Hi all,

I've had an Elvira HOH for about a month now and love it. It's a perfect mate for my Scared Stiff.

Anyway's I have a couple issues that I can't work out. I've searched this thread and it's so long that I'm having trouble finding the answers if any.

First, I've seen a few mentions about a Skill Shot Ball Guide kit. I don't know if this would help my issue or not. I can't find any posts about the issues I have that it could fix. Perhaps I just haven't looked enough.

Anyway, I have one frustrating issue with the skill shot behind the house. If I plunge the ball too softly the ball will hang up on the gate above the pops that sits behind the right side of the house. I have to shake the pin to get it to drop out into the pops. I've tried to make adjustments by bending the gate but nothing helps. Any advice on how I can fix this or if this kit mentioned helps? If you can point me to this skill shot ball guide kit it would be welcomed. Perhaps I need that anyways.

Secondly, the Dead Head kick out Vac. Sometimes it kicks the ball out OK and other times it will just keep kicking the ball several times before it finally feebly spits the ball out. I've tried to adjust the vac bracket by bending it a little and that helped a little but did not eliminate the problem. Any suggestions on how to fix this issue?

Thanks in advance for any help on these issues.

Thanks for the advice. I have tried adjusting the VAK power in the menu for the DH eject. I found the best setting I could at that time. I'll tinker with it again to see if I can get it set closer. I have not bent the VAC hood yet. I'll try that next. Also I'll try to loosen up the bracket and move it around a little to see if I can get it centered better. Thanks.

This Dead Head Crypt eject design looks a lot like the DE Star Trek 25th computer hole eject setup. Same solenoid bracket. That damn ST25 computer hole has plagued me for years on my ST25 pin. It most always ejects the ball STDM when it ejects the ball. When I saw that bracket on my Elvira HOH I about lost it.

I've had this pin for a few months now and am in love with it. It gets better with every update.

I have a couple questions. Please forgive is these are easily found somewhere but there is so much info out there in the wild:

1. I read that there was a Dead Head VAK fix released by Stern a few days ago. Where can I find this? As it is, the shot out of the Dead Head VAK is useless and frustrating.

2. A lot of times a plunge from the shooter lane will result in the ball hanging up on the gate that is above the pops and just inside the entrance to lane to behind the house. I have to shake the game to let the ball roll free of the gate and drop into the pops. It seems to lay down against the ball guide and behind the flap of the gate. I've tried to bend the flap to make it higher to let the ball roll out easier. I also removed the ball guide to try to bend a little steeper angle into it. It's really horizontally flat back there. In addition I raised the playing angle of the game to let gravity help pull the ball out. These things only helped a little. The ball now only gets stuck back there about half as much. Still unacceptable. Anybody else have this issue or does someone have a fix?

3. I have an older shaker motor I've had for years. I know they are now sold for about $100 but why pay if I have one? Is their instructions available on where to hook a shaker motor into the wiring harness behind the coin door? Is there a plug already available to use or do I have to cut the motor's wiring into the harness myself?

Thanks in advance!
Dave Schulpius

I think I found my answer to #3, about the shaker motor. I see by looking through the manual that there is a header pin on the Coin Door interface board just inside the coin door. The header is called CN16. It has just two pins that accept the shaker's wires; Pin 1 is Blue and Pin 5 is Red with Pin 4 being the key. I'll give this a try. What's the worst that can happen? LOL!

LOL Deathhimself! Ya, I've seen that happen before. However this time I did not see the magic smoke. See my next followup discovery about the shaker motor I tried to install.

Well, I hooked up my old shaker motor up. I wired it as the schematics show but nothing. A volt meter shows I'm getting 48 volts between pin 1 and 5 on CN16 of the interface board. The shaker motor didn't move but now I discovered it could be a 12 volt motor I have here I'm trying. I'm not sure but I don't think the extra voltage would burn up the motor right away. It would have at least moved a little. Anyway, I've placed an order with Pinball Life for a Spike 2 compatible shaker motor. Looks like it's plug and play.

Thanks for this info. I'll give it try.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Key Posts"?

Ahh! Thanks!!

I had an odd think happen today with my EHOH. I was working on an issue with the ball hanging up under the controlled drop down gate behind the house. It's the one just behind the house that the ball goes through after you plunge it. I think it's resolved now and you can find the thread here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/elvira-hoh-problem-is-driving-me-nuts-any-opinions#post-5853622 .

Anyway, here's the weird part; I had to remove the house and gate assembly to repair this issue then reattach everything when fixed. I've had this house removed once already in the past but not the gate assembly. Before this last removal and reassembly I was struggling to break 500,000,000. I was playing my butt off and a few times I completed Gapa Angry, Attic Attack and all the house haunts. (I play 5 balls). Now that the fix is complete and working my score has jumped to commonly scoring over 5,000,000,000.

What could have changed? It certainly wasn't my game play. I've had better games before my fixand my scores are more then 6 times greater. Is scoring above 3,000,000,000 usual with this game?

Everything seems to be playing nicely. I guess I need to go into the switch test to see if there are any issues. Thanks.

I'm sure I saw a thread or post talking about how to adjust the Dead Head crypt door in EHOH. I've looked around again and can't find it or any mention of how to do this. My door is always open about 3/8th of an inch or more.

Can someone point out a thread talking about the best way to adjust it? Probably has something to do with adjustring the optos I'd guess. I could start taking everything apart but I thought I'd try to read up on it first.

Thanks!

Thanks for the advice. The problem did turn out to be a misaligned ramp opto. It's the right ramp that turns around over the pops. Every time the pops would go off the ramp opto would register like a ball was going through it. Seems every time the ramp shook the opto would move and see the edge of the peep hole it's shining through. Double scoring and all the stuff that goes with making a ramp shot just just from a ball in the pops. LOL.

Now I'm back to normal scoring. Kind of a let down seeing the smaller scores. I thought I was really something there for a while. LOL.

Thanks for the advice. I took the crypt house assembly completely apart to see what was going on. You are correct. There is no way to get it to close completely without something scraping, breaking or bumping. However I did remove the opto bracket and added three #4 washers under each hole while I had it apart. That was enough to close the gap more then half way and everything clears nicely. More then the three washers caused the skull to hit the front of the house and the opto blinder to bind inside of the "U" optos. It actually looks much better now and I cant see the skull's jaw anymore. Just a sliver of light. I'm good with that. Thanks again.

I'll attach two pictures. One shows the crypt house's back edge pressing on the opto wires. The second one shows where I filed a opening to let the wires pass by without being touched by the crypt wall. This kept the crypt from triggering the ramp opto when it shook.

However last night after playing a few games (after I thought the ramp opto was free from phantom triggering) I got another high scoring game from mediocre play. I think I still have a triggering problem with that opto. Not sure what it is till I take it apart again and test. More to follow.

DSC01863 (resized).JPG

DSC01864 (resized).JPG

I think I finally fixed my problem of the ramp opto's still triggering. Seems like the "U" shaped opto bracket that wraps under the ramp was spread out a touch far. This sent the beem upwards instead of horizontally. Also the screws that held the opto boards on were a touch lose. Bending the "U" bracket in a little and tightening down the boards seems to totally eliminate the phantom opto triggering.

I don't have a picture of how the door was before I added the three #4 washers under each hole of the Crypt opto bracket. However here's a couple pics of how far the door closes now after raising the opto bracket with the washers. Again, any higher and the skull scrapes on the top door and the blinder binds up inside the "U" optos:
DSC01865 (resized).JPGDSC01866 (resized).JPG

I love my shaker in this game. It's so well integrated. It feels great when the ball is in the shooter lane and the lighting strikes in the monitor screen. Another cool effect is when Goppa is angry and the shaker starts. Elvira pops out on the screen and shakes around with the effect! I love it!! I got my shaker from Pinball Life. They are the BEST.

I've looked all over but can't find the answer. I installed the latest code, 1.01, for EHOH a couple weeks ago and haven't heard any adult language. Did they edit it all out or is there now a Family/Adult setting to switch? I paged through all the 1 billion settings and didn't see anything.

Thanks jfh!

I hope they include one soon so I can get back some of those adult quotes that put a smile on my face. Any news of that happening?

I may be wrong but I think saw in one of the code updates that they fixed a reboot issue when a certain mode was in progress. What code are you running?

Is there a Buy In option setting for EHOH to buy an extra ball when game ends? If so, where can I find it?