Ok so I worked at addressing my inconsistent ball plunge issues, Dauntless all of a sudden getting stuck and ball getting stuck on devils triangle rollover. Rollover was bent down a bit so ball could not catch easy fix. Dauntless I found it was catching on the top deck. Removed deck added 4 #6 nylon washers between bracket and decking to raise it ~1mm problem solved. Ball plunge issue I found a different fix that didnt require me to raise playfield. So when I was looking at the whole mech I noticed quite a bit of play in the auto plunge left and right. Maybe 4-5 times out of 10 my plunge would be off. I saw that when the auto plunge was in the rightmost position it would hit somewhere. If I moved it to the left it did not hit plunger. Also the ball sat 2-3mm farther back in shooter lane with it to the left. So to fix I put 2 1/4" nylon washers on the pin on the right hand side to get rid of the play in the auto plunge. Have plunged maybe 50 balls since and had 1 bad plunge. will get a pic or 2 up shortly

So I started having some issues with the black pearl today. Speed ramps up very fast and only lists left and level doesnt seem like it hits right. During ship test full motion is there but the opto switches are not triggering properly I think. when ship right, right opto is triggered. when test left both optos are triggered. I think I'm getting a false opto trigger before it gets to center and throws it back left. Guess its time to remove her. Has anyone had a issue similar?

No in service position both Optos inner and outer are being triggered in the left position. I do not remember it being like this when I went through initial testing. After I do a calibration it will change too so pulled a couple thing and reassembled. Did a calibration and had same results. Did a second calibration and now nothing triggers on left. Outer triggers on home and nothing on right but if I bump it a hair it will trigger

Ya I dont know what I did but it is working properly again. Switches are still weird from what I remember, but it is working properly. Maybe the loom was catching it somehow.

Ya I just took a piece of door insulating foam and cut a small piece to cover the screw. And I agree the pearl ramp is a horrible design. Just waiting for the day the bottom 2 screws strip out.

Ya I was thinking the same. Prolly only take 10 min to design and print one

Ok just ran in to a doosey. Mid game I seemed to be getting gold out of nowhere. Everytime I hit a flipper button gold would spawn. Drained ball started a new ball and problem was not there but noticed the spinning pop bumpers were spinning like crazy and not stopping. Only thing that was changed was I tried to install 5 ball for mom and sister to help them get higher scores. Going to go digging for a broken shorted wire. Nothing looked off when I went into switch tests.

the one linked above is good....Depends really on how much you plan to use it. If you plan on using it a good bit one linked is good. If your only planning to use it very little the next step down would be fine https://www.amazon.com/Dremel-3000-1-24-Attachment-Accessories/dp/B005JRJE56 I have even had some wireless ones over the years that were pretty decent.

Speaking of color changes. After 1000 plays my flipper rubbers were toast. Did yellows on main flippers (always yelling at me about gold) and did blue for the inner loop flipper. Looks pretty good imo

yes it is a good idea to get backup rubbers for high use areas. So slingshots and places where ball bounces a lot. Would be nothing worse than to pop a slingshot rubber and not have a backup ready. I did a full set of silicone rubber from pinballlife and it was only $20. Have not installed any rings yet (only 1 or 2 are showing wear atm) but the silicone flipper rubbers from them feel good to me. Still going to order a set of titan flipper rubbers in the near future to compare.

When you guys have a chance can you look when you get into multiball if your tortuga tom and spinning barrell spin constantly. Only played a couple games today ( 2.7 mil new high score) but noticed on both games. The logical side of my brain tells me it is not supposed to be like that but not sure

Edit: Not sure why I didnt think of this hours ago. Watched a jjp pinball stream and they do spin constantly during multiball

Instead of replacing the gold button just put a couple drops of this in there. it is a lubricant but dries to a wax. 2 drops 3 weeks ago and my button has not stuck since.

https://www.123bearing.com/accessory-grease-WAX-LUBE-KRYTECH-2OZ-60ML.php?gclid=Cj0KCQjw2IrmBRCJARIsAJZDdxDs6t_QjJnZRru9rwLH2xNXaIplq7ZtF9fpqs8Wez_GaBSMUFpB5yAaAr_DEALw_wcB

1 bottle has lasted me 5 plus years and I use it to fix anything that squeaks around the house.

Sigh so I log on one last time before bed and see 21 new posts. Something must be bumping right. Nope 14 Joseph posts and a couple replys.

Ok so lets think about this logically before posting 5 times on one thing (also you can edit your posts as you figure things out). So you spinner isnt spinning properly. You have finally figured out that the spinner is hitting the BP decking. What can be done to raise this part up a tad so it does not hit spinner?

1. You can bend the metal bracket up
2. The better option put a washer on the posts before putting deck back on. If 1 does not work put a second.

I feel like a lot of these issues you have can be fixed if you sit back look at the problem for more than 2 seconds. This is a very simple problem with a very simple solution. I had all the problems and then some for a good week and a half I was the guy posting about EVERYTHING I found wrong. I quickly learned most of the issues were A. previously covered and B. minor issues that may have seemed bad but were really just adjustments that most pins would need regardless.

That is all have a goood night. Get some washers fix your dam spinner and play your machine.

Edit* See how that works

if were being honest on the chapter select issue. I just put my plumb bob all the way down so I still tilt but it takes a good whack. The SDTM ones I can now save without tilting about half of the time. It feels a little unfair now escaping the locker cause i can do small nudges like crazy with little risk of using a tilt. 50% chance to tilt saving chapter select SDTM is acceptable to me.

I think noone here has any issues with Joesph and he is more than welcome to ask questions. The problem is the amount of posts I think. If I had to take a guess hes prolly in the 4-500 range by now. I enjoy keeping up with this forum but it frustrating when I see ive missed 70 posts and find out 30 of them are him. It is why I suggested he use the edit feature. Also there have been several times where a solution was posted for him and he went and did something completely different and came back to let us know it didnt work and he still hasnt tried what was suggested. I'd bet 5 bucks if the amount of posts went down and he tried our suggestions first the subject would have been dead weeks ago.

Red light means something wrong. Either no power or bad fuse (should be marked on board what led means). I also had some board issues with my game nib. Contact jjp to have them send you a replacement. That is the p9 board pictured.

When it clicks it clicks. I spent a month trying to figure the dam thing out then one night I looked at it and said that looks like a ship and hit the ship shot and got credit. Try watching someone else play and stand back far form the map and look at it as a whole picture not as stars. The pop up that shows you you hit the shot also shows the pattern displayed. So if you can watch a few games and when you see the pop up pay attn to how the stars look. The part that I didnt understand for the longest time was all of the stars are a part of the picture. I was trying to distinguish fast blinkers from slow blinkers and find a picture from it and thats not how it works. Also try looking at the map from farther away thats how I started to figure out the patterns.

That might be the adjuster screw for one of the pop up diverter posts. if its a really tiny screw it might be one of the screws mounting the pcb boards. Hope this helps.

So havnt played a ton of games on .99 but have noticed a weird issue starting multiballs. On occasion the game is kicking a ball out but not auto launching it. Literally watched it kick 3 balls out and the launcher not go off once. After 3 balls were there it started trying to get all the balls out. Have noticed during several games since update I have had multiple ball pushed/stuck in shooter lane. I still have not done any troubleshooting on it as I have order from jjp coming wednsday that is going to require me to remove BP. Going to all maintenance when that comes in including waxing and installing mylar at chapter select area.

Ya I know. Noticed it last night but didnt think anything of it. Then this morning watched it put 3 balls into shooter lane and then auto launch. Today was fish tank maintenance day so no work on machine. Did a small test after I was done with fish tank and basically just launched a ball and then let the auto save do its thing. All 3 balls the auto launch took prolly 10 seconds after ball was in the lane. The third one it went into ball search mode so more than likely it is the shooter lane switch. Will pull the glass in the morning and test to find out what is going on. Thanks for the tip

when you didnt even realize you had a problem. My spotlights also flicker with the topper. Can be annoying at times but thought that was normal.

Yep had a wire come loose off the shooter lane switch. 5 second solder job and all is good again. On a side note had to do a little cleaning because glass was off (going to do full maintenance tomorrow) and cleaned the in/out lanes and map spinner. Spinning Map had some rowdy ball dust on it, like literally changed colors in front of my eyes. So psa when you guys are doing your minor maintenances make sure to give you spinning map some love easy to forget about.

Edit* Also changed out the balls as a couple of mine looked fairly rough. One actually kinda looked like a gold ball with a shitton of little dimples in it. The standard marco pinballs are correct? Can order something different if thats not right but had a spare 5 pack in my repair box so swapped them in and retired the old balls.

the actual spinning map that makes your ball go all over the place....you know the omni directional spinning map
I did see the T-nut issue. Will prolly fix it one of these days but have to wait till I got a few hours with no one in the house.

I had that problem as well with ball getting stuck at man overboard. I added an extra clear bumper between the screw and the current bumper. Ball has not got stuck since. On a side note got my replacement wireform a in. The shooter lane wireform fixed the last of my inconsistent ball shooter. The ball travel up the lane is soo much smoother now and the ball exits like a rocket. The bp exit ramp is still not level with the outlane but it was close enough that I could bend it and make it right. Now if I could only get jjp to send me the correct part for this last led that doesn’t work.

I briefly had a similar issue. Issue went away when I properly leveled machine.

I removed mylar on my old system 11. A little bit of freeze spay and it will lift right off. Then you clean then glue from playfield. Assuming its the same process for newer machines just gonna be alot easier to get the glue off.

I had this same problem new out of the box. In shipping it must have misaligned a tad. If I remember right It was a 2-3 screws to get the decking off. Then maybe 2 screws to loosen coil and pivot it back to center. Tighten screws back ( on mine I think I was able to just pivot it and not loosen the screws). manually move the gate up and down to make sure the bar that spring attaches to doesnt hit and you will be golden.

I actually like this mechanic of the game. It is yet another option you have to change the gameplay slightly. By starting a game before they release your creating times where instead of having to launch a ball on lock it will just drop 1 for you. I like doing this when possible because it sets up a nice slow feed to hit a loop/map shot easy.

Spotlights are 12v bulbs not 6v

kinda like the blue and the green coin door lights. Whatever you end up with Im sure will look awesome

Stock flipper power I believe its 22 left and 25 right. Works perfect for me

6.5

edit* anything above stock I had malestrom escapes. At 25 on the right (stock) It rarely happens like maybe 1 time in 100 games which im fine with. To be honest that 1% is way better than when you get 5 balls going and shit is bouncing all over the place. I did try lowering the right flipper power but you lose the ability to hit a backhand boarding shot if you lower it.

You can make that bracket look good easy (does noty look bad) mount one of the gold coins or get a small toy to put on it problem solved

*edit Be prepared to get a ball stuck in those spotlights one day. Happened to me other day and couldnt believe it.

Kicking the ball around sooner will not solve the issue. It will make it less likely to happen yes, but the whole game is based around doing chapters. You should NEVER be punished for a shot that is required for progression when you have to hit the shot 25 times in one game (to complete all chapters). It is not like it is a risk vs reward thing. The risk vs reward is the qualifying of chapter. Some that come to mind bricking malestrom shot or DT and hitting 4x and goining straight down I lane. Trying for left flipper chest shot hitting right lock stand up and sdtm. Tortuga can be risk reward as anything up in the pop can go bad quickly. Even if they decided they wanted to compensate by making the chapters harder by adding more characters to them there needs to be an optional ball save on starting chapters. Its not a tight shot but not sure i want to make it smaller either. Its such an easy fix

Nice work gumnut. I have noticed the same thing on inner loop shots. Good ones getting sucked to bp or coming out with no speed. I’ll bet I have the same issue.

You might wanna get that bar that raises the door centered. I had similar issue out of box and door wasn’t able to fully open because the bar with the return spring was hitting the side and binding. Whole piece for me just moved with a smidge Of pressure. Maybe I’ll pull my glass today for maintence and take a pic or 2

Yes exactly. Couldn’t think of what to call it but yess. Bar was hitting lane divider and binding. I had to move mine a grand total of 1-2 mm and issue was fixed

It may sound simple but make sure the contact inside the spotlight socket are not bent as well. I had spotlight issues and when I looked into the socket without bulb in one of the leads was bent in making the bulb hard to insert and have a bad connection. 5 seconds straightening the pin and socket has worked ever since

Agree 100%
This was pretty much my list as well. I did shim my auto launcher to remove the play left and right. First thing I noticed was depending which side the auto was on there was a 2-3 mm difference in where the ball sat. If it was to the left ball plunged fine if it was to the right no power. That got me to 90% good plunges. From there noticed I also had the plunger hitting the auto. 2 tiny pieces if door insulating foam under hangers fixed that up (raised playfield maybe 1mm). We were then at 95% good plunges. Last issue I had was ball hitting wireform at first brace. After 1000 games the ball was still hitting wireform so a smidge of dremel work to just lower and smooth it and now I also have lightning fast plunges. To put it in perspective pop bumper skill shot requires me to pull back maybe a 1/4 inch. Boarding BP is only a few mm past that (cant even see the tip in view window yet) and if you can see the tip of whooter in window it will go all the way around. So a 5% plunge gets me pops a 7% plunge gets me boarding and a 10% plunge will go all the way around. It actually makes the skill shots way harder.

YA Tortuga really needs loctite. This is the spot where I have significant chipping. In 1500 plays or so I have had to tighten tortuga scoop 3-4 times now. Every time it was tightened the gummy bear got worse. This last time a big chunk of it came off. Long story short im pretty sure every time i tightened the scoop it pushed more of the clearcoat out and less clearcoat under part means loose part.

If you pull up your switch tests one of them will show you on the screen where the switch is. Turn around switch should be the one at the back of the devils triangle. Kinda hard to get to but there is enough room to get a long screwdriver in there to test it. Cant remember how accessible it is from the bottom of playfield.

I had the issue when I first got game (escaping slingshot) and when I replaced the rubbers. For me anyways seems like it happened when the rubber was new but after it got a bit of play it stopped. Now with new rubbers it happened again. Yelo fix should work too

Speaking of ball getting stuck. Balls on my game have been getting stuck at the right outlane just before escape the locker. gets stuck between the right post rubber and the metal outlane piece. With that being said locker escapes have become fairly easy. New record 13 escapes. I honestly dont know why it started happening all of a sudden. Havnt really looked too deep into the issue either though

Lube/Oil/Grease is never a proper solution to fix a pin. Just imagine all the coil dust we clean out of our machines, now add in a substance that attracts dust. Proly just needs an adjustment.

On you skull switch have you tried loosening the screw and cheating it to the right? Assuming you have. Easiest thing imo would be to pull out the switch and bore out the hole on switch just a hair. This would give you a bit more adjustment.

Depths is easy. Just clips on. Can be done from top. Unless you mean map hole of which I still need to do.

Wow I dont remember having to bend anything. whole arm swivels. Loosen adjust arm coming off red square to middle of the loop wall and cannon door wall. Tighten and done. I actually dont even remember having to loosen anything just swiveled it and done

This. A pic is wortha thousand words. See how his arm is directly in between the 2 lanes. Swivel your arm so it looks like that and you cannon door should work properly. why he has the pliers in there like he is bending something idk. Move arm to middle first then if it still is sticking I guess try to bend.

Edit* His actually looks like it could swivel left a bit. Probly why he resorted to bending the arm

I assume when ball comes down the P lane its getting caught by the gate and draining in I lane? If this is what you meant mine does the same thing when machine is slightly off level. Its also not bulletproof I.E. every now and again it will just happen nothing can be done. But ya if its happening a lot look at your level left right. Could also help with the SDTM from chapter select. I did replace my rubbers in chapter select area with some perfectplay and sdtm has been happening alot less. I think the rubber is just a tad thicker or maybe my old rubber was starting to stretch but there was less SDTM affter replacing rubbers up there

Was getting random pieces of 8 without hitting the shot. Friendly reminder to every now and again clean your optos. Problem was dirty opto not giving a good signal little vibration and switch would go off. cleaned with q-tip and a little bit of alcohol.

On one of my spots the pins on the inside of connector were slightly bent causing the bulb to make contact but not sit properly. I took a flathead and adjusted the pins and no more problems

Could be the one way to the chest

I know you said you tried to adjust them but did you try to clean them with some alcohol and a q-tip. I had some issues with an opto and as soon as I cleaned it all the problems went away. Sounds like its getting a weak signal (dirty)

20 years of computer repair, including board level repairs, tells me that bad solder joints very very rarely fix themselves by pushing on the board. Yes it is possible but lets say 1 out of 100 will that fix the issue and even then typically the "fix" will only last for a few days to a week. Now this is in a computer that is not dealing with constant vibration. Pushing on the board to "fix" it would last 1-2 games on a pinball machine. Long story short when your car dies you shouldn't automatically call the dealership and have them tow it. Maybe you should check if you have gas first.

You can’t forget in drain sometimes the machine has a “list” of things it needs to complete. Only example I can think of is when you drain during chapter. The game first needs to close out chapter before end of ball bonus. The time from your drain to when chapter points pop up is a couple seconds then a couple more to bonus points. I think it just seems long sometimes. Can test the switches to see how fast they register. Pull balls out and drop them in trough during switch test to see if there is any abnormal delay on the switch itself

100 plays the opto is probably not dirty. I had my first dirty opto prolly 1500 plays in. Only noticed it because I would get random ship boardings. Optos unlike physical switches (with very few exceptions) can have a half state. So on/off/dirty. Dirty optos will trigger themselves without any outside help. Machine on no movement opto keeps going on and off there is a good possibility that there is dust on the opto and it has a weak signal between the points. If you push on an opto and it triggers that could just mean you moved the opto enough that the invisible beam is no longer pointed where it needs to be. Physical switches will typically either be broke no signal or stuck closed. Very rarely could I see a physical switch getting stuck close enough where it would register with no outside help but is is possible.

Take a ball and run it down the wireform to see if it’s hitting anything. I had auto launch issues and did every fix but still had intermittent issues. Found out ball was hitting wireform causing all the problems

Your ball is getting hung up on the switch (looks like it anyway). You need to bend the wire so that it is flush with play field when fully depressed. If I remember right I was able to adjust by raising play field and sneaking my hand in from the side.

Talking of crazy shots. I managed to get the dauntless to shoot back at the black pearl (kinda). Got a multiball going. Ball coming in hot from inlane and loses no momentum on flip. Up maelstrom ramp hit diverter and had so much speed it went Over the top and hit bp

I thought the standoff were a lot shorter than that. Maybe one of the sliders for a pop up post or chest mech?

Could be worse. Had the uncle who likes to drink a bit come over. He saw me play while nudging the machine. He decides to play and is banging the machine left and right a couple inches at a time. Lets just say he was good at tilting the machine. Luckily he lost intrest after his second game.

Pulling a cmos battery does not immediately kill the settings. There will still be a small amount of power lurking in capacitors and such. The best way to ensure all the power is gone from a motherboard is to hit the on/off (short pins) while it is disconnected from power. You can also use this trick when you trying to reset most electronic devices. Ever notice how you can pull the power on something but the power led will run for 30 seconds to 5 minutes with no power. This is the residual power hanging out in the caps being drained. Try to turn the device on before reconnecting power and the led will go out. Device will try to turn on and expend the residual energy.

Factory button works fine if you spend 2 seconds to use a dry lube on it. Spend 7 bucks on a new button or 7 bucks on https://www.homedepot.com/p/WD-40-SPECIALIST-10-oz-Dry-Lube-300059/204960991 and have something that you can actually use around the house for squeaky hinges ect....

Perfectplay rubbers were nice but seemed to wear out a bit fast. About every 3 months I have to change out my left star map rubber due to breaking. When im doing that one I normally replace the slingshots too as they start to get a bit stretchy. Most other rubbers have been rock solid. Did a order for black friday for Titans to compare. Prolly going to do a rubber swap this weekend

The plastic washer might be the spacer for the bp mech. Goes between backboard and rod that attaches bp to mech. Hard to tell but looks about right size. Screw could be a bunch of things. Maybe check the pop up post mechs. They have an adjustment screw on them that can somewhat easily come loose.

By reset I think LTG means to unplug the connector on the boards he mentioned and then plug them back in. This should be done with the game off.

My spotlights have been fine. I think the connector is a little finicky if the wires on bulb aren’t perfect. I had early issues on one spot and found that the wires on bulb were not in their “grooves” and would not seat in socket properly. This wire pushed the pin inside of socket out of place a bit. Bulb would seat in socket but seemed lose and would lose connection. Once I regapped the socket and fixed wires on bulb there is no play anymore and bulb doesn’t randomly go out.

TLDR check to make sure pins inside of socket are gapped properly and wires on bulb are in the proper position (in the grooves and pulled tight.

I dont think it should happen often although it will happen. Might check your left and right level. I could see being off making the issue more apparent.

Coil sleeves every now and again is a good idea.

Whenever you hear the faint arrrg and are not in Arrrrg frenzy it means you hit the extra ball leaf switch. If extra ball is lit you get eb if not you hear arrrrrrrg

I wasnt going to say it because its been a bit since ive done computer work. Corsair when I was into tech was really good for memory but not much else. But back then they really only made memory so not up to date on current standards. If I were buying a power supply I would always buy an Antec. Reason being is my 15 year old antec power supply still powers my pc today. I have only recently thought about replacing it but only because it came from the time before modular power and pcie so I sometimes have a hard time adding new things.

It can definitely be because of the wireform. On my first wireform the ball would hit the mounting tab and was inconsistant 80% of the time. I did most of the normal fixes you listed and still had some issues prolly 70% gone. Then I found out the last 20% or so of the issues were ball hitting wireform slowing down plunge..Look closely at the mounting tabs and the weld on the wireform. Ill see if I can get a pic of old wireform to show you what im talking about

jjp kindly sent a replacement

I replaced that Ethernet cable with a longer one. With it tight like from factory will eventually cause problems

A decent ups will do the same thing and will give you a few minutes of juice to put in name if power goes out

Looks like it is hitting one side of auto launch before other causing ball to rattle. Maybe adjust where the forks sit with a washer on the assembly or maybe even bend the forks just a tad so the hit is more uniform

You just won joke of the day!!!

Surprised with the cancellation of Tpf that we have not heard any pinball news.

I’ve been posting that fix for almost a year now. Personally never had another issue after putting dry lube on the button.

If I remember the rules correct every time you board the bp it gets a little faster. It also gains speed every time the spinners on bp trigger. Resets on multiball

Nope one of the features still missing. I act find it funny people say that you only do well because your game is set up easy when in fact we only have default settings. I would love to play on hard settings. With that being said I’ve started playing my machine again. Still brutal

From the looks of the skirt it seems that maybe its just the pin is stuck on the spoon or possibly slid off of the spoon. The switch itself wouldnt cause that problem that I know of.

*Just noticed I'm a day late and dollar short. Hopefully you got it all fixed up

Not sure if it is still the case but antec used to make the best power supplies. My 850w is going on 15-16 years now. Really need to buckle down and replace it. It is from before manufactures started making them efficient.

Optos cannot get stuck per say. They can however be dirty and register intermittently or possibly slightly misaligned. id say take a q-tip with some alcohol and clean both sides of opto and test.