I haven't had many stuck balls. Most happened when the game was pitched at 6 and not 7. One time the ball got stuck on the gate right before that, but never there. Is it between the metal and wood there?

Updates too: seems like I tinkered with the right outlane switch enough. Thanks to RussMyers and PsychoPsonic for the help. Only had one mislaunched ball early in the night and never later. Autolauncher seems better after putting in the protector and playing with the forks, but I also ordered the fork cover and Ninjacamp mod. Going to check out the above post from Russ about the redone launcher.

Also got the Phantom Shadow figure from Modfather. I remember seeing the figure in a toy kit somewhere, it is cute! I may do a paint job to spice it up a bit though. Painting Warhammer helps a lot lol.

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The prior code loaded the update fine using the same thumb drive (and the same dongle). So it’s not my hardware as best I can tell.

The Gold City Mine shot? ( entrance to the right cock lock ), I find that easiest to hit backhanding a cradled ball off the right flipper.

Can scooby snack multiball time out? I was just in it and after a while it seemed to end and return to normal play, I still had 2 balls in play. I started another mystery, still with 2 balls in play and after a while drained down to 1 ball, all sound went while I flipped about trying to hit the final shot but drained. Seemed like it was pretty bugged.

Not the Gold City Mine shot, he means the little loop shot all the way to the right, the Black Knight shot.

I cant backhand that from the right flipper, has to be a tip shot off the bookcase flipper.

RM

I'm responding to his comment, not the comment he quoted.

Yup, that was it. Thank you. I missed news that a second release was put out.
I wish they would email blast when new code is posted. Too easy to miss news here.

Actually they do email that information. Maybe need to sign up for stern of the union emails

Seems you might be thinking of Stern instead of Spooky?

Hey!! You’re right

Lost track of what thread I was in. Sorry about that bud.

Though....spooky does have a newsletter signup on their homepage.

Oh good call! Signing up for that now so hopefully I can be aware when new code drops! Thank you for that!

I frequently have balls get stuck in the same spot and have to lift the glass. Frustrating…please post a solution if you find one

I took the glass off and started doing a quick clean of the playfield. They must laser cut or water jet the metal playfield ball guides. The edges are extremely rough for any surface coming into contact with another metal piece. They really needed/ need to debur these parts. To those not as anal as we are this is going to destroy balls and end up turning 7 balls into a nice 400 grit roller. After noticing this i took a few balls out and they looked well played and not how balls should look after 150 plays. To the point where i compared them to games ive had for about a year( change balls around the holidays) and those faired way better and had more plays. Ive worked with sheet metal in the past while in my previous career as an Aircraft mechanic and this is just sub par and shouldnt be accepted on such a high dollar item.

had this problem you need to bend that tip up a little bit, ever since i did that no more issues.

check your screws for the wire form near the slings, mine where loose. did this and it stopped happening.

This is the only place I was experiencing stuck balls. I fixed it on mine with the following. (Yours might only need one of these two things or might be completely different.)

1. First see if the red circled switch is slowing your ball down. Manually setting the ball down closer and closer to the switch showed noticeable slow down and even stopped the ball when set down close enough on mine. To fix this I just bent the metal/wire switch forward a bit so the ball didn’t have to push through as much.

2. Number 1 solved most of my issue but I still had slow moving balls get stuck on the yellow circle wire form end. So I bent it down. However, the down side to this is on rare occasions the ball can drop off the wire-form down to the playfield there.

Also, if your game pitch isn’t 7+ degrees you should consider increasing it before doing either of the above. Standard 6.5 degrees is pretty slow for Scooby. I think Spooky had posted a rec of something like 7.3 degrees. I maxed out extending the back legs with the front legs not extended at all on mine.

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How many times can you get cutler multiball? I got it twice in one ball, but then couldnt get it a third. I saw a post recently that after first cutler mb you had to complete something else before the second, but i dont recall doing that.

Also, does anyone know what multiball can get stacked with an episode or character mode?

I had captain cutler multiball and scooby snack multiball at the same time, that was pretty neat.

For points i found going only for multiballs makes the most sense, is this true? maybe its because i rarely finish an episode or character mode.

This is a change in the latest code. You used to be able to restart Capt Cutler multiball over and over and this has led to issues esp with tournament style play.

Now, once you have completed CC multi once, you have to re-qualify it by completing a Pirate Henchmen Hurry-up.

Watch from this point and Bug shows the details:

RM

I posted this earlier with no responses. Has anyone seen similar behaviour to this?

"Can scooby snack multiball time out? I was just in it and after a while it seemed to end and return to normal play, I still had 2 balls in play. I started another mystery, still with 2 balls in play and after a while drained down to 1 ball, all sound went while I flipped about trying to hit the final shot but drained. Seemed like it was pretty bugged."

Yes it does time out, but you do get bonuses for 2 ball play, you can also stack villian modes in scooby snack MB. I did this last night and finished a mode with a 2 ball bonus lit on the screen during the unmasking.

It's funny you mention this (not really funny). I cleaned my buddy's Scooby a few weeks ago and I was shocked at how the balls and playfield looked. While making a flipper adjust on my Scooby last night I noticed my brand new carbon balls looked very worn. I was wondering how this could be with less than 100 plays so far. I may buff the rails, or change the balls every few months in Scooby. Concerning for sure.

I first noticed the sharpness when one of the horseshoesgrab my microfiber. So I decided to take the upper playfield airfield/mine cover off. You can still see the burn marks from the laser. Which makes me believe they cut them and send them.

They should cut them and throw them in a tumbler for a few hours at minimum. I took my detail light and hit the play field (98+ on color rendering index on 4000k) with it and was shocked at the Mount swirls and scratches on a playfield with <200 plays. Looked like my 12 year old truck before my ceramic job.

Spooky Customer service has been top notch thus far with any issue.

Curious before my machine gets here, are the areas of metal that might need deburred reachable for the most part without removing many other parts? Figured if I could maybe I would at least try to lessen the issue before playing it (which will take a lot of will power to not play much haha). I guess its good that I bought a bunch of replacement balls so I can switch them out as they get beat up since it seems like they may get beat up rather quickly.

I had not one issue out of the box. Not one. Balls are holding up fine , no stuck balls , no whine from holding flippers on and no Misfires on ball launching . No ball locating issues ,so I guess I have another unicorn game like my Gnrce which has not given me an issue either with its servos for lights and no flipper fade , so just very lucky I guess! Hope you need not touch a thing

Love to hear that! I'm hopeful for the same experience but figured it doesn't hurt to check for some of the issues people have reported after unboxing. I'm such a late build maybe I'll get lucky and they will have ironed out some of the issues as well in the meantime. Either way I'm not too worried about if I do encounter some issues, the theme is one that I had to have no matter what haha.

8 business days since invoiced/paid. I'm on the edge of my seat in anticipation of the shipping email at this point haha

I’m #1102. And besides adjusting a couple switches to be more sensitive, I removed the gate on the left vuk. Thats it.

My 1149 has been pretty good overall. Little tweaks to make the game "mine" but overall no real issues. The game is a blast to play overall and has some of the most unique code I have ever seen on a game.

not to scare or dishearten the excitement its every piece of "not off the shelf" pinball metal. By no means am i trying to cry about this, just pointing this out. Having 9K plus into a game is insane to me, and dealing with game locking up mid game, but will play fine randomly hours on end, switch adjustments, flippers getting weak randomly, especially when i started out in pinball with a $250 countdown i bought with Christmas cash 6 years ago. I fully expected or expect these issue(s) with 20+ year old games that I grab off the marketplace fix up Trade or sell. But on a Brand new HUO pin that cost more than some cars ive had in the past.

EDIT: spooky has reached out to me and stated that since i have an earlier run game that a few games slipped out during production and theyve corrected the discrepancies. But have stated others are having this issue.

Pictures added, those are the first 2 balls that popped out of the trough, the laser “blueing” really highlights the unfinished state
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I think I saw your Youtube video!

No worries! Not scared or disheartened. Sorry to hear yours slipped out and is beating up the balls and causing more wear. I appreciate the pictures as well! Gives me a good idea of what I might want to look for when mine comes in. Trying to take in as much info from everyone here as I can.

My CE 1241 is shipping out!! So excited! I hope they fixed the plunger issue by now, that’s the most frequent thing I see going wrong I guess. Can’t wait to unbox!

Was your 1241 butter or regular?
I bought the plunger fix from TSB_ just in case. And the pindefender as well just cause I liked how it looked haha.

Yea I renamed an old channel I had to Kolks Pinball. I mainly just use it to link videos to my Facebook page (same name) where I hold little tournaments at my house, show what pins I’m working on, what’s up for sale, and so on. I just made a separate page so my normal page isn’t flooded with it.

I know, I know, you’ve seen this shot a hundred times, but it’s still exciting when it arrives at your house, right? Even the freight guy was like, “Who doesn’t like Scooby-Doo?”. Setting it up in the morning, but dismantled (4 screws) the topper in preparation for the custom one I built (think haunted house) Pics when it’s all set up!

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Regular! I’m watching my calories.

When he was 80 years old, famed cellist Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice. "Because I think I'm making progress."

Ditto.

A buddy came over earlier today to try Scooby: I think he'll be joining the club.

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Nice! After a month or so of having mine, my highest score was 10 million until today...made it to 17 million. Though I do have it on easy and 5 balls. FINALLY unmasked Captain Cutler too. Still outstanding is Black Knight and Spooky Kook.

I'm on easy as well, but only 3 ball.

the kook and black knight, are evading me as well. also ive only been able to get the ice cream shop once or twice. but have figured out the extra ball shot( or notification its open)

Despite me being 2 hairs away from qualifying as a baboon I managed to successfully diagnose my Scooby with assistance from the oh so generous and helpful usafstars . AJ from Spooky is sending my replacement parts out today; super excited to get it up and running again.

Great to hear! Do you mind sharing the details of the issues, the diagnostic procedures and results and what parts will need replacing?

That may help others in the future.

RussMyers

Sorry to tell you, mine is #1099 but butter so probably like #1200, had it a week, last night, the infamous plunger issue raised its ugly head. Only problem I've had so far, wish they had just put a regular plunger in this machine, would have been flawless. Oh well, it's a known issue, I've got the stabilization mod and the other fixes to work on this weekend, but is disappointing.

A large frustration had nothing at all to do with Spooky, really. I suffered a stroke in August of last year and my eyesight took a minor hit. The print on the warden board is smaller than your standard terms and conditions. It took time, a bright light and assistance on reading the numbers on each portion of the board to trace down the issue.

My issue was with Q62, as my meter came back with a reading there. The diagram I was given stated to follow the yellow wire coming from the red plug and trace it back to my lower left flipper as Q62 controls "Left Flipper High". I clipped that wire and reconnected everything and presto change-o, I know had everything else working again EXCEPT the flipper in question (of course).

Got it, and thanks for sharing this.

Has Spooky ever explained why a single bad transistor takes out the function of the entire chain until the coil is unhooked electrically?

I'm guessing it's a watchdog that shuts the chain down if there is a short.

RussMyers

So those that are having issues with the auto plunger being weak, I believe I have found the problem and have included a solution.

Looks like spooky used a stern kick back arm as the plunger, but in actuality they should have used an auto plunger with the extended face(pictured below) and the brace on the portion of the arm that needed to be more robust. The issue with the original kicker arm is that there’s no horizontal stiffening where the ball comes in contact with the plunger. So the ball is slightly spreading the fork and the fork is absorbing some of the energy from the ball when plunged. Hence why “tweaking” the the 2 forks closer together is fixing the issue (temporarily) for some. Also the extended length on the face will allow that energy to be transferred linearly while being rotated around the arm. Meaning you get the full energy release from the coil transferred to the ball.

You will need the 2 parts (not 100% on the pivot bolt as of today) pictured below plus cannibalizing the circlips of the old plunger. Or a machine bolt and nylon nut should work

EDIT 2: I believe the real issue i overlooked til now as seen in the last picture. The bell crank bracket is not properly secured and is left floating at its hinge point. "something...something newtons laws of physics one of my avionics instructors talked about but i had other things on my mind" The part you want to have supported the most in this situation. theres a reason this part has 4 mounting holes, yet only 2 are utilized, i get this thing is not going into space, but i or any one cant rule out this is the man issue. I disassembled the coil and bell crank assembly to try to see if i could position the bracket further AFT but they ran into the same problem i did, the shooter lane is too short and if you try and reposition the bracket to stops the bell crank from rotating.

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If you look at page 4 of the Warden Board schematic: https://spookypinball.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/warden/schematics/rev_6/HH-0000_WARDEN_REV_6.pdf you'll see there are 3 banks of 48V enable / protection circuits. So a shorted Mosfet will trip the PTC Fuse for the entire bank of coils that Mosfet belongs to.

Nice! Ill be buying these parts to have on hand. Gonna see how long the auto-plunger plate from TSB_ lasts for me before going through the trouble of changing things out but I'm bookmarking this for safe keeping haha

Spooky needs to address this issue with their customers. Too many post about this issue.

Has anyone received a fix from Spooky?

I sent my findings and recommendations to them, it’s in their court now.

OK, got it, that makes sense.

RM

Have you swapped these parts into a Scooby launcher mech and tested it?

Are they essentially drop-in fit?

RM