Frequently Asked Questions
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I ship as fast as possible, and I fill orders nearly 7 days a week. If it's been just a few days and you've not heard from me, chances are your order has not shipped, please be patient. I fill orders as they come in with a few exceptions: Express (loosely known as Overnight) orders get top attention. Not only do they get filled immediately, they are often hand delivered to the Post office. Next are orders with Priority shipping (shipping method is picked on checkout). eBay orders will be filled in one business day and do take precedence over a web site order. When I ship, I *always* reply to your PayPal email that your order has shipped, and I update the Paypal record with tracking status, which in turn sends you another email AND if it's eBay, generates a notice from eBay. Whew!!

First things first: Has it shipped yet? If you don't know, please see the above question. If it has, did you check the tracking? When I ship, I *always* reply to your PayPal email that your order has shipped, and I update the PayPal record with tracking status. If your PayPal email is different from your regular email, please check it first. I can't tell you the number of times people order from the wife's account and don't check that email, or the tracking number clearly shows it's en route (or even delivered) and I still get emails asking for a status. Packages in the US average 2-3 days.

If the above didn't help, be aware that packages shipped out of the United States vary GREATLY in delivery, and I do mean from a week to 3 months. Currently online tracking for non-US countries is poor, and the US tracking usually does not update when it leaves the United States. The exception is in certain countries that have partnered with the US Postal service for DELCON, which means Delivery Confirmation. Those countries are Australia, Germany, Belgium, Great Britain, Brazil, Israel, Canada, Netherlands, Croatia, New Zealand, Denmark, Spain, France, and Switzerland. If your tracking number appears to show it still in the US, this is not the case, it has LEFT the US and just not been scanned by your country's postal service. Your package may also be "stuck" in Customs, and sometimes calling your customs office with the tracking number will help. In any and all cases, please be patient. Big Daddy is responsible for making sure you get your order, unfortunately sometimes we have to wait, wait longer than we want to, but I cannot send replacement orders when enough time has not passed. Filing a claim against me does not help the situation, nor hurry anything up, actually delays it because I will not refund a sale AND replace it. Again, please be patient.

I do not send emails when I receive an order, there's enough email out there in the world and you got one from PayPal. If there's any doubt a payment was sent, please check your PayPal account.

Big Daddy works & ships nearly every day of the year, 7 days a week, holidays sometimes included. Sure I take a day off here and there, mostly half days, and I try not to ship Sundays and holidays, but it's not uncommon for me to be packing at 5AM or midnight. When I'm to be gone for more than a few days I always put a notice on my site.

My web site shipping is based on dollar amount of your order. After doing this for over 10 years I found it's the best overall approach unless I were to redesign it as a weight based system (which I'm not willing to do) or send a separate invoice for shipping (which I found doesn't work). This has proven to be fair to me and for the vast majority of customers. I do not in any way TRY to profit from shipping, it's a pet peeve of mine for sure when others do. And there's more to postage when it comes to shipping & handling! What's forgotten is that this stuff don't mail itself. It doesn't pack itself, it doesn't buy its own padded envelopes, it doesn't print its own postage, it doesn't even walk itself to the Post office. I do all that. And I maintain and invest in the web site and constantly add product. As often as shipping may be high on a little item like a decal, I lose shipping on some of the heavy products like balls, leg bolts, levelers and Novus. If it's really bothering you, send me an email and maybe I'll see what I can do, but the time to complain isn't AFTER you've received your nice shiny new decal (in 2 days no less) and tell me you feel ripped off. Shipping costs were shown when you checked out, and if it's too high for you and going to upset you, I ask you to not order, simple as that.

On 4/10/2014 I put in place a minimum order of $30 for US orders and $75 for International, unfortunately the only way to do it using my current shipping system with PayPal is to charge an extreme amount for orders not meeting the minimum, and it was designed so you can't proceed. The amount was $22,000 and I had measures in place with PayPal to stop payments of more than $10,000 but PayPal's system was buggy and people actually paid it, too many times. Effective 12/05/2018, even though the people this effects won't be the ones reading this, I have now stopped this and I've lowered the shipping costs to $30 for USA orders and $75 for International. I now expect complaints about high shipping on small products but I will *not* be refunding shipping costs! The reasons are multiple, but mainly are driven by the increased volume of sales over the past few years compounded by complaints and claims on small orders. I ship nearly every day and rarely take time off for my other interests, when I do the complaints roll in. A review of 10 years of sales showed that nearly HALF of my sales were under $30 and accounted for only 10% of my business. Often these small orders are a dozen of small parts that take more time to pack than an average order. Often these are followed by a complaint about shipping costs "for such small items". Most (90% this year) of my PayPal claims are from International orders where there's no patience on delivery. Most recently a $28 small package to Germany less than 6 days old. All of those claims except one were under $50.

Absolutely, in most cases. The simplest way is to place another order and then email me that you would like the orders combined. Do not assume I will see that you have more than one order, sometimes the volume of my email is too high for that. You can reply to the PayPal confirmation, or the email link at the upper left of the main page or by clicking on Big Daddy Enterprises on the bottom of this page. I will refund shipping overage less the 30 cent transaction fee I get charged per order. Combining eBay orders with web site orders is a little more difficult and it's best to keep them separate. Items on eBay are sold keeping in mind built in shipping costs and thoughts that they will ship by themselves packed a certain way.

No. It is illegal to falsify a customs form and also against international law.

In the United States, First Class and Priority average 2-3 days, parcel is 5-12. 95% or more of my orders go First Class or Priority. The origin zip code is 64504. Packages shipped out of the United States vary GREATLY, and I do mean from a week to 3 months. Mail is usually handed off to the Postal service by noon every service day, sometimes packages are taken later, especially if there's an Express order.

Almost all of my orders go US Postal service. While I have accounts with UPS and FedEx, it's usually not cost effective to ship utilizing them, and in my research neither is DHL. If you have a large order and desire those services, please contact me before ordering.

It's not "stuck" in Chicago or Atlanta. Many of the International packages make their last US stop there before leaving the states, and may not get scanned again. The US Postal service delivers some 660 million pieces of mail to as many as 142 million delivery points and operates 31,000 post offices and locations in the U.S. They delivered 177 billion pieces of mail a year. I cannot simply call and ask someone where your package is.

I can accept credit card payments via PayPal and am working on other methods. I accept cashier's checks or money orders but do *not* make them out to Big Daddy Enterprises! Since most of my payments are received through PayPal, I do not have a need to pay extra for a "business" checking account. I accept personal checks but discourage them because of the time it takes me to go to the bank and for them to clear. Use the email link at the upper left of the main page or by clicking on Big Daddy Enterprises on the bottom of this page to email me for my address.

Possibly. Keep in mind as a whole my margins are relatively low. If you want to order a few hundred of a single item, or a bunch of expensive replacement boards or kits, drop me an email and we can discuss. If you're ordering just a bunch of "stuff" and just want a better price, the answer will be no. Remember Free Shipping on orders over $400 (US only, but discounted for overseas). That's means $400.01 and up, not at $300 itself.

Chances are there are many customer ahead of you, and it's not fair to them to let you cut in line. If you really need your package quick, I suggest you pick Express or Priority shipping, not Economy.

There is a $5 minimum charge for cancelling an order to cover the fees and accounting time but all fees charged by PayPal will not be refunded. PayPal has a transaction fee in addition to their percentage, I still get to put this in the books as a sale as PayPal reports it to the IRS (they do not report refunds), and then now have to take the time to make sure I track it as a refund.

Todd. Two D's, not one (no one really spells it Tod, stop asking that!!!! And not Scott, not Steve).

I'm Todd! I'm a pinball collector that now sells pinball parts. Hobby gone wild so to speak. Much more can be known about me by reading the About Me at the top of the main page.

email is really the best form of communication for me. I do not maintain a phone number for support or orders, the expense and hassle is not worth it. I learned long ago not to give out my personal phone number, customers did not respect when they'd call, or how often, or for what. It's also not well known that taking a credit card manually incurs a higher fee, let alone the mistakes of getting the parts, costs & quantities correct. Paying online with the shopping cart assures your order is accurate, and you are emailed a receipt as well as updated instantly with a tracking number when it's shipped.

Another thing I'm working on.

I am, Just look for Big Daddy Enterprises.

St. Joseph, MO

Sure, not a problem at all. BEST to send me a copy of your shopping cart beforehand and then we can discuss a time.

Returns are accepted within a 14 day period, I charge a 15% restocking fee and shipping costs will be deducted. Items must be returned in unused condition. Boards are sealed and must be unopened to be eligible for a return, unfortunately too many people are borrowing boards to diagnose problems. Defective boards are rare, but will be replaced. Boards returned under false pretenses may be subject to up to a 50% restocking fee.

I buy from over 50 vendors in the US and a few abroad. I attend pinball shows when possible, and I hunt on eBay. Specifically if you want to know so that you can sell pinball parts yourself, I can't help you! Believe it or not, I get that question a lot. Many thanks to Steve Kulpa as he helped me take on this business in 2005, and Ed Krzycki at Great Plains Electronics for his support & advice over the years.

I am a "real" business that files taxes, but I do not have the expense of a storefront as I'm basically a mail order business. I'm also located in a fairly small city of 75,000 people, mostly rural farm people with not a lot of pinheads in my immediate area. I know of 8. Total combined pinball machines in my area that I'm aware of are 20 owned by collectors and 10 on location.

I do not make service calls, although I might stop by and help if you're in my area. I have the ability to fix many boards, but frankly I don't have enough time to fix my OWN stuff. A lot of times it's more cost effective to buy a new board if one is available. If you do need board repair, there are plenty of good people out there, and bad. Email me if you'd like my opinion.

The eBay email system is unreliable and censors or blocks emails with certain information, like phone numbers, email addresses and web site addresses. Compounded to this is that they are not always delivered via normal email, one has to log on to see there's a new email on the eBay system. For these reasons I suggest you use the email link at the upper left of the main page or by clicking on Big Daddy Enterprises on the bottom of this page.

Working on it! Let me know if you want to be added!

First use the SEARCH tool at the upper right of the left pane and see if it's on the site. If you can't find anything here, try www.pinwiki.com, or email me and I'll try to help.

Give me as much info as you can and I'll see what I can do. Game name, part number, both in the manual and what you see in person is helpful.

The answer is yes, I can, but I need your help. I cannot just "create kits" when I do not know the game or what I'm trying to fix. I'd love to be able to create repair kits for every type of game out there, and in the long run that's my goal, but creating new ones requires me to have the game on hand or help from you.

Almost always in reference to Bally power supply boards, the answer is to install them on the top side. See here for an example:

Yes I do, they are obsolete but I stocked many years ago, they're just not on the site, please email me for more info.

I usually get this question on voltages, and as a general rule a new capacitor with a higher voltage rating is acceptable, better in fact. So if your original is a 150uf/16Volt cap, a 150uf/35Volt cap will be just fine. Variances in the uf itself also come in to question and the blanket answer is a vague "it depends". On power supply caps, things can be all over, Bally for example used 11,000uf to 16,000uf on their Solenoid Driver board, 15,000uf is what I supply. When it comes to smaller value and sound boards, the closer you can get the better.

Probably! It's an accepted theory that the chemical compound in electrolytic capacitors have a 20-30 year life, and most of the pinball games this site caters to are older than that. Sure signs are bulging or leaking capacitors, or ones that have "There is no spit in Cremo!" scribbled on the side.

The generic answers in the Bally manual refer to the whole board assemblies. A4 is the MPU board. Fortunately many new replacement boards are available here.

Absolutely. I'm always looking for new parts to add to the site and I enjoy fixing boards myself when I have time, and it's going to come to a point when some parts are only available from old boards, so I'm always looking. I also don't want them to go straight to the trash! A few things on this, I can only give a rough estimate on what I'd pay for a board, and it helps if you send some pictures and detail what you know is wrong. I only pay when I receive the board and examine or test. Why? Well, people describe things as "nice" or "working except" and one person's nice is not another's. And displays for example, if a display is blank, blurry, missing digits and/or has burn marks in it, it's often a bad glass and can only be replaced. Corrosion and burn damage is also something that devalues a board. And keep in mind I can't pay retail prices for boards when I myself sell new replacement boards! Most boards I give $10 to $50, it all varies. And shipping is on your dime. Why? Well, because when I pay for shipping, people don't care. If *you* are in charge of the shipping cost, you'll be frugal! When I have said I'd pay for shipping, I get things sent Priority or Express, or unnecessary insurance or signature confirmation. Even had one guy just mark something as 3 pounds cause "I knew it would cover it" and then charge ME! It was 11 ounces! You will also save 25% or more by printing postage online and NOT going in to the post office. Flat Rate boxes can help you save, and for many packages in the US, Priority is *cheaper* than Parcel if it's under 5 pounds. Please email me for more information

Yes and no. I have color changing LEDs because I like them and think they look good in a few games in certain areas, such as the outlanes on BK2K, the Clock on Twilight Zone and the middle sparkly thing on Monster Bash. LEDs are a constantly changing business, with dropping prices and always new items. Many companies have sprung up selling ONLY LEDs, so for now I've not invested.

Remove the blue protective film...