Hope they post here when its ready.

In the meantime, it is way easier to hit the barrel shot when the ball is not captured by the magnet before.

When it is served up by the magnet I almost never hit, but when it comes at a decent but not screaming pace down the orbit I have a pretty decent success rate, like one out of 4 (remember I'm bad at pinball)

It was mentioned above along with your post. AP is being quite on the whole thing?

Yup contact your local distributor!

I thought we were talking about the flipper rubber, not a different coil stop. Sorry, my bad.

Cool, I'll text Zach.

Cool! I have been working with Barry on an issue with my bar and he keeps going dark. I am sure he is busy, but my players are starting to skip Oktoberfest because it is consistently messed up . Is there any way to get a new bar ordered?

https://www.american-pinball.com/support/service/ Open a ticket or call them and explain the situation.

LTG : )

What LTG said

At expo we reported the findings of our testing of the longer coil stop and that a change would be forth coming. The testing was done with a group of a dozen or so players, that were bouncing from machine to machine, one with the change and one without, and the players were not told of the difference. As you can see from the photo it is a very slight change. Over 50 games were played on each machine and the data showed that the ramp was successfully made 60% more on the machine with the longer coil stop. This increase is a combination of more ramp attempts making it up and into the barrel, as well as more ramp attempts in total (e.g. vs the ball hitting the post at the high side of the ramp or going above the ramp to the captive ball). There were also anecdotal comments heard during game play of "I've been able to make it much easier on this machine".

Since then we had to have the parts made, and then needed to do further testing on them. They are now in the process of being packed up and sent out to distributors who should have them shortly.

flipper stop change (resized).png

Neat! The one on the right must be the longer coil stop (less flipper travel).

Awesome, thank you Josh! Other manufacturers can learn from you guys when it comes to customer service!

Thanks for the update Josh, this is gold! Every complaint about this game on pinside having problems or being clunky will be no more.

If less flipper travel is all that's needed, what's wrong with pulling the coil in manually (So the flipper moves to the location in the left photo), then loosening the flipper bat, moving it to the 'less travel' position (the right photo) and tightening it back up... surely this will result in the same reduced travel as having a longer coil stop, and have the benefit of not needing a longer coil stop... or am I missing something?

Interesting. I wonder if that would work. Basically, when you think about the mechanics, your method sets the flipper bat end-of-stroke position by slewing "coil start" instead of changing coil stop

No your idea would work.

I think AP wants the longer coil stop to make it easier for the owner to get the right position without adjusting the flipper bat. Two screws and swap the coil stop. As opposed to loosening the flipper bat and getting up and down play right and set in a good position to make the shot better.

Not everybody has an easy time adjusting flipper bats. Or can take a few tries to get it right.

LTG : )

I thought that might be the reasoning... so for someone who's comfortable adjusting a flipper bat, they can experiment with the angle that gives the best results... of course by over-limiting the stroke you might have to tweak the coil power up a bit to get the same energy into the ball...

Exactly... it limits it from the other end

Fortunately you can easily do that in Oktoberfests menu.

LTG : )

Everyone is different, but to me Oktoberfest is the best pinball machine by far.

When I get a new pin, the first thing I do is play a lot to beat all the factory preset scores. Sometimes that becomes a chore and more like work and not fun.

I had a lot of fun beating the presets on this game, and I hope nothing ever happens and they reset to original, but if they did, this is the one game I would enjoy beating all over again.

With all the steins and tents and different ways of trying, this to me is just the best pin ever.

So glad you love the game, Johnny!

I just replaced the bar thanks to AP for sending me a new one, but oddly enough all of my lights are white now and won’t change . Anyone have an idea what I could have screwed up?

I'm not needing the updated coil. I hit the barrel shot just fine!

Great game that is getting better.

The lamps all default to white on power-up until the game starts sending them commands, so the fact that they're stuck all-white suggests that commands aren't getting to them. Seems likely that it's a connector that got knocked loose when you were working on the bar. Since it's ALL of the lights, suggests it's the head of the chain. Do buttons and coils work properly? For example, can you use the operator buttons to enter test mode and fire some coils? If so, that suggests that switches and coils are working, and it's just the lamp interface that's disconnected. If switches and coils aren't working, I'd be more suspicious of the interface between the PC and P-ROC.

Sorry for the inconvenience, we'll getcha back rollin' ASAP!

The game works 100% in play and in the test modes. Light tests don’t do anything because only the lights on the Ferris wheel seem to be changing color. I am not sure what I could have f’ed up as the bar is really a clean install.

Also, thanks Ferret i know it is late there! I wanted to call Barry, but I knew he was probably either out drinking or asleep .

No worries. I'm a serious night owl. Barry is most certainly a better resource for hardware/electrical issues than I am (I'm a stupid software guy ) but I'll take a swat...

If you lift the playfield, looking at the underneath view, in the lower-left corner, very close to the bar assembly, are two PCBs mounted perpendicular to the playfield, with quite a number of connector plugs on each of them. Check all the connectors on those PCBs carefully to ensure that they're all firmly seated... they're close enough to the area that you were working that it's possible you bumped something loose that's interrupting the data flow to the light boards.

(True story: I was doing some electrical work on my Game 3 prototype last week, and had a mis-seated connector that resulted in the exact problem you describe, every light stuck white. Once I found and re-seated that one connector, all the lights went back to working properly.) (Ooooh, I just leaked the info that Game 3 has... connectors. And PCBs!)

Good luck, I hope you find something easy-peasy!

I just received the coil stop upgrade kit from AP and it included 2 pieces of clear plastic that have double sided tape on them. Unfortunately, no instructions were included and I have no idea what the plastic pieces are for or where they go. I tried asking AP for help but they have been unusually non-responsive to my phone and email requests so, can anyone here tell me? Thanks in advance.

There is a service bulletin on the API website under The Menu > Support > Resources and then on the Oktoberfest Tab. There is a PDF with pictures and explanation.

It's called lockdown bar spacer installation or something along the lines. You stick the tabs under the sides of the lockdown bar so it centers the bar across the machine. Got them too, but my machine has them already installed from the factory.

That's odd, that you have problems reaching them. When I write them, I get answers within a few hours, typically even at night and in weekends, as they don't seem to sleep at all, lol.

I got the new longer coil stop this week and finally got around to install it yesterday. My wife and me put now some games on it with the new coil stop and wanted to give a review.

Beforehand, it was pretty much impossible on my game to make the shot if the ball was trapped up by the magnet. If the ball was coming down from a full orbit shot then the shot was barely makable but I had even to adjust that, because on the regular coil strength setting it would hop off the rail on the way to the barrel. So reducing the power made that more stable but even more difficult. Adding red rubber helped to reduce the spin so it would hop off the rail less often.

New coil stop enter the scene: the geometry of the shot is perfect now. If you have the timing down, it makes it now from any situation - both resting and from orbit. It shoots the ball into the barrel with authority! Any of you who have practiced this shot under the difficult previous circumstances as a result will nail it now pretty much every time. Make no mistake, it's still not a trivial shot - my wife didn't play the machine before a lot and she can make the shot only every now and then, but now it is a function of timing and skill and not of luck and circumstance.

Good players will dial that shot in quickly. This improvement is a game changer in the truest sense of the word: now lock stealing will become in a multiplayer game a real part of the strategy and not just a low percentage incidental occurrence. Think TNA and so on.

I absolutely love the change, it elevates the game to it's full potential. Thanks API for keeping at it and making the game even better. It has already changed my strategy, because now I'm thinking about the Stein that increases beer barrel Multiball jackpots and stacking that with food frenzy.

Little tip: shooting the barrel will spot you a PROST letter, so if you have 4 lit, just shoot it in: it will spot you the 5th to light the lock and lock the ball.

What is inside the beer barrel lock to recognize a ball is in there? Is it an opto? Or micro switch rollover? Or something else?

I’m having an issue where after I lock a ball in the barrel, the game keeps thinking that ball is getting relocked. So during gameplay I will get the animation of “ball 1 locked”, and it will shoot another ball into the shooter lane, even though I still have a ball in play on the playfield.

Of course, I can’t removed the plastic barrel because there is an impossible screw to get to, which just adds to the frustration. But while I’m dealing with removing that, I wanted to see what type of info I can get in the meantime.

If it’s an opto, does it just need to be cleaned?

Anyone else have this issue?

Thanks

Thanks for your help. Pinside at its best. You're right about the oddity of no reply from AP because they have always been great when I have needed their help in the past. I am thinking that maybe they are in a bit of upheaval with the management changes going on. I hope they survive and thrive when its all said and done.

There is a Membrane Switch in there, that recognizes when a ball is sitting on it. I had the same problem and am beta testing a solution with Josh right now. Very promising! In the meantime what helped for me was cleaning that membrane. The accumulated grime was causing it for me, but obviously it will start showing up after a while again. Or get with Barry / Josh before you clean it to see if they want you in the beta test for it.

Did it just show up in the mail? I am ready for it.
Thanks!

I texted my distributor Zach from flip n out pinball. He said that he'll send it out as soon as he gets it and I got it in Wednesday I think. ZMeny is awesome!

API is sending them out through the distributors, contact yours.

I think they are in full force working on their 3rd game and at the same time doing new software for Houdini and Oktoberfest. All this While juggling the move to a new facility... I think currently for them the days would need to be 40 hours long if they want to sleep for a couple hours..

Thanks so much for the reply and information. What type of solution are they looking to do for it? Add different switches or sensors or something?

In the meantime I'll just give it a good cleaning and hope that works for now. Thanks!

Ross

I went through those two boards and reseated all of the connections. The A, B and C connectors I replaced with the new bar should have been the only ones which were even touched, but as you mentioned I was concerned that maybe I bumped something.

There is a little forked connector (I assume ground) that screws under one of the nuts on the bottom of the bar. I don’t know if that could have any impact. I tried to get it back exactly like it was.

Could someone take a picture of the open connections on those boards just to make sure I have all of the correct ones filled?

It's SW / Firmware, it works really well, at least on my machine. The guys at API are really awesome - if in doubt contact their support!

Btw, don't scrub that membrane with steel wool or something. I used microfiber cloth and Novus 1 when cleaning it, and didn't press down on it hard.

I'm out and about for the remainder of the day - if nobody posts here, remind me via pm tomorrow and I'll take pictures tomorrow evening for you.

Thanks!! I might try to call Barry today if I can make it over to the bar. I don’t know if I can bother him on a Sunday though.

Barry has written here before to call him anytime. Worst case, he’s silenced his phone and it goes to voicemail.

I’m out of the house all day today; will take some photos tonight if no one beats me to it.

Not at a machine, but check for a thin two wire twisted cable, that connects to the board on the back of the back panel. Possible it got pulled off and is dangling or in the cabinet.

Cool! Thank you for the help guys! I am going over there in an hour. I’ll give it another look them bother Barry if I can’t find it. Has to be something simple. That bar was a clean replacement.

rosh and @ferret, it was a plug. I found the little bastard hiding under one of the wire bundles. Thank you again!

4A956817-DA5C-43F4-85E6-5FE841BDDF58 (resized).jpeg

Very happy that you found it and that it was indeed something simple!

Sorry.

Did you open up a Service Ticket?
https://www.american-pinball.com/support/service/

Service Tickets are the only way to get warranty replacement parts.

Also there was a change over to a new shipping/postage platform, this has caused abnormally long pre-shipment times.

I have been very busy of late, sorry if anything fell through the cracks.

There is a new coil stop that was shipped to all our distributors in North America (South America and overseas will ship soon, if not shipped already) for Oktoberfest. This coil stop is slightly longer than the standard coil stop. This longer coil stop changes the geometry of the Beer Barrel Ramp shot, testing indicates that with this coil stop installed, it is 30ish% easier to hit the BBR. (your results may very)

Also a spacer set was included for the lock down bar. As some people have noticed that there is a larger gap on the right side of the lock down bar after you lock it down. This is because of the switch to metric sized wood. The new wood size has a smaller thickness than the old standard wood. The interior dimension of the pinball needs to remain constant to accommodate the playfield, so the outside dimension grew smaller and making the lock down bar seem bigger. (the actual size of the lock down bar has not changed) With the spacers installed the lock down bar will sit with an even gap on both sides, making it look like it once again fits the machine.

Spacers for Houdini will ship at a later time.

Regards,
Barry

In case you did not receive the instructions with your kit.

http://s4.american-pinball.com/img/support/2020-2/Coil-Stop-BBR.pdf

http://s4.american-pinball.com/img/support/2020-2/Lock-Down-Spacer.pdf

Yep, you sent it to me! Everything is great . I'm sending the broken one back to you this week.

Some more follow-up on the coil stop, I just got done installing it and what a difference. Still not an easy shot but it is definitely a improvement. It makes for a much better game, I can consistently get the BB MB now where before was few and far between.

Here are some before and after pictures of the install.

Barry, thanks for the help!

-todd

okt-before (resized).jpg

okt-after (resized).jpg

Glad it worked out for you.

Hit me up when you need help on that other game.

Did you change the coil power on that upper flipper. More to the point, what power do you have it on now with the new coil stop?