Ours on location has been having tons of drop target glitches too

It's a VERY common issue with GOTG. When I bought mine; the rep warned me ahead of time of all the common problems with this particular machine. He said the drop target getting stuck was, by far, the most prevalent issue. He ordered me a new one (free for me) and told me to disable the drop target in the settings until the new one came.

I disabled it in the settings; but it still ended up getting triggered during Groot multiball and messed up the rhythm of the game.

Once the new drop target assembly came; I installed it, adjusted it for height and haven't had an issue since. Hope your rep helps you out.

No should be an adjustment, Waxx knows the fix

Hey knolmes, I’m on my phone so it will be hard to type out but it’s basically one of a couple things that are the same problem. The drop target is not being knocked off the ledge but can be fixed easiest with adjusting the arm that knocks it off. I’m getting to a computer, give me a couple minutes.

Ok, it's similar to Star Trek and I did many different things on mine testing what worked for me. Basically you need to get the arm that pushes the drop target off the ledge closer to the drop and give the magnet more strength to do it. I disassembled mine entirely and adjusted the arm as well as some other tricks but the easiest solution that accomplishes the same goal I've seen is MapleSyrups:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/guardians-of-the-galaxy-owners-thread/page/56#post-4562772

He just moves the whole bracket down which moves the arm closer by association, smart and easy.

Edit: I just read the above posts and while this is a common issue it does most definitely not require a new assembly. The assembly just needs to be adjusted correctly. Since doing that mine works 100% and is completely fixed. You could end up doing this at least once if you own a ST as well, just kind of goes with the mech I guess. (even though it is a redesigned mech from ST)

I called and the stern tech had me take the entire mechanism off the playfield and bend the sides in to get rid of the slop. It worked great.

I dont , but I can go down and pull it off and get pictures for you this morning. The game is extremely annoying when it wont release your ball. Haha

My friend has the Pro version and having the same problem (got his like 2 weeks ago, probably made in the same batch). I called Stern yesterday on his behalf and they just offered to send me some new part. I forget what he called it, but it sounded like it was a newly designed part, as opposed to just a replacement part, but I could have misunderstood and maybe there was just a bad part that was put on the machine originally.

As a side note, my friend mentioned was that when the playfield is up in the air for maintenance, the drop target works flawlessly when manually activated.

I'll try to do some proper documentation here once the part gets here (unless someone beats me to it).

Shorten up the small spring.

Tried that, didn't have an effect.

Did you make it really tight?

It really is the distance of the metal plate and arm that push the drop target off the little plastic ledge. If you bend the plate so it is closer to the drop and closer to the coil it fixes the problem. It’s a poor design but I haven’t seen any attempt from Stern to fix the design.

It requires them to adjust it properly at the factory and cannot be tested by manually touching the target (which I’m positive is all they do at the factory).

Ok, using my phone at work here but the two red arrows are pointing at the design flaw. Magnet doesn’t pull up bracket up enough to push arm forward.

Edit: it’s why bending the whole assembly moves the magnet closer to the metal bracket the red arrow points at.

FE2976A7-9E4D-4321-A44F-996E988808CC (resized).jpeg

Yes, Waxx bent the trigger plate forward towards the drop target. (left arrow). This was done with two needle nose pliers. One plier to hold the bottom of the trigger plate, and one to bend it forward towards the drop target so it has a better chance of pushing it off the ledge.

I messed around with this quite a bit and now mine works! 100% , on the owners thread about the page 58 I posted some pics of what I did.

I can offer some suggestions that might be helpful.. as far as I can tell there are 3 common drop target issues , the difference between working and not is small like 1/16 inch or less !

first try to figure out what the target is not dropping!! on mine and on most I suspect it is because the actuator nub on the trigger plate ( the piece with the red arrows above ) is not pushing the drop target off the retaining ledge with the added force of the ball behind . you can hear the coil fire but the target stays in place. if you take a pair of needle nose pliers and slightly bend the nub towards the drop target so it is just shy of protruding above the retaining ledge it should fix it . while doing Anchor the coil relay (magnet ) portion (right red arrow )with another needle nose so as not to change the angle on that side of the plate ., I ended up gluing a piece of plastic to the target so less travel is required by the trigger plate but this probably was not necessary

if the coil relay portion of the plate is too far away from the magnet, the plate will not move at all , you will hear a soft click , and can see that the trigger plate is not being pulled in if you activate with the playfield raised, , so you will need to bend the coil plate section closer ( right arrow) to the magnet, anchor trigger section with needle nose as above, it can be a little tricky bending the plate as if you do not have it firmly anchored the you will change the other tigger sides angle as well . I learned this! I ended up putting a washer between the the coil relay and the bracket to close the distance and it accomplishes the same thing as bending the plate

if the target does not stay up either the actuator nub is protruding too far or the target is not catching on the edge of the retaining ledge, stern had a fix for this for other drop targets which consisted shimming the ledge with a thin washer to make it protrude a little farther. I have seen posts of people making a shim from a credit card to do the same thing.

I talked to stern and given that I was the second owner they did not send me a whole assembly but did send me a new trigger plate , looks exactly like the old one!

if any one got a new assembly that looks different from the old one would love to see a picture

People also bend the top bracket in which the coil is mount down to reduce the gap between the bracket and the coil.

Edi: pinballjj Yeah, thanks for describing that for me a little better than what I can do on my phone.

Yah waxx,I think we have both been through this fix, probably the best advice to give is to say take the mech off the machine and play with it until you understand how it works and then the aim of all the fixes will make sense.

Good luck to the op with the new mech, in the meantime as mentioned you can disable it either from the menu or 100% by unplugging

It was very frustrating to play a new machine and keep on having to take off the glass to free the ball,once fixed the game is a lot of fun.........,challenging fun I would say!

If it is working without the spring do that.

whatever works! my understanding is that the springs job is to keep the trigger plate nub off the the drop target when it goes up so without it you might have problems with the target not staying up but see how it goes !

Good work everyone. Now Kholmes will know how to fix his Star Trek when it has the exact same issue.

The reality of it is Stern most likely sent you the exact same mech hoping that by trying stuff you will figure it out! You didn't really need the new mech, but that was the easiest thing for them to do. They mean well though.

The best thing you can do is study the problem and try to learn WHY its not working. Then make slow adjustments to correct the issue. I was at @Waxx's house when we fixed his game. There are probably many ways to fix this, and Waxx is correct that the MapleSyrup method is probably the 'easiest' way to approach this. If that is not working for you I would suggest trying to bend the trigger plate.

When you play the game you will most likely hear that it is trying to push the target off the ledge, it simply doesn't have enough power to do it with the added weight of a ball on the drop target. You can help it out by bending the trigger plate forward a bit to give it more leverage, and additionally if needed bending the trigger plate closer to the magnet.

Go slow, make small adjustments and test. Look at what is happening to see if what you are doing is helping.

Don't get too frustrated and keep trying you WILL figure this out and it will be a great feeling once you do.

See picture, I hope this helps.

1.) Bend red highlighted section in direction of red arrow 2-3 millimeters. Test

Optionally if needed
2.) Bend blue highlighted section in direction of blue arrow 2-3 millimiters. Test

Note: The MapleSyrup method is basically doing the same thing in an easier way. i.e. moving the trigger plate closer to the target.

Screen Shot 2018-10-13 at 11.01.51 AM (resized).png

I also want to say thanks to everyone here. I too received a replacement part (just the bracket that needs the bending) and it was identical to the one that was installed. We wound up just fixing the installed one and now have a spare. In our case we did the blue bend. It was so far away from the magnet that it would never engage. Honestly I don't why they simply don't do a gap check on these before they leave the factory.

While I can't deny that making the spring shorter/stronger seems to have helped fix this problem for people here, I must say I don't understand how or why. It doesn't make sense. If anything, it should make the problem worse as it's making it harder for the magnet to pull the bracket up. I'm pretty convinced bending this bracket ever so slightly is the solution.

Lastly, I'm not sure how people are bending this, but we removed the two screws that hold the bracket in on the left side. That allowed us to finagle the part out the right side, bend it, and put back in without having to remove anything else.

When we fixed @Waxx's, I held the middle of the trigger plate with a needle nose pliers from one side and he bent the red part from other side with a pair of needle nose pliers.

I received a replacement drop target mech yesterday and put it in today.. I see quite a big difference from comparing the old to the new ( little plate # 24). The original is on the left...replacement is on the right. The original even has 1 washer spaced on the magnet to shim it closer to the plate in the pic. Zero adjustments needed on the replacement and has been perfect thus far. Just thought I would post it up.

IMG_20181115_182321.jpg

Just had the same issue. I put a washer under the small coil to move the coil away from the mounting bracket and close the gap between the coil and the spring loaded piece that drops the target. So far it seems to be working fine.

my orb does not seem to work badly, it does not stay up and it does not happen that it retains the ball. The problem is that it seems that the target goes late. the ball leaves the orb before the bull goes up. for a few thousandths of a second it seems that the bullseye goes up later and does not catch the ball

serious some video of the failure that has the capture orb.el.mecanismo works well but it seems that it would act late

someone who can help me? it seems that when the ball enters the orb the target goes up and down twice before catching the ball ... sometimes it seems as if it raised the target later and spits the ball out instead of retaining it.thanksss

Does anyone else happen to the target orb does not catch the ball? it seems that the bull's eye rises later

It seems that after reading many comments I decided to follow the messages of the forum. I made as many and double the metal sheets. It appears that the orb block works well. But fix this to cause another problem, when the target is raised right on the moment that the ball passes by the magnet, the ball gives a small boat because of the impact of raising the target and the magnet does not manage to catch it ... any advice??

if what you are saying is that the magnet does not grab or alter the ball much after leaving the orb one thing to try is to move the magnet closer to the playfield by placing a washer or two between the magnet attachment screw and its holdng bracket underneath the playfield

others have put a new post rubber (thicker)? on one of the orb posts to give the ball a little bump to slow the ball and move it towards the magnet as it leaves the orb

I do not mean that ... all that is already done. I mean that just at the moment when the ball goes through the magnet, the avanable target gets up and having strength when climbing the ball hits a small boat, just enough so that the magnet does not grip it

is not that ... all that is already corrected. I mean that just at the moment when the ball goes through the magnet, the orb target gets up and having strength when climbing the ball hits a small boat, just so that the magnet does not grip it