Late last week I finally got to bring home the Met Premium I agreed to buy, sight unseen (just in pictures) and having never played metallica at all, about a month ago. It plays well (as I'd expect from a 2017 game) but definitely needs a good cleaning. The ColorDMD and HIRES combo on this thing is gorgeous, and I really like the powered blades it has on the sides. It gives a great effect when the game turns off the white GI.

Aside from general cleaning I seem to have the same issue a lot of prem/LE owners have: a chattery snake and the occasional "can't close" error message.. but it seems to work fine during gameplay, or at least I think so... I did have to adjust a few other weird things (behind the opto for sparky it was getting light bleed because the paper was folded the wrong way) and the cliffy in front of the jaw is.. not even secured on one side. I was thinking about just 'downgrading' to the captive ball setup on the pro because I think the block looks dumb anyway.

Hopefully I can get the snake to be a bit less......annoying. I think that's the only gripe its really giving me thus far. Awesome game -- of course being a lifetime metallica fan helps!

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Yeah, it's supposed to be secured by one of those 3 bolts for the Newton block. I'll fix it when I get the captive ball and can replace the whole thing.

I have a feeling it's going to take a lot more tinkering to get the snake to stop being so fussy.

I would assume so, yeah.

Moving day. Not going to lie, I regret pulling the playfield. Wish me luck...

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I just didn’t want to have to ask anyone for help today is all. I can plug it all back in, I’m sure. But taken down in a bunch of pieces I was able to get it all downstairs by myself.

And that landing is nowhere near big enough to accommodate a full cab with head. I’ve tried pretty much every era of pin and none of them work. At best it requires 3+ people, with it strapped to an appliance dolly, and once it hits the second to last step it has to be pivoted to make the corner. Then I have to be careful to not hit my world of Nintendo display cabinet against the wall. In some ways this is just easier. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to vacuum out and dust the inside of the cab.

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I love it enough to warrant doing this...I guess that says something lol. I probably won’t be willing to take black knight sword of rage apart when it gets here...I’ll just make sure I have ample help to lug it down.

I’ve never taken anything newer than WPC apart like this so this is definitely a new adventure..but I THINK (hope? lol) it goes back together without issue. I guess I’ll know by tonight.

Funny, also, I just got back from delivering my cactus jacks to a guy in saint louis (he drove from Indiana). No other pinball activities while I was there though!

Stupid cable fell down and I forgot to plug it back in. All good now.

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It certainly does come across as a horrific prospect but as someone who has disassembled most every era of pin now, multiple times, I will say..it's not so bad as long as you take lots of pictures, label everything you can, ONLY unplug what you truly need to unplug (unfortunately on Metallica that's a *lot*, including every damn thing in the head), and otherwise document everything you can. Go slow on reassembly and double-check your work on anything you're not really, really sure on. Most of the time it's pretty difficult to plug things together that shouldn't go together but it's certainly possible.

Metallica had a few confusing things that I got caught by--black/white plug going in to double blue plug by the transformer, interlock switch connectors (which I labeled top to bottom but forgot to take note of which contacts on the switch were left open; had to consult the manual and it confused me so I ended up plugging it in how I thought was backwards but actually correct -- lol) and my GI plug slid down into the loom and I missed plugging it back in, but otherwise it all went without a hitch. Easy peasy, but definitely intimidating as I went further along and realized just *how*many* damn plugs I was dealing with.

Glad to be rid of this piece of crap. Secured the cliffy while I was at it and gave it a slight bend since it wasn’t sitting flat.

Still haven’t tried to tweak the snake’s mouth yet as it does seem to ‘function’ fine during gameplay, but I’ll get to that soonish. Mounted my new sign also. I’ll install the new pop caps when I can do a proper teardown (Enough to really clean it). No sense doing it twice.

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https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/535-9522-00

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/535-9523-00

Then just a normal pinball inside.

Indeed I do!

I like the purple so much better than the green mine has. I wonder how terrible Tron would look with green.. I'd love to steal the black stock parts from it in order to turn them purple like this and transplant onto Met...

I definitely agree the purple is best. I think green looks 'okay'..certainly good enough if I just leave mine as-is..but that purple....guh!

I've been looking for an excuse to powdercoat something purple. Tron felt like a bit of a stretch (although at least the TRON letters are purple) but Metallica.....Ugh. It feels like it just needs to be done. lol

Guess I need to go looking for some used rails/legs/lock bar so I can get rolling on it. I'm not sure I can handle having either machine down while parts are off being beautified.

Oh, those are HOT!

Dumb question I'm sure but I haven't even started investigating because I've been stuck trudging through hell with my eight ball deluxe hardtop..

My snake is throwing errors and is very...chatty. but it seems to work okay when I play, at least as far as I can tell. I assume I need to disassemble, adjust and/or replace something, and reassemble. I haven't even started digging through my manual so if the procedure is fully detailed in there by all means just tell me to RTFM. Posting here while the manual isn't in front of me so I can deal with it..soonish. Is this assembly a PITA to work with, or something that's really not too big a deal?

Bought a neat powered full range speaker at a garage sale today so I hooked it up to Metallica. Didn't really give me what I wanted, probably because I already have upgraded speakers which get loud as hell..so I tried a 10" KLH sub I had laying around. Decent, but felt I could still do better so I stuck a 12" JBL sub under it. Tron can have the KLH.

Subs are fun

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AHAHAHA bingo.

Went to adjust my overly chatty (and sometimes error-throwing) snake mech and found that one of the cables was trapped under the bracket. Loosened the bracket, pulled the cable out, and all good now. Silly how something like that gets missed, but if it wasn't completely level (even just a tiiiiiiiiiiiny bit) I can see why it was kind of grumpy! Glad it's a bit less chatty now. I finally installed the new pop covers too. Any other cool mods I'm missing on this thing?

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Having spent $7000 on my met premium and $7600 on my tron pro I'll agree...lots more mets to choose from.

Jfc I can't believe I spent this kind of money on any pins, ever...

Tron is one of a handful of games that has gone absolutely balls-high compared to its original MSRP. It doesn't happen that often.

I mean, it's the state of the hobby so it is what it is. But I'm a cheapo budget collector. I've been trading up with cheap pins (IE $1000-2000 pins) for the past year..I guess the goal was to get to a couple of expensive ones but it's still crazy for me to think I've gotten here at all.

Are you really clowning Tron as NOT being a 'commercial grade' pin?

No idea. I kinda felt both ways when I read and then reread.

Tron is an awesome game......imo. As is Metallica.

AHAHAHA touche. I've not been much of a player (let alone collector) of newer games period so I can't speak on a lot of this. Met and Tron were my two biggest grail titles. I have a Black Knight Sword of Rage coming in a week or so (straight across trade for a super cheap Avengers Hulk LE I bought) and I've never played it. Guess I'll see if I like it at all. Hard to go wrong with a Ritchie game USUALLY and I love the black knight IP. These three are likely it for me as far as moderns go for...a while.

We all have our own opinions I guess. I don't have the wealth of experience that a lot of others in this hobby have so I try not to talk down on most games. It is what it is lol

There are a few cases where I'm pretty jealous of those who were able to buy NIB: Metallica (prem/LE) Tron, and JJP Pirates. But I doubt I'll ever be able to make such a move. My wife is already less than pleased with the amount of money that's been poured into my collection (plus all the parts!) these past two years.

I'm pretty excited. I paid $4000 for the Hulk LE and have to cover shipping on the trade so I'm in to this BKSOR for $4650 which sounds just peachy to me. I miss the Black Knight 2000 I once had (really only for the music / call outs / overall "cool" factor..I think the game is kinda boring) so this is a very welcome addition. I took the Hulk LE to my friend's house over a month ago, about a week after I bought it, so I've been *trying* to patiently wait for the payoff. Glad it's almost done, lol.

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Mine came with that giant ass screen with smoothed color graphics. Some don't like it, it seems, bit I LOVE it.

That's where I am with my World Cup Soccer. I think it looks AWESOME with it..but that's a ton of cash for something like that and I'm already bleeding out from all the other crap I buy, lol

Will do! Hopefully it's not a maintenance queen, I already have enough of those!

Hear! Hear!

Hard to see myself letting go of Metallica.. Ever. I feel that way about Met, Tron (big surprise, both Borg masterpieces) and World Cup Soccer.

Metallica especially is just awesome.

LOL. That is funny. I've been there before, too. I have absolutely no idea what to expect out of BKSOR. I know a lot of people seem to really dislike the upper PF but I just can't imagine playing any sort of "Black Knight" game without one. That said, if it's way too difficult or I really don't like game play or *whatever* I won't hesitate for a second to move it on down the road so I can buy something else. I figure that's a big enough chip to wield to put me in play for almost any of the games I'd typically be going after (at my heart I seem to enjoy simpler games, like system 11 games. Complex modern games--think Star Wars--anger me to the point of just turning them off) and with a light investment on it I can still say I made out well along the way. But I really hope I love it and I just keep it!

I kind of see my Eight Ball Deluxe, High Speed, and Taxi in that 'really wouldn't want to sell' category too, tbh. So I'm pretty dug in on 6 of my pins with BKSOR being a question mark for the last spot. Not really sure what I'll do if I do love it/keep it and something ELSE comes along that I want to add. I'm not sure I could even really pick from my current 6 to pare down!

Pingraffix power bladez

Ohhhhh I didn't even notice those, but now I'm intrigued and I NEED them

I took my MPU and driver board over to a friend's house to help diagnose issues with his met (we think he has issues with some light boards that are bad, after diagnosing) and now that I have my game put back together I have a slew of solenoids that are out. Specifically the one at the top to prevent (or allow) the ball to make the loops, the drops, the hammer, snake, and coffin lock release.

I've verified and reverified all connections and checked voltage at ALL coils (they're all rock solid 75v) and can't figure anything out. Fuses are good, connections in both the backbox and playfield look good... Any suggestions?

Well sure, but I like helping friends where I can. Unfortunately it didn't seem to really help him much other than to rule boards in the backbox out of the equation but I digress. I don't know what could be wrong. Everything seems to work fine except for...several coils. :/

None of the problem ones respond in game or test mode. My slings work, as well as my pops. Just a bunch of others are suddenly out.

Nope, I triple checked, reseated cables, etc. I remember one time I was looking at fuses and there were several that weren't lit and I thought I might be on to something.. But then they all lit when I cycled power.

So I just pulled both solenoid fuses in order to test outside the game -- 3A and 5A. Tested both. Put them back in. Now it's all working again. W t f

Yeah I totally don't understand how reseating fuses did anything but whatever I guess.

Good point on the lights; I honestly can't remember if the door was open or not (it probably was) when I noticed several off. Makes sense.

I'm so jealous of the purple. Mine is green and I don't HATE it but I really love the purple on this game. Great choice!

Ordered Tron EL wire in January and.. Nothing. Site's dead and I'm super annoyed it's still even taking orders. PayPal said I'd have my money back in June. What a ridiculous fiasco.

I wouldn't bother, just call now. Your order isn't gonna be filled.

PayPal gave them TWO months to respond. Nothing.

Holy SH1T that looks bright

Nice pickup!

Mine came with the powerbladez. They. Are. Amazing.

Great game yesterday, can't crack 40mil today. Lol

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I mean, I'd say there rigid plastic probably does offer better protection than construction paper, but I'm sure both work just fine. No judgment here, to each their own.

Seems like a whole ass paragraph full o' big mad. You do you bubba.

I have the PBL protectors.. Haven't used em yet.. $35 apparently very well spent

Yeah, I purposely waited around and built an order with them as soon as they became available again because I wanted them so badly. Unfortunately both of my machines with blades (Tron has standard blades and Metallica has power blades) both have several scars already, so I haven't bothered to use the protectors yet. Haven't had the playfield up on Tron since I got them, I don't think. Speaking of, talk about a perfect game for some power blades (I checked, but I don't think there are any)..

I do need to get in the habit of using them, even if my current blades aren't perfect, if for no reason other than to do it without thinking when I finally have some that aren't beat up. And I agree, I think they're plenty worth the $35, personally. But I also can't fault anyone for not wanting to spring for them. They aren't TECHNICALLY needed at all, if you're reeeeeeally careful, every time.

Yep, at the cost of the power blades I think it's silly to not use the protectors.. Which means I need to start using mine.

Color LCD with HIRES is flat out amazing on met. I really want to do it to my world cup soccer but haven't yet been able to justify the cost. Hoping to get one for a gift at some point lol

I'll have to try that one and see what I think. I really like the HIRES!

Peer pressure got me to try these out. Pretty neat.

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Not usually a huge fan of chromed out games but that looks great! Nice work.

Well, it's been a rough couple of days for me on Met.. Everything seems to find the outlanes and I've struggled just to crack 10mil *facepalm*

So today I finally had an okay game going.. Nothing great, but a couple of EBs and I had worked through a couple MB cycles at least, and my score was in the 50ish mil range. Made it to casket MB and the first ball ejected, then the game just kept trying over and over to eject the other two... to no avail. I ended the game and ended up having to shake the shit out of the (lifted) playfield to get them to fall down properly so they'd eject on game boot.

I've seen some issues off and on with the casket so clearly something isn't quite right. Not really sure what could be the culprit just yet, but it seems like the balls aren't falling aggressively enough to reach the bottom. Has anyone else had to deal with this issue?

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Just make sure the fish paper is bent the correct way for optos. I had some issues with sparky firing when it shouldn't because it was picking up the light flashes. Had to bend the paper back the proper direction and now it's fine.

That could certainly be part of it. I've had them get stuck to the graveyard magnet, and then to each other, during MB. I'll swap them all out and see if that improves things. I guess I don't have a lot of games with heavy magnet utilization like Met.

No dice. New balls, similar result. At least it ejected them this time I guess, but still not great.

I don't see anything obviously wrong. The solenoid is smooth with no noticeable resistance (I haven't resleeved it yet, probably will just to rule that out).

I took the plunger assembly off and tried several things (washers in various places, etc) and nothing seemed to matter. I resleeved it (even though it felt perfectly smooth) and removed the washer. Rotated the solenoid on its side and reassembled... And it SEEMS fine. Tested several times with the glass off and then played a decent game where I hit all kinds of modes including casket MB under various conditions (all three balls in the casket as well as only one in the casket with the other two being virtual--following electric chair MB I believe). Didn't notice anything strange.

I'm pretty sure the balls I use are getting magnetized FAST which certainly isn't helping but it does seem at least functional now which is the important thing.

Not sure if it was the resleeve, or rotating the coil on its side, or maybe both...but early returns look good.

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My 2018 Met Premium has a mix of colored GI bulbs (red/blue) but I'm not sure if this was just something that someone decided to do, or the way it's 'supposed' to be. IIRC I replaced the same color combo in the Avengers Hulk LE I had and dumped the blue in favor of cool white 2SMD. Which bulbs can I change and NOT screw up any sort of color GI effects on this machine?

I don't really like CoinTaker LEDs (I'm a big fan of frosted 2SMD from Comet) so I'll likely swap out all of the white GI while I'm at it.

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Yours looks great. I don't think giving up the colored GI effects would be a TERRIBLE thing..I just feel like I'd rather keep the effects if possible.

It's the red bulbs that correspond to the colored effects, right? Not the blue ones (at all)?

Sunlight looks great in this game. I'd probably go with those over the cool white that I mentioned prior, just based on how yours looks.

Dammit I think you're right.

Well, maybe just a clean swap over to Comet 2SMD frosted, matching colors as-is, then.

//Done

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I think the frosted 2SMD colored bulbs actually are worse here than the crappy cointaker clear bulbs. They're just too vivid. Blah. I do like the Comet sunlight frosted.

Tbh I think the all white above looks way better. Is it lacking at all in any of the modes that do the GI effects DudeRegular ?

My most recent pic was with frosted 2SMD from Comet swapped in. It looks terrible in pictures, but really it's not *that* bad in person. But the colors are definitely more vivid than with the colored / clear dome Cointaker bulbs, and probably more aggressive than I want with the colored portion of the GI.

I think for now I'm going to leave it as-is with the Comet frosted 2SMDs in it and see how I feel about it after a few weeks of gameplay, but ultimately I will probably swap the crappy Cointaker clear (colored) bulbs back in but leave the frosted sunlight where appropriate. The CoinTaker bulbs are less vivid than the nicer frosted 2SMD bulbs I put in and while that's *not* what I want with the white bulbs, it's just a bit too much for the colored bulbs I think. I want the effect of the colored bulbs for the different modes, but I don't want them to cancel out the white during normal gameplay, and it feels a bit like that's what's happening now.

I like how it looks (for normal gameplay) a lot better with the white. It's really too bad there's no better compromise here.
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LOL

Something looks...........out of place!

Very true. But I also hear that Plumbers Don't Wear Ties...so...

Man, I'm by no means a great pinball tech (I do what I can, given the extensive 2.5 years of time I've spent in this hobby) but how the hell do you get it THAT wrong?

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Blasphemer!

Tbh, some fair points in there. Met is not a PERFECT game but imo is a very good one with a whole lot of replay value.

Your collection has some real bangers in it so I'm not sure where I'd rank Met there either. My collection doesn't have nearly as much fire power in it so to me, it's way up on my list. But to each their own, yknow? We're all looking for different things on pinball and there's very rarely ONE "right" answer. Glad to see WCS anchoring a spot there however..I LOVE my WCS!

Fwiw I love most of the callouts on Met but the snake ones are definitely a bit goofy. Still beats the ridiculous callouts on my black knight sword of rage, lol. Talk about cheesy AF.

GB is a fun game and I *LOVE* the We Are Ready to Believe You mode (wish more games had quirky alt modes like that which you could just jump into immediately from the menu)...but for me, GB isn't even close. Good game though.

I thought I had fixed it, but I'm still having issues with the coffin lock on my premium. It's not ALWAYS happening but it seems fairly common for balls to get stuck trying to eject from there during coffin MB. The plunger is smooth, I can't see any problem there. It seems more like the entire trough just doesn't sit at an aggressive enough angle to make the balls fall forward quickly enough when the coil activates. I'm thinking about trying some washers on the back side of it to see if that will help (I think that's possible? I'm not looking at it right this second). Bad idea? I took the whole thing apart and nothing looked obviously wrong. But the problem persists.

Yeah, I thought that might be the case too but I swapped the balls out (multiple times) and the issue persists. I suppose it could be possible that the balls are IMMEDIATELY magnetizing and causing the problem, but the new balls seem better. Everything else seems fine on my game, it's just the continued coffin lock issue I'm having. I'm using pretty standard balls I bought from BC Precision on ebay (ebay.com link: itm). No idea how the overall quality of those is--as far as magnetization goes--to be honest. I use them in all my other games without issue, but only Metallica (I think) in my collection has such strong magnet usage.

I've not, but I jacked all the way up in the back and slammed all the way down in the front on initial setup. Looks like I have somewhat shorter levelers than the 3" ones I have on some of my games, but nevertheless...slope should be relatively aggressive. The bubble is off-center, touching the 'upper' line.

I did read some posts saying these BC Precision balls can be known for magnetization (even referencing Metallica as the game with issues..and specifically the coffin lock..) so I guess maybe I should do my due diligence and try some other ones to see if that fixes it, before I start making any physical modifications. If it's as simple as just using a certain ball for this one game...I'm not against doing that.

Sure enough, there's definitely at least a LITTLE bit of magnetization to them. Ugh.

Technically the game compensates, at least somewhat, in order to play some kind of coffin MB..but it's not 'right' and it definitely makes the game less fun when it happens. There still could be something else going on (who knows) but until I get some new balls installed I think I'll just leave it be.

Thanks for the link -- I'll get some ordered and give them a try.

I did try four different balls I had tumbled prior, making sure they weren't magnetized before I started, and manually tested coffin MB (just hitting the captive ball over and over again until all three were locked) and the game ejected them perfectly. No idea if that will hold up long term (or if these balls will magnetize) but we'll see. At least it makes sense given the symptoms and it's something to try until the new balls arrive. Thanks again for the suggestion.

Interesting. Guess I'll see what happens and if they magnetize, no worries. They're a short term fix anyway. I've never heard that but I have no reason to doubt its truthfulness!

My bladez sometimes set off sparky too but I've got them set up now to where they don't. They're definitely a cool addition to the game.

These look better than mine. Mine aren't nearly as bright it seems. They still look great, but... yeah.

Mine is a May 2017 build, with a shaker, and it does some weird stuff with the hammer from time to time as well (similar to video 1 above, where it hammers nothing). I haven't investigated it further because it's so sporadic, however. My coffin lock is far more annoying but I think that's 100% attributed to magnetized balls unfortunately. Seems it goes away completely, at least for a time, when I install balls that I know aren't magnetized. So, I just need a stash of carbon ones that are resistant so I can filter those in as needed.

Thanks for the SB.

IIRC if mine hammers nothing down, it quickly gives me another chance to lock the ball in the coffin, and I don't think I've ever had it screw that up consecutively. I don't really remember though. I've been far more focused on the coffin lock (not) releasing balls at the start of coffin MB, to be honest.

The super strong magnet usage in this game seems to cause some really crazy shit unfortunately. I've kind of just chocked up some of my frustration to that. Hopefully not at my own damn peril.

I'm sure mine is set to maximal also. I'll try setting it lower. Maybe it's a power delivery issue..or something.

I did a test game and it hammered nothing like we said. Grabbed it immediately thereafter and hammered correctly. Pffffft.

And yes, it's one of the greatest games of all time IMO. A true gem of a game.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

My target is the exact same. Whatever.

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