Hello everyone, I have a pro arriving today! It's my first pin and I'm very stoked. Pics soon enough. Reading 35 pages of thread to catch up is rather exhausting.

I see inside the cabinet a downfiring speaker I assumed is a subwoofer. Are you saying I should replace that unit or add some thing external?

Thanks for the subwoofer recommendations. I'm definitely going to check that out. The distributor (Orange County Pinballs) threw in the shaker motor and its a bit intense if you ask me. Can that be backed off in software?

The wife and I played for like two hours straight after the kiddo went to bed, I think its the first time in 6 years together I've seen her get competitive about something. That's a major win for me.

Speaking of software, should I generally leave all settings the way they are or is there some kind of reference tweak list or is this all personal preference?

The post near the upper right flipper did start working its way loose by the end of the evening. I added some blue loctite and will keep an eye on it. I didn't have a great feel for what is "tight" vs what would crush the playfield so I opted for what I normally use for like oil drain pans: hand tight + quarter turn or about 8-10lbs of torque.

I sat in bed last night and read almost every page of this thread so I'll be keeping an eye out for playfield rippling as well.

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Observations of the morning

1: If you pull the plunger to 100% and release, hitting the slingshot is like 1 out of 5. If you pull it to 90% it hits it every single time, is this a lubrication thing at the end of the travel perhaps? Launching with the button seems to succeed 4 out of 5 for me so I'm mostly just hitting the button now.

2: Damn that CHAOS, I can only make it to O.

3: My wife and I have no real feel for nudging a table, as such it's flying STDM constantly

4: Should the ring around the tilt sensor pendulum be level to the ground or the table?

5: Whoever said I had chipping on my upper flipper post you were correct! A larger piece came off and I've got a support e-mail going with Stern. I'm a little less invested in the table as the game was a gift. If I had shelled out ~5700 of my own cash I'd be more miffed. The loc-tite has done its job though. I'm wondering is the rubber around that post supposed to freely rotate or is it supposed to be set and really slow the ball down?

I got the Stern one included with my Pro, it seems to rattle a bunch. Has that been the case for you with other Stern shakers?

I agree, this the cause of most of my wife’s drains and she gets quite worked up over it. It would be cool if emergency lighting was on, but just barely. I love the effects that make me feel like a thunderstorm is happening

Help a newbie out, what is a coil stop? Did something fail with the JP Pro at brewskis?

I have a repair kit for the play field and some kind of post fix kit on the way from Stern. They have not arrived yet

A few things to report in:

I installed my replacement Stern shaker motor this week and boy what a difference! It was hard to describe the issue other than saying "it's rattling really really loud" which of course would lead folks to tell me to check parts of my playfield and such and I did find a wireform to be loose. Still, now that the replacement is in I can now actually hear the other things that might be loose.

I received two kits from Stern to address my upper flipper post looseness and the chipping around it. I was surprised to see that fixing the post requires removing the flipper and getting undernear the playfield so much. I've decided to sit on that procedure until I have some downtime and I can apply this clearcoat fix a bit and take my time resolving it.

Watching Keith's explanation of the rules on Deadflip has changed the game for me. I'm still a noob and some pin-vocabulary still trips me up.

The first thing I did was remove the cover, thinking the plastic was too close to the spinning weights. That made no difference, then I rotated one of the weights 90 degrees to tone it down a bit more and that didn't help. To me it was almost like the frame of the motor itself was rattling, and the speed it was spinning at was way too fast. It was so loud and obnoxious that I couldn't hear my Polk sub woofer over it. This was especially noticeable during the T-Rex chase event with the long roars.

I eventually disabled it until the replacement arrived. I'll have to go back and chase down the last few rattles which as other folks have said is probably the glass. The combination of the sub + fixed shaker makes for some really nice play.

Most of any continuing rattle seems to be coming from the back glass, that's more than tolerable though.

What's the difference between backglass and translite.

I had understood the adjustment only changes how often the shaker is engaged, now how intense it is. I can tell you my replacement shaker is nowhere near as powerful as the one my distributor installed.

Yep, I did that. I tried it with 45 and 90 degree offsets. I should have taken video and folks would simply agree "yeah, that's totally messed up". Go take a steel hammer and slam it on a steel surface a thousand times a minute, THAT is what my factory shaker sounded like. The replacement sounds NOTHING like the original.

No I didn't, I feel like changing the software setting and then adjusting the hardware was the end of the of what my troubleshooting should be a as a NIB owner. At that point I reached out to the distributor and asked for a replacement unit to rule that out entirely.

Checking in! My upper flipper post finally worked its way loose again (despite blue loctite).

So I took the opportunity to put the post replacement kit in. While the post was out, I did also mask off the post area, do some light sanding and apply some clearcoat. This was my first time messing with any of the mechanisms, as you have to remove the flipper assembly to get the old pieces out and tighten the post from both sides of the playfield. I wish I had taken a picture underneath, because the nut did not clear the flipper's assembly and I was forced to use a pair of wrenches to flair out the bracket slightly so it would clear the new lock-nut that holds the post in place. The washer on top is considerably taller and wider, and covered up nearly ever bit of the chipping that I had encountered. I'm satisfied, if not still slightly annoyed that I had to do this on a new product at all. I suppose I could have pressed on my distributor to do this as well. I did inspect all the other holes on the playfield for any kind of chipping and it appears I've gotten lucky with every other spot. I did notice that there is some dimpling across the playfield, but I don't know what "normal" wear is in my head so I can only assume it is normal. I'll attempt to capture a picture of it.

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The replacement post doesn't seem to change gameplay at all. The ball still contacts the rubber part of the post in the same exact position and doesn't appear to touch the washer in any way. I did my best aligning the flipper as Stern indicated in the instructions.

Interesting, so this replaces the speakers in the backbox cabinet, as well as the one below? Are the factory ones just that bad?

Would you also use an external sub with this or remove that if you already have one?

What do you mean by "dropped my outlane posts all the way down". Are they moveable??!

That sucks. In my own head I've slotted all the Pin manufacturers in with the likes of Ducati motorcycles. Mass produced, but lots of human involved, occasional supplier issues causing consistent part failures, some more drastic than others. If a "Honda" equivalent manufacturer ever comes along, Stern is toast.

Does anybody have a compiled list of adjustments they make right out of the box?

I actually don’t seem to have too many issues hitting the spinner shot, what I am finding is it not getting registered all the time. It seems the spinner is the only sensor and many of my shots make it past without actually spinning it. Has anyone had to adjust it? If so how?

I agree the software is contributing, but I literally hit that shot four times in a row without it acknowledging the rescue. It’s starting to piss me off

Got any adjustment guidance? From the top or bottom of the play field?

Thanks for those that helped/guided me on the spinner issue. Turned out my switch was totally fine, the issue was mostly that the spinner was not resting in the vertical position, but leaned back a bit. It was enough that balls not perfetly centered went right by the damn thing. I wasn't quite sure which was to bend it to get sorted and slid my fingers underneath it and pressed upward towards the glass a few times. This seems to have done the trick, it doesn't hang perfectly vertical but WAY more than before. After months of shitty score I put 230M without even trying on the first play after the glass was back on.

Any chance you guide me on tuning any of the audio settings? I have the Pinwoofer module running to a PSW-10, the rest of my setup is default on a Pro model.

yeah I’d love some tuning, surely the default settings are for location play

Can someone hyperlink me directly to the proper replacement coil stops? Sounds like most folks get them from pinball life. I always find their catalog a little overwhelming.

EaglePin : loving your flipper power settings!! Thank you! I'm finding that I can hit the outer shots finally

Bellies I understand, but tits? Holy shit those knockers gotta be watermelons.

Very cool, tell me about these sound upgrades!

So you're telling me us lowly pro owners really really should go get the pinwoofer kit, got it!

Deleting my external polk sub would remove an eyesore. I'll be pining for this.

For me, the spinner was not resting vertically enough and was resting at a tilted back position enough to completely brick the ball, and the ball could go around it entirely if it hugged the left side. I slid my finger under the spinner until it was perpindicular to playfield, and applied a little upward pressure (NOT MUCH!). This bent it enough to rest in a more vertical position and ever since then I can spin that sucker ALL DAY LONG.

Bricks are a real thing, but take your glass off and roll the ball into that sucker a few times.

Can someone straighten me out on my forward paths for better sound out of my JP Pro? Most of the existing threads I find are confusing because its folks with LE's asking the questions.

What I have today:
Pinnovators subwoofer kit -> Polk sub

What I think I can do:
1) Pinwoofers kits: superkit 5.25 upgrades my 4" backbox to 5.25" speakers and the 6" cabinet sub to an 8", amplifiers included as not to overload the onboards for $249 or so

2) Pinball Pro kit: just better speakers, with an option to bump the sub slightly, retains existing amp for $209

Any other avenues there?

Then i see there is: speakerlightkits.com for making things pretty. What am I missing?

I used to use this stuff, or something like it from Dupont on my motorcycle's primary drive chain. Literally 100,000 miles total across a handful of machines and my chain wear was probably half of what my cohorts were dealing with.

I have that already. I have the Polk sub and avoided the alligator clips with the Pinnovators line out board. Perhaps I need some tuning on mine, but I don't feel like it sounds that great. The sub itself is also encroaching on the wife acceptance factor and I could easily move it somewhere else, so if I can upgrade the sub inside the cabinet that's more appealing right now.

Thank you for posting this update!! I mirrored your settings maybe 9 months ago, and some of these numbers are pretty different. Namely, I could no longer drill the spinner from the left flipper at all, and it was nigh impossible to backhand the chaos shot from the right flipper, as well as struggling to get the ball up the tower shot. Also, I did have to aling the guides on my inlanes and I'm playing with fire now!

absolutely possible. I watch dontpanicflip in twitch do it multiple times per stream. He uses titan bands maybe that gives it a hair more punch

Its the same as the smart missile shot, the target at the back of the pop bumpers. When CHAOS shots have been made the insert there lights up red, that and hitting it starts CHAOS. For smart missile, the truck must be facing left, making that shot pretty tight and only accessible from the left flipper. If CHAOS is lit and the right is facing right, the backhand of the right flipper is pretty easy.

I'm the same... half plunge all the time now, auto-launch power reduced to 190