If you nudge often, it is unfortunately true.

Nah, it’s fixable. I just shot video of trooper multiball, zero misses allowing all balls to drain and reload. Can’t seem to download it to here right now. I suppose if you are whaling on the machine during auto launch you might bounce it off something but I’d think you would be tilting at that point.

With adjustment of the auto plunger prongs my auto plunges have gone from 0% to literally 100% .....yes 100%. I know it isnt going to stay that way forever but when it gets out of whack again, i am confident that i will be able to tune it back in with a little bending of the auto plunger prongs.

The flippers should barely need springs? Well, there is a reason they are on there and used on all flipper assemblies and it’s part of the way it works. Also, I’m assuming that he had looked and checked the mechanics without the power on to see if it moved freely without any friction.

It would be highly unlikely in such a new game to have issues with the plunger or sleeve for wear unless it was assembled incorrectly.
I’ve had to replace two springs on a friends Guardians. One just snapped in the middle which was bizarre. The other side was a off in its size and appeared to have reduced elasticity. (The left flipper return to rest was lethargic) Maybe, it was a shitty batch from their vendor or just the wrong ones. Who knows? However, the spring is something that is to be looked at and thought about as perhaps a problem and not a band-aid fix or a incorrect solution.

Do not assume it was correctly assembled. I know someone who spent weeks trying to track down an issue with stern. Eventually brought it back to their distributor to debug. In the end it was a complete catastrophic failure of the coil stop. Rivot completely failed and the stop was detached inside the coil. Destroyed the entire assembly.

They never took it apart because it was brand new, no plays when the problem started. I recommend assuming everything is faulty until it can be shown to be correct.

I think some are overanalyzing the issue. The one flipper he is having issues with is also the only 1 out of 4 that does not have any vertical play. If I had to guess that is the issue and they did not gap the flipper correctly. I agree it could be a spring issue or alignment issue as well but the first thing I would do is make sure all 4 flippers have the same amount of vertical movement and then go from there. If you want to test the spring theory then just swap a spring from one of the other 3 flippers that are working correctly to see if it goes away.

I said it might be incorrectly assembled. I’m also pointing out failure of parts

.

I wish my game sounded better. The quality is poo. Lower cab speaker is awful.

The lower speaker does sound bad. I have a external sub hooked up. It immensely helps the sound.

+1 on powered sub, HUGE improvement. Easy to do. I have 4 games plugged into 2 subs, works great!

Maybe it’s time I got one. Shouldn’t have to though. They can’t put a quality speaker in the bill of materials for 5600. Lame.

I never claimed that it wouldn't work for periods of time. My claim is that it will never be consistent for the long run due to the geometry of the game changing constantly. Very little change can change the autolauncher significantly. I went through the adjustment process twice and finally realized the reality of the situation. If you can get yours to be consistent, please share your secret with the group.

I don't want to sound combative, but you do understand what "barely" means, right? The springs are very weak springs for a reason: they "barely" need to pull on the flipper to bring it back to position as gravity helps as well. I didn't say that everyone should pull off the springs in all their machines and throw them away - far from it. And to assume that people that are new to understanding flippers understand how to check friction is a big assumption. Many new pinheads are scared to raise the playfield.

If we're arguing that the spring is defective or the incorrect size, then yes, the spring should be replaced. From what I understood, the fix posed was to replace a correct spring with a stronger spring. As for the sleeve and plunger, sometimes even a slight angle in the way a screw was screwed into the PF can cause the direction of the plunger to be off, hence causing friction. You'd see this in the sleeve right away. On a new game, the wear would be minimal, but with a bright light, you'd see it. I'm only suggesting that a close check for friction has fixed this type of flipper issue for me 100% of the time with a working spring. I'd guess that I've come across the issue about 20 times or so.

I do powered subs on all my games. It's night and day, honestly. I always buy mine used and local online. You wouldn't believe how many people sell really kickass subs for dirt. For IMDN, I just turned the settings of the cab speaker down to nothing, so it's pretty much eliminated from the sound system. It is, by far, the worst sounding cab speaker I've ever heard. From what I've read, it's the cheap amp. I may replace the amp and put in a good cab speaker some day to eliminate the powered sub.

Good to know. A cheap amp huh, ain’t that an incentive to buy another stern. I guess my standards are too high

I might pm you this weekend about sub hook up.

I did a test a four days ago with the manual plunge and out of 50 times it made it around 49. Came back in today and it was 48 out of 50, which tells me my guide rail is no longer moving ( I added a lock washer as well). It didn't take much movement to throw the ball off.

Checked to make sure the autoplunger tabs were hitting the ball at the same rate like Who-Dey mentioned.

The first few weeks the auto was working at about the same rate, then all the sudden it went down to 5 to 7 out of ten.
I went ahead and ordered a stronger coil, guess I'll see if that helps at all. It did great the first set of ten, then the second/third set it started messing up. Heat resistance? maybe also setting the incline at 6.5 might help? mine is currently set btwn 6.8 and 7.0

I've never found a way to get the whole playfield even side to side. Usually you can get one point on the playfield at set at (0.00), but on the high side it might read (0.15 > ) . I've always favored trying to zero out the area right above the flippers in a zone without inserts. The closer you get it the less chance it'll throw the game off if someone slides the cab... unless your floor is super un-even. I've found phones aren't the best thing to use, at least for me. The level can vary from phone to phone and app to app, there is also no repeatability most of the time. People can be pretty rough with my games though.

Sorry to quote myself, but reference the picture above: I would like to loosen and adjust that upper left flipper on my Iron Maiden, but the bolts that hold the flipper to the plunger/spring are tight as heck. I have the right sized hex to fit them, but I don't want to break anything trying to get it loose. Any advice? Looking on the web, other flippers seem to have larger nuts/bolts where you could use a wrench but the Stern flipper just has a small bolt with a hex head on it. Just can't get enough torque to get it loose with a tiny hex wrench, and I'd like to avoid breaking the thing.

Thanks again for all of the help/replies!

Eat a banana and use a longer allen wrench.
You can DO it!

You can use pliers or a wrench to get more torque on the hex. I just find a metal bracket, like a coil stop or something, to hang onto with part of my hand. Then I scream ADRIAN like Stallone as the hex digs into my fingers. Then the bolt comes loose. Everytime.

It means possible node board fault or a shorted bulb socket in a parallel series of lights.

My friend eventually found a socket that had gone bad but there is no easy way to know which bulb.

I thought Spike diagnostics might be better than this.

Anyway at least node board is ok!

Oh, I thought you meant barley.

Yes, obviously if a coil sleeve is fubar, screwed in wrong or the stop is loose and their is gold colored dust in the cabinet it should be replaced.

To clarify, Stern does use & have stronger tension springs. I know, because they sent me the same size / length and it was more robust, they were a little less thin than what was on the Guardians that had problems. It’s been a few months since the new thicker springs and it has no issues since the swap.

I found after various complex adjustments on mine that keeping it simple may work best. I’m sure there is variability between machines but my solution was to get the autolaunch to be as centered as possible by micro adjustments of the “prongs” at the launcher and the upper rail of the shooter lane under the plastic. Mine is at 7.1% but the incline didn’t really matter. I’m going on a couple of weeks now with lots of play and 100% accurate. I debated the stronger coil as well but it doesn’t seem to need it when working properly. It shoots around the loop very fast. I’ll post if it goes out of true and how hard it is to adjust again. I’m guessing not too hard at this point. Seems like this could happen but I’m so pleased with how it is going it doesn’t concern me anymore. It’s worth tinkering with for sure.

dts--Next time you come to vacation in Aguanga, please stop by and fix mine

You don't need me--you're near Mecca, THE Museum of Pinball, up in Banning, with a legion of techs! Seriously, if I can duplicate some results that would be nice. There is another one here in town I may check in with. I'm hoping Stern provides some trouble shooting tips as well so everyone has some better frame of reference. Keith, are you out there?! But I'm only two weeks in, so I'll be more convinced over time that it is reliable.

Related to: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/iron-maiden-issues/page/6#post-4432766

Maybe a little late, but if the counting still does not work like you want you can try the IMD PU Upgrade Kit.

https://pu-parts.com/imd-iron-maiden-pu-upgrade-kit

Inside are two parts to make the receiver work much better. The receiver should be on the left side, if not swap it. The third part is prevent ball stuck on a plastic below the right ramp. The later versions of the Pro and Premium have a post on the plastic.

I just received my Iron Maiden a few days ago.....the ball seems to fall off the right ramp(wireform) 90% of the time.Anyone else have this issue?

Yep. The flipper should be free moving with no binding. If there is any binding at all a stronger spring would be a temporary solution at best. Check the sleeve, coil stop, flipper gap, and coil alignment. Sometimes you need to loosen the screws on the coil stop and hold the coil tight and straight and retighten to straighten the alignment out.

The rivets on Stern’s coil stops are notorious for disintegrating rapidly even on a new game.

Check the vid1900 thread on flipper rebuilds to see what to look for.

I didn't really look at centering it, it looked somewhat center but I wasn't really paying attention to that aspect.
I figured it was either the way it was getting pushed out or the speed. Didn't make sense that one way worked almost all the time, and not the other.

Appreciate the suggestion, I'll take another look at that next time I'm there.

I hot glued some really tiny spacers on the 4 loop opto's, seemed to fix the issue for me, pain in the ass though.
It now counts all loops regardless of speed.

Also keep in mind that you have to look at the auto plunger when its just sitting there in the resting position and then you need to push it all the way forward and see if its lined up in that position also.

Some more info...I put Cliffy’s in the shooter lane and just that small elevation caused the balls to hit the post below the loop. Adjusted the autoplunger mech prongs, the upper rail of the shooter lane, and back to perfect...for now. I should mention that the right prong is touching the ball now at rest, so I’m not absolutely sure both of them touching the ball is the answer. Probably gonna vary game to game. I’ll keep an eye on it and report back if any of this is useful. At this point I’m gonna sign off on this issue and enjoy my games!

I put them on my MET and it changed everything so i know exactly what you're talking about believe me.

yeah I hear ya, pretty sure I had to use slightly longer screws. Think they were 4-40's, I can't imagine most people would have those on stand-by. The spacers themselves weren't hard to put in, it was trying to find the right height for each set of optos. Honestly wish that upgrade kit was available when I first got the machine . I've asked about ordering from that site before, they said they don't deliver to the U.S. it's a shame they have some pretty neat products.

Yeah, usually you can get those things lined up most of the time to where it doesn't affect the ball that much. I'm finding it a little more difficult with the metal rail cliffies since they tend to slide out sometimes if you don't push them far enough to the right side before tightening.
I usually re-do the 3M contact adhesive to cover the whole bottom side and quick grip the piss out of it in two places before putting the screws in. Seems to work most of the time, took a lot of trial and error to get right.

Does anyone know how to remove the lower Newton Ball on a premium/LE? It won't center or re-seat correctly and I'd like to polish and smooth the centering/resting plates. I tried to remove it last night but couldn't figure out how to separate the ball from the plates. I was able to remove the pointy post and the two nuts and two wood screws, but then couldn't figure out how to proceed to separate the ball (above the playfield) from the plates/spring assembly (below the playfield). Has anyone done this?

My Pro developed this problem with that flipper after about a month. Upon investigation, I found that the flipper in question had no play at all. All the other flippers I could move up and down just a tad, but that one was unmovable. I lifted the play field and loosened the bolt holding the flipper bat and discovered that even with the bolt almost completely removed, I couldn't pull the flipper up at all. I had to tap the bat from below with a hammer to get it to budge. I re-secured it with the correct gap (cut a notch in a credit card as recommended elsewhere on this site) and it has worked fine since.

If you've already removed the pointy post the captive ball should just unscrew from the top. You have to hold the round aluminum spring seat still (on the bottom of the playfield between the spring and the bracket), and if you had any loctite on it from the factory it may be a little difficult.

I had a similar problem so here's a couple of other things to look for.

Push up on the ball assembly from the bottom (before you take it apart), the spring should compress and the aluminum ring should fully seat against the playfield. If it doesn't it's probably because the spring is binding in the hole. I found that my spring was slightly too large in diameter and would not compress up into the hole. My mummy captive ball was fine, the clairvoyant wouldn't compress. So I took them apart and measured, sure enough one was bigger. I had Stern send me a new spring and now it fits fine.

That fixed most of the sticking but it still gets stuck occasionally because there is a slight flat spot on the bottom of the captive ball where the post is pressed into it. This flat spot hangs on the edge of the playfield socket. My mummy ball dosen't have a flat spot, it is perfectly round with a post coming out of it, and it never hangs up. I haven't replaced the ball yet but I'm certain that's the problem.

Thanks! I'll check it out tonight.

Need this

https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=5264

To fix this

20180814_184945 (resized).jpg

anyone have this issue. i just updated to new IM code. left sling repeatedly firing 20 times when hit. has to be software issue. worked fine yesterday.

Still could be the switch. Just rule that out first.

mine is doing the same thing! code issue for sure..

Ok if it is switch, is it easy to replace?

I’m thinking it needs adjusted not replaced. But if others are having the same issue then it could be code.

I updated today but didnt notice anything like that. I only played 3-4 games though.