I've now owned my MBr-SE for a few days and have a few questions/issues/comments. Hopefully some of you other owners can provide some suggestions...

1 ) The Frankenstein switch (on his back) seems to not activate on most hits during multiball. I have tried adjusting the switch a bit, but it hasn't seemed to make much difference. There are times I can bash his feet so hard that the ball goes flying all over the place, but the switch doesn't register. The switch does activate occasionally, but not often. The fact that the switch is on his back (rather than by his feet) seems to be a poor design choice - almost as if you need to hit him with an airball to the chest for the switch to work. Is this normal?

2 ) The plastic cover on the right side Bride ramp seems to cause both stuck balls and rejected ramp shots. It appears that since the cover is only attached at the front end, the back part acts like sort of a rubber band and tends to boomerang the ball back down the ramp. Occasionally, it will trap the ball along the right side ramp edge. I have tried reducing the flipper strength (to -4), and that has helped a little, but not much.

3 ) I also get an occasional stuck ball on the left side Bride ramp. It seems that there is a "sweet" spot that the ball can stop in right at the transition from the solid metal ramp to the wire ramp. There is a little concave place where if the ball stops just right on a very weak ramp shot (usually from just bouncing into the ramp), it can't roll back down. Is this just a design flaw, or is there some sort of adjustment that can be made? For reference, I have the machine set at the recommended 6.5 degrees. Will increasing the pitch make any difference for this?

4 ) Dracula's "Bruno Malis" are annoying. Not only do they often cause drains coming down the right side Wolfman lane, but they also tend to block shots going up that lane. I assume that there is no adjustment to make Dracula sit further back into his coffin? I know that some people have clipped his feet - is that the standard fix?

5 ) How do you bypass the "high power disabled" feature when the coin door is opened? I've tried pulling the switch out, but that doesn't seem to work. The manual does not describe this anywhere (and my Whitewater does not have the power lockout feature), so I don't know how this is supposed to function.

6 ) The Phantom Flip seems to be awful. I reset the historic data on it when I setup the machine, but I have now played many games over the past few days and it does not seem to be getting any better. The only thing it ever hits is the Phantom targets (which are often drain shots). It's gotten to the point that I tend to go out of my way to avoid triggering it on the in-lanes. I'm temped to disable it in the settings, but that just feels wrong - and having the Phantom Flip just hit targets that activate more Phantom Flips seems stupid.

7 ) I mentioned this before (and got no response), but is there some mod/trick to preventing light bleed on the various instrument insert lights? When one of the instruments is lit, enough light bleeds into the ones on either side that they appear to be active as well. This happens to a lesser extent on some of the other playfield inserts also, but the instruments are the worst in this regard. Maybe some sort of plastic guard protruding below the insert or something could be 3D printed?

8 ) Speaking of mods, I installed the Lermods spotlight covers mod to try to brighten up the playfield a bit. However, even on their lowest brightness setting, it floods the playfield so much that you can't tell which Monsters are lit anymore. Also, since the spotlights are always on, it really sort of messes up a bunch of the special lighting effects for the various modes. For now, I have simply disconnected them, but I will probably just remove them completely soon. They are quite well made, and look fine, but they are just too overpowering. On the other hand, the Lermods Plasma disk works (and looks) great.

Overall, though, the machine is a lot of fun, and I am quite pleased with my purchase. I just want to get it as good as it can be, so any suggestions/comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

duplicate...ignore

Open the coin door and you turn the high power inter lock switch and memory protect switch off. Pull out the knob on the high power interlock switch and you have high power with coin door open for testing and what not. Push the memory protect switch in and the message on the display goes away, whether you have high power on or off.

LTG : )

That doesn't seem to work. If I open the coin door, and then pull the top white switch out (so that it stays in the out position), nothing seems to happen. The "High power disabled" message remains and the high power is still disabled. The only way that I can seem to get high power with the door open is to manually hold in the lower of the two white switches.

One thing happened. You still have HIGH POWER to check coils in test.

The lower switch - only has two wires to it right ? That has nothing to do with high power. That is your memory protect switch so you can make adjustments etc. with the coin door open, and when pushed in it turns off the coin door open message.

LTG : )

No, I don't. The High power disabled message remains and none of the coils will activate.
Either the switch isn't working, or I am not understanding the process.

Lets start over.

Game turned on. Coin door closed. Coils work in game play ?

If yes, open coin door. Coils don't work ?

If yes, pull out the knob of the top switch and leave it locked out - they should now work in test.

Anything different from the above, then high power interlock switch with four wires to it is wired wrong, or the switch is broken.

LTG : )

Game turned on. Coin door closed. Coils work in game play ? --> YES, game plays fine.
If yes, open coin door. Coils don't work ? --> YES, no high power.
If yes, pull out the knob of the top switch and leave it locked out - they should now work in test. --> NO, still no high power
Anything different from the above, then high power interlock switch with four wires to it is wired wrong, or the switch is broken. --> I will examine the wiring, but suspect the switch is broken.

Most likely. Though weird it works when pushed in.

LTG : )

I tried everything I could think of to fix this problem including trying to bend the guard rail, loosening all nuts everywhere in the Drac assembly and trying to re-align, closing the gap on the switch on the back of Drac, trying to bend other stuff, and probably a few other items I can't think of right now.

I think the best out of those was bending and tightening the gap on Drac so he stood in a more upright position, but it still caused occasional drains.

The final solution that has worked great with no drains ever since I did it was altering his shoes.

I took him off and used my grinder to shave the front of his feet off. Then I just took a black sharpie and coloured the white exposed plastic. You can't even tell it was done. I have had plenty of people play the game without noticing. It also has no impact on the game play during the Dracula mode.

Doing this and adding a spring washer to the eject coil to prevent drains down the middle out of the scoop has made all the difference. The game plays amazing now, especially with the orbit shots during the Werewolf mode.

That's what Williams eventually did. I'd paint the feet - eventually that sharpie is going to wear off.

An extra half turn or so on the right legs made all the difference for my drac feet drains.

Yeah, I saw that suggestion before. Sorry, but an uneven machine would be far worse than the drains. Just my opinion.

However, I did make some progress with my issue #2 above - the right side bride ramp rejections. I added an extra washer just below each side of the ramp cover where it attaches to the ramp. This lifts it just a little more out of the way. It has greatly reduced the number of rejections. I do still get it to happen occasionally, but far less often than before.

This happened to me a few months ago. Opened a ticket and I was sent a new one.

Good luck.

Hi NeilMcRae , right on the spot !
The problem came back again yesterday after I reconnected all the cables, but this time it wouldn't restart even if I connect and reconnect again.
I had a spare mini HDMi to HDMi cable here, changed and now it is perfect again.

Exterior Volume knob and headphone jack available for my MB remake? Can’t seem to find me anywhere....thanks.

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If your Mosh Pit multiball champion is at 10 Million, you don't need headphones, you need to play it more.

So I have searched 1/2 dozen pages but not reading 137. Got MBr CE 10 days ago and enjoying it but have a recurring issue nightly where the ball is getting trapped/wedged on the right side Bride ramp, wedeged in the wireform. What can be done to fix this? Thanks for

Could you post a picture please. Might need a little bend or something. With ball stuck and without.

LTG : )

I got my MBr-SE 10 days ago also, and you're practically a neighbor...I'd invite you over to play, but social distancing and stuff...sigh.

Assuming that you mean it gets wedged between the wireform and the plastic ramp cover, then yes, I have the same issue and was able to reduce it somewhat. I added an extra washer just below each side of the ramp cover where it attaches to the ramp. This lifts it just a little more out of the way.

It has reduced the number of trapped balls and also reduced the amount of ramp shot rejections. I do still get it to happen occasionally, but far less often than before.

Mine will get stuck in the same place in a sort of rocking back and forth type of way. It happens very rarely. Nonetheless, a permanent fix would be nice. I will try your washer fix to see if it eliminates the issue.

Funny as I owned both the original and now the remake. I never had any of these issues described in these posts. No stuck balls on either ramp shot and no sdtm issues. Wonder why some of these remakes have issues and others don't.

While I do have the issue with Drac's feet occasionally causing drains, I don't have the center scoop causing drains that many here have reported. My scoop kicks it strongly (and consistently) to the left flipper.

From there I can either drop catch it with the left flipper, or let it bounce over to the right flipper, depending upon what I want to aim for next. It's very nice.

On the other hand, there is one on location near here, that sends it SDTM about half of the time...very annoying.

First game I played today...

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Did that happen when the ball was going up, or did you hit a shot that wasn't fast enough and it came back down and got stuck on the way back?

Initial shots up the ramp are routinely getting trapped like this, never on the way back down.

Time for a gentle bend.

Tiny bit at a time.

LTG : )

okay, but which part do you bend, and in which direction?

Where the ball is stuck. The top part of the wireform, just a small tug, up. To make room for the ball. The area where the middle green arrow is pointing.

LTG : )

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Even though this isn't a remake I figured the set up would be the same. I just picked up original game and the table isn't going up or down. All 4 switches work (2 for the target banks and 2 for Franky). I can manual move the gears and they're not froze up and the table and targets have moved up and down but not during gameplay. I have a feeling it's not set to the correct position to start a game. Any help would be appreciated.

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So I was a little hesitant to start bending the wire form. I did a little and the ball still got stuck. Then I decided to put a 1/4” washer under the right side wireform above the ramp entrance. Played several games and it’s seems to be doing better, only once stopping the ball and releasing it to roll back down. Hopefully this has the problem solved. Thanks LTG!

Got any pics? I wouldn’t mind seeing how that looks...

Holy thread revival! Let me see what I can do...

When Frank is lying on the table, are his arms supposed to be down by his side?

Mine have the arms sticking up, and then when Frank stands, up his arms move up just a little bit.

I have a problem with the switch behind him rarely getting triggered during multi-ball. I have adjusted the switch twice, but it has not helped much. I am wondering if his arm position is an indication of something else not being adjusted right.

Well, here is a new problem.

I was just looking at the Frank switch again, so I had the machine in Switch Edge test, and walked away for a moment. Suddenly, the sound of a switch being triggered started happening randomly by itself.

It seems that the right flipper proximity sensor is being triggered intermittently for no reason. Maybe this is why my Phantom Flip sucks so badly. The sensitivity is at 3 (the default). I will try turning it down to 2 and see if this stops happening.

I haven't seen many posts about people adjusting this...have people needed to adjust this (or moved the sensors left/right) to get "good" phantom flip behavior?

Trying to fix my poorly responding Frank...

LTG here is the pic you provided about adjusting his switch.

Then, look at the pictures of my switch...

Notice how the shape of the switch arm is different. Mine does not have the top angled shape. I think that this means that my switch ends up going inside the hole in his "upper back" rather than being triggered by the plate of his "lower back".

I do have the Frank Table mod (which was put on by the previous owner). Could that be the cause of the problem? If so, is there a remedy?

Thanks.
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Yes, that could be a problem. I'd check with the previous owner to find out what he did, different switch maybe ? Then the mod maker to see if they've had reports of any issues.

Switch is different on yours.

LTG : )

Does your switch go into that hole in his back, or does it hit that little flat plate part below it? See Pic.

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Your switch isn't hitting anything. See Pic.

LTG : )

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Well, after removing the switch, and bending the crap out of the wire, I seem to have something that works much better.

The problem was that if the wire was low enough to be activated by the plate on his back, then it wouldn't stick out far enough to register on most hits. If I pulled the wire forward, then it would sit too high to hit the plate.

I had to pull off the switch and reshape the wire so that it could stick out both far and low. I will have to see how it holds up, but it seems to be better so far.

Thanks for the help.

A couple more issues/questions...

1 ) When frank is lying on the table, what position are his arms supposed to be in? On mine they are already sticking up mostly. And then when he stands, they go up just a little bit more. Should his arms really be at his side when he is lying down? And if so, can they be adjusted just by the hex screw that attaches the arms?

2 ) Does the CGC playfield glass seem noticeably thinner? The glass on my WhiteWater seems significantly thicker and somehow just beefier. Even just tapping on the MB glass produces a "tinnier" sound. If you tap on the Whitewater glass, it sounds like a car window. If you tap on the MB glass, it sounds like a curio cabinet. Is this normal? Could the MB glass be non-tempered? (I believe that both glasses are original)

3) I mentioned above that my Eddy sensors (for Phantom Flip) had calibration issues. In the switch test, the right flipper sensor was triggering intermittently for no reason. Furthermore, both sensors would consistently detect my switch adjustment tool at even a pretty far range. This was at the default setting of 3 on the board. After fiddling with the adjustment on the board (while still just in the switch test), the sensors started behaving normally, even at the same setting of 3. Now, they don't detect my adjustment tool unless I put it right on the playfield and right by the sensor (previously it would get detected from a much larger distance and could be a couple inches about the playfield). It was like the board was in some sort of super-sensitive mode (even though it was set at 3), and changing the setting back and forth "fixed" it somehow. Previously, the Phantom Flip really sucked, and already I have seen a great improvement after only a few games (I reset the Phantom Flip data after doing this). Hopefully, it will get even better as it learns. I just wanted to describe this in case other people have poor Phantom Flip issues.

1) they stick up mostly. this bugs me too, but it's not fixable without remaking the arms

Measure it.

And your WhiteWater glass might not be original to the game.

Nothing to worry about.

Up.

LTG : )

Williams Logo baby!

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No. Unless the previous owner replaced it, NO.

Now your WhiteWater might not be tempered.

LTG : )

Time for an update. I have had my MBr SE for about a year and a half so far. I purchased all 3 Chicago Gaming remakes. All 3 are great games, but the MBr has been the most care free. I set it up and played it with none of the problems mentioned on this thread. The only thing I have done is replaced the factory scoop protector with the cliffy version. It sure is a great feeling when you can turn the machine on and just play...

Not what you are talking about but my only real complaint about modern games is having to wait for them to boot up. I usually have to turn on another game and play that one while waiting for my MBr to boot. I actually prefer the old ROM method

Wow!

I know, first world problems