Considering buying a Hobbit. Question: is playfield dimpling fairly common, or simply for games produced after a certain date? Which manufacturing date (or game version) should I look for which would have all the fixes done from the factory?

TIA

Also, which version would you recommend: Standard, LE, Black Arrow, or Smaug?

Are there any distros carrying Hobbits (used), or is the only way to buy dealing with a private seller?

Question for all you Hobbit owners: has any of you ever removed the head from the machine (and how difficult is it)? How much of a difference does it make (how much does the head weigh)?

Thanks in advance. I'm looking to possibly buy one and can take a regular pinball machine with my appliance dolly on my own. However, taking a Hobbit upstairs on my own does scare me. Usually my wife spots me when pulling them upstairs, but not looking forward to killing her with this one.

That's why I'm asking about the backbox. If it sheds 50-60 pounds and gets this machine to around 300lbs or less, then we have a chance.

For those of you with Hobbits at home, how do they do with casual players? Kids?

Picking one up next weekend. What should I set flipper power to in order to still make ramps consistently at that pitch?
TIA

Just joined the club!!! Extremely excited this is now sitting right where it belongs (next to LOTR).

IMG_20200913_220258 (resized).jpg

Now, what are the must have mods? I've seen:

-Lior barrel legs (I must have this)
-Ring button plaque (need to get this as well)
-Bilbo's home (getting this)
-New shooter rod handle (can't believe they went so cheap with the stock one)
-Lior's book cover (probably not, I'm okay with the stock book cover)
-Barrel spotlights (maybe?)

Any others I'm not aware of?

I took it with a potato. Will try to get a proper photo later.

Also, has anyone gotten the side art blades? Any pictures you could provide? Wondering how good they look.

Love the gold trim on the head of your Hobbit!

I wonder how many Hobbit owners also have an LOTR. By the way, the game is simply amazing! My family were all blown away by the game.

So the pinsider I bought this machine from had the Grand Champion score at 1,899,XXX. Well, on my second ball I had 1,850,000 or so and had already done Into the Fire and had Barrel Escape and Battle of the Five Armies lit up. I thought for sure I would beat the GC score, but then proceeded to epically choke on that last ball and finished with a 1,866,XXX score. FML...

At least I got the record for modes started, modes completed, beast slayer, etc. Don't know if I'll go on another run like that anytime soon (had multiple extra balls on that first ball), but it sure will be fun to try. Don't think this game will be leaving soon, if ever.

What I feel like whenever I push the start button:

going on an adventure.gif

I have a Smaug Gold special edition, but my head trim is not gold.

Finally feel like I have made this machine mine by bumping previous owner from Grand Champion score (I know I could have just reset the scores when I bought it, but not really my style):

IMG_20200924_215228 (resized).jpg

Also, don't judge my score. I've only owned it for two weeks.

I was a bit lucky on that one. My previous high score was only 1,866,XXX so definitely had everything working for me on this one, including getting one more extra ball on my last ball.

Nicely done! That is my only issue with the Hobbit, the fact that I don't get to enjoy all the cool animations, especially during those Arkenstone modes.

Anyone else ever have issues with the 5-ball through? I got an error stating to check connectors, switches, and 12v power. Did all that, reseated the connectors at the ball through opto as well as the lower left I/O board and the issue went away temporarily. However, it came back after about 20 minutes.

Here is what it does:

-If in the middle of play, flippers go dead, ball drains, but it does not register that the ball has drained (seems to think it already drained and maybe that is why flippers go dead?) and it does not kick out a new ball.
-Sometimes, if on multiball, it will just continue multiball when down to one ball but not kick out any more balls even if supposed to. Once the ball drains, no other balls come out.
-If at the start of a game, it will just not kick out any balls.

All of these will go on endless ball searches right afterwards.

Almost seems like a loose connector, but I have removed and reconnected all of them and it only provides a temporary solution. Anything else I could be missing?

Yes, I think there were 3 connectors at the ball through and about 4-5 at the I/O board. I'll try again tonight and see what happens.

So basically tug each wire at the connector and see if any come loose?

I believe that one is normal. I think I have the same connector without anything attached as well.

So, I became Into The Fire Champ tonight. Does that mean I finished Into The Fire, or how the heck does one finish that mini-wizard mode?

Multi-Thorin Multibaaaalllll!

My Hobbit sits around 7.3 incline. Just scored 3,695,XXX. Killed Smaug and played all three Arkenstone mini-wizard modes. The through issue I've been having still happens from time to time (about every other day). I had tightened the connectors at the opto board, but tonight I did the same at the I/O board. Tugged on all the wires and did not notice any loose ones. Then I went on a game that was over an hour long with no issues, so hopefully that is the end of that (fingers crossed).

Question for everyone: how hard is it to update the code? Will I still keep all my scores? I'm running version 2.96 and I noticed that the game forgot I was Into The Fire champion. Read up on it and sounds like that was an issue which was addressed by a code update.

Second question: what is everyone's recommended maintenance schedule? How often do you clean and wax the playfield? Do you have to grease the gears on the Smaug head every certain amount of time?

No dimpling? Mine shows some dimpling already due to the ocassional airballs. Otherwise, no other playfield issues. I bought it with 82 games played and I'm probably up to 120-150 (haven't checked the number recently).

Is it just me, or do you guys also love hearing Azog's laughter at the beginning of Into The Fire?

Updated from version 2.96 to 3.10. Really enjoy having the added callouts, light sequences, and tracking of the completed stages in the Arkenstone modes. Also, am I crazy or are the green lights shining on the bottom of Smaug new? Well, probably not "new" since the bulbs are already there, but definitely used more in non-Smaug multiball sequences so that I got to notice them now.

For you fellow owners, do you have cliffy's on your game? Where did you orders yours from?

I was also thinking of getting the Bag End mod. Do you think it affects visibility into the pop bumpers area very much? That has been my main concern with getting it.

What is everyone's favorite shot in this game? I'm guessing the one to kill Smaug? For me it is the one to complete 3rd level of Into The Fire (shooting the captive ball for super jackpot right between the orc and goblin pop-ups).

Man, I feel your pain. Mine was down for about two weeks because none of the playfield or GI lights were working. Made sure the mini USB was connected tightly, checked every connector a thousand times, checked voltages, ordered a new BAG board (didn't fix the issue), checked all the RGB boards, checked I/O board, and spoke with JJP support tech on the phone. It ended up just being the actual USB cable going bad. Replaced with a different mini-USB cable and everything was back to normal. I wasted so much time on that, but glad it was figured out. It was super frustrating.

JJP tech Ken Holland was amazing and spent a ton of time on the phone walking me though all possible issues. Awesome experience dealing with him. Hope your game is back in business soon!

One last issue I have, not the end of the world, but would like to fix it. Smaug gives me an error on startup. It rotates left and right and when it reaches near the end of its turn towards the ramps, it stutters and gives a movement error on diagnostics. Once I dismiss the error and start a game, Smaug will just stay facing the playfield (will not move left/right), but still does everything else well (lights, eyes, and jaw moves properly when speaking).

I manually moved him back and forth with the power off and notice that at the end of the turn (towards the center of the playfield), it seems to have some resistance. Feeling around, it seems like the back of his head is rubbing against the left ramp near the end of Smaug's turn. Anyone ever had an issue like that? Any recommendations on how to fix it?

Thanks for the tip. I'll give this a try.

Guys, JJP store has full plastic set for The Hobbit for $49.99!

Don't walk, run!

http://store.jerseyjackpinball.com/Parts/The-Hobbit-Parts/Hobbit-Printed-Plastics-Set.html

Same deal for Dialed-in plastics set.

Yeah, if you are planning on keeping the game for a while it is a no-brainer. Dirt cheap price for a complete plastics set.

Been having an issue that I hope someone here may have experience/know a fix. Sometimes in the middle of a game, the game will think I have drained while a ball is still in play, flippers go dead, music acts like I just lost my ball, and of course the ball will drain. The game then goes through the usual end of ball score tally.

Now at this point, sometimes it will go into the next ball and kick the next ball into the shotter lane and proceed as normal. However, some other times it will not kick a ball out. It will just go into an endless ball search. The weirdest thing is that if I open the door and then close it (and turn the key to close it), it will then kick a ball into the shooter lane.

If I was on multiball, and it was supposed to kick adfditional balls into the lane, it will not kick them out. I'll keep playing multiball with only one ball. If it drains, multiball keeps going. I can do the trick opening and closing the door, but it will only kick out one ball.

Any ideas? Thought it was the through opto, but I reconnected all the cables and no luck. The strange things are:

-I can get a good 30 minutes or so of the game operating normally but then this starts happening at some point.
-No idea why opening and closing the door helps to kick a ball into the shooter lane when the game can't find one during ball search.

This is driving me crazy! Hope someone has some ideas before I reach out to JJP.

That does makes sense. I'm almost sure I have a pack of new balls. I'll try that tomorrow and report back.

Before you go through all the trouble of finding if it is an issue with the board, I went through the exact same issue. Same with the lights being stuck and resetting after turning off and on. After a couple of weeks, the playfield lights would not even come on even when restarting. Got a new IO board from JJP and no luck. Tested voltage at all the boards, switched connectors all over. It finally ended up being solved by replacing the mini USB cable from the IO board with a new one. Try that first and if it works will save you a lot of trouble.

As for your Smaug head, is it rubbing/getting stuck against the ramp when trying to turn? Mine had that issue out of the blue and was fixed by lightly bending that part of the ramp away from the Smaug head.

This happened to me for a while. Clean the ball through optos and re-seat all wires to the ball through. The game kept thinking I had lost all balls at random times and both flippers would go dead, forcing the drain. If I opened the door and closed it again, then the game would kick out another ball and act like nothing happened. Yes, this happened a lot during multiball, but also at other times.

Weren't there rumors at the end of last year of a possible code update? Or am I imagining things?

I see. 2-player co-op would be the bee's knees, if it ever could be done. A game with code this massive could really benefit from it.

I find headphones somewhat pointless with Hobbit. The drop target banks are so loud that when the headphones are in, it still makes way too much noise for everyone else. If anything, the noise of the drop target banks without any music to mask the sound is even worse.

For me, the best thing about the game is how immersive it is. The theme integration is second to none. I'm sure you can enjoy the pin on its own without watching the movies. However, I would guarantee you that if you watch the movies it will take the pin to a whole other level.

Good point. There is nothing more satifying than sneaking a shot right behind one of the beast mechs blocking the ramp.

Just here to restate that I still think this game is amazing and one of the best.

That's all.

Travahontas - got the bag end gate mod, installed and played a few games with it, and have to say it is absolutely amazing. Many fancy mods get all the accolades, but they usually just enhance the appearance of the games. This one ACTUALLY improves the gameplay! Mod of the Year in my eyes. Thank you very much for creating it!

I spent a ton of time replacing bag boards, changing wiring, measuring voltages, etc. In the end, my issue was simply resolved by replacing the mini USB cable that goes from the bag board to the back of the PC motherboard. I would suggest you try that and see if that works.

I wanted to kick myself, as it was such an easy and quick solution. You may not have the same issue, but if I were you I would try replacing USB cables with new ones where you can.

It is in green on page 162 of the user manual (you can download a PDF copy from Jersey Jack's website). The red arrow represents the mini USB. The other wire looms could possibly have a connector that needs reseated properly, but honestly I would start with the mini USB cable from the bag board and work my way to ther USB cables. If that does not fix the issue, try the CAT5 cables next. I think the quality of the factory cables is pretty inconsistent, so trying by replacing with some of your own is worth a shot.

Besides what others said about a switch, I would also check the ball through connections and clean the ball through optos. This used to cause balls not to kick out, kick out too much, or register phantom drains on mine.

Wish there was some video of it in action. Like, if it glows and swirls like the movie's arkenstone that would be killer.

I always seem to miss out on mods because by the time I have the money to buy them, they're no longer available

With that being said, does anyone have an extra:

-ring button engraved plate
-Lior's barrel legs
-Lior's book cover
-mod for bag end

That they would be willing to sell?

Damn, that's a great deal! I have the red one ring shooter on my LOTR and absolutely love it. This is so tempting... Would this deal be valid with the blood red or black one ring shooter as well?

Are the map pinblades the best ones for Hobbit? I've seen 3 or 4 different art blades, but those appear to be the most popular. Any testimonials from people who own them?

Do those come with pre-cut holes for the inside bolts, like the ones from Pingraffix?

I think that line is from LOTR.

Actually, I stand corrected. In LOTR he said: "Fool of a Took."

Last night I made it to Barrel Escape multiball, all the way to the last stage, last shot lit up for the final super jackpot. Two balls left and I choked on such an easy shot three times, drain, end of multiball.

Legolas is still Barrel Escape champion.

For now...

Thank you so much for the video! The button is nice, but your wiring mod takes it to another level!

I did the cliffy on the right about a month ago. Looked at the left side and everything that had to be removed and said "nope!". I know I need to get it done, but been super lazy about it.

Yep, I also heard a lot of the same complaints before getting one:

1. Boring
2. Bare playfield
3. Floaty
4. Long ball times
5. Multiball heavy

Being a huge LOTR/Hobbit fan, and already owning an LOTR pinball (don't mind long ball times), I took the plunge. I'm so glad I did. The music, the callouts, lighting, gameplay variety, full assets from the movie, etc make this game amazing.

With that being said, is it as great for people who don't care for the movies? I think it is still the least liked of the JJPs by most players.

I also wonder how many people only tried the game on early code. That might make a difference in their opinions on the game.

Two things it does for me (besides using the third flipper more):
-help complete pop bumper objectives.
-get shots at the lit dwarf target after pops more consistently.

And I suspect operators set them up too flat on location, making the game "floaty" for those who tried it on location.

My fellow adventurers, does anyone have the Smaug mouth adjustment numbers we should use in order to not burn out that servo motor? I think I remember seing someone post the adjustment numbers for open and close, but I can't seem to find them anywhere. Since I bought mine used, I can't tell if it was ever done. That is the reason why I would like to compare against someone's numbers who has made the adjustment.

TIA

Thank you, both! What are the default values? Just wondering if previous owner already made the adjustment.

So they didn't want Smaug taking balls in its mouth?

Replacing cables has worked for me in thne past. Sometimes the factory ones are not the best. If you have another spare VGA cable laying around, I would replace it and see if that fixes the issue.

If anyone is upgrading from the engraved plate mod to the new button mod, let me know. I'll take the angraved plate one off your hands.

Sending PM.

I know a few people already replied, but I will also share that my game did the same thing early on when I got it and replacing the bag board, resetting wires, etc. none of that worked. It started the same way as yours. Even with the play lights freezing up, Smaug's mouth not moving, etc. Eventually, I lost all lighting except for the GI and the spotlights. After days of back and forth, new bag board, phone call with JJP testing RGB boards sequentially, and many hours of pulling my hair out, it just ended up being a defective mini USB cable that goes from the board to the PCB.

I just happened to have one long enough that I used to charge my PS4 controllers. I just replaced the one in the game with that one and everything magically resolved itself: all lighting back, Smaug's mouth moving, etc. It's been about 8-9 months since and the issue never came back. I would recommend checking that easy solution first before going through the headache of troubleshooting everything else like I did.

With so many modes to complete, this game is just begging for co-op play. I would take that over Scorbit, wi-fi, or bluetooth.

Do we need to do a Kickstarter to have Keith code that for us?

In all seriousness, JJP could charge for that type of update similar to video game DLC and I would buy it

I don't think I would consider co-op play something that "should" be included. Definitely not something I would think operators really care about. Especially in a 5-year old game that JJP is no longer producing.

Which gets me thinking... I wonder what percentage of modern pinball machines actually offer co-op?

Does anyone have the post bookmarked that gave the instructions for the developer team easter egg intro? Can't find it on this thread.

Sagging wood happens with age. Or so I've been told.

Sad day yesterday. My Smaug mouth stopped working last night. Also not working in test menu. Anyone have a good tutorial on how to replace that servo motor? How difficult is it?

I'll take a look at the manual tonight.

In everyone's experience, any other possible causes I should check before assuming it is the motor?

Okay, so I checked on my Smaug mouth that stopped working and when I removed the glass and tried the adjustments, nothing happened. I tried the adjustment while attempting to push the mouth closed, but nothing happened there either. As a matter of fact, the jaw gives zero resistance. It's just like it it flopping there/completely loose.

Travahontas LTG New servo or rubberband fix?

Thanks for the heads up! I ordered one set and seriously considering a second one.