Karl/IEPinball is streaming Jurassic Park Prem starting in the next few minutes and will be giving away a quiet fan kit for Spike or Spooky (winner choice) and a T-shirt during the stream. Entries are from now until 8:10 winners announced later in the stream.

Enter "!contest" (without the quotes) in the iepinball twitch chat to get the link to the entry form.

https://www.twitch.tv/iepinball

Heads up that Karl DeAngelo at IEPinball is streaming JP Prem tonight starting at 7pm pacific:

https://twitter.com/iepinball/status/1481300827054563332

...he's also giving away more pinmonk fans and t-shirts. He changes the contest night to night, but basically just type "!contest" in the twitch chat (without the quotes) to get the link to the contest form to find out what you have to guess/remember tonight and enter in the first 30 minutes of the stream.

https://www.twitch.tv/iepinball

(entries close at 7:30PST. Tonight's contest is easy, just YES/NO he reaches Escape Nublar)

I've done the white glove, legs on thing both as a buyer and a seller for dozens of machines and never had an issue. The ones in CA were Sly Fox (always great) shipping, but the longer distance ones were Michelle at Beltmann. I make sure they pack it well when it goes out, but never had a bent leg as a shipper or receiver (knock on wood). Maybe our local trucking company Beltmann uses is just especially conscientious. It can be a good experience, and always has been for me.
IMG_0667-sml (resized).jpg

It's possible with any pinball being shipped. The only time I've ever had damage was with palleted/crated pins which is the only way I used to do them, which seems to defy logic, but I think the palleted/crated are treated more carelessly at the warehouses because they're "packed better."

I know my time is coming, but so far, so good with the white glove/legs on.

If you do blue loc-tite, DO NOT get any excess on the truck plastics or any other plastics. It weakens and/or melts plastic it comes into contact with.

Karl's streaming JP again and giving away more prizes 7:00-9:00 - contest guesses are due SOON:

https://www.twitch.tv/iepinball

Type !contest in the chat to see the rules.

Does it lower in the test mode properly?

Basically go into switch test mode and try to manually trigger the switches around the motor that controls tilt (on the bottom of the back of the backboard) to make sure all three work. If they DO, then you just need to see which one is 66 (by triggering and looking on the screen) and then adjust the arm on that switch.

jp_trex_tilt_down (resized).jpg

For the head lowering, it's all on the backside of the board where the head is mounted, where the arrow is pointing in the picture I posted.

Glad you are on the right track now. That assembly on the back is held on by 4 nuts. I'd take them off which will let you swing the assembly up (it's still tethered to the dino head) and remove the arm to the dino head, then you can work on it and put it back when you have the switch replaced.

Hope you ordered some spares. It's not an uncommon switch, and nice to have on hand when one fails.

Marco white is the bounciest, best quality out there, in my experience.

If they're just on the surface and not grooves in the clear, ball trails can be removed with a damp magic eraser. Rub lightly, then clean the area and wax to prevent it from getting bad enough to need a magic eraser again.

I am not a fan of horror AT ALL, and Walking Dead became one of my favorite pins once I finally tried it. Adding a ColorDMD helps, but once you're into the pin, the ugliness of the playfield and toys don't really even matter. It can be brutally hard, but when you have a game where you click with it, the game is a rush.

Yeah, the grinding noise is coming from inside the hous(ing of the motor).

Stern has been using bad coil stops for at least 4 years. This is not limited to JP. Stern, like shingles, doesn't care.

Elden Ring is EXCELLENT. Game of the decade. Destroys all the souls games that came before it and mixing souls gameplay ideas with an open world concept really made an amazing experience. Some of the areas you wander through you find yourself just marveling at how lived-in and amazing it looks.

If it weren't for the performance issues and the server problems at launch that prevented playing online, it would be a solid 10/10. But even with those caveats, it's still at least a 9.5/10 and I haven't seen anywhere near all the areas and secret areas there are in the game yet.

It's the hardest souls-style game yet. But you just want to keep playing, more than any of the ones before. Really premium work from the graphics to the music to the monsters to the world systems to the locations - all of it, except performance. Without VRR, it's nauseating to play. Thankfully our LG OLED has it so not a worry once we enabled it.

Depends on which connector. CN11 is ~2A.

The Art of Pinball T-Rex is awesome, but I'm not really a fan of his signs for the two ramps. I like the ones Mezel has more, but even they get it wrong IMO. The circle for the light on Mezel's should have been removed and the names "ADVANCE PADDOCK" "EXTRA BALL" etc, should have been translucent so the actual words light up when that's available. With no circle, the lettering could have been bolder and larger, too.

Both versions are way better than stock, that's for sure.

Or throw a digital caliper on there and measure the thickness...

I'm currently working to catch up on orders so these new items are not in the store yet, but just wanted to post a heads up on these three JP brackets that will be in the pinmonk store here (and on pinmonk.com) soon.

First is a gradient bracket from yellow to orange for the all-white inserts on the center shot:
Rescue_Ladder_Before_After_small (resized).jpg

This is a bracket to make the electricity more of a bluish color instead of stark white:
electricity_bracket_before_after_small (resized).jpg

Finally, the Nublar is a light-blocking bracket like the RUSH owl eyes so the mountain picture doesn't have insert starburst bleeding through. Just the explosion area at the top and sides are lit.
nublar_bracket_before_after-sml (resized).jpg

Appreciate the support. I would have already put them up, but I need to get caught up on orders and didn't want to put 3 new things in the store until I could ship them right away. Shouldn't be long, though.

It's not normal. There's an extensive series of posts I did in the Foo thread as I investigated the issue, testing parts, bringing in samples, etc. I finished with a keypost in that thread summarizing the problem's root cause and fix. The problem is low-spec caps from CDE, starting in the 2022 batches. They changed something with the construction of the cap internals, which made them heavier and reduced the quality substantially. The tolerance is 20% on a 10k ohm cap. 2021 and before, most of them tested at about 9500 ohm or above, about 5% reduction from 10k stated value. The 2022 batch has mostly ones that test at 8500 or below (15% up to about 18% off stated value) and that's a real problem because once you're under about 8500, the meanwell power supply thinks there's a short at powerup because the caps aren't charging up as they should. They're slow. The clicking is the power supply protection circuit clicking on and off until the caps finally charge enough. It is ABSOLUTELY not normal. I'd press Stern tech. They know what the problem is. They're likely just trying not to have to replace hundreds or thousands of Power Distribution Boards.

You CAN fix this yourself if you have the soldering skills (these caps are a pain to get out, so if you're a novice, lifting a trace by leaning on it too long is possible, which would make things worse). Based on samples I've brought in, any of the 2021 lots (printed on the cap with week/year format) from CDE will test over 9k, and probably 9.5k. Replacing all three with 2021 lot CDE caps fixes it completely. Costs about $10 plus $8 shipping.

Stern knows it's a problem. Anything more than 3-4 clicks and I'd press them for a warranty swap. The unfortunate thing is some of the swapped PDBs have the problem, too. Are you getting blown off by your dist or Stern direct?

Looks like Stern part number for NYLON SPACER - BLACK - 3/8 OD X .175 ID X 1/4" is 254-5000-09.

I'm pretty sure you could find this part at someplace like Ace Hardware or any good hardware store with bins of small bulk parts.

The thread on the excessive clicking cause and solution has a youtube clip with an excessive example in the first post here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-clicking-power-supply-fix

Haha, NEED is a bit strong, but quiet fans for Spike2 machines is certainly in the "want" category for most people once those ultra-crappy, even louder-somehow powernex fans that are in the Spike2 Meanwell power supplies kick on.

With every release, I wonder if this is the one where Stern addresses the noisy fan like Gomez said they would over 2 years ago. I basically now think it will happen with Spike3 or never, and JAWS seems like a good time to debut Spike3, so we'll see...

Yeah, you're likely experiencing the difference between the NMB fans that were in there that were loud and annoying and the PowerNex fans they changed to that are slightly louder in dB, but at a higher much more annoying frequency. It's moved a lot of people off the fence.

Look for loose wires, and manually see if the jaw opens and closes easily by hand. I seem to remember some had the plastic jaw pieces get jammed so it couldn't open its mouth correctly.

You might want to try just negotiating for some spare PDBs and then have two fixed so you have a working spare. Something like "send me two PDBs and I'll consider this claim fulfilled, then I can have the PDBs fixed so they don't cause clicking." A couple PDBs will be a lot cheaper than sending PDBs and power supplies back and forth. Maybe they'll go for it.

I also have a different meanwell power supply coming that can handle 350% power temporarily, which should solve the inrush problem (the Stern PDB is technically past the spec for the power supply's max transitory output, which happens at boot when the three caps want to fill up). So IF that works, fixing the issue might be as simple as replacing the power supply and you can leave the PDB alone. Unfortunately, that's about $170.

It'll all continue to be updated in the clicking thread here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-clicking-power-supply-fix