Sorry, double post

I did not try it - if anyone has used the official shim let us know if it fits! My way saves you 7.99+shipping

How about bending the rails like I did. It's working fantastic

I have this style of trough as well and put in a shim but took it out as it didn’t help (works great in my TOM). I found that the balls were actually sticking to the end of the trough, this piece of velcro solved the problem. Haven’t had any trough issues since.

Note added: I have always been using Ball Baron High carbon balls.

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Your trough is different, not sure when they changed to that style.

yeah i see that in previous post.

cant bend that ...haha.

To anyone waiting for their machine to arrive that has already paid in full. As of today I’m told directly from Melissa there is a full container of 60 machines stuck in port. Allegedly they are air freighting 60 more to fill some orders while that ship waits. Supposedly there is another port between the port it’s stuck at and the port where the container is destined. **** Key words: Allegedly and Supposedly.

Thanks for the update. How long have people been waiting for a LV?

Same exact bullshit story she told me for months. Good luck.

Any one have this gate not letting ball go to right flipper. When the ball is supposed to go through it and then pushes ball out drain.

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Anyone have a pic of this ramp mounting. The nut is loose and looks like it is missing something.

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Check to make sure the gate / wire isn't on backwards

It is not on backwards. The ball will go through gate and then hit sling rubber and bounce back out of gate.

How is the white block under the plastic mounted? We have seen that upside down on someones game here.

I included pictures of the left and right ramp from the angle that you took for your review.
The ramp picture that you posted looks okay, just the nut needs to be cinched down. That screw is rather proud above the hex nut when it is tightened down at that location on both sides.

By the looks of your game, my guess is that whoever changed the sling rubber for the clear band forgot to tighten down that nut afterwards.

As far as that gate at the right outlane, I included some pictures of my machine for comparison.

That is a one-way gate, so once a ball passes through that gate, that gate shouldn't be able to swing the other way to allow a ball to escape out backwards, so it's interesting that you're having that problem, as I assume that the gate wire is appropriately placed within that bracket.

On closer inspection of your picture, one thing I do notice is that your gate seems to sit a few millimeters underneath the bend of your right ramp lower plastic, and I bet that relates to the way the ball is coming through.

...and as I look even further at you picture and comparing it to mine, I believe the problem is that your ball gate bracket (the arching piece of metal holding the gate wire) is on backwards.

The open slit of that gate bracket should be further away from you (not facing you).

If you look on your picture, where the first upwards bend of that bracket is compared to the nut, you can see the length a few millimeters more than mine (thus pushing that gate opening a few millimeters away from you), and this is likely the difference of having the ball path through the inlane be smooth vs. hitting the rubber, like your experiencing.

So, I believe the remedy is removal of that bracket, turning it 180°, removing the gate wire and also rotating that 180° (so that the gate opens one way towards the inlane) and that should hopefully line things up more appropriately.
Hope this helps!

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Alien LV-154 was delivered in Los Angeles yesterday and I've an immediate question:

Is the Xenomorph magnet tongue supposed to be making a loud grinding noise while it is extending?

To me it sounds like misaligned gears however the feature is working so I'm uncertain if there is a problem or not.

Let me know + Thanks //

Congrats!
Yes. It's a somewhat noisy bugger.
Tongue comes out and goes back in upon gate boot up and has a somewhat grinding sound. It's a bit uncomfortable to hear, especially with the glass off. Very same sound on OG alien as well. This is normal.
I think somewhere deep in this thread, someone discovered a way to make it sound a bit less noisy, but I cannot recall what their technique was or if it was durable.
Speaking of which, if anyone has discovered a durable means to make that sound a little less noisy, I'd love to hear folks solutions.

tatman9999 I would suggest bending the wire gate into more of a 'W' shape.

If you look straight up the inlane guide, I bet the wire gate is rubbing/hitting its frame when the ball pushes it diagonally. I bent the wire so the side closest to the player sits further away from its frame.. hope that makes sense

You can also note that I added a thin 'bell' rubber to the outlane drain to give myself a realistic chance to bump-save through the gate. Also, not a horrible idea to add a little lubricant to make the gate open smoothly..

Cheers - Mitch

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To show you in your pic - the ball is rolling down the guide, but the gate wants to open directly side-to-side, and you can see how close the wire gate is sitting to the frame, you are losing momentum right there

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LV #156 delivered today.

Ordered/deposit down on 02 Nov 2021
Full payment on 20 Jul 2022
Delivered on 21 Sep 2022

So 10 months and 19 days from start to finish

Watching your latest vid with the apron mod I indeed noticed that your pops are way more active/responsive compared to my mine. Today I started an investigation and found out that the pop bumper switches are not very responsive. I reduced the switch gap of all pops and wow what a difference. Finally some action in the pops, time for scrambled eggs

I gotta be close then. Paid in full on July 29. Were you squeaky wheeling them (calling every other day)? It sucks to have to do that, but I'll do whatever it takes to make sure I don't end of like the guy that's been paid in full for over a year with no game.

July 1, 2021 - Joined Cointaker Interest List.

October 2, 2021 - Paid Deposit.

July 27, 2022 - Paid Balance + Shipping.

September 7, 2022 - Received Shipping Notification.

September 19, 2022 - LV-154 Delivered.

You absolutely must pester them. I would call every week at minimum. If no response leave messages then call again in 48 hours.

I hear yah. I haven't called as much as I should (like once every other week), mainly because it just raises the probability that I'll lose my cool. Having to call every day is going to piss me off severely. I've been very cordial so far.

Glad you figured it out and it was something simple. Hopefully that's what is the issue with most people having similar issues.

Wow the target switches are terrible! Had my second failure where the switch has fallen off the pcb! A little solder and we’re away but damn it’s certainly frustrating to have to do this. Might take some preventative measures and just go around all the switches and add some solder before they break

Anyone have the boot device just…quit? I plugged a keyboard in and when I checked the bios, it doesn’t show any drives.

LV-145 is in action after Shawn shipped me new controller boxes. The quality control in manufacturing might not quite be there yet but the service is top notch.

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Seems to be a bunch of bad controller boxes. Maybe it's more likely they just aren't surviving the shipping.

It's so interesting...
I think the more that I get into the pace of this game, the less power I want out of the lower flippers. When I first got the game I found myself wanting to constantly increase the power of the lower flippers (to as high as +20%), but it seems that the more I play the game, and I suppose the more I dial in the shots, I find myself lowering the flipper power (now playing at -5% for the lower flippers) and making all my shots and it seems to be with a little bit more control as well.
This game is definitely unique and has its own pace and flow, that's for sure. When it's working, there's none like it

Paid in full on July 18, but haven't pestered them at all about the shipment since then. Curious to see when it'll land.

I checked in with CT once, back in July just before I got my full payment invoice. so I'd say no I didn't squeaky wheel.

Got my Airlock cover finished installed last night - I think it really adds some atmosphere to the game that is lost with the flat plastic one

Thanks again to Mageek for making this excellent 3d design available!

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what a great customiation job... so nice looking.. Jelly!!

Damn he should do an entire plastic set like this!

Note sarcasm

Yeah exactly. Stop being so lazy and pump a complete plastic set out for this game!!

Bad to the bone.
Nicely done!
Like that airlock sticker you fashioned as well!!

Lol well whoever designed this poster - not sure its original purpose but it just worked here too well

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I finaaaaally received my LV this week. I had placed my $1,000 deposit in September 2021, paid in full in June 2022 and received in late September 2022.

The customer service from Cointaker was terrible throughout (won't be buying through them again) but it's here now, so I'm not gonna focus on them.

I have #81. Unfortunately I was only able to play a few games before the "bugs" started and so I was hoping some of you may have already had these same issues and can advise me as such. To note, when I opened the game (f*ck is that initial shaker motor strong or what?), it said that the code on it was 2.6.

PS: The game looks and sounds amazing! And from the few games I did play, looking forward to enjoying for a long time to come.

But before all that, here are the main 2 issues I've encountered so far:

1) XENOMORPH grabs the ball properly, pulls it into his mouth and as the multiball starts, he holds on to the ball in its mouth. When the other 2 balls in the multiball eventually drain, the game basically comes to a standstill as the ball remains in his mouth (even with ball search, it doesn't return it) -- until I basically shut off the game and remove it manually from his mouth. I managed to circumvent this temporarily by disabling the Xenomorph, but obviously that's only a short-term solution.

2) I had no issues with the balls plunging but then one game it put 2 balls in the plunger at the same time, so I had to re-start the game. A few games after that, it seems the "trough issues" continued and now I can't get any balls to get placed into the plunger automatically, i.e. I can't play the game because no balls are able to make it onto the playfield. This is my BIGGEST problem right now, for obvious reasons.

The other two issues (so far) are smaller in that the latches to remove the bar are SUPER-TIGHT, very very hard to unlatch for some reason. Also, one of the pop bumpers isn't lighting up, but I assume that's just a bulb issue.

Thanks for any advice!

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For the tongue, check if the magnet is releasing. It is probably getting stuck on the jaw/mouth. If so you probably need to adjust the gear start/end position. there's also a setting in the menu for some of this.

For the balls, is it trying to shoot a ball into the lane? If so, you probably have magnetized balls already or a trough swith issue. Or even maybe that lip in the trough is sitting too high.

I would immediately switch out the balls as instructed above.

Also try to calibrate the xenomorph in settings before you get too far.

No, it's not even trying to shoot the ball into the lane. Nothing happens until it goes into "ball search" and even then, nothing happens. I haven't adjusted the legs btw, not sure if that has anything to do with it.

I've never heard of "magnetized balls". Where can I buy balls that won't magnetize? Thanks!

If the coil isn't trying to shoot the ball into the lane, then check your connectors and switches in and around the trough. There are switch and coil tests in the menu which might help narrow it down. You could try pulling all your balls out and see if the game complains, then add them one at a time.

Melissa randomly called and left me a voicemail today. She said there is a batch of 15 machines that were air freighted to circumnavigate the full container of 60 that is stuck in an east coast port. There will be three more batches of 15 air freighted for a total of 60 over the air. If this is true I’d be curious to know who is eating that freight expense. That would have to cost (just guessing) at least $1,500 more per machine than over the water, cutting into one if not both CT/PB’s profit margins.

That would definitely be going above and beyond to help correct something beyond their control and should be greatly appreciated by those of us stuck in limbo for months.

It also seems, based on deposit/final invoice payment timelines provided above that CT is respectfully shipping LV’s out in the order that the original deposits were made, not based on final payment. Giving people a reasonable grace period to gather funds for final invoices being sent with zero warning without losing their place in line seems more than fair.

I’ve heard that CT’s website doesn’t allow you to even make a deposit for LV’s at this time, it makes you pay in full today. That’s probably from the 60 air freighted machines leapfrogged the container ship to fill older orders and the ones paid today would come from the container stuck in port.

Now would be as good as ever to jump in on NIB LV to anyone with $12k burning a hole in their pinball wallet. Once they’re gone get out the lube for scalper market.

Just my two cents after lengthy conversations with both CT and PB it appears as though they have collaboratively made efforts to douse the fire.

I was over in the Godzilla forum and noticed these target wedges.... does anyone here think that these could add a bit of a solve to the Alien targets? This mod offers a few degrees of frontward slope to eliminate airballs on Godzilla, perhaps this could help with ball redirect for the magnet?

thoughts?

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1377-hippies-haven/05733-anti-airball-target-bracket-wedge

wouldn't just placing an adjustable wrench and bending the angle of the bracket achieve the same thing?

Yes, following the instructions I've posted here many times accomplishes the same thing and totally fixes the problem. Also, it is free (if you don't need to buy a bench vice like I did.)

If it is just plunging out 2 balls that is easy to fix. I had this problem live on stream and fixed it by increasing the power a little:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1598924157