Wow @delt31! Just finished listening to Kaneda’s Pinball Podcast on the commute home and you were awesome. You gave the rebuttal (in explaining what makes POTC so great) to Kaneda’s last podcast that I would have liked to give if I had the communication skills. (No Kaneda, I don't think you were fair and balanced on the last podcast.) I agree with everything you said about Pirates, though you could have talked longer about the Star Map, which I thought would be a fantastic toy but something I cannot figure out. (Still hoping on that one.) What was most impressive was your broad discussion and insights into the pinball hobby. Then you dropped the Alien above Pirates comment . . . interesting. I never played the game, probably never will have the opportunity, but an interesting take on the machine. I hope Kaneda has you on again.

How do you know the 2 magnets are working. The constellation seems to do nothing during gameplay.Went into tests and repeated the back loop mag and it seemed to pulse the ball in the constellation area.And how should they work during a game. Thanks

Is anyone else's lockdown bar lever tight AF?

Anecdotally my POTC has had way less issues than my GotG. So to me to QC on stern is worse.

You can adjust the two brass screws counterclockwise to loosen it. Note that you may drive yourself crazy with this, trying to get both sides “solid” feeling.

Two brass screws on the lockdown bar receiver can be used to loosen or tighten the lockdown bar.

LTG : )

You're getting slower with your responses there old man....

But I do have a cool drunken pirate yo ho song out.

LTG : )

Second verse!

Same as the first...?

I unscrewed mine without a problem although they were tight. No issues here . ymmv..

Just reversed my magnet connectors and now the work.Anyone see this before?

I think that’s a new report. Good job troubleshooting it!

Never got to a second verse. Tequila interrupted that.

LTG : )

Man, guy goes on vacation and there’s like 60 some posts to read through!
Lol, enjoy your pins, I am shredding utah snow in park city. Will try and keep up but don’t think I will do very well!
Glad to see some new owners and that LTG is coming up with a pirate song we can all sing along too!!!

I need to stop with the mods, have ordered a bunch and I don't even have my game yet lol. I was on a flight last week and watched the SDTM video again where they go to JJP to talk with Eric and Keith, wife looked over and just shook her head with my obsession with this hobby haha. Pumped to get this game!

Pretty easy. Only 21 words. Best be drinking lots of rum. Before, during, and after.

LTG : )

More tequila, and then a second video to boot!!! C'mon matey!

Installed some mods. A couple of basic ones from The Mod Couple (rum bottle barrel topper, monkey - pictured)... then this one:

The Standard Edition has no Tortuga Tom (nor does any pop bumper spin). I haven't yet found a motor that will work for me, but I have got Jack Sparrow on the Tortuga pop bumper, using the barrel cap from The Mod Couple and a Neca Series 1 Jack Sparrow.

1. I cut him in half with a hacksaw (though The Mod Couple used a nutcracker to do the same thing with Davy Jones). Then I used a razor blade to cut the coat and scarf. I pulled the sword scabbard off. I left the compass and extra belt length, as they didn't seem to interfere with any area the ball would touch.

2. I drilled a tiny hole - about half the diameter of the screw I am using - inside the void (this step is important). I filled the void with hot glue, and drilled a small hole in the barrel cap from The Mod Couple with the same bit, lined up with the hole in Jack Sparrow. NOTE: make sure you have the right orientation on Jack vs. the location of the screw holes in the bumper cap. Once you glue Jack down, moving him will probably suck.

3. I hot glued Jack Sparrow to the barrel cap with the holes lined up. I was very generous with the hot glue - I needed to fill above the EITC logo a bit extra.

4. Used a 1 1/2" wood screw with a washer between the screw and the bottom of the bumper cap. This went into the holes in the cap and Jack - the washer gives it a little extra strength.

5. I super-glued the bottle, and hot-glued the gun to each hand. This figure has movable arms, so it was easy to move them out of the way of the ball path.

He doesn't spin (yet - I machined a bracket I will connect to this setup later when I can find an appropriate motor) but he looks nice. Rum bottle and monkey are good too. Thanks to The Mod Couple for doing what they do. This wouldn't have worked without the barrel cap.

snip (resized).jpgfill (resized).jpgscrew (resized).jpgjack (resized).jpgjack2 (resized).jpgmonkey (resized).jpgrum (resized).jpg

Ok I'm loving the game but can someone tell me. How do I know what to shoot to complete the modes. When you start a mode in hobbit it tells you what to shoot for.

Pirate Song Redux

LTG : )

The character arrows on the playfield will be lit as well as a listing at the top of the display will also show the characters needed.

You should be! It’s seriously fantastic

Lloyd you are simply the greatest Ever. I smile every time I see you post. The misses and I are so going to take you for a drink or 3 in TX in a few weeks. Look forward to seeing you and Robert Jr. Travel safe you old pirate you!

Nice work and kind job sharing your write up for others. Seems like a small motor from any small toy car would work in this application just need to sacrifice a low cost toy. Good job!

Thanks! The trouble with the motor is that I need one with the proper voltage (I will remove the embedded LED and use that wire run to drive the motor), the proper size to fit within the pop bumper body, one that I can weld the bracket to (no plastic driveshaft - must be metal) and one that will turn at roughly the desired RPM with the weight of the figure. It also must be reliable enough for long-term operation. It's non-trivial to find one that will fit all those specs. However, one surely exists - obviously, since JJP did it.

In search of my first pin and landed at JJP POTC LE. Quick question to those with experience. The distributor I am going through adds on another $500 for delivery, setup, and one year warranty. I feel that I can handle transport and setup, but maybe you can tell me to not be so confident. If we don’t get the warranty the following occurs: we are 3 hours from the distributor and any service calls would require us to bring the pin to them if there is issue. Thoughts on whether I should pay the extra $500? Thanks in advance.

We usually charge around $250 for delivery and setup (if there are stairs). Does the 1 year warranty cover labor costs? If it is a partake warranty only, does it begin when you open it or after the factory warranty ends?

Where are you located? I would normally say "shop around," but there are not many potc le left so you may be at the distributors mercy.

If the warranty means they will come to you to perform fixes, I’d say do it being new to pin ownership. I would get confirmation that they will do this as often as required, they will come to you, and that service calls will be handled within a reasonable time.

Ultimately you’re going to want to learn to work on things yourself, but I would say $500 is worth it for this one as your first.

I will go ahead and respectfully disagree on this one. $500 is a lot of scratch for not a whole lot, IMHO, and I bought a disaster area of a Demolition Man (in atrocious shape when I bought it) as my first pin. All the broken stuff I had to fix, and work I had to perform on it taught me a lot about pins in a short amount of time. JJPs aren't likely to have huge breakdowns - they are quality builds - though they seem to have lots of little problems, and JJP support & documentation is excellent. You learn a lot working/adjusting on that first pin.

But as I always say, your mileage may vary. I'm also ridiculously cheap by natural inclination, so I may not be the best example to follow.

Side note: as another poster mentioned, however, getting an LE right now is HARD. So you may not have much of a choice anyhow.

I had a bunch of allen wrenches but nothing bellow 3/32, so I had to borrow from a friend. Would have been nice if the tool was mentioned in the website details. Honestly, I did not find the kit made the disk notably quieter.

Not sure where you are located but there may be other distributors available to you that can give a better deal.

Not sure its worth the extra 500 especially since you would have pack up and take the game to them which with POTC is no easy task (hate saying that).

Thinking of installing art blades or mirror blades... but read some horror stories about the playfield being too close to the cabinet and ripping them up.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the feedback. The distributor is 3 hours away and the next closest is 5. I’m not excited about tacking on another 5%, and sounds like the value is to sleep easy. Regardless, I’m excited to be apart of the POTC team.

I purchased the full set from Cliff but so far I've only installed the ball drops (super easy). I want to install the Tortuga hole next but the metal deflector needs to be removed and the two screws are obscured by the pop-bumper skirt and I can't figure out how to remove the unit? How do you remove the spinning Jack - seems like his hands are blocking the tiny screw on top. Anyone done this?

Read my post from yesterday #5488. You definitely will want these plastic art protectors

https://mezelmods.com/products/pinball-cabinet-assembly-blades

I thought he only had to do this IF he didn’t get the warranty?

Yes there are some excellent guides earlier in the thread about removing Tortuga Tom. Search for him.

In a nutshell you use an Allen wrench to remove Tom and then some screws to remove the spin motor. Easy from there and all done topside.

Definitely. I ruined a set without them. The replacement set installed easily (with my wife's help, a 2 person job for sure makes it even easier). Also, use some soapy water to make sliding the new pinblades into position, a great suggestion offered by other pinsiders. Many types of pinblades to choose from but here are my new pinblades from TILT GRAPHICS:

20190312_104458 (resized).jpg

20190312_104615 (resized).jpg

Sounds like a 'gentleman's club'...

Didn't even know those protectors were a thing. Thanks! Looking at the Kraken/stormy ocean pinblades.

I bought this game and an older machine together as my first pins last fall, so I've been in the same boat as you. I don't have any mechanical and/or soldering experience, but I've been able to fix & adjust a couple minor things that have come up. I do still have two issues pending due to my lack of mechanical ability. Neither have kept me from being able to enjoy the game but it'll be nice when they get fixed. One is the broken green-brown wire under the mini Black Pearl playfield which takes three targets on that playfield offline (I haven't been able to practice soldering to try to fix it myself) and the other is that my chest ball lock mechanism has never worked (balls roll through instead of locking). One idea is maybe a middle ground between the $500 service fee and going it alone. What if you negotiate a price for the distributor to run through ZaphX's excellent posting of currently known issues and have the distributor set up the game at his shop & run through it to do anything preventive necessary to make sure all of those known possible bugs are taken care of? Maybe the distributor could then guarantee that setup work by saying if any of those currently known issues pop up on your machine in the next X months he'll do a service call to fix them? I don't know if distributors would typically make an arrangement like that, but I thought I'd throw the idea out there in case it's worth looking at as an alternative if you're good with doing your own transport and setup at home. I think you'll really enjoy having the machine, it's been a lot of fun to play!!!

I got those ones as well. There vary nice and not just decals but a little thicker nice quality, I don't think they would rip as easy . but I got the protectors anyways there nice to and will help with other pin's . just a little hard to bend into shape. I used a hair blower and gloves to help the process.

New day, new fix to be found..

Anyone experience an intermittenty active chapter start lock post?

Stops working deep into a game, doesnt work in test mode, pf up, I do measure the proper voltage , drop the pf back, still no go.
Game of, on, works fine..play a game then stops again a few minutes into it.

Weird one, hope its not another bad transistor

Adjust up the screw on the very bottom of the assembly. It’s for making the top of the post flush with the playfield surface. If it backs off or falls out the plunger drops too far away and the coil can’t reliably lift it. Thus intermittent behavior.

+1^ while your at it check the other 2 or 3 other coils that have this screw . They should have lock nuts If missing I would add some.

Start at this post...then read the next ~six posts.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jjp-pirates-of-the-caribbean-official-owners-and-fan-club/page/47#post-4753866

See my post:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jjp-pirates-of-the-caribbean-official-owners-and-fan-club/page/64#post-4811415

Thanks!

Starting to wonder if Cliffy's are even necessary on this game? I was looking back at post #4636 from f3honda4me and after 1k plays he doesn't have anywhere at the map or Tortuga areas. If there's one spot I can see a Cliffy being needed just incase its at the Tortuga area as that is a ball eject area. However, the map shot may not need a Cliffy protector as the ball only falls into that area versus being kicked out. Sounds like those areas have mylar applied from the factory. Still, I thought I read about a couple people that had damage in those areas after minimal play.

Yea so far no issues in any of those spots. Looks good. The only playfield issue I'm upset about is the chipping around the posts for the bumpers above the flippers.