Quoted from timlah79:

Just got my TBL this week and of course I have some questions about the code. Hopefully this is the right topic to post in. I'm on the latest 0.55 version.
1) Balls getting stuck/ball finder not releasing them: Every so often the ball won't surface out onto the parking lot when shot through the Jesus lane. The ball finder feature never pops it out. However if I power off and back on it will get popped out.
Additionally the ball will sometimes get stuck behind the lot's flipper. For the latter I can usually get it out by flipping it and nudging the machine. However if the game disables that flipper at the same time then I have to remove the glass and grab it. The finder feature doesn't flip that flipper.
2) On 0.55 (not sure if it's different on earlier versions), the callout "Let's go bowling" from mode ready repeats again when you get into the mode. It's kinda annoying. It seems there should be a different callout to mix it up a little.
Anyone know if either of these behaviors are ntentional or maybe will get fixed/improved in a later version?

Quoted from Rensh:

For those having issues with rejected jesus shots I did a trial.
I removed the part which guides it a little more to the VUK. In this way I increased the gap in which the ball drops and decreases the chance of a bounce. That’s my theory at least. Now my TBL doesn’t have the Jesus lane reject issue but could test if the ball doesn’t reach the VUK if you remove this part. Rarely this happened and when it did a slight nudge would bring the ball to the VUK.
This just for try out purposes. When you do make sure the screw holes are polished and flat.
Oh, and I also got the feeling the balls stay longer shiny. This as a bonus.
[quoted image][quoted image]

Quoted from timlah79:

Regardless of everything I've pinpointed above, in the end a) the PCB needs to be replaced in full and b) someone needs to provide a solution to keep a new one from failing due to pressure or contact. I am still waiting for DP to ship the PCB I asked for multiple days ago.
I can hook everything up as in the the attached photo with the MPF laid down. It's not the connector. It's the inner workings of the PCB that for some reason are incredibly sensitive to "bending." I can hold the connector in place then just ever so slightly push on the areas I've arrowed and the switch stops registering. Do some lifting and it registers again.
[quoted image]

Quoted from timlah79:

I reluctantly but carefully resoldered the switch connector's 3 solder points just now. I thought Id seen improvement all the way through testing as I again pieced everything back together. But nope. Back to square one as soon as everything was back in place. I even ensured this time that the wires weren't getting pinched upon remount of the MPF. I can now only get the switch to trigger by reaching under and pushing/pulling just like before. But even when I get it registering, if I lightly knock on the MPF it goes out again. The connector is not coming loose, it is something sensitive with the board.. I'm at a loss until DP finally sends a new PCB and harnesses. I can't take this thing off and on anymore.
Here's a pic of the solder joints if it helps. Nothing looks wrong to me. This is just before I applied new solder to the top problem switch connector. If you think you see a gap anywhere, I've already filled it since.[quoted image]

Quoted from timlah79:

Alright I've almost got the smoking gun I think. But how do I fix / jump this without ruining the board? Can I literally solder a wire on the bottom at points 1 and 2 to "connect" them? Please reference attached photos with numbering.
1 = The problem pin. There is continuity from the pin itself to its solder joint on the underside.
The issue: **From 1 to 2 there is NO continuity** but there should be. I've traced the whole intended path from top to bottom.
The rest of the way down to the underside solder of the connector pin has continuity. Meaning 2 to 3, 3 to 4 both have continuity.
There are only two active pins on this connector, number 1 and the one in the middle. The one in the middle's entire traceline has continuity at each point so it is not an issue.
BOTTOM:
[quoted image]
TOP:
[quoted image]

Quoted from lagoontrap:

Hi all
My TBL is causing me an ulcer. It's a lemon. Has never played without issues. Installed code .55 and it seemed to improve a bit for a while. Remaining problems:
- After booting, the test report says "3 issues". I push the test button in the door to see what the issues are, but the test button itself does not respond. So it's impossible to see what the issues are. After turning off the game again and rebooting, it reports 1 issue: Stuck Rug mode switch. I clear the switch, then it works again. This kind of problem is not reproducable, it just seems to happen randomly.
- After a normal ball drain, the game randomly goes into ball search mode, doesn't find the ball and stops giving balls.
- The game seems to have mechanical issues putting a ball into the shooter lane. It hardly ever works at the first try so the coil plunger keeps repeatedly trying to kick a ball up and after a while it finally manages to do so. Sometimes it stops trying and the game freezes.
- Sometimes after a ball drain it just freezes up. I checked the ball trough plugs and optos, no issues reported there.
- It doesn't play all the song clips. Never heard "the man in me" by Bob Dylan for example. Yesterday I wanted to take a video of a 4 player game, 5 balls each, to demonstrate how it only plays the same 4 song clips over and over. I couldn't finish the video because the game froze up again mid play, no more ball kicked up into the shooter lane.
What could the issue be? Compromised motherboard? I'm not a computer tech and am more familiar with vintage games.
Thanks for any help
Kaspar

Quoted from timlah79:

Rensh I'm sorry but I have to disagree. From all I've troubleshot, the wires + the metal part can create this ball stuck issue and likely the rejects issue as well. It's not one or the other. There is no extra length in the wires to put them in any other position, so they will *always* obstruct the ball path. Mine are already as close to the bottom of the MPF as possible. Removal of the metal piece just reduces the chance that the ball will get stuck when the wires are in play because doing so gives more room for the ball to drop. IMO, this is clearly a design problem. The MPF PCB wires both shown in my pics and yours lead in front of that metal square piece on the MPF (which is the stepper motor I assume?). This leaves them not only as a potential catch for the ball in the Jesus lane but also they get smashed against the main PF metal parts, causing crimping, indents in the rubber of them, and stress on the MPF PCB connectors (which I now believe is a likely cause of the break in the PCB trace I had initially, right where the pins connect to it). No matter what, they also get hit by the ball anytime you make the Jesus lane. Why are the wires not longer and lead behind all of these parts, perhaps through some wooden recess in the rear of the MPF in order to prevent all of the resulting issues their current placement causes?

Quoted from timlah79:

Thank you for your continued help, TomDK , Rensh and cpr9999 .

I have now requested a technician specially because I can't even lift the playfield anymore (EDIT- Not reliably but was able to finally get it to lock today). I've asked my dealer to schedule an appointment with someone soon after I receive the parts from DP. I believe the visit will be covered. A new machine doesn't appear to be a viable option. I'm told I would have to wait at the back of the pre-order line if I went that route and it took me almost 1.5 years since pre-ordering to receive the one I have. So I'm very apprehensive to do so.

I've consulted the FAQ but like I mentioned in test I see the coil pin moving up and down freely with or without the ball and always dropping to the same position. It is not rubbing or getting caught on the playfield whatsoever. I will also say that the coil pin has quite an amount of "give" though. It doesn't always go up in a perfectly straight direction but also I *never* see it get stuck or rubbing the PF. Also bending the bracket doesn't help.
EDIT: I was able to get the playfield up thankfully and took a closer look in test. I can get the issue to occur in test now. After close inspection to pictures in the FAQ vs my alley, it appears that the real cause is the level at which the bowling arm is mounted. It's mounted too low or has somehow "sunken" since I got the game. I can clearly tell that the plastic of the arm is below the threshold of the alley's circular cutout. Therefore, regardless if the coil pin is all the way down, the ball will rest within that circular cutout. I must have been getting lucky while it was working before, maybe the pin was going down just ever so low enough to encourage/lift the ball out of the hole. Maybe now it goes too far down. The stepper motor/arm bracket is tight and not sinking at all BTW.
How do I adjust the height of the arm plastic? I see mention of using a 2.5mm alan wrench to adjust the arm's inner screw but no matter what size I tried I could not get in there to loosen it. I also don't know if that screw will even allow the plastic to be lifted up/down at all or if it only allows L/R adjustment.
Here's a new video from a different angle:

Thank you for confirming the wiring is correct. As I mentioned in my post, I already tried manually making the flipper fail in this manner. It does not. ONLY when the ball is ejected from the scoop. If I hold the R flipper as the ball ejects, the hold is lost. During the loss of hold power I can manually move the flipper up and down with ease as I hold the flipper button. Release and press the button again and the flipper is back to life without any hold issue. Also only the right flipper has the issue. I can eject the ball from the scoop, hold the left flipper and try to push it down and it holds just fine. Also as I mentioned I have completely swapped the L&R coils, aka the L coil is now on the R flipper and the issue persists. So if it is something about the assembly, what else could it be besides the coil? I've already ruled out the coils themselves by swapping it out with the L one (specifically -- putting the L flipper's coil and coil stop on the R flipper and vice versa). I'm doubtful a new assembly is going to resolve the issue but I will try that when it arrives.
One other interesting thing I noticed is it seems like the strength setting for the scoop eject has no effect. I can put it all the way to the lowest or highest setting and to me the ball ejects at the same velocity. I'm mentioning this because back to my suspicion about voltage going to the scoop vs. the flipper when the issue occurs. I am apprehensive to use my multimeter with the machine on, especially with 48V enabled otherwise I may be able to get some readings. This will have to be done by the technician.
Rensh Can you please work with your technician to see about a possible voltage drop in this scoop eject vs. right flipper hold scenario? I wonder if this could be another PCB issue.
Here's an in depth, general all things flipper troubleshooting guide I found. Any of these issues ring a bell? https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jurassic-park-flipper-hold-issue#post-2150726
Thanks again for all your guys' help. I'm trying to remain as positive as possible it's just getting more difficult day to day.

Quoted from timlah79:

Thank you but ugh. It IS dropping deep enough. I already mentioned that and that the post itself when dropped to it's lowest position is not a factor. Also I mentioned that the overall pitch makes no difference. They key in my post is that, given the mold of the plastic arm, the ball HAS to be somewhat lifted once the button is pressed in order to get it into the position where it can drop from the rest of the arm. I thought my last reply and multiple videos made that clear. At this point I need someone to take a video of their working machine, during gameplay and test just as I did in those videos I posted. I don't see any other way to figure this out since DP support seems to have no clue either.
Again I'll copy and paste the details that I've tried and noted, just like I did with the flipper issue which is still an issue. I feel like people who are responding aren't actually reading carefully into each step I'm meticulously noting:
I have:
- Gone higher, lower, somewhere in between with the arm.
- Gone slightly forward, slightly backward with its bracket.
- Bent the release post coil bracket forward, backwards, somewhere in between.
- Watched the release post coil in test over and over again. I will say that it does have some forward/backward give in its arm itself (that should be normal right?) but again it always drops and raises to the same heights and never gets stuck on the PF.
- Tried every L/R position of the arm and its inconsistent. I can have it centered in test, ball slowly gets encouraged to drop, try again and it sticks. I will say that it most consistently fails when the arm is in a far L or R position though.
- Increased pitch, decreased pitch of the machine at every step.
- Tried all 6 balls in case it's a ball size issue.
- Wiped off the balls and the plastic arm to make sure there's no gunk or residue.
- Tested to make sure none of the balls are magnetized (perhaps getting stuck to the release post).

Quoted from timlah79:

Thank you but ugh. It IS dropping deep enough. I already mentioned that and that the post itself when dropped to it's lowest position is not a factor. Also I mentioned that the overall pitch makes no difference. They key in my post is that, given the mold of the plastic arm, the ball HAS to be somewhat lifted once the button is pressed in order to get it into the position where it can drop from the rest of the arm. I thought my last reply and multiple videos made that clear. At this point I need someone to take a video of their working machine, during gameplay and test just as I did in those videos I posted. I don't see any other way to figure this out since DP support seems to have no clue either.
Again I'll copy and paste the details that I've tried and noted, just like I did with the flipper issue which is still an issue. I feel like people who are responding aren't actually reading carefully into each step I'm meticulously noting:
I have:
- Gone higher, lower, somewhere in between with the arm.
- Gone slightly forward, slightly backward with its bracket.
- Bent the release post coil bracket forward, backwards, somewhere in between.
- Watched the release post coil in test over and over again. I will say that it does have some forward/backward give in its arm itself (that should be normal right?) but again it always drops and raises to the same heights and never gets stuck on the PF.
- Tried every L/R position of the arm and its inconsistent. I can have it centered in test, ball slowly gets encouraged to drop, try again and it sticks. I will say that it most consistently fails when the arm is in a far L or R position though.
- Increased pitch, decreased pitch of the machine at every step.
- Tried all 6 balls in case it's a ball size issue.
- Wiped off the balls and the plastic arm to make sure there's no gunk or residue.
- Tested to make sure none of the balls are magnetized (perhaps getting stuck to the release post).

Quoted from cpr9999:

Glad you are getting a tech to come.

I thought this too but in Rens picture above seems far away / but worth a check.

Quoted from timlah79:

Yes it appears that way and may be the case in certain parts of those videos but most of the time it's either stuck in the gap or literally nothing is holding it but the "up-angle" of the arm plastic.

Yes I believe so. If the pin/post is not supposed to go past the threshold of the PF hole, it most definitely is 100% of the time. And in that case, yes ball is stuck on the edge.

Yes this makes sense. In order to get the pin/post in the position describe, the coil bracket must be bent as far back (toward the back of the game) as possible. This I have tried to no avail. I've also tried as far as possible the other direction and somewhere in between without success.

See this photo (before I was able to get to the arm screw to change the height) where I had the arm bracket moved toward the back of the PF as much as possible and the coil bracket bent as far back as possible to decrease the gap. This was almost to the point where the arm circle was rubbing against the PF hole cutout. Issue persisted. (Disregard the "greasiness" on the plastic, that's from my fingers (or my tears LOL) and I have wiped down the plastic many times with a dry paper towel).
[quoted image]
Now here's a photo where I had the arm lifted up as high as possible giving plenty of clearance from the PF hole. It was so high that it wasn't triggering the switches so not a viable height anyway. In this scenario is when I noticed the ball literally getting stuck in the "up-slope" of the arm itself. It just doesn't have enough forward momentum when the pin/post drops to roll forward and clear that tiny slope in the arm plastic.
I think the arm needs to somehow be angled forward enough to a) not make that up-slope an issue but also b) not so angled that it creates a "wedged" area for the ball to get stuck on the PF hole. No clue how to accomplish that.
[quoted image]

Quoted from timlah79:

WINNER WINNER mac2444 deserves all the chicken dinners!!! Except the solution was the opposite (or more likely that I read his advice/direction wrong). I put one washer on each L & R arm/stepper motor bracket screw on the other side (away from the coil/release pin) and all of a sudden noticed more success with the ball dropping in test. This has tilted the arm enough forward to overcome the terrible design of it having to go up the upslope and over to get past the arm itself. However, if the arm was at it's furthest L or R position, the ball would still get stuck in the arm even with that single set of washers. So I then added a second washer on each side. Currently the ball is consistently dropping now, but still kind of struggles at the far L or R points (video below).
What I will say is that there's still an alignment problem. If you look closely in this video you'll see that the arm is "tilted" in that all the way Right, the gap b/t the arm plastic and PF hole closes up, then all the way to the Left it's more open. Also the arm sinks one position or the other. Regardless it is working now. Pics and videos showing the overall current positions and the washers I added to ultimately get things working:
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
In TEST:
In Gameplay:

Good eye cpr9999 . Yes I just recently noticed as well. The "hole" in the orange arm is chipped. That may have been part of the issue all along. After I get advice from the technician I have coming this weekend to assess, I will likely be requesting an entirely new assembly in this area for the sake of everything holding up in the long run. I am still beyond clueless how this started out of nowhere.

Quoted from Mundy53:

I got my Lebowski from Cointaker on Friday. My left flipper also sticks. It will get stuck in the up position from time to time, but when it doesn’t get stuck, it still returns back to neutral position slower than the right flipper. It feels like there is binding on the mechanism that isn’t there on the right flipper mech when I go under the playfield and manually actuate it. I’m not sure if it’s the same problem mark1971 is having since it’s the same batch of games. 2 minor issues I’m having that I’m wondering if anyone else has seen. Game is level, but every 20 ball launches or so it will get stuck to the left and need a nudge to launch it. The cream target gets caught up on the white post and registers as a stuck switch. I don’t see any way to adjust the target slightly over to the right.
Overall I’m very happy with the game and I think there are always going to be little hick ups shipping something this complicated across half the globe.
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]

Quoted from Mundy53:

I rebuilt the left flipper mech and it seems to have fixed the problem. I’ll have to put some more games on it to be really sure. It seems like they are WBC fliptronic which I think is a great system.
Looks like the targets are riveted, I’ll mess with that another day.
I’m just going to start with a rubber ring on the post and see if that solves it.
I’m going on a business trip and won’t see the game again until next weekend.

Quoted from KSP1138:

Can someone confirm that the RGB Only Test under LED tests has red and green reversed? Selecting red lights up the various arrows as green and selecting green lights them up as red. Blue is correct. This is on the latest .57 code.[quoted image]

Quoted from per3per3:

Rensh - Can you confirm with the bowling launcher should start rotating before a ball is fed into it? I believe that it should not, and I need help diagnosing why it would be doing this so I can fix it? When the launcher stays centered and doesn't move until the ball is fed into it, the feed works perfectly. But when the launcher starts moving directly after I select the ball I want to bowl for, that's when the ball doesn't feed properly into the launcher. The feed can't happen correctly when the ball is being fed into a moving target

Quoted from flynnibus:

Anyone have a solution to this problem? Besides trying to heat the ramp up and reshape it? The ramp is literally too tight for the ball to go through. Seems like the contact area is too far up the ramp to just dremmel out the last bit...
[quoted image]
[quoted image]

Quoted from paulbaptiste:

for mine it’s appears to be just the width of the mold. A fast ball will squeeze through, a slow ball will get stuck every time.

Quoted from ThePlumber:

Hello and Good Day Everyone
I received my NIB TBL roughly two weeks ago and here are the issues I am encountering.
1) Subwoofer works for short period and then shuts down, both of the upper speakers work just fine all the time.
2) When hitting the rug with the right flipper, it never actuates the rug, only the left flipper (Angle of the dangle?)
3) I have one error code of "(Light) Lock Target (stuck closed)"
Thanks for your insight on this one, look forward to hearing back

Quoted from ThePinballCo-op:

To be more accurate, the middle prong of each three prong switch connector showed continuity with one of the lugs on every single light on the board.

Quoted from insight75:

Just got the following error... "Coin Door (21 games unused)". Any ideas?

Quoted from Spelunk71:

Thanks for the explanation and detailed instructions of your fix. It does sound like that’s my issue. Unfortunately, getting the bushing in there sounds pretty time-consuming. If my ghetto fix fails at some point, I will go that route next.
Now if anyone has ideas of how to stop my Jesus ramp from rejecting balls on hard shots I’d be grateful. I tried adding dead drop foam and bending the bracket slightly, but those things didn’t help (foam made it worse).

Quoted from NC_Pin:

Both of my rails came dented from the backbox. Is there an easier way to remove the rails than to stand over them for 2 hours with a hair drier? I didn’t realize that they were glued in… but after nearly 30 minutes with a hair drier I realize that they are REALLY glued in.

Quoted from per3per3:

Any chance you snapped a pic of that wedge installed in your machine? Would be helpful to see what you did.
If not, could you possible circle on the pic Rens provided to indicate where you installed it?
Thanks!

Quoted from timlah79:

Rensh Is DP offering better quality bowling alley pins which are protected against breakage? 3 of 10 of mine broke apart today (yet again). As you well know it's difficult to replace them since doing so requires dismantling the entire bowling alley assembly. So I'm asking you first before I go trying to epoxy them back together, reassembling, and hoping for the best. I'm not trying to do the aforementioned "workaround" about protecting the arms from breaking the pins. Please advise, thanks.

Quoted from timlah79:

I just received what I thought was the right size vinyl tubing but I can barely get it onto the posts. The service FAQ says 5/6" inner diameter. So I bought this vinyl tubing. 5/16 Inner - 7/16 Outer, Clear: amazon.com link »
Is this the right inner and outer diameter tubing? Any links to the correct product would help as this just seems wrong.
Rensh Also before putting all of the rails and such back together, how can one test each rail, physically to ensure that this workaround is actually going to prevent breakage in the future? The FAQ doesn't cover how to do so until after you've reassembled the entire thing and go into the software test mode. I'd like to know the expected behavior of each pin's backward motion before I reassemble everything.

Quoted from timlah79:

I just received what I thought was the right size vinyl tubing but I can barely get it onto the posts. The service FAQ says 5/6" inner diameter. So I bought this vinyl tubing. 5/16 Inner - 7/16 Outer, Clear: amazon.com link »
Is this the right inner and outer diameter tubing? Any links to the correct product would help as this just seems wrong.
Rensh Also before putting all of the rails and such back together, how can one test each rail, physically to ensure that this workaround is actually going to prevent breakage in the future? The FAQ doesn't cover how to do so until after you've reassembled the entire thing and go into the software test mode. I'd like to know the expected behavior of each pin's backward motion before I reassemble everything.

Quoted from justyn:

Actually - mine are usually airballs from the playfield. I haven't had anything skip out of the wireform. Thinking something like this might work by simply preventing a landing spot.
https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1080-the-mod-couple/01619-the-big-lebowski-got-balls-mod-not-for-use-on-shomer-shabos

Quoted from ezatnova:

How did you stick yours on? I’ve tried hot glue and had them come off about 10-20 times so I gave up. Doing something super permanent worried me that if the balls did get damaged or come off that it would ruin the chrome plastic bowling ball rest thing

Quoted from Auror:

Thanks PinMonk! I tried weather stripping and sound dampening foam this morning and unfortunately I’m still have the same issue. I’m trying it on the playfield side now but struggling to get the foam low enough so the ball doesn’t hit it rolling over it but high enough so that on the bounce back the ball hits the foam and not the top edge of the playfield as the ball is really bouncing back very high on the edge of the playfield after heading the back metal wall.
Do you think it makes sense to add some mylar over the area that is pealing on the bowling Alley playfield?
[quoted image]

Quoted from timlah79:

My bowling ball arm aka referred to as the bowling ball launcher has run into another new issue. When the arm rotates to the left it jitters over and over again before it then turns back to the right side. Turning right all the way has no issue. This jittering only happens when the arm hits its far left. I can see that the cause might be that it's hitting the top of the "release pin" when it turns left. I did try bending the release pin assembly back a bit but that hasn't helped at all. This issue started happening out of nowhere, aka I've made no adjustments that could have introduced the issue.
I don't see any solution or description of this issue in the DP FAQ. Can anyone help me understand what is causing this?

Quoted from timlah79:

Same issue occurs in any test. I see both switches register as expected aka I think switches are working just fine. If the switch wasn't working, I'd assume the arm would never return right. Again I've determined that it only jitters when the arm contacts the launch pin.

Quoted from timlah79:

Forgive my ignorance but what exactly do you mean by "change the limit on that switch"?

Quoted from Flaverflav:

Hi Guys,
Has anyone had any issues with the plastic on their pinball machine? Here is the state of mine after only a few games. I left the factory settings and my inclination is good. This is the first time I have seen such rapid wear. It's a shame because I love this machine and the whole is very qualitative.
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]

Quoted from ezatnova:

One bug and one question
- found a bug last night that I’m shocked I haven’t found before. In Bowling Game Mode (not normal game mode where you go bowling), if you choose a profile while ball 1 in frame 1 is loaded, it will auto fire the ball down the bowling alley when you select your profile. The button is acting like your profile selection AND fire for your first shot.
- question about the bowling alley ball loading process. For the first time, last night my machine was multi firing the solenoid to load the ball up into the orange bowling ball shooter. It would always eventually get there but sometimes it would take 2-5 fires of the solenoid to get there. Does that make sense that it isn’t broken (ie not the case that the ball won’t load altogether) but is now struggling to load?