Yeah, it's not impossible to get a non-clicky PDB with 2022 caps, it's just that when about half of the 2022 caps are low-spec in my (limited) testing, you're rolling the dice with a 50% probability each cap is insufficient (below 8500uF on a 10k uF spec), and you have to win that roll three times to get a single good PDB set with 2022 caps. The math on that says you have 12.5% odds of that happening, so the odds are ever <not> in your favor.

With 2021 CDE caps the odds are close to 100% of getting a good set of caps.

I don't have the balls to do it, but it would be interesting to cut open a cross-section of a 2021 CDE cap and a 2022 one to see what material(s) inside CDE changed that made the 2022 ones .3 oz heavier and way less reliable. Maybe something more like benheck might investigate.

Aaagghhh!!! Had NO and LA finished , Rosewell started , brought Monkeywrench mb in to the action , music was building up was giving me goosebumps , Rosewell ready ,MW still thumping and drained trying a touch pass from right to left .Man there is some serious buildup in the atmosphere with this pin .I really was liking the lightshow the more I’m getting the pin to wake up lately with better , longer play .When this turns 1.0 it will give GZ a serious run for the roses ! Dead serious

Played again tonight. Didn't notice the issue.

In the menu you can change to code to not allow game start on action button.
No more accidental game start with your guts

I use to access to a capacitor analyzer at work (sort of retired now). It sweeps from DC to some frequency (don't remember). Plotted all the relevant info, I use to use it to make models for my simulations. Would have been interesting to measure one of those caps you mentioned vs. a good one.

Have you pulled a cap and measured capacitance and ESR? (sorry if I missed if you mentioned that).

Is there a part number on a bad cap, I'm curious what dielectric was used?

I already tested a bunch of the CDE caps with an LCR meter (This one: https://www.globaltestsupply.com/product/global-specialties-lcr-600-100-khz-high-precision-lcr-meter ). The caps are stated to be 10000uF with 20% tolerance. All the 2021 caps I tested were 9500uF or above, only 5% loss from stated value, some as high as 9800uF, almost perfect.

However, about 50% of the 2022 caps were below 8500uF - 15% up to 18% loss from stated value. Even the 50% of 2022 "good" ones that were above 8500uF, were well short of 9k uF, a far cry from 2021's lots. Unfortunately for Stern, anything under about 8500uF causes the meanwell power supply to (properly) start clicking as it thinks there's a short.

Thinking maybe CDE used crappier material in the newer caps, I weighed the 2021 caps and the 2022 caps from all the weeks I had on hand. Every single 2022 cap was .3 ounces heavier than the 2021 caps. So, something changed with the makeup of the caps and it made them much crappier. I just don't know what that change is, only that it's definitely a thing.

That's a nice looking LCR meter. Is that the Rp measurement? Do the caps have the same part number (good vs. bad)? I might check my Foo cap part numbers vs. an older Spike 2.

Sorry for a slight thread derail.

Edit: ahhh - you meant 10,000uF?

Sorry Ohm on the brain. Yes, micro farads. Hello, editing.

The caps are the same part number, only the internals were (apparently) cheapened. The way to tell is the lot codes on the top of the caps with a 4 digit code for year and week it was made. 2245, 2241, and 2236 are some of the "lesser" lot codes I've seen, although 2236 seem to be slightly better than 2245, but both are much worse than any of the 2021 caps from the same manufacturer (CDE).

I used Cs (series) mode to measure them.

Interested in taking some specific measurements? If so, I'll PM you. Very geeky stuff - it would seriously derail this thread.

I don't have a LCR meter, but I do have a HP Vector Network Analyzer, but it only goes down to 300KHz (it's more for RF). But I have a NanoVNA that goes down to 50KHz.

Sure, if I can do them. I know the basics, and I mean BASICS of the LCR meter, so you're probably going to ask me to use a function I've never used on it. PM away.

LOL, it won't be hard. Let me look at the LCR manual and I'll PM you.

I have continually had issues with IC logging me out before the timer runs out. it generally happens between games but I think today it happened during a game as i swear I logged in and then was not logged in.

Side note. This game kicks my ass. I played ~5 games and don’t think I broke 50M. Then I played Godzilla and hit 1.5B. then played about 5 games in about 8 minutes and then played Deadpool and hit over 800M. Then went back and did nothing. Now I am sitting on the couch pouting.

Had the pin Off/On 5 times since installing the latest set and all good so far .As far as gameplay ,can’t get back to either of the minis but I’ve been scoring big in mode play so a little trade off I guess .Just want that one game before movie time starts .

See the Premium is starting to hover around $9k now used on Pinside. A few listings below or at the $9k mark, which is a decent savings over the $9,700 new (plus state tax), most distributors are charging. I guess Stern has been pumping these games out over the last year. Great option if you don't mind a game with 100 plays, etc.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/160820

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/158289

$1k by Christmas

Just swapped out rubbers to titan glow and couldn’t find much on here about removing the overlord. Only one nut that’s kind of a pain toward the back that’s under the right flipper return rail. Removing the sculpt is the first step, just two Phillips head screws. The sculpt has two lobes that fit into a slotted receiver on the metal bracket underneath the sculpt. Step two is removing the three locking nuts holding the plastic and metal bracket in place. I just reached through the bracket with a ratchet box end to remove the one at the back that’s a pain. After that the whole assembly can be moved out of the way to swap rubbers. When replacing the back nut I used a pair of forcep style tweezers to get it started. Took a few pics to illustrate the best I could.

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I received the Raiden Gorby Overlord legs recently and got them installed. Install was easy, they bolt on right where the existing blue plastic single legs bolt on the front. I ordered them in silver as they appear both purple and silver in the animations. They look great! Just a visual thing but they're fun.

Left side are the Raiden Gorby legs and the right has the stock plastics in place for comparison:
IMG_3289 (resized).jpg
IMG_3294 (resized).jpg

Here are both sets installed:
IMG_3295 (resized).jpg
IMG_3296 (resized).jpg

And the final result:
IMG_3371 (resized).jpg

Would it be reasonable to make a separate clicking PDB and cap discussion thread and just point people to it when the subject comes up? Probably make it easier on everyone. Just a thought. The problem seems to be ongoing, and big enough to justify its own topic.

New wave of premiums just hit this month, so yea the game is plentiful, anyone wanting to sell used has to compete with readily available NIB. Some dealers still had stock of Prem from the last run and more just came in.

There's a lot of information on it I've posted that's essentially hidden in this thread. Doesn't seem like it's going away anytime soon and will likely affect more than one pin, so probably a good idea. I'll export some of my info to a new thread for reference.

EDIT: Done. Thread just about fixing the clicking is here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-clicking-power-supply-fix#post-7693394

Still all good with no clicking .Hopefully I’m home free .

No matter how many times I do it , starting A51 while OL mb going is just a killer moment .Something about that subtle “doing” that just feels great .

Agreed, like the node 10 board issue on Rush. EDIT: thanks for doing that PinMonk

Just unboxed my pro. Got the dreaded power supply clicking. Generally just two clicks. Is that now considered normal or at least tolerable or should I be looking to get a PDB replacement?

Anything under 5 is normal from what we've seen on here.

That's a different click. I got that. That's more a boot..lol Close the coin door I bet you get 4

This is an example of "bad" clicking:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13y9uZn-y1QGwI3iFMkxn9JbM62vJtdt5/view?usp=sharing

Yeah not that bad thankfully.

could change day to day

New code this week...please? We're due, people!

Yep, I went 0, to 5, to 51. New replacement on the way .

Has Jack mentioned a date for an update to anyone?

Of course looking forward to more call-outs

Thanks

Well I'm usually a big stickler about this kind of thing but I gotta say I am team Raymond with this one. One rubber on the right post makes this game play the best.

The ones that have been on location near me are like this too. Originally a pro and now a premium. Only games that seem to have this problem out of the entire lineup of sterns. Theres been multiple times I've forgotten to sign in because I started a new game.

+1. I can't pin it down to anything repeatable either. I find it doesn't do it if I wait until I see Dave in the Green Body suit during the match, but nothing conclusive yet. My pin is about 20 feet from my wifi AP.

Found a bug in the code...hit a successful use of overdrive and immediately hit the ball into the van lock while the van was flashing to start a city. While it was awarding me for successfully hitting overdrive, the game forgot there was a ball in the van lock and had to find it via ball search. I was not able to start a city and had to hit the three white shots again.

I believe this is a setting you can change in the game menus.

I'm not sure what setting I would ever want for this. I want to stay logged in until the timer runs out (there's a setting to change the duration of the timer, mine is set to 60s), or I manually log out, hold left flipper. At no point to I want to be logged out after game 3 going into game 4,5, or 6.

Also forgot to mention this was on a premium, not pro. A few others have noticed this as well.

Would someone mind pointing me to me a ring list for this game? I want to make sure I have enough clear silicone before I start taking things apart.

Page 39 of the manual for Prem/LE:
https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/FooFighters_LE_Pre_web.pdf

I'm struggling with the same idea of trying it with the rubber but I would know that my scores don't matter any more but it would most certainly help me pass a billion.

lol tell ya what, I'd give you a pass on the rubber and still count your score

I put a rubber ring on my right outlane post, and I can say it’s doing precisely dick in getting me close to a billion.

Just got word from my distro that Stern shipped my Premium and it should be here Tuesday! SO excited! Time to hope to the PDB gods mine isn't a clicking one.

Why wouldn’t they matter? We’re talking about rubber on a post, not a rubber band closing the outlanes. . A lot of people only get to play dirty route games with burnt out GI, weak flippers, and rocking like one of the levellers is missing - I played a bunch of those last weekend! Just playing a fully working home game that you can adjust already gives you a HUGE cheat code compared to the general pinball playing community. If we’re going to split hairs, I’d say the only scores that truly comparable (ie “matter”) are those scored in the same company on the exact same machine.

This is happening on the new Pro at my location. Could not find a relevant adjustment.

Concentrate on just starting city modes and finishing them. Try to hit the captive ball and the right orbit to charge up the tractor beam (to collect hard/valuable shots with the action button) and start 2X/3X playfield respectively. I usually do some combination of LA/Seattle/New York then Austin (which has been points buffed, so it's not crappy like it was before). I try to get the right orbit into the tailwhip twice then go into a city mode and hit that right orbit the third time to start 2X while in multiball. I actually got 3X going this weekend on purpose - it's usually an accident.

Hitting the radio when the hurryup is flashing is also important. In multiball you get an add-a-ball, and the best mystery award is a maxed-out tractor beam charge - 3 button hits available. The largest action button get I have received is 88 Million - from ONE button press in a multiball with multipliers running.

+1

Also remember that you can re-charge your tractor beam during city modes... but apparently not the multiballs. I use this to advantage when going through a longer city mode (without the upgraded bomb van mod) by hitting the captive ball a few times and then using the action button. Doing it this way makes it so you don't have to completely recharge your tractor beam from scratch. Scored 780M the other night... not quite a bill (haven't gotten to DC yet) but this seems like a good strat.

Put on DugFreez ‘s type 13 kit this weekend and swapped rubbers to titan glows. Always love how much these speaker lights add. Also put the type 13 on my Bond.

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