Figured out why the shooter was misaligned. The PF was sitting 1/16" too far to the right (flush against the right side). When I position the PF 1/16" to the left, the shooter is perfectly aligned and the manual plunges work great (though more testing is necessary to verify).

snaroff

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I made a mark on mine so that I make sure to put it back at the same spot everytime. There was quite a bit of play side to side to throw everything out of adjustment

Just did that as well, however I'm concerned about it "drifting" out of alignment (which will now be trivial to detect with marks). Hard to freakin believe that the worlds most prolific pinball manufacturer hasn't figured out how to engineer a more reliable PF resting mechanism. The "play" is pretty dramatic and obviously effects this IMDN in a pretty big way. Whatever...

snaroff

Because it was the only thing I got to work.
Trust me. The rail adjustments did not work for me. Period.
After a dozen hours and a crap ton of trial and error, the shim fixed the issue. Unorthodox? Absolutely. But again. It works.

Is it possible the shim takes away from guide "bounce" when the ball hits hit? I don't know. I do know it works.
If you haven't tried it, give it a try. You can buy 10 plastic shims at any hardware store for like two bucks.

And on this topic, does anybody seem to have a much more difficult time getting their playfield to fit in those grooves than usual? I have to literally shove the whole damn playfield forward and try and squeeze the forks into those grooves.
Never had an issue like that before with any other games.

With the playfield locked down with the lock bar mine has been good thus far

I have no problem with unorthodox. My frustration is all the different variables/solutions and we still have no statement from Stern about how to dial it in. Since mine is working pretty well now using the rail adjustment screw, I'm going to wait for Stern to advise me on any further adjustments.

As I said earlier, I appreciate you (and everyone else) sharing their experiences. Considering the lack of engagement from Stern, this thread has been invaluable. From my perspective, there are several IMDN "issues" that deserved formal Stern support bulletins (a practice they seem to have moved away from).

snaroff

Shhh! Someone was about to open a marketplace add for custom "IM Promium Shims" for twenty bucks each.

If they save a person 12 hours of farting around, actually that sounds like a bargain in hindsight...

If it costs Stern more money and doesn't bring in more cash... yeah they seem to have moved away from it

My pro does the same thing. Pretty tight fit. The good thing is it fits in tight and don't have to worry about it being shifted one way or another to be misaligned with the plunger

Though it would be kind of awesome if Stern started shipping plastic toilet shims out to fix the auto plunge issues...

Look at how out of alignment the lockdown is with the edge of the apron.

snaroff

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Exactly how mine is.

I don't think that's a problem because the apron isn't required to be flush against the lockdown bar receiver. As long as both hooks fit and one side isn't raised (warped playfield) then you're fine.

Rob

Had this issue with my BBH. I put a screw in one of the slots to keep the pf in place. The hook seated snug every time. No threading needed and completely reversible. Don't remember the screw size though.

What a great thread..thanks to all. Got my my premium dialed in tonight. Just needed a couple of tweaks..this is the best Stern pin I've played in years. Amazing job on this overall package. Thanks Keith and staff at Stern!

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Nice inaugural score!

Man, the game is killer !

Just can be a bitch to dial in !

Enjoy !

I can’t make 500 million on mine, but I can easily on a pro in an arcade go figure. All I can say is this is one of the best games to come out in years. I’m really enjoying it

Great idea. I actually had a small unused Allen wrench from some furniture assembly that fit perfectly in the gap!

snaroff

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the manual plunger is adjustable by not pulling on it so hard

but on this - wholly appropriate, its a turd of game - quality build wise.

sadly I doubt you will be at the end of the tweaking process. I very much try to be positive about stuff, but on the LE/Premium there is just far too much that doesn't work well enough.

For the shim fix, how easy is it to remove the plastic? I'm not with my machine at present by I assume the wire form has to be removed?

Yes but it is easy

I can plunge soft or at full power (once the wedge was dialed in) and the ball follows the same pattern around the orbit.
Someone mentioned play/flex in the rail, and I believe the installed wedge, reduces the play/flex and makes this function reliable.

The shooter guide installed on my machine is made from extremely thick gauge metal. It's hard for me to believe the guide is flexing at all. The only thing I can imagine the wedge helping with it the angle of the guide. If the wedge moves the guide forward, it would certainly effect the trajectory of the ball.

snaroff

My LE, after tweaking, has been rock solid for 6 months. Maybe I was lucky, but my adjustments included the autoplunger loop, and both the clairvoyant target and newton ball target, the same target mech. Also had to adjust the switch behind the mummy tomb as the ball would get stuck there. No probs since.

mine was also great for 6 months...

My machine had the same list...but I also had to add resistance (with tape) to avoid having the Trooper MB lock rubber creep up.

Two questions: Is your auto-plunger 100%? What technique did you use?

Mines at 95%. I just adjusted with the screw. I don't see the screw holding forever though. Wedge would help with that.

I still don't fully understand the problem, so I decided to take a slow-mo video just focusing on manual launch. Until manual launch is 100%, it's unreasonable to expect auto-launch to be 100%. I'm able to get manual launch to fail ~20% of the time. The slow-mo video suggests the ball is grazing the left wire form in the shooter which sets it off slightly from that point on. When it succeeds, it never touches the wireform.

What causes it to drift slightly left? I would imagine it's related to the shooter being off ever so slightly. Considering the horizontal "play" in the PF resting position, it's not too surprising if the shooter isn't "spot on" (especially since there is 0 vertical adjustment). If the PF vertical isn't absolutely "spot on", you could imagine the shooter rod hitting the ball ever-so-slightly low and causing it to go slightly airborne, causing it to bump into the left wireform.

Just to be clear...this is what *my* machine is doing. I'm not suggesting this is what other folks are experiencing.

It seems like with a code update they could just fire the upper coil to hold the flipper open when the auto-launch fires, which would reduce the bricks considerably -

More wear and tear is not a good solution to a different problem.

If you're not careful complaining, they'll just disable auto launch and call it "as designed."

Out of curiosity, I just did the auto plunger 200 times on the trooper multiball mode and it came in 98% for the first hundred and 96% for the second. So not perfect, but I'm happy with that for now. After I got it in May, it played perfectly the first hundred games or so. Then it was missing the loop perhaps 20 percent of the time. It took a bit of time and experimenting to get it back to normal. My experience was that minimal adjustments, a millimeter or two on the upper rail of the shooter lane, would make a significant difference. I also played with the prongs on the autoplunger mech to deliver the force a little differently, and moved the upper left flipper up a couple of millimeters. That doesn't appear to be needed on my game though, as my ball comes closer to the lower end of the loop. For a while, I removed the screw to the upper rail of the shooter lane and allowed it to go where it wanted. That worked for a while, and then didn't--the washer fix was proposed from someone seeing the same thing. The shim idea seems good but I haven't needed to try it. I did take everything apart more than once to try to figure it out. These few adjustments have worked well for others here as well but not everyone, apparently. Anyhow, I hope you get it fixed! It is worth taking the time.

Lol "working as designed"

I am about to tackle my auto launch/ manual launch, and wanted to know what you guys are using for the plastic shim?
Thanks, Mike

It is just a plastic toilet shim, available at any hardware store for about $5.

https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Hardware-9435-Wedge-Plastic/dp/B007ZUDT1K/ref=sr_1_5

Pm me and I’ll mail you one. I was sent a five pack. Only need one.

I got a pro right before new years and have been playing it every night. Great game....

Anyways first problem is showing up. The auto launch is starting to miss the majority of the time. It hits the upper left flipper or rattles in the left loop and fall out. I seem to need to adjust the metal rail right out of the ball launcher lane. I grabbed some nylon toilet shims at Menards when I was there. I think it was $1.99 for 5pcs or whatever.

Looks like the right wire form and some plastics need to come off to get at it. I am going to try adjusting the rail itself first then stick in the shim if needed.

plastic shim didnt really help my pro game.

What i did to fix the auto launch was the gently and very slowly bend the shooter lane exit metal. I pushed the end tip down toward the flippers until it went through the upper left loop virtually 100% of the time from auto launch. It sneaks in under the upper left flipper no problem with out raising now.

Surprised you were successful bending the shooter lane guide...it's pretty thick!

On my game, a 1/16" washer wedged near the beginning of the curve did the trick (photo below). I tried lots of other solutions, but this worked best for me. I didn't want to fiddle with bending the metal, since a bad bend could make it worse.

I've been playing on it for several days and the success rate is ~98%. On this game, it makes a huge difference for the auto-launch it work properly. At the moment, I'm not really motivated to get the last 2%

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I'm having an issue on my Iron Maiden Pro with the ball flying off the right wireform ramp. About 75% of the right ramp shots will have the ball fly off into shooter lane or down the outlane. Anyone have any suggestions?

It's been discussed. I the cases I saw discussed it was a wireform issue and they got it replaced under warranty by Stern.

How steep is your game? Got pics of the leg levelers?

Any way to reduce to dim the light on the backglass? i have a lot of reflections..

You can turn down the backglass/translite led brightness in the settings.

A must on any new game

Yep i did that.. mostly to just save on those LED beads.

There is a setting for game play GI bright, attract mode GI bright, and test mode GI bright. I went like 75 / 50 / 10. For the amount of current saved the brightness loss is minimal... i was kinda thinking at 100% they where pushing those LEDs hard... really bright.

Works great on this game. Wish old SAM systems had that adjustment. Somebody was selling a kit for awhile that would dim backbox lighting as soon as game started.