I lined mine up with the opposite side one you already installed.

So, it goes on the right, under the wooden guide rail.

When installed the ball should ride the metal instead of the wooden surface on both sides.

One of the screws that hold the wooden rail goes thru the hole in the protector.
The metal stake locks in the other end.

Once you have it aligned where you want it, clamp down on the metal stake with any kind of clamp (put a wooden stir stick or something to protect the top wood) I just used a regular plastic harbor freight quick clamp.

I didnt remove the wooden rail, I just loosened the rear screws a lot and removed the front 3 or 4.
I used a folded up cardboard wedge to hold the wooden rail up while positioning the protector.
I put a screw from underneath in the 1st hole to align the protector's hole.

After the rail is clamped down put the screws back in it from the bottom.

I always apply a little titebond 3 to the tips of any screws I have to remove on a pinball machine. This improves the hole and makes it tighter and vibration resistent.

As you work on your game, if you always glue in screws that you remove, the holes will almost never strip out.
It doesnt take a lot and it really shouldnt spluge out much if any.

That’s it! The sad irony was that I had topped the high binge score put on the game by ROSH. Guess I’ll have to do it again - At least I have something to which I can aspire.

Mean well over-engineers their power supplies pretty well. With the Stern power supplies, the failsafe overheat cutoff is almost 40 degrees hotter than I've ever seen one get at its hottest with quieter fans (with a continuous ranging dual-probe temperature monitor). Yes you will void your warranty, but unless you're a moron, you can safely put a quieter fan in. What model fan that would be, I don't know as I haven't done it personally because the Houdini one isn't nearly as annoying as the Sterns I've done here (warranty also void doing this):

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/replacing-stern-spike-noisy-ps-fans

It goes under the outside wood rail. The hole is for the screw under there. The tricky part is you MUST use a clamp to keep it depressed while you're tightening the rail back up, or it will never stay put and slide out of place. It's not well-explained.

Nope... It will have art blades and the new redesigned power supply.

Like I said... You can do anything you want, but don't be mad when it fails and it wont be replaced under warranty.

More of an "if" than a "when." I have replaced the fans in all the Stern machines on route I help with and they're all doing fine, some of them are over a year now. The Mean Well failsafe heat cutoff is like 160F, and even with the MUCH quieter, and somewhat lower CFM air flow, they never get over 121F under load.

That said, I haven't really noticed the Houdini fan noise being a problem, and certainly not as bad as the terrible Stern Mean Wells (and to a lesser extent JJP fans). I personally am not in any hurry to change out the Houdini fans.

I cant even hear the fan on my Houdini, and I dont even have the volume up to half way.

If I have the 6 games in my Houdini bank all on and in attract mode, Houdini fan is by far, the loudest sound you hear until an attract mode sound goes off. You know when the game is on. I've actually thought about removing the newer power supply and go with a variac to kill the white noise from the fan.

I installed it when my kids weren't home, and when they came home later- they could here it. 2 of 3 said something. It's white noise.

If it's louder than the one in your Iron Maiden, something is wrong. The Stern fans are WAY louder than the Houdini one.

This. My Iron Maiden sounds like a jet taking off; it is FAR louder than Houdini, and it’s in a different room!

I guess its all about what you are used to.

I no longer hear the fan on my PC, I barely notice the compressor on my refrigerator.
I think the Houdini is the quietest since Im used to my WOZ, TH, AFMr and others.
I only once in awhile notice the fan and compressor on my Vendo 44 in my gameroom.
I barely notice the fan on my inductive stove.

I generally have music playing in the background at a low level from my Sonus 5, a lot of light classical for the moment.

Your place must be very quiet.

My IM is quite until the fan kicks in to cool off- the 20-30 second high sped fan, not the all of the time noise.

This noise- the fan kicking on high on IM, is about what my Houdini supply sounds like all of the time.

That is not the experience we have with the Houdini here. You may have a bad fan.

I will look into it further then. Thanks V.

So I took off the backglass and it reminded me that Houdini doesn't have a switching power supply in the head (duh!). Only the fan in the little computer box and the LCD enclosure, and they're very quiet. Sounds like you have one or two bad fans.

These are Cliff's photos of the install.

protector (resized).jpg

Thanks everyone. It was the clamp aspect I was missing.

And the playfield we have from a very early run (around #80) is a Mirco playfield. Number of layers look similar. So it looks like AP is using Bader cabinets (do they have any history in pinball prior to this??) for playfields now while originally using Mirco.

Not willing to get my passport renewed and fly to the Netherlands to see them.
If they ever get to the USA, probably....

You never know. I just saw Uriah Heep last Valentine's Day @ The Hard Rock Venue in Orlando, FL
Never thought they'd make the US again either ...

OK, so I am trying to fix a Houdini for a friend. It was being used at the Free Play Florida show and not sure what happened, but now it will not power up properly. The screen comes on and says "No Input" and the flayfield lights up solid but nothing else, then the screen goes black after no input for a while.

Any place to start looking? I don't have a manual either. I've gotten to like playing this game and really want to fix it.

Loose VGA extension cord to the stage. Look in the cabinet and follow the VGA connector to the stage VGA connector. If it's not working right sometimes the main display won't initialize correctly.

You can also loosen the 4 screws around the LCD in the backbox, lift that off and check the connections at the actual computer box behind the LCD.

Also, when you power cycle, leave it OFF for like 60 seconds. Turning it off and on too quickly creates issues.

So I unscrewed the new power supply out of the game to give it a look over as well as decide where I wanted to install the actual knocker.

Got sidetracked by a buddy coming by and dinner I was making, so put the knocker on hold and replaced the PS back in the game.

And of course- now it is quieter. Not just a little, but a LOT. Not sure why, but I will not complain. I will leave it as is for now and see if it changes at all, or if it was some random fluke ?!?

I can help! [email protected] 224.422.3191

Manual http://s4.american-pinball.com/img/support/2018-10/AP_Houdini-Service-Manual_091018.pdf

If you need information on the game, a good place to look first

https://www.american-pinball.com/support/

There are documents before and after the FAQ section.

Thanks Barry! It might be a couple of days before I get a chance to mess with this. I'll let you know if I need help.

My machine was built in May 2018 with the Bader playfield.

Is Mirco far more experienced?

Likely yes (never heard of Bader cabinets, but they could be old-skool), but they have various levels of quality. Mircos can be great and they can be crappy. Just depends on the quality paid for. However, I haven't seen any Mircos with the Stern-level crater dimples of their softer playfield releases recently.

I thought I read a fix for this on a previous page, but I had an amazing game last night - the power supply is a MAJOR improvement in flipper feel, IMO.
Anyway, I was killing it in the game, when suddenly i got an off shot into the key lane, and that POS just drained SDTM. Then another, then a THIRD drained straight down. Do we have a reliable fix for the key lane ? If I fix that, the game will be perfect

I nudge to the right most always when I see the ball is slow out of Key lane down towards flippers. Works pretty good.

Bader and Churchill have worked on pinball and assorted games forever. Yeah they are old school.

Yep, I did bend the tab at the bottom in a little to help deflect it a bit more too and I think the combination of the two works well.

Does anyone's bottom right pop bumper wiggle when they shake the machine? This is the only one of the 3 that does, so I wonder if it needs tightening. I has the biggest padlock on top, so maybe tnis just a factor of being top heavy.

That makes sense. I swear I remember Josh or Barry saying if changes were made production wise, they'd be improvements, and not lesser. Thanks for that info, definitely news to me!

They come lose. throw some loctite on it also.

Its super easy to look at it, tighten as necessary.

Add blue locctite to keep it snug without overtightening.

Added the fuse and it functions perfectly. Even startled me when I earned an extra ball.

Thanks Barry

Bent it in so that the ball drops further to the right? Thanks

Yes, you may have to push the whole ball guide in towards the lane too but bending that tab in will help it push slow movers over to the right flipper without making the shot any tighter to hit.

I finally moved the keylane guide to narrow the lane 1/16" by opening the mounting holes in it.but
It's now at a slightly increased angle. Still fits under the plastic well enough.

I also have the tab bent out an additional 1/8".

This doesn't seem to make the shot any tighter. I thought it would, but doesn't seem any different.

One thing to check if you pull out the lane guide, is it square to the playfield? Mine was visibly bent back under the plastic a bit.

It cant really be bent square without taking it out.

Mine was bent back 1/8"

My AFMr had the mothership guides all crooked. They looked stupid and would catch the ball on the standups. But those could be bent without removal.

Thanks guys, I will be doing this next week when I finally have a day off! My keylane drops to the left flipper when it doesn’t drain so it sounds like an adjustment is surely in order

Hi all I'm having some issues with my game and would appreciate any help anyone may have -
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/houdini-opto-issues#post-4689029

If wiggling wires changes anything, then it's a loose wire or a bad crimp inside a connector.

Could also be a cold or insufficient solder joint on a pin.

Shorts and wiring problems will make other systems do odd things.

Start be taking the most affected part out of the system and check continuity across all points of contact.

Go upstream or downstream from there to the next affected part.

Grasp the harness and move it around a bit, see if anything triggers in switch test.

Pound on the playfield see if anything triggers.

I'm sure most everyone saw this, or it was posted prior, back in June, but just in case any one hasn't, it's a nice interview and gives a good bit of insight from rosh about programming and approaching the Houdini game. Nice work Josh!

https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=54935336&refid=asa

TWO AND A HALF HOURS?! Just, no. I guess it'll be download and skip method.

Would it kill them to make a transcript? Listening to most amateur podcasts is like pulling teeth.

Non-crappy non-stitcher link that easily lets you download without an account:
http://www.head2headpinball.com/2018/06/

Not sure if there's a timestamp, but there's more to the episode. They jump right in with Josh, and I paused at nearly 40 minutes in.

Here's the description of the episode.

"How Josh got the Job Old Houdini Vs New Houdini Working with Joe Balcer Houdini code status Chatty Houdini American Pinball growth Future release schedule American Pinball game 2 How to do humour in Pinball Limited Edition AP Pinball? Sandra Bullock pinball drama Todd Tuckey 10 book deal 6000 pinball machine madness Super Dooper Pinball Podcast…Read more Episode 48 – Josh Kugler from American Pinball"

We've been seeing balls get stuck, stacking up in the lower catapult, usually from stuff going airborne during multiball. Tricky, since the game doesn't always seem to try clearing the catapults when it's in ball search, nor when the game restarts if someone turns it off in this state.

The lowest ball winds up being pushed out of the cup, so the switch doesn't get triggered. We solved it by making a piece of plastic to keep it from getting caught under the plastic. Here's what we did:

IMG_5634 2 (resized).JPG

IMG_5781 (resized).JPG

IMG_5782 (resized).JPG

Funny - I just came to post about a similar issue. I must have shut the game off before it released all the balls yesterday.

Start the game with one ball locked in the upper left lock (where the ball stops if lock is not lit and you hit the inner loop)

The game does one, maybe 2 ball searches before starting -the first game- on boot. It does not appear to drop the post which locks the ball during ball search. Then it basically never does another ball search.

The game at this point knows the ball is missing (it shows a “ball missing” message in the menu), but never lets it out via ball search, and appears to ignore the fact that a ball is missing when dealing with drains, e.g. multiballs.

I started a game 38 minutes ago as above, drained after maybe 8 minutes, and the game is -still waiting for the ball-. Yes, after 30 minutes. I have drained, there is no ball in play, and I have no way to fix this save pulling the glass. I restarted the game even, by going into the menu, and this did not help. It’s just sitting as if I’m supposed to be plunging the ball, but none of the plunge Callouts are playing.

I am on the beta 9.18.18 code, so maybe this is specific to that code, but I’d really love to see this addressed. I am certain this sort of bug also appears elsewhere in the game, e.g. man from beyond seems to lose track of the ball sometimes.

It’s been quite a while (ok, not in Stern code update months), hoping for another update soon?