Many folks here are on the list for our custom apron.

Please vote for our next venture later in the year.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/custom-pinball-apron-poll-next-venture#post-6950757

Got it working For a few days and had a lot of great games and now I/o board error again! I’m going to do a Skype call with Andrea and hopefully figure whats wrong. It’s LV #2 and at this point I’m concerned with long term ownership. I’m seriously contemplating selling/trading it. I honestly feel bad because I wanna give them a shot but I’ve never had a concern with ownership of a game until now. I Don’t mean to be harsh but at this point I only have two games and would like to have the feeling of turning a game on and expecting it to work. I can fix a lot of Playfield problems or work on wpc games but when it doesn’t boot the firmware there’s nothing I can do. I have complete faith that they’ll get me running but will that be the same three years down the road?

I completely understand what you are saying but this is in a way the new norm for the newer machines.
Nothing could be worse than ownership of the Heighway version and they are persevering through it. In the thread they seem to be overcoming problems and they are way worse off with a lot less games produced.
I had thoughts like you but I wouldn't throw in the towel yet.
There are very resourceful people in this hobby to make things work.

PB is making lots of revisions to their boards and controllers to add reliability. I have a whole new set of revised boards and 2 new controller boxes from them..The one controller box I can repair the transistor that went bad so I will have spares. The only spare I don't have at this point is the back box computer.
I have not Installed the new revised boards yet.

Thanks it’s nice to hear similar experiences and the same sort of doubts. Which is why I posted. I’m just a little worried how difficult it is to change out a controller… Seems like there’s a lot of wires involved. Not sure that’s what they’ll do for me but it’s so flaky, it’s working this morning again but give it a couple days it might stop working so the unreliability is what I’m worried about in the long term. For now I’ll hold out and keep it because it’s such a great game.

With that being said I have prepared myself that this machine might be down months at a time in the future..lol

I went a month trouble shooting and waiting for 2 delivery's from PB to get it back up and running.
However I know this machine pretty much backwards and forwards now.

Having a non voluntary break from playing though made playing it again fresh and sweat again.

I was having this problem for a couple of weeks and PB was not able to figure it out. I eventually looked at the network cables between the node boards and noticed that one was different than the others. I swapped it with another one and the problem went away. Maybe the odd one was not shielded as well and reacted to one of the coils firing or something. Anyway, switching the network cables around worked for me. Maybe this will help some one else with the I/O board error.

Have you brought this up to pbbros.
It is important that they get feedback like this, they might nt be aware of it

I am LV #15 and my game has bricked. I had been getting just the black screen, but was still able to play it, etc, and once I turned it on/off, worked just fine. I turned it on today and it’s just a black screen, it won’t load up at all. It starts the process but on the first boot up screen it says wrong EfI loader signature, then goes blank. Anyone else had this issue and have a solution? I opened a ticket with PB brothers, but wanted to check to see if I’m the only one having this issue.

Yes other's have encountered this error, I suspect you'll need to reinstall the S/W (if the bootloader is corrupted then the OS & software won't be able to boot up)

I will give it a shot, but how do I reinstall it since nothing works, I guess I could try putting a usb with the old firmware, but there is no way to make it run, since the coin door buttons don’t do anything while it’s bricked.

Instructions are on the PB Support website https://pinballbrothers.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/80000843825--how-to-rebuild-machine-alien-2-2 after this you'll need to upgrade to 2.6 (as you've done previously)

Great, thank you so much! Working on it now

That did the trick, thanks again. Now I’m having an issue uploading the 2.6, keep getting an error message saying it won’t read usb, going to pick up a new one tomorrow.

Spinner issue

Spinner does seem to like to center after used. Tried adjusting switch arm and tuning everything...anyone having the same issues?

Yes I'm having this problem too. Also, the spinner stops the ball and it's difficult to make that shot. I'll have to take a look at it tonight and see if I can make an adjustment.

When I closed out the ticket, I let them know. I don't know if they used that info or not.

LV #28 - Hey all - just an update. I FINALLY had a chance to try the instructions on the video to 'calibrate' the Xeno head, per the instructions received from Andrea.

I think what may help folks in the future is to have the playfield standing so you can access the bottom, and connect the Xeno head there to perform the calibration as done in this video. Still useful to have two people. but this simplified the process.

Also my APC targets are nice and stable. I cut a couple of pieces of thick'ish paper and aligned with the plastic drop target ledge piece.

I actually did a similar thing on my Ghostbusters awhile back and it seemed to help.

Lastly - I had a water leak in my ceiling in my game room....So that obviously took precedence moving everything out...nothing got damaged/wet, but was a scare!

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I went to the last picture without reading and thought the Queen escaped into your attic. HA

Once playfield was vertical, did you calibrate xeno while motor etc were out of machine, like in video?

Yes - that's exactly what I did. Still helped to have a second person. The original instructions support provided (before Andrea made that video) didn't articulate this but doing this did the trick. It appears the Xeno needed to be upside down when doing the calibration with the screw and gear clip is off. Essentially, the mouth reverts to 'shut' at the completion of the calibration. When the gear lock is off it won't mechanically close the mouth, but gravity will. You do have to hold the mouth open while the tongue extends and pulls back.

Right spinner arm can slightly catch on the plastic, try shifting it to the left to help clear it

Another day, another game freeze. No ball search, just hit airlock scoop. Mode starts, timer doesn't move, ball doesn't eject from airlock.

Time goes down a little bit but hangs in the 25 second region. Eventually game mode ends, never does a ball search and ends ball. New ball starts but ball doesn't eject.

Can't get into service menu either during the freeze. Only way out is to reboot.

These random mode freezes are starting to become more frequent.

Do they have a decent coder dedicated to making the code better?

Back glass key. Bought a used sv. Backglass cylinder key came broke in half. Are these keys specific to each game or generic? I emailed PB, waiting to hear back.

This happens from time to time with mine too.

I've also noticed now that if I leave the game on for any length of time (1-3 hours just running in attract mode) it does sometimes lock up and requires a restart.

For whatever reason, first thing I thought of is an overheating issue. Wonder if the PC is not getting proper cooling?

Do you guys have an older revision of playfield BOARD 6 (donut with a hole in the middle shaped board)? Ever since updating this to Rev D, all my lockup issues went away.

Early SV Version
System Update: 2.4

I finally made these adjustments to all my targets. I had to buy the bench vice as shown in the picture (around $40.) You'll need your Gen. 3 targets and I took the brackets from my older Gen. 2 targets for the additional support as mentioned in the document.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nAbEz6VHpTw8Kl0FMe9Gfh8GaA52Q2-uChS36ffJNn4/edit?usp=sharing

It was a little bit tricky and may take some trial and error. You want to make sure the plastic target hits the metal just as the switch triggers. You may need to slightly bend the metal bracket to fine-tune it. Also, for the Xeno targets the document recommends doubling-up on the brackets. if you use double-brackets like I did, I'd also recommend bending the support bracket to ensure there is plenty of clearance from the Xeno jaw.

After doing this, and reverting to System Update 2.4, the Xeno is eating the ball 100% of the time. Not too shabby! This is the first time I feel my game is 100% with absolutely no problems.

As a reminder, I had one of the first shipments of SV's, so most of the issues I encountered have been resolved in newer machines.

As I patiently wait for any indication that I even put down $1000 to CT (LV). I would like to thank all the early owners for all their hard work and determination. Because of you I am going to stick with it, hoping PB dials everything in.

I had freezing issues when I got mine last year, it was an mITX failure. They sent me a new board and I replaced it in the computer box behind the monitor. It hasn't frozen since and I don't get the black screen on boot anymore either. I wonder if your problem may be the same?

I suppose anything is possible, but I have 3 ITX boards and I get the black screen on all of them. I suspect it has something to do with the HDMI compatibility as someone mentioned above. I was chatting with Andrea yesterday. Not so much about this issue, but he brought up the black screen and he thinks they are very close to nailing down the underlying issue.

Edit... The black screen is fixable by unplugging a cable and replugging it in, while still powered on. That pretty much rules out the ITX as bad

That's good news about the black screen fix but I was mainly referring to the freezing issue in regard to the mitx. The customer support has been great so I'm sure most everything will get sorted out eventually.

Something else unrelated but has anyone else seen the Playfield artwork coming up in any areas? I've seen this spot by the third flipper continue to keep getting worse.

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Is that melting or clear pooling? I can't tell what it is.

Yes, unfortunately I have. I don't think it's the artwork, it's the clearcoat.
"Funny" thing: when I finally decided to buy an Alien I thought "Whatever is wrong with the game, the playfield will be fine, it's from Buthamburg". Now that playfield looks like to be my biggest problem....

Its not the clear but the combination of Clear with the artwork that is failing. It is not pooling but a separation of the art and clear from the wood playfield under this plexi in this location. I have this same issue it was a "flap" of torn/loose playfield folding up and under the plexi . Under this plastic is a hole for the led light board, on mine it separated here and started showing as in this image. I dissasmbled this side and placed a fine piece of mylar under to stop its progression.. My ticket has been open with PBros for some time and we are working on a resolution. OPEN a ticket if you have not done so.

I'm beginning to think that companies should just do away with clearcoat completely and just go with a thin piece of scratch resistant replaceable 'plastic' of some sort. Time to rethink the process since the cost and use case is completely different than when clearcoat was a solution to a problem.

Yes, and it should also eliminate the dimpling issues all the newer games have too! Current costs do not equal the quality that should be expected.

I woudl invest in this technique that we could lisence to pin mfgs!!

sounds like my SV is almost here. Excited for the game and Im actually binge rewatching all the movies. Its amazing how well the original movie holds up alkmost 50 years later. Heres hoping I dont have too many issues with the game!

Back to a brick. Do you know if Andrea will do zoom calls over the weekend? I need to schedule this. Now the game boots showing the IO connection missing again but no insert lights.

Sounds like from who?

CT

OK my alien movie binge is finished. I had seen prometheus before and was reminded it was crap. Then watched Alien Covenant for first time and thats also crap. But hey the originals arre great and I actually even like ressurection a bit

Resurrection was great F the haters. Well it was mostly great. Unit Alien human bebeh.

Yeah, Resurrection gets a lot of hate, but I mean...it was fun. I didn't mind the baby, it was something different.

Prometheus I can watch, with a cringe...
Covenant..just no. It has NO redeeming qualities.

Crazy how Ridley completely misread the room on what people hated about Prometheus...but I think it was more about his own pride than caring what people thought.

So I ordered an Alien LV and got my first ‘two weeks’.

Now this is not a machine you can unbox an put in your collection. You will have to do some work. Reading through this thread I think that all of us have that experience.

So the machine came in beautiful, well packed and looked great. One minor detail that immediately showed was all decals on the apron peeled, no big issue I thought, just stick them back on but that lasted only a few minutes.
Another thing I noticed was a small scratch on the backglass. That evening send an email to PB and next day they send me confirmation that a new backglass and decals are on it’s way, I did receive them already and all looks fine, great service, unbelievable.

Above the playfield looked fine, the playfield itself looks great. Next check was under the playfield. I saw the youtube video from Bufffalo pinball to did know what to expect, also my machine came with about 10 connectors loose. No big deal, just go over them all. After that start playing.
All looked ok, but you really need to tweak a lot of things, first of all the settings for coils. Lower slingshots, lower the flippers, lower left eject, increase magnets and pops. I did fans on all 4 flipper coils, I think it makes a different.
Bottom pop bumper was really non responsive, I took apart the whole mechanism, increase spring tension, used some spacers to increase the gap, adjusted the switch. Seems to work now perfect.

After two weeks I have only few minor issues left.
- The ball does sometimes fly of the right ramp, I put some tape on the top of the scoop to force the ball down, but even with lowered left flipper coil settings, this occasionally happens. I asked PB for a solution.
- The magnet does not always grab the ball, I think I have a hit rate of about 40%. Even with magnet strenght on 50% higher.
- The screen did go black after some time in attract mode or even after startup. Reset did the job.
- Twice I had a ball in vent 1 during multiball, it seemed to stay there and after other balls drained it was ejected by ball search. When you then drain that ball the machine does not register the drain and keeps in the game mode without providing a new ball and it will do a ball search. If you then manually provide a ball you can play that and after drain it still will not register as drained. I do not know if this is a ball through issues or just software. Since it happened now twice only during multiball. A reset of the machine solves it, but also resets your score

Some remarks/questions:
- Is there a way to make the outlanes smaller, I do not see an adjustment is possible in the posts. Right outlane is brutal. View on outlanes is restricted due to the ramps.
- During Derelict ship mode I still do not understand when the upper posts pop up? I thought shooting the blue arrow would do that but not always.
- The Hypersleep ramp is really hard.
- Game code is solid, I would like to see some polish to make it great. Light effects etc.
- Weapons are really cool. Stacking multiballs is awesome, the movie clips are great, hope on more call outs.
- Hope the code can help with upper magnet for Xenomorph catch
- Sounds are awesome, does anybody know the Ohm of the cabinet speaker?
- The use of the lights on top is perfect, not to much

This is for me a great theme and the machine has the one more time factor for me. Great machine.

Nice Update. My back Panel was also scratched. They sent me a replacement in days.

I finally got around to installing Kurt's fantastic translite! To be of any competition to the quite frankly amazing LV artwork speaks volumes to its awesomeness.

Also just FYI for everyone... I had another 2 nights of issues where my machine kept locking up, freezing or restarting during play but reseating the backbox connectors (again) resolved everything. ‍♂️

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My alien landed yesterday and I was wondering if there was a pre amp out for a sub? Saw an optical out on the backbox computer. Anyone use that yet?

His alien SV translite was a huge upgrade. For me, the LV stock is so much better but I guess you can’t go wrong with both.