My GB won't be too far away now. I recall hearing Stern pinballs are rubbish. Why I don't know. Firstly to the nib stern guys, do you recommend replacing the nib balls immediately or not? Secondly, is there better balls than others as GB has 12 balls. Thirdly, should I replace the 6 captive balls or only the trough ones? thanks

Yes, trash the Stern balls. I put 6 of the "so-shiney" balls from Pinball Life into the through and then bought 4 green glowballs from Mezel to put in the left captive and 2 pink glowballs to put in the center captive. After the issues with the bending rail, I put another regular ball in the center captive. Total count is 13 balls.

thanks for the advise

If your GB is an Le or premium, make sure what you're replacing the balls with says it's safe for games with magnets. Otherwise your balls will get magnetized in no time

thanks will do

So after years of throwing out the new pinballs that stern puts in the machine, it now looks like they ran out of those old nasty balls. My GB had very nice pinballs in the machine and in the captive areas, a quick polish and they shine very nice.

Yep, the pinballs in the GB of my friend looked fine. The captive balls needed a shine however which only took a few
Minutes

They've always looked fine. They came with some coating on them. Some glass cleaner and they look great. Always have since I've been around from 2009 to now. I'll admit that if you don't clean them they look pretty cloudy like older balls. The ones for ghost busters looked to have come pre cleaned.

Great ... a new pinballmachine with nice looking and shiny pinballs. Great ! After my trouble with GoT i am cured from buying STERN NIB .. but if they use new, nice and shiny pinballs now .. mhhhh

exactly. Plus there were tons of blemishes in the cabinets and playfields. ops didn't give a shit. Collectors these days would have a cow, if they saw the mismatched marker touchups we used to get in the B/W 90's days. Pinball is no place for the anal collector.

Awesome that's definitly a must from all the reviews/reports.

But it would be nice to see Stern step up and do this in house before the games leave the factory, it's another design flaw cmon Stern "you" should be fixing it

I believe you are a little off on your comparisons. B/W didn't charge 10K for a pinball machine even if you factor in inflation rates. Stern's quality has not improved ( if not gotten worse) as their cost goes up and they continue to cut corners on the builds. But hey, as long as you have people that will buy anything new that Stern comes out with, where is their incentive to change?

Is it really a design flaw? Not everyone has this problem. Right out of the box, sure - I had some direct hard hits not drop the target - but as the machine has broken in over about 100 plays (or less) I've only seen a rare few times now. ...not sure that really qualifies as a design flaw that stern should stop the line to fix.

game only have increased in price because you guys line up for games you never played. As long as your wallets keep coming out, the price will keep going up. Has nothing to do with build quality. Never will be. It's how much you guys are willing to pay. Flaws remain consistent over the decades.

In my opinion, a "drop" target that doesn't drop when it's hit is clearly not designed/working right, so yeah it is an issue Stern should be addressing, if it's simply a stronger spring required then they don't need to stop the line to fix the issue just use a stronger/better quality spring rather than the springs there probably using out of happy meal toys to save a buck.

Ever played a bally? Lol

Bally Bricks. It's Pinball.

Thank you, I've been holding my tongue on Bally's to see how knowledgeable some people are. Play a space invaders and hit the left three straight on, hard and see those little babies refuse to fall. Weaken them a little and they fall while the ball is no where near them.

I was being specific to GB, it's 2016 and pins are far more expensive now surely if we can send people to the moon we can finally get a drop target that drops

Why are expectations so different because it's GB? Maybe if people realized drop targets aren't always perfect in dropping in any hit. Try the TNT targets on AC/DC... they brick a lot too.

I didn't have any problem with the GB games I played.. because I aimed to hit the targets more from the side.. because I was avoiding the sucker drains.

GOT LOL targets brick too. Oh and so do my LW3 targets. Oh and my Big Game targets. Actually the only one that doesn't brick is my one classic Bally (EBDLE). Haha

Wish it was just the height extenders really don't want a center post or super bands thought everyone uses Titan competition rubbers now

Edit just ordered mine

My Gottlieb Atlantis targets drop perfectly!

Still haven't got mine...but the holiday weekend boned everything up

My expectations are not different with GB, if I'm buying something doesn't matter what it is, I expect it to work and do what it's supposed to do within reason, like you said drops don't always drop but with a good clean shot it's always nice if they do, without launching your ball over the outlines of course

My point and I probably didn't make it clear initially, was if the fix is simply a stronger/better spring then why aren't stern using a stronger/better quality spring out the box? For the price of a Stern pin I don't think asking for a more suitable spring is a big ask, especially if it improves the gameplay of a main feature - I love drops/pop up targets mid playfield so I personally would like them to be up and down and involved with a game as much as possible

Drop targets are tricky. If you put a stronger spring on then you risk the target not being able to stay up when reset. The drop mech will wear and get easier to drop over time and the stronger spring will cause the drop to machine gun in reset often.

The way the targets work is there is a shelf that the target rests on. When the ball hits the target, it knocks it back away from the shelf. The spring pulls the target down. If the ball is coming at the target too quickly, then the target will bounce back and then back into the shelf so quickly that the spring didn't pull it down to be below the shelf before it bounced back causing the target to not drop. The flippers in ghost busters are incredibly strong. A good strategy is to back hand the targets not shoot them straight on. Also, the targets are super risky shots. I'd avoid a direct shot regardless or you should expect some fast drains.

For anyone that wants a stronger spring, you dont need to buy anything. Just get some needle nose pliars and take your existing spring, unhook it, stretch it a little, and reattach it in the middle. As the targets break in you can reattach the spring as it is today.

Things like Springs I will wait a 100 or so games before any replacements to see how things break in

Potential improvement to fix Slimer hits. I made a wedge that fits inside under the Slimer ball so when the Slimer is hit from the side, the angle deflects it off the actuator plate. Then I added a spacer on top of the ball so you can but the plastic back on and tighten it down to hold the wedge in place. Play testing now.

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Intrested to hear if this is working.

I'm wondering since you are Mr. Mezel himself, have you tried to get Stern to give you the new designed mech instead of rigging the bad design up? I'd think you have some pull over there to make it happen?

Just received my fresh new Node board right from Stern yesterday. And when I saw "fresh" I mean node board complete with jumper wire and hot glued on resistor

Pinball life springs fixed the scoreli brothers. They dont brick anymore and drop easily with any contact. Longer spring in picture is old spring and way weaker then new spring

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Wish I had ordered these with my pbu kit.....

I originally made the stock springs shorter but they still werent strong enough. These new springs are 3x stronger and made the scoleris fun again instead of "oh shit scoleris again", i was hating when they would pop up with stock springs

Makes you wonder why Pinball Life had to figure this out and JT didn't when designing the game and play testing it. Not to mention the other issues like the original Slimer mech, outlane ball jumping issue, bent captive ball wire guide, etc.

No idea but id assume they didnt do any real testing. I solved all the issues you listed. Original slimer reads perfect with a few adjustments, outlanes covered with pinball universe clear pieces, added extra ball to book stacking captive ball, and the pinball life springs fixing drop targets. Ive only had the ball jump the flippers once with all the fixes, the ghost target that activates slimer shoots airball back if hit to hard. Maybe a padded target would fix it.

Feel the same way too about the drop targets...they pop up and crap, here comes a drain. I figured it was worth $ 2 to order the springs with the PBU plastic kit. Also ordered the mod power board to run the Mezel under cab leds (should work to power the ColorDMD display for SIGMA green) and also got the shooter lane SS protector plate.

Where do you get the shooter lane protector set?

Thanks,

accidental post.....

Do folks think the shooter lane protector is necessary for home use (though playing the hell out of it)? My dealer advised against it, but I definitely want this one to last.

Mylar on it is all you need IMO. If you put nothing, you'll definitely get wear that starts around 500 plays

Anyone else get their GB pinblades shipped from Stern like this? Seems like there could be a better method.

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My GoT blades came like that. I rolled them once in the opposite direction to reverse the curve. No issue with install whatsoever.

Pinball Life.

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=2120