I'm going purely off that video posted. I still need to play the new code. See how they feel to me now.

And vex, it's okay for things to not be perfect. ACDC has shitty art. It's still a great game.

I would love to be able to own a premium, and maybe someday I will, however...
If you could give me an extra $2-$3K I could own a Premium or LE now, its either that or tell my daughter that she has to skip a semester of collage so that I can upgrade a pinball machine...

i absolute love this new update.. i shooted some footage of it.. the Crank it up modes are great.. i managed to get two of those in 1 game. enjoy the video (PS: the video is still cooking/processing, quality is not high yet)

hi Roy... nice to have putted the cam on your cap

LOL, Mystery Award, 500,000.....Mystery Award 500,000

the irony of that happening with the new code update is LOL

I'm most definitely not having that issue

LOL I know that never happens ! :p

Same as always for me, although I'm getting a lot more phantom hammers, even with the ball cradled on the flipper.

My first time doing a update guys and I'm guessing the machine is smarter than me.... I turned game on, went to to update code, flipped top switch to on , installed flash drive into board , the hit select on the coin door controls and it just says rebooting...... For like 20 mins, nothing happens..... What am I doing wrong? Thanks guys

Did you toggle adjustment #80?

And if you do the above with no USB drive installed what happens? If it boot and asks for USB drive, get another USB. If it does the same thing, your boot rom is probably corrupted. You'll have to call stern.

I had to download the code 2 times the first time it said nothing on the USB key!

Try erasing your code file on your key and download the code from Stern again!

Cool video and good game. You should turn sounds way down relative to music and then crank up the music. I heard the sound volume of over the music throughout video. Was one of the better looking vids though so thanks for sharing.

I tried it without the USB file inserted and when I hit the white reset button it just freezes

Eh, don't sweat it too much. I'm quite happy with my Pro and if you are that's all that matters. It's all an act of delusion; we're all idiots. We spend thousands on toys

You've got to unzip the file. It's the .bin file you need

If you are freezing up without the USB inserted, it obviously has nothing to do with the contents of the USB. Call Stern. Your boot rom is hosed. It's possible that an updated ROM will fix it, or possible that you need a new CPU board. They'll help you.

Sorry guys, all this is irrelevant to his problem. He cant even get it to boot without the usb inserted.

Can someone with a premium or LE go into their switch test and give me the switch numbers (row col) for each of the two spinners? Is it 37 and 38?

It does say in the readme 'need more speech' dunno if that's just for Sandman CIU though

Just found it, thanks guys .... The legs were bent to hell on the EPROM ( guessing that the right name) 3 weren't even seated into the connectors....

38 39 Mark!

Wow what an update, more than i was expecting and with another one in a couple of weeks should complete game or come close.
Plays like a new game with lighting improvements now assisting shot selection..go the blue spider. magnets really come into play now. Hammer working 100% reduced slings to 20, no air ball so far.

Cheers to you Stern and team

Been playing all day...i Love what Lyman is doing,i love going for modes,more then going for money
END OF THE LINE is awesome,maybe 2 crank i up today...hope CIU will be a little less
hard for my game!

Alright. Thank you.

No Metallica at Pinball Land today. Back to Plan B, raid Rarehero's house! I'm pretty sure he's already done the impossible and talked me into looking for a Hammer-laden Premium over the Pro though.

Aurich, seems probable that they'd fire up the assembly line and crank out some MET goodness. Maybe if they do some premiums, the hammer issues would be ironed out already and would be good to go? I know there is lots of talk of the quality control, but surely any new premiums would have the new hammer board installed etc. right?

For the record, I'm happy with my Pro. But if I were in your situation I'd be considering the Premium too. Esp if I could guarantee that the hammer would work. The colored inserts and GI seems like it might be worth it. Cross and snake jaw I think I could do without.

Oh and I'd have to have the Monster/dirty Donny/looks like the pro cabinet/backglass. The road case/binge and purge premium isn't my cup of tea.

If you do get one, will you be doing up any of your magic on it? Like Rule/price apron cards/decals etc.?

Yeah, that's what's doing me in, it just sounds like something I don't want to miss out on. The toys aren't such a big deal to me, but there's just a lot going on now with the Prem/LE lighting. I'll make it out to Greg's some night next week and see what I think. I'm not in a rush to buy, Star Trek is still new in my collection, but have to see how much longer they're gonna run it on the line.

Yeah, for sure. Not entirely certain what all I'll touch, but you know me, can't leave well enough alone! Once the band member modes are in and the bugs worked out I'll look at condensing the rules into a card or two. Might take two for this one now like AC/DC did with everything Lyman is doing. There's a pattern forming here ...

Band members don't do much right now, but is there a pattern to which member is awarded first? I almost always get Lars first, but I played two quick games today and got Kirk on the first one. I'm pretty sure I've gotten James before, and pretty sure I've never gotten Robert. Just curious. Maybe it'll make more sense in two weeks.

And the three round inserts that echo the pop bumpers near the FUEL lane entrance. Any ideas yet? I watched a friend play on his MET Premium and they were solid/flashing/all on/some on, etc. I watched them when his ball was in the pops, and they didn't do anything. I never really notice them when I'm playing on my Pro. Thanks!

I think this whole hammer problem is being blown out of proportion, unless I just got lucky. Even on the 1.22 code, rarely got phantom hits. Cant say on the new code yet thought, but feel that a few people who have had problems are outweighing the many who have not.

You might want to spend time playing both. Here is my break down in my opinion of course:

- color changing arrows - big plus on the premium. No alternative on the pro. This is the number 1 reason to go premium.
- colored GI segments - while neat, it's not as big of an impact as say xmen or acdc. A nicely led pro does well here. Not just as well but it's not huge either
- snake jaw - I think this is another big one. Especially with the add a ball multiball. The pro gives you option to immediate spit out the ball or if you don't enable that, you might get two stuck in there, which sucks if you only have two balls left in the mb.
- cross - I prefer the stationary one over the moving one. The flashers behind the cross are directly visible to the eye when the cross is down. The stationary one looks cool and has flasher built in
- Spinners - nice effect. No rules to them yet. Sounds are neat. But not a game changer
- hammer - this is pretty bad ass now. I really like it. But the downside is:
- captive ball - pro has an awesome captive ball. Premium has a horrible square plate. Common shots are captive ball bounce into snake. Captive ball bounce into sparky. Captive ball bounce over left ramp. With the square plate, you can occasionally do some of these things but not very often, not very easy to do them intentionally, and the ball always kind of comes back dead. It's not near as fun to shoot.

In my opinion, it really comes down to captive ball vs color changing inserts. You should spend time on both games to really decide.

Premium all the way if you can afford it..otherwise the Pro is pretty bad ass.

block and hammer are cool and after a while you learn best angles to shoot to get different results off the block

My STLE had same problem. Contact Stern & they should send you a new board or chip

Yup because it doesn't happen for you, those of us who it DOES happen for are imagining it!! Not like Stern did a new board or anything :p

Hmmmm where to start.

The GI effects are sweet on the Premium especially in Fade to Black. This is a major addition over the pro. No nicely LED'd pro will give you some of the cool light shows you get for the supers or other modes on the premium.

Spinners are also great for completing Fade to Black since its all about switch hits. Think what the spinner to pops does for Bonesaw on Spiderman. Also very nice to rip the spinner in fuel.

Snake is great on the premium especially with the add a ball & snake MB rules.

If you cant afford the 2k extra get the Pro. If money is not an issue like it is with many on here picking the Pro over the Premium is a bad move IMO.

pro VS pre/le

of course money is a key too, but seems that most of people are more afraid about the hammer toy, not only if it's working well or not, but also his position, hidding a (big) part of the sparky... !?

now, may be it will be nice to know and have a more "real" idea on how the hammer is working, creating a poll and than also collect the vote from those with the hammers working perfectly (because most of time only those with probs are posting)

waiting for my pro end of month, i'm still convince it's the good choice about MET... but... !?

Got my pro yesterday, big thanks to Trent of Tilt. I played a friends LE a couple weeks ago on old code. I think I will miss the light show but I am extremely happy with my game. The new code is freaking great. I would have thanked him in person at Louisville if I had a chance but, thank you Lyman!!

I didnt say you were imagining it, but I think the few that it is happening to are more vocal, so the perception is there that the hammer I'd problematic across the board, which I don't think is the case. Either way, I hope you get it resolved!

The hammer does not hide Sparky, at all! I'm 5.foot 6.and can see Sparky in his entirety. Both feet and up. No blockage at all

My hammer hasn't been a problem either. The only problem I have lately,is every time I nail sparky,the ball launches up & hits him in the head(funny the first few times)& lands somewhere that takes a while to get back on the PF.

Just thought I would throw this out there to people having issues with their hammer (Ha! that sounds funny). I was having intermittent problems with mine on the LE (mostly the switch #63 would not register and the magnet would not always grab/grab and hold the ball, even in test). In game play when the magnet did grab the ball it would let go of it prior to the hammer coming down. I had been battling this issue for months, not really sure what I could do as I had already tried two replacement magnet boards from Stern. I also removed the thermal fuse from the magnet, thinking that could be causing my problem...no luck.

So, I finally removed the whole assembly and stuck my multi meter on the magnet leads to check resistance (which I had done before very early on), and it read 5.0-5.2 which seemed normal. However, this time I left my meter connected for a while and just watched the readout. Sure enough it started to randomly flake out, and got worse when I moved the wires around.

Turns out one of the wires was broken inside the casing with no visible damage to the outside. I cut the wires and and re-soldered them to the magnet leads and sure enough my symptoms were completely gone.

Had a similar issue on my Avengers with the hulk arms up and down coil. Broken wire where it was zip-tied to the mounting bracket.

Hope that helps someone in some way!

John
D&G Amusement

A pinsider created a new custom plastic to replace the one in front of sparky to prevent this kind of problem:

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/is-it-possible-to-reproduce-pinball-plastics-including-artwork-at-home/page/2#post-1310315

Was thinking of doing this myself.

I had sparky airballs too. I cut a new piece of plastic that makes more of a shelf in front of sparky and now the ball is kept down. Really simple. Take stock one off game trace around it on a piece of polycarbonate i got from lowes, and then cut it out using band saw, use a drill press to drill out the mounting holes, and boom no more airballs.

Updated and played Terry's on Saturday. No issues with the hammer so it's not a UK thing.

Yep thats the pics from the plastic i made. I was too lazy to go look for the link. Hehe!

I can make a few if people are interested. Just shoot me a pm and we can work it out. Im not looking to make money and dont have a ton of time, but id make a few if people are interested.

Fade to Black is the most impressive implementation of lighting that I've seen in any mode in quite some time.

I put up a poll a few days ago and approx. 90% of owners on 1.50 code are reporting no problems.

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/metallica-premiumle-owners-how-is-your-hammer

You know, hitting up Joe or someone with a laser cutter to make a batch would be a super easier way to do those if you wanted to make a stack for people. Just a thought.

It's quite possible that the answer is in here already and I missed it, but I have a question about completing the coffin requirements to start CIU. On a MET Pro, if it matters. On default settings, you have to hit it 15 times. Can you collect all 15 during a multiball or does it stop registering them once you light the lock? If the stacking setting is enabled, does that change the collection toward CIU or just toward coffin multiball?