My Michael creep issue was happening with the old code as well. It seems to be hardware related since it doesn't seem to happen to everyone.

I wouldn't worry one bit about the flipper hum that was brought up earlier. Flippers are mechanical and will sound different sometimes depending on how they're put together. You won't even notice that hum while playing. Looks like the guy earlier was testing the flippers with the volume all the way down so of course you're going to hear the hum when there's not game sounds to drown it out. Turn the volume up and play the hell out of it!

I never had the Michael creep to begin with.
But with new code Michael moves a bit when the targets are hit next to him. Is this confirmed on purpose? It doesn’t bug me unless it’s not supposed too haha.

It’s been my experience that EMI typically comes from DC sources. AC wiring will act as an antenna for the DC noise. I bought the cores that snap on so it should be easy to move then around to experiment. I was going to start with the servo wiring first as it’s the errant pulses that are causing the move. Per John_C theory. I will report any findings with pics. It seems now with the software switch hits send Michael home. If already home, a little twitch. See what I did there? The night he came home. Lol

I know it's going to be a long time. But what would be a good guess on how much longer for #1225 ? I was thinking maybe end of year. But I'm doubting that now. It's ok, i still want it even with the wait.

Ok - so that means the creep is caused by noise coming across the cable harness. That is an old school problem that you rarely see in modern electronics these days. This can be corrected several ways. The best solution in my opinion is creating a little filter board going to the servos. It is very odd to me that I am not seeing this problem at all while others are. I wonder if there has been a revision change in a part Spooky is using or it might just be an issue with cable management.

Woah, I finished all of the incidental modes, hit the scoop, and… flippers went dead. The wizard mode isn’t coded yet, but I’ll certainly never have a game like that again!

7FDF735D-190F-4C80-8A79-468679BF686D (resized).jpeg

Nice... I'm sure you can do it again though, stay positive.

Jeff

Yeah, the great thing about the latest code is incentive to finish the modes.

Two finished modes = extra ball
Finished modes = Blood towards another extra ball; 25 was too many with 1.05, but 12 is perfect with 1.06

As expected, the game is really taking Shape. The modes are fun, the new multiball is a hoot, and the added sound effects are clutch.

Whoa, well done!! I can't get past the 20 something millions yet....afraid w my skills it will be glass off time to see all the cool stuff ( still counts, right)

I received #308 on Feb 18th. I'm in Ohio.

I’ve been playing with 5 balls vs 3. It’s really helped me understand the game and figure things out.

I decided to take a closer look at each of the power supplies in the cabinet. There are three of them. Two are used to power the machine (48v, 12v) and are grounded together as they should be. However the third power supply is an external 12-volt unit similar to what you'd use to power your laptop. It has only a polarized 2-wire connection and there is no separate ground. This power supply is strictly for the audio amplifier and powers all of the speakers.

Could the ungrounded power supply be creating a difference in voltage potential as compared to the rest of the machine? Hmmmmm.

Love it ! Good job Spooky team ! Keep the updates coming !

Did they lower the points of some things? Was the headstone ball save 1m before this update?

Thank you for the reply it does seem like the orbit switches are registering. If I were to reinstall the code do you think it be worth trying?

My pc just crapped out .. is there a way to safely update code using Mac?

At the power plant where I work we are replacing obsolete analog electronics with new digital systems and we are discovering that EMI or noise that has always been there is impacting the new digital systems. We replaced our turbine controls system with a touch screen HMI display. When certain relays change state it causes the screen to go blank temporarily. We have had to employ numerous methods to lesson these impacts. Upgrading to Cat 6e information cables. Ferrite beads, changing grounds, installing diodes not unlike the ones we put on pinball coils to help collapse the magnet fields. Modern electronics are unfortunately not immune to this phenomena. The hard part is it’s mostly an Easter egg hunt finding the source and the best mitigation methods. Sometimes what seems like the cause is a red herring. Our company spent 3 million dollars relocating AC relays that the Engineers were sure were the cause. It made the problem worse because we made the antenna longer. Ultimately it was 8 x $0.88 diodes installed on some nearby DC relay coils that eliminated the problem.

GreenMachine19 terrible for the company of course but what a great story. I can imagine all of the guesswork in trying to figure this out along the way. At home and on a small scale okay but just the one idea to relocate those AC relays at a cost of $3M only to find out that it made it worse and ultimately the the diodes at pennies each was the fix, amazing. Thanks for sharing!

I did this with a friend at his place (MAC only) when 1.05 came out. I believe that you just have to ensure that the USB was previously formatted as Fat32 on a PC. There is otherwise no formatting or special configuration/prep work needed to be done to the USB. Copy the file over and ensure that the file name is exactly code_H78.pkg there cannot be any other characters in the name. Boot it up and see if it takes. Unlike a PC, MACs create dotfiles which are a type of hidden config file that should be ignored by Windows but I am not sure if this Spooky OS does.

Word of caution, if the update fails and the pin goes into the 'loop start' then you will need the last 'full version' of the file which I believe Fawzma has as a 1.05 (it was a much older 1.02 previously). We had to restore to an older full version following a 'loop start' and try again, on my buddies pin. For some reason the full version worked but he had some issues with the smaller delta update. This is explained somewhere in the many forum pages if you want to know more.

If all else fails, find a PC somewhere reformat that USB 4-32GB as Fat32 and copy the file over and try again.

Not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but when I was in mode selection last night, there was blood dripping from mode 4. Anyone else ever had this happen?

11668EE0-2E55-4D32-906B-06581D0A8A32.jpeg

Amazing story and definitely a pain in the ass to track down. The good thing about the Spooky creep problem is we kinda know now from people's responses so far that the problem is coming from the game itself and not some outside source. We also believe the impacted item is just the servos to the Michael figures. Now I can't troubleshoot my game because it doesn't have an issue. That being said I think I may have worked out a solution. On eBay they sell these cheap Chinese made DC to DC converts for a couple bucks. There is a couple US sellers that have them in stock. These things are designed to lower or raise DC voltage to the item attached to it. While doing this it also has a unexpected benefit of filtering the noise on the cable. In theory you could set the input and output for the same DC voltage and just filter the line running to the Michael servos. Just a thought I had but I believe it would do the trick.

Yes and there will be quite a few more balance updates coming. You no longer receive a ball save / extra ball and a bunch of points...sorry, not sorry.

It certainly wouldn't hurt, but I would double check that you are doing the following.

1) Start one of the Pumpkin Modes.

2) I'd pick Death in the Driver's Seat, since it requires you to shoot the orbits. Might as well test them while in the mode.

3) Complete your combos and then shoot the right scoop to end the mode.

4) From this point, as long as you do not have any other modes running, a shot around either orbit should raise the drop targets.

The "Restore Instructions" are on the website now. In addition to restoring your game if it becomes bricked, they are an alternative way of updating the game, which should work on a Mac or PC.

I saw that last night too. OF course I chose that mode. Didn't see anything different though.

It's from the Michael/Laurie house mode health meter that's almost hidden.

Ha! That's awesome. Here I thought I had a boosted mode

Wish I was more tech savvy, I can’t figure out the update process. Think I’ll just live with 1.05 rather than risk bricking the machine. Still an awesome game with that code.

It couldn't be easier. Copy that file to a USB stick. Nothing else on it. Formatted as Fat32. Right click and eject it in windows. Plug the usb stick into the cable just inside your coin door on the left and turn the game on.

What happened to me is for some reason one PC wasn't detecting a bad file system on my flash drive which caused my original issue. The second PC did, so I did a clean format and then 1.06 installed successfully without issue. I'll also say the full image process was a breeze as well.

You'll be fine, just stick to the directions to the letter.

Jeff

It's your game, but I would highly suggest upgrading. If you screw something up, you can always give us a call and we'll get you back up and running.

Welp guess I really have the change the springs now lol I'm about 1400 games in

PXL_20220308_165505058 (resized).jpg

Well, after ~100 games in, I've blown my first fuse. I know there was some back and forth on the 3A vs 5A, was it ok to step them up to 5?

This was the last information I had heard. I would let Spooky confirm but you could probably find it in this thread.

Seems to be if you have blood to spend in the store. Not for sure though. I've seen it as well.

This is the attention to detail that I love. Hopefully they keep doing things like this.

Appreciate this, will give it a shot!

Not a HW owner, but a recently retired high power RF electrical engineer with a lot of ferrite core (actually more iron cores than ferrite) experience.

Yes - close to the noise source. If in doubt, use two cores, one placed on each end of the wire - then you're covered regardless of the noise source.

I don't want to get too technical, but the cores can get saturated if there's too much current running thru the wire, lowering their effectiveness. This can be eliminated if both the source wire and the return wire go thru the same core. i.e. A solenoid fires and draws 10A, if the 10A comes in on a wire, and 10A leaves on the other wire (opposite direction), but they both go thru the same core...the net current the ferrite core sees is 0A, so it doesn't saturate. So if you think it might be from a solenoid firing, make sure you grab all the wires associated with that solenoid if possible.

If it's just from a switch transient - not really any current, so you'll likely be OK.

Sorry for the ferrite core sidebar - just wanted to add a FIY

You're correct Trey regarding the 90 degrees. If that's not possible, then distance between wires is your friend. Also the length of where the wires are parallel makes a difference. That depends on the frequency of the interfering signal. Higher the frequency, less distance is needed when compared to a lower frequency for the same amount of coupling. So the the less length, the better.

Anytime you have fast trainsets (i.e. digital rise/fall times or switches with a fair amount of voltage on it) combined with wires (or PC board traces) running parallel is close proximity...coupling is a real issue. I've had to layout many RF boards where I had hundreds of volts or a ton of current with some little digital gizmo setting not far away. Doable, but you have to be careful. If it doesn't outright show up as a problem, it can also end being a EMI issue.

Yea PC instructions seem to be more simple than the Mac ones which is what Ive got, but even the PC ones I have no idea what FAT32 is or how to go about attaining it. And from what Im reading still appears I need a pc of some sort to make a usb fat32 whatever that is lol. Thankfully the games a blast regardless.

Highlight the stick and format it to FAT32

Alright so it broke. I'm assuming playing like this is not a good idea and I should wait til I get a replacement? Hopefully from spooky just waiting for a reply back

PXL_20220308_213856094 (resized).jpg

It doesn't matter playing it but unless there's a software adjustment it won't think the drops have all been knocked down

So I did tap it when it was up and it did still register. Just didn't know if this would fuck up the ball or whatever. Also are these all common sizes? if I found some spares online they would work?

Well it isn't getting hit by a ball so I can't imagine any damage happening to anything.

No idea personally on the size of the drops

https://www.pinballlife.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PBL-300-0021-00-71

I'm betting shipping will kill you. I always end up with a bunch of stuff in my cart there trying to justify the shipping on a cheap part.

My bet is spooky will take care of you.

It's actually sticking up a bit above the PF so the ball can hit it

Haha bless I'll see if one of my Canadian stores have it

Appreciate the help but I don't know what that means, sorry. I'm not smart and very computer illiterate and I'd still need a PC to do that which I don't have unfortunately.

https://pinballmedics.ca/product/williams-bally-frosted-rollover-drop-target/ these are the same right?

FAT32 is a filesystem that Windows uses. FAT stands for File Allocation Table. It's old. Real old. Dates back to Windows 95. Picked up with 98 and later. It's just the nomenclature for that specific method of allocating how files are written to a drive. There's also NTFS (NT File System), and APFS (Apple File System).

When you format a drive in Windows, you'll probably get options for FAT32 and NTFS at a minimum. Maybe FAT16, but I haven't formatted a drive in about a year and a half so a bit hazy on that.

Mohs hardness scale. Plastic cannot scratch a steel ball. So no, it won't mess up the ball. What is far more likely is that if it's sticking above the playfield it will cause an airball to smash into something it normally wouldn't, or wear at the edge of the slot for the drops as the ball no longer has a flat surface to cleanly roll over. So in that regard, yes, I would recommend to not play it with the target broken like that, as it is very possible it would cause damage.....just not in the way you asked about.

Yes same part.

well...close enough