... as opposed to this nice wonderful modern pinball machine built in 2016.

I don't have my TH yet, but hopefully later this year. I realize this thread (and others) are just the worst of an otherwise great game. But it certainly makes me glad I waited to order. Now, if I could just get it tomorrow please!!

My apologies for what was a poor attempt at humor. I'm grateful to this thread and the awesome tips for setting up this game once I receive it. I still hope I don't have to start breaking out the pop rivet gun for any of my tweaks, but it sounds like I won't.

Anybody else have to constantly adjust the warg switch? Mine is just so difficult to register. I'll adjust it and it works better for a while and then becomes difficult after a few days. Any suggestions?

Has anyone else had a tilt bob #D27 error on their game? I'm not sure if this means that a connection is lose somewhere?

Thanks

If you don't get any tilt warnings for a x period of time, it will register as a bad switch.

That has to be it as I have not seen any tilt warnings before. Does this mean that a connection to yhe tilt bob could possibly be bad?

Why not just start a game and shake the crap out of the machine to try and generate a tilt to see what happens?

Thanks! I'll try that.

I'm impressed with the windlance knowledge, anyone know definitively how the backstab feature works? I press the button and it doesn't seem like anything ever happens.

All it seems to do to me is drop a beast quicker than normal if you don't want one blocking a shot.

Thanks pinballinreno. I closed the leaf switches closer and its working better. I'll try your idea to.

Im now having issues with the right spinner. Seems like the metal bracket is such a soft metal, it may be getting bent during gameplay and the ball doesn't hit spinner properly. I've bent it back as good as I can, but spinner still doesn't sit in upright position when still. Curious if anyone was this issue. Left spinner is perfect and always returns to upright position.

Your a good resource in the JJP threads pinballinreno. Thanks!

Upon further inspection of my spinner, I found the metal wire that goes through spinner was broken inside and causing the spinner not to balance correctly. I glued it in for now and it works, but I did email jjp for a new spinner.

Anyone having issues with the ramp flaps. Mine are curling up so bad, the ball is getting stuck.

VZM.IMG_20161021_180254 (resized).jpg

Just call JJP and they will send you new ramp flaps. They will come with some rivets, so if you are comfortable with riveting, go that route. They may swap it out otherwise.
I just ordered it, and it is coming free. I have no problem riveting however. In my old life I was an aircraft mechanic, and riveting was a part of everyday life.

Thanks guys. It's just about unplayable.

Hobbit has arrived and just setup night before last. Playfield protector installed at factory and all of the beast trapdoors have a small edge/lip around them and do not rest fully flush with the protector. Is this normal? None of my others have protectors installed but I'm used to games with trapdoors that rest completely flush with the playfield and it does impact flow. Thanks in advance!

I agree. He seems to take care of customers. I called JJP about the issue. 5 days later, the new blue ramp flaps were in my mailbox. I still have to install (unless I send him the ramp) but still, great service.

Got my Hobbit this week and it has a build date of 8/3/16. Looks like the fixed left wireform is installed and the character mylar. I'm not sure if there is a ramp fix installed.

I've got the playfield set to 6.9 and haven't adjusted the flippers yet. It's definitely tough to get up the ramps and nearly impossible backhand so those probably need to be boosted. However when you get a real clean shot and it zips up they have occasionally flown off the right wires and one time it jumped the left ramp into smaugs gold pit. Exciting!

I love lively games but it does feel clunky when the ball falls off the right wires. Smaug was able to knock the ball in his gold pile free.

Have had one smack of the glass out of maybe two hours of play. Again I love that, but I'm worried it might be bad on invisaglass.

A question I have is regarding sound. I was expecting a lot more bass. I mean there's bass but it's just not BOOOMING. Didn't see an EQ in the options. Do you need to upgrade the sub and amp to get more rumble in the low end?

The black rubber stopped on the bottom of the mechs are probably adjusted too high of I understand your description properly. The flap should rest on the playfield/protector surface. Impacts to the edge of the flaps if they are raised will damage the balls and flaps.

http://www.klipsch.com/products/reference-subwoofers#r-10sw
This will fix it.

I'll open it up and take a closer look this weekend - thanks for the reply!

Anyone having a problem with the left outlane pop up post not activating? I can't even get it to engage during coil self test. Game is less than a month old.

Check it and the area around it for broken wire, loose connector, loose wire in a connector.

LTG : )

Happened to me. Turned on there was a piece of rubber missing from the bottom of the coil so it was magnetizing to the arm. I put a zip tie in the hole to break contact and that fixed the problem until JJP was able to send the stopper. Also worth nothing, it didn't happened immediately it was after 2 weeks of running the game that it started to stick.

One thing you can do is add 10 ohm resistors on each of the backbox speakers. This will lower the volume and you'll have to turn it up louder to make it how it was - leaving more bass.

One of these on each speaker http://www.parts-express.com/10-ohm-25w-resistor-wire-wound--017-10. Just remove the wire off the + terminal on each speaker and solder the resistor inline.

Nice and simple idea, gonna have to give it a try!

Cool. How many backbox speakers are there?
How well does this work?

It shouldn't make any difference if you have a protector or not since the flaps will just come down and rest flat on whatever surface is beneath them. The won't sit flush either way, but on top of the playfield so they will affect ball travel, especially slow moving balls.

EDIT: Some people had some burs on the underside of their flaps they needed to file smooth... maybe check yours for that too.

Since you are familiar with audio in these things I'll ask you this.

Any idea why I'm getting speaker crackle/static/hum constantly? It isn't loud enough to notice when playing, but when it's sitting there at idle you can hear it from across the room. I've been over it 3 times now checking for loose bits, plugging/re-plugging RCAs etc... and have had no luck.

Anyone else's do this? Mine also makes a loud pop noise when it turns on and as it boots it makes a lot of speaker feedback, almost sounds like a dial up modem.

The pop is normal, but the static/hum sounds like a grounding issue. Maybe the ground braid wasn't attached properly on one of the speakers or on the computer case in the cabinet. Has it been like that since you got the game?

If it's not the ground or some other connector than it might be the sound i/o on the motherboard needs to be repaired or replaced.

Been like that since day 1. I never checked the ground braiding. Didn't know how it works or if it was really that important. What would I be looking for there?

The ground braid needs to be in contact with any part of the machine that is conductive - so almost everything! The silver braid runs all around the sides of the cabinet and into the head. A screw or staple connecting the braid to the speakers may not have been connected at the factory or may have come loose in transit.

The other place to check the braid is the case in the cabinet with the boards and computer since that's the source of your audio signal.

If ground braid looks connected - I'd show pics but I'm not near my pins today - then I'm thinking the audio components on the computer board may be shoddy. Would probabky need to replace the whole board. I'd contact JJP support, or maybe LTG can chime in with some other things to try.

Perhaps you should try eliminating noise with some ferrite cores.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrite_bead

Thanks FlippyD and markmon. That gives me something new to check on and try.

Issue resolved! Thanks for your help. I posted a picture just incase someone runs into this issue again. I guess they forgot to include this part in the factory. It took a couple weeks of play before it became magnetized and stopped working.

20161108_094849 (resized).jpg

Hey guys, just got a Hobbit ...the ball likes to fly off the wire form on the right (as it whips around under the book). Has anyone worked out a physical tweak to prevent this, or is it merely a matter of dialing in the flipper strength?

I'd start there.

LTG : )

I would try dialing down the flipper strength. That helped stop that issue on my game.

Yes and when you do this make sure you can still backhand the right ramp with a cradled ball. Should just barely make it.