Interesting, thanks for the reccomendation - in the world of miniature painting, simple green is usually used to strip the paint off of models, makes me a bit wary. Going to try some novus 2. In terms of the alcohol - I was using these small 70% wipes that are used in the medical field. Never was an exorbant amount, however I see your point - definitely do not want to do damage!

You’ll be fine, takes a LOT to damage to a new playfield. You’d essentially have to purposely try and cause damage to cause damage

Can you give a specific brand and name of product? Like something from AutoZone or O'Reilly's? Thanks!

Thanks for the tip. Took the wall off and adjusted the flipper ( it was just a little too tight on the bushing ). All seems ok now so no need to remove the upper playfield...thankfully. Anyone ever owned a BK2K? now that was an upper playfield designed to be easy to work on.

I really liked hybrid solutions 3-1 ceramic detailer(phunny farm on YT did a test and it was the best product in his test), chemical guys isn’t bad and is available everywhere , any meiguars rinseless car wash would be a solid product.

Turtle Wax 53413 Hybrid Solutions Ceramic 3-in-1 Detailer - 32 Fl Oz. https://a.co/d/epMZldT

Final CEs?
I see that TCM sneaking in on the right!

Check the TCM thread!

I used on of the EZ Clips from Back Alley to mount it. I actually just used the one from my Shaggy mine cart figure.
https://backalleycreations.com/collections/ez-slide-brackets/products/ez-clips

SpookyLuke and SpookyBug How's that code testing? Possible early Christmas present, maybe? I have a bow all ready to place on my machine and pretend it's new. Also, happy holidays!

StacksOT thanks much on that MM settings tip. It does work a lot smoother, it was making a bunch of noise earlier and took 3 or 4 tries to do whatever it was doing haha. Cheers!

Great to hear bro!! How about the other issues? Did you ask spooky about the coin door?

Yeah for the MM I would say it mostly does 1 or 2 thanks to those settings. Definitely healthier for the machine. New guy stuff I also learned: set the eject on the trough to something love 45%. Play a bit around, that way it does not whack the wood as much! Credit to either Russ or PsychoPsonic. Not sure which of them recommended it first!

I’ll do that for the eject! Mystery machine seems to be working correctly now, played a few 5 player games and it hasn’t dumped balls since. I’ll keep my eye on it.

I haven’t heard back from spooky on the coin door, but I included that in the same list of issues to them so maybe they didn’t see it yet.

I did have to bend a piece of metal on on the right side as well. When my mystery machine was ejected a ball, it would roll down and barely glimpse the bumper piece and redirect it right down the middle.

I’ve found a few other minor things but I’ll play around and see if I can’t get them straightened out.

Thanks again!

Yeah, the ball guide you mean right? AJ sent me the video for it. Basically just use a flat head to move it out a bit. Good to hear!

Swapped to GID rubbers and made some subtle changes in rubber sizing etc, really makes the game play faster and more consistent.
above the right flipper swapped out (2, 7/16") for one 3/4” rubber
all 3/16" mini rubbers got swapped out for 7/16"- on the upper playfield stops the chance of stuck balls on the airfield shot.
the upper playfield sling is labeled 1" but PL 1" is not the same as Titan, if swapping over to titan order a 1.25 for the upper playfield.
Also to note: behind the drop targets there should be a 3/4" rubber. For some strange reason spooky, just put one 3/8" rubber and called it a day?
I would also advise swapping from the tapered stern post sleeves, to the standard williams/bally.

Over all impression after swapping over, is that the flippers got way better, i can cradle the ball on a dime with the book case flipper, flippers feel stronger/consistent, slings came to life. One again PL 2.25 rubber are slightly over sized, and the titans woke up the slings. For lacking pop bumpers, i feel as if you need hyper active/ hair trigger slings to add some excitement.

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not sure what happened with these but all 4 flippers seemed to be pinched for some reason?
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Here i was messing around with Titan pinball 6v UV strip, not digging the output brightness, Ordered some 12v tape off amazon. ( TBC)
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Lights off
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This might be my Christmas project, the scooby wire form looks half assed with no thought behind it, going to mess around making a camel back type hump on a decline, with the possibility of a cork screw (like black hole ) into the apron
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The fix I used worked for me since 100% of plunges. AJ suggested widening the forks out 1-2mm. I used a pair of pliers to do this, measuring with a tape measure before and after. Works 100% now on 70% coil strength. See photos I posted 1-2 pages back.

Hello everybody,
here's my next DIY improvement for SD...

Problem: balls hitting the sharp edge of the left lane guide, causing some wear and a clunky noise.
Solution: replacing the standard post rubber by two post rubbers, glued together, covering the sharp edge.

Merry X-mas!

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That edge bothers me too.

thought it was just me, mine is the same way, only way to properly fix this is to pull the guide and take off an 1/8-1/4" off the front. The problem with this is 3/4's of the game needs to come apart to do so. They made it to long, also while in this area that ball guide behind the drops is not secured properly missing a nail/rivet into the side rail. Found the rail up at a 20 deg angle. You see this in the picture 2 post above.

I LOVE this game, and (dont mean to bitch) but for fucks sake this is all FIRST day end of the line production QA catches. Ive had this game apart more times than some games, that Ive hard topped. As a pinball community we need to stop accepting "these norms", the sooner we all stop the sooner we see change.

Stern Bond has the same discussion about an edge in the owners thread.

Yea friend's bond edges look like bad car accident victim right now.

Go get 'em.

RM

Half assed with no thought behind it? Nobody wants to hear these type comments. But looking forward to your better version..
Here's a pic showing a spiral ramp they tried and decided it was too slow and blocked part of the pf.

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You've had the game for a month and now you want them to message you about some major issues that nobody is having? They're pretty much done building Scooby. Tweak the game to your liking and enjoy it.

bet you $20, yours has these issues. But your game hasn’t been taken apart far enough to discover what’s hidden, but what do I know?

Wasn’t what I was talking about, and it’s the truth. but if your putting out a premium product your going to get premium complaints. I wish I could just make little tweaks and play. Every session it’s something else. Every dam day the glass has to come off.

My Scooby has been solid. Had the glass off a couple times the first couple of weeks, same as any NIB game.

From reading your posts sounds like you got an early run game second hand and have been dealing with lots of issues and that sucks for sure. I agree 100% that Spooky can improve on some basic engineering stuff, but your expectations for engineering standards in a pinball machine seem really high. Maybe your career is influencing that, I think I read in a post you work/worked in aircraft maintenance?

Pinball machines are not airplanes. The games are hand assembled by generally unskilled workers and the engineering tolerances are nowhere near what is required for aircraft. No one died because a pinball part was not 100% precisely engineered and perfectly placed with 100 checks happening with the placement of each part.

For Spooky or any manufacturer to hit the standards you seem to expect would triple the cost of the game.

Change the game however you want if you think it will make you happy, but no need to be insulting about it. Like or hate Spooky games, no one who has listened to or met any of the Spooky people can say they put no thought or dedication into their product.

Partially a fair assessment, but its not that i have high standards, ive had about 30 machines run through my door. The issues ive highlighted, Are not aircraft grade or related, its just oversights. And i bet they have carried over to this next line up. why is every laser cut piece of metal left raw with sharp edge? My williams, bally, etc are not and would bet they got cut by hand. Was told that it was due to my game being an early run, but judging by some of these recent pictures posted, they're still going out the door this way. Look shit happens calculation errors happen etc, dont expect everything to be perfect. Nothing ever will be and im far from perfect. Maybe i have some resentment about this game since its been a PIA, which only makes me call out the short comings. It also doesnt that when im in my game room my shadow follows me( AKA my 4 year old) and makes a simple fix take that much longer. ( russ has seen this first hand) Its just a snowball effect, as theres some other issues i havent been vocal about. Im just waiting till after the break to reach out. Put yourself in my shoes, doing a minor rubber change after fixing a few weeks of problems. To pull off some plastics to find more problems. And because youve had to make all these tweaks/adjustments 75% of the wireforms have some sort of chipping, I know spooky has came out publicly and said they would replace any game with these issues.

Think my words are getting twisted, I said the straight ramp looked "half assed", or outta place. In mine line of work half ass just means " i would have done it better", so no insult. Just not the way i would have done it. With that in that same line of work if it did insult you, was taught to "do better". No one is asking spooky to put an pinball machine in space. I think spooky is doing a fantastic job, especially with the CS department, I even about to order a looney tunes once a game play video comes out. guess i didnt get hugged enough as a child and i come off like a dick head. Its just my demeanor, how ive been raised and what has got me to the point in my career that im at. In almost 20 years of aerospace maintenance, even after winning awards/ achievements, there was almost a negative highlighted somewhere. So maybe that has carried over?

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"I would have done it better", "Half assed", "No thought behind it" are insults. If some random stranger came into your house and said those things to you about something you had made, my guess is you'd be a bit pissed and not invite them back.

I get what you are saying, when I worked on teams and someone's work was not up to our internal standards it was made known, and people were asked to do better, sometimes in a heated way. Tearing stuff down and making it better is a good internal process.

The thing is, you don't work for Spooky, this is not an internal meeting, you are not the arbiter of what is excellence in pinball manufacturing so the way you are communicating is a bit toxic.

Has anyone had issues with the last update? After captain cutler MB, when i hit the MM, it wint aoit the ball out. Its almost as if its ball locked, but wont eject a second one. It doesnt say “ball locked”, it just keeps the ball and doesnt vuk it out of MM, or wont shoot another ball. This is the fourth time its happened in about 8 games since the update. Essentially not playable at this time.

This started since i updated the code a few days ago. I will replace the balls with new ones to make sure its not a magnetic issue, but it did start with the nee code. Any suggestions?

Additionally, i set the upper flippers to selective, but they dont work when i go to the upper playfield. I assume that switch isnt working?

Kinda of a wrong thought process, as this isnt my house or a product im putting out on the market. Good or bad your always going to have external voices when selling a product. Car reviews ring a bell, pinside reviews? But toxic to whom? the Game as whole? Every game produced has had negative things said about it, and you cant with a straight face say that they couldnt have done something better with that wireform. throw a curve somewhere in it. Isnt a pinball game part art/ crazy designs anyways? Whens the last time you saw 10' straight wireform in a game.

Have a great Christmas and New Year.

1. OK, so you have only now updated to the code from late October? There is no newer code as of 12/24/23. There is definitely a known bug where if you sink a ball into the MM, or the left VUK behind the drops, or into one of the apron locks, JUST as a multiball is ending, the game loses track of that last ball. It may or may not find it in a ball search. I'd throw your game into Switch Test and toss a ball into the MM just to make sure that VUK switch is working, but sounds like that multiball bug.

2. The upper playfield entry switch, which the ball passes under as it enters up there, take a look at that switch.

RussMyers

I have this happen sometimes, tried to recreate by hand after having it happen three games in a row, but couldn't. I started to think it was a random opto issue, so I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. I emailed Spooky who sent me to Service and their initial reply made me feel like it was a switch/ opto issue vs a bug, so I backed off until I could catch it on camera/recreate easily. Rarely happens thankfully...except the three games in a row, all were MM shots at the last second of multiball. I swear I've had it happen outside of MM though too though

Free center ramp fix, remove the nut and reattach to the post and place the plastic on top. Stops the center ramp rejects. Plastic was more than tight enough to not pop off.

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Just did the audio extractor best mod ever for a pinball machine game is so crystal clear now on audio why wouldn’t SPOOKY have done this from the factory

be careful around these parts with that type of language. people will start to say that you're toxic, "insulting". Might need to try this out, partially deaf anyways not like i can hear it clearly without the hearing aids.

Just saying it is like night and day I also wish they would upgrade to a BETTER DISPLAY they are so close to being Greta

Sorry i was joking, people got all butt hurt at a comment a few post ago. great advice!

If they would tweak the audio amp settings and display settings at the factory, it would be good enough for most owners. Never felt the need to mod the audio or replace display after tweaking the settings to my liking.

what settings do you have it at?

Haven't set up my Scooby yet but going off of tweaking my HW, Rick & Morty which used the same amps and display. There are some Rick & Morty/UM settings that people suggested in the thread sticky you can try for the display.

Tweaked Halloween display settings and still not great. Still hard to see unfortunately. Going to eventually do the screen upgrade. The black levels on it is horrible.

For Scooby no reason for me to upgrade since it’s a cartoon and am used to the original series not being that bright. Also watched them in the 70’s and 80’s on a color Curtis Mathis TV with an antenna.

Turn the amplifier gain down and increase volume of the game. Higher game volume increases signal level. Lower amp setting minimizes noise amplification. You should be able to eliminate much of the background hiss. Not sure why they don't adjust this way from the factory.

As long as you tried tweaking the settings first before replacing it, many don't realize that it's adjustable before dropping extra money possibly unnecessarily.

Just bought a JJP GnR LE with a pinwoofer system, sounded like shit until the gain was turned down and rest of settings tweaked.

No one is butt hurt except you continuing find a way to bring up being called out.
IMO, you’ve come into the thread at the end of the run, telling everyone here what’s wrong, how things should’ve been done, and that you’ll be redesigning Spooky’s half assed wireform.
77 post in 27 days. Read the room maybe. Spooky isn’t looking to consult with you. It’s rude AF to suggest they reach out to you.

I have issues with all my games from time to time. I just don’t feel like I have to go cry about it or write several lengthy post to make myself seem smarter.

Yea I literally just updated it. I was waiting for the newest update but got bored last weekend so did it.

Yea it seems to literally be the mm immediately after multi ball. I’ll see if I can get it to happen again.

I’ll check that switch going up to the upper playfield and see. I don’t have an issue keeping them always in, but would be nice to have it selective.

Thanks is for the help!

On top of that, it was a used game.

Who knows what the previous guy did to it.

I still can’t get over the “5 replacement warden boards” because the game had magnetic balls.

I’d suggest you don’t buy a new Stern game! Your head might explode.

Every time I clean my Jurassic Park or Maiden I have on location, l leave with bleeding hands … lol

rd

could you link the post for the audio upgrade. I remember seeing it somewhere. It can’t seem to find it in the search.

Thanks in advance!