Wow not good

Ok, another strong vote for the "fix the order of operations" in the map awards. This time I got "Character Spotted!" .... "Award.... One....Character" ... doh.

So with the posts, I’m really confused. Support is sending me the small washers used on some of the machines (the newer ones?). I have had no cracking but I may have a slight ripple, need to check. I have to remove the slings to put new plastics on (one sling plastic was cracked), and I was going to insert the washer supplied by JJ underneath the posts. Now I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do. Are there people out there who have put thousands of games on without chipping around the sling posts? Have people got the small washers supplied by JJ and had no problems?

Not sure but be very careful removing the posts because that ripple was apparently stuck to my post a bit and when removed some clear and art came with it. I have rippling on 4 of 6 posts with one of them having the chip damage.

Ticket submitted to JJP this morning and had a very blunt discussion with them about my concerns going forward, hopefully they make this right.

I have the tiny clear washers they're possibly, possibly sending you, and I have two ripples starting. Going to try mylar circles today.

Did you talk with Frank or someone else? What did their take seem to be?

I had the small protective rings under my posts. I changed them to the larger ones. Not sure why, as I don't have any issues yet. Boredom, I guess.
But then I was thinking, couldn't installing the larger rings just cause chipping farther from the posts?

Started modding my game a bit. Unplugged the stock translight led strip light and installed an RGB light and added some sidelights with a dimmer.

I wanted to put an RGB strip under the topper, but the topper connection couldn't handle it very well, lots of flickering. May just try a single red strip instead of the stock white.

Next up will be a trough light (thinking blue or green) chest light (gold) and gold backboard light with fading effects.

You know the topper lighting does flicker intentionally from time to time right?

I know, but this was a bit more than I wanted, it was too distracting. I used the open 2 pin in the backbox and that works well.

Has anyone figured out why it flickers? DI does the same thing with the Betty spotlight.

As far as I can tell it's an intentional effect. I think I saw a "topper animation" setting in the software for it.

Spoke with Frank and we did have a discussion about the small discs they are using in production now but I told him at this point that ship has sailed....maybe would have been good from day 1 but won’t even cover the damage at this point on one of the posts.

Game can’t be played as is without further damaging PF so I’m waiting to hear from them, sent many pictures and he didn’t like what was happening and seemed concerned with what he saw. Hopefully this gets addressed ASAP!

Broken toys, plastics, mechs etc.... are normal wear and tear and to be expected but a playfield literally disintegrating right before my eyes is absolute bullshit. 4 of 6 posts rippling and cracking the clear..f’ing ridiculous!

After tearing the slings apart and looking at the components there are multiple things causing this in my opinion.

First the skinny footprint of the post does not provide a stable base and probably moves much more than we realize under force causing it to dig into the pf which brings up issue two.
The base of the skinny post is not even sanded and flush on the bottom. It has sharp edges in various spots which only increases the digging and it appears it literally will form a crack or small fracture in the clearcoat just on the inside edge of the ripple or bubbling appearance of clear. Get a flashlight and magnifying glass if you need to, I have a bubble and crack that hasn’t chipped yet.
In addition to all of this, these post were likely installed too soon for the pf clearcoat to fully cure and were also likely over torqued from day one at the factory.

Not real happy at the moment as you can tell, lol! Not the end of the world but certainly disappointing to see.

I'll have to look closer as you have later, when I try and put some mylar circles down.

I'll give Frank a call tomorrow, to not deluge things over there, but to get the ball rolling further in general. As you said, normal wear and tear is one thing, but clearcoat issues from the start, entirely another.

Thanks for the legwork!

Doesn't all of this sum up to an adhesion issue between the art (ink), and clearcoat to the plywood surface?

I'm really not super worried about the chipping. I mean, it's not great obviously, but I'm not freaking out over it either.

The star posts do a nice job of hiding it. It's unrealistic to expect the playfield, rubbers etc to remain perfect with the heavy use ours is seeing. We love playing it dozens of times daily.

Well if it was a single chip with no other risk of delamination or peeling I would agree but that is not the case. I have a piece of art/clear beyond the chip that is like a large hangnail waiting to be cutoff. Not good and will only continue to further peel like an onion over time. Nothing is perfect in life but you have to draw a line somewhere on what is acceptable and what isn’t.

I started a new post with a poll and request for pics. Please report your issues with star post cracking and dimpling here. We need to have a centralized count and report so we can push this issue forward.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/potc-who-has-playfield-dimples-cracking-wear-around-star-posts-

Regarding sling posts. I installed mylar squares over each post hole on my 2/4 built LE. Game had probably less then 100 plays when I did it with no wear. I would recommend every owner to do this to eliminate the chance of wear / chipping at the sling post area.

Posts did have factory plastic washers applied but I don't think that's enough. Mylar squares are barely visible after installation. Apply over post hole and then very carefully use a hobby knife to cut an X in the middle to allow the bolt to pass through.

I hope 1 square of mylar is enough, have debated on applying a second over each one.

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I think Mylar and discs from the factory on day 1 would have really eliminated this issue.

And posts that weren't sharp or tightened down too much.

Has anyone considered (or is anyone else bothered by this) a modification for the starmap to create a playfield-wide replacement? The lights could stay in the same place, but the abrupt "rectangle" that is the sky background seems sort of thrown in there. I'd love to see a replacement for that or an overlay that would solidify the entire backboard as a single piece. Not sure if there is room but I could envision a single piece of plastic with a printed background that sort of matches what is there but just wider.

Step away from this thread for 4 days and miss 300+ posts!

Anyway, my incline is steeper than recommended. Pretty sure I have the front legs at the minimum extension and the rear legs at close to max (with some minor horizontal adjustment for my uneven floor). Also, I rarely have a SDTM from the chapter select, and when it does happen I usually slide-save. But it's still annoying.

Does anyone with the small factory washers under the posts have chipping?

Mine didn't with the small factory washers, had no wear but went forward and added mylar squares. Better to be safe then sorry I figured.

I didn't, but it was *almost* there. Very deep cut into the clear around the washer.

Looks like it to me. I have friends who build custom wood lures for fishing and if everything isn’t done just right ie: drying, sealing etc there can be big problems. Any step in the clear coat not done perfect would also lead to potential soft PF. The clear might never harden up if done incorrectly.

Let's all get our pitch forks and go after Mirco!

Mirco has multiple service levels of playfields. You pick the level of playfield construction and finish you want. I'm assuming these are mid-level playfields and not the super-deluxe ceramic finish ones that he also offers at a premium.

Yea I've not been impressed with the JJP playfields from Mirco.

Sorry. Not trying to bash anyone here. Just trying to help figure out issue. Clear can be a fickle beast to get right at times. A little moisture left in wood underneath or high humidity in air while shooting clear can cause issues. Hopefully the issue is only on small number of PFs

The fact that the issues are over a wide range of build dates from 10/18 to relatively recent doesn’t make me think this is an isolated batch type of thing.

Anyone think that some sort of rubber or foam isolation ring may work better than hard washers that can dig in?

If it is something softer that can absorb the energy of impact and torque a bit it should prevent digging into the clearcoat. I’m thinking like a thin rubber gasket type material.

Obviously doesn’t help those that have chips already but it would stop washers and posts from leaving impressions.

Soft rubber gaskets are exactly what I used, which is now theorized (on the TNA threads) to cause a chemical breakdown of the star posts.

Also, they are causing sling kicker escapes. I plan to replace them with mylars and fresh star posts.

My wife reported this last night with the PETG washers. I had not seen it before, but yeah, that seems like an issue now. Another thought is to cut the star posts down (grind them down) enough that the PETG height is accounted for. Don't really want to do this. Seems like the washers JJP used are a LOT thinner than the PETG I have. Crazy how much difference a few mm can make.

I have to say, we shouldn’t have to be the ones engineering and figuring all this shit out.

Good example, i got one of the first Beatles golds and a couple of us reported to Stern a pretty wild airball issue right out of the gate and within a month or so Stern fabricated a nice kit that totally eliminated the issue.

JJP needs to find a reasonable solution here and f’ing stickers isn’t the fix!

Completely agree.

On another note, if anyone is following, I still have the audio issue on boot. The hissing/squeaking that continues for at least 15-20 seconds. I'm still working on my own solutions for this (which coincidentally might also work with the "pop" on boot that most games have) but, as well, I don't think I should have to solve this. Here is the video for reference: https://photos.app.goo.gl/odnbN7kq2K235JXn9

Reported to JJP tech support.

While I totally get your frustration, put yourself in JJP's shoes on this. They obviously can't go shipping out new playfields.

In my view a sticker solution would be an acceptable one, especially if coupled with star posts that hide the damage in the first place.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/potc-who-has-playfield-dimples-cracking-wear-around-star-posts-#post-4992171

This isn't their first rodeo... their first game had issues similar to this. My WOZ playfield was beat to shit around the pops and they did end up making decals, which I had to purchase and install and now I have stickers on my playfield instead of playfield on my playfield.

Would stickers even stay in this location? Would they even matter if the larger star posts hide the damage? Would there be eventual damage caused by the larger star posts? So many questions.

I hope to have my POTC LE within the next few weeks. All of these issues w/ the playfield have me second guessing my recent purchase.

The newer games seem to come with a washer under the posts. I don't know if anyone who has that has reported an issue but it might be worth it to at least add the mylar under the posts (and a washer if you don't have one) to try and prevent issues. It's odd because the rest of the playfield seems to be ok, I don't even have a lot of dimpling on a game that was fairly heavily played. Honestly, this issue aside, I would still get the game.. it's a freaking hoot to play.

Yours will have the plastic washers under the posts, my 2/4 build game did. I would still recommend putting mylar over the post holes just incase.

After seeing the edge lip underneath posts from games having chipping that is without a doubt the culprit. Previous JJP games have used similar posts without issue for years, as have modern Sterns. A sharp protruding edge on a post will harm any playfield no matter how well its made. Another JJP owner posted the picture below. Chipping is occurring on certain areas of a post hole due to the protruding edge digging into the clear.

This is on JJP and is the last thing customers should have to worry about. I really hope JJP didn't switch post manufacturers to save 25 cents per game. At today's NIB prices and regular prices increases there's no excuse for cuts in quality.

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Don’t let it. Many JJPOTC are trouble free or have only a minor issue.

Don't. You've purchased the best game in pinball and it's going to be awesome.

Yeah... Seems like a turd. Want to sell it?

Dont let it bother you, our playfields have had more time to cure and with JJP aware of the issue, I'm sure they will be fine. When I get home in a little while, I'll check my game, which I got from the factory last Friday.

The game is simply amazing, has me thinking why I own just about anything else other than a jjp pin.

The frustration is due to loving the game.

It’s a masterpiece both from a pinball perspective and art.

I could live with a colored sticker since it’s in a obscure area and not in the middle of PF but some sort of sealer to fill and level the void is warranted and some new posts with flat bottoms would be nice so the stickers don’t get cut.

Really. I enjoy POTC and DI so much it has me thinking about giving Hobbit a shot.

eh, just wait for the next eric designed game.