What is the price as-is for the mold/rust bucket?

Someone else had this issue and it was a magnetized coil stop.

I received my game yesterday. Thrilled with it so far!! I have the game leveled perfectly but I am having the issue described above. Its not related in any way to switches, its simply because the trough isn't angled enough for the balls to slide down into position when they drain. Sometimes its one ball, sometimes its two balls. They drain and just sort of sit there and don't roll down. Anyone experience this? I am going to lift the playfield later today/tonight and look at adding some washers or something between some of the screws and the playfield to create a slightly steeper angle and see if that helps.

One other thing to throw out there. The audio coming out of the right speaker is intermittently scratchy / static. Anyone experience any audio issues like this before?

I was getting frequent ball hang-ups behind the upper flipper. Some minor bending of the ramp extension wire form has resolved that permanently. Still getting rejects on well shot Donny orbit shots. That right gate just can’t open fast enough and the ball bounces back into the pop bumper area.

Lets talk about the right gate assembly and its function. It has been recorded by a few owners that this gate can get hung up. Pretty much right out of the box last week the gate exhibited issues of not being able to open fast enough on well placed shots up the Donny orbit shot. I took apart the assembly twice now to see if I could figure it out.

As others have mentioned, there can be a clearance issue of the spring's position within the hole causing it to drag on the edge of the hole. This was also the case in mine. At first I bent the arm on the gate assembly itself to alter the position of the spring within the hole. That seemed to help but I could still feel drag on the spring. It was not suspended cleanly in the hole.

To finally solve the issue I ended up doing 2 things.

1. Shorten the spring by about 1/8" and create a new loop on the cut end so the spring didn't have so much play.
2. By using the screw closest to the subway under the playfield as the pivot-point, I rotated the assembly about 1/4" clockwise and tapped a new screw hole for the 2nd of the two mounting points. This allows for the gate assembly to float at the dead-center of the hole in the playfield.

In doing so the drag issue has been 100% resolved however sometimes during games the gate doesn't open but I think I have finally understood the intent of that gate and the logic behind it.

If the intent was for the Donny shot to always orbit then that gate wouldn't even be necessary so why is it there? Perhaps this is common knowledge of the ruleset but I thought I would write it down for anyone who might be struggling with this same issue.

The gate only lifts - thereby allowing the ball to orbit - while you are qualifying (lighting the DONNY lights) Donny Character. Once you have qualified Donny and prior to starting Character multiball, and still hit the Donny shot, the gate does not open and drops the ball into the pop bumpers. Also, the gate will open during other modes where you have to hit the orbits but otherwise, the game wont let you orbit from the left side.

This worked by the way. I added a washer between the playfield and ball trough on the two mounting points/screws closest to the shooter lane. Problem went away instantly.

I never had a switch issue. It was a gravity and physics issue. By altering the angle slightly with the washer the issue went away.

What pitch do you have the game at?

Two weeks into ownership and this popped up for me. Thankful for those who have ventured this path before me. I used this technique and it got rid of the issue. Will report back if it ever comes back.

I am still struggling with that right gate at the top. It just doesn't open fast enough for the majority of shots to make the orbit from the right flipper up the left side. my spring is tight, the mech is not dragging on the playfield hole, the coil and all parts are tightly fastened, etc.

I don't know how else it would be improved unless the roll over switch in the Donny lane was moved further down so the ball had to travel further up and around to give that gate more time to open.

Not sure if this is something that can be addressed in code? Is there a value for time delay between switch hit on that roll over switch and the gate opening? It needs to be instantaneous.

Can you explain the logic for the location of this rubber pad? It seems to be mounted above where the ball makes contact and bounces back down the ramp so I can’t figure out how this would help, wouldnt you want it lower in line where the ball makes contact?

I’d like to do something on my game to reduce jesus ramp rejects but only want to take that upper playfield off Once if I ever attempt it!

I think it’s just vibration in the speaker panel / head. I tightened every screw I could find and messed with positioning a bit. Been fine for awhile now. I don’t keep my volume too high maybe 11-12?

My car was getting really loose so I took apart enough of the top of the upper playfield to spin the car backwards. Only one screw can be reached without taking off the entire upper playfield (or messing with that motor shaft connector everyone has suggested avoiding) I tightened the visible screw, the car is right now, time will tell if this holds up.

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Anyone ever see this on power up? This shows up on my game and it takes about 2 minutes on this screen and then goes to normal boot. This is a new one for me...

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Yup, this was super helpful, I had that issue as well about 1 month after the game was out of the box. I followed these instructions and the issue went away and has never returned.

I will say that it was totally straightforward as to whether some of the commands were "taking" in the system. I got confused about what I was seeing on screen but admittedly I am not in IT and not a computer expert by any means so it might have just been my ignorance of how to interact with computer programs like this but in any case it worked. It seems like this is something that could very easily be resolved with a software update to the game.

This game does have several locations where the ball strikes the hard edge of metal rails and things (think near the ramps where the skinny standup targets are). The game would have benefitted from a little more thoughtfulness on design to eliminate these hard edges as they damage the ball immediately and in some cases, severely.

The game would feel and sound less "clunky" if that subway was molded plastic like the subways of Twilight Zone and other games of that nature. There's just a smoothness to it.

Thanks for the mylar tip!

The game is set from factory to 25 hits to initiate the mode. Do yourself a favor and go into setting and reduce that dramatically.

it looks like PinballLife now sells just the metal backplate. could make for an easy retrofit if you don't want to wait around anymore for Barry to send out replacements.

My first thought as well is what is the slope of your playfield? Mine is at 6.8 and I have NEVER had that issue. Could also do some switch adjustments to pull the wire form of the rollover further down so the ball doesn’t have so much to overcome as it travels.

So after all the random issues that some of these games have as each one is hand built and unique I find it more and more obnoxious how the most recent and current flippers are using the list of “improved parts” for the newer machines as some sort of sales pitch advantage as though it makes the game worth more.