It's as if the channel grooving is set too low or the playfield is sitting slightly too high. When I take the lockbar off, the glass does not naturally slide down. When I pull it down to remove it, the very edge of the glass hits the front of the cabinet about the coin door.I have to jimmy something under the glass ever so slightly to be able to slide it out safely.

Read through thread .
Early on this was an issue . I believe that an insert for the side rail track Was added.

Is the Pinsider still here on the site? I would try to contact him directly.

Yeah mine does that same thing. Guess I’ll ask jjp for the kit to fix it. If there is one. It’s pretty annoying. Hard to take glass off.

Jam thicker style nylon tie pieces (cut the heads off) about 2 or 3" long under the glass channel (between the plastic channel and the wooden cabinet side) to gain another 1/16" of glass channel height. Push them in with a putty knife or plastic razor blade.

Do it all along the channel every 4" or so on both sides to the end.

You wont see them once installed, if you are worried just use black nylon.

The class channel is simply stapled in place, its easily raised a bit.

If its not enough clearance, use thicker shims.

That’s a great idea! I will do that now. Thanks for the info!

How is this game not wanted by everyone? I just had some buddies over, put the volume at 48 and hooked up a sub. It’s a masterpiece. Most insane pinball experience I ever had. If I was trying to get someone into pinball that’s the experience I would give them. Hobbit full blast with a sub in a pitch black room. Sold.

Low production numbers! 1900 total.
2/3 or more are in home
And the few in the wild are not the same experience as in a home.
Most people never really get a chance on one and are influenced by the rumors of a few.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hobbit-owners-thread/page/198#post-6164514

It's about a 5 cent mod to make.

Me too, same issue.

LOL

First customer received their set. Thanks DrDoom for providing pics

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Nice job on the install DrDoom

I also want one ! where can i buy it?

FLASHINSTINCT sells them

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1054-flashinstinct/08753-the-hobbit-target-amp-ramp-decal-sets

Thanks

It's actually an easy job, but also pretty fumbly on the ramps

Not if you have skinny fingers!

Those are awesome!

Costs $20 and a bit of soldering. Before and after. IMG_7217.png

IMG_7216.jpegIMG_7220.jpeg

I put a 8" high and 20 or so inch wide piece of 1/2 CTO gel filter on mine to cover all the LEDS acrss and kill the blue on the upper portion. It works well.

Very natural color.

Yours looks nice!

Did you try turning the edge ones 90 degrees so they don’t point straight at the glass? Might be nice less intense effect and give you a nice emerald green color.

No I just stuck them straight out. I will give that a try. That would probably look pretty good. Wonder if I can put something on them to dim them down instead.

Try blue or green painters tape to dim leds
You can do strip or individual.

This would work. https://www.superbrightleds.com/single-color-led-controller-with-dynamic-modes-mld-5a?utm_campaign=Child+-+Organic+Shopping&utm_source=More+LED+Lighting+%3E+Single+Color+LED+Dimmer+Switches&utm_medium=MLD-5A&gclid=Cj0KCQjw7uSkBhDGARIsAMCZNJt7dmTPamkYL_pObJi9ic2yreeppAT1xXDqe9nwot260-91PEL6UWQaAiItEALw_wcB

True
But that would dim the whole strand .
With the tape it’s selective . One may Want it bright in middle and dark on ends.
With tape this can be achieved . Even mix blue Green or standard painters tape to shadow the effects .( simple easy and removable)

Just apply the tape over the LED's?

I used three of them when I did my backglass but two would have been enough.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hobbit-owners-thread/page/205#post-6246449

The gel films work the best and are easy to cut an apply over the LED's.

They stay on forever with a little gorilla tape.

CTO (O is for orange) will effectively filter out the blue from the LED's.

CTO easily comes in densities of 1/4, 1/2 or darker.

CTO 1/2 (or 2 layers of CTO 1/4) works pretty good.

Gels have been used for decades for stage lighting to inhibit wavelengths that look off or unnatural.

Yes

Has anyone used the LOTR side blades from SillyOldElf on their Hobbit? Those things look fantastic but would love to see pics on Hobbit if anyone has done it.

Here’s ours, no dark spots, not overpowering, and we don’t use standard 5050 or 3528 leds as those put out a fair amount of heat and draw more power.

https://lermods.com/products/the-hobbit-woz-pinball-full-translight-kit

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Is there a way to turn off starting modes in multiballs? Especially Smaug. I’m on code 3.10. Not sure if that matters.

Maybe I'm biased as I think TH is truly a masterpiece "in it's own class" but I also think TH has a couple things against it. A very small niche market because of the theme itself (I'm a Tolkien nerd) and more importantly the amount of hate it received (and rightfully so) when the code was premature.
Imagine not being an avid player and walking up this machine. You see a fairly barren pf and unless a person understands the ruleset it's really not "that" much fun either in comparison to a lot of other games with immediate pf bling. TH is in essence truly a hidden gem because of it. I'm afraid the early disdain is a permanent stain on it though.
But what does that mean for price? Been watching JJP used prices without bias or motive for quite a while.( I simply cannot force myself to separate TH from LOTR anyway) TH certainly dipped well below new price for ~3.5 years? And now look at it. You can buy a used one, play the hell out of it and most likely get your money back if not make a little on top But is there a glass ceiling? This title has never been top 10 let alone even top 20 (currently Pinside 45), used prices creeping into if not already in new "standard" price territory ..... is that the wall for this game? Isn't it odd TH is right next to CV in ratings? So how bad is it ....... really? I'm more or less poking fun at the rating system but like it or not it certainly does play a factor.

Very well said. Best “experience” or “adventure” in pinball by a mile.

Looking through the ratings history, it's definitely a love/hate polarizing game. Unfortunately, some of the honest people ranking the game have only experienced it in a public, loud atmosphere. Even if you look at the individual reviews some really good ratings mixed in with bad ratings all through it's history. I love it, but only want to play it when I'm ready for a long, intense battle. Some people don't like long games. Stereotyping tournament type players - most tournament types don't like long games. To me the intense immersion into this game puts it in another category and it's tops in "that" category. Great for a home setting, not too great for a loud public location or for a tournament. The ranking is stuck in the middle and the history plot below shows it.

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As with any movie themed table, one needs to have seen the movie ( this one has three) to appreciate what the game has to offer, no matter how good or bad the movie is.
I think a lot of people haven’t even seen the Hobbit movie let alone all three to understand and appreciate this masterpiece of a pinball! Their loss.
The sounds ,the assets ,the call outs, the clips, the modes, the artwork , did I miss something ?
Oh yeah the Fun!

What's funny is that my wife and I wanted this pin when it was still a prototype, bought it and loved it without ever seeing the movies. About 8 months later our kids bought the box set of movies for us for Christmas. When we watched the movies, we kept pointing out parts that were in the movie. "That's the extra ball clip!" Our kids shook their heads in discust, laughing at us. Good times.

Well I'm always willing to admit when I'm wrong, that data graph shows TH dipped it's toes in the 20's for a blip of time but none the less it was there lol!

It truly is their loss. I remember when i first got into the hobby a decade ago. I was reading, taking notes and trying to find that title to play! But boy did I quickly learn that tastes do differ .... by a lot! Certainly not in the correct timeline but I remember CV, TOTAN and Tron as examples. My gawd people wouldn't stop talking about them. Got my wallet all sorts of hot and bothered so I sought them out and played and played them. That was the day I learned money (or hype) doesn't necessarily equate to fun. Pretty? Yes. Unique to look at? Yes. That's all they did for me.
HOWEVER, I do have to say Medievil Madness was one of those hyped titles and by gawd I loved it. If someone offered me a trade for one I'm not sure I could resist but I also know damn well I'd miss TH. It truly is just great in it's own unique way.

Is there any game that you folks would compare to TH? I mean a game that somewhat or closely resembles TH experience?

Great story! My daughter had no interest in the movies but after playing the pin she decided to watch them and EVERY time a movie/pin quote came up she turned and looked at me. That was her way of saying "whoa ... I get it!" lol

BTW - the earlier comment about tournament/long ball times. Totally agree. But if you move or remove them outposts you get punished to hell and back.
My high score was almost a 2 hour game. 2 HOURS! I made it to TABA, through it and died the very next mode. I was so happy I died. That was just too freaking much!

I no longer own a hobbit, but it’s the most immersive game I’ve ever played. It just draws you in. Killing Smaug has to be one of the greatest events in pinball. One thing that really adds to the experience is hooking the game to an external sub and turning up the base level a little more than normal. So many booms in the game.

I owned both MMR and Hobbit at the same time. Hobbit stayed and MMR is gone.

Anyone that bought Hobbit when it first came out knew what they were getting into. Code was not mature for a long time. That was a known for anyone fully participating in the hobby. It’s not fair to criticize early code when it was known it was a work in progress.

New code is awesome and it’s one of the reasons I haven’t sold mine yet.

I recognize you. IIRC you were a huge champion of Ironman back in the day IIRC? Maybe not, might have been some dude named Greg "Rarehero"... but it's nice to hear from you regardless ad I appreciate your thoughts on MM.
I agree it's not fair judging an incomplete machine but that is how things are too often treated in the pin world. I think some examples of pf toys and such help offset the lack of needed code though. Oddly enough, TH I played in the wild was running an earlier version of code. I still loved it. Shortly after I purchased mine the last code release came out and that was just the icing on the cake! My only complaint with the Hobbit is the audio volume of some clips are louder than others. "Well done Master Baggins" grates on me because of it. I submitted a ticket requesting volume normalization and some minor bug I found related to the windlance. No response of course. The "bug" I'm referring to is if a ball rolls past the windlance and bounces hard off the gutter and rolls back over the switch the windlance will put the ball back into play. A new age method of slamming without as much effort LOL

I'm looking to pick up a Hobbit and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on things to look for when I am buying one?

Thanks!

Now that my machine is playing great again, I need some pointers on how to master it. I looked at the modes chart, but was curious if there were any recommended videos or blog posts on strategies for playing it.

Read through this thread!

I was looking for a more condensed version rather than a 250 page book.

Gota do your home work!

Play a few games on it. Hit enter button - any reports come up ? Pop ups go up and down smoothly. Character faces on pop ups register hits ?

Buy it. Enjoy it.

LTG : )

I get it. We've all been there. BUT.
Every 4 or 5 pages someone asks the same question. It's complicated. The list is rather long.
Personally, you want a Black Arrow. These were the last and most refined versions of Hobbit.
BA had all the updates and fixes over prior versions. However, things still can go wrong.
Buy local, go and play it. Make sure beast mechs are working good. If not, there not hard to fix.
Good luck in search. And sadly, your wallet will take a Ding.

I knew that the Black Arrow version was last but was not clear on what "fixes" were in place over the other two versions?

*** I did some more reading, looks like the fixes and basically ramp flaps and drop target springs? Anything else?