are pinstadium lights removable?

He paid full price and not one of his dollars was broken.

uggh....as much as I've tried to join that club....drained every related thread...don't do it...

Yup, and then toss them in the trash where they belong!

haha. I guess I will try my Alien without them. They came installed from previous owner. Glad someone asked about this, dont want to miss out on what the Alien experience should be.

you must choose... but choose wisely.

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I'm sure there are plenty of games where Pinstadium looks great. I've heard they are adjustable, so maybe if you dimmed them a bit, and put on a blue or red hue...maybe. But the last thing the Alien pinball machine needs is blinding bright lights. It's supposed to have a dark atmosphere.

...imho.

Not sure why this post as downvoted.. but thanks for the information

Thx guys, I appreciate the advice

the problem of the pinstadium is that it ruins all the effects of the pinball light.

so yes we can see better to play, but it spoils the immersion in light, and the scenery lit up over it I do not find it pretty.

on other pinball why not, but on alien it breaks the atmosphere.

I put my self-made pinstadiums in, but I don't dare to post pictures as I know how you think about it I am looking ways to hook it up with GI though, as it is on now all the time.

Agreed. The darkness in Aliens as as much as a part of the theme, and the atmosphere, as the callouts and set pieces (sentry guns, etc). Pinstadium on a pin like that misses the point completely.

I should say however that I'm not a fan generally of straying too far from the original intent of the designers. I also don't feel the need to play my pins in total darkness, relying on the pin to be completely illuminated. I just switch an ambient light on and save myself $$$$ ?

The lit inner side blades is the answer. It provides a little more light and nails what the original design was going for. Pinstadium look great on certain machines.... Not alien. They also create some pretty bad pin stripes on the sides due to the reflection of metal

Well, here are the pics, you can lynch away These are "homemade stadium lights", not the real pinstadiums.
(The other pic stadium lights on and the other lights off)

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1 vote no on the fake_stadiums. Benefit of Pinstadiums is they can be dimmed or even individually controlled. Yours are too bright at 100%, but it is your machine and whatever makes you happy is the right choice.

The picture distorts, I do not believe the brightness is at 100 % currently and the color is on the blue-side. I can dim mine with the phone app and also choose the color (its RGB-leds). But I would want to hook them up with GI, so that they would turn off when the GI turns off - that is something I do not know how to do yet. Some use of relays would be needed apparently.

Has anyone just tried adding a couple of spotlights to Alien?

When I've done that to any game it makes a huge difference, and might be all Alien needs.

Agreed. A couple of super brights in the right spot and we will be golden.

If only they had designed the slingshot GI properly. I gotta call this out as dumb. I mean, I know a little bit about lights, and I'm pretty sure they are designed to be used without a metal barrier shutting off 70% of their output!

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Yeah maybe couple spots would do the trick! I did this with my woz and it looks great.

There are also illuminated starposts out in the shops .... replace the 2 lower starposts from the slings and swap with warm white illuminated ones .. thats what I am planning ... or just 2 pinball spots on the apron like on some Stern machines.
The stadium lights are too bright for me ... dark is the atmosphere in the movies ..... but I would like to see the ball in the lowerpart ...

They have now..

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Plus backboard GI. Details in the owners’ thread.

Huge improvement IMO. So silly that wasn't done after the takeover.

See...different strokes, I think that's too much light. Ruins the atmosphere of the game...plus I don't play in total darkness.

Here’s what just the spots look like. I have set it up so the backboard can be turned off easily.

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Nice!!!

What takeover? Wasn't that a shell company to dump whatever parts they had leftover

No, more like a phoenix company setup to protect the important parts if the dying company didn't make the turn before it hit the wall.

I removed the post below the upper right flipper - makes it easier to hit the chestbuster and vent shots.

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I don't personally recommend that, it's there to protect the tip of the flipper from direct ball strikes and stop the flipper being knocked out of angle alignment.

A really bad idea.
Thers a similar construction at the F-14 on the right upper playfield, often you directly hit the peak of the flipper, the rubber rips off!
Replace the post again!

In a HUO environment.. so you replace the flipper rubber or bushing every so often. doesn't seem like a big deal to me if you like the shot better without the post.

Agree with this. Game plays better and it is easier to hit chestburster with post removed. May need to adjust upper right flipper (1/16 inch towards ball guide) too.

where are your instructions? would love to add some spots and some GI without risk of causing board issue

So what is the consensus on those last Alien machines that were shipped? Are they working/reliable?

From my observation it seems that they are, which makes it a bigger shame that they pulled the plug on everything.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/get-away-from-her-you-bitch-alien-club-all-members-expendable/page/7#post-4515208

do you have the side art lit up on your game? I cannot stress more that if you don't have the sides lit, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. The effect is literally perfect amount of light that it provides and is the reason why the designers did the PF lighting this way.

Mine originally did not have it and after I installed it - the difference was night and day. I tried spots, pinstadiums - this just nails it.

As a developer who took a game as a component of my remuneration I am simultaneously thrilled to have an Alien pin, sad that buyers got stiffed and frustrated that more pinball players will not get a chance to get their hands on one.

I got a pro and I've upgraded it with beacons and a shaker so I could test the results of using them with light shows, SFX and video together.

In all honesty I have had difficulties keeping the Xeno jaw working. Pushed to its open position it is purely cosmetic but I am going to install a better servo (the $7 one instead of the $5 one) now that I know how to do it (it is a bit tricky).

Otherwise everything works.

I'm going to replace the factory supplied tall yellow beacons with short, green, motor-less beacons. I know it is out of metaphor but green just seems to go with everything else.

It is beyond frustrating to have delivered something to be proud of and to be torpedoed by things out of our control. Next year I will make sure that it shows up at the NWPAS in the spirit of sharing.

ddt

You are a class act, thank you for being part of the community. I'm still hopefull that someday a legitimate manufacturer will pickup the IP and more people will be able enjoy the fine work you and the development team put into this.

So far the game has been working and reliable, but not a lot of games on it yet so too soon to know long term.

i need to light my inside side panels. i saw a pinsider did it with e wire tape. just very pricey

Just a word of caution to anyone installing a PF protector or otherwise dismantling the PF. The plastics are very brittle. I have installed now 2 plastics back and managed to broke both in the process. One cannot tighten the screws much, otherwise its byebye plastic.

I've seen a lot of your posts and just can't even imagine why anyone would want to install a playfield protector on this game...any game really, but particularly this game. Anything that needs to be protected can be protected by Cliffy's or Mylar. I Cliffy'd the eject hole and the magnet. I mylar'd the pop bumpers and the playfield screen (that one is actually questionable). That's all you will ever need (If you take care of the game). No amount of play will wear out the playfield if it's properly cleaned & waxed from time to time and you change out worn pinballs when needed.

It should look pristine 20-30 years down the road even with regular play. Playfields that got worn out were ones that never got regular maintenance.

What do you do when the protector gets worn out?...that will be fun.

I had some wear happen on other game and decided to put a PF protector on this one to protect it.

I'm not sure if all the late model ones were too, and what the build date was on your game, but all the earlier games had acrylic instead of PETG plastics ... so ball strikes or anything other than extremely careful tightening and untightening of screws broke them. It sounds like you have them.

I did not find the build date, but the playfield had been checked on 19 February 2018. It is a later model, but maybe for some reason acrylic plastics had found their way in my game (?) - they are prone to break if one overtightens a screw even just a bit.

I haven't heard of anything other than acrylic for the plastics.

No wiser words spoken as of late.....the acrylic is incredibly brittle, and the complexity of some of the assemblies are going to cause breakage if you take them apart...period. Then, you have little pieces of glass floating around your playfield (ask me how I know....fortunately, I was able to vacuum all the debris).

We will hope for petg on the way, as the slings will never survive.....

Speaking of PETG, does anyone make a plastic protector set for Alien? I haven't seen one, so just double checking.

Also, if you were to add some PETG fender washers, what size would be best? I was guessing 3/4" but maybe some different sizes would be applicable to different spots?