Game of Thrones Jan 2016. That's two years ago.

We don't have one, but WWE was 2015, almost 3 years ago.

Walking Dead was released in mid 2014, art blades went on sale in Dec 2014.

All have official art blades from Stern using the durable vinyl type material. So yeah, it's been years.

We use this type of protection when working on machines After side art is installed

Im ordering these now!

The mirror blades on my AFMrLE are also quite thin and easily damaged.
This will be very handy for my Houdini when it ships with the also very thin art blades.

Thanks for the info!

I'm curious...you Houdini owners...does your game "make" the upper catapult shot onto the wireform consistently? If so, what setting do you have your coil for that shot set at? I've tried going up and down from the default but still am only getting maybe one out of ten to make the wireform and down to the right flipper. I know each game is different, but I'd appreciate any comments or guidance on this one. The rest of the coils have been adjusted and seem to all be dialed in (except I still can't get the lock shot on the right by backhanding from a trapped ball on the right flipper. I have let it drop down a miniscule amount and tried the shot and still hit the target beside the entrance to the lock ball.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

After small tweaking of the coil power, ours makes almost every time (like 98% - but when it fails, it's like a misfire where the ball goes sideways into the orbit, not a failed shot into the wireform). Less strength is more with that shot. If you want to see what's happening, dial down the strength, then with the glass off, slo-mo record that with your phone which will allow you to analyze what's happening.

I had this problem, I used a 1/4 spacer to lift up the wire form!
This resulted in perfect catapult shots into the wire form!
Problem for me was the ball when launched tried to rattle its way through! Posted pictures somewhere in the the thread!
Hope this helps!

this is exactly what i was going to say, i had the same problem, now works like a charme.

I've put about 60 games on so far and this game is very frustrating and not necessarily because of the tight shots. I am getting lots of rejects from the scoop, the stage, the milk can and the ramp. It's hard enough to have to hit those things but when you do and it rejects out, it is not fun.

What is everyone doing to reduce the rejects?

Other things I would like to see:
1. Bypass the match so I can start another game
2. Bypass the hat or option to turn off the non game items
3. Stop the timer when the ball is not in play
4. If lock is lit and I skill shot award lock, I think the lock should remain lit
5. Water torture - the ball shoots out before announcing what to shoot at
6. The out lane awards don't seem to be used much (unless I just don't know how to light them)

First, are you on the 18.5.4 code?

Sounds like your coil power for the flipper is too high and also possibly your pf angle is too low.

What's your flipper coil power (both sides are adjustable separately) and PF angle?

1. Agree
2. I like the gag draws, but this would be a good option on setup menu for those that don't.
3. It does this a LOT more in 18.5.4
4. I can see this.
5. Eh. Give me the ball back fast and I'll figure out the rest.
6. I use them a lot.

Feel a bit silly that I have to ask this, but how do you reset high scores on Houdini? I’ve scoured the menu but can’t find it and I am a bit hesitant to just try to reset all default settings to see if that works.

From memory, I think it's on the utilities menu. Once you're in, there are different sub menus accessible by scrolling RIGHT. It's not very user-friendly nor immediately obvious.

Somethings not ringing true here - when did you say you bought the Stern blades? Also nothing you’re saying is contradicted in my post. If you’re not careful, ALL blades can have an issue, whether it’s the top getting caught on the playfield edge, or a gouge from the PF if it doesn’t lift out totally straight. Or mirror blades getting scuffed...

Yep, good suggestions. I second a review of the flipper cool power. Game can reasonably be between 6 / 6.5 and still work great

Have you held official Stern Art Blades personally and the AP Houdini ones? The material difference is stark.

Official Stern blades were bought for most Stern machines on the route I help with once Stern started selling them (all installed by me and not at the factory on new machines we got, if that was ever an option), which started years ago. Literally none of the Stern art blades have been snagged by raising and lowering the PFs to service them. Zero. I'll be the first to call out Stern's cost-cutting and poor quality, but they are making their Art Blades right. The material is fairly durable. AP's blades are not. That's all I'm saying. There's an OBVIOUS difference, and once installed people (including me) are snagging/tearing them in the wild from just raising the PFs.

I don't ever install mirror blades because they are too fragile and easy to scuff because they are even thicker than Stern's art blades. I also happen to personally like additional art over a mirror effect.

Once installed (use the wet method exclusively, kids - voice of experience here!) unless you're REALLY careless, you're not going to snag/tear Stern art blades.

Yes I am on 5.4.

Not sure the angle of the PF but all the leg levelers are screwed all the way in.

Coil power is LF 23 and RF 22.

I wasn’t calling you a liar, man, chillax your beans! (My kid says that, I have no idea what it means). We agree the blades are made of different material, and AP’s are thinner. Go re-read my post. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

...

Ok.

I was questioning how long you’ve been installing the Official Stern branded blades, since I could have sworn they’ve only been doing blade for the past year or so. Maybe it’s 2, I am not certain.

Also, “doesn’t ring true” means “that doesn’t sound right to me”, not “you’re a f&$@ing liar! Fess up!!”. Ok we cool? Aah crap I’ve lost track of what the argument was.

Coil power is way too high. Dial it back to 20 and see if that does you good. If not 21 should be plenty for whichever flipper you think is still lacking.

Once you get the coil power dialed back, download a level app to your phone and calibrate it to flat, then check the angle by putting it on your playfield (glass off) and see where you're at. If you have the levelers all the way in (no additional height), I think Houdini is 6.5, but it might be a little different based on your surface. So, see what your PF angle is.

Check the date:
https://www.facebook.com/sternpinball/posts/10152869913319244

Time starts moving faster when you get older. Stern has been selling them longer than 2 years.

I’ve went through the sub menus in utilities but haven’t seen anything about resetting high scores.

Thanks for the suggestions...I'll give this a try.

Yeah, I can only give you generalizations since I don't have the machine in front of me. I will say that I wish the menu was just a simple JJP-style. The graphics don't add much to the utility of the menus and just obfuscate where stuff you want to get to is.

If you haven't figured it out by tomorrow, I'll check the location machine and figure it out.

Or you could do what a lot of us do for home use. Simply go to a craft store and buy five bucks worth of poster board and shape it as desired to protect the sides when you lift the PF up and down. The guides you make will last forever.

35 bucks? phht... ridiculous

I like this idea too!

But seriously paper thin artwork in a pinball machine really doesnt make any sense unless they are selling it for $1.99 as a disposable surface.

Back to what I said earlier, any sign company can make them out of very durable material for a fair price.
I had a PVC or vinyl carbon composite graphic made 3 years ago 10' x 6' for a wall out of this incredibly strong stuff.
Its impossible to tear and is UV proof although it can scuff off the ink. It was pricey at $15 a sq ft installed but so far it looks great in my commercial environment.

I know they can be made to be tough, so charge me more money?

Unless it's been added very recently there is no option for resetting high scores or for setting custom defaults. I mentioned this earlier in this thread and rosh said it was something that had just recently been requested, hopefully that means it's getting added. The only way to reset the score is to do a reset to factory defaults, IIRC that no longer resets coil strength settings but will wipe out high scores and any other feature (timers, difficulty levels, etc.) and pricing adjustments that were made.

Question about folding down the head....A friend may bring a game for me up from florida but he has a newer Jeep Trailhawk which is too low profile for just folding head down. How difficult to slide the head down toward the front of the pin so it will fit. Thinking which wires need to come out? easy to unbolt head? etc. Ive seen several people transport other games where the head had to be slid toward the lock down bar to transport but not sure how hard to do on Houdini.

Thx for any help.

This didn't work for me either. I broke down last night and decided to just reset to factory defaults in order to reset high scores, but it retained coil strength and high scores! Unless I'm missing something, I guess there is no current way to reset high scores?

Ouch. Resetting high scores seems so basic

I get frustrated the other way- software upgrades that clear high scores. I know some pins have a way to export/import scores. I don’t understand why they don’t make that part of the regular upgrade process. Inevitably I forget and end up with factory scores

I think if you look back 1 page (might be 2), you’ll see some discussion regarding this. The back box hinge bolts take some work to unscrew- they have kind of a security bolt type head to them. But you can get them off with a standard hex wrench if you get it in there good. (The screwdriver tricks works too if you can find the right width)

Very few wires to the head - maybe took me 10 minutes to do

Software is all about prioritization, bug fixes first!

In spite of the $35 price they are pretty slick:

Im going to use them a lot especially to keep from scratching my Krylon painted wooden black sides on my other games.

Yeah, I looked today at the location where Houdini is and I couldn't find it, either. Definitely needs this option.

4. can also work as advance lock.

Can anyone comment on how well the shaker is integrated into this game? Ive ordered my game sans shaker as it just didn't seem that this was a title that it seemed appropriate for but Im open to being convinced that its a must have.

My shaker is on the way.. happy to report when it arrives. Josh mentioned wanting to integrate it when it makes sense but not go overboard. Dialed In is a game I think that makes exceptional logical use of the shaker (and earthshaker, obviously!) for comparison’s sake. Hobbit too.

Yeah my GOT was kinda out of control. I soft rumble on the pops with chains might be nice? I big one when the cannon fires?

At HP we did design first, implementation next, and testing / bug fix after that. But they didn't design pinball machines.

So I know that the whole truck shot missing thing has been discussed to death at this point but I have a question. My shot missed short the first 2 times and never again after I adjusted the coil power up 1. It probably made the shot 100 times perfectly. I know that the coil power can be finicky but the only other thing that I plugged into the wall was an external Polk subwoofer. Tonight my first ball barely made it and it missed the next two short. Is the game that sensitive that one subwoofer can throw everything off?

Depends on how stable your home power is. Have you checked the power outlet with a multimeter?

Stuck ball, and Pin Stadium lights installed (independent unrelated events).

A

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The shaker is great with the pops. Seems slow to come on with trunk lock. Mine shakes after the ball goes in and the lid closes. Also came on when the jail door closes if I remember correctly. This shaker seems to have the right amount of movement for these features.

I have shakers in my LOTR standard, LAH, ST pro and Houdini. They all integrate well with the shakers.

This has been a known issue for a long time. Supposedly AP was working on a fix (diverter or whatever for behind the planchette) for a few months. What's the status of that?

It is not advisable to just print to Vinyl. Those will rip quickly. The best solution is to print to 2.4 mil Vinyl with egress adhesive, and laminate over the top with a 3 mil velvet textured Polycarbonate. The Polycarbonate is durable and can withstand some abuse, and the artwork is not exposed on the outer surface.

Agile != Waterfall

Oh, no. Here we go again...Vid?

Perfect. Put this art blade manufacture durability how-to in an email and send it to [email protected].

I don't understand this, but please don't explain. Back to it.

Push the wires for the planchette in a little deeper, ball may go up behind , however it falls directly into the shooter lane!
When I install my shaker , will use a zip tie there as well !