individual flipper angles are a big thing here too. each has its own sweet spot!! For my lowers i have them parallel to the lane guides. Upper right has a "droop" to slightly behind post. Upper left is slight droop from lane guide.

Make sure all you new Alien Ripley people get your votes in for the game. Although I am reasonably satisfied with the game sitting at #35 I do think it could stand to be a few positions higher and be appropriate.

There have been some serious downvotes the week alien hit nr. 1 spot. Next week it was at nr.50. The stern army came in and godzilla got back on top.....
I think it will never properly recover from that....although it deserves a higher place even.

Yah getting it to #1 was silly and the Stern fan reaction was just as silly - but I think it should be top 30 even 25 in my opinion but its in a respectable spot even atm which is nice

Hi all,

Working on installing my Apron Mod today by Evolution Mods.

I have to remove the bumper post and connector part under the playfield in order to fit the new apron. What is the best way to remove that underneath part that the bumper post screws in to? Just pop it out with a punch or something?

Edit - Nevermind. Found that screwing it in underneath and then pulling down worked like a charm.

Anyone heard of their Ripley landing soon? I was hoping for a christmas miracle but it's looking less likely.

This is EXCELLENT feedback. Thank you for these suggestions!

The spinners are definitely bricking, now that I think about it. That is a huge issue especially with modes where I need to get to the pops.

I think I'm good on the right orbit --> flipper
Scoop is intermittent - i may reduce the coil power.

Hypersleep shot: I bumped up the coil power quite a bit; that seems to be better now. before I was rarely able to make it up the ramp.

Thanks to the others who offered additional suggestions too

Ok guys, this Apron Mod is becoming a real pain in the ass!

Whats the issue here. The apron fits fine, but as you can see, not enough room to let the ball drain.

Also, the parts of the apron that looks like alien burns, mine arent lighting up but ive seen others that do. Thoughts?

20231218_135840 (resized).jpg

Rager170 I had the same issue- I ended up bending back the apron a little to make room for the ball to clear- Also check the led strips on the underside where the alien burns are- there is quite a bit of hard foam in there. I made sure my Leds were working then scraped out a little bit of the foam so the lights would come through. Once you get that apron up and going it is AWESOME-

I also had the same issue..I bent it in, just like the other poster here did..check the connections on the lighting that goes to that board (inside the apron on the left) that's probably why the acid lights are not lit (who knows, but good to check the connections on that board). My main beef (although I like the apron), is that you can't see the center post on the machine, which is a big deal for me (and others that know how to 'play' that center post). A lot of center post hits can be saved by just letting it bounce back into the pf..but if you can't see it, then it's a crapshoot.

I also set my right lower flipper up just 5-10% power and you can back hand the right ramp wireform if your quick in letting go of the flipper to get the upper flipper out of the way

Thanks guys, Ill try bending a bit.

For the acid burn lights, I checked and they are working. But there are no holes to get through the foam.

Thoughts?

Not sure what you mean by no holes. The foam cutout doesn't go all the way thru. The lights are below it. I would check the connector where it connects to the main board. I had an issue where the wire ends pulled back from the clip and not making a connection. You just push them back into the clip further.

These foam pieces are hand-made and it sounds like we got a few that need channels cut. His LEDs appear to be working fine and we are working with him in a tech support ticket on his issues. These issues all sound like easy-fixes.

I’d guess that since the lights are working, the foam is perhaps too thick for it to penetrate through to the surface. There should be no holes in the foam, as those lights transmit through the foam for the effect. Have you turned the lights off in your room? These acid lights aren’t super obvious in a well-lit room.

Hi All,

Things are coming along better now, weapons light is working. I got the apron fitted by bending.

Just need to hear back about cutting a channel. There is no cutout in my foam.

20231218_153141 (resized).jpg

This has me hyped.

I don't think they'll land by Christmas. Still holding out hope for before New Years.

yes Rager170 that looks very different from the foam I have- i would carefully chisel away at that foam to allow some access for the light to pop through

The Ripley edition and new code has turned me 180 on this game. I have been at NO Ripley = NO buy, so now Pinball Brothers you got my money.

Thanks. I got it to look fine, but took a bit of scraping away.

Question for those of you with the Limited Edition Apron Mod... Evolution Mods has been very helpful and I had a question about the "limited edition" lettering. They said it has a green filter over those letters and the only way to change that would be to change the film.

Has anyone done this yet?

My distro said the games are stateside and going through customs as of today.

As far as I know, no one has ever even asked about the Limited Edition color or wanted to change it except for you. If you want to try this, I think you would be stepping into brand new territory.

If I wanted to do this badly enough, I would probably buy some lighting filters off eBay and experiment with them.

Maybe something like this?

ebay.com link: itm

Well that figures, lucky me! I do have a bunch of filters at home but im not sure I want the task. Its not necessarily that I dont like how it looks, I do actually. I just like options. If anything, I would like Limited Edition to be white, while Alien to be blue, so not sure thats even possible. Again, just getting picky.

Thanks again Brad. You guys were very helpful for me today with my install. It looks great!

If anyone is interested in some mods for Alien let me know.
I have new apron cards, face hugger lane extender that helps activate that upper right hand magnet more often, and a hypersleep chamber mod. Thank you!
Here’s the link to everything!
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/alien-mods-apron-cards-facehugger-lane-extender-hypersleep-chamber-

You’re going to love it!

I installed the full gamecode ISO 4.0, but it still boots into black screen on backbox on occasion. Similarly no development for the center magnet - still misses to catch the ball - its 50/50 does it catch it or not. With my earlier gamecode (I think it was 3.2a5) I had not booting into black screen problem - hopefully atleast this matter gets sorted again.

I don't think your black screen issue is a game code problem at this point. I haven't seen a black screen in over 6 months now.

I'm still getting black screens after new code.

So honestly how do people feel about maintaining this game? Are replacement parts easy enough to come by? Do you have to get some things from PB themselves and is that a problem if your in North America?

Only issue I’ve had are the flipper springs, and those can be had from multiple sources.

Once I did need something PB specific and it was inexpensive and shipped very quickly.

So far it’s a non-issue.

Its been some of the best customer service ive seen. Any time I needed parts, they have arrived that same week... Granted, im not too far away from the warehouse.

If this info was from cointaker it prob is an exaggeration. Just a heads up that they've got a history of just telling people what they want to hear.

One reason I sold my Heighway version was to have an actively supported version of Alien. On my LV, there was a proximity sensor that didn’t always detect the ball in the left outlane 2. Shawn shipped a new board immediately. No other issues, it has been excellent. Later runs usually have the bugs worked out, so Ripley should be good.

It wasn't

My LV has this issue atm on the left outlane - seems if the balls falls through too quickly it won't pick it up. same goes for the one next to it the ball can quickly fall through a little high kinda skipping the sensor

But I did not have the black screen problem on my backglass monitor with my earlier gamecode 3.2a5 (or something like that) at all. Now with 4.0 it returned.

I get the black screen on the pf screen now. My old code was bulletproof. I’m sure they’ll fix this, and I needed the new video assets!

Try reseating the board, if the sensor is closer to the ball it should detect it. In my case, I didn’t want to place a screw on the edge of the board to push it closer, and the new board proximity sensor is perfect.

New code is working on mine, maybe try another download?

i Just had to replace the left spinner.. USA parts had them at 25 bucks with decals on them. Stock up on the target and xeno switches.. Always have these on hand.

I just get a blank PF screen at times, that's all..

Make sure it's not just skirting by the sensor. I moved my rubber on the outline posts down a little to keep the ball from being able to go too close to the posts which caused the sensor to miss the ball....been rock solid ever since.

I get targets (plastic with rivet and micro switch breaking) breaking, so I always have some spares.

Where are you buying extra targets from?

These are more expensive than I thought they would be..

https://pbusasales.com/spare-parts/alien/playfield-parts/standup-targets/

Grab 4 of em and hold em.. not sure what the long term life of these is going to be.

I've been told first wave of Ripley machines (those who paid in full in November) could be delivered to customers by end of next week.

Updated the mini beacon mod to the slightly larger beacons. Originally I had the ax-511 now using the ax-510.
Used the awesome beacon holder driph made available and just made the holes on the ends bigger.

BF69DB0E-C46C-4133-85B5-7791F6C81E4C (resized).jpeg

That reminds me I need to add these little beacons. They arrived the other day, I have to get that STL!

4 of each size? Or is one more prone to failure than others?

What about that mod that puts the spacer between the banks of standups, I've seen people say that has resolved failure in those entirely.