8 days from order to delivery in New England (USA). I'm one of those guys gambling on the doing the inlane bulbs too. Will post how that goes.

Just finished my Total Lightshow install on MET. I couldn't do the inlanes yet because one of the included sockets from the main kit was missing one of the lugs (I checked the bag, must have fallen off before it was packed) so I borrowed a socket from the inlane kit. Will post on inlane install once I get a new socket from Marco.

Everything was packaged well and the wiring, sockets, etc. are high grade and similar to what you'd find in an LEDOCD kit.

Install was straightforward. The mimed videos are easy to follow. Connecting all the wiring in the backbox took 5 minutes total.

As far as the playfield end - I definitely recommend twisting the two wires for each color together rather than installing one at a time. Seemed to be a lot easier and faster to do it that way. To get the twisting done quickly, I put the backbox end of the two wires in a cordless drill, and then held the other end at the first connector pair, then hit the trigger. Created a nice "braid" in seconds. The rest can be done by hand. Makes the install much cleaner - in fact it's hard to even spot the wires under my playfield.

The hardest part (and not really that hard) was just drilling pilot holes for the sockets that didn't use existing ones. I believe there are about 10 pilot holes you'll have to drill. I just drilled 1/2 cm in and the screws went in just fine. The hard part isn't the screwing, it's getting the drill bit around some areas that are wire-heavy. If you have a long extension for your drill bit, you'll find it to be much easier.

The kit came with several parts that I'm not sure what they are for. Maybe they are for doing the inlanes but seems like an awful lot of parts for what the inlanes have:

(4) long screws
(2) slightly shorter long screws
(6) white spacers - I'm sure these are for the center inlane bulb but not sure why so many - even 2 apiece are too thick for the screws included.

The kit also includes the mounting screws for every socket even though you can simply use the existing ones for existing sockets. If you do that, you'll have 10 or so leftover. Good to have on hand though.

The effects themselves look good. Some of them have a delay. Like at end of ball when it cycles through the 4 bonus awards, there is at times a .5 sec delay switching to the right theme. Also the inlane lights (which are untouched) now have a slightly noticeable flicker. Maybe this is fixed in a firmware update....I'm not sure what version mine came with. If I ordered 2 weeks ago, is it already on 1.03?

Anyway good stuff. I was thinking of adding in the missing spotlight at the top right of the playfield that the Premium/LE has but not sure if I'd be able to tie that in to this system?

Don't worry about it. I figured you were in Australia and I wasn't about to wait 8 days and cost you all that shipping for a lousy socket so I just ordered it today from Marco. Appreciate the service though. It was the black socket the lights go in. One only had a single lug.

But a couple questions.... Are these shipping with 1.03 already or should I update the firmware? Also if I add the top right playfield spotlight that is on the premium but not on the Pro what should I hook it in to (probably use alligator clips)? On that same token, if I add an LED light strip above the drain hole to simulate the two spotlights in the apron that the Pro doesn't have... What should I piggyback that onto? Thanks!

Awesome. I've been amazed at how on earth your system is able to keep track of what's going on during stacked multiballs with so much happening at once. Excited to see the new code in action.

Hey TimeBandit...just got the replacement light socket from Marco. Attempting to connect the inlane lights for MET but have no idea where they plug into...the blue and red wires both use that red 2-pin easy connector...but can't find anywhere under the playfield that these connect to. I must be an idiot....any help?

OK - here's my review of installing the inlane harnesses on Metallica.....

In order to make this work, you have to take the existing red and blue wires you installed in the main kit and punch them into a 2 pin IDC connector. I thought this would be the hardest part because I didn't have a proper punch. It wasn't. It's a piece of cake with the right screwdriver. Took 5 minutes. If you twisted the wires around each other in the main kit install, you just have to unwind a small portion in order to hook these in. But don't be intimidated, it's not very difficult.

The left flipper does not even need to be removed to install the two inlane lights on that side. You just have to remove this black cardboard thing. Nowhere does it say the proper order of the lights so let me tell you, it goes: red, blue, white in order from inlane to flipper. So you can keep the white existing light closest to the flipper. Remember to use the white spacer and longer screw on the middle (blue) light because the inlane guide is missing the hole the light fits through. There is no existing mounting hole under the playfield so you need to make one. PLEASE drill a good pilot hole as the phillips head screws provided for this middle light are much harder to drive than the standard hex screws. Good luck getting that cardboard piece back in without a staple gun. I just let it hang on one side, blocking the flipper. There is little risk of shorting on the left side anyway.

The right flipper on the other hand is a pain in the @$$. It must be removed because in a brilliant design choice Stern decided to install the inlane lights UNDER the flipper. So remove the flipper and let it hang. Same light order here, but note you have to be careful on drilling the middle light hole - drill it at the 11 o'clock position (looking at the playfield from the underside) in order to avoid the flipper mech. This is very important. Once you finish the lights, you have to bend their prongs flat and towards the back to make room for the flipper mech to go back. It's a VERY tight fit. Be sure the wires go under the flipper mech lip towards the back and aren't squashed under the mounting parts. Putting the cardboard piece back is critical here as you would short out the lights otherwise. I taped it back onto the playfield with electrical tape. If you have a staple gun, go at it. The flipper mech holds the cardboard in place so taping it is fine. It won't move once the flipper is reinstalled but make sure it completely covers the lights.

Total time was about 2 hours. A lot of trial and error finding the best install method. With proper documentation, this time can be cut in half. So does it make a difference? It certainly does, especially since these are the closest colored lights to the player. It is quite a noticeable difference and I'd do it again even though it was a pain to install.

Just installed....much faster response to almost everything! Only delay I noticed is between balls, GI takes a sec to come back on after next ball kicks out. Also, this seems to have eliminated the fading effect during attract mode. The lights just stay on. Is that normal?

Played for about 5 hours with the new update installed. Response time is fast, absolutely no complaints there. But noticed some glitches - when Sparky multiball starts, controlled GI is off for about 5 sec after the ball is released. Sometimes the colored GI stays on during the shock sequence which it shouldn't do. There are other instances where the GI theme is slow to come back to where it should aftr a major mode or event - I am only telling you because you strive for perfection and to convince you that this hopefully won't be the final MET code update.

Cool. I didn't want to sound like a complainer but I can certainly play tonight and note any issues in more detail if you're down for looking into them.

I played for 2 hours last night and did poorly so not a lot of stacking going on. But the only consistent stuff I noticed was: 1) Sparky multiball lighting after the electrocution sequence isn't consistent but it's almost always not right. It ranges from all GI off until you hit something that would trigger a GI light change to all red until you hit something that changes the GI lights. That is really the only thing I saw that I'd consider a 'major' bug. 2) When a new ball starts the GI has a slight delay going back to full on.

The other night I noticed more stuff because I did a lot better and had some stacks, but didn't note specifics. Last night I was a bum. I know you're taking some time off so I will continue to play and note anything else. I'm so impressed by the product and your commitment to improving it that I'm now looking for an AC/DC Pro to do this to (and I vowed never to get a Pro because the lighting is so cool on Prem).

Played a little more - I'll edit this post as I play more so any issues detected are in one place:

--- Happens frequently or always
1) Sparky multiball GI lighting off or red after electrocution sequence until player hits a major shot that changes lighting.
2) When a new ball starts GI lighting is delayed coming back on. In a few instances, GI lighting does not come back on at all when next ball is in shooter lane. GI lighting only comes back after hitting major shot that changes GI lighting.
3) During match sequence sometimes GI is all red, sometimes all off, and sometimes full on. GI does always correctly go off during flashers after match sequence.

--- Happens sometimes
1) During bonus sequence, instead of cycling through the 4 themes to coincide with the bonus items, it flickers blue the whole sequence.

LOL. That is an odd request. The balls are from Pinball Life and are only 3 weeks old - probably 80 plays on them. Before I buy 4 new balls to replace my 4 newish balls....mind humoring me as to what sort of electromagnetic paranormal phenomena you think is going on?

My man - good call! So instead of switching out the balls (which couldn't possibly have gotten magnetized in 80 plays - and these balls are supposed to not be prone to getting magnetized), I ran a switch test.....

With active switch test on, I manually kicked up a ball, shot it. Repeated. After the 4th try, I noticed a gap in the trough active switches. Turns out the two back balls were not moving along once the front ball cleared. Bingo! Trough switch needed cleaning....wasn't rolling properly allowing the balls to move forward.

Installed the firmware update. Reaction time is def improved between switch hit and lighting effect. Recommended update!

TB - my man! Amazing work on Tron.

I realize this is an outdated question and you've moved on, but in Metallica, is the GI lighting effect when the snake hisses on a shot to the snake supposed to be delayed about a half second? I don't have a Premium to compare it to. Seemed off at first but now that your kit has been out for a while now and nobody has said anything and no new code to correct it, I figured maybe the timing is off on the Premium/LE too?

Holy sh*t. Wow. Dude....you are the man.

Known issue on mine too. Usually you need to hit a ramp or some other shot that causes a GI effect for the lights to all come back on. I never mentioned it because I thought it was just me.