Just delivered: #41. Will unbox tonight and give my initial report. Cheers!

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Here is my report after 4 days of Alien LV ownership. Long write up, but it's Sunday morning with pouring rain...Yes, it's true, I have no life outside of my eccentric hobbies.

What a journey!- instant moments of childhood giddiness followed by expected depressing disappointment. Don't worry- there is a happy ending.

I had read all of the various issues of buying this game from a new overseas pinball maker including maintenance issues. So I was very wary for the many months that my order was festering without game delivery. Would I ever get the machine? Will it be a 300 lb paper weight? Deliveries finally trickled out and many mixed reports of the SV surfaced. Like the stock market, I chose to ignore daily reports and just wait..."You will get your machine next month...maybe". Three months later I get the email to pay off my balance...should I eat my deposit? ($1k). I know some of you paid in full right off the bat. Cointaker and PB brothers had many positive writeups so I had some confidence in my decision to complete the purchase.

So I get the email and call from FedEx and the game was delivered on Thursday. The box was in fine condition and I saved the unboxing for later that night with a good pinball buddy. I was hosting a pinball party on Saturday - how cool to show off this game!

The box was large and there was a metallic rattle-hmmmm. The tilt indicator on the outside of the box showed a normal appearance. The rattle was from the legs stored at the top- not a big deal. The game was/is beautiful and all appeared intact. I am a huge fan of dark blue- this package was fabulous.

I had seen on line that there was plastic protector film at several places, including the side art blades. To remove these I took the glass off and lifted the table. The table rails are unconventional - somewhat thin formed sheet metal with very long pull out tracks. You have to pull the table out quite far and then you can tilt it up 90 degrees. So I took care of the plastic film and returned the play field- some what un-smooth gritty feeling. Also the playfield tabs under the locking bar has thumb screws...

Time to turn it on.

The game boots up unexpectedly quickly with a huge rumble from the shaker. The monitors light up with their usual Linux code followed by some cool video clips. And then...

The shooter coil fired constantly followed by only back playfield lighting, followed by error messages, followed by no ball eject, followed by no game play.

Ugh!

Yeah, I was expecting something like this from all of the forum discussions, but hard to accept that it happened to me. The game came all of the way from Sweden from a new company. I have been fortunate to unbox many games- they usually have some loose parts or cables. Little did I know that the issue with this particular game may have been my fault. No game debut at Saturday party.

So, I lifted up the table and started investigating. The underside of this playfield is very neat and relatively simple compared to my 90s BW and even compared to most of my modern Sterns. The many node boards are very well labeled and are connected via Ethernet cables. These all seemed intact. I tested coils and switches - was able to get the shooter coil to fire, but most of the light inserts would not light. After several hours I gave up, sent an email message and video to PB brothers.

PB (Andrea) responded immediately. He even sent me a video of how the nodes are connected and some potential trouble spots. Fortunately, my electrical engineer pinball expert son, Davey, came out for a visit Saturday morning.

After an hour of testing and exploring Davey said "Um...I found the problem."

He showed me a cluster of wires going to an 8 pin Molex that connected to a node, labeled power. All of the wires were pinched including an Ethernet cable. Two of the power wires had popped out of the Molex connector.

Have you ever tried to de-pin a Molex connector? Very tedious- need young eyes and hands (also very useful for pinball play). Miraculously Davie was able to reconnect the wires. We tested the game and...the same damn problem.S**t!

As an electrical engineer you are taught to systematically attack problems, so Davey patiently looked at all of the wires and connections. He discovered that one of the Ethernet connectors on the node board was loose. We pushed the connector in, attached a cable tie and tested again...

We booted up - no annoying repetitive shooter firing, no error messages and the playfield light inserts as well as all of the eggs lit up. And, for the first time, a ball left the trough to its appropriate spot in the shooter lane. We were able to play some pinball! Of course Davey's youth advantage held up with our initial scores. The game was ready for the party.

As a side note- we noticed several standup targets next to ramps and the left scoop did not light up and were not connected. Andrea from PB brothers informed us a following code update will take care of that (of course you will have to insert the connectors). Additionally the back "glass" is a single sheet of plexiglass with a lock. You remove it by sticking your fingers in the center speaker holes. Unusual but quite effective.

So I had 8 pinball folks over who are very knowledgeable and critical. We played new Sterns, LOV, Hot wheels, lots of Mando (getting bragging rights on the international leaderboard). Alien held up all night - shot well and not a single stuck ball. It was a big hit as most commented about the great theme integration and interesting shots.

So this has been quite the journey that I hope you all do not endure. Why the crimped wires? I don't think it left the factory like that. This probably happened when I took the glass off and lifted the table the first time.

So... when you get your game, go ahead and fire it up before your OCD gets the best of you.

Thanks to Andrea (PB brothers), Melissa (Coin Taker) and @daveyvandy.

Cheers!

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How did the install go? What did you use for GI and the flasher hookups and how do the pinstadiums integrate into the dark vibe of the game? My vision basically sucks (eyes are 63 years old…) and I have pinstadiums on almost all of my games.

Cheers!

Thank you so much for your response. Perfect! Interestingly, I have two buddies of mine that run an arcade. After they saw my Alien they immediately started looking for one for sale for their place.

Cheers!

So I read on this forum about the code update. Usually USB updates on my Sterns involve 4 GB of memory which require 45- 60 + minutes (longer on WiFi) for installation.

The update on this game was almost instant. The code size was much less than a gb. I thought surely there was a mistake - but no. Looks like the update code is just the update, not the entire package.

The longest part of this update was finding it on line- had to Google search as I could not find the code on the PB site. Ok that took 30 seconds and another 10 seconds to rummage through my desk to find a USB stick.

So far the update seems to be OK- will test later today.

Cheers!

Yeah, I got ‘em. I’m old and have crappy eyes. Pinstadium lights on this work really well.

I followed the above instructions-extremely quick update. I did not reboot and played a game. The audio had a bunch of static- part of the new code? Fortunately not, as audio returned to normal after a reboot and game played great.

With the glass off I cleaned and waxed the playfield. The white in-lanes with RGB lights are very cool, but hard to clean- any ideas? I use both Novus and Naphtha products.

Picture is supposed to show a habit trail! Much more prominent than it looks here.

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My experience as an Alien LV and R and M owner:

Alien LV- too dark for me- installed pinstadiums and dialed them down a little. This works very well for me, but I am old guy with old eyes. Shots are challenging but can be dialed in with practice. Reliability? Fine in my home. Operator buddy has one on site- has been disastrous for him but he will not part with it- theme and gameplay are too good.

R and M- best theme ever and a challenging game. Flipper upgrade very important. This game is fun, but not cheap. Light on the mech and shot variations.

WOZ? Beautiful! Gameplay?… not so much. I had a chance to pick one up for $8500- passed on it and don’t really regret it (although pinflation might make me think differently).

Good luck and happy hunting.

Yup- had the same problem- cheap springs I think. I just restretched them (yeah both) a little and put them back on-works flawlessly-survived several home leagues. I have some replacement springs ready…

Major problem solved with great help from Shawn of Pinball Brothers.

My Alien LV was playing great - a favorite in home league. Then one night the flippers stopped working and then several lights went out. Upon rebooting the auto launcher would keep firing, but would not load balls. A bunch of playfield lights were out.

A couple of pinball buddies who are top technicians came over and went to work. They determined either a bad wire harness or a bad board 6.

So I contacted PB and I received an email from Shawn, who lives in Pennsylvania. We set up a Skype call and he also determined that I needed a new wire harness which he sent the next day. He did mention that I still may need a new board.

I received the new wire harness and unfortunately that was not the issue. I contacted Shawn and he immediately sent out a new board 6. After the board installation…

Game works fabulously.

So a happy ending and now to put up some good (fun) scores!

Great support for a great game.

Alien LV update

Finally spent some time playing after watching several videos. (Eric Stone game play was amazing and very useful, “it’s all about the guns”).

Yeah shots are somewhat tough, but really make you slow down and dial them in.

Right upper flipper needed adjustment- working better but not quite there. Hyper sleep ramp still a challenge.

Early on I can backhand both ramps- after 20 minutes- flipper fade and much more challenging (don’t even bother- too dangerous, so I have grow up and forehand the shots).

Broke the left sling plastic- $28 to replace both sling plastics, protectors-$13 (Marco) + shipping.

Stand ups seem to always get loose- tighten them up quite a bit several times.

Somehow playfield gets quite dirty- never seen this before- balls will actually jump- have cleaned playfield numerous times- will replace the balls.

Overall- really really enjoying gameplay- PB needs Internet connectivity.

I have the clear plastics. These definitely look better!