Great idea.
Do to low visibility and no plays on LE version I had no idea of this difference.
Seems like this would play better on the pro unless doing something like you have done here.

thats a very good solution., better for the balls too, a new polished set is down to matte grey in a few games hitting that block...

Interesting - it's just a single hole there?! I had assumed that there were 2 that connect to the plate w/ the block. Now I've got all sorts of ideas of what "smaller" thing could fit there lol...hmmm....but yeah, just a standard newton ball seems to fit!

EDIT - oh wait, I see a hole behind your ball...so - were there 3 holes there?

....just another quick thought. Could someone make a newton ball like that with a flat front? I think that would give us best of both worlds. The "side play" that Mark likes, and the "guided front" and more space between the ball & magnet that would allow for better magnet sensing (IMO). How could one go about "flattening" the front of a newton ball?

If you flatten the front of a newton ball, is it still a newton ball?

Grind it flat on one face then polish it, I would think.

What the hell?

Who can do this for me? LOL...I don't know how to do stuff with metal

Yup, it would just be a flat newton ball...a...flewton ball. It would still transfer energy to the captive ball behind it, but perhaps be a good compromise of what the block was intended to do and the feel of a newton ball that people like.

Brushing up for my medical degree.

Mine will capture off the block but only if the speed is just right. If it's too fast it will ricochet too fast to sense. The purpose of the flat surface is to "guide" the ball back toward the magnet - but I think the problem is that it's just too close. Now, if you could shave 1/4 inch or so off a ball, polish it, and round it on the edges...it could be the answer to the problem.

So Stern still has not resolved the hammer lock issue?

Why get the premium/LE if one of the extra features doesn't function?

I've got the Premium on my wish list but I'm not paying $2K for a janky inconsistent hammer

Grinding a Newton ball has all kinds of possibilities for Peter in a FG bit.

Markmon,

Can you show some under playfield shots and more on how you mount these? I am thinking of replacing Wolverine with the same, but unsure how it all mounts together and how you hookup the switch.

I'd give the Flewton ball a shot, as I'd always wanted to swap out that block on my machine; I have a surface grinder at work that should take it down easily, then I can break the edges afterward so there are no hard corners. Hopefully once you get past the outer 1/32" of these balls the inside is not all air pockets, mercury and Chinese medical waste, but will find out. I will order a handful and try it out this week.

Appreciate the reply Markmon

So the premium costs more but has a feature that doesn't work?

I'm not being an asshole, I'm serious. I will likely own a Metallica when the code is done.

Bring it over to the house and I'll do it for you.

The hammer works just fine. It is a very cool feature. There is an erroneous assumption that the hammer plate controls the magnet. It does not. You hit the plate to qualify the lock. You get the ball to the magnet to engage the magnet. The hammer engages when the magnet grabs the ball.

Ok

So gambit you are saying the plate does not function properly... it's like the Gimli shot on LOTR?

I would suggest you go find a premium or le and play it for yourself,I love the hammer and
And think it is very cool once you accept the fact that it does not work like other magnets we have
Seen.Take it or leave it,your choice

All the plate or ball does is knock the captured ball behind it into a stand up target to register a coffin hit. The issues the premium peeps are complaining about is that the square plate isnt as nice as a rounded ball. Esp for banking balls off the coffin and into the snake etc.

The plate functions properly. It is there to serve as the strike pad for the captive ball behind. It is not connected to the magnet.

I would be fine with the magnet being difficult to hit and grasp the ball but for me it's the ghost hitting where the magnet drops and the hammer smashes yet the ball is in play still. Is there a fix for that? I have a Monster Pre model and love the game but this hammer jazz is a real let down.

My hammer mag usually always grabs the ball but It can't work 100%. No magnet does. Sometimes I'm frying Sparky & the ball is still in play. It happens to me on Xmen & IM as well. I had a party last Saturday night & it never missed once. Was being played non stop for hours with no issues. If yours does it a lot,there's something wrong.

So i hear its not the hammer, the magnet or the plate. So what part of the game is to blame for its ball lock woes? I drove 3 hrs round trip to play a premium. Back then it had worthless code tho

OK, here's the deal.

The magnet itself recognizes and captures the ball. It's not tied to a hit. Once the magnet senses the ball, the capture/hammer works just fine. There's nothing wrong with that at all. The issue is that once you hit the captive ball enough times, lock is lit, and you kind of expect to be able to hit the captive ball & the magnet to catch your ball...but because the captive ball/block is so close to the magnet, sometimes it ricochets back and forth so quick that the magnet won't sense it. It senses and catches just great randomly rolling around, ricocheting from the snake jaw, or from slightly slower hits. Shots from the right flipper seem to work better than shots from the left.

A physical fix like we're mulling about here would be really cool....but we're likely to see Lyman add something in the code that allows for captive hits to keep counting toward the next lock even if the magnet hasn't grabbed/hammered your ball yet. Just that alone would alleviate a lot of the annoyance from this issue....cuz then you wouldn't feel like you're hitting the captive ball for nothing if your ball hasn't locked yet.

How is sk8balls mod working out. Are you out there KME?

Ed Z

Thank you for the clarification, much appreciated

Hope its fixed when im ready to buy.

It is a great game right now. My nib premium needed some fixes and tweaks out of the box (got a new hammer board right away, had to adjust the snake a bit so his mouth would stay open (easy fix), and had a target break but Stern sent me a new assembly right away and now it seems to work great). There is a great balance between simplicity and depth to the game, even in its current state code wise. And there is an update to come. I think you will really like it. If you can get past how the hammer works (exactly as Rarehero described), you will find that its a blast to play.

Sorry, I just don't understand how that piece goes in. I apologize for asking for further information and details to better understand how a newton ball works in a pinball machine. If someone else can explain it to me, that would be great.

Mine has never done this, and I have no idea what causes it on some peoples' machines. Do you have the newer magnet board?

Do you have the updated magnet board? If not, call Stern immediately and get it.

That's true, it still has a lot of functions....still - I feel like my hits should count toward the next lock if the ball hasn't sensed yet.

I love the hammer lock effect. I have the new magnet board which has helped. However I would say every 30 or 40 plays the hammer does the phantom lock. The funny thing is the phantom locks now happen even when the ball was nowhere near the magnet... Kind of like it was with the old magnet board. I get the ones where it rolls over and the magnet misses the ball for a phantom hit but when the ball is nowhere near it? I don't get that one and it does have scary memories of the old magnet board where the hammer was just going off randomly it seemed.

I really like this idea. I'm going to try it out. I wonder what R&D results Stern got when trying it out, and why they went with the block.

This sounds like what mine is doing, I will have to look into the new board but I have seen on other threads that it helped for a while then went back or didn't help much at all right from installation.

Yes my replacement board worked great when first installed. Seemed when 1.51 upgraded the phantom hits came back. However not nearly as bad as with the old board. All in all I have no complains about the hammer right now. A phantom hit every 30-40 games is bearable. However are the phantom hits coming more often? I hope not. How long will Stern agree to fix these kind of issues? My new drop target assembly worked great for the first month... Then started not going down when hit. I tightened the spring and that helped for 40 games but now today the first target did not drop again. Also I have never seen a machine destroy pinball like this... Mine look like they have been chewed by and animal... Is that from hitting the hammer plate then?

You guys are speaking in riddles n shit or I'm just too burnt.

So it's not the hammers fault because it just reacts. It's not the captive ball/plate because it detects the hit. It's not the magnet because it works fine.... It's the sensor or method in which it detects the ball when it's time to lock?

The possible resolution is to manipulate the ball to move in a manner in which the ineffective switch detects the ball. This may be possible via utilization of a newton ball yet all it really does is increase the statistical likelihood of a slower return for the software/hardware to read the event?

Then I read a code update may fix this?

Magnet senses the ball
Magnet captures the ball
Hammer slams down
Magnet drops and deposits ball into coffin.

Seriously, the ONLY issue (once you have the new magnet board) is that sometimes the ball moves too fast for the magnet to sense it. Hitting the captive cube is basically what's SUPPOSED to "stop" the ball on the magnet...but it's the magnet's job to sense/capture.

Hope that makes sense.

If you don't have the new board, please stop complaining about your magnet. Stern basically issued a recall. They'll send you a new one. It has new firmware on it that the old one doesn't. Replace it.

The main issue to me is that they shouldnt rely on the sensor after the ball strikes the cube. If they would just fire the magnet once the cube switch it closed it would grab the ball much more often then relying on the sensor to detect the ball.

Ive heard from people that they are concerned about Playfield wear but it shouldnt be any worse then when the sparky magnet grabs the ball to start multiball. Ive seen that magnet grab the ball out of mid air, no reason the coffin magnet couldnt be coded the same way.

Couldn't agree more.

Would love to know the reasoning behind why they can't do this. The PF wear issue makes no sense to me since the Sparky magnet would have the same issue.

I'll ask the obvious question: why does the LE/Premium have the block instead of the newton ball like the pro?

Because the flat surface "guides" the ball back toward the magnet (in theory).

Agreed, but I don't know if the magnet is capable of catching then sensing....I think it has to sense first, then catch.

Its a magnet, i'm sure they can just turn it on then use the switch to detect if the ball is there or not.

Good reason! It is unfortunate they make variations of games that play different.

What if you removed the newton ball and the captive ball and had to hit the standup target back there with the ball in play? Would that little lane guide the ball back to the magnet more often than not? There's probably some metal around there that would need to be protected to keep the ball from getting chewed up.

There's no switch. The magnet senses the ball, then turns on... It's been a while, but you can test the sequence in the test mode. It's the same type of magnet that Goldeneye's ball save had. The magnet itself is the "switch"...but it has to go in a certain sequence.