM II have been tested and the latest design changes have been made with new prototypes in progress.
