Just installed the pointed newton arms and re-gapped the switches--seems to work perfect. Played with the auto launch some more--still sucks.

Fixed the same issue this morning on mine.

First, lift playfield, check whether the stem is center of the rider cap (white plastic). See my post half a page above your post.

If it is dead center then simply open up the leaf until you found perfect setting.
It helps to open the coindoor and then repeatedly hit the menu button. This will fasttrack you into the switchtest menu.

Thanks everybody for the help. Stern should donate some HUGE cash to Pinside. The pinheads here and their collective knowledge has probably saved thousands of service calls going their way!

Switch 40 isn't making contact with the ball.

Try making an adjustment (bending the switch)
Or even better - place the switch with a Roll over switch.

Also, the captive ball sometimes sticks. Just lubricate the edge of the saucer a little.

that's exactly what happens to mine, I checked and there are already pointed stems in there, but when hitting the ball, it stays aside without returning to middle position sometimes. Maybe a stronger spring would help...

I just talked to David about the auto launch issue. He said they have been working on it and as of right now there is no permanent fix. It is going to be a continual battle unless someone comes up with the magic fix. I may try a stronger coil to see if that helps--the next strongest coil per David is a 23700, #090-5022-00T--he said it is about 10% stronger. He also said to make sure the machine is level side-to-side, and try 6.5 pitch.

Well, I spent a couple of hours this morning adjusting everything and its grandmother, and the auto plunge still sucks. I can make it a little better, but never better than 75%.

The top left pop bumper on my game is not lit up like the other two, although it lights up during certain times while playing. I noticed a pic of a different Maiden and that pop appeared the same as mine (unlit). Before I investigate has anyone else noticed a difference? It could just be the socket needing attention but after seeing the pic I'm just wondering. Thanks

It’s a flasher SB, not regular GI like the other two.
Your game is working just fine.

Thanks Nimble.

Thanks for working on this! I’m continuing to experiment as well and have intervals where it is perfect and then needs adjusting. Might try the stronger coil out, thanks for the tip. The manual plunger seems stronger, so maybe there is something to that.

Has anyone had any sound issues with their game? I was playing mine yesterday and something changed in the sound. It almost sounded like it went from stereo to mono or something. It seems like it lost its bass and the cabinet speaker sounds like shit. It sounds like the speaker is blown or something but it isnt. I also put another speaker in it and it sounds the same so that rules the speaker out. I cant hardly describe it but i know something has changed and isnt right. They are telling me to redownload the software at stern and we will go from there, but i dont think that is going to d anything. Im almost thinking that i may have a sound board issue.

Check the audio pinouts in the backbox. Make sure the connections are good.

Already did that too, forgot to mention that.

Reinstalling software could def fix the issue. Check all audio settings as well. Switch ohms back and forth too.

I just reinstalled the software and it didnt fix the issue. I know changing the ohms around can be a bad thing so im not gonna mess with that. What a bummer this is.

Switching the Ohms won't hurt anything. Stern had it set wrong before updates.

Is the ability to change ohms in 1.2? I'm still running 1.1 . I installed the flipper fidelity 10" kit and it was a huge improvement. I'm not sure what I should have my settings at tho.

Ive been messing with my auto plunger tonight also and im so pissed that i honestly feel like taking a sledge hammer to the game. I cant believe that these games go into production when they KNOW they have an issue like this, WTF???

If you can get the manual plunge to work, so should the auto--right? I still think a stronger coil is the answer, but have not tried it to see if it will work. Come on, Stern, figure this out ( or admit the design error).

Yeah I was thinking the exact same thing.
I think the spring coil gets caught somehow, when the ball is hit hard enough. I'm not sure how to take the captive ball, without marring the ball itself.

I was able to move the spring coil around the other side, now it still can get stuck but, only from the side position. I'm fine with that since it's near impossible to hit it at that angle with enough force. It might eventually get turned around though.
Don't think I've ever spent so much time messing with one mech.
also forcing it up via the leaf switch seems to help a little.

Only then you get to battle the leaf switch sensitivity, Took me FOREVER to find where the position was. Either it was to loose, or a little to tight and the pop bumpers set it off periodically (which is frustrating when your trying to build power jackpots). They really need to re-think that captive ball design.

Mine did this yesterday but I was not playing. I will try to figure out how to fix.

Ok, looks like i got my auto plunge problem fixed at least for now. When the ball is sitting in the shooter lane it is resting on the auto plunger prongs. They both have to be touching the ball or else it isn't going to shoot the ball in a straight line.

When i would look at mine the two prongs were both touching the ball so i thought I was good. Well while leaning over the machine thinking about bashing my fist through the playfield and trying to figure out why in the F this was happening i grabbed a hold of the auto plunger and pushed it forward. I noticed when i pushed the plunger forward that the left prong on the auto plunger was no longer touching the ball. I took a pair of needle nosed pliers and bent the left prong in so that it was touching the ball just like the right side was touching the ball and now the ball plunges up the shooter lane and around the loop perfectly.

It has missed a few times but its making the loop 8 out of 10 times now and i believe with a little more tweaking that i can make it even better but im very happy about this progress. I was already told about the prongs by some friends here on Pinside but i never thought to push the auto plunger forward, i just kind of accidently stumbled on to it i assumed that if the prongs were touching the ball in the resting position that they would also be touching the ball when the auto plunger was all the way in the forward position. ...not so though.

Big thanks to Pinabll addicted, hoby1 and dts for all of their help on this issue. I'm not gonna say this is the fix everyone has been looking for but this is definitely some good progress in the right direction.

It seems like there is no "one problem" to fix when it comes to the auto-plunger. The adjustments I finally made to get it to work on my game and the ones that I have read on this thread all seem a little different (e.g. moving shooting lanes, bending auto-plungers, waxing play fields, adjusting power to auto-plunger). It is never as easy as turning this screw a quarter turn. This might be why Stern has not been able to fix this issue as the new games come off the line and why it continues to be frustrating to game owners. But even when every auto-plunged ball in my game was bouncing off the upper flipper every time it launched a ball, it never stopped me from enjoying the game. It just added to the madness.

There are for sure multiple things that could cause the auto plunge not to knock the ball up into the loop correctly, but i would be willing to bet that more often than not most peoples games could be fixed by bending the prongs a little on the auto launcher itself. I had this same problem with my MET and now this game here. I dont want to be overly positive about my fix for sure but i am pretty optimistic that i have solved my problem. Im also optomistic that i can play a little more with it and maybe with the slope and leveling of the game and make it even better, but for right now im leaving it alone and enjoying my game for a few days. I worked my butt off yesterday experimenting with the slope and leveling and i was up and down under the game a hundred times probably and it was frustrating, time to relax and enjoy my new game for a change!

I thought I had that damn thing fixed, then the auto plunge stopped working again.
The manual plunge still works 100% of the time, so you might be one to something with the prongs.

Was thinking of upgrading the coil to have a little leeway, since it's currently maxed out via factory defaults.

Not sure if this was already posted, but I think part of the problem is even if you get the ball guide set 100% correctly eventually the ball guide will move from the ball slamming against it enough times. It doesn't take much to through it off.
on mine there was a #8 screw holding down the ball guide and you had to push the shit out of the ball guide all the way forward and then tighten it.

I added some wood (toothpicks ) & wood glue to the hole so I could put a # 6 screw in it's place. This would allow a small amount of wiggle room, so if the ball guide wouldn't have so much pressure on it. Think the only other option would be to patch the current screw hole and move it down a few mm. (closer to the middle of the correct ball guide mounting point.)

Just keep trying, eventually the magic combination will be found

I saw a post a while back about the ball hitting the ramp then dissapearing with the machine doing a ball search and not locating it. Ended up in the bottom of the cabinet.
Happened to me yesterday and today which was even more bizarre as I had the glass off and was looking everywhere up top for it.
As soon as you lift the playfield the ball drops at the back of the cabinet.
Having a look around I can't see any way out for the ball to end up there.
Be a cool feature on a Houdini though.

I've solved my auto plunger woes.

To the autoplunge crew: you're never going to get it to work 100%. It is a simple physics problem. The machine has very little leeway or space to nail the loop with the upper flipper in the way. On top of that, this machine needs more nudging than a child entering a haunted house, so the machine is always going to essentially change shape, and the table will never maintain a perfect level. If you have rubbers on the legs it will be worse because the legs cannot slide strait again after a nudge.

SOLUTION: hold the upper flipper up whenever balls launch. I get 90%+ balls around the loop with this simple learned adjustment. Hell, some even make it around when the flipper is down, but I don't expect them to. I also leave the flipper down when I want to gain control quickly to score a soul shard etc. To me, this is part of the game and is perfectly fine.

As for the manual plunger, it will change too. I find the light plunge skill shot the best bang for difficulty, so I never plunge for the loop. In my eyes, my game works wonderfully.

Think of all the ball'n beer time I have!

Had a weird issue.

Technician alert. 'Checking node boards. Node board 9 overcurrent detected.'

'Check Node Board 9 OVERCURRENT PROTECTION.

Tested it a few times and seems to be back to normal.

And it's back....

Any clue what is going on?!

And when I test it -

Overcurrent Protection. Upper Playfield.
Drive ADDR:NONE
LIGHT ADDR: 1

Do the test and the lights on upper playfield go on and off.

Only thing done to the game is that there are some comet frosted bulbs instead of factory.

And this fault only appeared on 1.02 code which I put on a few days ago.

Take them out and put the factory bulbs back in.

What did stern/your distro say?

I do the same however when you press the flipper it changes the song. This really gets on my nervers. I would really like to have the setting back where you could choose one song for the whole game. Now every ball I accidentally change the song. This really sucks i like to listen to the whole song and not 3-4 intros.

Press and hold. The song will not change.

press and hold is an option, but not a good solution.
I prefer getting back the old setting to keep one song all game long as well.

Why the hell did Stern remove an already existing and working setting?
I was really happy with it, and hopefully they bring it back with one of next code updates.

Hello, noob here. I tried doing a search for this on Pinside and the web, but has anybody else experienced a flipper that retracts very slowly?

I just set up a NIB Iron Maiden Premium (first pinball machine) yesterday, and after the game is played for a while the upper left flipper retracts at about 1/2 speed. It works fine after being shut down for a bit, then starts acting up again after it is played for a while. The flipper looks like it extends just fine, but the slow retraction ends up getting in the way of the pinball. I can't see any rubbing on the playfield or anything obstructing the mechanism with the playfield lifted up.

I sent a message to Stern, waiting to hear back, but any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

IMG_3663.jpeg

Can you lift the flipper bat upward from the topside of the playfield? Not rotating it but pulling up on it. There should be a little play there and if they didn't leave a gap been the flipper and bushing then it might be too tight.

Use the flippers to change the song. When you got the song you want, plunge. If you want to hold the mini flipper up, do that, plunge. Song will not change. What’s the problem here? Haha

Thanks for the reply, it does not have any play if I try to pull up on it. Stern has been in touch, we were looking at the spring but that seems to be working okay. I will let them know that there is no up/down play when the flipper bat is pulled up. It's pretty tight in there.

Change your mind on the super skill-shot? New song.
Press the flipper buttons a little late when skipping the bonus points? New song.

Like Oxidus said, they HAD a feature in place that kept the same song for the whole game. Why did they remove it? Unless someone can come up with a good reason, it should be brought back. I hate having the potential of changing the song during the game.

Does it have a coil sleeve? There have been a surprising number shipped missing coil sleeves.

Issue thread. Hmmm. Happy to report my game is kicking ass. The only issue I have is lack of time to enjoy it more.

My only issue now is that I'm gonna have to enter rehab for playing it so much!

My autoplunger is working great and is consistent with the adustments, 100% accurate, no need to hold up the left upper flipper as mentioned by some in this thread.

I've got one huge issue, my Premium still hasn't shipped! Does that count? Ordered April 30th. Hopefully that's the last issue I have with it.

Since the machine has 4 flippers and the issue is only occurring on 1 lift up on the others to see how they compare. Normally the gap is small but there. You don't need to buy this tool but to give you an idea of what used to come with the older games.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8194

Tell Chas or Patrick to send you stronger springs. I had the exact same issue and replaced with the ones sent and have not had an issue since.

While this bandaid may work, it is not the correct solution. Your flippers should barely need springs at all. If the spring is not pulling it down, you should find the cause of the unwanted friction. Friction wears on parts quickly. Fix it correctly and be done with it!

I'm definitely able to lift up on all of the other 3. The upper lift is working okay now, but it is definitely in there way tighter than the others and does not have any up/down play to it. According to my wife, it was slowing down again earlier today. It seems like there is "friction" or maybe more resistance compared to the other three when I move the flippers by hand.

I'll take another look and try to see if there is a coil sleeve. (Edit: All 4 flippers appear to have coil sleeves.)

Thanks for all of the replies, I really appreciate it.

I took some video clips of the flippers from the top and bottom of the playfield showing the spring and flipper movement in action, and sent them to Stern. Hoping to hear back soon.

your probably right, but I'm gonna try one more thing before giving up!!

It's not true. Keep trying but make the adjustments in small increments.

Also check the angle at which the plunger enters the coil. I’ve seen coils installed at angles that cause tip of the plunger to rub on the sleeve. You should be able to test this by flicking the flipper under the playfield. There should be no resistance aside from the spring. Removing the spring will allow you to feel any resistance even more. Lastly, disassemble the flipper and check the plunger and sleeve for specific wear. Sometimes just reassembling clears up resistance issues.