Hi dear fellow Pinsiders,

I may have a problem on my #Lord of the Rings.

Sometimes, when a lock on the right ramp (for The Two Towers Multiball) is lit and the ball comes down from the VUK or the one ring to the sword-ramp the game will lock the ball. First of all I thought the switch on the ramp close to the VUK (switch 22) would be bad, but after some time I figured out, that the game releases a ball from the ramp when the switch (22) gets hit and then it will lock it. Like I said, just sometimes and I just watched this, when at least 1 ball was already locked up. I am a bit confused.
Is the game acting normal or is there a bad switch?

Do you have any idea, what could cause that to happen?

I am thankful for every one of your suggestions

LOTR Switches (resized).JPG

Maybe, it could also be, that the switches 17, 18 and 19 aren't alright.

What do you think about that?

Thanks a lot!
And thanks for your advice to use a ball, otherwise I couldn't have detected the error.

It seems so, that switch 17 isn't working alright.

When hitting the right ramp all the 3 switches (17, 18 and 19) are working, but when the ball comes down from the one ring or the VUK the game just shows me, that switches 18 and 19 are working.

I tried to bend the switch a bit it didn't work.
Do you have any advice how I can bend that switch better? I don't want to break it.

Or would you advise me to replace the switch. And if, do I have to disassemble the whole right ramp?

Sorry for the late reply, I had a different problem on my LOTR with the flipper coil, to take care of first, which is fixed now.

Thanks, I first thought of that too, but how can it happen, that the game releases one ball and after that it locks it? Is that caused by the switch 22 not registering properly? I had that once with the snake switch on my Metallica. It would kick out the ball, but it wouldn't register a hit. Tomorrow I am going to take a look at switch 22, maybe I try to bend it a bit, I hope that gives me progress towards saving the issue. After that I'll post here, with which conclusion I came up.

Thanks for your suggestion, but recognizing what HighVoltage says it is actually the opposite.

And that would actually make sense. It is a way how I can imagine, that whole issue being able to happen.

I did a few more tests with the game, and found out, that switch 22 is working just fine, whether I move the ball fast or slow through the gate.

I have bend switch 22 a bit and the error sometimes still occurs. Though the switch is, in my opinion registering properly.

So I came up with the solution, that the cause must be switch 17. It is the only switch the game doesn't register properly. I ordered a new one, because it isn't working alright anyways. I'll maybe get the new switch on Wednesday and then I'll write, if that fixed the issue. If that isn't the solution I am going to follow HighVoltage's advice to concentrate on switch 22 and maybe I'll have to replace it too then. I really appreciate all of your help. You are a great community!

I have bend switch 22 some more, before I wanted to replace switch 17, and now the game seems to work well.
Thanks for all your advice!