Playfield june 20.
June 27 build date

I suspect its a common place that airballs land and some playfields have an issue with how well the inserts are glued in.

Bingo, likely the spot where ball lands from the scoop.

True, but the balls land all over the place on this pin. Violent air balls. I'll look closely at the scoop eject landing. Had to power it down a bit as it was going sdtm.

Hmmm, after powering down maybe its not hammering Tobin anymore, still has the other one right next to it.

Would adding additional adhesive on a NIB game stop these inserts from doing this or will it happen anyway.

It will happen anyway..the inserts are not moving, the clear is not adhering properly.

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146 plays.

It's interesting, my playfield is dated 7/25, doesn't have a printed sticker nor a stamped date, just a hand written date on the edge. Different manufactures? Yours looks like what I am used to with the sticker and stamped date, I've never seen one like mine. I think yours came from CGC/Churchhill and maybe mine is in-house stern? FYI I've had mine 2 weeks and 300+ plays other than a lot of dimples (which is pretty normal) the playfield is perfect so far.

My worst ghosted insert is definitely sunken down in some right at the ghosting area.. You can see and feel it. Rest of my inserts dont feel like it.

if you've found a difference in the play fields and it turns out the Stern in house ones are good I hope Stern gets that other manufacturer to cover the costs of the replacement program. That would help the process for sure if they didn't have to lay out more dollars.

If you want accuracy, do not conduct an Internet poll.

O.K. Everyone with ghosted inserts raise your hand!

Those holes are supposed to be there to align your flipper bats. The tip should point directly at the hole.

Put a straight edge (ruler) across the playfield insert and post a picture of that.

Rob

Usually the holes are behind the flipper tips, but with that gap...

Rob

sorry best i can do. its hard to take a picture at that angle and see anything i tryed a bunch of different ways. when you run your finger over it you can definitely feel it and in person can see it. It didnt drop alot but it did drop. Ive had my table since May 5.

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Dimples? Massive dimples from the massive air balls

I think that picture does a very good job of showing that the insert dropped. Thanks for sharing.

Rob

A lot of the inserts seem to be spot glued only, they are not well supported and could be flexing.

Has anybody started reinforcing their inserts with glue in an attempt to stop this from happening?

That might void your warranty - although current warranty has more holes than a block of swiss cheese. Would injecting glue from bottom side of playfield potentially cause a problem being considered for the secret playfield swap program? I would hate for this altering of playfield, in attempt to prevent further damage, from being an excuse used by Stern to not replace. Most likely, that would not come up and this concern would not be an issue.

As Stern has yet to publically acknowledge the problem nor mention the playfield swap program, who knows what can/will happen? A simple 3-step plan is needed. The first step is restoring customer confidence by acknowledging the playfield issues exist and vowing to swap affected playfields in the future through a new dealer program. The second step is to issue a detailed apology to its distributers and Customers Since April 2016 - for the huge cluster fu%# they have created. Third and final step is to find a fix and to implement in their production process.

Do not underestimate the importance of the first two steps. These issues have been occurring for four months now and still no word nor apology from Stern. With large numbers of playfields affected, the resemblence to a large scale auto recall is scary.

Great.. I'm not one for to get paranoid easily, but this is something that makes me not want to buy a GB, I was thinking about buying a used one but then I would really be screwed right? Even if they provided a fix since I bought it 2nd hand I wouldn't be covered right?

Let me know how you are going to apply the glue.

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Newer production Metallica. 10k-ish plays

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well said.

why should people even be doing this? its defective, let it be replaced.. rather than patching up botched work.

Caused by the ball striking the edge of the playfield. I think beveling that edge would prevent that damage

That's what she said.

ok, as seen the Met above (with lots of play of course), and some others GB (...), here's a simple 30 minutes job :

than, mine PF if 881 from the 1st batch

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put 3 pieces of soft (but not too thin) plastic, glued with double face (as it easy to remove if needed) right at the same PF level, except for the back part, a bit higher (not showned on pics, but already did as it on the shooterlane)

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1st mylar piece

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2nd which recover the 1st...

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and its a clean job for sure

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Cliffy needs to make a protector for the bail drain. He would sell a ton of them. The clear on my MET started chipping after only a couple dozen plays.

serious cliffy to the rescue!

I get wanting to protect scoops and similar places on the playfield where wear affects artwork you see, but i dont understand these efforts to protect shooter lanes and ball drain holes under aprons. These are normal wear areas.

You sure about that?

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I am not referring to defective playfields. No protector will stop your playfield from crumbling.

I'm with you. A non-defective playfield should have minimal wear here. My metallica is probably close to 2k plays and looks fine. Other games ranging from sterns, wms and JJP are fine with thousands of plays. We should not have to buy extra protection to compensate for a quality problem at stern.

Look closer. I wouldn't be surprised if there's chipping in the clear at the drain hole and you never ever realized it.

Unfortunately, the poll won't let me vote twice.

Two machines each with defective playfields. SMVE with 23 inserts ghosting and playfield clear coat delamination starting. MET Pro less than 1 month old with playfield clear coat delamination.

Ongoing emails with Stern regarding SMVE. Started the process with the vendor and Stern regarding MET Pro.

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I took a really close look and it is fine. It is one of the early build metallica's, pre LED. The edge has smoothed a little but the clear is fine. Nothing like what you see in these pictures. More of a soft gradual wear than clear flaking off. My Metallica is wearing like my old williams games. My ACDC is the same as is WOZ. The last two are both out on location. I gave them both a really good look just the other day because of all of this.

I looked at mine last night and its the exactly the same, kind of a smoothed edge to it

Ahhh 'old world craftsmanship'

On a french site a distributor? got into some details (see also post from RidleYYY - “Ghostbusters cancellations and Ghosting Financial Damage” #91 - http://www.flipjuke.fr/club-des-possesseurs-ghostbusters-t118731-800.html).

So basically they say they will contact any owner of the GB's send out. He says 5 to 6 machines are affected. they will contact the owners, make a complete file of the problems (photo's etc) and send this to Stern for review. As of October full playfield will be send to the customer for replacement, if they can do that themself. Or just piece for piece (step-by-step??). The program runs to Januari 2017 after this date al should be normal. It seems that the issues are with the playfield manufacturer, issues will be solved for now and future machines and stern will do all the fullfill customers satisfaction.

What worries me is there is nothing on what is severe, one ghosting insert? or two? A chip from the shooterlane?. Also I think they will make it right no doubt but if your playfield is good now, what if this starts ghosting in 2 months? What is a reasonnable timeframe for warranty on a playfield?

Am I ever glad I waited to send the money in and then can celled and got my deposit back. I will never buy a Stern game again. I just spent some of my GB premium money last night on a 65 inch 4k ultra HD teli that I have been wanting. The rest will go to home improvements or getting my corvette project going.