The rail through the pop bumpers has also been improved, backglass lighting has improved (it isn't as washed out) and early machines had a sticker on the back of the backbox, now it's painted on.

This is what mine looks like.

On USB stick and then opened.

LTG : )

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Thanks Lloyd looks like I'll be out of luck. I'll just have to remember I have 1900 plays on it before the update.

Do you have pictures of the Beast Mech spacers? I just got my Hobbit used and I'm curious if I have them. Thanks!

They look like this. Mount under the playfield and stick up right in front of the character face.

LTG : )

hobbitFix (resized).jpg

I replaced my stock spring with a red one as it was way underpowered, but I find the red spring to be a bit much. Are you able to soft plunge well with it?

Also, what did you set your flippers to? What did increasing that strength solve for you?

So having an issue with one of the pop-ups. Reading that most of the time it's the metal pice in the back you have to adjust but my issue is a little different as mine is binding within the first half inch or so of it popping up. If I push on it from the underside it's obviously hitting something but after pshing hard enough and getting it past the first half inch it's then easy to move up and down. Looking all over I can't find what it's binding on. Before I pull the whole mech out I figured I would post here for input!

Thanks!

Loosen mech and line up with hole in the playfield better.

LTG : )

Question/request...

Can someone who is running near 7 degrees and having good luck with the kickback placing the ball where it should be, tell me what they have their kickback settings at?

My kickback is all over the place. It makes it tough when the lance shot is not able to be completed. It is sometimes short, sometimes long. I have fiddled with different settings and it is driving me mad.

Thanks as always Lloyd! What I did find out was, after pulling the entire mech out is was nothing more than the Goblin head being off kilter. I guess from it being bashed the head was pushed so far to the left (my left looking at the machine from the front) the ear of the Goblin was getting hung up on the frame of the mech. Loosened the head, re-adjusted and tightened again. All is good now!

Never had luck getting that consistent.

The lane guide to the left of the windlance has an end that can be moved and bent slightly.

Adjusting this has a dramatic affect on it.

You will see that there is a screw that you can pry against at the end without removing anything.

Tiny adjustments here yield big results.

That and power adjustments does the trick.

Also make sure the kicker and all associated parts are tightly installed.

My pitch is 7.2 and seems to be the sweet spot.

where should the shot be going, generally? Mine typically hits the outer loop, but occasionally it will go into the Radagast hole or brick out.

Supposed to be outer loop so you can hit the upper flipper for the Smaug shot.

My understanding is that it should feed the upper flipper. To kill Smaug, you load the windlance and it feeds the flipper for the kill shot.

With that said, every time I killed Smaug it was with the second ball that I had cradled on the right lower flipper.

Should always go to the loop, sometimes all the way to the pops on a high power day.

I has the same result as you as far as the shot being inconsistant.
It would mostly go up the loop but would also fail fairly often.

After a couple hours bending the left lane guide end and fooling around with the power settings as well as making sure everything was tight, I had it working perfectly, like clockwork.

I also checked the horizontal pitch in the center of the playfield to make sure it was dead level.

Then of course my wall power changed and it was inconsistent again.

I plugged it into my variac that I bought for Houdini and its been perfect every game regardless of the wall power changing every hour.

So for the most part, once dialled in its pretty stable, but if your power changes a bit then expect it to change also.

Darn, looks like no 3.1 update for me tonight. I gave my son a 32 gb usb to download code from JJP website . I just checked jjp website about loading instructions they caution this size it's not recommended and can cause problems.

Oh well maybe next week.

I used a 32gb without issue. Give it a try.

Hmmm...no, sorry.

I just updated to 3.1 and now Smaug’s mouth doesn’t open. I saw a previous post where adjusting settings in test menu got it going again...unfortunately that didn’t work for me. Any other known solutions? Thanks

I can still soft plung. Not always easy but way better than the limp stock spring. I believe my flippers are set all the way up to 30. I believe max is 32 don’t quote me on that . I alway have strong plungers and flipper on all my pins.

Now I have hooked my 12 inch
per-amped sub to the game ad WOW it is awesome!

Might try reinstalling

Mine is set at 120 and 100

LTG : )

Ugh, my drawf drop target is malfunctioning.
The A doesn't move down at all, sits a little higher than the r and the w.

Skill shot for dwarf it stays up as well. First problem I have ever had & owned a few years. So I can't complain just need to get fixed. This is my go to pin.

Check for broken spring. Check for height adjustment.

LTG : )

Don't worry you " only " have to beat that score 5 more times and you're all good

I had my hobbit on route for a while. Performed great except for broken springs. Ultimately that was a major reason I switched it out. Lots of springs to break on that bad boy.

Almost certainly a broken spring. If you don’t have the stronger replacement springs handy, it is likely that just the hook part broke. You can take the existing spring and make a new hook from one of the coils and be back in business in no time.

Thanks for the responses. I checked and the spring is missing. I just need to find it and repair.

Found it and fixed. Thanks again for your help. Keep warm.

bruce

Is anyone having trouble with hits registering on the Orc (upper right pop-up - I think it's the Orc)?

My game only registers about 40% of the hits. It's perfectly adjusted (just a simple leaf switch) and tests 100% in switch test mode using a pinball.

If others are having trouble, I wonder if it is a software polling issue? If it's isolated to my pin, I can't imagine what else would cause it?

Not clean. not adjusted as well as could be. Wires to that leaf blade switch getting cut through near the mech assembly/playfield and not always providing good continutiy.

No.

LTG : )

What about the 3.10 update that seems to get stuck when you kill Smaug when a mode is running. Is this a confirmed bug or not? I won’t update untill I know for sure.

I have not yet seen this - maybe something very specific needs to be happening

Installed 3.1 over the weekend.

I can report the same trough kickout issue had to turn the power up on trough and also on VUKs. Everything else seemed to be good to go though.

non 3.1 related though
My dwarf target skill shot sometimes messes up. It either just stops cycling after one time through or triggers and auto scores points before plunge. But its inconsistent and sometimes performs just fine.

Also i still havent killed smaug after almost two years. lol I just lowered the pitch a bit as well over the weekend and it definitely plays easier this way. But its still tough to trap up on my game.

Still loving it though!

One of my field beasts, upper right Orc, is having an intermittent issue where it pops up and the force of the pop up is causing the head to bobble enough to trigger the switch. Asking the question has given me an idea on the fix, though I don't know if its an adjustable option. I am going to try and reduce the coil power for just that mechanism. I have checked the screws and everything appears to be connected properly and tight.

My other concern is that I have one of the earlier play field releases and it does not have the plastic bumpers pre-installed to prevent balls from locking inside the drop mechanisms on the play field. This does not happen often, but it's enough that I would like to install them. I wanted to see if anyone has a pic of what it should look like on each mech once installed. Mine are the early version with 2 pegs, vs some recent pics I have seen that have a full bar across the top. Does anyone have a good set of instructions for installation as the removal of the whole mechanism looks to be a daunting task for a newbie.

Thanks!

They are pretty easy to remove actually, just a handful of screws. You do have to be careful of the wires and just gentle.

The inserted blocks look like this:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1575390

Open the gap a little on the leaf switch.

The white filler pieces are easy to install I did all 4 in 10 mins if you have the proper tools.

Contact JJP and they will send them to you with instructions.

I've been meaning to bling out my Hobbit, but I haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet. I have collected a list of mods for blades, mini-figures, and lighting, but I'm curious what others have done and still love. Also, one thing I have not been able to find are target decals. These seems like an obvious mod, but my googling skills have failed me to date.

Please share your favorite mods for this amazing machine. I really want to make it show piece.

Thanks!

My personal fav is the engraved ring button. I also have green translucent plastic protectors and lane guides which look great (sorry non photo at the moment)

IMG_9494 (resized).JPG

I like these and also plan to add the Throne of Erebor, barrel mods and green translucent plastic protectors. I still think the hammered bronze cabinet hardware and legs is the coolest aesthetic feature of this game

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Run through the drop targets test and see if you notice a difference in up / down retries.

I was having weird issues like this including phantom auto plunges. The Elf target also had a high number of down retries even though it looked fine and seemed to work properly. This prompted me to remove the mech to discover one of the Elf opto switch wires was not crimped tightly on the connector side. Repinned the connector and now all is good. So long story short, double check all your switch connections.

Hi Hobbit owners,

I'm thinking of getting a pin so I've been going on location and playing a bunch and to my surprise I find myself very impressed by the Hobbit. The theme integration is incredible and as I'm not a good player (neither are the wife and son) I find it kind of appealing that it's not known as super difficult. Also, the pin would look and sound awesome in the house (okay, sort of shallow) My issues with it are mainly resale value if I buy it new (seems like a hard pin to sell as it's quite polarizing) and if it would be a good idea in a one pin home with it being such a long player.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone has this in a very small collection and do you think it would hold up for a couple of years with relatively light play or should I look for something like BM66 which also has deep code but might be easier to sell if we do get bored with it after a while? My only pinball experience is that I owned an Addam's Family for two years which got a ton of play year one and then not so much after that. I had sort of planned on rotating pins every year because of this, but with the Hobbit I'm worried that the loss I would take might be a touch too much for owning it short term, which makes lastability more important.

Thanks for all bored enough to respond Sorry if this is the wrong thread for this type of question.

Hobbit is amazing with the new code and i find the game very difficult (at least mine is) but its very fun and the theme integration is one the best imo. I wldnt buy a new one as you can get a low play le or smaug for 6500-7k and its a lot of pin in that price range. Also it wld be fine as a 1-2 pin collection.

Yes, all this. Most people are still catching up on this game, as it took a while to really get it right. It was kind of so-so good at first, but now it is absolutely like no other game. Don’t buy new though; surely there are some out there who don’t like it as much and are willing to sell

In my small collection of great pinballs, my TH is the most played game by my friends and family by a long-shot. I can't imagine ever getting rid of it.

The hobbit has held up for a while in my small collection. I don't see it going anywhere....ever...maybe one day. It's an incredible game.

My wife isn't really into pinball and she isn't that great at it. She does enjoy playing this game though because it's much more forgiving.

I also wouldn't recommend buying new unless you get a sweet deal. Used Hobbits can be had for $6500-$7000 all day. I don't see them going any lower than that.

Pinball as an investment in fun as an enriching and social experience is awesome.

Pinball as a financial investment can be a fools paradise, and not recommended.

Yeah, I totally agree. I just like to break out the cost per month based on potential resale -- it makes me feel better about spending so much on them. If I lose 1000 but have fun with it for a year and a half or so it doesn't seem like such a bad cost to enjoyment ratio (or something like that).

Thanks for all the responses. It seems like I should try to hunt down a used one somewhere (I just missed one up for sale a bit ago).

If you buy a new one be prepared to lose at least $1,500 to $2,000. Just the reality of this pin. It's an awesome pin though, someday I'll get one myself.