Been reading so my Wrag shouldn't pop up for 2 secs and go back in? Haha I thought it was just a harder quick shot.

I have to bend the leaf switch?

And just to confirm my MAN drop targets are supposed to make a loud grinding noise correct? Lol

Adjust the shorter blade behind the character face.

Going up and down in a row. A lot ? Hit the ring button to change modes/shut them up.

LTG : )

Ok yeah it's registering it as a hit immediately so something much be getting hit on the way up. I'll see if it's his face, ha.

Here is something very similar. Troll face. Red arrow points to shorter blade. Ignore yellow arrow to make more sensitive. Same thing. Leaf blade switch on the assembly. Long blade on the character face, short blade behind it. If too close together it registers a hit going up. Too far apart it won't work.

Yours needs a little more gap on the rear blade.

LTG : )

Trollface (resized).JPG

Thanks for the insight. I can try that but I think I might have a different issue as the switch doesn’t register a hit at all. The beast tries to pop up (maybe 1/8”) and immediately drops back down, without a hit bring registered. Then tries again and will stay up until I hit it or it times out. After awhile of playing it tries to pop up 3-4 times rapidly but never pops up more than 1/8” (kind of like when you do the beast coil test - just barely pops up). Still doesn’t register a hit - I can still see the white light lit in front (through the tiny slit covering the head) until it times out. I got to the end of stage 3 ITF when both beasts should be raised the whole time and hits don’t drop them and the goblin couldn’t pop up. Any ideas for that? I could certainly be wrong but I’m worried it may be more than too close a gap in the leaf switch. If that fix still makes sense then I’ll certainly try that first. Thanks!

Tests - Switches - Matrixed - does it work when pressed ? or pulled apart ?

The coil is like a flipper coil. Three lugs, power and hold. Sounds like an issue on the hold if switch works.

LTG : )

Hi All. For any Smaug jitter/judder issues... mine was fixed by bending the contact that flows between the opto's so it was more in the center of the opto's. Mine contact was pretty much touching one opto, and extremely close on the other. Bent the contact slightly... all good now. Big Thank You to IronMan8Bit for helping me out here.
Great Hobbit forum. Thanks all.

I played a 2.5hr epic game last night. What an adVentcha. Second time ever TABA. This game is so incredible. My only problem is I don’t play it for weeks then boom I go head first and am fully immersed for an hour or two. In between I think about selling and then during I say it’s a forever keeper. Damn I wish I had more spots for pins.

Make your bed into a fold up and piss the dining table off. There's three more pins.

I’m at the ATL pinball show and I have told a few people that when I play my best on The Hobbit that I have a 2-3 hour game. They look at me like I’m crazy but I know I have the greatest Adventure game known to man so… I smile

Haha yes!!!

I can’t believe Hobbit is on the bottom of the list when it comes to JJP pins on the top 100. Seriously what gives? Do people actually play the game before they rank it?

I think it's the best mode based pin ever made , but that's just my opinion .

Your trully going on an Adventure when you hit the start button. Not many games have this.

It’s a top 3 all time pin for me easy

Hobbit doesn't give a great impression on a drive-by play. You need to spend some time with it at home, get your head around the rules, etc.

I think it's great!

I've seen the most popular complaint is that it's "floaty". Most wide bodies can seem that way at times (except JJPOTC). After playing a bunch of Sterns (or even Wonka), then playing Hobbit right away, I can see that ... until you get into any of the modes and multiballs. I think it is one of the best coded mode based games. The beef of the game is amazing. Playing it in a home environment really pulls you in and immerses you into the game. The Arkenstone modes with all of the levels is top notch, nothing compares to it. If the players never get to those modes, they are missing out on something very special. It's a top 5 pin for me, no doubt about it. No plans to ever get rid of it.

Often not enough to know WTF they're talking about! At least that's how it appears to me. Many jump on a bandwagon after hearing from somebody else. And I'm not talking about just Hobbit either. zaphX is right though. Hobbit is intimidating to a new player. The guys on my league that come over think it's great. A couple guys say it's their favorite of all time. These guys are real serious players too. How POTC rates so high in comparison, with it's incomplete code and limited assets, is a mystery to me!

I have no sound I check all the cables everything seems good. Not sure if the sound board must of got fried??
The green light comes on the board we’re audio cables are plugged in. Anyone else came up with this issue ?

This is why it isn’t a much loved pinball, when pinball loving guests visit my modest gameroom this isn’t they first choice as they are lost by the heavy ruleset. It also lack of attractive toys ( mini plateau, flying monkey, gumball, rotating trunk, Bigfoot rotating head, balrog bash toy, genie bash toys, Frankenstein and Dracula bash toys and so on ). So it is good but not among the best if you consider the guest entertainment aspect.

I disagree!
It's spectacular to see in action! Noobs don't care about rulesets! I can see the ruleset being intimidating out in the wild though, but they usually are when you don't get the game all to yourself and can't hear the sounds. Once explained to you, Hobbit is easier to grasp than many other pins! Noobs don't understand any of the rules on my pins and aren't interested at first either. They just want to flip! Hell, the women that my wife invites over for her Hen parties gravitate to it and literally scream during Smaug multiball when the pop up beasts start thwarting their shots! Makes me laugh every time!

" lack of attractive toys" ...really?

- Rotating, talking dragon with illuminated, flashing eyes.
- Four pop up beasts!
- Super interactive action button!
- Playfield display.
- 27" LCD with more going on than any pinball machine ever.. Full assets!

Don't even get me going on the rest of the BOM!

Is there a rule flowchart like there is for Wonka and Pirates? Having fun on the game but no idea what's going on.

Sure. Jersey Jack had a nice landscape poster explaining the flow of modes.

But this is the best info:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-hobbit-rulesheet/page/5#post-5774690

During modes, the book screen will tell you what to do.

We discovered early on, as we are average at best players, that with the Hobbit you need a wingman. Someone reading the screens, listening to the callouts and watching the inserts, speaking from your shoulder and calling the shots and objectives during a long game can turn your game from a good one to a HS table great one.

I did that last night with my wife. She was 1 shot from "Into the Fire", pointed to it for her. She got it, then for several minutes walked her through the mod..., she died 1 shot from completion. She did great and got almost a million, sadly it was her last ball.

So the 2 inserts frantically blinking orange was not enough?

Thanks very much!

That's funny, you would think so. She had a multiball going and doesn't really know the rules yet. Regardless, she did better than me sat night.

Some of us have no attention to spare other than the inch above the flippers in multi's.

How is the reliability of this game? How often does it break? I’m shopping out a broken one that was operated. Every toy down to the plunger broken, mini display, Smaug, pop-ups beat to death, every drop bank broken, sling pivots really beat up. I’m sure it’ll be fine in home use but do they break more on location by a large margin?

I guess any game that has zero maintenance would be about the same.

how many plays on that one?

I updated code before checking but it’s had many thousands, trails well worn on metal ramp. It’s had a lot of maintenance. All drops, pop ups and slings all show signs of repeated work.
New cleared playfield, plastics and sleeves all going in. Close to getting it 100% fixed and playing before swapping playfields.

Wow I can't imagine trying to swap over all the mechs and harnesses on the underside of the playfield - good luck! It'll be worth it!

Thought I'd share my Hobbit since I have several mods I haven't seen anyone else do yet.
Giant One Ring, Sting, Orcrist, burglar contract, gold coins, custom Giant Eagle, custom Bag End, Erebor ring & map etc... (I listed it all in the video description if you're interested)
EDIT: Sorry guys, thought I made the pics small, but they come through huge no matter what I try.

20210901_113527 (resized).jpg

20210901_102911 (resized).jpg20210901_103248 (resized).jpg20210901_114636 (resized).jpg20210901_102425 (resized).jpg20210901_115048 (resized).jpg20210901_113259 (resized).jpg20210901_103902 (resized).jpg

Awesome!!!

Beauty

Been loving my game so far so close to my first Wizard mode! Lol

Have a few more tweaks I need to do and could use some help.

Aftermarket ruby ring shooter rod was already installed on my machine, but is so weak I can barely even get any force on the ball. Do I need to adjust the rod at all? Is this normal of this shooter rod? If I was going to get a new spring what tension matches what this game should be at stock? I've seen some different kinds don't know exactly what one is for a JJP machine. Bally/Williams fit? High or low or medium tension?

I've seen these on PinballLife and Marco Specialties.

In installed a one ring shooter basically for a LOTR, and had a similar problem.

It was not the long tension spring, it was the lack of a shorter outer barrel spring that was supposed to come with the modded rod.

The ball has to rest on the tip of the plunger not the metal shooter gauge. Check to see if this is the case.

The hobbit has an intentionally weak spring on it.

A full plunge should hit the dwarf "A" target or slightly higher, weak as it is.
This is important if you are trying to get the left hole on the plunge to perhaps pickup the extra ball.

Blue or brown I think has the right tension. Not silver.

JJP barrel springs protrude slightly inside the ball handle, they are 7/8" or slightly longer to account for the spring going inside the ball handle.

Pull yours off and measure it.

the 3/4" available at pinball life is also slightly long. It should be slightly longer than 5/8"

I took a 3/4" barrel spring and crushed it in a vice until it was acceptably short enough.

Then bent the metal shooter gauge flap until the ball rested on the tip of the plunger instead of the shooter gauge metal.

Cutting the spring doesnt work.

Now it plays as it should with the factory tension spring on it.

I tried a variety of shooter springs and preferred the silver. The factory brown was too weak imho. I think I got it from Marco or Pinball Life.

With the silver I didnt have enough control for the variety of skill shots.

I have the blue one in right now, it seems about right.

The silver is the standard high tension spring for a lot of games.

I tried it, and it has plenty of power, but had trouble making the skill shots, especially trying to get all 4 lock roll overs.

I needed more control.

Yep I was curious about that barrel spring also def is too long and keeps it away from the ball. I might try to get a smaller one first and go from there! Thanks for all the info!

Strange I didn’t have this problem switching to the One Ring shooter

Yep.

Get a 3/4" and crush it down a bit until if fits right.

Smashing it in a vise did the trick.

Slightly more than 5/8" worked well.

There may have been an adjustment for Hobbit users.

Mine was an earlier LOTR/Hobbit offering.

Evidently they are not the same.

The same thing happens also on WOZ when you go to a candy ball molded one.

The barrel spring doesnt penetrate into the new ball like the factory one does.

If we're talking about this shooter rod (sorry, no idea how to link a pic here) I received mine a month ago and it definitely feels a bit off and weak. I can't remember if it came with a spring or if I re-used the stock spring though.
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0817/13/lotr-lord-rings-hobbit-pinball-custom_1_0ce6228a7c1f87fc23349fbf7982bb5f.jpg

Yes, same one I got. They didnt include a shorter barrel spring for the hobbit, nor did they know that the hobbit setup is slightly different than the LOTR setup.

I reused my existing barrel spring and it worked like crap.
The shooter tip is way behind the shooter gauge.

I compared the 2 rods and saw that the JJP spring penetrated the ball 3/6".
The JJP spring is slightly longer than 7/8"

The rods are exactly the same length.

I found a regular williams spring in my parts stash at 3/4" smashed it in a vice and now its a near perfect fit with a little adjustment to the shooter gauge flap.

The ball has to rest on the tip of the rod. Not the shooter gauge housing.
From what I understand, some of the guys that make the custom rods have shorter barrel spring upon request to solve this problem.

Are any of these mods available?

Cut and paste myself a Bag End mod this weekend. I became inspired again when I saw the other mods
I got it years ago with this in mind when I pre ordered my Hobbit in 2013. Never finished it. Most important for me was to have a real shot through the front door and a 3d house! I missed the Bag End house and the feeling that you shoot the door. I also wanted to be able to see the ball moving in the pops and wanted to see the insert lights through the Bag End front door. I use the new gate mod so the ball wil exit mostly on the right. I still can see the ball coming out the front door when I remove the mod. Works both.

I’m thinking to move the flasher from the bottom pop to the chimney and I want to light up the window but I’m not sure I’m able to hook up a flasher or move it away.

Hope you like it. Pre-orders available at 399,-
751F15CD-F9D0-4D87-98F1-2C0E8F0A0562 (resized).jpegA249B846-2FF6-40EB-99A2-C1CA4C6F4553 (resized).jpegF8D1FBD5-7ADD-480A-AFB1-88FACD9E105C (resized).jpeg

I like it better than my bag end mod!

Might be cool to add a light or 2 to it.

But for some reason I prefer the closed "round" door. It seems to be more iconic to a hobbit house.