To me this product is really a great design and something that I definitely intend to try out sooner than later. Years ago I bought the original aluminum flippers that were offered by Pinball Life and they were really great. The wimpy plastic flippers we use twist and bend with a minimum of force and most of the time have breaks internally when inspected. The original Pinball Life ones worked great in fast games like AC/DC and Metallica and they definitely made my shots more accurate. Definitely. When I sold those games, I stupidly left the metal flippers in them thinking I could always buy more, but that was not the case.

A while back Pinball Life commissioned some new metal bats and I ordered some. Unfortunately the design was TERRIBLE. The bats were loose on the shafts and they were not hollowed out so they weighed way too much. Pinball Life refunded everyone who ordered and they are done. I ended up pinning my flippers to secure the shaft, so I could use them and test them out. The extra weight didn't affect the shooting of the ball at all, but it did affect the speed at which the return spring brought the flipper bat back down and caused a slight bounce at the bottom. The original metal flippers from PBL were much lighter and DID NOT DO THIS. They played just like regular flipper bats as far as return speed.

So now we come to this new product. First thing I noticed is they are nicely machined to remove any excess metal and keep the weight down. They are completely hollowed out on the bottom side and if you look they are even trimmed off on the bottom to give extra clearance on the playfield and avoid any chance of dragging. I would be buying the bushings at the same time, because the normal nylon bushings also bend a lot. So this new design passed all of my sniff tests when I first saw it and I even sent some questions to the designer which he promptly returned.

For what it is worth, I am also an engineer whose job it is to review new designs and design changes. I definitely have no connection with this company, but I do plan on purchasing these flippers for one or two of my Sterns. After testing them for a few months, I suspect that I will be purchasing them for all my newer games. As mentioned above, these games cost thousands of dollars and the part that controls the ball is a $5 piece of crappy plastic. To make the dreaded cargument, that is like having some old bias ply 78 series tires on a new Corvette.

The "precision" to me is in the shot making...

A good solid flipper is simply more accurate. This was proven to me every time I rebuilt flippers on Monster Bash and watched the Phantom Flip make shot after shot, where the old sloppy flippers barely made one or two in a row if lucky.

This makes no sense. This is like saying the product is painted red but its not red. Precision CNCed *is* by definition precision.

There have been aluminum bats on the market before, but none exactly the same. I would argue this is a better design than any of the three previous designs that I am aware of.

I just don't get this? Why would there be extra parts to make it more accurate? The accuracy comes from the stiffness of the bat compared to crappy plastic bats that almost always break and become even worse.

See above and attached picture...

That is personal opinion, so I won't debate that point.

Personally I think the bushings will be beneficial too, but not as much benefit as replacing the plastic flipper bat with aluminum.

Mine just arrived in the mail and are going into Rush some time this weekend!!
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Those are also, nice new solid flipper bats on a JJP machine (weak flippers). The plastic bats get old quickly on Williams and Stern games. A lot of them are not built very well. The plastic cross members under the flipper break a lot and cause the flippers to be really flexible. Also, some bats have less struts than others making them flexible right from the factory. Here are some pictures from a while back that I took of three flippers that I bought from Marcos and/or Pinball Life in the same time frame. Two are standard flippers and you can see the white is a typical poor design, the yellow has even less struts and the segmented (longer) yellow is extra reinforced and the struts go all the way to the bottom of the bat. The weaker yellow flipper can easily be bent in your hands with little pressure. It is really sad! The segmented yellow with the enhanced internal structure is hard as a rock. The white is in between on stiffness and probably represents and average flipper. Just one broken strut inside and it will be as weak as the yellow one!

So essentially, someone could make a better plastic flipper that is almost as stiff as the aluminum bats by mimicking the segmented design. Problem is still that the struts like to break. I always look into the bottom of the bats when I rebuild flippers and they are broken a surprising amount of the time.

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As I mentioned before in this thread, I have seen undeniable differences in accuracy for both the Thing flip and Monster Bash Phantom flip after rebuilding flippers. For those not familiar, these are shots made automatically by the machine with the players "hands off". The shots are calibrated in software to be more accurate. When I rebuild flippers, I do the full Monty that includes bats and bushings along with the normal rebuild parts. I have seen Monster Bash Phantom Flip go from not being able to hit the side of a barn to at least 80-90% accuracy.

Even without this previous knowledge, it is simply not an argument that taking out slop anywhere in the flipper mech will increase accuracy and repeatability. To me it is more on the skeptics to prove that it *doesn't* improve the function of the flipper instead of the other way around. (and good luck with that...)

This does bring up another point though. It would make little sense to upgrade to the metal flipper bats and bushings without also rebuilding the rest of the flipper mechs and links if they are old and worn.

Those do look perfect in Godzilla. I could leave my flipper toppers off with those in there!

Haha I had an old 70s game once that I actually just said F it and broke out the angle grinder with cut-off wheel and threw a ten foot stream of sparks as I cut off the old flippers from below the playfield. Someone had broken off all of the set screws flush with the pawls.

Any advice on settings for Elvira HOH? I don't see it in the database. I turned them down to 240 and that definitely doesn't seem like enough. The ball kicks back out of the front door of the house. The red ones do look great!

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Those do look nice. I've stopped using anything but real rubber on flippers, so pretty much limited to black, yellow and red.