Yeah, it is as level as you could ever make it. The ball travel is perfect straight up and back. It is simply once it hits the side of the ramp it starts to bounce around and lose momentum.

Maybe try offsetting the shooter a bit. Moving it to the inside might allow it to catch the outside of the ramp cleaner.

Positive that it’s not rattling before clipping the left of the vortex? Mine is bouncing before it even gets there.

Also, I wouldn’t drill the Playfield if I could avoid it. Can you drill the vortex holes out a bit?

What magically fixed it on mine: The metal frame that holds the lockdow bar and the playfield hooks had a loose screw connecting it to the front panel of the cabinet on the shooter rod side. Tightening it up raised the playfield on that side just enough so the shooter to hit the ball more dead center.

Yeah, there are just a ton of variables that can throw this shot off. It took a ton of tinkering to get mine right. If you think you've done everything, I would try different positions of the shooter on the ball. Spins and subtle angles can make a difference. I don't think that center ball is the answer on every machine. Play around with your machine's pitch too.

Another thought - check the shooter rod itself. Try swapping out with a different rod if you have one. I've seen about a million people lift games or move them by using that as a handle. This is one of those skillshots that's potentially sensitive to something like that.

Sorry anyone in two threads…I posted in the PinBot one too.

I drilled a new hole and changed the trajectory of the ball guide curve. Combined with a purple shooter spring and a left side ball strike, a full plunge gets to the top 40% of the time, middle 20% of the time and bottom or complete reject the other 40%.

It feels like “skill” since it seems to adjust based on the literal way I release the shooter. I can take a picture of it tomorrow. I’m hesitant to move anything.

Even my “good” setup (pre-swap) it depended very much on how I released. Not just how far I pulled back. Is the purple spring stinger or weaker than standard?

It is two above the standard and two below the red (max). I bought one of ever color to test. I want the least possible force so that it won’t damage the ramp.

Yep, I took a (red?) spring, and just kept cutting it back until a full-force just kisses the top... No more fear of damage from nubs.
A few dozen plays later, it's still a hair more powerful than I want, but it's a super easy thing to keep adjusting.

I have no idea whether my trajectory is true or not inside the cab -- I never filmed it in slo-mo like you did.

-mof

No doubt this is one of the most frustrating things to deal with on any pin. I've got to find time to fix this. In my case, it's a matter of hitting something most of the time before it even gets to the vortex.

Check the first page for suggestions. Inconsistency coming out of the lane I would check your shooter, the sleeve, the rod itself, the spring.. and then the gate. Put a small dap of silicone on the gate to allow it to exit with less effort and influence. You can also make some slight bends to that gate to make sure it comes out cleanly.

After that, I put a longer rubber along the right side - I think it has 2 rubbers from factory.

Here's a thought.. has anyone just removed the gate to the shooter lane? I wonder how often the ball would find its way down there.

I actually sold my PinBot (which I otherwise actually miss!) because this damn shot was so infuriating on my machine. And I assure you I tried everything:

- adjusting the shooter housing
- replacing the housing
- replacing the shooter rod
- changing springs
- adjusting the lockdown bracket
- shimming the playfield latches
- shimming the housing
- adjusting the ramp
- ensuring pf (lane to ramp) was flat and smooth
- adjusting the rubber along the left side of lane
- new balls
...etc etc etc!

For each change it sometimes felt like I'd be getting closer... and often the ball would rocket up to the top hole so hard I thought "crap, it's gonna shatter the ramp" but then the next plunge would just clunk and not even make it to the middle. So damn frustrating! Changing one thing, changing multiple things, trying to find the right combination... nothing was ever consistent enough to feel like I was truly honing in on the problem.

I maybe could have lived with it not being "right" or "strong enough to make the top" or whatever, but it was the wholesale lack of consistency and feeling like I had no affect or control over the repair or the outcome that did me in. And it was truly disappointing to qualify the big vortex points yet have no skilled hope of achieving them. I'd love to know what/if the actual problem and fix was for that machine.

I admire and am jealous of those who track and solve this issue. I wished I had a slow-mo camera, I am sure that might have helped tremendously.

The game is excellent, but this shot is crucial. I am surprised that they didn't just build a full shooter lane all the way to the ramp to ensure it had the perfect trajectory.

On my game I have a brand new shooter, sleeve, and springs. The "gate" doesn't impact the ball roll in the slightest.

Wouldn't make much difference in game play as the ball can land in the shooter lane from the upper playfield. The ball would end up in the shooter lane more times than normal, rather than the ball rolling down the rubber ring, to drop onto the flippers.

I’ve been in a similar place with my pin for some time now - it was perfect when I bought, and remained so until I recently did some repair/rebuild work in the pop bumpers. Nothing there should impact ball shooting, I know, but that’s when mine went to pot and only one ball in twenty even made it to red plastic (and then never far enough to drop in the 5K hole)

I spent the weekend reading this thread, looking, measuring, shooting a ball with the glass/game off, reading this thread again, and repeating the study. I discovered that a short pull on the plunger gave the best ball result, and determined it must have to do with how/where the plunger strikes the ball. First step was to replace the plunger sleeve with a new one, and could now hit the 5K hole one shot in ten. After additional observation I then noticed that the plunger tip barely extended past the ball rest point flange, and so I adjusted this metal flange so that there was more plunger contact and the ball sat further down into the contact zone. After much tweaking I found an adjustment where the ball is deep into the contact zone and also evenly balanced on each side (the resting flange is perpendicular to the side rail and plunger) and shoots dead center up the lane.
I’ve now played +20 games since my last adjustment this afternoon and can consistently reach the 20K hole with a full plunger pull, and easily hit the 100K with a bit less pull. Looking forward to seeing if this adjustment holds up last by term

Please update after more play. And if it seems like you have the fix, please put in pics and diagrams. This continues to plague me after a playfield replacement

I'm a week in with over 30 games played (even a new personal best of over 4M ) and all continues to hold-up wonderfully. I'll try to snag some usable images next time I have the glass off so I can identify exactly what I modified and how it's all aligned

ATB - R

Here’s two views showing the ball resting against the plunger tip, and with the resting against the metal stopper when the plunger is pulled back to make a shot.

457E6A5A-46EE-444E-964D-B7F167C6AB30.jpeg

EBAAEB64-3356-478D-BF3C-1945F0556957.jpeg

A third view looks down the shooter lane to see the metal stopper with the ball removed and the plunger at rest

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(I'll leave this here, I just now re-read up a few posts and I see a few ppl have the opposite problem, oh well)

In order to not blow up the plastic ever again...

I just clipped my shooter spring until a full plunge BARELY makes it to the top, that way no visitor to the house could ever smash up the vortex again by accident. Permanent fix.

-mof

Agreed that a heavy duty spring is not required to get the ball up to the 20K hole.

Of my four plunger operated pins, Pinbot has the lightest plunger spring and there’s no issue hitting 20K with every full pull

I added a new pin to the collection and needed to shuffle around the order, which of course included my dialed in PinBot ... and I’m now back to needing to make adjustments so the ball will climb to/above the vortex 5K hole

I haven’t done anything yet, but will sometime this coming weekend, and will report back on successes/failures

Took about an hour fiddling around with this today, and dit the following in order:

- Tweaked the ball rest flange ears back/forth one at a time to see if I could further control the ball trajectory. Negligible difference observed, but noticed there’s plenty of thrust if the ball would avoid the rubber ring on the right
- Noticed that the plunger wasn’t striking the ball dead center, but off to the right. Loosened the plunger assembly screws and moved the location to where the plunger is hitting the ball dead on. This tweak paid off and I’m back in business dropping the ball into the 20K hole without it first slamming into the top of the vortex. Played about 20 games now and am consistently dropping into the 20K hole with a full plunger pull, and into the 100K hole if I’m just shy of a full pull

I don’t plan on moving this pin again anytime soon, but will post back if there’s any change in ball behavior and what I did to remed it

ATB - R

I’ve been dealing with this ongoing issue for 6+ Months on my Jack*Bot. I’ve replaced every component in the shooter rod assembly. Last night I even used a dremel to sand down the shooter rod cutout on the cabinet to allow the shooter rod housing to move further left and higher up. Although it gave me dead nuts accuracy on hitting the center of the ball, it still did not solve the problem.

Using slo-mo on my phone, I found the ball was hitting hard into the right side guide rail before the riveted flange. In a last ditch effort, I loosened up the 2 screws holding the right side guide rail, pulled them in as far as they could go (towards the PF and vortex) and tightened them down, although it only came in 1/4” or so, it 100% solved the problem!!!! The ball now rockets up the vortex!!!

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On mine I loosened the one screw at the right rail near where it meets the vortex entrance and pulled it down as far as it would go and retightened, so at the transition the ball doesn't nick the edge of the vortex entrance (ball just *barely* flies over it) and that fixed the ball rattling and stopping sometimes as soon as it entered the vortex. I just noticed from your picture that the spring blade mounted on the right rail is broken off from mine! But with the adjustment I made it doesn't seem to be a big deal, ball goes thru there smooth now. I suppose that spring just makes it so adjustment wouldn't need to be this picky given differences in position of these things from game to game.

Marco sells a sheet of spring steel so I might try making a replacement but again that adjustment on mine smoothed that area out.