Don't fear the reaper is a cool addition to the game. Also really like many of the other changes in 1.06. Great job Spooky!!!

Jeff

After 4 hours to download the 1.05 again, I've followed the steps and this is what I get now, nothing else

IMG_20220306_193820 (resized).jpg

Careful now, you'll get called inept and a child for daring to have an issue with the update process...

Seriously though, does it just hang on that screen? What have you tried thus far? Don't want to suggest something you've already tried.

Thanks,
Jeff

It bricked after 1.06,. They sent me the file link to reinstall 1.05. I've done all that , nothing works. It just sticks on that yellow white screen now

So your USB stick just has the root files on it correct? Can you show a screen shot of what was on your USB stick? When I had my issue I had one computer that was fine with the stick but the second computer reported a file system issue so I did a fresh reformat and that worked for me.

Jeff

Bug report. Was unable to start a new game after the game had rested for a bit (my wife had a monster game and I wanted to let the coils cool off a bit). Pressed the start several times, game wouldn't start. Reboot fixed it as expected.

Jeff

Last I saw they were in the low "300"’s….What’s the latest Halloween CE number to be asked for payment / shipping ? Will those that go out from this point contain this latest update ?!

Oh the drama... good thing we all share a passion for pinball. I look forward to updating to 1.06 Monday as there's been plenty of drinks over company tonight. After tonight's 180 threads I'm exhausted. Good night.

Got #83 in a trade yesterday. Was a Day 1 order but sold my preorder spot when I was able to get one locally. Was able to update to 1.06 with no issues today.

Loving the game! As a huge Halloween fan for most of my life I think Spooky knocked this out of the park. Smooth shooter as well, and I think the build quality is a step up from my ACNC. Great job, Spooky!

I reformatted the USB again, put 1.05 on it again, it loads for a few seconds then says failed.

IMG_20220306_210512 (resized).jpg

IMG_20220306_210518 (resized).jpg

Yeah sounds like so much work. (Sarcasm)

Whew...played myself into exhaustion....got into 4 modes, things are smoothing out nicely...definitely a shooters game..wish I was a better one..

Great job Spooky!! Kept hitting start, start, start...really sucks you in....saw, heard some great new stuff..LOVE THIS GAME!!

Hit the super jackpot during Jack-O-Lantern multiball. Super satisfying. I’m having a blast with this game as well.

CRC error says to me bad download. When you're doing image cloning like that everything has to be perfect. I know your download speed is slow but I'd try again with a fresh download.

Thanks,
Jeff

Couldn't agree more. Wife damn near completed all pumpkin modes. Really like the timeouts now as well although it'd be nice for the timer to stop while the ball is in the subway. Naturally I'm sure Spooky will get there but this is a massive head start.

Thanks,
Jeff

So would the new code cause this? I have not changed anything else but but this started today the right flipper is way louder now

I believe this is whats known as coil hum. I'm not sure what causes it but I believe this is considered normal.

Jeff

I was fine with the hum but now the right is significantly louder than the left

Gotcha, makes sense. My bad, I'm sure others will chime in.

Jeff

Loving the new sound effects for the ramps !!’

Great work on the new stuff. I played a lot today and have a couple bugs to report

--After successfully completing pumpkin mode 6, balls going into the scoop require a wait for a ball search. I think house mode was stacked both times I saw that.
--During sanitarium multiball, I snuck a ball into the sanitarium hole just after the other ball drained and before the drop target came up. I got the sanitarium startup again, and the targets were lit again, but it wouldn't start a second time and got stuck in that half way enabled state so I couldn't go onto either house or hedge.
--This probably isn't much help but the playfield lighting got somewhat messed up one time when I cancelled a video intro with the flippers. I can't remember which one it was now, but something you guys could probably check to see if that might cause issues in various places.

And just a couple observations: It seems like the lifter takes a little longer than before to feed the ball to the right flipper on the new code. And the Michaels seem a little jittery at times, like the code is trying to make sure they are in the correction position. My top Michael, who would previously peek out from the hedge when he wasn't supposed to, seemed to be behaving himself.

The new content is welcomed but it does have bugs. What's up with the jittery Michaels? before the code update they were rock solid now they seem to be fidgeting a lot. Whatever tweak was made to the code was better before in version 1.05.

I like that the Michaels move now when you hit the switches by them.

This, the moving mikes seem intentional to me.

Probably so if they creep they will be put back.

My left flipper was extraordinarily louder than the right. I found of the pins that go to that coil pushed out in the connector. Pulled the connector. The pins tab was flat preventing it from locking into the connector. With a razor lifted up on that little tab and put it back into the connector and verified it locked. Reseated the connector and it was much quieter. Still have a hum but it sounds the same as the right.

Ever since I updated my halloween yesterday this game definitely has that one more game feeling. That in itself is a major plus. With it being nowhere near complete this will go down as spooky pinballs best game too date. All the haters will definitely regret selling their spots for a loss as time moves forward. As there is nothing in the pinball community anything like this when it comes to a true horror experience. Thank you SpookyLuke and Spooky bug

I still have the Michael creep problem but the problem has been addressed somewhat by the new code.

The way these servos work is that they receive pulses to indicate how far to move; the longer the pulse, the greater the movement. What's been happening in my case is that all three servos have been receiving pulses of varying length. So sometimes they move out a little, sometimes they move out a lot.

With the new code, any small pulses the servos receive result in a correction and resetting of that servo (nice!). But if one of the servos receives a longer pulse, the servo will jump out quite a bit and not get corrected. But within a minute or two of game play, the servo will usually receive a short spike and then correct itself back to it's "home" position.

Definitely better than what it was before. Although this code update did try to correct the symptoms of creep issue, it did not correct the source problem; there are still voltage spikes being delivered to these servos.

The mode timeouts are a good addition so things don't go on forever. For the next update can pauses be added to the countdown when the ball is out of the player's control? Or at least make the time configurable? For example in house mode when the ball is draining down from the house, through the sanitarium, and finally from the lifter to the right flipper probably takes about 10 seconds. On mine a lot of times it drains immediately when going to the house, so by the time I can safely get the ball back up there and cradled on the flipper it's already used up a good amount of time.

Did the rules change or is my game acting up. Kept shooting the orbits to reset the drop targets, but it does nothing even though it's lit. Also, after playing Hedge MB can't seem to figure out how to relight the locks it was the stand ups before?

This is an interesting assessment. I didn't have the creep issue for quite awhile when I first got the game. It didn't reveal itself for a good month. I wonder if there is a degradation issue allowing these spikes to pass through? If we could identify the source maybe a hardware fix to put a choke on it?

I thought about maybe employing some ferrite cores on some of the connectors going to the main board. The servo creep seems to occur most often when any one of those blood targets next to each Michael servo gets hit. If I happen to get a ball rapidly bouncing back and forth in the lower slings, that will also send spikes to the servos. Nothing being hit on the right side of the playfield triggers it.

Attached is a pic showing my lower playfield around the main board. The servo leads are bundled to the side of the main board (circled in black) and then the leads go across the board to their connectors. The wiring for the blood targets on the right side of the playfield go to a connector on the far upper right of the main board (circled in blue).

Main_Board (resized).jpg

Ok I'm in. Just order a set of 20 various cores to try out myself for $13. I'll let you know how this works out. Should be March 10 so this weekend.

I’ve got a bunch from various wiring harnesses I’ve collected over the years. Is there a key area to place them? Close the pcb I’d assume.

From my reading on ferrite cores, you want them to be placed as close as possible to the source of 'noise'. Since we don't know the exact source of that noise, we have to take a WAG.

My suggestion is a small core near each blood target on the left side of the playfield and a larger one near where those targets connect to the main board (the far-left, upper most plug that I identified earlier).

I was going to order some but since you have some and GreenMachine19 has some coming, I'll hold off pending your testing and results.

I would check to see if your orbits switches are working in the test menu. Toss a ball around in both directions while in the test menu. Following a mode, the orbits will reset the drop targets. It requires one orbit for the first relight of a ball, plus one additional orbit per mode started that same ball. There haven't been any changes to the Hedge Multiball. Prior to collecting the Super Jackpot, you can restart the multiball with the drop targets and scoops.

I had a thought on this - I see you had a similar thought reading your next few posts.

In a couple of Stern games (Tron LE and XMen LE) they had issues with LEDs flickering. There were some other issues too but I can’t remember …

The solution was to remove those wires from the loom where they were closely cable tied to other wires, which were causing RF interference. Enough to flash a LED bulb - so enough to jerk a servo motor as well.

Maybe they were too close to a coil wire or something, I can’t remember now. I do remember a couple of cable tied snipped fixed the issue.

I would give that a go …

rd

My amateur pinbuilder's two cents: Any low voltage data line should be kept away from a bundle of high voltage solenoid lines. If they need to cross over it is best to do so at 90 degrees. It looks like the servo lines are bundled up right next to the solenoid bundle. Separate them out and I bet there is less interference

I'm curious - anyone with Michael creep. Do you know for a fact you are plugged into a grounded 3 prong outlet? In my experience lots of old houses aren't wired correctly. Can someone with Michael creep please plug in a tester and report back the findings? This issue might be easily resolved.

tester (resized).jpg

Granted I'm not an electrical engineer, but to my knowledge this wouldn't make a significant difference to EMI issues. All the grounds should be tied together within the game (and the game would act very weirdly and probably damage itself if they weren't)

What does cause a lot of EMI is the solenoid lines, especially when using pulse width modulation (rapidly turning on/off) to control coils and their power. So it makes sense that if the slingshots go off a bunch at once that a servo data line might pick up some garbage interference and move into a new position. It makes less sense why hitting the blood standup targets would cause that, as they are (I'm assuming) only 12v switches and should be generating less EMI.

Did Spooky ever upload any schematics or other info on these games or the Pinotaur board? I'd like to learn some more of the technical specifications for my own edification.

edit: rereading some older posts, they mention that touching the lockdown bar sometimes causes them to move which makes it sound like a floating ground issue

I've had Michael creep since day 1 (which was last week). My games are plugged into a confirmed grounded/correctly wired outlet. Mine seem to creep the most when the left side blood targets are hit.

I have the new code on a USB drive is it okay to update ?are we waiting on a few more things to get worked out first? Seems like some people are having some issues

Go for it. There was a mixup yesterday on the website where the code is kept. All is good now as long as you've downloaded the code since the late afternoon yesterday. To be sure though, you might as well download a fresh code file.

When did you download the code? Spooky updated the link late yesterday afternoon to the corrected file. File size should be 550MB-ish. If so, you're good to go.

Yeah is the 550 mb just didn’t want to start having new problems like the Michael creep you guys are talking about or flipper issues

I am 320 and paid for mine two weeks ago. I was told that if it was a non-butter it would have shipped, but since it was a butter it should be finished "in the next couple weeks." Since that was two weeks ago, and I am hopeful it will ship soon!