Hello everybody,

I am proud and so happy to say I finally got my 1st modern pinball machine at home:The Hobbit LE I bought it from a guy who was the 1st owner, it's pretty like new imo!
This game is sooo perfect for a home use with the amazing soundtrack (thanks to my favorite group Two Steps from Hell) and the stunning animations. I felt in love with the machine when I tried it at the Pintastic 2018 but I know I would enjoy it more at home. In fact, I love all JJP machines to be honnest but I think Hobbit was THE machine to start with and considering I have 2 kids who will enjoy it too.

I am happy to see there's a great community here and I already read a lot of your posts. I ordered Cliffy's protector's because this was a mod that I found quickly to be a MUST have (despite the not easy procedure to install them but I'll take my time).

I have 3 questions actually :
1) Do you have a trick to make the metal ramps shine like new (without having to remove the thing if possible lol). There's a lot of traces caused by the ball travelling.

2) The guy before me set the game at 5 balls, and put a lot of settings on easy. I reset those settings to default (medium), removed the center post, and opened the 2 outlane entries. Now, I would like to reset the "recent standards audits" because it's exactly the same numbers displayed compared to all time stats..
So that would give me stats since I have the machine in RECENT and total stats in the 2nd column. Is it possible to do this and is it a good idea?

3) Just curious, what are your "must have" mods for this machine? There's already gold coins overs the flips and a nice sword for the plunger. I was thinking to get "green Convulux plastic protectors" and the "gold ring with the metal plate" for the lockbar button.

Thanks guys

Hello,

LTG or other users, I am a little worried to update when I read this, could you confirm or explain those points please?

And last question, if I do a backup before, does the backup save the games counters so when I'll reinstall the backup it will bring back all game played and audits?

Thanks

I got the blackscreen trouble too on day 1 after installing 3.0 but so far so good since...

The only other problem I have (and there's this trouble since I got the machine before 3.0 so), and I don't know if it's a common problem or if there's a fix for this, but sometimes, when I start up The Hobbit, the display on the monitor is completely screwed... Like green vertical lines, or red vertical lines and picture is totally destroyed, this is very terrifing but... I stop the machine and restart it then problem is solved. Sometimes it can take 2 or 3 try but after that it works flawlessly. I am the only one to get this problem?
Maybe I am not clear, I'll take a photo the next time it happens

Forgot to give an update on this, but if it can help others, YES, ball counts were indeed in the backup, so after restoring backup on the V3.00, all stats were back!!

Cool!! Same for me this week too.
Honestly, those scenes are amazing! I never reached the 3rd scene, so for now my favorite one is "Into the Fire".
I have this pinball since 3 month now, playing with outlanes opened and center post removed so it will be hard to reach it but this is what I want I don't want this to be too easy.
Killed Smaug 2 times, Won Into the fire 1 time in less than 10 tries and Barrel Escape 1 time too in 2 tries.

Hello,
I have 2 little troubles with my Hobbit. Maybe someone could give me a tips on how to solve them

1) Since a few days, my Orc randomly seems to hesitate before popping up. (see at 0:04 & 0:13)
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Au8iWRzg08HDpE5MkuFtMOQW72_T

2) This one happens less often and it started exactly since I've upgraded to 3.0 1 month ago. At the beginning of a ball, as soon as the ball arrive in the launcher, the skillshot is selected automatically and the autolaunch kick the ball immediately. Any other people have seen this after upgrading to 3.0?

Thanks

Hello,

It happened 1 time yesterday. Here's the event log that show exactly the scenario. Looks like an ELF Skillshot but I have check the matrix switches and I never saw an unattended switch activation...
Will wait the next time to see if it happens again on ELF skillshot autoselection or if it's random with any SS.

IMG_20190107_185610~2 (resized).jpg

LTG, same solution for 2 differents problem? One is refering to the monster cover not falling flush with the playfield and the other one is refering only to the monster hesitating to popping up.
Just want to be sure before playing with that thx

Thank you very much LTG for the info. 3 monsters on the 4 weren't correctly adjusted.
Unfortunatelly, this didn't solve the random problem on the ORC, who sometimes, do a mini jump before going up (like showed on the video https://1drv.ms/v/s!Au8iWRzg08HDpE5MkuFtMOQW72_T)
Any other suggestion?

Thanks

LTG I think you are right. Look at the picture. The back is touching the playfield and wearing the wood. You can see on the 2nd pic that it's not centered too if we look from the top.
I tried to unscrew some screw under the playfield and tried to center it but it's moving.. I have no clue how to adjust this.

IMG_20190119_165459~2 (resized).jpg

IMG_20190119_171849 (resized).jpg

Wow ok.. Will try!

Problem solved After put back in the correct position, a new problem arrived (false hit when popping). I adjust the switch and now it works perfectly!
Thanks for your help!

Yesterday, when lifting up the playfield to replace a spring, I discovered something broken in multiple parts. The parts were a little everywhere so difficult to know from where it dropped so I have no clue where it comes from. The game still works perfectly so...

Any idea what is it?

Thanks for your help

20190302_191517 (resized).jpg

Ok I found the broken parts. I discovered that they are all broken for E L F and M A N. And for F of dwarf.
It's the plastic that retain the letter to fall with the ball pressure.
Without those plastic, the letter fall very easily with a lot less pressure...
Looks very hard to replace unfortunately

I am a little shocked to discover this. The game has just 3 years, it looks like it will be a job to redo always except if it's a known problem by JJP and they sell now a more reliable plastic.

Probably the price of those plastics are cheap but it's the time it will take to replace them that will be crazy.

Curious to see if other owner could inspect their Hobbit to check if the problem is at large.

Thanks

received_440369020036657 (resized).jpeg

On this side ( M A N) it's completelly missing for M and partially broken for A and N.

USER_SCOPED_TEMP_DATA_orca-image-1972553733.jpeg_1551626330413 (resized).jpeg

50Euros for the 5 bankdrop + 2x 42.50Euros for the 3 bandrop + Shipping (40Euros) = 153Euros
I am pretty sure we could get a better price if we could buy it directly from JJP than ordering in Europe.

I found this post on pinside, dated from 2 years ago:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hobbit-setup-tweaks-and-adjustments/page/7#post-3500222

I am curious to see if JJP has improved the version they sent him. If not then maybe the solution of Glueing it could be the only one.
If not possible to buy plastic directly from JJP, I like the idea to 3D print those plastics and just glueing them instead of using rivets. With this solution, no need to purchase new main brackets. It would be the less expensive option.

Hello, everybody. So after seeing small plastic pieces falling down little by little during the last year in the bottom of the cabinet, it arrived at a point where one of the drop target wasn't able to stay in UP position. The reason is that there was no rest ledge plastic anymore to keep the target in position. I've tried to find a way to replace only those rest ledge plastics but it's not possible to buy them anywhere separately.

So here are the 3 items I've ordered directly from Jersey Jack. BTW, very great communication with the support and fast shipping!

2x (MAN & ELF) : JJP Part Number 10-008002-03
1x (DWARF) : JJP Part Number 10-008002-05

Total : 87.97 + tx & shipping.

This include the Metal Frame (Main Bracket Assembly) including black plastics.

As you can see, after 3 years of use, they are completely destroyed:
- MAN target bracket :
IMG-20191027-WA0012 (resized).jpg
- ELF target bracket :
IMG-20191027-WA0016 (resized).jpg

Side by side, one of the new bracket I've received with of of my old one.
IMG_20191027_102423 (resized).jpg

As the problem will probably restart in the future, my idea is to keep my old bracket and 3D print the black plastic and fix them with new rivets.

Fortunatelly, replacing the old frames with the new took a lot less time that I was expected. Calculate 30-40 minutes each.

So I am sharing you how to proceed. (Note that the procedure will be the same for the 5 drop targets with just more screws):

1) Disconnect the drop target connector
IMG_20191027_090400 (resized).jpg
IMG_20191027_090419 (resized).jpg

2) Remove those 4 screws
IMG_20191027_090807 (resized).jpg

3) Remove the 4 screws from under the playfield
IMG_20191027_091023 (resized).jpg
IMG_20191027_091030 (resized).jpg

4) Remove all washers and springs to release the targets. And remove the 3 white screws at the bottom. Try to not rotate the nuts independantly so your targets will stay correctly adjusted on the new bracket.
IMG_20191027_092217 (resized).jpg

5) Remove the 4 screws that were located behind the drop targets.
IMG-20191027-WA0016 (resized).jpg

6) Remove the 12 remaining screws for each coils and coil stops.
IMG_20191027_094800 (resized).jpg

7) Rebuild the kit on your new frame in reverse order and enjoy your game!!

So, as you can see, it's easy. It's just disappointing how this part of the game is unreliable. The rivets are probably too big and doesn't keep enough plastic on the top and the bottom to keep them enough strong. Will see if the new brackets get a better success!

Maybe you are right, but I can confirm that they were still solidly fixed and not moving at all. The 2 only weakness I think there are in those bank targets are the rest ledge plastics and the spring that needs to be replaced sometimes (but I don't care too much about springs because they are very easy to replace).

I hope so

I am not able to save the time properly since 3.11.
I am in Montreal so I select Toronto as the timezone.
And for the time, I put 18h30 for exemple then when I save, when I left the tab then come back date as changed to 06:30... and at the botton right it says 02:30 AM..
so looks like there's an issue with that.

Someone could try please?

My timezone is properly saved... but still have the time issue.. weird!

No, not connected..

Is it possible that V3.11 broke the roaming blue target to earn extra-ball?
I qualify for all modes by getting Dwarf, elf, man, gandalf, radagast and bilbo without starting any mode but I don't get it anymore.
I veryfied the game settings and I am still set in "normal" preset. Anyone could test this please?

thanks

That's really weird, looks like I am missing something but what?

Ya I think I missed this point :
In book mode difficulty set to normal (4), the game gives you a spotted qualify which means you can't get the roaming target for the extra ball at the very beginning or even after a ball lost.
You have to do a mission and be sure that after the mission, you don't have any remaining qualify items enable. If that's the case, you can go ahead and make the 6 qualify and you should get your chance to hit the roaming target.
To avoid that, Eric Meunier suggested in a video to set the book mode to hard (5) so the game never gives you the spotted qualify but instead you have the chance to get the roaming target at the game startup or after a ball lost.
I've to test this week-end to confirm

UPDATE: I confirm that it works I kept the difficulty to NORMAL (4). Started a game and there was already one of the 6 qualify enabled. So I started immediately the mode then at the end I just qualify all the 6 then the roaming target appeared!
Fun to still learn some rules after 3 years