Tighten the screw holding the trunk lid. You need a really thin wrench to hold the nut while you turn the screw. It will come loose again eventually. It's a bad design. You may also have an issue with the opto but that's easy to test.

Brilliant ! This makes sense and ill do this ASAP! Thanks so much.

Added purple passion Comet LEDs to the back. Kept center one white since lightning is there. Love the green and purple on the UFO.

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Also added today SILVERBALL DESIGNS blood slingshot, guide lane blood protectors. Definitely worth the money. I wasn’t planning on getting plastic protectors then saw these and had to.

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Goblin issue. And Mylar lifting. Any advice on Mylar re adhesion. Can’t find the goblin target cover retaining pin.

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that piece of mylar was poorly installed.
The left ramp also, from the factory does not have mylar underneath.

I like mylar under all my ramps, so I removed it and added mylar under the flapper and on the PF, making a mylar to mylar surface and preventing the flap from touching the mylar. You can't notice this once it is installed, it does not change anything...
It might be overkill but I like doing it, it works for me.

For the other piece of mylar, just replace it when you remove the ramp... yours was most likely molested during installation and never glued properly.

Get a roll of mylar off pinball life or whatever shop you like, it is cheap... always have mylar handy.

You cannot re attach old mylar.

EDIT:
some tips

Whenever removing mylar, I recommend you get a very slim (0.4mm) guitar pick. The pick really aids in lifting the mylar easily without damaging the clear coat on the PF.

also, I recommend you wax the PF before you lay the new mylar down where you are going to install mylar on. You will thank yourself later in the future, as it makes for the removal of the old mylar an easier process, no mess, no drama.

I haven't played my EHOH yet cuz my left goblin pin was not pinched so I could see it was going to fall off. Supposedly a new assembly on the way but that was 9 days ago.

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just remove the assembly (you have to replace it anyways) and also remove the gargoyle on that side (need a 1/4 socket and screwdriver to remove the nut/screw) and play the pin until the new assembly arrives.

There is no real reason to not play the game due to this.

Well still waiting on some Cliffys too I thought I was going to be in the August run but I think your right great Idea thanks!

I respect people that use cliffies, I like them, but Mylar is just as effective for me. Do not wait to play the game until you get cliffies.

I make custom mylar protectors by hand, one section for the shooter lane, and one section for above the outer hole i.e. the remainder of the shooter lane.
Less than $1.00 USD in cost and just as effective. I have yet to have a shooter lane that shown any wear whatsoever using this method.
I did have a game with cliffies that showed wear on the shooter lane (the cliffies did not protect the very edge of the ridge at the bottom and the balls left black marks that would not come off)...

do not have any of these issues with mylar, and when/if it wears out, it is $1.00 to make it again.

I make templates whenever I make a custom made mylar protector so I never have to redo them - in the sense of taking measurements, etc -

On a stern the outer hole section is almost the same in every game, but they change slightly. No big deal, all my protector are custom fit for each game.
I do this 1st day before game one. Never have an issue after thousand of games. Lanes stay super clean always.

Yes I am a nerd.

Wax the pf, put some mylar, play the game!!!

Hi! Im interested in your mylar technique. I see pinball life has what looks like sections from a roll you can buy as well as some precut pieces. How many section would i need to protect the entire HoH playfield and any tips for developing /using templates to cut the stuff? Also what kind of wax do you recommend?

Im a complete newbie on owning a pin. My HoH deposit has not yet gotten the machine to me but definitely want to protect the investment for when it does...without having to go to the lengths of using a playfield protector (nothing against those..just a preference). So i dont even know when its appropriate to wax a new pin. Sounds like waxing is part of your mylar protection process though.

Also, im really thankful that you and lermods and others are so excellently assisting people with issues. Its really appreciated. Im hoping for no issues out of tge box but from what ive seen its not very reasonable to expect lol

@BallKISS1978
...shes lookin great man!

I've used "Removable" Mylar for spots on playfields.

Got my Elvira last week. After it not being able to boot initially because they hadn't inserted the sd card(what a mess to troubleshoot--thought it was a bad fuse or power supply) got everything up and running. My problem is the gargoyle targets. The I and L targets light with ease, the G rarely does(during a test you can get it to activate occasionally with your finger but rarely with a ball), and the O performs slightly better that the G. I'm sure those switches just need adjusting so they will fire correctly and I'm sure this has probably been covered (although I couldn't find it). Any suggestions? Thanks!

I adjusted my attract mode for the topper to 70% and during the game to 70% as well.
now working as intended.

Thank u..where from?

It's likely a gapping issue on the leaf contacts. The hole that target comes up through is pretty tight. If you remove it from under the playfied you can gap the contacts a bit more and it should fix it. I had a similar issue on the "O"

I got a roll of it from Amazon which I'll never use in a my lifetime. I'll try to find the link. Good stuff and works the same but can be removed easily.

Talking that duralar stuff? Theres a whole mess of types, grades, thickness ..totally want to be sure it comes off perfectly

This ^^^

believe it or not, it took me me a few hours to properly tune the leafs to actually activate without getting bashed.
They should activate with a ball BARELY touching.

It is really a trial and error because of how the assembly is designed, not all Sterns are like this one. In other words, the leafs switches at the gargoyles are actually tricky to tune properly.

Issues you will encounter:
- if the gap is more than 1/8" you switch might activate or not (it will require a lot of ball power.
- if it is less than 1/16" you might find the switch is closed (activated) when mounted

Some tips (I spent 4 hours tuning mine last week)

- try to follow the already created thread inside the pf when mounting / unmounting. If you strip the PF, it will be hard to repair because it is close to the edge. To follow the current thread, before screwing the screw in, unscrew it until you hear a click, then screw it down (it makes a HUGE difference)
- use a LEAF adjusted tool, if you do not have one, buy one immediately. Do not ruin your switches with long nose pliers. These are easy to bend with the adjuster and much easier to ruin with long nose pliers. do not use long nose pliers.
The adjuster will make an easy job of this.
-do not adjust the leaf from inside the game without taking them off, it will not work. Unmount the bracket and take leaf off and out of the PF, adjust, re install.
- You will not get it right the first time, so take your time.

When testing your adjustments, start the game, go to test, switches and close the coin door to get power.
Use a light touch, barely touching the switches should trigger them, if you need to really push the gargoyle contraption to activate the leaf, your adjustment is incorrect. Try again.

Another thing to note, you gargoyle clamp (L shape metal piece) can change the switch gap as it slides left to right. This will trip you if you do not caught it ahead of time (ask he how I know).

Last, each leaf will have an slightly different setting (welcome to the world of pinball inaccuracies and lack of attention to detail at the factory - Thanks Stern - ) so do not assume that because the previous leaf work with a specific gap, the next one will work the same.

This is the most annoying part of the entire game, but once dialled in you are all set.

Take your time

where do you get a leaf adjustment tool? and I will echo others when I say that a machine over 10k shouldn't require me to buy special tools just to get it to work properly.

my other issue is the left opto doesn't pick up balls at game speed. When testing the switch by rolling the balls up the left ramp, it sees it and registers, but when the ball is really moving during a game it won't get it. I'm sure it's misaligned, but what next step should I try?

You're not required to buy the special tool, but it makes this particular job easier to do and if you're considering owing more or different games in the future it's a tool that comes in handy for not just this but sometimes other things also. But the adjustment can certainly be made without it if you don't want to buy the tool. Adjusting a leaf switch isn't much different in concept than tuning a bike out of the box. Pretty routine and common thing to dial/tune in.

What pitch and right flipper power are you using? At high speed the ball could be catching air at the ramp entrance and hopping over the opto a bit so the beam isn't broken. Have you tried lowering flipper power and/or adjusting the pitch of your playfield?

Up to now I’ve only had Jersey jack pins. My dialed in was perfect out of the box, and my wonka needed a couple of minor play field tweaks. To be expected to tweak these things and disassemble new pins because stern didn’t qc them at the factory just seems wrong. Reading this thread it certainly seems like this is expected so I guess I’ll get in line and assemble a set of pin fixing tools. I do love the machine and most people who play it would never notice these issues because they don’t care, but when you are trying to open up all the modes and play the game to its fullest these issues become readily apparent. So where do I buy a leaf adjustment tool? And should I go ahead and invest in any other tools that I will probably need in the future?

On another note, when I have emailed stern about this and haven’t received a reply now in 48 business hours, it’s concerning. 1800kickers doesn’t really help…

https://www.pinballlife.com/ultimate-leaf-adjuster-tool.html

Or marco specialties.

If you are new to pinball, try to participate more locally and meet other pinheads. Ask for help and borrow their tools.

Once you mangle up a leaf switch with other tools, and then you use this $10 dollar adjuster, you will understand why I recommend it.

Can you use that and not remove the assembly? Loosening that assembly and stripping a screw seemed like a real possibility.

follow my instructions in my previous post and you will be good.
do not use power tools. Do not use anything that gives you leverage other than a handheld screwdriver.

These just need to be snug. finger tight (I literally use a 2 finger technique to avoid over torquing).

The art of pinball, lol

Any thought on left ramp opto? Works on switch check but not at game speed. It’s not getting airborne as suggested.

if it is triggering with your finger on it, it is most likely not fully aligned... if you do think it is fully aligned, inspect the cables and the soldering the optos to make sure there is good connection i.e. not enough power = possibly working intermittently. There is not much secret to the optos really...

do not forget to check the OPTO molex under the pf, just to make sure they are properly connected.

So I didn't realize there are 2 optos on that ramp. It's the exit one that was misaligned. That thing is almost impossible to get to and the little piece that is holding the outer component of the opto in place is flimsy. I was able to push it back in but I have my doubts about the staying power of that. My guess is that if I want to get to that area I'll have to remove that ramp assembly correct?

Been there, Played a couple games on brand new out of the box, installed topper then would not boot, spent an hour trouble shooting and then realized SD card not pushed in all the way. Must have accidentally pushed on it to eject. And I apologize to my pinhead neighbor up north who didn’t get my machine

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Serial 69! Nioce.

Theres a great watch on the marco website knowledge base with some spectacular highdef slo mo footage of pinball mechs in action. Definitely worth a watch. The one thing that really got me was the flipper footage. Lets you see exactly whats going on with the kinetic action of the rubber and the ball..so crazy..the rubber actually ripples

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts-blog/pinball-slow-mo/

Terrible news John Paragon died apparently. You might have seen him as "Jambi" on Pee Wee's Playhouse (a role he originated with Paul Reubens at Knott's Berry Farm... also where Elvira got started)

He was Cassandra's writing partner for almost everything she did. He was a hilarious character, and once related to me SUPER funny stories about Kevin McCarthy from the set of UHF.

That is very sad. 66

Seems my tunnel opto is constantly getting bumped out of alignment by the tunnel solenoid which is making constant contact with the top opto board on the bracket. I've asked Stern for recommendations but figured I'd run it by the group here to see if anyone else has had this issue and what they did to resolve it. Thanks!

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One idea to try: If you need the post to be moved a little bit away from the opto bracket toward the center of the hole in the subway you could drill the screw hole openings a bit wider on the metal bracket that holds the post coil to the backboard (widen the two screw holes of the metal coil bracket, not the holes in the backboard itself). You would probably only need to use a drill bit just slightly bigger than the current screw hole size to widen them. Then that should give you the ability to shift the coil bracket (and therefore the post also) a little further away from the opto bracket when you re-mount it to the backboard.

Other options would be to try using washers behind the opto bracket and/or the post coil bracket to try to shim the post away from the opto bracket and/or shim the opto bracket slightly away from the post (if it can be done without throwing off the opto beam).

I have had the same problem and got replacements from Stern for free. To be honest, the replacements were not much better. It would have been better if they swaged the end of the pins instead of flattening them. If somebody has a better solution I would be very interested. The pins on the gargoyles at the entrance of the hose sometimes stick out so far that they hit the ramp when it raises or lowers.

Is there a way to skip the trailers or do you have to watch them???

I just installed the playfield protector. More complicated than the BM66 I did.

Questions:
1) The left gate just seems to hang there, see photo. Am I missing a piece or is it supposed to not attach on the left side.
2) Where the hell does the piece of plastic go in the photo?
3) I cut the back of the protector to fit it around the house. I have not put Mylar down to re-connect the back. Impossible to reach. Anyone else just left it as is?

Thanks

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that wire form does not belong there, whomever put that game together was drunk,
the little piece is a cover that goes under the red flasher, under the post, on the left hand side of the left ramp.
You can see clearly in your photo there is a gap for it.

So the there is no gate on the left loop? Only on the right loop? And I am the proud owner of a free gate?

I never seem to take enough disassembly pics either - but I think this one will help you:

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Thanks.

Wow, not even close. I am also missing the plastic that goes over the left lock on the house.

Does anyone else have this on the bottom of their playfield(Display Game)? Or does anyone know exactly what it means?

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Only thing I can think of is it was a show game.

Hi Everyone, new EHoH Premium owner here. Happy to finally be in the club! Mine is NIB and is having two issues right away. Randomly the game is awarding massive jackpots even with the ball cradled, doing nothing. It makes the same sound effect like a swoosh, and shows two zombie arms toasting martinis or something on the screen with each jackpot. Massive jackpots with that animation over and over like in a feedback loop. I’ve updated the code again just to see if it was a bad install from the factory. But the problem still is happening. Maybe some opto repeat triggering related to whatever mode/jackpot that is? Also getting some auto launches randomly with the ball in the shooter lane when the jackpot thing starts happening. Any insight on this and/or what mode or switch is related to that animation with the zombie arms would be greatly appreciated.

Also having an issue with the house not keeping the ball to start a haunt sometimes. It will dribble down the front entrance and not be held inside during the Elvira video for the haunt. I read something here about velcro as a fix in the back of the subway or something? Also read something about a post binding back there form other people in the forum?

Thx for the help, folks!
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That’s the Unhappy Hour mode which is started by hitting the left and right ramps enough times. Then each ramp shot scores a bonus with the glasses toasting when you make the shots. The opto on one of those ramps is sensing a ball when there isn’t one. Check the alignment on those.

Mine is from the May 2021 build, that plastic may not have been on earlier builds.