I respect your opinion (no cats here) but.... My pet peeve are people who treat pinball machine ownership as some sort of fine art collection. These things were built to be played not looked at. I know they are expensive but they are Toys and they take up a ton of real estate. If ya got em play em and no I would not get rid of a house pet based on having a pinball machine.

We've had cats and pinballs for the last 19 years and never had an issue. Pinball legs and cabinets are not at all ideal scratching surfaces and no cat has even tried doing it.

If it ever happens wrap those puppies in carpet and play on

That wasn’t intentional but a nice coincidence nevertheless

I disagree pinball is absolutely fine art, mechanical art etc. I play the crap out of my machines but I still got a sexy butter Halloween because it looks so damn good.

Art isn’t just painting, some of the conduit runs I did as a wiremen were pure sculptural beauty hidden underneath ceiling tiles. I get your point in that some people take that stuff overboard with the “trailer queen” mentality.

Fair enough

It’s a similar thing with car collection. Nothing is sadder than a garage queen. I feel so strongly they are meant to be driven and enjoyed.

Same with vintage guitars. They’re meant to be played.

Agree . I find this mentality sad and strange.

Pretty much spot on post. Pinball, for me, is an amazing mix of art and science.

I buy and play the crap out of all my machines, let my grandkids slobber on them, etc. However, these are amazing " artforms" in totality, enjoying the game as well as maintaining it.

Appreciating the game in whatever way seems fine to me...I personally love playing, working on, and sometimes just staring at all of them.....

We finally got the plant online so I will be able to troubleshoot my trough issue where the balls don't feed consistently into the shooter lane. Where can I get information on which switches are connected where? Connector for the coil in the trough? I like to be able to reseat those connectors without having to hand over hand the wiring or disassembling a bunch of stuff to figure out where it goes. I know the manual is coming, but I wasn't expecting to have to dive in so quickly. I have checked the trough switches in test, replaced the balls. I haven't reloaded software but that is probably my last step in troubleshooting. Also for software bugs, if you were to lose a ball during a mode with ball save active and prevent a ball from going into the shooter lane it does some real funky stuff.

Call spooky, the number inside your coin door.

All switches are labeled in the test menu with a number. Those numbers are printed on the Pinotar board. As for the ball eject coil it's Orange / White. That's plugged into Solenoid Bank 2. I think it's Switch 18. If the coil is trying to fire and failing, I'd suspect something physically preventing the ball from entering the shooter lane, not an electrical issue.

Yes please, anything but "mystery is lit" as I spent way too long last night trying to find that light only to realize after going through the individual light test it wasn't anywhere to be found... Very confusing indeed.

Jeff

The lineup just got a little more Spooky.
Halloween and Ultraman arrived today.
Up to 6 Spooky pins now.

A6262D5B-7600-4A8C-AB73-83B55E5114F3 (resized).jpeg

0E5D921C-6F61-47B4-A906-20BC43E7A501 (resized).jpeg

132829DF-DA0B-4A38-A585-B9AA9738EFA9 (resized).jpeg

98E766A4-58A8-4DCE-8703-401FEEAA220E (resized).jpeg

We are going to have to get you a plaque of honor or something! Thank you for the comments, laughs, and business over the years!

LOL, I'll wind up putting together a complete set at some point.
Need to get me a AMH and a TNA still.
Theres a local collector with a really nice HUO AMH I may offer to trade.
TNA I'll wind up with on a long enough timeline, but meanwhile I get to play it at Electric Bat whenever I go down there.
Was kind of holding off on TNA to see if you guys ever do another run of them.

I bid on the Jetsons in the Banning auction, but it went for a little more than I wanted to spend.

TNA not at EB anymore they moved it up to Flagstaff

I need to go visit the Flagstaff location.
Got some friends up there and its about an hour shorter drive for me than most people in the valley.
As it is EB in Tempe is about an hour from me (as is most location pinball).

Congrats man!

Video of what my problem is. This is while in coil test. I play 1 game from cold. Seems to be ok. By game 2 it starts doing this. Driving me nuts

Are you able to bump up the coil power a touch to see if this helps?

And unvieling parties? Beyond posting on a pinball forum, I'm not that weird LOL

Electric Bat is my go too...

I’ve tried checking all the trough switches, replaced the balls(balls were not magnetized), bumped up coil power from 18 to 24, no change put it back to default. Tomorrow I’m finally off from work, I intend to reseat the trough coil connector. Maybe reload software. It seems to get worse the more the trough coil gets used. That’s why I suspect a high resistance contact on this connector. I’ve already had an issue with the right flipper wouldn’t flip. An intermittent issue that seemed to resolve on reboot until it didn’t. I reseated the flipper switch connector and that problem has not returned.

We’re probably going to open them both up on Saturday.
I would have done it tonight, but I was busy setting up machines and a cotton candy maker at my kids school for “teacher fun at work day” (something I get drafted into doing every year).
Have to go pick up my machines tomorrow night so that’s out as well.
Thankfully this year I just took arcade machines, which although heavier you tint have to take legs on and off.

I think I got the 'stuck in a mode' thing a couple times now - the multiball part doesn't end when draining to one ball - had it happen in hedge and house on different games. I had this state once with a ball locked in Judith and it ended the multiball mode when it kicked out the Judith ball, so it has proper track of balls. Is this single-ball time a last chance at the super jack? If so is it timed or run til you get the super?

I got a 2-ball Stalker mode once... drained down to one ball during Hedge and got callout to hit pumkin asap (for multiball restart), but the pumpkin was lit blue and it started Stalker instead. After stalker intro it did kick out a second ball, although the hedge mode appeared to be gone. Unfortunately both balls drained quickly afterward.

Strange, it’s like it’s not putting the power to the coil long enough, plunger is hardly moving compared to the first ball that gets kicked out.
You would think it’s the connection but everything is new!

Awesome Kent, can’t wait to see you guys again. Will you be at the show next weekend?

1517B537-B331-4F7A-8010-12D96C93294E (resized).png

Have you reported these to SpookyBug ? I haven't seen either of these but haven't gotten a chance to play much lately. I do not think there is any sort of single-ball last chance feature other than the ability to restart Hedge. So that definitely sounds like a bug. And the second one for sure sounds like a bug. Is it repeatable? I will try to do it later today.

What’s the time frame now from invoice date to shipping date for both butter and non butter cabs?

Mine is doing this too! If you find out how to fix it please let me know. (First time pinball owner so I have no clue what I'm doing haha)

Admittedly low-tech but have you checked the physical action on this coil? Plunger movement is smooth (I've had some aftermarket coil sleeves with ridges that limited plunger travel). The travel distance of the plunger seems too shallow - which does suggest a power problem.

I’ve checked the coil. Moves freely/smoothly up and down. Changing the power to the coil has no improvement so I’ve kept it at default which is 18. I’ve now reseated the solenoid bank #2 connector. No improvement. I’ve just reloaded the software rev.1.05. I’ll test play it and report back. It’s like the ball 1 is on deck when you push the start button. It attempts to push it out, doesn’t make it. While this is happening the other 6 balls move forward a little bit. Now ball 1 is sitting on top of ball 2 in the trough. It tries again. Sometimes ball 1 comes out, sometimes not. The balls aren’t aligned in the trough so after so many attempts, the game thinks you drained and goes on to the next ball in the software. Sometimes it will get stuck in this routine until the game is over. It’s beyond annoying. It makes the game unplayable. Unless I can get one ball to come out and I never lose it.

Ok I’m out of ideas. I’ve reloaded the software. I’ve replaced the balls. I’ve reseated the solenoid bank 2 connector. I’ve upped the power on the coil. My game is at 6.5 degrees level per recommendation. I’ve checked all the trough switches in switch test. Anybody got anything else? My game works totally fine otherwise. Just can’t get balls out of the trough consistently. It seems to have gotten worse over time. It has to try multiple times to get a ball in the shooter lane. Does it need a longer duration pulse to get that ball to come out?

Sorry if I missed it, but have you called Spooky tech support? Sounds like you've exhausted all the logical stuff, so I would get them involved now (if they aren't already). Best of luck!

I would take apart and rebuild that mech. If it’s working well while cold and then gives you problems while warmed up I’d suspect the plunger is binding in the sleeve slightly. Definitely seems like a mechanical problem.

When moving the coil by hand very slowly do you feel any resistance?

No

I just set up the machine yesterday and played about 30 games. My bottom right flipper and sling are now dead. Anyone have this issue? The diagnostic recognizes the coils but they won't fire. Frustrating given Spooky is closed on Fridays.

There must be a weak link somewhere, have a beer and come back to it. You will find it.

I can’t unfortunately because I’ll be in Germany.
My travel schedule is back in full swing now and it’s been crazy the last few months.
I really want to get down there and check out your Dukes of Hazard though.

See if a fuse is blown on the pinotaur. There should be a total of 6 fuses on the board, each with a green light behind them. If you don't see the green light, it's blown. Alternatively, just check continuity across each one with a multimeter.

The fuse you are looking for will be in the "SOLENOID FUSES 3A SLOW BLOW" section. Most people have been swapping it for a 5A slow blow fuse if they keep blowing the 3A ones. I think we send extras in the leg box. Recently we've just started populating them as 5A slow at the factory. It's possible you got one with a 3A fuse though.

Got my shooter housing today. Looks great and a perfect match. Up to you if it’s worth the $$$, but I’ll have the game for a while.

2BB48088-03F6-40CD-80E2-1FD3508BA942 (resized).jpeg

Ok I think I might have gotten it. But I don’t want to pop the champagne just yet. I was starting to feel like the coil plunger wasn’t hitting the balls squarely. Like the flattest part of the plunger hitting the ball perpendicular if that makes sense. So I slightly bent the flat metal bracket that the trough coil is mounted to towards the cabinet. Not a lot, just slightly. Just to make it fire more squarely on the ball. I test played 3 games and the plunger only misfired like 2 times but the ball came out on the second attempt both times. Didn’t mess up my games. No glitching to the end of ball. That’s the first time I was able to get that to happen in about a week or two of lightly playing do to work. I was starting to think I was completely stupid. Not my first machine. I’ve done full tear down restos of ToM, DM, FT, waterworld, genie, Genesis, eightball champ, super Mario bros, jokerz so I know a thing or two.

Looks great brother... who did that for you?

I haven't personally seen this problem before, but if you give our service tech a call on monday, I'm sure he will be able to help you out: 815-541-4940. You can also shoot us an email at [email protected]

The only thing I can think to check is that all your trough switches and optos are working. If any are faulty, I'm thinking the game might be trying to vary the coil power to clear a nonexistent jam. First, with an empty trough, go to the stuck switch test menu and see if any trough switches or optos, or jam optos are stuck on. Then go to the switch test menu; if you roll a ball into the empty trough, you should see all trough switches go active (6 switches, and one opto), then inactive (the last opto will stay active of course, since the ball comes to rest at it). Then if you manually push the eject coil to eject the ball, you should see the jam opto go active then inactive, along with the trough opto, which should go inactive too. You can even activate each switch with your finger under the playfield to test it. The optos are a bit harder to get your finger to to test.

Welp, disregard my last message then haha. Glad you figured it out!! I haven't seen mechanical misalignments with our troughs before, so that never even entered my mind.
Unrelated: I love Genesis! Just sold mine last month and I miss it already. I machined a collar to fit around williams style flipper shafts so they'd fit into the gottlieb flipper mech just so that I could put chrome flippers in it Looked great with all purple rubbers.

Here ya go!

https://www.lanezcustomsteel.com/collection/halloween-color-matched-shooter-rod-housing

Finished product:

image (resized).jpg

Perfect match! Where did you get the Michael cup holder?