Dialed In
Jersey Jack, 2017You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider ClarkKent.
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Das anybody have good comparison pictures of the elements that differ from the standard to the le version?
I almost tend to the standard version because the lights are THAT bright, missing lights on the ramp would help the eyes a lot I think.
I'm in the club now! Dialed In LE ordered today - should be here in the next 10 days or so. 
As Ted from Roadshow is in Dialed In, I hope Red will also appear some time! Because my Dialed In LE will be right next to my Roadshow...
To which position to adjust the flippers the best? Mine are a little bit upwards and not parallel to the return lanes, orbit shots are much more difficult. And how to adjust the best as there are no adjustment holes in the playfield.
On my machine the upper corner of the phone is slightly touching the glas when pulling out. Only slightly, it's like a rubber moving over a glass surface. If I slightly lift the glass from behind it is not touching it. Is it really mounted that close?
Quoted from Tranquilize:It shouldn’t touch the glass. You should be able to bend the bracket in place. 2 minute fix.
Where to bend exactly? It's only slightly rubbing on the upper corner of the phone when moving the glass, nothing big.
And the yellow flash of QED is also very slightly touching the glass when moved to the right position (yellow flash bends back a little bit when reaching that position). Like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rm60oszi19dbsiy/DIShield.mov?dl=0
Checked the playfield underneath but it's correctly in the support rails, slope is also correct (bubble at the second marker). Weird.
Quoted from Tranquilize:If both are touching, your PF is too high. Pull the brackets off the machine, put them in a vice (protected for scratching) and bend the hooks up about 4mm. Reinstall and enjoy your game. If the phone is still touching, you should be able to just grab the phone and gently adjust it downward. I've done the phone adjustment myself, but I udjusted mine upward.
You mean the two rails at the left and right of the cabinet on which the playfield rests? Or the ones on the playfield? I do not fully understand - do you have a photo or simple drawing what to do?
On the other side I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to shorten the flash a little bit and bend the phone a little bit downwards (but apart from that the phone is really no big problem as it is only rubbing slightly one the glass when removing it).
One LED is not lit at all on my machine - 21G (under the right slingshot). Tried to reseat the connector, doesn't help. But as all other GI lamps from J112 are lit I think the LED is defect?
Can the lockbar receiver be adjusted in some way (up, down, left, right)? My playfield is a little bit too much to the left, so there is a gap on the right side and no gap on the left side (would be hard to install mirror blades or something).
Quoted from LTG:If you can, try it in a different spot, then you'd know connector or LED.
I'd check the playfield hangers first. They should be striaght up and down with the apron. If so then loosen the screws holding the hangers under the playfield and shove them over and retighten. You'll get more movement that way than loosening the lockdown bar receiver.
LTG : )
Thanx for the info! I'll try this within the next few days and report back...
Quoted from Nokoro:It also just changes up the game. When lock is lit, you can't hit the left ramp expecting the ball to return to the left flipper. You have to take care of the lock first. So, it requires some thought about your shots and when to do what. I personally like it.
That's reasonable. Nevertheless the mini playfield does not have any special function to get more points or similar (like in TZ)?
Quoted from KingBW:Yes, I am a little nerdy about themed blankets to cover my pins when not in use. I finally had one made for DI. It turned out pretty well.
[quoted image][quoted image]
That's really nice! What material is this and how/where did you do this?
Quoted from RipleYYY:have not seen something like this in the settings...
anyway, why would you change this ?
The time for the combos should be 2 or 3 seconds longer for me...
Quoted from Nokoro:If you are on code version 1.60+, they substantially lessened the use of the drones to save on the motors.
I'm still on 1.57 and just turned the drones off. Simple solution...
Quoted from snaroff:I provided a link in my response, but it doesn't look like you clicked on it?
Here is a link to information on how to adjust flippers (http://www.flippers.be/basics/101_adjust_pinball.html).
Sounds like you haven't done it before, so it will take some practice before you feel entirely comfortable.
Take a photo from right above to show your Flipper settings which which you are happy...
Quoted from snaroff:My flipper settings are on stock.
The stock seems to be different. If possible, photo please.
Quoted from pb_lawww:Normally I am a 90s guy. I like the DMD B/W games the most... But DI! is the one in my collection just breaking this rule!
DI! is turned on whenever I am in my game room. All others are played some games, then I end up playing DI! again and again...
Same here! I'm always thinking: this is the last game for today, no this one, no this one...
A feature request: As I'm the only person playing the game most of the time an option in the Highscore setting to simply show the last name used for highscore only to press ok at the end would be very much appreciated. And maybe a higher score for the minimum score setting would also be nice (maximum is 100,000 at the moment; 250,000 and 500,000 would be great in addition).
And a question about the playfield hangers: As the yellow flash of the QED guy is still touching the glass when moving to the far right side I wonder if maybe the hangers of the playfield are a little bit too short? In the manual The hangers end above the apron, in reality the hangers are ending about 7 mm under the apron. How is this at your machines?
hangers (resized).jpgThe randomness is mostly the only thing I think, it's a nice gimmick nothing more, nevertheless I miss a controllable mini playfield - in DI you can not influence anything on it. Wish it would have been more like in TZ...
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:You’re supposed to nudge when it’s up there, and get it down the hole. You get more points and it’s actually pretty easy once you try it a couple times
I think this was not the idea in the first place.
I can't imagine that the phone display is the cause of this, if you changed it several times it's very unlikely that it's only the display and every single one is faulty. And the second evidence is that it works again after a reset. If there is no hardware problem (which I don't think but it can be something with the cables or connections) I can only imagine a software problem.
What about some kind of hibernation?
That sounds much like hibernation. As it's Linux this could certainly configured in some way, JJP should be able to do that.
After update to 1.57 it happened once on my machine. In attract mode the monitors turned off after a while (I also wasn't there when it happened), only reboot solved it. But never happened again since then (didn't update to 1.6x yet). My dealer told me that this could happen after an update but shouldn't happen a second time, if it does I should try to update again.
Maybe, but if there is someone here who replaced the phone monitor four times - do you think all four monitors are faulty?
Maybe it has something to do with the cables but on the other hand sometimes I can see a message on all monitors that it's in power save mode, some seconds later it comes to life again.
I still think it comes from the operating system.
Quoted from Tranquilize:I've replaced mine three times and spoken directly to the guy trying to fix the issue several times. It's not a software issue. It's a hardware issue in the phone. It appears to respond to software updates though. Obviously, they still haven't fully solved it. Plug a monitor into the VGA signal and you'll see for yourself. The monitor will never go black.
Somehow this sounds like a contradiction in terms. It's not a software issue but responds to updates??
Quoted from Allibaster:The phone can be still be updated with software, but software updates aren't capable of fixing the black screen issue. The problem resides in the physical design of the phone.
Several years back, I was designing a Linux based platform for a company in the oil and gas industry. We had the same problem. It ended up being a screen clocking issue that was the result of poor PCB design. The controlled impedance wasn't properly accounted for causing the screen to lose sync and eventually go black.
Ok, but then it should cause problems on all machines, not on a small number only.
Good point. I almost can't believe that a batch of phone hardware is faulty. Did you get the whole phone as replacement or only a pcb? Nevertheless I'll stay at 1.57 as I do not see big improvements in the latest software and my system seems to be rock solid at the moment...
By the way: is there somebody here where the theater monitor is also affected or is the phone monitor only?
Quoted from DarthSinex:I have the phone screen blanking issue. Regularly happens that mid game, the phone screen goes into an animation and then blanks out and never recovers. Only solution is a reboot, which always perfectly fixes the issue, so can't understand how the phone is solely to blame rather than mix of software and hardware. Couple of things I can add.
The Theatre never has any problems, just the phone.
The VGA cable is well connected and tightly adjusted at both the phone and the board.
However, I regularly do see messages coming up on the phone that say VGA. This is similar to what I would experience if a projector was searching for a source when connected to a laptop. I would think that this happens intermittently before it eventually blanks out.
The other thing is that the icons on my phone are off the screen at the bottom . So although I can see the disasters clearly, the calc and phone icons at the bottom are only partly on the screen. Not sure if this is normal behaviour?
OK, it looks like the same as when the machine is turned on - the VGA text also appears at turning on. Maybe the signal is switched to whatever at some point?
At my phone the bottom line is clearly visible as far as I remember. I think I'll check that again...
Quoted from Tranquilize:Definitely not true. Try 15 cables and you'll see for yourself. The issue is that either the graphics card stops sending the signal or the phone stops receiving it, hardware-wise. They have ruled out the graphics card as far as I know. They replaced and repaired my phone. It has improved it immensely as I was getting blackouts every game. Now it's not very common, but still exists. I also used to get color casts (yellow) like crazy. I still see this on occasion too.
What's the production date of your machine?
Quoted from Tranquilize:Don't have the date on hand, but mine was one of the first run. Very early production.
Would be interesting if lately built machines are also having this mobile video problems. Is the somebody here having these troubles with a machine built mid to end 2018?
Quoted from Grateful_Pin:I noticed today I have the following LEDs out:
Crazy Bob sign
Train 1 ramp #7-12
Lock ramp #1-6
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Seems like a cable got lose. Seems to be J102 and J103.
Another observation: When turning the game on, sometimes the theater monitor is displaying the content of the backbox monitor and the backbox monitor stays dark. So you can see the Jersey Jack Pinball boot logo at the theater monitor! The backbox monitor is displaying only the letters DVI and then power save mode. Just when the boot section with the text in the upper left corner of the backbox monitor starts displaying, all is reverting back to normal. I would say this happens 1 time out of 30 times turning the game on. It has absolutely no negative impact on the game as it's all back to normal when the game finished booting but it's weird after all. Does somebody experience this, too?
I also do not understand the resentment because of the name or the mobile phone in the theme. Ok, the crazy bob modes are a little bit uncommon (I'm almost certain not original ideas from Lawler) but on the other side unique. The phone is a great thing to manage the missions, way better than insert lights on the playfield! I think the concept seems very 90's, just like a Williams machine from that time, with a mixture of established pinball feeling and modern technology. I see this as as big advantage as other modern machines try to evolve pinball but mostly fail to catch the spirit.
Quoted from ralphs007:I wouldn't be surprised if it was caused by the shaker motor. I turned mine down, after I kept finding losse screws in the bottom of my cabinet.
Made the same on my Red and Ted's Roadshow, thinking about doing this on Dialed In, too...
Quoted from holminone:Just got my game and it’s on the 1.57 code. Pretty fantastic.
I do you have two questions though. The first has to do with the left orbit in the ball losing tremendous momentum so that it trickles out the right side and sometimes doesn’t even complete the loop. When I inspect the left loop beyond the trap door I noticed there is a ramp that lifts the ball up and over the entry to the right loop ramp. My question is do your left orbit shots shoot around pretty fast or did they seem to get bogged down like going through sand back there? Also I noticed my left loop ramp is not a perfectly flat piece of metal rather it goes up somewhat sharply and then bends back down about an inch and a half from where interfaces the right orbit ramp.
Second question is how steep do you have your game set? Mine is one notch steeper than Lawler’s recommendation. Does it matter?
Left orbit is not extremely fast here either. Sometimes I barely make it, most times it falls into the bumpers. As I've seen this behavior on several YouTube videos I consider this normal.
Quoted from FatPanda:I have it set to carry over currently, and I have to say, it takes away the urgency to shoot the Sim card right after completing a mode, or to get MB started to increase your chances of getting it. I would also have to say that I have not yet collected more Sim cards carrying over than not carrying over. I'm thinking I need to change it back, since it makes the shot that much more important to collect, rather than, I'll shoot it *if* the ball gets to the upper flipper as oppose to, I *need* to get the ball to the upper flipper. It changes the dynamic of the game too much.
Also, I have just mylar at the Sim card hole, and it's looking fine so far.
Also when not collecting more SIM cards with adjusting the setting - without setting it to carry over it would take even longer and gets more frustrating to ever reach lighting all letters.
I'm happy with the upper right Flipper as it is - now, after a month of owning DI, I can aim the side ramp really good now and are much better in aiming the SIM card hole - but I really would not turn off the carry over setting. I think the reason why it is harder to aim at the SIM card hole is a that you can not see the hole, not even the entrance. That makes it extremely difficult to shoot into (for me).
Quoted from Guinnesstime:I set the SIM to carry over for a few games and felt it made it much easier. In a bad way. I don’t think DI’s code is particularly deep. Felt like SIM carryovers really changed the game in s negative way.
Still the SIM card shot is really funky.
I don't see it that way. If you are not one of the best pinball pro's in the world (and I mean world, not USA only) you will certainly not get all sim card letters without carry them over. At least not within a lifetime... 
I do not fully understand the "Lite Drones" rollover at the left inlane. It blinks almost the entire time but one the other side the drone target is lit anyway. As soon as the drone target is not lit anymore, the "Lite Drones" insert also is not lit anymore. When the ball rolls over it it does not do anything, shouldn't it light the next light at the drone delivery progress? Is there a reason for that? What's the trick? First I thought the rollover is not working but I tried it in switch test and it works perfectly...
Quoted from Marvin:if lite drones is lit and you roll over it, the drone spot target is active, hitting it then will complete the drone lights, rather than having to hit the drone switches numerous times.
I still do not understand. When the ball rolls over the left inlane "Lite Drones" rollover, it does not show any reaction in my opinion. Shouldn't there be any visual or audio feedback when it rolls over it? It feels like it does nothing (at least when not hitting the drone target right after it).
Quoted from Marvin:if I recall, the whole array of drone lights will pulse after hitting the lit rollover. Hitting the standup then collects them all, allowing a drone pickup at the theater. its essentially a hurry up. if you don't hit it quick it goes away.
Here at my machine, when the ball rolls over the "Lite Drone" rollover, it does not do anything - the drone lights do not pulse or something. I checked that twice. The switch is working, I checked that in the settings...
I read here in this thread several times that I'm not alone with a sometimes stuck ball in front of the mechanics diverter. Especially when the ball rolls very very slowly towards the diverter, it simply stops there. I have to wait for a ball search to free it.
Now I noticed something by chance: the diverter has a lug which causes the ball to roll onto the mini playfield. The lug touches one side of the wire ramp on my machine when it's down - maybe the lug should be right between the two wires of the wire ramp on which the ball rolls and it would move down a little bit more if not touching the wire? In my opinion it would fit perfectly between the two wires and if so I very much think even a slow rolling ball would not stop in front of the diverter.
How is the diverter mounted on your machine? Does the lug go between the wires or does it also touch one side? And is there a method of adjusting it so that the lug is exactly between the two wires of the wire ramp?
Good to know that the lug should go deeper between the wires. I don't want to sand anything, the idea was to adjust the arm or the diverter that is mounted on that arm - but this doesn't seem to work very well, it seems that there is almost no tolerance. But maybe adjusting the wireramp itself like TrekTobbi suggested would be a way to go. I'll investigate, maybe there is a simple solution. I even thought to ask JJP support.
Quoted from pinstyle:I cant speak entirely for your case but in mine the interior of Betty would not allow the arm to come all the way down. Sanding a little material away from the inside of Betty allow the mechanism to move freely.
How do you mean from inside of Betty? Do you have pictures? Would be a lot easier to understand how to do this...
Quoted from pinstyle:Yea you need to get that finger to land in between the two wires on the wireform and go from there. I was talking about how I needed to sand the inside of the figure, but you may not need to. See how it runs after you get the diverter lined up first.
But how can the diverter be lined up? Can the angle of the front part be adjusted in some way?
Is there a way to adjust the Flap Gate Assembly (the one in the bumper area)? Sometimes the ball is stuck there as in the fully opened position it‘s still not high enough (I have to wait for a ball search to free it as nudging doesn’t free it). I think it’s exactly the hight the playfield protector takes. I tried to bend it a very little upwards but this doesn’t seem to help much.
I think next time when it happens I‘ll take a photo as it looks somewhat funny.
Quoted from DeeGor:The operating system is throwing I/O errors because it has having a hard time reading / writing to sections of the drive. I would try as LTG suggested and do a full reinstall, but if the drive is failing, you will need a replacement.
What if the hard drive fails and must be replaced? Only put in a new ssd and install the code from the jjp website?
Quoted from Pinballomatic:It will be a delta on top of 1.60 and officially it’s 1.71 going up soon.
I thought update must be applied to 1.6.1?
Quoted from ThePinballCo-op:My processor: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/87356/intel-pentium-processor-g3260-3m-cache-3-30-ghz.html
Your processor: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/80800/intel-celeron-processor-g1840-2m-cache-2-80-ghz.html
Mine is a 3.3 vs 2.8, so it's faster, which might explain why I'm not experiencing any of these similar issues.
Also the 3.3 GHz processor in my machine (but still at 1.57). Maybe we can nail this down - what processor speed do the people with coil or lag problems have?
Quoted from zoda:Got fast response with instructions from JJP to completely re-install 1.60 and start over again. http://marketing.jerseyjackpinball.com/general/install-full/
Let us know if it works
Mine is June 2018 with a 3.3 Ghz Pentium. Haven’t done the update, still at 1.57 until things are solved once and forever.
I also bought a H81M-P33 board as a backup just in case. As far as I learned no special BIOS needed, just the dongle. And a ATI 6450. Maybe people tried that can talk about their experiences?
Quoted from nettek:I upgraded to 1.71 yesterday. Betty lamp was flickering again after the upgrade. Ran the magnet test and it was all over the place, even after trying to tune it. Then put the ball down the phone scoop in test mode and again it was variable how it kicked out. Played a dozen or so games and it's noticeable. Even the autoplunge varies in strength. The phone animations lagged badly as well.
Put it back on 1.57 and it's all good again. Magnet test is way more consistent, eject from the phone scoop goes to the base of the right flipper every time and the Betty lamp stays on solid. Phone animations are good again.
I'm happy to stay on 1.57. It's feature complete and my game plays well on it.
Which processor speed does your DI have? Production date?
Quoted from PanzerFreak:Yes! Great idea.
Maybe somebody could suggest this to Ted? A 12th (hidden?) disaster would be a hugh surprise!
Quoted from LTG:Below the playfield a rod from Betty's arm goes up and down in a tube, and rides a cam on a motor up and down. The edge of the cam or tube the rod is in. Whichever is squeaking, and just a tiny bit.
If the squeak is on top of playfield, check the pivot point between arm and shoulder.
LTG : )
Can the betty sculpture be taken off easily? Never tried to remove it.
And what I always wanted to know: how can the height in which the arm with the diverter stops be adjusted? In my machine the arm stops about 1 cm above the wire ramp, I want it to move down this cm.
Quoted from Coindropper:Also, plug a keyboard in when you first boot and just hit f2. Once done, it boots up as normal moving forward.
The most interesting thing would be if you had and slowdowns or coil issues before and after the processor swap they are gone now?
If it’s a LGA 1150 socket it will fit for sure.
The only thing I‘m thinking about is the heat generation as faster processors are generating more heat. If there is a heat build-up this could also result in reduced processor performance (which could also be a reason for the problems some experience). I once had such a problem on a gaming PC - the cooling system was not sufficient enough and the processor reduced performance by half. After replacing the cooler with a better one the problem was gone...
Quoted from pb_lawww:it is:
amazon.com link »
thanks,
Lars
Then it will fit for sure. I would recommend to add a better cooler for the processor - the cooler of the boxed version is a low-end one. I have an Arctic Cooler which is cheap but very good. Look at the measurements so that it fits into the casing in the backbox.
Quoted from Coindropper:Which was my point really. Mileage may vary for sure. It’s just more me testing to see if results vary.
So yes, the bios is a custom bios from ami. They have an update tool on their website, but I haven’t really dug into that yet. First I want to test different scenarios to see what affect it may have, if any. Next is a GPU test with the old and new processor to see if results vary at all. Also have some better coolers I’m going to do some testing with this weekend on both processors to see if there are any changes.
But all in all the initial trigger for the slowdowns was the update 1.6. As we know that the update was done to support different mainboards, the drivers must be the main problem here as with the previous system up to version 1.57 it’s working flawlessly, no matter if they have the Celeron or the Pentium processor.
Quoted from Coindropper:What I find odd is how inconsistent this has been or seems to have been. I still had some slow down on 1.57 (on acid rain, alien invasion, whirlwind, and occasionally on singularity). Big Bang sometimes would slow down as well. I don't know if there is a "one-size fits all" fix except for in the software. I think they need to test on multiple machines with each processor (if that is the only true difference). Also, it would be interesting to know what driver changes have been made and the impact.
Slowdowns on 1.57? Really? Never ever experienced that, still on 1.57 here, stock Pentium processor.
Quoted from RipleYYY:a bit more to this story...
and OH DEAR !
well, for those who watched my video posted 1 or 2 pages before, i thought i really have a prob on the main screen...
and than : remember few ago when we've checked the BIOS (to only tweaks few things finally without importance), my son said : strange, there's no FAN in the monitoring (was at 0 RPM), and the CELERON is at 70° C idle... may be the monitoring is faulty !?... and we didnt go further that day
today, my son really wanted to test the DUAL CHANNEL with 2 good CORSAIR RAM (2x2 Gigas)
and when we open the PC box, for the 1st time since we own the pin...
HALLELUJAH
things became clear : a cable was serting on a fan pall, blocking it to start moving !!! (btw, no bip error !!!???)
redoing a correct cable management, FAN go on his way, and the 70° C became 35° ... and this time monitoring was all "normal"
and than, in gameplay : all the animations on the main screen are now perfect, no more lag, no more stutter, nothing, even when i'm playing stacked multiballs and shooting all balls without craddling, playing multiple animations in the following
only the phone still show some minors latency (the badest ACID RAIN), but not as before
CONCLUSION :
PC power seems to be the key, that means all hardware parts you can tweak to better means the better the pin will play, while CPU is the main piece in this case...
but in my case, quite sure the CELERON was thermal throtling (luckily we never reached max temp/had a freeze)
i'm not saying you to check your PC box, quite sure it was just bad luck in my case, but...
now i'm really happy, i can deal on how my pin is playing now
I suspected that overheating could cause speed reduction of the CPU. I once experienced this myself in a virtual pinball build with the same problem, as soon as I replaced the CPU cooler with a more efficient one, all was well again.
Quoted from DeeGor:I decided to upgrade my DI with parts from an older machine that had a bad motherboard to see how much of a difference it made. Well, the lag issues are gone, and the load on the system is much better. I know this is just throwing hardware at the problem, but I'm not out any money as I already had the parts sitting unused. Hopefully a fix comes soon.
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
Is the 100 % load also there if you pull the bluetooth adapter?
I still wonder why the purple boot screen is shown inverted on the theater display instead on the backbox screen (and the backbox screen is displaying no signal and going to sleep for a moment). Only later in the boot sequence the backbox screen is reactivated and showing the tech specs as intended before the game is ready to play. This was not the case every time when I got the machine - and I never updated the system, so I do not understand why this happened/happens.
Quoted from altan:I’ve spent 99% of my time with the 1.71 code.
I’d say 90% of the time the JJP logo at power on appears on the quantum screen.
A guess, but I’m pretty confident this is a bug or just a feature JJP didn’t bother resolve. At boot the different displays power up and there is a race to see who powers up first and is detected by the graphic system. The logo is displayed on that one. JJP hasn’t implemented any code to say “wait for the DVI 1080p display before showing the image” (or it broke). Again, just a guess.
It’s weird because the boot logo was shown most of the time on the backbox monitor at first but now, more than half a year later, without changing or updating anything, it’s shown on the theater monitor every time. I set up different PC systems with additional monitors over the years but the boot logo is always shown on the same. That’s the weird thing.
Quoted from jwilson:This is a problem with Linux itself - the less expensive screens don't report themselves to the OS properly at boot. They have a tool that figures it out after boot but by then the logo is displayed.
I suspected this but this does not explain why the boot screen was displayed properly on the backbox monitor at first and now, more than half a year later, most of the time on the theater monitor - without changing a thing since then...
Quoted from FatPanda:What version are you running now? V1.5X added a lot of new features to the game. V1.73 makes it near 100% perfect.
Still on 1.57. Waiting for some more user reports that all problems are gone before updating. But if this is really the solution, a full update would be the best for all users.
The many problems updating via an USB stick reported here is not very confidence-inspiring. I wonder if the instructions are not detailed enough or people are unskilled and I really wonder if this could be made easier and safer for everyone.
Can somebody explain switch 46 (Train 1 Ramp not diverted) to me? The switch works in test mode and I do not experience any problems while playing - but it’s the only switch that does not trigger the flash in selfie mode. What does this switch do anyway?
Quoted from blimpey:Caught my girlfriend posing for the camera:[quoted image]
Nice girlfriend!
What I really wonder is where to get parts for that game in future - the online-store at jjp does not have much (but for now can certainly be ordered at jjp) but I do not know any store that has jjp parts. This could be a big problem when the machines are as old as B/W machines are at the moment. Where to get the specific parts like pcb boards or similar if jjp is not there anymore (god preserves!)? I only have a MSI mainboard in stock just in case. That’s a very big advantage of B/W machines - you can get almost everything today and the boards are easy to repair because they are not smd...
Still waiting for a secret 12th mission...
Maybe only visible when Showdown was played?
Happy 200th page!
I still hope for a secret 12th desaster (maybe with a Red comeo as Ted is already in there). And that a 2.0 version solves all the coil power, slowdown and other small problems one and forever! And that it will be a full update, not only a delta..
Quoted from romulusx:Are you referring to the pothole guy as Ted or am I missing something?
Yes, this is definitively Ted. Red would fit perfectly in a secret 12th disaster...
I‘m having this game for 1 1/2 years but I never reached Armageddon nor Showdown. Hard but very challenging game - I like it that way! There are so many pins where it’s relatively easy to play them through and that’s boring over time...
Quoted from Dr-pin:Strange. I've had it for three weeks and has only got one letter to go.
Starting to find all the shots, the biggest problem is that i really dont know why, i'm struggling to find the meaning????
I do not play very often, maybe once a month for a hour or so. I consider this game hard, at least harder than the regular b/w games from the 90s (many were relatively easy to play through) - but that’s good! The harder the game the longer the fun! I reached 5 letters the max until now but I’m using 3 ball game as it should be. The only thing I’m wondering about is why there is no buy-in as on all other Lawlor-pins?
The meaning of the game is simple - at least as soon as you realized it... It’s not a game about a phone as advertised (and a lot of people didn’t like that theme at first) it’s a game about disasters like many pins from Lawlor.
Quoted from Tranquilize:This is a pretty damned good deal. $50 + $3 shipping to Canada! Bought an extra set. May as well, for this price!
[quoted image]
Ordered that, too. I think the plastics never won’t be that cheap again...
As there was a user lately having booting troubles after a battery change (unfortunately changed it at power off therefore loosing all settings) it would be nice if JJP could post or release the correct BIOS settings for Dialed In. I wonder why they are not included in the manual. An official release would help all DI owners in future...
Quoted from Shredso:I agree. It shouldn't bee all that difficult to go through the BIOS settings and see what isn't default. If I ever get around to changing the battery maybe I'll browse through it.
This would be really nice!
Nevertheless JJP would prevent such troubles by simply posting the BIOS settings necessary to boot correctly.
Good question if battery drains less when plugged in.
But if the only option maybe is power on at power fail in the BIOS then it’s not that important to change battery before it’s dead.
Therefore it would be nice if JJP could release the BIOS settings necessary for DI.
Quoted from Shredso:I plugged in a keyboard and it seems like the BIOS is password protected. At least the delete key brings me to a password prompt. I couldn't get anything off of F2, F10, F12. Escape brought me to a Ubuntu menu. Password entry sometimes goes to the main display, and sometimes to the phone. Would need to confirm with the motherboard that delete is the correct key, but that is far as I'm going to go with my working game.
As I tend to note everything about DI I remember that somebody said something about a password „qmodem“. Maybe this is the BIOS password?
Quoted from the_zap:I can confirm that at least for my game. Also I broke my Bluetooth dongle while removing it from the front USB cord
[quoted image]
Edit: After some careful surgery, it's back in operation. By the way, the app seems to be doing scorekeeping now. Unfortunately, the score (and the highest score) is always 0. Can anybody share some thoughts on this? Not that I really need that feature, I was just wondering...
Nice. Best would be if you could simply make screenshots of all BIOS settings - it will always be available here! I‘ll store them in my archive anyway...
Quoted from Shredso:Seems odd you can't get a straight answer. Maybe it's because not every motherboard is the same?
As far as I know all DI are using the MSI H81M-P33, at least I haven’t seen a different one - every mainoard is the same.
And therefore I think it’s better to only change the battery when the machine is off. At lot of bad things could happen doing that when powered on. I personally think this was a doubtful decision to recommend this in the manual.
If the only thing in the BIOS is the power on at power failure setting, doing that powered down is much much more secure.
But just in case it would be nice if somebody could take photos of all BIOS settings and post them here...
Quoted from Shredso:I just did some fishing around in the BIOS. qmodem worked for the password. I was able to disable it in the security settings by changing the admin password and leaving it blank. I can't think of any reason to have the BIOS password protected for a home machine.
I was going to backup the BIOS settings, but I used the last USB port for the keyboard. I probably have a little USB hub somewhere, but I think I have all of the settings. I don't see anything out of the ordinary.
If anyone sees a setting I missed let me know, keyboard is still plugged in. That monitor is a bitch to get back in place.
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
Thank you very much! I think many DI owners will be happy to have these screenshots over time...
Over all I do not plan to change the onboard battery while power on, way too risky with my clumsy fingers.
Quoted from Shredso:I just went to change the battery. I didn't really have a good non-conductive tool to release the battery and decided there is way too much room for error to do this with the power on. I took one for the team. Lets see if I can brick an $8k game! After the battery was installed, as expected, the game didn't boot. Then I panicked for a second, if the power on after power failure wasn't checked how would I power it on to change it? I didn't see a power button. I would have to short the 2 pins on the power supply which is a pain. Then I realized the BIOS screen was on the phone. Awesome! I can just compare settings with my pictures and I'll be good, except the screen is so small you can't read the text. I was pretty sure I found the setting, but didn't want to chance it so I plugged in another monitor. Initiate graphic adapter needs to be set to IGD. Every other setting was the same as far as I could tell. I'm back up and running now.
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
I wonder why power on after power failure was still active. You really had to set the IGD setting, nothing else?
Quoted from Shredso:Power on after failure must be the default for this mobo. It typically isn't from what I've experienced.
The graphics adapter was the only thing I changed. I quickly compared everything else to my pictures and didn't see any other differences.
Great to know - so nothing to fear when changing the battery at power off...
Quoted from Shredso:As long as you have a spare monitor kicking around with VGA, yes.
Or looking at the very very small theater monitor...
After two years owning this game I finally set the theater magnet correctly - nice effect when the ball is shot back to the right orbit! I do not see a real pattern when it does this but it’s nice anyway. But on the other side I do not have the feeling that it contributes something to the game - or do I miss something?
It would make more sense to me if e.g. I have to hit a target that could only be hit with the upper right flipper within two or three seconds after the ball is shot back by the magnet.
It’s the wrong conclusion that DI is a cell phone theme. It’s a disaster theme, a typical Lawlor game. The cell phone is only a means to an end to start the missions. But it’s right that is was a mistake to give the cell phone such an attention.
DI is one of the machines with the „just one more game“ desire built in!
Today, after two years owning this machine, I experienced cell phone monitor dropouts. The monitor was blank shortly in the middle of a game but came back after two or three seconds indicating the VGA input signal indication on the upper right corner. Happend several times. I think the constant shaking while playing just lead to this.
As I do not want to search the 230 pages does anybody have a hint what to check? I removed the plexi at the back of the cell phone and reseated the VGA connector and also checked the two other connections there. Any other tip?
Quoted from fiberdude120:try reseating the RJ45 plug on the back of the phone.
What does the RJ45 connection do exacly?
I bought a replacement lcd screen including driver board for 25 Euro via eBay several months ago as a user over at flippermarkt.de recommended it. It’s exact the same board, I checked. So if it happens more often, I‘ll try to replace the monitor. I’m not very good at such things but I don’t think it’s that difficult.
Quoted from Gogdog:Yeah, you can buy the same LED screen for like $26 via aliexpress.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000497063840.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.48424c4d3uJbuZ
I bought this back then (it’s the same):
ebay.com link: 4 3 TFT Color LCD Display Module w VGA AV Video Driving Board Option Touch Panel
I read in a forum that replacing the fan in the backbox with a silent version helps a lot to get rid of the heavy noise from the cheap fan built in. I must admit I never had the idea to do that. As far as I know it’s a 4pin 120 mm fan.
Quoted from Pinballomatic:The two main components that run each little monitor are the control board 15-000038-00 and the screen w/ribbon cable 17-000004-00
You can swap vga cables in the backbox and switch the outputs from one to the other monitor if you’re tracing a problem. Vga for the phone comes from the AUX video card and for the theater from the motherboard itself.
Thanks! I only asked because I thought about buying a second spare 4.3 inch monitor for just in case (as the full set is only 20 bucks at the moment).
By the way - I wonder why no parts dealer has anything besides standard parts on stock for JJP games.
Quoted from Lostcause:Got myself some spares today[quoted image]
How did you get a spare DI pf?
Quoted from Lostcause:From the same person I bought my DI from.
But how does anybody get a populated playfield in the first place??
Quoted from Ashram56:Wait.... There's a graphics card in the system?? Curious to know which one...
A ATI Radeon 6450, only for the phone monitor connected via VGA. Take one with active cooling (fan), hard to find.
Quoted from Ashram56:Truth be told, the electronic architecture of JJP baffles me. A consumer grade motherboard and graphics board are not really designed for this type of use case in my opinion. It draws so much power it's noisy, I can't let it powered on in my living room
This is pretty much the main complaint I have on this otherwise great game
Generally you are right but there are pros and cons. For private use it’s ok, for heavy commercial useage maybe not. It would certainly have been too expensive to develop a special hardware just for this machine. I see it as an advantage that the hardware is more or less standard so it can be replaced more easly in future with the same or similar components. I personally have a spare mainboard and processor for just in case.
Just about a question about the LED board of the phone: are there LEDS facing outside only on the edge around the board or is there also a second row facing towards the player? I’m not sure but I think one is dead but the one facing outside on the edge is still lit. Can this be? Does anybody have some insight? The manual only shows LEDs on the edge.
Quoted from finnflash:Where do you get one of those? Is there one in the game already?
You can order the whole set over at eBay for 25 dollars
Interesting report - but I would never ever change the battery while turned on. Too many things could happen. And as only the multimonitor support option in the BIOS must be turned on again after the battery has been replaced while turned off, it’s not worth it risking anything…
Quoted from Kingpin22:I was wondering the same thing but the manual clearly states to switch out the battery with the game on to avoid loosing Bios settings. Thanks for posting the great pictures on how to do this, very helpful.
It doesn’t matter if the BIOS settings are resetted to the standard values - as I said, the only thing that need to be changed in the standard BIOS settings is the multimonitor setting enabled. That’s it.
The space in the area where the battery is located is THAT tight that you can easily cause a short circuit when doing that while turned on - I wouldn’t risk that. But, of course, man forges his own destiny.
That was the info from JJP some time ago:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dialed-in-wont-boot/page/2#post-5955968
But the whole battery replacing discussion was already documented with some photos here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dialed-in-owners-and-fans-club/page/228#post-5957378
Quoted from sirlonzelot:That’s great. Can you also give showdown some more coding ?
…and a (secret?) 12th desaster!
In my opinion the name Dialed In is great - I like it. Short and catchy.
I also like the theme, it’s simply a desaster theme. A game in the same sense as all other Lawlor games. I only think people stumble against the phone. No idea why. If they used the word display or similar instead of phone (without the graphical reference to a phone) nobody would have criticized the theme at all. But it’s ok for me, I see this as a mission select only anyway. As already mentioned I think it’s more difficult to promote as it’s not a licensed theme which are certainly easier to sell as people know what they get. I on the other had prefer independent themes.
Quoted from mbwalker:If I remember correctly, there's a new plastic washer that goes under the nearby wireform too. I guess the trap door was hitting the bottom of the wireform?
That’s a good question - it could also be that it always slams onto the playfield and therefore it breaks off.
I added the plastic spacer and the flap still broke off.
Quoted from Tranquilize:Here is my first prototype in thin metal. Final version will be thick steel.
[quoted image]
It doesn't alter the game at all and uses existing screws. It increases success of dead on shots by about 20%, but there were still many rejects. The shot surprisingly does not feel any easier.
After watching some slow-mo video of rejects, I noticed that the flat front of the scoop creates a rebound wall, so the ball must either enter slowly or at a perfect angle to be deflected into the hole. The ridiculous bump for the post in the right causes all sorts of horizontal bouncing as well.
I'm going to add a rounded scoop top for the next prototype. I may add a rail on the right to replace the right post as well. This will hopefully guide the ball. My guess is that it will still be a hard shot (harder than tz piano for example), but the ball will go in when you hit the shot. We'll see...
Very interesting development! If you say that the flat front of the scoop creates a rebound wall, what if adding a thin foam to absorb that energy on the whole front?
Quoted from Tranquilize:The answer was a clear no. There never will be a code update, regardless of balancing issues and proposed fixes.
I'm with you. I'll likely never buy another jjp mostly due to rules design. I wanted to buy all of their games and support innovation etc., But that's hard to do when the games aren't that fun to play. At least dialed in can mostly be fixed. Once I have my sim scoop mod done, along with the rules adjustments, it should play the way I hoped it would NIB.
Who said that there will never be a code update?
Quoted from Tranquilize:Foam solutions in pinball usually do not work or require constant upkeep. The scoop sucks, so it's just better to design a properly curved one. My direct shots now smoothly flow into the hole.
The guy who coded the game.
I wonder why the original scoop is flat on the lower part on this game, I see no benefit.
I hope the guy keeps the source - a lot of older machines got updates decades after the last revision and that would be much easier if they had the code…
Quoted from cconway84:https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/140050
Someone is selling a DICE jacket.
As I’m into that business I can do that by myself for a lot less…
Happened here, too. Two or three times in the last year or so. I’m sure it’s because of the vibrations when the ball hits the phone scoop or posts there. When it happened I always reseated every cable on the phone. After that it worked again.
I love my DI LE as it’s just a great game - a worthy and modernized continuation of Lawlor’s desaster pins - but I see it as the biggest problem that there is no dealer with replacement parts except generic things like screws or coils, maybe plastics or protectors as a ultimate feeling. If I see how many dealer have almost every part for Bally/Williams machines, even boards, special brackets or other electronic parts so you can build a new machine out of parts. What if something breaks and there is no JJP anymore??
An RGB LED on the 15-000053-04 seems to be dead here. Don’t want to replace the whole board because of this. How to replace it?
Added 130 days ago:I decided to order a replacement board and using the malfunctioning one as a donor for future failures.
But on the other side I learned that JJP doesn’t have much replacement board left over. I’m worried that time will come when no replacement parts will be available for Dialed In anymore. I wonder which strategy JJP has for that point in time? Will they simply not be able to maintain service? And what then?
For whatever reason I have the feeling that from all JJP pinball machines Dialed In is treated as an orphan. This is also reflected in the market value. Maybe it’s just because this theme is not based on a big franchise in contrary to their other pins but all in all pins with independent themes are leaving more room for innovation.
Quoted from oradke:Is there a common recommendation for replacement fans? The stock fans are louder than an ancient vacuum cleaner!
Quoted from monkfe:search for the woz lighting mod someone was working on...he gets into some detail about the leds used on that machine and I assume this DI as well...he spoke about how they're discontinued, but I'm sure they're available. Did you check the manual?
The manual does not show a specific article number or vendor. Would be nice to get some help.
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Grimmenstein
Erie, CO