Sorry, we have great power so I don't need to use these, but I would just add up the power requirements of what you intend to plug into it if all of them were on at once and use that as your guide. Probably one of these per each 3-4 pins if your plugs are on a 15amp circuit. It would definitely solve your low power issue during the day and overvoltage at night.

One tip, though. Make sure the plug is 5-15 and not the 5-20 because the 20amp plugs are usually safety plugs that will not plug into a "normal" 2 prong+ground outlet as they have one of the blades turned sideways on purpose.

Looks like an LC1200 or a LS604WM are the best choices from what's up there for 120v 4 outlet with a standard plug.

I never gave it much thought until reading this thread. How would I test to see if I need one?

I bought a plug in voltmeter that plugs into the AC outlet so I can visually see the power change from a distance.

I have an APC BR 1300 VA.

The problem is that uses up the battery fairly rapidly when the power is low so you only get a few hours and then you're on bypass.

Will the ls 1200 line conditioner be a better choice as far as how long it will regulate voltage.

I just ordered two of the tripp LC1200 off Amazon I'll report back with my findings.

$94 free 2 day shipping

I just took apaprt my catapult and gave this a shot. It didn't make any difference and still shoots to the far left when the coil strength is turned up enough to make it the distance of the trunk. If I turn it down (and it short shoots the ball), it's straight as an arrow.

Brian

I can see the "Now Hiring" sign in the window too!

With the coil at 27, mine makes the trunk most of the time. But it can go on a streak of wide left shots, like 4 or 5 in a row. Then I test it and it works fine. I am trying it at 26 now. 25 is too weak to make it.

I have never seen my catapult even come close to missing left or right, if it misses the throw was long or short. Are you sure the ball is always sitting all the way down in the cup of the catapult arm, this is the only thing I can even think of that would make it miss left or right unless there is a ton of play in the mech.

How do the owners who have had Houdini for a while like it? I see reviews all over the place. I have one coming but am curious.

Did the behavior of the captive ball change after your fix? When does it show up for you? Mine raises during the milkcan escape, but i dont see it much overall. Not sure what it is supposed to do in the game.

My kids love it and were mad when it left to go on route. It's currently one of the top earners at the route I help on. People have been coming back to it since we put it out in Feb. I like it a lot, too. Very fun game that is not hard, you just have to pay attention to the game to progress. There are only 2 shots in the whole game that are legitimately difficult, but they can be made more consistently with practice.

Have game #39 since January ... Great game always a fun challenge to play! Very solid build, with spectacular art and a great support system from AP!
Win .. Win ... Buy with confidence!

Totally agree, people writing this game off I think made their decisions way to quickly, it's a blast!

Awesome to hear the positive feedback! I liked it a lot for the little bit that I played it and I like to have diversity in my collection.

Before everone strats messing with catapult start at zero....
All leg levelers all the way up!
Sorry, thought i should say it out loud again.
Joe B"s design.

Well what you Meant is all leg levelers up if you have a level floor! lol

The same people wrote off WOZ a code version 1.8. Now WOZ version 6.61 is amazing, polished, fascinating etc.

I can only see incredible things for Houdini down the road.

Keep up the great work Josh, Joe, Barry and team !

Constant attentian to excellence is the key to success.

Absolutely.

LTG : )

When mine was going left. It was actually going right, hitting the ramp and then deflected to the left. I took apart and cleaned. then lowered the strength to just barely make it. Now it is fine.

I waiting for the sparepart... There was a little confusion with my Distri, AP and me.
So I hope the sparepart is on the way to me - takes about 2-3 weeks to germany.
I don't know exactly how the mechanism works, cause i only played 3 games on my Houdini. I hope vitrland, Barry or rosh can answer that.
But I will report when i received the part and it works.

Mine did this out of the box. But, again, only when the coil strength is turned up because the shot doesn't make it to the trunk. And that only happens when multiple games are turned on. I have a friend that has a game that does the exact same thing, but his goes to the right when turned up.

My levelers are all the way down and wall voltage is pretty consistent.

I've played it for a week at home. I love the features such as return from the dead, where you save a drained ball. I like the orbit, ramp, catapult shots, stage mech and the toys and art very much. The "limited animation" video is not sophisticated, but it fits the era of the theme (early 1920s). The main concern before I bought it was that it would be too hard to be fun. I am a moderately poor player who doesn't use dead flips and flipper passes and slap saves, etc. So I set the game up with 5 balls and easy goals and I am having 15-20 minute games, scoring 500,000 to 2 million, and getting at least 2 Houdini letters and extra balls per game, a couple of games I got 5 letters. So it is well within my limited skill range and a lot of fun. Also, my aim and ball control moves are improving. So I will probably set the game to be harder in a month or two (shorter ball saves, harder extra balls, etc.).

I was told to fill out a request on the website to get something sent to me for the voltage drop issue. That was weeks ago and I never heard back from them. Has anyone got it yet, or received conformation of the request?

Are you having voltage drop at the wall outlet?

I ordered the Tripp Lite LC 1200 line conditioners.

All of the research and discussion points to that direction.

All of my pins are suffering this summer and running like crap when the wall voltage drops.

Do report how that works for you. There are a number of pinsiders suffering the same issues you've been having. A report "from the field" of a line conditioner in operation will be valuable.

deputy-badge-pinside (resized).jpg

I had that problem but cleaning the catapult didn't make a bit of difference...after a closer look I found that the ball was glancing off the left most edge of the clear ramp sending the ball to the left corner missing the trunk.

I'll take a look at that. What did you do to fix it?

Thanks for the info!!

This game is one the most beautiful games I have ever seen!

I agree 100% with this statement. Really took the overall art and theme integration to the next level.

Look down at your catapult and make sure it is properly aligned and centered, if not, try loosening the screws for the catapult and shifting it to be better aligned.

I posted the same thing above. It was going off the ramp then deflecting left. I turned it down until it would barely make the shot after cleaning everything and that seems to have fixed it for now. If multiple games are on it will come up short sometimes though.

I was playing Houdini and then this happened....

IMG_0927 (resized).JPG

I've had a Furman line conditioner on my Houdini since day 1. I've also had catapult issues, and the line conditioner did not seem to affect the the issues one way or another. Playing with the level of the front legs seemed to help and try the idea of cleaning the fulcrum and possibly re-centering the catapult if necessary.

It won't help issues that are unrelated to power, but if you get it working correctly first and then it doesn't work right when the outlet power is low (or high) then a line conditioner should help. Also, which model Furman is it? Many of theirs have power conditioning (clean noise, shut down on overvoltage, etc), but do not have voltage regulation.

wow, even I did not know about that Easter egg, I must have coded that in after a lot of tequila and forgotten about it.

I'm looking for line conditioning mostly so that I don't have to adjust my settings every time I go to play Pinball during the summer. My power seems to be random as far as whether it's 115 volts or 121 volts. It makes gaming interesting, but I'm looking for more consistency.

I think the LC1200 you ordered will fix up the power for a machine or two nicely.

Well drat! Good to know. I just assumed it regulated voltage as well. I have the PL-8 Series 2. Thanks for the info.

What kind of symptoms are you having? My Iron Maiden music seems to fluctuate but the callouts and game related sounds are fine. I wonder if it could be having these issues from voltage problems.

At 120 volts everything all of my games run flawlessly, powerful, slings are fast and crisp and balls easily go up the ramps. Basically the games played great as they have been tweaked and tuned to play so.

At 115 volts without altering any of the game settings. Balls do not go up the ramps flippers seem weak, slings are so anemic that the balls just go straight down the middle, pop bumpers are a joke.

It is the same whether I have only one game running or all of my games running at the same time.

I'm on a 20 amp circuit dedicated with only four games and a Vendo 44 Coke machine.

Other than changing all of my settings every time I go to play a game, I would rather stabilize the power and enjoy my years of carefully adjusted settings.

This is not isolated to just one game, it is all of my games, from JJP hobbit to theatre of magic.

Some games are more sensitive to power fluctuations than others. I'm hoping to stabilize my power so that when I setup my Houdini I won't have to change settings very often or ever.

I hope so. I had a barbeque pinball party last weekend at 115 volts and it was a joke but I change my settings on flippers and we got some decent play out of them. At 9 p.m. the voltage was back up to 121 volts and balls were flying off the wire forms so I had to set them back down again.

Reno Nevada is not the most stable power area. We have daily power outages but only for a few seconds so it's mandatory to have computers on battery backups and so forth. I'm an expert at resetting the clock on my stove and microwave.

If I was faced with that, I'd be on a whole house generator/line conditioner. Total crap. Why isn't everyone on solar there?

I have had my Houdini for over 4 months. It is my new favorite. Very challenging. Milk can shot hard but with more practice I am making it intentionally. After a few issues it is now working great with consistency.

The Nevada government Chased all solar out of the state because it competed with the electric companies Monopoly.

This in turn raise the cost of solar installation on one's home to $50,000 and there was a penalty to attach it to the grid.

Plus you could never recoup your investment on solar as they would only issue credits against your power consumption but only for a maximum of 5 years at a time so if you made too much power you would get nothing for it.

Recently that has changed and they are backtracking due to the public being up in arms about this nonsense.

Now solar gets a subsidy and there's no penalty to attach it to the grid. Still however if you make lots of power they won't give you any money for it.

But in the meantime I'm hoping that the line conditioner will keep me around 119 to 120 volts.

They come tomorrow so I will know pretty shortly.

My APC BR 1300 UPS only kicks in when power goes below 110 so it's useless.

Pretty sure it will smooth you out to 120v, but interested to know how many pins can benefit at once and still maintain the 119-120v.

Yeah, solar is a mess these days because the utilities are freaking out that we're headed to decentralized renewable power and that cuts them out of the loop. Our city runs their own electric utility, which is good for rates, but terrible for solar because they discontinue rebates and will not let you have a 100% installation, capping you at about 70% so you always have to buy power from them. It's ridiculous, and someday soon, I hope illegal in CA.

My games play pretty good at 118 volts.

I would be very happy if power stayed between 118 to 120.

I'm hoping for a stable 120 that they advertise on the box from Tripp Lite.

We will find out tomorrow I'm pretty excited about it.

I bought two units I was hoping to plug 2 games in each unit but if it ends up being one game for unit I'm still okay with that.

oooooooowwww. a new Mario Interactive Video Mode!!!

I week away
At least 3 maybe more on free play and nib games. All will have art blades. I will bring Magic Glass and shakers if someone would like to purchase them to add to a Open box or nib game. I may be bringing some other pins as well.
Show game pricing as well
See ya soon
Pincades
Jese T

A technical aside here: You need to measure your line voltage with a true RMS (Root Mean Square) meter to know how much "working voltage" it contains. I'll assume you are just using ordinary DVMs to measure yours which gives you what you need to know: Will my machines play correctly?

I used to assume that line voltage was the perfect sine wave at the outlet. WRONG! See the picture below showing actual voltage values.

I've lived 25 years off-grid (batteries) so have had all flavors of AC inverters. The modern ones have very clean sine wave power. Yes, some discrete steps but nothing "glitchy".

Be curious to see if the isolators help.

Actual-line-voltage-waveform (resized).png