Hmm that’s not great news. Works real well on CFTBL but by the time the ball gets to the bowl , it’s going kind of slow. This is a no go if it doesn’t register consistently

Biggest issue is fit of the plastic housing on that mod. It has to slide all the way in so that the switch goes under the cross bar. I had to slightly trim the two holes so the wireform would actually pass all the way through as intended. Otherwise, it wouldn't go all the way. The original video instructions didn't make this clear or foresee this as an issue but once resolved you'll be good to go.

I installed the Pinballmods Company switch and it works like a charm, easy to install, and gets rid of the 'eye sore' JJP provided switch. I did not like the empty shelf look though where the original switch was located. I did not want to permanently change the game by cutting of the remaining plastic shelf so I put a decorative boulder (from a model RR shop) there . That helped but then I found a mermaid figurine that fits well, mounts with some double sided tape, and imho looks great. Maybe too juvenile for some but no more than the 'dog, monkey, Kraken,and 'spinning Jack Sparrow barrel' mods are. And it does tie back to the "On Stranger Tides" film so there is that. If it works for you too, here's the link to it:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GKGQSL2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00

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How did it never occur to me to check model railroad shops! great idea.

I have, and the game isn't detecting the monitor so it's actually playing the main display on the compass display instead.

I heard back from JJP support yesterday and it's $800 to replace the monitor. Really sucks on a CE with less than 200 games played to already be needing to drop that kind of money. JJP support confirmed that the 12 volts coming in from the power supply is the correct voltage, so it's not the power supply at least.

I've always wondered if there's anyway to get a better quality monitor in there, maybe an OLED, and upscale the image to a non native 4K.

So your saying a 4K curve 3D OLED would be overkill? Lol

I appreciate crispness in a monitor/display. These things, well not OLEDs, are so cheap, there's no reason to not push towards a 4K output. JJP's have a full on PC in their games, which other manufacturers seem to consider overkill, so why not amp it up visually as well.

Now the small displays, I can live with them being lower resolutions.

Just out of curiosity I clicked on "Pinball Parts" on the Suzo-Happ site. Holy crap, like 41.45 for a Stern flipper kit to do ONE side! LOL. 7.21 for 8oz bottle of Novus, 2.99 for a single pinball. Ha! And I just thought Marco was expensive!

That’s because they are a bulk distributor to all the names you mentioned and the OEM’s. If you want to buy one single part be prepared to pay. If you want 1000 they are the place.

I'm purchasing a CE next week that has fewer than 100 plays on it. I've read through most of this thread, which has been very helpful so thanks to everyone who has posted here. I can't pack this thread into my head and am not going to inspect the machine for hours, but I want to look for current or potential issues with the machine. I'd appreciate a short list of things to check.

My two cents:

Check all switches/optos/flippers on the Black Pearl - if some are not working there's a chance of broken wires underneath - I had this on a NIB LE after about 100 plays.
Check the Tortuga VUK for proper functionality
Check for pooling/chipping at the slingshot posts - there's a service kit available from JJP for this.

Good luck with the purchase.

The front of my dauntless jams against the back of the Maelstrom ramp, and this prevents free movement of the ship (so even the 'miss' doesn't register). On top of that I have never been able to get a BP cannon shot to directly hit. Therefore, I will be buying the shorter hex spacers and trying these. A (possibly dumb) question - how on earth do you remove the top part of the Dauntless?!! Thanks in advance.

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Pull out the playfield. At the back of the backboard are 3 screes that fix the top deck.

Yes I've done this but then cannot lever the loose part out.

As far as I remember the screws hold a metal plate which goes through the backboard. Should be easy to pull that out?

Need to lift the back of the playfield up and slide the ship top out to the left.

Ah. Ok, thank you.

Thanks so much for the input.

Hi everyone. I've had auto plunger problems on my game since day one. 75% of auto plungers don't make it over the 'hill' and some find their way into the outlane. I've read the fixes on this thread. I've checked the coil, sleeve etc - all of that seems fine. The mechanism is rubbing against the right side of the metal bracket and also hitting the right side of the playfield, although that appears to be inevitable.

I might try to install a washer - there's an enormous amount of free play in the mechanism. Which size washer have people used? Looks like it needs to be fairly thin to fit on the right side of the bracket and then fit the clip back in place. Thanks.

My plunger problems were not as severe as yours. Most of my auto plunges would make it as far as the Black Pearl, but never all the way around the orbit. I cleaned the plunger and coil sleeve and added a washer. Now, about 90% of the auto plunges make it slowly around the orbit to the upper flipper. Another small adjustment I made was to angle the exit of the wireform slightly to the left.

Suddenly my fork mechanism (from the chest) won't go down. If I check the device it doesn't work, if I check the 2 coils seperatly they work fine. Anyone an idea what that might be? Thanks!

Do you mean it is stuck all the way up in the ball lock position? Or is it just not going all the way down so that the forks are not fully under the two slots in the playfield?

The 2 forks probably are bent and touch the playfield wood. Remove mech and bend the forks in a way they move free trough the slots in the playfield.

I had the issue of forks staying up all the time intermittently. I posted the solution for myself here 6 months ago or so. Post# 2274

Thanks for the tips, gonna have a look at those @JRBBRJ: Did your forks go in if you did a coil test in the menu of the pirates? If I manualy operate the 2 coils for up and down, they work fine! Also noticed that after a couple of manualy upping and downing the fork the coils got rather hot, is this normal?

I don't believe the forks touch the wood, but I will check that!

Yes and no. My forks would only go down without my intervention about 10% of the time. Sometimes this was during a game sometimes this was when I was troubleshooting.

Check the mechanism below the playfield. Two tiny rollers on each side. They loose or fall off ?

LTG : )

Page C-30 in the manual. Part #28, #27, #17

LTG : )

Sorry if this has been asked and answered...

My game suddenly doesn’t want to keep balls locked. They load into the chest then are immediately released

Fix?

Check the opto in there. If the trap that goes down to catch them, goes down.

LTG : )

Put in my new HMS Endeavor ship mod and lost my Inserts and GI. Initially I thought it was a fuse but they seem to be fine. What loose connection should I be looking for? Spot lights and coils seem fine. I likely knocked something when accessing the backbox, didn't see anything obvious though and reseated connections. Thanks!

Edit: Loose USB cable to light board fixed it.

Help - Wife had great game last night....kept doing ball search and there were 2 balls inside the chest that wouldn't come out. Any idea what to do or look for?

I installed the balls that came from JJP and don't know if they're Chrome or Carbon as I read this on the 1st page of this Thread.

Balls keep getting magnetized and sticking in chest or ball trough:
DO NOT USE SHINY CHROME BALLS. Buy carbon steel balls only. Anything else magnetizes too easily.

when I say Ball Search....the game searched for over 3 minutes.....also there were no balls inside any other place that I could see

Look at the release bracket to the left of the chest. Check that it's opening enough to let the balls out. I had this issue and needed to slightly bend that bracket to ensure the gap was big enough. I also had to adjust the magnet coil behind the chest to make sure that was set correctly. Good luck.

Do you have a pic of what part to bend? Thx

There is also an adjustment in the menu's under "coils" where you can increase or decrease the timing for the chest release. You can easily check for magnetized balls. Take them out and place them on a table. See if there is any attraction between the balls. Even carbon core balls can eventually become magnetized.

Since your wife broke it tell her to fix it! JK. Start with a ball count to make sure all are accounted for and now accidentally caught under the moving ship.

Now that's Funny! Bummer as her 1st ball last night was 1.6 Million

You mean underneath the Black Pearl?

When i took the glass off and balls out of the Chest last night, the game played right away, so I"m guessing all balls were accounted for but I could be wrong...wouldn't be the 1st time

Yeah I was thinking under the Pearl. Empty the game and make sure you have all 6? balls in hand, test opts in chest, trough, etc. and test balls with a paper clip to see if there is Any magnetism in all balls. Don’t start bending anything till you check the simple stuff.

And 1.6 Million on ball 1?? Get her off that game now or you will forever see her face laughing at you on the screen forever at that pace! Lol

I had a strang behaviour of the pin several times now. During multiball the point count goes wild (counts points very fast up to several millions), the sound makes a repeating tone (difficult to describe) and the shaker is on continously. That does not stop until you drop all balls. Next ball everything is fine. There is no bad switch in switch test.

Any ideas? Please do not comment that I should be glad to have a chance to increase my high scores in this way

You bang on the playfield to see if vibration is setting any off ?

LTG : )

Might not be a bad switch but it could be an opto or another switch that's out of alignment so it's continually registering. Did you try going into the switch test menu to see if any switch is registering when it shouldn't be?

Swampy In Dubai was correct....Balls were magnetized not letting balls release from Chest, plus balls weren't ejecting from the Trough as a result as well. Even when I increased the power settings for coil in Trough.

Also noticed there was a rubber for the I Lane, so I put one in there...Saw some photos and they had it on them...Is this Correct?

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Yes the I lane should have a small rubber on it! In my case it would probably be smaller,

I think it is these. Does not have to be titan.

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