Joined the club today, very happy. Premium version

So now on to the questions :
- is there some alternate nice OST rom out there?
- I've seen a Guardians of the Galaxy with yellow convolux and it looked absolutely gorgeous. Makes me want to install in my SW, however given that GI is dual color, kind of wonder what color would be best suited. Any advice? Did anyone try frosted white convolux?

Regards

OK, played quite a few games. I'm very bad at it

The mystery scoop eject especially is a killer for me, more often than not it shoots straight down the drain.

I looked at the mechs, don't quite see how to adjust the eject trajectory

Any advice?

Regards

Thanks, must admit I did not search the thread... I'll look into it

Regards

OK, me again...

Having some detection issue at the death star entrance. Sometime the ball enter the hyperloop but is not triggering either the mode start nor they hyperspeed magnet when applicable, yet is on the ramp so it goes down and balance left and right on the ramp until it falls.

Yes I did a search... But could not find something relevant, at least not with the search term I used

Has anyone encountered this issue ?

For that matter, I'd be curious to know where you found the EL tape you used.

Also, the inverter used for EL panels tend to emit a high pitched noise which is really bothersome. Did you find an alternate higher quality inverter?

Cheers

Optos problems on my hyperloop ramp (which is also used for mission start).

I'm really not familiar with Spike design, so any pointer on where these optos are connected? It's not crystal clear on the documentation

Also, it looks like the entire series of hyperloop optos is flaky, so I would assume the issue is at the main control electronic?

(edit) found it, it's actually rather clear once you spend the time to read the documentation with a different mindset than WPC. It's node 11 board, on the back panel

I fiddled with the connectors, none seemed disconnected but it seems to have resolved the issue. Until next time...

There are several inverter on Aliexpress which seem better designed, or at least you should be able to get access to the inside of the electronics. I have not yet tested them:

https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/32817257671.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.9ebbc06fBeKoCz&algo_pvid=b4cd5686-27d4-42f3-896a-f2a38ca192ae&algo_exp_id=b4cd5686-27d4-42f3-896a-f2a38ca192ae-5&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2264767257006%22%7D

Anyone would know what type of input does CN3 require for volume control ? Looks like it's essentially button type, ie + and -, but in this case you can't use a rotary encoder, unless adding a small circuit ?

And yes I know it does exist, I just want to build it myself

Thanks @sprudeldudel

Ah cool, so it's a direct rotary encoder input. Your diagram includes a jack for headphone based on pinout (I must admit I can't read what's written on top of the symbol, it states "facing door", but according to CN3 pinout you seem connected to 2 and 3, which are headphone output

Not sure though why you have a short between 4 and 5, this is headphone detect. It should be connected to the sense pin of the female 3.5 jack input (available only on PCB version of the connector), as is it would force an always on detection, no ?

OK, makes sense here, you indeed need the loopback on the sense input since your bluetooth transmitter is always connected (and there's an option in the Stern menu to playback sound both on the headphone and the main machine, which is probably what you have set)

in the case of using a headphone plug to connect a real headphone, you want the sense input to actually detect the jack is plugged. That way if using menu setting defined the other way around, it would turn off sounds from the backbox speaker when a headphone is plugged

How did you tune to be able to backflip from the left? I never have enough power to do that, the ball falls down

I don't have any reject though, if it does not register, in my case that's because the shot was not correctly aligned

Now on a completely different subject : sound wise, I fell that SW is lacking (I do have the modified ROM with the complete OST) in the bass department, especially for music. When comparing to Stranger Things for example, there was more bass presence, the sound and music felt a whole lot better.

So I connected an active subwoofer on the line out, and indeed there is almost no bass in music. I can turn off the sub without hearing a difference. There is additional bass with the sub however for sound effects. But not for music, and I feel it's a shame.

Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere? I played around with the equalizer, to no effect (plus the equalizer only affects the amplifier section , not line out as far as I understand)

To all who made fun of 2Niro, with some borderline insulting comments, well...

I suggest that:

- you check the profile of 2Niro and his accomplishments (mods especially). We're not talking about cheap 3D printed mods that are sold 100 here, we're talking mods with real craftmanship and gameplay integration

Some hints: interactive Palantir mod (NOT the static one from some australian guy), Barad Dur eye of Sauron, Lotr ring of fire, Scared Stiff Bony beast eye, attack from Mars interactive saucer, Lightsaber and Millenium falcon mods
But also, full playfield restore, similar to Kruzman craftmanship

- you watch the video again
- And then you apply a little bit of thinking, and ask yourself the question "is this real"

You will look less silly that way.

Because now you will realize that most of the "not so nice" terms you used apply straight back to you (and the winner in this category, without any contest, is @Sprudeldudel - congratulations)

@Sprudeldudel

Nice destroyer mod, I assume this is a "X-Wing" game mini fig ?

[EDIT] It's actually a Bandai small scale model. Turns out I also found a very high detail model on Thingiverse, time to print it in resin

Thanks

The nice thing about star wars is that you never run out of toys to put in the game.

I found this Bandai small scale model which seems very close to this Armada ship, and I also found a nice highly detailedvthingiverse model which I'm going to print on my resin printer to see if it's worthwhile

On another note, what's the highest score players achieved on hyperloop alone? I just did 250 millions (I don't remember my multiplier, but it was definitely above 10)

Also, what's the brass bearing for?

Cheers

Thanks for the information.

In a different note, found in my boardgames stash this nice toy. Think it fits perfectly.... What, too big you think? Naah, it's just an optical illusion

20211205_153946 (resized).jpg

It's so called an "Imperial Raider", part of the X-Wing board game (not Armada). I'm not entirely sure it appears in the original movie trilogy, as I don't recall seeing it.

It's about 35cm long (yep... it's long. Definitely too long )

I played with power, at max power it's a direct drain. I actually had to lower it to minimum, so it's slowly exiting in the right slingshot.

Need to take a look at the ball guide then, it's adjustable?

Any advice on how to dial the game ?

I acquired it a few weeks ago, and man this is a frustrating game, at least for me. I'm an average player, and I must confess that I'm not really enjoying it, compared to my other machines (LOTR, Tron, DI, Indy WPC, TZ, ST, CFTBL), it's WAY more difficult.

At least on the other games (well TZ might be an exception), I have a sense of control. On Star Wars (it's a Premium by the way), the game is incredibly unforgiving to me. There are many shots that end with a direct left or right drain (such as the TIE fighter from the right flipper, or the bank from the left flipper).

In a nutshell, I'm not having fun with it, frankly.

So I'd like to start dialing it a bit, to see if I can improve my experience.

Things I'd like to improve are:

- Mystery scoop eject strength: can't find the correct setting so that it's properly thrown at the left flipper. Anything above 30 will result into a center drain (or close). Anything at 30 or below and the eject is too soft (but at least I can catch the ball)
- Star Wars ramp: can only make it with the right flipper, backhand does not work. Very narrow opening to register the shot
- Left inner loop: relatively high rate of center drain after this shot. I've seen some comments about a small metal "nub" on the metal ball guide, will look at it
- Flasher strength during Boba Fett escape : I get it it's to increase pressure, but man have they heard of photo induced seizure ? Is there a way to tune it down, besides decreasing flasher brightness
- Increase timer for timed shot

Anything else you would recommend looking at ?

And yes, I know I will not be playing the game as it was intended, but after a few weeks trying to improve I've reached a point where I would much rather enjoy the game than being frustrated, even if this implies changing the ruleset and ball behaviour.

Cheers

Thanks for all advices, a few questions

May I have guidance on how to achieve this ?

Well I just seem to not be able to control the ball enough so that I can line up my shots when there's a time element (Speed bike for ex)

Ah indeed. That's definitely my weak point. Are you using mostly nudge-up or lateral as well ? I find lateral incredibly difficult to have any effect. Need to practice a lot this aspect

Thanks, that's what I was expecting, but was not sure if Stern hadn't added a "debouncer" in the control electronic. I'll increase the gap (done that already on older machines)

Is that on a Pro ? Can't figure out how to make it work on my Premium

I'm making progress on this game, which is by far the hardest of my collection.

The one thing I'm having a hard time with, as many, is the death star ramp (Premium). Has anyone been able to identify a reliable procedure to tune their machine so that it's achievable through a backhand flip from the left flipper? I can hit it, but I get rejects pretty much all the time, not enough force to climb the ramp. I know it's been asked and discussed on multiple occasions, but could not find a firm answer on this, besides playing with pitch and coil power. So asking again, you never know if I missed a post somewhere

Regards

Thanks for the tip. Any link for the after market coil stops? There does not seem to be indication of which one are Stern made, and which one are more robust aftermarket versions

I'm in Europe, so hopefully I can find parts from EU resellers

Note that I have a playfield protector, could this have an impact?

Oh my, reached hyperloop multiball, managed to send a second ball in the loop

Reaching this point is exhilarating. Stressful. Successful shot and you add one ball in the loop, all of them zipping around the ramp , beckoning you 'I dare you to add one' (ok, I'm getting over enthusiastic here)

Seriously, I understand some like the Pro better, but if you haven't seen hyperloop multiball... You're really missing something

Odd behaviour on my SW Premium: white left GI stops functioning during gameplay

I originally thought it was a bad connection to node board 8, or a bad transistor, but that's not the case: when I power on the pinball, left white GI does work. However if I play a game, at one point (for which I really could not determine a deterministic set of steps), it turns off, never to turn on again (including in test mode).

To note, if I leave the pinball on after power on for a while in attract mode, left white GI still works, so it's not a matter of a transistor heating up.

I could swap note board 8, but ... out of stock everywhere I looked. Plus it's really not obvious that node 8 would actually be faulty.

If anyone has a pointer, I'm interested

Regards

Edit : so I found now a reliable procedure. Triggering the left flipper coil shuts down left white GI, and it can't turn back on afterward. I can even reproduce it using the test menu, ie power on machine, enter diag mode, trigger left flipper coil, left white GI turns off

Now need to dig into the schematics

Edit 2: checked the technician alerts - node 8 overcurrent protection

Now need to find the culprit. Given that it started to appear after I installed (and removed. They were ugly) convolux on the left slingshot, I suspect a short below the flipper coil plate

Good morning/afternoon,

I'm having my left white GI playing tricks on me.

Essentially: there's a short somewhere in the circuit, causing overcurrent detection. Originally the issue was random, then I found a pattern and could replicate the issue by simply triggering the left flipper. It's now persistent.

So my first thought was a short below the flipper coil mounting plate, no luck, wires are soldered cleanly, no identified issues. I tried identifying visually on the other sockets, no luck.

I did confirm using a DMM that there is indeed a short in the circuit. If I unplug CN15, the overcurrent detection is gone, which is coherent with a short on the circuit itself

So, a few questions:
- Did you ever had a case where the light bulb socket would actually create a short ? Never seen that before, but you never know
- Did you ever had a case where a LED light would actually create a short if defective ?
- Since it's now completely off, I have to manually trace the wires to identify where the left white GI would be. I would appreciate if someone would be kind enough to take a picture highlighting where they are (using test mode)

Thanks and regards

Thanks for the tip, did not think of that. I'll check each socket.

njvc There was a lot of work done by pinsider Celofane many years ago where he incorporated several OST changes to ensure the music being played was identical to the music of the same movie sequence. I'm personally enjoying this version very much, but the video changes are welcome, so would be interested to know what changes you made from the stock Stern OST ? Or did you add to celofane modded rom your changes?

So removed all leds, checked all sockets. Did not see anything, but I blew air on each socket, and.... Issue is gone....

Thanks for the tip

(of course one screw fell in the cabinet and I can't find it, but that's another story)

Hi everyone,

Quick question: I wanted to print the Pinworld mods available on Thingiverse (hats off to them for providing the models by the way, this is really super super nice of them, quite a gesture of support to the community)

Turns out that there are two cannons models, one for the Pro, one for the LE. But the LE seems to be missing the back half of the cannon, whereas the Pro is complete, and I can't figure out why ? Since I own a Premium, my understanding I would need the LE version

Can someone who owns the Pinworld mod on a Premium/LE show me how it's installed ?

Thanks !

Plus you can buy one for a fraction of the price on Ali, it's just a standard rotating fan with leds on the blade. Cost me 40 euros... But it's so loud I leave it off all the time.

Ah thanks, indeed I had missed the hyperloop, did not realize it was that big

Just checking : how do you adjust the spinner on the left orbit?

In my case, it has a tendencies to block shots, I really need a relatively strong straight shot for the ball to enter the orbit, otherwise it's blocked by the spinner

Thanks

Thanks for the tip, useful to know.

Regards

Love it, very nicely integrated with the layout. Especially love the continuity between the TIE fighters on the hyperloop artwork and the miniatures

Are all of those Hotwheels ? Damn, need to buy all of them now

Sidenote, where did you find the AT-AT walker ?

Curious, how do you mount the wire on the figurine itself ?

Thanks for your link, that will definitely help

If all my games, SW is the hardest by far. Very frustrating indeed. I'm still not at the point of being good enough with it to actually love the game, but I'm making progress. It's clearly designed to be a money drain. The more frustrating shot for me is the death star ramp, I can't backhand it from the left. I've seen users report they could tune by adjusting level and pitch, but it has not proved effective for me yet.

Oh boy... I really don't want to be the party popper, but... you do realize that you can find better looking Falcon for a fraction of the price ?
Just do a search on ebay for "X-Wing Falcon Miniature", will get you to brand new unopened "X-Wing 1.0 board game" units at sub 20 dollars a piece
OK, you need to add a bracket and lighting, but that's surely worthwhile compared to the 90 dollars + they are charging (plus it looks waaay better)

If you want to go fancy, 2Niro mod is also much better (it actually use the miniature from above), and not that much more expensive than the stock Stern awful looking Falcon:
https://www.2niro-pinball.com/faucon-millenium/1405/

(although it seems out of stock, and Mezel Mods does not carry them anymore)

Did you reach hyperloop multiball? To me that was quite an experience, there's a real adrenaline rush when you have multiple balls looping around and you're trying to add one more

The death star shot however I admit is really problematic, I need to tune my machine to be able to backhand it

That's odd. I paid 199 (well more, because of euro and tax) for both scanner and apron

For those who have installed the latest SW code update, would you know if you can go back to a previous version (ie before Insider Connect) (swapping SD cards). Especially with regards to node board code update.

Just inquiring, I'd like to test IC on SW (I have a kit which is mounted externally on my Stranger Things), but the loss of the modified audio soundtrack with the OST is really a bummer

I'm having a hard time with step 9. Is there a specific action to be taken to register the machine? I don't remember how I did it on Stranger Things, but on my SW the IC menu states that I need to register by scanning my QR code, but scanning does not seem to work (ie nothing happens). Scanner is connected and reported as functional by the machine.

Yes it does, first thing I checked.

I just can't figure out how to dial the DS ramp for my part. Highly frustrating, this is the one shot which is pretty much random. I've seen people being able to backhand it after tweaking playfield level, no luck for me

Maybe the low bounce rubbers are one option indeed, I'll take a look

Also, I finally managed to scan my QR code for IC, not sure why it was not working originally.

However I reverted back to a non IC version, I find the official soundtrack absolutely awful.

What is the most common point of failure for the death star shot to not register (SW Premium) ? Is there a switch before the first hyperloop opto ?

I tested with glass off, I could make the shot register (anyone has designed a pinball ball cannon to correctly launch a ball through a ramp ? Kind of a pita to make the shot by hand), and I could trigger hyperloop.

Still with glass off, I could enter test mode and see the hyperloop opto register one by one.

Putting the glass back, and... pfew, death star shot does not register anymore.

So... I'm puzzled... unless there's a tiny alignemnt issue on the optos and putting the glass back on screws up the alignment ?

To access these optos, hopefully I can do it by just removing the hyperloop cover ?

I'm having a hard time picturing this as well. First and foremost because... I'm not sure exactly "what" is a cabinet bumper (pardon the newbie here...). Would you mind clarifying this ?

Regards

Does anyone has an alternate ROM based of 1.20 with real SW music ? There's one on 1.10, but don't know about 1.20

Thanks

I'm also having the case of the hyperloop entrance opto it registering sometimes, so it does not start hyperloop (at least I think that's an opto)

If it was an option alignement issue, it would trigger all the time, right?

Good morning/afternoon,

Quick question: I have a playfield protector (which I do intend to keep), and I have a small issue with it , sometimes the part of the protector on the Death star ramp is pulled "up" because it moves slightly left and right, to the point that the ramp fork are not aligned with the slot in the PF, so it lifts it when raising up. This is primarily because it seems there is a cut at the back of the protector, just behind the ramp (so at the back of the orbits), so it can somewhat shift.

I was planning to add a small piece of invisible tape beneath the PF, at this area (which is just anyway not visible), but has anyone else seen this issue, and if so how did you resolve it ?

Thanks

Do you have a link to a post somewhere outlining what the flaw is ? I'm curious, and would like to see if it's both repairable and fixable. Just for the sake of engineering of course

Thanks

I respectfully disagree, because there's a fundamental difference: older boards did not require specific firmware to even boot, and even when they did, it was easily reversed engineered.

These node boards are a different beast altogether: they have a private bootloader on them. It's not readable, and Stern did not publish it. If they don't, even if I recreate the node board (schematics are available), it's going to be as dumb as a piece of plastic.

Sure you can perform reverse engineering, but there's a significant cost linked to this, not to mention the communication protocols keep evolving.

See the Spike 1 CPU board situation: they are hard to find, and Stern has expressed little interest into building more. And there's no replacement available today.