Not sure. Mine is a recent biuld. I haven't played any other Premiums.

Might be the balls too. When I got mine the stock balls stuck every single time. I replaced them with POLARIS Pinball – Carbon Steel and I have one ball that refuses to stick. Makes me laugh when that one is the shot. Luckily I'm about at the point where I need to replace them again. This machine just eats balls with so many exposed metal guides.

I have had the same problem with the stock stern balls that they sent me with the machine and the ninjas I just put in act the same way.

New batch, my magnet works fine, but how the hell do balls end up in the bottom of the cab?

Also. What do you do with the portal lock
Closed?

Spjn the wheel to re open it...collect avengers, work the computer drops etc

Just a thought/guess for trying to troubleshoot it, but maybe check the tower optos in switch test. I think there are three optos on the tower. I’d guess one of them triggers the magnet to switch on. Maybe check to see that those optos are working and aligned correctly?

Looking at my games there is a very frustrating trend I'm having (besides not being able to get the mind gem) and that's if I get a gem then I will drain twice before being able to start the next mode.

I've looked at my patterns so far and if i fail the first quest then I can easily start the 2nd and third gems no problem. HOWEVER if I get a gem in the I WILL drain twice before starting the next gem. Doesn't matter if its reality, power or mind I will drain twice. My latest game my first quest was even the soul gem (2nd ball) and after getting it I drained twice again.

Uhhhh...I have no idea why this is happening. Its VERY consistent

EDIT

I just did another game and had an amazing 1st ball and got the mind gem and triggered the soul gem quest before draining. Then I drained twice before starting the soul gem quest

Lol, hang in there!!! I still have a lot of times where I drain after winning a gem quest, either when trying to collect or when trying to place the gem. I think it for me comes from one of two things (or a combination of both) 1) Letting my guard down after I've won the battle and not focusing enough on getting to a safe collection shot, and 2) Being determined to place a gem in a specific location and trying to force a shot to get that placement in order to avoid hitting a shot where it would be placed somewhere else. In this game, for me, trying to force a shot when a couple better shots are available is a good way to get the ball into trouble.

Best way I've found for me is to not let up focus until collect and don't force shots to try to collect quickly. Go with the flow and let the ball get there eventually on a safe shot. If needed, take a few shots to get the ball into position for the collect. Then after collecting don't worry if I can't get the gem placed on Option A. Instead just make sure it gets placed safely without draining and make use of the gem wherever it ended up or use Change Gems later to move it.

Avengers shoots great and is a lot of fun to play, but the fact that the ball remains in play/danger after winning a battle and having that post in the middle of the playfield that can bounce the ball out of control any time it's hit makes the game pretty challenging.

What helped me out was working on the Black widow shot while the ball was in motion coming into the R inlane, at least you get a semblance of control, and if you have a pro you can then combo it into the collect gem ramp

It's more in your mind than a physical thing... I recommend to just keep working on your shots. AIQ is the best comboing pin around, but if you miss, it is easy to get into trouble.

Playing some "Battle Royale" mini games can also help get a feel for all of the shots, especially Ant Man, without worrying about draining too much. Ant Man can come in handy with the "Change Gems" shot in real games, but can be dangerous.

Combo - Combo - Combo! Keep working on those combos!

It's the same combo on the premium also

Lol, nice! That video looks like you've got the game running on auto pilot

New run game. During iron man multiball the left slug kept popping like crazy. After I hit Hawkeye challenge the flippers went dead. Any ideas?

Sold my game today. Buyer didn't want the topper or shooter rod. If your looking for either pm me vv

I would start with re-seating the cables in backbox and node boards.

Checked everything on delivery well. I emailed padblo. May just need to reupload code.

I had the same struggles. Someone on here told me I should set my game to 5-ball. I am against this because I'm very competitive but he was right. It is the only game I set to 5-ball and as my kids and I get better at the game, we are going to reduce it until we get back to 3-ball.

It makes a big difference in allowing you to learn and practice while reducing the frustration that leads people to move on from a game before its time.

When I first got my AIQ, I struggled to finish a single mode when it was on 3 ball so I set it to 5 ball to learn the rules and shots. Once I was completing 2 or 3 gems before ball 4 on an average game I set it back to 3 ball.

On occasion I'll even set it to 5 ball to get a chance to see some of the wizard modes that I might not be good enough to get to otherwise.

I say all that to say, if you are having fun, then that's all that matters. If you aren't having fun, you are doing something wrong.

I struggle with this as 5 ball made it worse for me. I had turtles before and had a "2 mode curse" as in every game I could only get 2 modes no matter the combination of winning or lose. I bumped up the game to 5 ball and I STILL could only do 2 modes.

Meanwhile I've diagnosed the situations I have a bad time in and am looking for answers.

1. Slingshot Hell - long story short I'll be in scenarios where the slingshots are hit 5+ times before my ball touches the flippers. It will cycle through the slings then launch into the orbit or hit thor ball then come back to the sling and rebound again through a combination of slings and drop targets before draining. I've tried bumping but have no idea if I'm bumping correctly or causing more drains

2. "High speed flipper bounces" I can't describe it but essentially the ball will come at the flipper at a high velocity away from the sling (as such I can't catch it to hit the corner) and the ball bounces off the flipper and into the sling causing me to enter slinghshot hell. Drop catching doesn't work as the ball doesn't "roll" up the lane and even with the flipper up it will bounce up into the sling.

My biggest weakness is recover shots from the right ramp/starting mission position. If I use the upper flipper I miss the ramp and the ball goes wild and I just pray I don't drain. I've tried using the lower flippers but the ball just bounces upward into the sling and I drain.

Have you considered that perhaps your slingshots are not working correctly?

Every new Stern I have unboxed lately has the slingshot leaf switches set to hair-trigger sensitivity. It's one of the things I fix for my customers when I pull the game out of the box.

The purpose of the slingshots in your pinball is to steal your game.

If the slingshots are set to hair-trigger sensitivity, the ball doesn't drain down to the flippers where you can get control of it.

Remove the plastic pieces over the sling shots, yes, you'll need both the 5/16 and the 11/32 wrench or socket to do this.

It is extremely common for the blades of the leaf switch to be bent until they are almost touching at the contacts.

You want a gap of something like two thickness of a dime to three thickness of a dime between the contacts. You need the gap to be correct at both the top leaf switch and at the bottom leaf switch. I adjust them so that when I push in on the rubber it takes a bit of a push before the contacts touch.

You need to have the switch only activate when the ball hits the rubber with 'some' force. Not too sensitive, not to un-sensitive.

Get all four slingshot leaf switches inspected, and gapped appropriately, and you might find your game is finally under control!

I agree that many new stern builds need this attention……I find less sensitive on the top switch usually gets it close without much adjustment on the bottom one.

I think that fixed my issue with the rapped fire issue. Leaf was touching thanks

Stern was right on with a response. I made a few slight adjustment and with a little wiggling, opto came back to life with no further issues.

Thanks again to everybody here for the help! Gameplay is great, just want to keep on top of the maintenance going forward.

-AJB

Stern in sending out new through opto boards for mine. I had to replace the subway entrance opto to get the portal to work properly.

Just got my drop opto board today; took exactly 3 weeks from first email FYI.

Got a few hundred games, in the first week, on my first pinball machine and have a few issues/questions

1. The flank attack rollover star switch thing is sunken into the playfield and becomes a ledge for the ball to get stuck on. Currently emailing back and forth with stern about the problem and how to fix it correctly.

2. ball drops from the gauntlet ramp almost never feed the upper flipper properly, they drop from the wire form and start to roll towards the disc. I have checked level side to side and everything is ok. Is this normal? Should only get a clean feed to the upper flipper from the tower? I was contemplating bending the wireform a bit to see what that would do.

3. The quotes above were the only other posts in here I could find. it does not happen often but usually during a multiball the flippers just go dead and dont respond, the lights go off and i end up draining a ball or more. it doesnt last longer than a second or two. I feel like I may have narrowed it down but it happened once during an extra ball award, in multiball, and another during thor multiball but I couldnt pick out the shot that started it. I haven't brought it up to stern yet but now that we are getting better at the game it seems to be occuring more often than before. If i were to bring it up what would be the best way to explain it or something to test to really narrow/prove that there is an issue.

Not sure about #1 or #3 but the feed from Gauntlet is an easy fix. Just loosen the screw of the closest attachment point of the wireform to where the ball drops (attachment point is over the plastic above the upper flipper), make a slight change to the position of the hole the ball drops through, retighten the screw, and test by using your hand to roll a few balls down the wire. Repeat this until you’ve got the drop hole in a position where you’re happy with the feed.

Good luck with the other two items. I’d work through support on both to see what they suggest.

1. does the star move up and down at all? If not, it is probably pushed too far down and slightly out of position to come back up. May be able to push it down a little from above with toothpick or similar to dislodge or adjust from under playfield. I've had this happen before.

3. Sounds like loose node board connection. Probably node 8, but double check the manual to see what node board affects what you are experiencing and reseat connections.

This was mine too. Fixed #2 right away.

Finally beat the game with all 6 gems, took me~2k tries, 2.5 billion score, here is my path if interested:

Failed power gem
Collected mind gem (Thor MB with portal lock)
Collected soul gem
Collected power gem after completing thanos attacks
Collected time gem (Iron man MB with portal lock)
Collected reality gem (Thor MB with portal lock)
Collected space gem (Portal lock and help from level 1 mind gem)
Avengers assembled for a third time with help from Iron man MB #2

Lesson learned for me is to stop rage quitting after a terrible first ball

I turn off the "hold the start button to reset game" feature for just this reason.

My tower magnet is doing the same thing. Perfect strikes up the tower and a 50/50 chance that it is going to fire right back out. Odd thing is that I don't think it is the magnet. I have had multi-ball sessions where I hit a second ball into the tower and if the first ball is caught, I have seen it catch a second ball as well. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot the tower?

Especially when you consider how many extra balls you can earn over the course of a really good game. In a 6+ ball game, a single bad ball really doesn't have to set you back that much.

Can someone please post a picture of how the interlock switch is wired on their AIQ machine? My interlock switch does not seem to be working, and I suspect one of the wires is on the wrong terminal. The switch is located inside the coin door on the left. Attached a picture of my interlock switch for reference.

IMG_0462 (resized).jpg

These pictures are from my AIQ premium.

5ED877FE-2575-486A-BC71-EE07FF72BACE.jpeg

83CE9CF0-BC97-468A-AC1B-0E5D3B4CEF76.jpeg

Most likely as EaglePin mentioned - one or more of the tower opto switches are misaligned or bad, so the magnet doesn't always come on properly.

Verify functionality in switch test - there is a setting for the function of the switch. It may be turned off or set to not kill high voltage when door is open.

I did the "Tower Magnet" coil test and my magnet doesn't engage with that either.

There is NO setting to prevent the Coin Door Interlock Switch from disabling HIGH power! There is a setting to prevent the interlock switch from disabling the LOW power node bus.

In your case it sounds like an issue with the magnet itself then.

Edit: Make sure the coin door interlock switch is pulled out during the test.

Thank you, my mistake then. I was trying to go from memory.

Did anybody adjust their flipper coil strength? Only reason I ask is I was playing a couple of games yesterday evening and they didn't seem to want to complete the shots (BW Ramp, Gauntlet Ramp, or the CM Ramp). I do realize that as machines are plays consecutively, coils get hot and there is some performance drop off, but seems like they were a little weak from the start.

I did check to make sure the coil stops were not bent or blown and they are all three still fine (factory installed versions).

Thanks!

-AJB

How many games played with factory coil stops? That would be my first guess. Around 500 games played on a new Stern is about the longest I've had them last for me. Weakness and/or stickiness is usually the sign of bad coil stops.

Cooling fans will help with long play sessions, but shouldn't have any impact on a cold machine just starting to play.

About 125 or so on the factory stops. I already have replacements here (they arrived before the machine did, LOL) so I can change them out whenever.

I have thought about the fans and i was going to look around for a package deal since I have two more machines coming this year. Might as well buy them all at once and save on the shipping cost.

But, to you point, there seems to be no need to adjust the flipper power in the game settings correct?

Thanks!

-AJB

Interesting, I must be lucky. My stranger things went 4k games before the pin pulled out on the plunger and I had to do the flipper rebuilds. My munsters has 3k games on it and no issues. I don't think I've touched those flippers at all. My guardians has over 5k games on it now and still on the original coil stops. Probably due for a flipper refresh but I sold it and it's in a bar now where I run the league so get to watch it close. Avengers has about 800 games on it and still going strong. I see a lot more brass in the cab on this one but the flippers are still good. I stocked up on coil stops when I bought my first pin expecting issues. Must be why I've not had the issue lol

I've never changed the flipper power settings on my Premium, but feel free to see if it helps.

I do clean and wax at least every 400 - 500 games played which will help as well (Also replace balls), but at 125 games that shouldn't be an issue I wouldn't think.

Not bad! Sounds like a quality crap shoot on the coil stops. A couple of mine, the "tab" had come completely separated, the others just spun and gold dust everywhere.

Yeah I think the 500 games was on my Deadpool Pro and my AIQ Premium only hit in the 200 range. My new Godzilla Premium is in the 300 range and I'm still going with the factory coil stops until they need to be changed. I do have replacements at the ready!

My Deadpool is now at ~5500 games played and AIQ is ~3500 games played and the Pinball Life coil stops are still going strong!

I tried running the coil test again and now it will briefly activate the magnet and pull the ball but it doesn't hold it. Is the coil test supposed to hold the ball?