Foo Fighters (LE)
Stern, 2023
Foo Fighters (Premium)
Stern, 2023
Foo Fighters (Pro)
Stern, 2023Quoted from mstang01:Super helpful but now I spend my whole game upgrading the van and playing with the radio . I wasn’t real clear on if you need to hit something else to collect mystery (and if so, where it is)
Thanks! I think it is just hit both targets and then you have to hit one again to collect the mystery.
Quoted from Desmodromic:Pinsider IronMan8Bit did something like you're thinking of for Godzilla. Might be a handy reference as a starting point. Block diagram is in his post here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-godzilla-official-owners-club/page/410#post-7542866
I've started one for FF too! ha Granted very first draft and I haven't had time to iterate on this one yet.
FF Rules - Final.pngQuoted from IronMan8Bit:I've started one for FF too! ha Granted very first draft and I haven't had time to iterate on this one yet.[quoted image]
Ha! Awesome! This will surely come in handy.
Quoted from Insanity199:Did you straighten those two stand ups? Definitely look like they are leaning to the left. Mine were.
Didn’t notice now have to pull the glass again! Man glass is so tight on these.
I’m all the way upstairs not even close to my pins and can hear the airplane jets of that foo fighters fan downstairs. Need to sign a petition to have stern get better fans. They have them just need to use them. Their supplier said before they just need to ask for them.
Quoted from Kolk1:I have a 36W in the ceiling at each end of the room, and a 24 under each machine. I notice it makes the green plastic protectors pop more than glow bands (I have them in TNA). I can’t say I have good photos of glow bands on TNA under black lights. Can’t really see them compared to the green plastic.
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
that's hilarious, I have the same blacklights and the same carpet..I just haven't permanently installed those yet..I'm curious how you have yours mounted, and how high + angle..
Quoted from Ampsquare:Surprised there isn’t a “Where the fuck is my FFLE” forum topic started yet. I’m guessing there’s about 400 to 500 people who are sittting around going, I thought I was gonna get it early April.
Mine doesn't reach New Zealand till July so quite a while to go for me!
Quoted from Ampsquare:Surprised there isn’t a “Where the fuck is my FFLE” forum topic started yet. I’m guessing there’s about 400 to 500 people who are sittting around going, I thought I was gonna get it early April.
Zero communication from my distributor, which is frustrating since my check was cashed.
But in all honesty, does it really matter when it arrives? Months down the road I'll have no clue what the date was when I got it!
I'm just hoping for some info so I can make sure I can get the thing picked up at the shipping company... and it's not a sneak attack when it arrives.
Quoted from beltking:I’m all the way upstairs not even close to my pins and can hear the airplane jets of that foo fighters fan downstairs. Need to sign a petition to have stern get better fans. They have them just need to use them. Their supplier said before they just need to ask for them.
It's crazy that Stern doubled down and went to EVEN LOUDER, crappier PowerNex fans in the 500W power supplies Stern uses in the most recent pins out the door. NMB fans were bad enough, PowerNex adds about another 3dB of insult.
The reasons Gomez gave for using the loud fans with the higher CFM and incredibly higher noise just don't pass inspection. The meanwell power supply has a built in failsafe, so in his example of a pin in a laundromat window in the summer, if the backbox got so hot a lower CFM fan couldn't keep up, as the temperature inside the power supply crept up, it would throttle power down to a minimum of 60% output, eventually just turning off if the internal temperature got to 158F. But let's be real, that's an extreme edge case, not representative of Stern's customer base, and maybe not even representative of a real-world occurrence anymore in the era of $7k Pros, $10k Premiums, and $13k LEs.
RSP 500-48_temp_graph (resized).jpg
Really, though, with the admission that the majority of Stern pins are going in homes now, why is Stern punishing all the buyers for the handful of theoretical edge cases? Offer the current loud as hell power supply as an upgrade option for those (potentially fictional now) locations, and give everyone else a nice experience with a relatively quiet power supply with a different fan from the factory that's been proven as an upgrade/replacement for almost 4 years now in thousands of Stern pins with zero failures. I mean, it's great that Stern has let me sell a lot of fans to replace the abomination they went with, but I'd be happy as a clam not to have to open up EVERY SINGLE NEW STERN I unbox to get rid of the noise. I suspect all their customers would be grateful as well. Maybe the $1-2 difference in price at scale is what's really holding them back...
THE MOST IMPORTANT adjustment you can make to your game that I've seen no one mention or talk about (edit: I was informed Jack Danger mentioned this in a stream)
Full and Auto Plunge shooter lane adjustment:
It's built into the game but surprisingly hidden and not in the manual either in written or pictorial form. I found it when I took apart my shooter lane to install the post sleeve at the end of the shooter lane.
I don't have a pic of it because my lane is dialed in at 7.0 pitch and goes around the ramp 100% of the time manually and on auto and I don't want to mess with it anymore (see the post below a couple down from this one where I found it in Cary Hardy's video at the 11:05 timestamp)
1st off you don't have to take apart anything to make this adjustment, but it is intended to mechanically change the shooter lane. The following is if you want to take a peek at what I'm describing
There is a single 11/32" nut holding down the end of the right shooter lane, right ramp and post sleeve post. Unscrew that nut and remove the washer, pull up the metal return ramp, remove the other washer and black spacer and you will see a slotted adjustment at the end of the ramp...the guide end is flexible and rides off the playfield with a built in clearance notch so you won't scratch anything...The movement is about 5 or 7 mm left and right...you can see where I lined mine up in the overhead photo.
To make the adjustment:
Reassemble everything if you did my step above, otherwise, simply loosen the nut until you can move the end of the guiderail back and forth freely. It has limits of travel within the slot and will only move so far one way or the other. Snug the nut up and do a series of tests...I start with manual full plunge and get it to where it's just missing the ufo ball and cleanly hitting the ramp...then move onto the auto plunge...running a series of test over and over in rapid succession...you may find you are coming up short when the manual is dialed in...At 7.0 degrees, I bumped my autoplunger power from the factory 210 default to 225...
Every game is different but I can assure you you can make both your manual and auto plunge work 99.9% of the time and complete the ramp cleanly
It improves the game dramatically by reducing chaos drastically.
Screenshot 2023-05-05 155524 (resized).png
I changed my pitch to 6.8 recently and the above tweaks still hold up
Quoted from Sonics99:Thanks PinMonk, I was able to get everything fixed with your info besides the shooter lane. I think the pindefender is causing it to be raised too high and it’s not triggering. So may need an adjustment, but at least I know how to fix and test it now.
Can someone tell me if for a manual full plunge that this seems normal? Not sure the video shows it well enough but hopefully. And sorry I suck at recording.
https://imgur.com/a/iPfUDCP
See my post just above this one - you should be going around the ramp every time
Quoted from fooflighter:See my post just above this one - you should be going around the ramp every time
Just was reading that. Thanks. I’m pretty confident everything is level now. It’s better for sure. But I’ll take a look at what you posted and try to dial it in more. Manual seems more iffy than auto.
Here's a video demonstrating my lane adustment fix there are no edits or cuts and goes from manual to auto plunging....I'm doing this one handed so I'm not even focusing on the plunge and the video shows the 100% success rate
Quoted from fooflighter:Here's a video demonstrating my lane adustment fix there are no edits or cuts and goes from manual to auto plunging....I'm doing this one handed so I'm not even focusing on the plunge and the video shows the 100% success rate
Looks great, but I'm still unclear on what you did to make it more consistent.
Quoted from snaroff:Looks great, but I'm still unclear on what you did to make it more consistent.
I took it as to move the curved wall slightly left or right to better aim the ball toward the ramp
Quoted from snaroff:Looks great, but I'm still unclear on what you did to make it more consistent.
if you look down at that nut, there is a flat piece that is riveted perpendicular to the end of the guiderail. It has a slot in it that is hidden and by loosening the nut you can bend the guiderail end either left or right when looking down overhead from the player position. It is flexible and the nut holds the rail under tension in place firmly. This changes the path the ball has when it leaves the shooter lane to complete the crossover ramp on the plunge or autoplunge...it really is a simple ingenious design...it's amazing how many things tie into that one single post
Quoted from EtzEtz:I took it as to move the curved wall slightly left or right to better aim the ball toward the ramp
That's it
Quoted from Diamond:Did stern post what was on the line for freaky Friday today?
Foo and James Bond.
Quoted from Vaughn:This is going to go down as the most ripped off premium/le ever … first it’s the deadpost mod ripoff… now pinball life is selling factory sculpts to pro owners. Big ole middle finger to the premium and LE buyers. Thanks for protecting your buyers stern. Glad I got the benefit of getting to buy expression lights lol.
Stern sells replacement parts for every game. Nothing new. You can always get a Prem translite to go in your pro, for example. (you can't get a LE backglass though) . You can always get the toys.
You can't get the code though. You could maybe buy all the parts and put an upper playfield in, but you can't get the code for it. Or can you? If you have all the node boards for the prem, can you run prem code? Or is there some fuse blown on some chip or some other key that says "this is a pro"
Keep in mind, by the time someone buys all that for a pro, they've spent more than on a premium. And premium isn't limited anyway... so what are you complaining about "protecting your buyers"??
Quoted from 1956PINHEAD:My Premium just landed. Looking forward to getting it set up later today and playing a few games
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
I would be more excited to see your horses in and outside the stable. BTW no such thing as just a few with this one.
Quoted from beltking:I’m all the way upstairs not even close to my pins and can hear the airplane jets of that foo fighters fan downstairs. Need to sign a petition to have stern get better fans. They have them just need to use them. Their supplier said before they just need to ask for them.
I agree they are unnecessary loud.
Quoted from PinMonk:It's crazy that Stern doubled down and went to EVEN LOUDER, crappier PowerNex fans in the 500W power supplies Stern uses in the most recent pins out the door. NMB fans were bad enough, PowerNex adds about another 3dB of insult.
The reasons Gomez gave for using the loud fans with the higher CFM and incredibly higher noise just don't pass inspection. The meanwell power supply has a built in failsafe, so in his example of a pin in a laundromat window in the summer, if the backbox got so hot a lower CFM fan couldn't keep up, as the temperature inside the power supply crept up, it would throttle power down to a minimum of 60% output, eventually just turning off if the internal temperature got to 158F. But let's be real, that's an extreme edge case, not representative of Stern's customer base, and maybe not even representative of a real-world occurrence anymore in the era of $7k Pros, $10k Premiums, and $13k LEs.
[quoted image]
Really, though, with the admission that the majority of Stern pins are going in homes now, why is Stern punishing all the buyers for the handful of theoretical edge cases? Offer the current loud as hell power supply for those (potentially fictional now) locations, and give everyone else a nice experience with a relatively quiet power supply with a different fan from the factory that's been proven as an upgrade/replacement for almost 4 years now in thousands of Stern pins with zero failures. I mean, it's great that Stern has let me sell a lot of fans to replace the abomination they went with, but I'd be happy as a clam not to have to open up EVERY SINGLE NEW STERN I unbox to get rid of the noise. I suspect all their customers would be grateful as well. Maybe the $1-2 difference in price at scale is what's really holding them back...
Unrealistic situation as it wouldn't be by a window for long. Smash and grab, especially in the new lawless city’s.
Quoted from fooflighter:THE MOST IMPORTANT adjustment you can make to your game that I've seen no one mention or talk about:
Full and Auto Plunge shooter lane adjustment:Every game is different but I can assure you you can make both your manual and auto plunge work 99.9% of the time and complete the ramp cleanly
It improves the game dramatically by reducing chaos drastically.
[quoted image]
Nice, that's good to have for tweaking.
Of course my experience with Stern auto launchers and any sort of long launch path that requires accuracy is once you dial it in to work, it lasts for about 50 games max before it needs some other sort of auto launcher tweak / attention. But good to add it to the arsenal on Foo's launch!
So are you saying that Stern has their own chosen fans pre-installed by Meanwell? Or talking about the standard fan? That would be interesting because I don't see them going the other way and taking OEM fans out and throwing them away and replacing at cost, considering on video interview Gomez said optical spinners were too expensive to put in all their games. Optical LED's costing under $1.
Quoted from blizz81:Nice, that's good to have for tweaking.
Of course my experience with Stern auto launchers and any sort of long launch path that requires accuracy is once you dial it in to work, it lasts for about 50 games max before it needs some other sort of auto launcher tweak / attention. But good to add it to the arsenal on Foo's launch!
So far so good with 300 plays since the fix
Quoted from 1956PINHEAD:My Premium just landed. Looking forward to getting it set up later today and playing a few games
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
Nice!!
We share the same birthdate!! I mean our machines... 
Have fun, it has been a blast too play and can't wait for more code, call outs etc...
Quoted from Sorokyl:Stern sells replacement parts for every game. Nothing new. You can always get a Prem translite to go in your pro, for example. (you can't get a LE backglass though) . You can always get the toys.
You can't get the code though. You could maybe buy all the parts and put an upper playfield in, but you can't get the code for it. Or can you? If you have all the node boards for the prem, can you run prem code? Or is there some fuse blown on some chip or some other key that says "this is a pro"
Keep in mind, by the time someone buys all that for a pro, they've spent more than on a premium. And premium isn't limited anyway... so what are you complaining about "protecting your buyers"??
Exactly this. It's easy to spend a lot of money on mods to bring a pins trim level up but from a resale standpoint upgrades generally have less of an ROI. You need to make a call on if its worth it for you or not.
I was in on a premium and there was one LE left here which I ended up switching for yesterday. It's more obviously but I was going to spend money on stuff (shaker, expression, sound) anyway and in the end decided to spend more for the LE instead.
Quoted from Doctor6:Something dawned on me while watching Joel do a stream of this with RayDay. We need to have the actual programmer with us to explain the vagueness of the rules. In no other hobby do you need the guy that made the darn thing have to sit down with you and explain the esoteric idiosyncrasies of something the way this hobby does. That is honesty one of my favorite parts of the older games: you knew what to do. You didn't have to be told what the paddle does to light the battery, and what the battery even does.
I wonder, if with more updates, some of this super cryptic stuff will be spelled out on screen or uttered with callouts. I love this game, but each one needs an in depth, multi hour amount of research to enjoy fully.
Not completely true, alot of board game developers have to go to shows and explain rulesets and how to play their newest crazy tabletop or role playing games.
Quoted from PinMonk:It's crazy that Stern doubled down and went to EVEN LOUDER, crappier PowerNex fans in the 500W power supplies Stern uses in the most recent pins out the door. NMB fans were bad enough, PowerNex adds about another 3dB of insult.
The reasons Gomez gave for using the loud fans with the higher CFM and incredibly higher noise just don't pass inspection. The meanwell power supply has a built in failsafe, so in his example of a pin in a laundromat window in the summer, if the backbox got so hot a lower CFM fan couldn't keep up, as the temperature inside the power supply crept up, it would throttle power down to a minimum of 60% output, eventually just turning off if the internal temperature got to 158F. But let's be real, that's an extreme edge case, not representative of Stern's customer base, and maybe not even representative of a real-world occurrence anymore in the era of $7k Pros, $10k Premiums, and $13k LEs.
[quoted image]
Really, though, with the admission that the majority of Stern pins are going in homes now, why is Stern punishing all the buyers for the handful of theoretical edge cases? Offer the current loud as hell power supply as an upgrade option for those (potentially fictional now) locations, and give everyone else a nice experience with a relatively quiet power supply with a different fan from the factory that's been proven as an upgrade/replacement for almost 4 years now in thousands of Stern pins with zero failures. I mean, it's great that Stern has let me sell a lot of fans to replace the abomination they went with, but I'd be happy as a clam not to have to open up EVERY SINGLE NEW STERN I unbox to get rid of the noise. I suspect all their customers would be grateful as well. Maybe the $1-2 difference in price at scale is what's really holding them back...
Do these still work in the FF @pinmonk?
IMG_7206 (resized).jpegQuoted from jyeakley:Do these still work in the FF PinMonk?
[quoted image]
I wonder if there is one we can mount externally to run all the time to keep the ambient temperature low enough to prevent the primary from ever kicking off?
Quoted from jyeakley:Do these still work in the FF PinMonk?
[quoted image]
Yep. They changed the fan internally to the powernex that's even louder, but the replacement I sell (and pinball life also carries) still works. I recently adjusted the length of the wire from the fan to the connector so there was less slop. Not that it matters, but if you have one with a black dot on the connector, it's the slightly shorter wiring harness.
Quoted from HB_GAMER:I wonder if there is one we can mount externally to run all the time to keep the ambient temperature low enough to prevent the primary from ever kicking off?
People have done that. There pictures of a few in the DIY thread I started originally before I made a plug and play kit here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/replacing-stern-spike-noisy-ps-fans
(here's a direct link to one of them if the DIY origins of the mod doesn't interest you: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/replacing-stern-spike-noisy-ps-fans/page/6#post-5049264
I personally like a clean factory look, and having external power connections is not ideal, but hooking an external bezel and fan to the power supply DOES work.
Quoted from 1956PINHEAD:My Premium just landed. Looking forward to getting it set up later today and playing a few games
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
Wow my LE build date was April 18th. I must have received one of the last ones before the stoppage. Feeling fortunate.
Quoted from fooflighter:Here's a video demonstrating my lane adustment fix there are no edits or cuts and goes from manual to auto plunging....I'm doing this one handed so I'm not even focusing on the plunge and the video shows the 100% success rate
Thanks. That seemed to help. Still getting like 80% success or so. Have it all the way to the right since it kept hitting that left target. Might have to check the level and everything again, since I can’t adjust it further. I’m on carpet, so I wouldn’t doubt that the level is a bit fishy as the machine gets moved etc.
Quoted from Sonics99:Thanks. That seemed to help. Still getting like 80% success or so. Have it all the way to the right since it kept hitting that left target. Might have to check the level and everything again, since I can’t adjust it further. I’m on carpet, so I wouldn’t doubt that the level is a bit fishy as the machine gets moved etc.
take look at your ball sitting in the shooter lane, if it's far away from the auto launch cradles, you may not be getting enough power for the manual launch and the ball is coming up short. I actually had to move mine to the left to prevent it from hitting the captive ball... What color spring was included in your shooter rod... It wouldn't be the first time the wrong one was installed
Quoted from KING-HENRY:that's hilarious, I have the same blacklights and the same carpet..I just haven't permanently installed those yet..I'm curious how you have yours mounted, and how high + angle..
Under the machines, they are just mounted to the bottom all the way against the wall, with just one screw on each end, then they are angled towards your feet. The ceilings ones are just normal 8ft pointed down the center isle so to speak. In this pic you can obviously see it above the game on banner.
What I did was, I bought one of those wireless light switches and did 3 receivers. And each receiver has a 6 port surge protector. Then all pinballs and black lights are on that wireless light switch. Then normal ceiling lights are on a permanent light switch like normal.
IMG_4892 (resized).jpegQuoted from GeekedOnPinball:Where can I get speaker lights that look similar to the LE style for my premium?
? LE doesn’t come with speaker lights. You can get lights, LE sized speaker plates and colored acrylic ring at speakerlightkits then you just need some bigger speakers which you can get at pinwoofer or other places.
Hey everyone. Joined the club last weekend. I’ve really been enjoying it! Got a 4/20/23 manufacturing date. Anyway, quick question. I ordered a shaker motor and it arrived in the mail today. It’s the revision C motor. It came with a “cabinet node capacitor kit”. I haven’t seen this before. Anyone know what the deal is? Instructions say it’s to prevent slam tilt switch activations from occurring. I guess might as well put it in right? Is this something new stern added? Definitely have never installed this part on other shaker motors I’ve put in. Thanks!
Quoted from HB_GAMER:Wow my LE build date was April 18th. I must have received one of the last ones before the stoppage. Feeling fortunate.
Yeah, April 19 LE here. We must have gotten in just under the wire.
Also got my van straightened out, easy peasy. After I took this pic I realized that the stop post under the van was canted, so I went back in and tweaked the bracket under the playfiled so it's more centered.
HB_GAMER Your right, played more than a just a few games this afternoon/evening. I think around 25-30, kept me coming back for more. I got a good build as it didn't need any adjusting that I can tell so far, and no loose hardware (FOD) floating around anywhere either, always a good sign. And I might have time to take that green machine out of the stable tomorrow and clean out the pipes!
Zeusflurry Happy birthday to us! Sounds like we got in on the first builds right after the line switched over from the LE's. Game plays great, looking forward to putting more plays on it over the weekend.
Quoted from Mike7599:Hey everyone. Joined the club last weekend. I’ve really been enjoying it! Got a 4/20/23 manufacturing date. Anyway, quick question. I ordered a shaker motor and it arrived in the mail today. It’s the revision C motor. It came with a “cabinet node capacitor kit”. I haven’t seen this before. Anyone know what the deal is? Instructions say it’s to prevent slam tilt switch activations from occurring. I guess might as well put it in right? Is this something new stern added? Definitely have never installed this part on other shaker motors I’ve put in. Thanks!
Highly doubtful you need that capacitor. That was a fix from many years ago. I wouldn’t install.
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Noblesville, IN
