Metallica owner's thread

Hey guys, maybe you can help ne with my little met problem...

So when i play for the 3 droptargets and then i shoot the cross with the magnet in front and the magnet "starts" i get a loud humming during the magnet is active.

If the sparky magnet is active i don't hear any humm or noise.

Hope you van give me a hint how to solve the Problem.

Here’s a few pics. In real life it looks like glass.

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if you don't mind me asking, what is the manufacturing date of your playfield?

I’m selling the Modfather shooter rod I took off my Metallica. It’s in great shape, asking $30 which includes shipping anywhere in the continental U.S. That’s about half of what they go for new.

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Ok, I'm getting a replacement field for my ghosted Met Pro. I've had this pin for a little over a year, and it has some decent ghosting and has been slowly getting worse and new inserts are being affected. I really didn't push hard for this, but am very grateful and feel better about having the replacement. The reason I didn't push for this is I have a Refinery edition (heavily modified), and am a little intimidated about the transfer of the mods. For the people who have replaced the field (excluding any mods), is it pretty straight forward? Just curious on the main process...number of connectors in the box, any grounds I need to worry about, is anything in the back box I need to worry about? I'm not shy about most things with working on pins, but I suck at soldering (I'm too shaky). Any info on the process is appreciated.

I’m in the middle of this. The worst part is getting the harness to go from the head to the cab if you don’t remove the wire holders.

Most the plugs come off the boards in the head. And get removed with the pf. New pf comes and the mod swap takes a bit but the new pf mounts and plugs in. However! My switch harness didn’t align so I called and they are shipping some adapter.... see how that goes. Otherwise my met pro is sitting with an attact mode and nothing else... no switches work

For those who have received replacement playfields. I have a quite a few mods (custom Sparky, snake head with LED eyes, colored leds, and more). I plan to remove these things before I send the damaged playfield back. Does Stern care if Sparky,etc is missing. I've told Pat Powers what I'm gonna do, but he hasn't responded. I assume they don't care...as the playfield will probably be dumped. Just curious for those who have been through this.

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Like, you just opened it? Either way. Those decals are easy to replace. Contact Stern and I'm sure they will have no problem sending you a replacement.

Yes, this game is not mine but it was JUST opened (NIB) and now only has a few plays on it. The decal on the coin door also said "STAR TREK" and not "Metallica". The decals are coming off on both sides.

That is hilarious, gonna need some pics of that.

Wow! I'd keep the "Star Trek". In 10 years may be worth more due to mistake. Either way. Easy to fix, and I'm sure Stern will send you replacements.

so i played around with Pin Browser to add some different tracks to Metallica ... Click, Click, Boom and Dragula are pretty cool additions and go well with the pace... on the other hand, I also added a Charlie Puth track for my wife. Pro is now my wife loves to play pinball, CON is I have Charlie Puth on my Metallica...

Oh crap. I think Stern better start doing random drug testing. Gotta see pictures of that F up.

Mmm i didn’t have a custom sparky but left my shooter lane cliffy on. The new pf came fully populated so that may have to wait for pat.

Ya my met did this and it’s old. I have new decals waiting but I’m waiting to install.

A simple glue stick rubbed on the side of the backbox will re-adhere those peeling decals. Right side of my game started peeling like that and it's been fine for 6 months now. I have a replacement sideart, but I didn't want to use it if I didn't have to.

Here is the game with the Starr trek decal. This is a NIB game. The game does not belong to me. A

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How many eyes saw that at Stern and they still sent it out like that.

On my met pre. They forgot to put a sticker on the coin door.

I understand it is a NIB game, but is it NIB from a couple years ago? Just curious if it was built back when they were building Star Trek. I think that was around the time they had issues with Metallica decals.

I just threw up a little in my mouth

That's embarrassing. It's pretty obvious what cab that is since Metallica is spelled out just a few inches below the coin door. Maybe it was a new hire working on a Friday afternoon on payday. Maybe the game was stored in a hot warehouse for a while and that would explain the decals peeling. Either way, just looks bad on Stern.

the strange part about the decals is that this was a known problem when stern first switched over to the metal back boxes. when we took the tour 2 years ago, I remember seeing a make-shift sign taped onto a metal back box stating "new adhesive - don't touch"

why this is still an issue is a mystery (unless they still had some of the "old" adhesive lying around and a worker grabbed and used it

Wonder how long the distributor had that thing.

Someone probably installed a coin door from Star Trek on the assembly line... crazy stuff. I'm sure the distro and stern will make it right though.

After looking at the build date on the back it says May of 2015.

Spent all day pulling mods off. That's done, and I looked at the wiring Any advice of how to get the harnesses from the cab to the head. I want to keep the wire holders on if possible. Don't need a knotted spaghetti mess. I thought the installation wouldn't be that bad...now, I'm not so sure.

Any advice is welcome...but I think I'm seeing it. A lot of planning and moving slow. Tons of pics and videos. I'm so looking forward to the new playfield, and even though this is a pain, I'm thankful Stern took care of me.

I ended up cutting my holders open and feeding the wires down easier. Just need to find more zip ties to reattach but that is easy compared to not cutting them.

They shipped the new pf with the right wire holder but not the left. Iirc

Also, you may have to call stern tech support and ask for the switch harness adapter.

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Before I do something stupid, I am in the middle of unhooking the playfield from the boards in the head. Was going well until it seems some of the wire groups have other wire groups going through them. I could disconnect everything, but that's gonna be a huge pain to disconnect and pull all the wires out, and then rerun the wires that aren't part of the playfield. Is it wrong to clip the wires connected to the playfield at the harness (connector), thus each wire is individual and will come out easy. I understand that all the harness would have to be reconnected if the playfield ever is going to be used again...but I assume that Stern is just gonna throw these playfields away. Any advice?

Ive never done a playfield swap, but at the factory they build / wire the playfields with the harnesses on them and then put them in the cabinet and run the wires up into the head. So id think you shoukd be able to get all the wires down out of your backbox and into the cabinet so they can come out with the playfield.

Maybe have to clip some zip ties, but certainly think you dont have to and shouldnt cut wires out of connectors. I wouldnt do that at least.

I didn't cut the wires. Just kept going. Damn! This is more work than I thought, but done. Next is send it off, and then the fun begins putting the new playfield back in. Spike may have its issues, but a SAM playfield swap is not an easy thing to do. I watched a Spike (GB) playfield swap and that looked like a piece of cake.

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I had the left foot on my sparky break off. I got it NIB at the start of 2017. I sent a pic to the distributor, he talked to his guy at Stern, I had a new sparky in less than 10 days and they said I'm fine to keep the broken one. First time I've had to deal with any issues and I must say I was stoked with the service. Now time to customize my new sparky

yeah, it's kind of sad that all of the right side wiring harnesses have disconnects inside of the cabinet, but the left side cables all run up to the power driver board. you'd think that they would have done the same thing to make inserting/removing the playfield a bit easier

plus, getting some of those molex connectors off of the board can be a real b*tch. I know this for a fact, when my Q19 transistor blew and I had to replace it

Let me just say that Metallica is our current GO TO pin. We've had it since March (Nov 2016 build date), drop shipped from Stern. I haven't had one issue besides waiting in line to play when we have parties.

At least three friends now want to buy Metallicas but they're very hard to find here in SoCal. (unless you buy new).

Anyway, we love the game.

Love my Met, same dilemma I had as I was looking for a good condition used one. Well nobody wants to sell Met and if they do, they sell for almost NIB price so I just went for a NIB.

Mmm glad you didn’t cut the wires. I had to loosen the left board, slide up, then could get more connectors out. Also I think I had to cut many zip ties to open up wire bundles. Putting it back was not nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be, but it also isn’t a tight neat harness now.

Your pf ships and about 3-4 days it usually gets there then they like super ship your new on on a pallet. So you’ll probably get a call from a driver

Thanks for your help. I keep going over everything in my mind...feel like I took too much out, but that’s the way it was. I even reopened it and ran the wires again this morning...all looked correct. Should get the box any day now and it’ll get shipped back to Stern. Hopefully get the new one and all installed in the next week or 2.

Man I thought video or pics of our tear out mah of helped someone but I have barely heard of anyone swapping met pf’s, so I didn’t .

It looks super hard but isn’t too bad once you unzip tie. Took me longer to take my mods off lol

If pat from stern calls and you have an led met with the pcb leds for the fuel lights (center of pf) ask for them to throw in the switch harness. Otherwise you’ll be waiting 5 more days after calling and having them ship it

Wondering if the shaker motor is worth getting? I've not played a machine with one and wonder if it's used much in Metallica?
May sound dumb, but does it hurt reliability with it shaking the game?
Thanks!

It's absolutely worth getting. I love when Sparky multiball starts and the whole machine shakes as he's being fried!

Shaker is a must in Metallica!!!!!!!!!!

No it doesn't hurt the game, just don't get the Red Tremmor, it's to much shake

Can someone post a pic of the under playfield for the fuel insert pcb. Mine is a 2013 incandescent pro and i have sockets for each light individually. Just curious. Didnt remember peeps talking about that board when they made the switch to led pros.

Maybe they have had several minor revisions over the years that they have run Met.

Interesting

Thanks guys! I'll be ordering a shaker

I thought only the Prem/LE had those LED boards? I have an LED Pro built last year and it uses regular sockets.

Also, if you have the premium, the hammer drop is incredible with a shaker. Metallica really uses the shaker well.

That makes sense.

I say skip the shaker and get a subwoofer instead. The bass thump is more fitting to the theme.

A sub is no replacement for a shaker. A shaker is not sound activated but is programmed to go off during certain game events. I highly recommend BOTH a sub and shaker for Metallica.

Yeah I have a sub and the Stern shaker. Completely agree with snakesnsparklers. They both do different things.