Noooo, it's a sound from the movie. Game needs more of that

I would double check that the ramp hasn't shifted upward (as shown in the video). I do think pressing down should fix any ball trap issues. It's hard to get a sense of scale in the pictures, but based on the size of the black line it doesn't appear that the gap would be large enough to form a ball trap on it's own, but I could be wrong. Either way pressing down would reduce any ball trap potential, since the spherical ball would be forced to the left as it's hitting wood playfield in a different spot. <-- This is super clear in my head, but I'm having trouble putting the physics into words.

In terms of the shaking Michaels, I would suspect there may be moisture or dust in the servos. Since it's all three at once, I'd suspect moisture or humidity. My guess is that issue will resolve itself as you play.

It’s too loud though. I’d bring the ball save sound down 20% and Loomis voice down about 10%

I’m stumped!!!
Going crazy trying to figure out the best Micheal mask?
Someone please link me to the best looking mask to 1978 Micheal?

The gap is more than large enough to cause a trap. I just measured and it's precisely 1/2". And by "gap" I'm referring to the distance between the rubber on the ramp post and the tip of the ball guide. Those are the 2 points the stuck ball lies between. Pressing the ramp down does not narrow the gap at all. I have at least a 1/2 dozen assembly issues like this on my pin. This is the most pressing one as it is preventing me from playing the game.

A friend suggested possibly 3D printing something to bridge the gap, but before burdening a friend to engineer something like that I am curious to see what real solutions Spooky can offer.

I don't think the Michael seizures are moisture or humidity-related. My climate is arid, high desert. The game has been in my garage for a month. First owner.

I have this one (which I've since gotten signed by like 8-9 different actors who have played Myers):
https://www.trickortreatstudios.com/halloween-the-boogeyman-michael-myers-mask.html

This one's also really good (and it's in stock):
https://www.trickortreatstudios.com/halloween-michael-myers-mask.html

Got it. I was thinking you were saying the ball was coming to rest in that crack and as a result of that crack. I'll do some testing tomorrow.

Thanks!!!
I was still not sure so just got them both

2B1DF96B-FB74-414D-8B8A-F95AF9D3CEA0 (resized).png

The space between the ramp and the playfield is a big part of the overall gap. If those were flush I imagine I'd be ok.

I understand. The spacing is directly affecting the positioning of the rubber. I was originally thinking the ball was getting stuck in a slightly different way. By design the ramp is not installed flush. Yours might be a tad wider then normal, but here is our "code beast" as another example. No hangups here. I'll do a bit more testing tomorrow and see what solutions I can come up with for you. I do agree that moving the ramp to the right might be a solution, but I just want to make sure there isn't something even more simple.

20220927_181141 (resized).jpg

FWIW, the gap between the post and the ball guide on mine looks to be about the same as yours and I have never had a ball get stuck in that spot, so the height of the ramp may be a factor. If I just got the game and that was stopping me from playing, I would just stick something in there temporarly to fill the gap until I can figure it out. Maybe jam a folded up flipper rubber in the gap?

The trick or Treat Halloween II mask is the most accurate to the 1978 movie, believe it or not. The new ones they did this year are new sculpts, and the HWN II mask is based on the original mask

So, happy to report that after applying a lot of force and bending it down a lot the ball trap is cured. There's still a big gap, but now that the ramp side is a fair bit lower gravity moves the ball along. If my ramp and playfield were flush the balls would still be getting trapped for sure due to the gap. In lieu of eliminating the gap, bending the ramp down far enough gets it done. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, fellas!

For those who need to do this; the metal ramp has lots of flex and tends to go right back where it started after you press it down. You have to press down hard and really work it for a while to effect a bend.

Next on the list is to cure my 3 Michaels from having lengthy seizures every time they reset. I went into the menu and noticed Servo Settings was not selectable. Placeholder for a future code update? Servo Test works, but didn't help. My Michaels behaved the same in test as in the game. I'm running 1.07.
Does anyone know if there's a how-to video or any literature for this problem? Not sure if this is an adjustment issue, or if all 3 of my servos are bad out of the box.

It's worth watching all of Spooky Luke's vids.

RM

I’ve got a jittery Michael as well. Doesn’t really bother me at all. It seems like when you possibly balance/tighten him a little better it stops. The weight of him seems to cause the jittering as the one that does it on mine seems to be less snug then the other two on the servo.

The jiggly Mike's are not a settings issue. As noted earlier, I think many are caused by dust or moisture. The issue could be the servos simply failing or being defective. The fact that they are all out at the same time leads me to believe the prior, however shipping likely put the most stress the servos will ever experience. Simply being upright with the weight of the sculpt, despite being light, may stress servos. If you want to try something, I might remove the remount the sculpts. It's one screw and remounting them, might jostle them into a better position. I'd recommend doing this with a game started and hit the target to assure they are in the correct home position prior to remounting. Worst case we'll send replacement servos.

Servos…just replace them with these plug and play metal gear servos. Much more durable, super easy to install, will last way longer, relatively cheap and no jitters.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0874JS7BX

I'll try this today. Thank you.

I have the same experience with my Halloween. I'm really hoping Spooky can get the flipper coils dialed in like they did with Rick & Morty. I'm also patiently waiting for cooling fans to be made for Halloween.

I was skeptical about the coil fans, but they made a night and day difference on my Rick & Morty and Guns and Roses. It's just super frustrating how I can nail the center ramp for the first few games and then all of the sudden, even clean shots won't make it up the center ramp.

But even with the flipper fade, I effing love this game!

After a few shots to the center ramp the diverter will open to allow into the house. Some of these diverters became misaligned in shipping. I’d check to make sure that’s not what’s causing ramp returns. I suppose flipper fade is possible but I’ve sessioned my game for hours without feeling it at all.

Trust me, I spent many hours dialing in that center ramp diverter and metal flap. It's not that, it's the fade.

My game was down for a couple months. Long story short, I didn’t have much time to diagnose the issue but it ended up being the 12v power supply cable to the lcd board that was the problem (easy fix). While I had the playfield up I dialed in the drop targets and installed titan rubbers and replaced all the hedge servos (preemptive I wasn’t having issues).

Now that my game is playing like butter I would like some new code please.

I can wait till maybe October 1 but after that I may become a bit cantankerous.

I’m really hoping for a new code in early October. I know some are predicting it on Halloween but the season starts now, and abruptly turns to Thanksgiving on November 1st.

Word. Especially since Ultraman already received an update . But it DOES sound like there are some pretty big updates planned

I agree…. The season is here. Let’s get it before Halloween so we can enjoy it all October.

I got the fade issue bad as well. Didn't want to start flippergate 2.0 by posting here but if others are feeling it, might as well add my $0.02. I can still make all shots but the angles noticeably change (need to flip earlier to make the same shot) and if the ball is coming down fast the flippers almost seem to struggle making a strong flip. I've verified the plungers are entering the coil straight on, no angle - they have proper play.

The flippers start out super strong, I'd like a setting to let me dial them down a bit, hopefully that plus maybe a fan will flatten out the power loss over time. Would also help with the droptargets bricking on a cold game.

Whatever Stern is doing with Spike 2, y'all using PROC, Pinotaur, whatever need to copy it. Spike 2 is almost as good as Fliptronics. Very little fade even after several long games of GZ.

I have flipper fade on my game as well. Usually happens if it’s on for more than 45 minutes, and after five or so games are played. Center ramp becomes very hard to make, especially off the left flipper.

I usually just bang it from the right flipper if the game has been on for a while. But I do notice a substantial difference.

See, now GZ is the only game I own that I even notice flipper fade on. One 30-40 min game and it won’t make it up ramps

I'm curious, what are some strategies for getting the ball under control on the sanitarium playfield? I find that I usually just start sanitarium with lucky bounces after making right ramp shots. Once I do shoot the upper scoop, I can usually keep the ball up there long enough to start the multiball too. But it kind of sucks when I lose the ball before starting the mb, because I have a heck of a time getting the ball back up there in a controlled manner. What I will sometimes do is start Bob&Linda so I can get up to the house and then let the ball drop down to the sanitarium. I'm not sure if there's a better way or if my sanitarium pf needs adjusted somewhere.

Oddly, the only time I feel like I am frequently in control of the sanitarium pf is when House mode is active, but you really don't want to be on the sanitarium playfield during that mode so you are better off letting it drain out.

Who owns that machine? There's something wrong with it.

My GZ also has flipper fade.

Yes please spooky

The night he came home..... for new code

I have been tuning my game since it has arrived. I have a few problems I haven’t been able to fix.

1.I have balls falling off the playfield into the cabinet going up the left side of the orbit. It only happens if I really cream the ball and it goes clean in there. It was just scary cause the capacitors are just chilling down there.

2.After a ball comes up the right lift it will sometimes activate again moments later. I haven’t figured out if it was just bottoming out sometimes in the optic path. Not sure how to fix or adjust that.

There just might be an options setting in the forthcoming code that will help with reaching the middle playfield. Beyond that, adjusting the flipper position can reduce the number of balls the exit immediately. That's the issue I run into the most often. The entrance is so fast. If you are just struggling for control up there in general, the main thing is to cradle up and treat every shot as a backhand. Just don't do an extreme backhand or you'll fall back down the right ramp.

1. That's really weird. I would lift up your playfield and put your hand through hole to access the upper playfields. You can reach the back orbit from there. Maybe something has fallen into the orbit, but it seems like you'd notice that in other ways too.

2. The lifters are triggered by the optos in the subway. If for some reason your lift was slower then normal it's possible your game mistook the lifter arm as another ball. In the code it's a bit of a balance between wanting the lifters to work quickly, while also not turning the opto back on too quickly after the previous lift, since that could cause more false lifts.

I vote code update October 30th at midnight!

I vote waaaaay before that

Thanks Luke, it could be the flipper position. Once I have it on the flipper, I'm good. It's more an issue of the ball immediately exiting the sanitarium pf, whether that flipper is down or up. Like you said, the ball enters the pf so fast it's hard to get a live shot in. Sometimes it's slower or I get lucky and it bounces off of the right side and back to the left, which gives me a chance at flipping it. I wouldn't say it's a problem really, I'm just not sure what's 'normal' behavior.

I was about to post basically the same thing Luke posted… perhaps more crudely.

I try to catch the ball -AS SOON AS- it’s ejected, and bounce it up into the hole quick. But man, I still have a ton of auto-drains

Yeah, that's my issue as well. It's not easy to get control up there. Before adjusting the flipper I might try a small bend to the metal the feeds the flipper. The slightest adjustments can make a huge difference. Otherwise, just wait for the update and see if any of the new settings are to your liking.

S

Code you say

My scoop eject dead bounces off the flipper, off the post to the right and back to the flipper. Rolling to a perfect position to shoot the left target.

Just came like that from the factory.

As for getting control up there, I keep the flipper up / left flipper buton depressed when I take that hidden ramp shot and that makes it easier to find control.

ALL games have fade to some degree, but I've never ran into a GZ that had any trouble making either ramp, nor have I noticed any appreciable change in shot trajectories after long games. My Halloween is definitely noticeable and has much worse fade than GZ.

My Sanitarium is also difficult to gain control.

Ball entrances with the Sanitarium flipper down will immediately exit on right. Hold the Sanitarium flipper up and the ball will bounce up to the right and come back down and drain out of reach of the flipper. Both of these happen every time and nudging doesn't help at all.

The only thing the player can do is immediately flip when the ball enters and then try to gain control of the rebound. Lots of flailing for very little reward, which makes the whole Sanitarium mode annoying and unfun.

Mine has good control. And when I shoot it into the scoop it shoots it back out onto my flipper and I hold and line up my next shot.

You must need to dial yours in. When dialed in it's a very controllable upper playfield.

100%!

Dial in to what, though? What is the expected behavior on this playfield? Should the kickout be easily controllable? Mine is not, neither is the entrance.

It's difficult to ascertain the designer's intent when assembly varies between machines like this. Same with the buttpretzel, mine shoots nice out of the box but others apparently don't work much at all.

I made an alteration for my location players on mine. Essentially I removed the plastic nearest to the cabinet and put in a rubber that blocks the gap to the shooter lane drain exit. This keeps the ball in play nicely as it gives the ball something to bounce back on to the flipper, it cuts some of the stop and go of landing in the shooter lane and it fully prevents the immediate lightning fast drain of a direct Sanitarium shot straight out the other side. I’ve got to say, at this point…I prefer having it blocked off. If something happens in the code where that shot is used or if it triggers a scene/animation I will take the rubber off. But for now…it’s keeping location players from blowing their top and lots of people are enjoying it with only a normal amount of frustration haha.

Flipper fade in my GZ is real, has to be a perfect shot to make it up the right and left ramps after extended play. However, I do run the levelers on my back legs all the way up and the front legs all the way down.

I did add the precision pinball flippers and I did notice a slight difference

MY GZ Pro suffered from fade on long sessions. Made the left ramp a chore to hit, post multiball.