Standard #103 should be with me tomorrow. Stern were taking too long building my TWD and have lost a sale. It'll look nice next to WOZ Only problem is my back is still injured from moving that one, I'm going to have to hire people to move it into the house for me.

They cost nearly $2000 here.

I don't have $2k for something I'll use a couple of times in total. I wonder if it's possible to hire one, but I'm talking to the distributor about getting an installation service - or at least a "main cabinet as far as the lounge and up on legs" service - I have to take the head off for it to come in but those are easy. Actually an escalera won't work on our front doorstep anyway, there's a UPVC lip 2 inches high that you can't put weight on, it'd just snap.

What I could really do with is borrowing a couple of hydraulic lift trolleys. Get it on one of them, wheel it up to the door and slide it from one to the other through the doorway.

I have this exact same problem with my SE that we finally unpacked and got inside the house today. The glass is identical width to WOZ but the cabinet is 1/32" wider. I have no cabinet splitting evident or anything like that, the problem is even top and bottom of the glass.

On WOZ the glass is held fairly well with only minor movement side to side available. On Hobbit unless you position the glass perfectly it falls onto the edge of the wood instead on one side. You have to slide in the glass at a diagonal angle and carefully straighten up when it's in, to get it resting correctly.

My guess is the channels for the plastic guide have been cut wrong or the manufacturer of the plastic guides has changed the spec. The edge of the plastic is a clear 2mm away from the edge of the wood on both sides. Not going to be an easy fix to this - some nylon liners about 2mm wide placed on the inside of the glass channels would at least centre it properly and stop this happening.

How the fuck did they leave the factory like this?

They work fine but you need to do two things:

1) The legs will all have a sharp burr on them, near the top of each leg half way between the bolt holes you'll see where the angle of the leg changes. Check both inner surfaces and you'll probably find a sharp little point, file it away - takes seconds.

2) Make sure the leg is positioned correctly when bolting it down - check the clearance while doing so at these points you've filed. If it's lined up perfectly you should be able to just get a fingernail underneath on both sides where that filed point was.

I've had to file those bits on WOZ and Hobbit so far. If you don't do the above the little points can dig in and damage the decal. Happened to me on WOZ but luckily I noticed as it happened and you can't see any damage now.

Does anyone have a video of their Smaug talking while parked and in test mode? Mine doesn't seem to move very well, it's like hes mumbling. Does anyone else have that problem or is it normal?

Update:
Two things with Smaug head.

1) Mouth seems really stiff to operate and I suspect why he mumbles - ideas?
2) Stepper motor is constantly applying hold voltage! This means the motor becomes burning hot, is that normal? Easy to check - if you turn his head by hand with the game switched on, does it freely and easily move or does it feel like it's stepping between positions? I could hear my motor chattering a lot and it had started to heat the playfield up... Whole bracket assembly burning to the touch.

Extra check required from someone:
When your head is parked and you go into test mode, is the Smaug left limit switch active? Mine activates when doing left/right testing in test mode, but if the game is just left there and the head is parked, the switch is inactive which seems wrong.

Thanks, going to be one of those multi-tickets unfortunately.

So far:
Glass not fitting correctly
Rollover jamming balls (fixed)
Smaug motor overheating & mouth stiff
Frame for LCD screen falling off due to overtightening & bowing of the protective plastic it sticks to.
Some loose drop target stop screws (fixed)

By the way is there a solution for balls flying off the right wireform? Pinside really ought to start keeping a common problems & updates thread per game.

I wonder why JJP didn't put mylar all the way around the trolls - after 4 games I have scratching to the clearcoat behind 3/4 of them.

I'm asking support about this, perhaps it was changed between models. Mine is a standard edition made in May.

Your videos by the way are the one of the reasons I have a Hobbit, so thanks (I think )

Well mine is still offline until I can get the rest of the trapdoor mylar but the list of problems has grown a bit. Just diagnosed the lamp problem, someone at the factory cable tied the lamp board B to C cable so tight that it's actually damaged it internally. Just tested with an old cat5 cable I had and bingo, solid lamps again near the back.

However I still have problems with Smaug - it would really help if some owner(s) could play their game for 15 minutes and let me know if the smaug rotation motor gets really hot. Mine had the whole bracket hot to the touch. Also if you switch the game into test mode from attract, does the Smaug left stop switch show as active? Mine works, but it seems to park just off the switch as if it can't really hold it there and I wonder if this results in a stronger hold voltage or something crazy like that. Or maybe they just burn hot as the sun as standard?

Damn that was fast - my last JJP ticket took nearly 2 months.

Is that 91F or 91C? I know that sounds like a silly question... I'm going to need to buy one of those heat guns, I've got no way to measure it. Definitely doesn't park correctly though.

My Smaug is stopping correctly now even though I haven't touched anything, I'm assuming a cable being tied wrong is to blame.

However, the motor after 20 minutes was up to 99 degrees on the back surface and takes 5 full minutes before the temperature starts to drop at all.

Also noticed the printing on my playfield isn't the best - pictured is the worst bit by far - those lines to some degree run all the way down. A little bit of grain visible on the right catching the light too. It's not like the sheet of perfect glass that my WOZ resembles.

hobbit_PF (resized).jpg