The original did not have a real knocker. There was some talk a few pages back about this. I believe a few peeps are talking about adding one.

Regarding the lock down bar. Most old machines are worn out or broken such that once you unlock it you can simply put it back on with out touching the handle and then you lock it back in place. On a new machine like your MB, when you go to place it back on, you must use the handle to re-open the mechanism and while holding it, place the bar back down. Keep pressing the bar down and then put the handle back in the lock position. You may be doing this already, but that's a thought. Another possibility would be to adjust the screws on the underside of the lock bar.

Good luck.

...Day 146... “The reports of my death have been greatly exagerated...”

It was getting dark outside. The brilliant hues of orange, blue, and gold that had briefed the early evening sky were receding to a thin line of color on the horizon. The magnificent sunset of a few moments ago was now a small distant stain of red on the clouds that hung low over the dark purple, mist-enshrined mountains. A raptor, it’s fresh kill dangling from it’s talons, lets out a last, lonely cry as it made a slow and final arc across the rapidly darkening violet sky. With a nearly imperceptible twist of it’s wings, it swooped to the top of a stand of giant cottonwood trees to the east, lighting on a branch to roost. His meal this evening was sure to be one of the less fortunate creatures that inhabited the farmers fields and stretches of dusty open desert that lay to the south. Round-tail ground squirrels, their mouse-like tails aflutter, dart feverishly into their tiny holes, shrieking out their shrill warning to each other as the fading sillouette of the golden eagle passes overhead on it’s way to the last meal of the day. A family of ground dwelling owls, hearing the all to familiar warning shriek they share with the squirrels, darts back into the hole of an abandoned squirrel den, a dwelling they share in common with each other. In the distance, the first howls of the coyote echo off the hard packed Arizona clay, as they begin their slow evening migration to the edges of civilization and the promise of easy prey.

I awoke this evening, the sky clearing as the last high thin wisps of remaining clouds evaporated into the rapidly cooling evening air. My dialy ritual was about to begin as a blanket of stars began twinkling into existance on the blackening fabric of the night sky. Stooping, I exited the make-shift shelter I had constructed out of an old Stern Meteor cabinet and what remained of an Eight Ball Deluxe Champagne Edition machine I had found in the back of a ‘37 Willy’s Panel truck at the junkyard. The short walk to the pin shed gave me time to reflect on the perils of my predicament, and I mused upon just what I was going to do... “Delivery? Delivery you say? Well now, that’s just a fine How-do-you-do now idn’t it?” I said to no one in particular as I fumbled with the lock and chain on the pin shed door. Well, to be honest, this was not me contemplating reality as I knew it, but me contemplating one I had manifested and pondered upon while drifting in and out of my fevered, restless, mid-day sweat-a-thons called “daily sleep”. The idea was quickly fading in my mind, like the vanishing sunlight on the horizon, but the general concept was still rooted deep in my psyche. “Pinfest... pagentry... parts... mods... and all the pinball you can wait calmly in line to play on for free that you could ever want! And knowing my luck, come Monday morning, my inbox will be brimming with e-mails from my distributor telling me to “get ready, your MBrLE is on it’s way! Expected delivery date, Friday right in the middle of TPF!!!” Ok, this would be the ultimate irony, and I can hear the conversation now...

“You want to what?!?”

“I want to delay”

“Did you just say ‘delay’?”

“No, I said nothing of the sort.”

“No, I specifically heard that word roll off your tongue...”

“No you didn’t”

“Yes I did, you said you wanted to delay your delivery...”

“Yes?”

“Yes?, yes what?”

“Delivery”

“Yeah, next Friday...”

“No”

“No?, No what?”

“Delivery?”

“Yeah, it’s coming this Friday...”

“No!”

“No!?, no delivery?”

“Yes. No.”

“What the hell? Yes delivery or no delivery?”

“No, yes delivery...”

“Yeah, next Friday...”

“No, delivery, not Friday”

“No delivery?!? You asking for a refund?”

“No. Delay”

“Yeah, thats right, no delay, It’ getting delivered Friday”

“No!”

“No?”

“No, delay”

I heard a loud bang on the other end of the line followed by the dull thud of the receiver tumbling to the floor. I heard the clatter of a .38 caliber snub nose revolver on the cold tile floor as it slid from the now lifeless hand of my poor distributor. If anyone can drive someone to question their existance and will to carry on, it’s a pin head waiting on a pinball machine.

Once adjusted correctly, I think the lever action lockbar is faster and more convienient, and I have been using the same ones for years. The new design is cost reduction imo, and by that definition, of lesser quality and less ease of use. Ymmv.

Yep, adjust, try it, adjust try it. A Big help is to look at similar unit in another machine, adjust them to similar place and then start the process to sort it out. With the brass screws turned IN a ways equally, iirc, that will loosen the lock? And then adjusting them, left a little, right a little to seat the lock bar evenly, left to right? That sounds either right or totally backwatds, i.e. it might be turn both the brass screws OUT equally a little to loosen the lock, then left, right, etc... but both together is tightness of lock, then separate adjutsments left and right to level the lockbar. One thing to check, if the glass is not sliding all the way up into the upper cabinet trim channel, or the trim channel is installed wrong on the cabinet, it can cause the problem you are experiencing, and it manifests itself in that the lockbar is difficult to get locked down correctly. Check the upper channel for full insertion of the glass, and that it was installed properly on the top cabinet edge.

Bublehead ....... “you crack me up. That’s some funny shit right there.”

He said, hoping like hell his grammar was correct.

Oh don’t worry, my gut, knee jerk, boot to the throat, grammar Nazi reaction is limited to the improper use of “well” and “good” because the boot has been on my throat for good, well, gooder and weller, more gooder, more weller, or any other wrong usage of the terms for going on some 30 years of marriage. Which we all know good and well that it has all been well and good. Unless its to lie, to lay, or to be lain?, then all bets are off.

Same here -i hate the new Stern lockbars.

they do a good job of locking the glass down (until QC starts to be a problem), but they are a huge PITA to get on and off

As far as I can tell there's a software hurdle to adding a knocker. Please complain to cgc and hopefully they enable it in a future update.

Anyone have any clue how many more Le's they have to make? Sick of waiting!

Yes, me too... anyone hear from Automated Services about getting in a new batch of LE's?

Yikes. Side note- here's the research on the PDI vs. Invisiglass glass performance differences from Pinball News. An actual test study, not opinions.

http://www.pinballnews.com/learn/glass/index.html

60 still are needed for Australia.

This is very interesting - I finally got some PDI glass
To compare to my Invisiglass and Stern glass, and I happened to do the direct reflection test (test 2) in this study - and my experience was absolutely not the results reflected in this study. The Stern glass had the worst anti-reflective
Properties, but Invisiglass rejected the LED light source (a flashlight) very well.

I have a neon light above the game on the end of the lineup, and when the light is on, games with regular glass are unplayable.
Stern glass is better and you
can actually see the ball, but Invisiglass and PDI were like the light wasn't even there. You
can see sort of like A "shadow" of It, but it's pretty remarkable.

You can wrap a piece of electrical tape vertically along one or both sides of the glass; just enough so that it goes in the rail but isn’t visible outside. You don’t even need much; put it near the top and the glass won’t slide any more

First new prototype done!

1D9D8B02-CC78-4AC9-8156-3DE899BF3D6B (resized).jpeg

I had the same hate for the lockdown bar until I figured out you have push down on the lockdown bar in the CENTER while closing the lever arm back. The arm should then close all the way and your coin door should be able to close freely. Of course make sure the glass is pushed up out of the way too. I tightened/loosened the brass screws to fine tune the snugness of the lockdown bar.

I had the same experience in my setting....my point is I don't think PDI is worth the extra $ One can't go wrong with either product....that being said maybe we don't have sophisticated eye balls

How dare you question my eyeballs!!

Totally agree. But even if (especially if!) our eyes aren’t good enough to discern the difference, the savings is worth it

A friend came over (who knows more about pins than I do) and took a look at my MBR LE. He said the right flipper coil was loose and the sleeve didn't look right. He took it apart to examine the parts and found that the coil sleeve looked too short and the flipper was installed too tight against the bushing causing it to stick. He then took apart the left coil (the one working) and compared the two sleeves. To our surprise the sleeve is a lot shorter than the working flipper sleeve. See pic.

I put in a ticket to CGC for some sleeves and will replace them as soon as it comes in. Guess someone at the factory didn't notice when pulling parts from the bins?

Sleevesizediffer (resized).JPG

That would have to be in the Williams stuff, not the CGC stuff. So I don't think they can play in that sandbox.

LTG : )

Its in the original software as a option actually... i added one to my original.

Sorry, That's incorrect... Even by your own words.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/adding-a-knocker-to-a-monster-bash-mb#post-1067827

I am looking to change out the flipper rubbers and go with Titans - any cool colors or kits suggested?

We never found out how the person added it or tied it to, did we ? Or if it worked ? I ran through the software and don't see it in tests.

LTG : )

I can't bring myself to spend $375 (shipped) from PDI. The invisiglass looks great too, as far as I remember from my DILE. Does anyone know how often JJP offers the buy 2 get 1 free deal?

I had to search. Your picture of the driver board has an unused spot for a knocker.

I'd check with the CGC engineers to see if one can be hooked up there ? As I am now confused. Maybe the coin meter in tests fires it since coin meter isn't used on USA games ?

LTG : )

The original games had/have a 2-wire Molex connector just hanging there in the upper left hand corner - connect ‘Er up and disable the Knocker Sound (I cant quite think of the right term in the menu) and Bob’s your Uncle

I've heard rumors of that sale, but have never seen it....All my Invisiglass has been $320 shipped....PDI distributor charges an arm and a leg for shipping....

... and everything else

They pulled the Williams logo from the original MB ROM code, so they know how to make changes to the ROM code base, but changing dot data (getting rid of “Williams” and putting in a blank black screen or what ever replaced it) would be a data and checksum change, not code rewrite or bit pushing to make the knocker work. But as a programmer, this seems like a trivial change to me and hope CGC comes through for us old time knocker lovers

I have had some resistance trying to close the handle for the lock down bar, but have had success putting pressure towards the front or rear and it closes every time.

I used Super Band purple. I put green Perfect Play rings on the slings.

My LE coin door. Turned out pretty nice I think.

C075C8BB-DCF8-43DA-92DC-254290ACD78C (resized).jpeg

That's sick

That looks AWESOME!

Nice work!

You do that on demand for other games don't you?

Ok, I used to be a “dont mess with the coin door” kind of guy, but artwork like this is a wonderful use of your talents and an awesome final appearance. Beats the eff out of powder coating it imo. Good work, very nice. And your cost to duplicate on my LE is?

I got a guy who does them for me

Not an AFM thread.... but

ED7539D0-0824-491B-B348-EAADEEBD2DE6 (resized).jpeg

That is just awesome!

Thanks! I wanted something old school from the black and white original monster movies. Some of my friends thought the game was too colorful for black and white. That’s all the info I gave the artist and he pulled it off IMO.

I see, he does great work.

that's incredible. How much to do that?

He did my SS too.
Sorry, didn’t mean for this to turn into a coin door thread.

6955966C-135F-4808-92DD-ADED2E950342 (resized).jpeg