Hi all. This is my first post on Pinside. I've been a longtime reader but recently joined (and made a donation to the site) after I purchased an AfMr SE machine NIB this summer.

My machine (#1547 I believe) worked beautifully out of the box, but then over time developed the problematic behavior with the left popper. Specifically, sometimes it would fail to launch the ball on the first try. Usually it would work on the 2nd but occasionally it would take 3 or more times. I found the video from CGC (posted on this thread, thanks!!) about bending it a bit underneath and gave it a shot. Now the popper (so far) pops the ball out on the first try every time. Seems to be a great fix, and if it happens again I'll bend it back again I assume. For some context about me and my knowledge I am a software engineer by trade and a longtime electronics hobbyist-- think modding game consoles and building custom game controllers. So I'm solid with electronics, soldering, etc. but a bit light on my knowledge of the terminology and hardware fixes/modifications common to owning a pinball machine.

On to my question. One other behavior that has recently started with my AfM machine is that the ball launcher will occasionally miss when either launching balls for multiball or via ball save. I've noticed that when it misses, I hear a bit of a metallic clack sound. And also sometimes when balls are launching it sounds like metal on metal. That doesn't seem good as I'm afraid it could damage the balls so I've stopped playing for the moment.

I looked underneath the playfield and the launcher mechanism seems to be tight, undamaged and not bent. The chute where the balls sit waiting to be launched looks flawless with tight screws as well.

Can someone help me guess what might be wrong? Is it possible that there is a soft part on the tip of the launcher that hits the ball and it is damaged or worn out? I just closed the machine back up but didn't think to check for that. For context my machine is at about 600 games right now. Any help folks could provide would be great.