My dm still has the original 2 hot wheels in it 16 years later

Ok. Honest question. And please keep in mind this is just pinball and we all have different experiences. For all the people that complain that this is too much of a kid theme...
A) Aren't your kids the ones that are actually spending the most time playing your pinball machines? I like pinball and when I haven't played a game in 2 or three weeks I try to go down and play for 15 or 20 min, but our basement, the games, movies, playstation etc is for our kids. They are the ones down there everyday playing. You know, because they don't have jobs and responsibilities and what not.
My kids are the ones that ask me about new games and what other machines we can get. Their enjoyment is the only way I would ever justify spending as much money as pinball requires. They are there ones constantly asking me about pinball, and not a week goes by that they aren't asking about hot wheels.
B) if hot wheels is a kid theme, can we all agree that so are tmnt, dead pool, spider man, jetsons, batman, wonka, and ghostbusters? I just feel like 25% of pinball has always been themes for little kids.

Like I said, I'm not judging anyone. We ALL make up this hobby and I know we are all different. I'm glad we are all here, so keep doing you.
I am just surprised by the amount of this hobby that is comprised of adults that by these games for themselves. This is primarily because pre pinside I knew 4 guys that owned pinball machines and all of them just bought them as a thing to have in their basement when they remodeled. None of them ever actually played pinball. It was just down there for their kids and when they had company.

I feel like no one is mentioning one of my most important criteria- build quality. Have there ever been issues with ap machines having the cabinets split? Playfield pooling/chipping/cratering? Insert ghosting? I am honestly asking. I know there were a couple hardware hiccups with Houdini, but haven't heard anything bad about build quality since.

#001 coming my way

Ok. Please forgive me. I have been on pinside for a few years and have also listened to several podcasts on a regular basis. So I am aware of several people in the industry, but many of their pinside names don't have any relation to their real names. So starting with American Pinball, can someone help me out with who is who on pinside in regards to their username?
Also, if there is any reason why someone would not want that revealed, please don't "out" them.

Thanks Lloyd. I am easily confused. Saw ferret worked at American Pinball and that he posts high scores as JOE, so i didn't know if he was Balcer or someone else. I have heard Joe Balcer do interviews on podcasts and I just trying to reconcile some of the industry people whose names I know, with pinside posters.
I don't want to think that ferret is Balcer if he isn't and I don't want to ask rosh a question on pinside if I have already heard him answer it on a stream and just didn't put the two together.
I also didn't know if some AP employees were expected as part of their job to be active on community forums or if the people listed as AP or JJP employees were just people that like to interact with the community, but weren't doing so in an official capacity.
I apologize again for my ignorance

Another example: I just bought the mod couple LTG gorilla mod for my Hot Wheels. At first I didn't know why you had a Hot Wheels mod when your profile says JJP.

I'm almost afraid to ask but I assume all playfields dimple at this point. However I personally haven't heard anyone complain about dimples on ap games. Has anyone had issues with excessive dimples or cratering on their ap games?

Is hot wheels standard size glass?

Who is streaming this game next? We are going crazy waiting for ours to show up. GIVE US MORE HOTWHEELS!

Got my hot wheels in today! Thanks to Michael Grant and the team at American Pinball! This game is incredible. Truly a dream theme for our family and we love it. Pics to come.

Oh and perfectly smooth shooter rod. I am getting some feedback from the speakers and occasionally the ball is coming out of the vuk, hitting the ramp and bouncing onto the playfield. Although my wife and kids basically shoved me out of the way during setup so they could start playing. So I need to check for proper level and slope.
Also, what do you guys have the shaker motor level set at?

I have all of these except the start finish signs. I love them. Although i knocked the ball out of the ltg gorilla's had thus resulting in the first ever hot wheels 7 ball multiball. Now if only i could find it so I can glue it back on.

Ok, new code questions:

skillshot
I thought you wanted to rev to 9 and then plunge. If you hit ten, then no bonus is awarded. Is this true? My kids claimed that they still received bonus by revving the tach all the way to 10.

Tach question
Is spelling rpm using the targets the only way to increase the tach level? Seems like sometimes it increases faster, but not sure what I'm doing to accomplish that.
Also getting to 10 and getting redline mania is the only way to shift up a gear. So to get to fifth gear you would be completing four red line manias. Is this correct?
Is there a comprehensive rule sheet somewhere so I'm not clogging up this page with my stupid questions?
Please forgive me. I am a dmd guy and hot wheels is my first modern pin. Still trying to wrap my head around the code.

Thanks. saw that but I know code has been updated a couple times too

I have had this happen 3 times in about 300 plays (all on newest code). Once pictured here (4th place insert stayed green for multiple games until reboot) and the other two times an were on arrow inserts (one stayed blue, the other green).

20200818_130308 (resized).jpg

Any of you guys want to reveal your scoring strategies? I spent the better part of a week focusing on battles and races while my daughter was spending all of her effort going for the rpm targets and blowing my scores out of the water despite not doing much else.

You guys are adorable. Acting like I have any control over when I activate turbo.

I miss the music as well

About 50 games since i uploaded the new code. I have experienced the "no intro to redline mania 3 times. Twice I had the tach at 9 and hit the boost shot to activate red line, the third time i got the tach to 10 during a two ball multiball, so i intentionally let a ball drain and immediately hit the rpm target to activate.
Don't know if this info helps, but thought I would offer up my experience.

If you want to try to reproduce the problem, try getting the tach to ,9+ and then hitting boost to start redline. My machine has skipped the redline intro 3x by doing this.

It has also done it under a couple of other circumstances too, but this is one seems to be consistent

Love this game. Thought I would always be a bally williams dmd guy but the wife and kids have already commanded that this game be bolted to the floor. I'm with them.

Does anyone else have issues with the ball going airborne off the orange ramp? It is happening to me whenever the ball is traveling faster than typical "down the inlane" speed. Probably most common in redline mania.

Ok
Random "I apparently don't know the rules to my own game" question:
What does one need to do to light the advance bonus target?
I know that I light it most of the time, but I'm not sure how

Well it has been s couple days, so of course I have more questions.
I have previously gotten to car chaos multiball, but just finished a game where I became "car collector champion" but didn't activate car chaos multiball. I thought the multiball was activated by collecting a specified number of cars. Am I wrong? Does the number of cars needed fluctuate?
Anyone out there collect all hero cars in a single game yet?

I keep checking youtube, but people don't seem to be uploading the streams. Fliptronic has a couple videos, but I know that they do much more. Unfortunately twitch stopped working on roku a while back, so it seems I'm stuck without options.

Unfortunately I'm too old. Computers are for work. Plus I'm not going to go into the office to watch entertainment at my desk on a 27" screen. Twitch just isn't conducive to my lifestyle.
I fully support the guys that do it and I think these challenges are a cool idea. I hope it helps AP spread the word about Hot Wheels. It really is a great game.

Awesome! Ill give it a try.

Get to redline mania by increasing the tach to 10 (the fastest way to due this is via the rpm targets). After red line mania you will shift up to the next gear and scoring increases.

Should be a game changer for setting high scores if you aren't currently advancing the tach via the rpm targets.

I don't believe there is

Wasn't sure about this, but in the previous code if you start an epic feature, lit collect epic feature and then drained before collecting it wasn't there an "epic fail" screen that told you how many points you missed out on?
Did this get removed in the latest code update?

Yep. We are the same way. Just waiting for the announcement.

Eventually

Duplicate post. Please delete

It is the new favorite at our house as well. The kids and the wife have declared hot wheels their new #1

we bought duplicates of my son's favorite cars to avoid this problem.

I did something similar until I caught my four year old standing on the glass trying to get his toys down.

I am getting the same 1% drain out of the pops but man I get a lot of stdm balls exiting out of the left side of the orbit (after shooting the right side).
Disclaimer, my basement floor is sloped so a perfectly level isn't level after a couple games of nudging.

I apologize. I am talking about it exiting the 2nd/5th/11th place lane and going sdtm

I did the incremental update and mine is fine.

If you are getting 32 million on your first RLM then you are one shot away from getting the super jackpot which is MUCH bigger.
I don't think you can start RLM while in multiball. I have intentionally drained track multiball before when the tach was at 10. This automatically starts RLM. From what I can tell the benefits are
- the tach seems to go down faster in multiball and i suck at going for rpm targets and jackpots at the same time.
-shifting gears after RLM increases all scoring

That being said if you are regularly hitting 6 billion on car chaos your scores are likely much higher than mine

I ended up lowering flipper power and now i rarely have this issue and still have no problem making other shots

I made a cool topper with some the hot wheels toys. Specifically the triceratops and gorilla. Then I found my five year old standing on the playfield glass trying to get them down to play with. So no custom topper over here anymore.

Question for you guys.
Got my hot wheels in August and have put a ton of games on it. I have updated the code with each release and haven't had any issues. I would occasionally get an led that would get "stuck" on a certain color, but power cycling would always fix the issue.
However about two weeks ago my rpm insert leds started acting goofy.
My "r" will only alternate between blue and green and won't turn any other color.
My "p" isn't lighting at all.
My "m" is working fine.

Has anyone else had a similar issue?
I just submitted a service request through AP yesterday because pinside has been down, but thought I would ask you guys for thoughts or suggestions.

Ok. Anyone ever have their magnet stop working? My game appears to be working 100% except the magnet no longer activates at the beginning of a race or during loop crash mb. Tried to check all the connections and don't think I missed any. Fortunately code allows the game to work fine without the magnet but I would like to get it up and running if possible. Do these ever just go bad? I noticed it shortly after a code update. Is there a "turn off magnet" string that i may have switched on by accident?
Last time I opened a ticket with ap the issue was embarrassingly easy so I figured I would try here before wasting their time.

Be careful if you have little ones! I did something similar and then found my 4 year old standing on the glass trying to get his toys down the next day.

Ok, I need some help, as I may be going crazy. I just updated to the beta code that supports co-op and now my magnet doesn't work. Tried running a test for the magnet coil and nothing. Is there any chance that this is an issue with the code? My original magnet did die at about 1000 plays. After some trouble shooting it turned out that the magnet itself stopped working and I ordered a new one from American Pinball. Now it has been about another 300 plays and it has stopped working again. I just find it odd that it happened right after a code update.
So if this isn't a code issue or a (setting that I am not able to find) is there possibly anything that I am doing that is causing these magnets to stop working. I did check the fuses and they are fine.