I'm glad you enjoy it. unfortunately, I think that stranger things falls way short of what stern could have done with the license and severely cheaped out on the BOM. I've played one and after putting 400+ shots (over 9 games) on the demigorgon and managing only a meager 3 successful hits (and I'm not the only one complaining about this as well), I believe I'm allowed to have an opinion.

am I supposed to be sorry that my opinion isn't in line with yours?

How many people have had broken toppers show up so far? My friend's came the other day and R2 just spun in circles for a minute, then wouldn't spin again after that. It was also missing one of the lenses on R2, huge bummer.

And this opinion means what again in the SW topper thread??

Don't strawman me bro.

For those who hadn’t seen this (I’ve followed this thread from the beginning and didn’t know about this) alternative topper, I just installed:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/-the-ultimate-pinball-topper-omg-you-need-to-see-this

Pretty amazing and like 1/3 of the price. Looks way better in person than on camera. Don’t want to derail, but this thread is about topper for stern Star Wars after all...

Meh. I've seen them. They are cool for what they are and I wouldn't mind having one up on a shelf in the gameroom cycling through cool video. But... As a topper, I'll take R2D2 over what is basically a video screen stuck on top of the game (regardless of price).

Fuck it. I’m done with this place and the assholes that inhabit it.

Wow did I miss anything?

block the aholes i am sure i am blocked by many!

Agree to disagree on this one. When it’s showing the Princess Leia hologram on repeat floating in the air it’s amazing. For 1/3 the money I’d take this any day over what is essentially the same tech as a nice happy meal toy. That being said, fomo has had me coming close to ordering the stern topper as well... I think they’ll retain their value just due to scarcity.

OK hate to confess this but a few weeks ago installed this beautiful topper, spun and greeted me working perfectly. Today not so much...... Turned on the game room to tune a CFTBL and hear some crazy loud grinding down the row. Sure enough R2 is parked looking at the wall with what sounds like a bag of bolts in a blender in his head. Umphhhh. Guess I get to do a lobotomy this week after a call to Stern. Dam I was rather liking that little guy.

Heck with it. Im inpatient with OCD his head must come off!!! As I suspect and have seen posted my bet is this will not be the last R2 that needs a lobotomy. As posted like others my New R2 topper worked then simply stopped and sounded like a coffee grinder. Yes it sucks to have to fix but it is what it is. Below is a step by step how I fixed mine. Not including taking him down and photos all in this took maybe 15 minutes to fix. Extremely easy to do with minimal at best mechanical knowledge. Fix yours or wait weeks for Stern to do the following repair.

1. Remove (2) Philips head blue screws from head. The front snorkel plastic thing is Also a large nut. You need to grab it firmly with your fingers and unscrew it like a cap. Don't use tools or you will certainly scratch it up.
Looking at the I believe 3rd picture you can see the issue. The mini setscrews Stern used to lock the drive roller to the motor simply were not tight and the roller walked up the shaft until it caught the opto fingers. Doing so kept it in a continious drive as it could not move and could not signal the opto it was done.
2 Not needed but to get the roller off I removed the (4) star nuts on the opto ring with a 5/16" nut driver. (or wrench).
3 Remove (if not already fallen off) the rubber collar drive wheel. Uses a 1/16" set screw 2 places.
4 I STRONGLY suggest removing the mini set screws and applying a dot of Blue Loctite to the threads. No way would I want to keep doing this!!! Loctite and put screws back in drive roller.
5 Put drive roller back on motor shaft and align rubber roller so it is centered on aluminum drive ring. Make sure roller is Not pushed against motor housing!
6 Before tightening set screws in drive roller maker certain ONE of the setscrews it positioned to hit the center Flat of the motor drive shaft!! This is where I think Stern went wrong. Tighten the other setscrew.
7 Replace Opto ring and 4 star nuts.
8 Put R2 head back on reverse of step 1.
9 Re-install topper on game and smile for a job well done!!

Let me know if there are any questions.

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Nice write-up Yelobird.

Guess our R2s will need a spec-check. That motor spins, stops, then reverses over and over and over. If those screws are not locked; R2 is doomed.

Correct. If the drive roller floats up as mine did (and others) between the opto fingers it will simply keep running and driving as it cannot find home. Worth a tune up if it happens or to keep it from happening. Mine is now running beautifully again chatting his little head off. Lol

why the heck did they put the plaque on the back? This has to be designed by some intern at Stern.. damn you intern.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-star-wars-topper/page/20#post-5415006

Where would you put it on the front? Its all embossed or holes. Like my photo I put mine on the front of the game, looks nice there in my opinion.

Am I the only person on earth who has not received their topper yet? I am considering cancelling my order with my distributor and ordering from someone who I know has them in stock.

I’m waiting on my distributor as well. I talked to him a couple weeks ago and he said that Stern had told him he would get more the previous week (which didn’t happen). I’m hopeful that they are going to get them right and once we finally get ours, they will not have any issues.

Geez...I’ve seen Brinks trucks with less money in ‘em. 9 toppers at $250,000 each...

Carry the one. Divided by 3=

$67. After taxes.

None arrived in Germany yet on the official route. The main distributor is still waiting. Normal situation for a third world country like us.

Got my topper. Works fine except when R2 tries to do a 360 (at the end of the game and in certain parts of the gameplay). He gets stuck and I'm stuck looking at the green light on the back of his head while the motor keeps whirring until the programming tells him to do something else. Then he returns to the home position. Anybody seen this or posted a solution? I'll take him apart if I absolutely have to...I mean, that IS why I spent $750 to get him, right?

PS - Everyone complains about the loud motor, but I actually think that's a sound effect because...you know...he's a droid and all.

I agree with you on the motor sound, there are even times where it seems like the sound is amplified and put out through the speakers as well.

He should not get stuck. Call Stern or try Yelobird suggestion to fix. A few folks have had to send them to stern for repairs.

Yes I posted a step by step to fix this in this thread. Rather simple except having to take the unit down again.

I getting ready to throw this piece of junk in the dumpster!! My R2 topper arrived broken. Installed it. It spun 1/4 turn upon power up then got stuck with loud metallic noise and then never moved again. Called stern. Shipped it back for repair. Got it back in the mail supposedly fixed. Reinstalled it yesterday and ITS STILL BROKEN!!!! Right out of the box again !!!! This time the little guy didn’t even give me any movement. Lights up and sounds good but doesn’t move. I took off the head and checked for the fix shown in this thread but that’s not the issue. The roller is in perfect position. (See pictures) The motor just doesn’t work. Checked and reseated all the jumpers on the 2 node boards in the topper and still nothing !! I’m really fed up. Gonna call stern tomorrow and ship it back again. There’s no way they plugged this into a machine and quality checked it when they had it! I have installed this twice now and it’s still sucks. Piece of $750 junk !!!!

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That sucks. Is the metal tap moving cleanly between the opts if you rotate by hand?

Get your money back. Stern is garbage quality. My friend just bought one and he sent it back.

Yes if I move the head by hand it moves freely through the optos. The machine registers it moving through the optos while it’s in the adjustments screen as I manually move the head. The motor doesn’t move at all thou. I have grabbed the rubber rotator on the motor with my fingers to try and rotate the motor shaft and it doesn’t move. It’s either heavily geared down or the motor is broken and frozen. I’m really upset. If they had simply plugged it in to a SW pin while at the factory they would have known it wasn’t working before they shipped it back to me. They obviously never did a quality test at the factory before shipping it back to me. Now I’m going to have to ship it back again. It’s just a big pain in the ass. At this price point they should really have better quality control. This just sucks !!!! I’m really fed up. I usually don’t post much to pinside but I’m so fired up over this I felt the need to write in.

PS - if I tried to get my money back who do I contact? Stern or the distributor I bought it from? I got mine via eBay from Great American Pinball. When I called GAP I was told to deal with Stern. I spoke with Chas and he sent me the first return for repair sticker. Not sure who I should ask for a refund.

The distributor (GAP) sold it to you. You’d need to ask them.

Yeah, as this is no longer a repair request it’s a return I would just contact Mike at GAP.

Side question, you said if you rotate by hand the opts align. Is the roller turning then? And if so do you see the shaft turning with it? Just making sure the set screws are locked to the motor shaft. Hope you get this resolved.

The rubber roller attached to the motor shaft pushes the metal ring of the R2 head by friction. So no the motor and shaft do not turn at all. The metal ring of the R2 head slides past the roller it as i turn the R2 head. It’s like sliding a bicycle tire along the road with the brakes on. The wheel doesn’t move, it just rubs along the road. Same idea here, the motor doesn’t rotate. The metal ring just slides against the locked motor/rubber ring as I manually rotate the head. I think I either have a dead motor or the driver board may be bad. The topper lights up fine and makes the sounds. Just wont move

Looks like mine is hopefully in the most recent batch built. One would think they have changed the build process to cut down on all the issues. Personally if mine fails I will be fixing it myself with parts from Stern if needed.

I have put in at least an hour of time each time I installed this problem solving it. Two times now. That’s 2 hours of my life I will never get back. At this price it should just work. PS - they should have tested it better when they were supposedly “fixing” it back at the factory when I sent it back the first time.

I hope the Black Knight ones work better than these.

Okay, kids...I just got back from the Droid Depot and R2 is all fixed up. Thanks to Yelobird for the detailed pictures--it took some of the fear away from cracking open a $750 overpriced POS. After doing what Yelobird suggested, I noticed upon reassembly that in my case, whatever momo at the factory put this thing together positioned the roller too high, so the opto-interrupter ring was hitting the metal housing on top. (See picture below for clarification of what I'm talking about...this was taken AFTER the fix.) That prevents R2 from moving freely in a full circle. If your R2 isn't making it all the way around, I guarantee it's either because of that or because the roller wasn't screwed onto the flat part of the drive shaft as mentioned before. drjeff112 ...I feel your pain, but if you can actually hear the motor engage when it's plugged in, it's certainly one of these two problems. The wheel has to sit high enough to catch the rotating ring, but low enough not to impede the progress of the opto interrupter ring.

And yes...the motor is NOT loud, folks. It's "droid" sounds coming from the game's speakers whenever R2 moves. That almost makes me feel better about the price of this thing.

Almost. But not quite.

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My motor is dead , silent, and motionless. It doesn’t engage at all

My plan is to send it back to Stern again for a second shot at fixing it. I will attach a note asking them to please power it up and be sure it is fully functional before they ship it back to me for a third time. If it comes back to me a third time still broken, then I am asking for a full refund. I will be done with this piece of junk at that point.

I don't blame you, buddy. It's a personal choice as to whether you want to go through the BS of trying to get a working one or not. Mine was a little easier to take care of, but I can certainly see saying F it to the whole thing. It's really frustrating. If you weren't in Albany, I'd try to help you out in person.

Thanks buddy. I appreciate the kind words

Since you bought it off Ebay you're protected through them. You shouldn't have to be sending this thing back and forth to Stern. This is GAPs problem Not yours!

Hmmm. I run SW with attract mode on and I was certain the motor was noisy. Let's test. I turned the volume to '0' and let him rip. R2's motor certainly is noisy. It reminds me of a linear actuator from a treadmill. RRRRRRRRRR!

Not mine. The bulk of the sound seems to be coming from the speakers. I mean...yeah, of course you can hear the motor. But it's nowhere near loud enough to drown out the accompanying sound effect.

The motor sounds cool. Similar to what a droid might sound like. The extra sounds from the speakers are well done also. Hope everyone with issues gets their toppers working reliably.

Yep. It enhances the experience.

Shout out to yelobird. Let me try to add on for those that are slightly dull like myself.

I had to remove the metal ring assembly and opto board entirely in order to reach the mini “set screws” with my multi hex wrench tool.

If you also have clearance issue trying to reach the tiny Allen screws, Use pliers, forceps to hold long hex nuts that run down into the base of the topper and unscrew the metal ring.

I believe He’s a bit too indirect in his assessment; I believe the problem was absolutely that these tiny screws connecting the roller to the pivot rod were either A) too loose, B) not a single one against the flat side or. C) both.

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My bulky multi hex tool.

BE CRAZY CAREFUL AND METHODICAL NOT TO STRIP the tiny screws, I almost did.

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And be mindful of different Phillips length screws that hold metal ring in place. They’re longer on the opto side since they need to connect opto too.

I guess I am glad I don't have the ceiling clearance for this guy...LOL