LOL

For what it's worth: I second that request... I think it's a really good idea.

Having to find work arounds for a hardware issue. I've resolved part of the issue, but not all of it.

I will give it some thought

I love the surprise of add-a-ball. The deadliest stage act is milkcan escape, very easy to drain the ball while shooting for that loop. So if you make the first shot, it would be fun and helpful to get an added ball to play with. If you drain at the start of milkcan escape, it would be merciful to get a ball save.

My request had more to do with cheap drains than my bad skills as a player.

Balls often drain off the launch either via the random scoop exit or a bounce off the slings via a random shooter launch.

Fortunately the scoop eject has a built in ball save, its used all the time.

The shooter auto launch does not.

Stage acts are the main focus of the game.
To not be able to get one flip due to a cheap drain as soon as an act is started is unfair.

To not be able to flip a ball due to a random side drain, or more frustrating, a stage bounce out, when the encore starts is also unfair.

Due to the annoying stage bounceouts it often takes 2 or 3 direct hits to the stage to get it to stick. This is with flippers at +1.

It shouldnt be random to stick the stage from a direct clean shot.

A ball save would really help keep the game flowing.

Here it is. Good news, bad news scenario.

Good news; It fits perfect. Ball travel is uninterrupted after multiple plays. My home made stand puts it at a perfect level. The price was right (free, as I already had the Eddie figure in which I sourced it).

Bad news; It is not authentic looking. It has stains on it from the Eddie theme that are more fitting of a insane asylum member than a grand illusionist and entertainer. Ithe best part of the jacket is the back, as that's where the details are (buckles, straps). It doesn't look as good facing backwards.

Ymmv but I am super particular about this sort of thing. It is tough to justify not going all in when you spend the money we are on these machines. I like the looks of the hooked on pinball one. May have to give it a shot.

Photos below. I also posted a off subject wide shot of my machine in its spot. Lovin it.

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Good and bad re: the straightjacket aside, it still adds to the game.

I like the Houdini "spot" you've created! Between the posters and topper, it looks much better than my game does just jammed between two others.

Thanks Tuna. Truth be told this happened out of necessity. I probably have exactly one more game than I should and this is in a different spot than the rest of the machines. It had to be.

Pinball shouldn't spark therapy or interventions... But I have a funny feeling.

Did you get your machine from Larry here in st.louis?

It looks like antiqued canvas, so feels appropriate to the machine. The themed setting you have is great. Copperfield would probably set his up the same way, if he had one.

I totally get it. I just read TWIP interview with Chris Franchi, who called Houdini a drain monster. But about the stage bounce outs...there are a couple of situations in the game in which the captive ball is lowered, and the live ball can be shot into the void, immediately disappearing into subway. It happens on the final shot of Vanishing elephant, for example. If Josh programmed this to happen more often, it would reduce bounce outs. I dont have a lot of drains from the automatic shooter. I did adjust the ball guide there early on to make the skill shots work better. Auto fire coil is at 10.

Anyone else that purchased the Houdini Custom Water Torture Mod have theirs fall off? Not looking to bash the maker, just looking to see if anyone else had an issue. Was in the midst of a game and all of a sudden it fell over. Upon inspecting it the screw has plastic in its threads so just appears it was a poor way of fixing the unit to the bracket.

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There are 2 water torture mods - suggest you identify which one you have. The photo is not clear.

I have the Hooked one, need to put it in, Pull the Mod couple out, sorry Dave, this one has more detail.
Rosh was adding programming for it, almost a mod first. Just shows you what a good guy Josh is.
Damage in pick looks fixable and am wondering what epoxy best to fix that?

This is the hooked on pinball version.
Ours is cast not 3d printed. Our lighting is inside the tank . Easy to see Houdinis feet outside of the tank and he is 3d not flat.

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I’m confused - it looks like this is the Mod Couple version. The HOP version is cast, and this looks 3d printed to me

Feel free to reach out to me and we can get this fixed. It’s very possible we had a failed print. No worries always want the customer happy.

Were your ears ringing? Lol

No but if a customer had an issue we try our best to make things right. Simple low cost mod not a major task to see that he is happy.

Did you ever have any success with shock absorbing material inside the stage to take some of the "sting" of a hard shot or was that another Pinsider?

I have had some success.

The sorbothane worked well enough but not perfect.

Still I want to try the 3DO material.

Its impossible to get In small quantities of the type i think would work well.

3DO hasnt contacted me back from my request for info.

I had the same problem so I made a simple 3D printed bracket. You can download it here if you want to try it. I used double sided tape to attach the mod to the bracket, and an existing screw on the game to mount the bracket. FYI you have to be very careful when raising the playfield so that your don't catch the mod if you mount it in that corner.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3589514
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No. It was a very recent purchase in Chicago so it's an "import". Lol.

Although I suppose they all are if you look at it that way.

Appreciate the info .... now all I need is a 3D Printer
and yeah agree...where the mod sets you have to be very careful when raising the playfield for which I am.
Thanks again for the info!

You don't need to own a 3D printer. You can use a company like shapeways (https://www.shapeways.com/) to print it for you. The cost is pretty reasonable for a one-off item when you provide the 3D model.

Get one! A way cheaper and more useful hobby than pinball. I recommend a Lulzbot for reliability and ease of use.

I tried out 3d printing in a tech school class, but the print lines/ridges were a big turnoff. I know they can be sanded and smoothed, but it is not something I want to do. I have a board game token I need scanned and printed, but don't know any small-job businesses who do this.

Okay, it's not for everyone I guess! But, that's like saying I made a shelf in high school wood shop that was a bit rough so I'm never using a saw again. Like any other method it takes the right tools and experience to produce a good part. It's possible to make beautiful 3d printed parts that need minimal post processing.

there are tons of different printers, and depending on settings and the printer quality, you can minimize those lines. This was printed on the same model I have, which costs $200 (and a lot of tweaking)

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Wow, great detail in that! I assume the higher end machines render a smoother print, but I didnt want to spend 4 figures for one. Maybe someday.

Look into a local makerspace or hackerspace and print it there. Libraries are a goodplace also to find a printer to use.

Me neither. It sometimes takes a couple tries to get something that good - but once you learn how to tweak the software settings and adjust the actual printer very precisely, it just screams. I've spent probably $280 on it all in, after upgrading a couple of pieces to make adjustments easier.

For someone who’s never done it before, can anyone point me in the right way to tweak the sensitivity of the pop bumpers? They are a little “stiff” and need a good hit to trigger.

I had the same issue, pops just didn't respond well. Just set the switch gap a little closer. Really made huge difference, for the better.

I have a set of tools used to adjust the switch blades, took all of 10 min.

Switch Test - to check.

Check that the leaf blade switch is clean. A piece of paper between the blades, gently push blades together and pull paper out.

Check the plastic spoon the pop bumper skirt rod rests on - clean ? worn ? well centered ?

To adjust the leaf blade switch. The long top one with the plastic spoon should just be resting on, not pushing, the plastic rod coming down from the pop bumper skirt. The shorter lower one should be close enough so the slightest ball hit triggers it, yet vibration doesn't set it off.

A little tweaking and you'll be an expert at pop bumper leaf blade switch adjusting.

LTG : )

A failed master magician mode. I completed the stage acts, and 4 of 5 films, and Seance before time ran out.

Cleaning them, even when brand new, was the key to making them responsive in mine. I find a rough business card (I have stacks of them from various people I have never thrown away for some reason) works really well for cleaning leaf switch contacts.

I made this adjustment tonight, pushing up the lower shorter blade switches so there is barely any gap. I hadn't thought about how bad my pops had gotten. A slow ball would actually roll halfway around the bumper skirt on its way to the key lane without setting off the pop. And I was like, meh. Now I known why I've been getting fewer magic shop visits and escapes, and couldn't complete Handcuff King. Don't let this happen to you! It is not normal or acceptable pop behavior.

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Pops should be adjusted so that the leaf switches have a hairs breadth of gap but dont activate when you firmly slap the playfield with your hand.

I have never gotten that far into a game ...yet. Congrats!
Do you have it set for a 4 ball game?
Game ended at the end of ball 4.

Thanks. I've been playing 5 ball games to get deep into all the modes, but am planning to switch to 3, with an easy overall setting. The latest code has made it easier to get some letters via the magic standup targets. My best 5-ball score was a little over 6 million

Come play Houdini and Oktoberfest at Allentown Pinfest this weekend in the PinballSTAR booth !

Can’t make the show and interested in purchasing ? Email Joe at [email protected].

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I had Houdini reboot itself today after the 3rd ball had drained and at the time the summary of the play was shown. The screen went black with "searching for signal" and then it reloaded the game. I noticed that the power supply was also giving more noise than usual at the time when game was rebooting. I am using the upgraded power supply. This is the second time this has happened when running the latest code.

Any fixes to this issue? I made a search with word "reboot", but that did not seem to offer explanations for this.

Check for shorted wire in the shooter/launch spring underneath.
That is where my short was.

I have a pinstadium-type lightbars along the sides of the playfield. They are powered from Houdini's service outlet plug. No other mods. The first time the reboot happened, the lightbars were powered with an external power source though, but I have now powered them from Houdini's service outlet.

Both times this occurred after the results of the third ball had been displayed, it seemed like it was a similar type of situation.

Thanks, I will have to investigate.

Barry, interested in this as I added the BtiteMods flipper buttons, LED strip in the ball through and have the Water Torture mod installed. Is this going to be an issue? Oh forgot, also adding the knocker!

Am thinking of bringing Houdini to Pintastic New England, but I don't have a helper to move it this year. I'd set it up on Josh's extra easy setting so newbies can get a feel for it. But only three balls, because we dont want people waiting in line for 30 minutes.