You have a third reset coming up. The stock settings reset scores after 1000 plays. Change that in the settings and it won't do it any more.

Or some kind of lenticular diorama that also reacts with the upside down lighting to change in that mode. So you get both motion and hidden stuff appearing in the UV lighting.

Kurt Deangelo's livestreaming the final wizard mode right now (currently on stage 4 of 7 in the final mode):

https://www.twitch.tv/iepinball

Why not just put it on your wishlist? Pinside will notify you for free when a pin on your wishlist is put up for sale.

Stranger Things code seems to be running poorly internally with the delayed reaction of things that happens sometimes. I would not be surprised if it were just down to poor programming. This IS Lonnie we're talking about on code.

I wouldn't use glue. Try 3M 467MP adhesive roll and cut a square to fit. Clean the target carefully and finish with rubbing alcohol then stick.

This is the machine that started it all. My quest to document flipper temps on all modern machines and the resulting Tibetan Breeze cooling kits started with Brian Eddy (and Chuck Wirt) right on this machine.

Installation is probably 10-15 minutes, depending on how many flippers you're installing them for. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.

Prem/LE demogorgan shakes kind of like Munsters Herman.
Isn't Steve in one of the shots in bullshit mode?
UV kit is supposed to be available again in March, but I'd preorder if you haven't already. Might be the last run.

I heard cointaker was, but don't know that firsthand.

You might want to email terry @ pinballlife.com and ask if he will order one for you. I get pretty much all my special order stuff (even the weird/offbeat stern parts) through him and he's great.

Time for robin to implement a pinside watermark on market photos to discourage scams using them elsewhere?

Maybe you got a Stern F&F discount. I looked up my order from April and it was $279 as well.

Ramp stuck down seems to indicate that it doesn't know where the ramp is. You probably need to adjust the down switch or the up switch or both. Run the ramp test in the system menu and see if both the up and down switches are registering properly when the ramp is opened/closed. If not (my guess is not) adjust the switches so they register again.

Front legs on before you lower the front to the ground!

You mean this part?

If yes, are you sure it's not just going too far before the (stop, ramp is down) switch engages when the ramp opens and that's what shifts the linkage? If you bend up the "down" sensing arm of the switch so it enables sooner it would stop this from happening (if this is the linkage you're talking about).

part_party (resized).jpg

You can also loosen the switch screw body to reposition the angle of the switch to get a little more or less action.

Ah! It looked like you laid it down straight outta the box. Getting the machine from the box onto 4 legs is the only part of the NIB experience consistently do not appreciate.

There was on mine. It may be hard to get started. Try scraping with your fingernail in an area with near the edge with white on the underside. That should wrinkle up the plastic and make it a bit more visible there, plus give you a starting point to pull it off.

Weird. Well, if you're scratching the white coating, there's no protective plastic there, so I'd stop.

That's the right place, now just break/block the opto beam with your finger and see if it registers in the switch test on-screen. If it doesn't you likely have a broken wire or bad opto.

Agreed. SW is the weakest link. A lineup with Maiden, GnR SE, Deadpool, and STh would be rock solid.

GnR it is then. When do we make the swap?

You're likely in the changeover to the 2.0 Spike kits. I left the 1.0 kits up a little too long and accidentally oversold them, so the excess orders will be getting the 2.0 SPIKE kits for the 1.0 kit price. I just got the new foam for the packaging on the new brackets, so I'll be catching up this coming week and should be caught up by the end of the week.

Here's what the new 2.0 SPIKE kit looks like installed in an Avengers IQ 3 Flipper coil install...
3_Flipper_Kit_sml (resized).jpg

3rd_flipper_close_small (resized).jpg

Stern uses CRAAAAAAPPPPY lights. Put some comets in there and maybe also get some sockets from pinball life. It's likely the bulbs and maybe also the sockets, but usually the bulbs because Stern buys theirs from the cheapest place in China and the sockets from the runner up for that prize.

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself.

You had frustrating installs with art blades? Did you use the wet method? It's SUPER forgiving. Easiest method of all for art blades.

$666 and not a penny more.

Edit: I see the logic of having 11 in there somewhere. So, $666.11. The battle for Hawkins summed up in one topper price.

It cracks me up how Cary Hardy is trying his hardest to see how the infinity mirror fits into the theme of Stranger Things using really obtuse logic from episodes to shoehorn it in when the REASON it fits is those were popular in the 1980s where the show is set. Think Space Invaders pinball and Hankin's Empire Strikes Back Pinball. Both came out around the beginning of 1980 and feature the effect, but it was not uncommon to see infinity mirrors in the 1980s in general. I believe there were some arcade games that had it, too.

I just think he honestly did not know that infinity mirrors were a 70s and 80s thing and that's the connection to the show. Young 'uns talking foolish from their limited pool of knowledge.

And now that you mention it, I absolutely remember infinity mirror jukeboxes, too. One of the round table pizzas in town had one back when the chain actually had a round table in every location with the knights of the round named on the seats.

I'm assuming they will ship soon. Re-runs of toppers are also starting to filter out again. Elvira and Stranger Things are imminent, then:

Zeppelin
TMNT
Avengers IQ
Jurassic Park

In roughly that order. Supposedly there's still a backlog with shipping delays exacerbated by congestion at the ports.

I haven't seen much of his stuff. The Stranger Things topper one was the only one I stuck with longer than a couple minutes because I was curious if he'd ever get to the right reason for the infinity mirror being chosen for STh. Why would you think he was the worst person in pinball?

I had no idea what your pinside handle was so I couldn't ask you directly, but now I can. Did you not know that infinity mirrors were a 70's/80's thing and that's why the topper has that motif?

Are you sure a fan didn't quit? There should be no performance difference over time.

I had a few brackets break at the junction between the fan box surround and the stand for the R&M and jjGnR kits that were out, and that's the bracket I was moving the Spike kits to, so I've redesigned the bracket and have it out being tested. The 1.0 bracket was rock solid on Spike, so I may go back to that until I get some more real world time with the v2.5 bracket and make sure it's strong enough for the long haul on Spike. Also, vibration (I think) caused some fans to fail with one or both leads breaking off the circuit board with the 2.0 bracket, so the stiffer 2.5 bracket should help that. R&M and jjGnR have more severe shaker motors, so looking to reinforce the leads as well.

Anyway, Spike kits should be back in the store one way or the other next week.

Do you have the cover on the right ramp? It's hard to tell, but it looks like maybe the ball is riding up on the ramp walls as it comes up and hits the corner.

This is Lonnie code. You are asking too much. His code barely gets the rough edges sanded. Polish is way too much to ask. Laziest coder at Stern, or maybe he's just overworked because he does system/OS level work that all the machines use, too. But then again Tanio did Spike low-level OS code and his Deadpool code has a level of polish a Lonnie game will never see. So, not sure, except that Lonnie games always are lacking in polish.

Oh, I think it's fine, but it's never going to be up to a Lyman or Tanio level of polish. Lonnie just seems to have a threshold when he codes, and once he hits that, he dusts his hands off and moves on. That said, I hope Brian pushes to get one more round of code done. No video mode in an 80s-themed game with an arcade featured prominently would be close to some kind of crime.

I'm assuming that there would be an option to turn it off in the settings so everyone gets what they want.

Boo. One more demerit in the Lonnie column.

Now that I'm looking at it, I wish they had tweaked the front mirror so it would have the lights moving toward the center as it goes toward infinity instead of looking like a very squished, long cave. Still, points for trying something new with the usual few pieces of plexi that Stern thinks is worth $649.

Was it a mystery award in Star Wars? <--- your answer

Right. Because it's used as a mode in Star Wars, it can't really have an "off" option without something to replace it. But since it would likely be a mystery award (as was hinted early on), it could easily be optionally turned off in settings for those that don't want to shoot demodogs.

I'm okay with fun relatively quick video modes. Example: Mine carts in Indy, choose wisely in Indy, bar shootout in Indy, torpedoing boats/water skiers in Fish Tales, Saucers in AfM, Jumping in Dr Who, Phurba avoidance in The Shadow, etc.

I HATE bad video modes: Sword fight in GoT, Asteroids in Star Wars, Stream crossing in Ghostbusters, card guessing in Ghostbusters, etc

So conditionally, I like video modes, but given the number of good vs bad ones, it's hard do do it well. It's astonishing that Indy has 3 that are all pretty good and well-integrated into the game.

Done. In the index under TECH:TOYS now.

If you email terry at pinball life, he can often special order stuff that isn't on the website.

The difference on a game like Stranger Things (the one that started it all with the coil temps) really is night and day if you've been playing without active cooling and then have it. Thanks for the mention! And I'll say the usual - if you play your pins for less than 30 minutes at a time, you likely do not need a fan kit. Most of the fade really starts after you've been playing a while. Usually about 30 minutes, but sometimes sooner. Stranger Things, Rick and Morty, and PotC/GnR are standouts in that you get fade pretty quickly, though.

It would look better if the art on the backboard was lifted 1/4" and chained individual LEDs were put in the pattern lines of the electricity coming off her fingers, then have then trigger in an animated way when lock is qualified, and the ball is locked or released. But I'm not sure how the TK lock would be affected with the surface moved forward a little.

I guess Stern artists just needed a visual aid for the backboard, and on-demand electricity shooting out of fingers rules so they went with that.

ZMeny could probably start a list and get a couple hundred Premiums presold and do an old-school Jersey Jack-style FlipnOut-only run now that the game has some strong interest and prices on the prems are going up.

I've sold well over 100 pins and using a combination of local, Chris Fox for CA/NV/AZ shipping, and Michele for long distance using a combination of crated and white glove, legs on shipping (depending on what buyer wants to pay) and have never had even one issue. I am super careful about the pack-up so everything is done right, but that's about it. I'm likely overdue for a claim incident.

The only hassle about shipping is being VERY CAREFUL about how the money is sent to me so there are no takebacks or opportunities for fraud. No Zelle, no Paypal, no checks, etc. I generally just have them deposit the money in their local branch of my national bank or do an in-bank wire.

Fortunately you can get a set of head decals from Stern for about $80 and they're dead simple to replace. Email terry at pinball life. He should be able to special order them for you.

You get the revised apron lighting with the UV kit upgrade everyone should have, so not really a plus unless metal is the selling point.

Get 3 or 4 of these clamps:
https://www.harborfreight.com/36-in-ratcheting-bar-clampspreader-64152.html

Put the machine on a dolly or sawhorses or something and remove the legs.

Put titebond III glue into the separated part generously, clamp tightly and wipe off excess glue immediately (then wipe again with wet cloth to get of any remaining glue residue while it's still wet). Let dry overnight.

You might also want to install Bally/Williams brackets on the front inside cabinet to provide extra support since you already had a dual split. The B/W plates are taller/thicker than what Stern provides and would be good insurance in this case:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/reinforcing-stern-cabinet-legs-step-by-step

Premiums still pop up, and if they're dialed in, better than NIB.

Not worth the effort, and the result will always be way less-than. Get a Premium.

Kind of surprising Stern is making their last run Pros, though. There's a LOT of demand for Premiums. They should finish with that.

Yeah, it's not worth the trouble because the result will be poor. Spend the time looking for a Premium instead. You'll be a lot happier. They DO pop up for reasonable money from time to time.

Shame that you're kind of in a location pinball dead-zone, and even the closest STh pins are all Pros. But honestly, buy one used, try it, and if you flip it you likely will be even or down a few hundred at worst, so it's essentially a rental. Pretty sure you'll like it. It's a better experience than the Pro, especially once the TK lock is dialed in.

I just took a piece of scrap plastic, drilled out some holes and made a better replacement than stern's crappy paper-thin one. They cheaped out on this part starting with Game of Thrones. Shipped with a noticeably thinner one starting on that game.

You can also 3d print something that'd take like 5 minutes to design, which wasn't an option for me when GoT came out and this broke in the first month.

It's a Lonnie-programmed machine. This "good enough" approach is par for the course on his machines. Drives me nuts.

Give the toddlers that can't see the playfield action something to watch.

A little whiskey in the sippy cup is faster. You also find out pretty quickly if you are raising a mean or a happy drunk.

Zero unless someone else comes in to polish it. This is completely a Lonnie machine outcome - just good enough, no polish. Lyman polished Lonnie games and made them great before, but no Lyman now, so...

Yeah, it's unfortunate when you have a Lonnie game because it will always be less-than unless someone else comes in and polishes his "finished" code. It's especially a shame when you have something like Stranger Things that is cool and has all the elements there, but just needs that little je ne sais quoi and final polish to take it over the top.

Stranger Things is Pin Zero - the one that started it all. If the flippers hadn't gotten so soggy so fast I may never have gotten into temp-testing pin coils and ended up making a cooling solution for them. chuckwurt was really helpful with the initial testing as I iterated my first designs to cool the flipper coils, and now here we are more than a year later with cooling kits available for most of the pins released in the last 5 years and more on the way. It's been a very entertaining, educational journey.

Glad your digging them and looking forward to seeing your massive scores.

Change out the coin door, put only a bill acceptor in it. Set the game to 50 cents (two quarter pulses) and the bill acceptor to one pulse per dollar. Voila!
$2 games.

Complain to Stern and ask for a discount since they sent you a used item or instead send an actual new one. Selling refurbs or returns as new is illegal.

I don't see why not.

Saw this Stranger Things branded pizza in Wal Mart tonight. Perfect for your Stranger Things-themed pinball party.

(If you try it, tell me how it is, I wasn't brave enough to buy/eat it)

Multi Meat Front
stranger-things-surfer-boy-small (resized).png

Jalapeno Pineapple back
surfer_dude_pizza_back_sml.jpg

Yeah, that cracked me up. It's NOT Hand Tossed crust. It's Hand Tossed STYLE crust, whatever that means.

They had 4 pizza types: Multi meat, Jalepeno pineapple, Pepperoni, and Supreme.

Elvira HoH's pretty simple to grasp and not super-deep. There's also pretty frequent multiballs. The only question is if the humor hits. I liked the camp, my kids hated it and thought it was dumb.

Yeah, that's a different criteria. For casual guests that you just want to understand the game quickly and get rewarded with cool things in the game who will have no chance of seeing the final wizard mode anyway, Elvira's a great choice.

But simple fun in a way that Munsters (which was also supposedly supposed to be simple fun) totally failed. Where Stranger Things is fun, Munsters is quickly boring. Given how much I was looking forward to Munsters, it was a real disappointment in that regard.

Looks like the retro refurbs one. The absence of "Netflix" above the show name is a dead giveaway that it's an alternate translite.

https://www.retrorefurbs.com/shop/stranger-things-season-2-alternate-pinball-translite/

I'd drop Terry at pinball life an email and see if he can order it from Stern for you. I know they were giving these away under warranty when it first came out because a ton of them broke and came partway off, blocking the demigorgon exit.

Node Board 9, connector CN7 goes to the drop target reset and the trip coil.

Do you have a multimeter? If the coil has both wires attached (one didn't come off), you may have blown a transistor.

Well, node 9 and node 8 are the same board, so as long as you know the coil is good now (since it's new) you could swap the node boards to see if that fixes your problem with that target bank (the problem will move to Left down post or maybe left eject if the transistor is blown). Basically you just swap the boards and adjust the dip switches to change the board ID so node 9 becomes node 8 and node 8 becomes node 9, then physically move them and reconnect. Here's the chart to show you the dip switch settings:

spike node addresses (resized).jpg

No. It's not a fuse that protects a number of things. Just has one job. There's one transistor per drive circuit. That post has its own transistor. A transistor is like an on/off gate for power that allows individual control of features usually driven by a coil. Generally each coil has to have its own (with some exceptions for home pins and Bond Prem/LE pop bumpers).

Heat is the killer for the projector, as is often the case. A mini 20x20 fan might take the temp down just enough to lengthen the life. As far as I know Stern is out of them, and the Chinese manufacturer as moved on to newer versions that are not compatible.

Various pinsiders are working on solutions.

You can get better projection material and cut your own to get better contrast so it looks less washed out.

Check the Topic Index at the top of any page in this thread and look in the section that says "MOD." There's some good info with links there about the better material you can get to improve the projection.

Heat is apparently what's a contributing factor to the ones dying, which is independent from the life of the bulb. So having a backup unit or implementing some kind of active cooling to reduce temps in the casing seems important.

Watching the focus is a good tip for having a clue that your projector may be getting too hot or the fan has failed. Sounds like the fan it has may not be up to the job of keeping it cool enough. It's good that Stern seems to have received some more, but bad that may not last long, leaving Prem/LE owners SOL in the future unless they get heavy into preventative care.

I'd go back to the original targets first and make sure you didn't mess something up when you swapped them out for the clear ones.

Worth resetting everything to stock before trying to figure out what happened when you made the change. One less variable.

The reset doesn't work in test, either? (with the white post inside left on the coin door pulled out)

So if you put in a completely different node board and it didn't help it has to be a dead coil or loose/broken wire to that coil. Do you have a multimeter to test the coil resistance?

You need a multimeter. Do you have one?

Power off. Set the dial to ohms (might be the ohm symbol) and hold one lead on each side of the coil and see what it says.

I get 9.9 ohms on the one I have here if I disconnect it (there's a plug on it on GotG that makes it convenient).

Small coil is about correct.

Turn your multimeter to continuity and with the power still off, check from Node 9, connector CN7, pin 2 to the hot side of that coil and see if there's continuity.

What about on the ground side?

Ground doesn't go back to CN7. You're probably getting a reading the other way because it's going through the machine.

This really points to either the coil or the transistor that drives it being bad, but you checked the coil resistance and it seems ok, and you put in a new node board, so it seems unlikely it has that exact transistor bad right off the bat. Not sure what else to check, except to double check the transistors in a row on the node 9 board with the multimeter and see if one of them tests bad.

Well, I don't expect you to find a dead short or it would have blown up the coil, but I'm not sure what transistors/leg arrangement are on the node boards (haven't had to fix one, knock on wood). Ask Stern, or maybe someone that knows can chime in.

If I still had a Stranger Things I'd be looking at it for sure, but it's something that I'd need to be hands on with to get it right.

But what do the CIRCUIT boards say? Are they different model numbers?

LE will always be the LE, so no effect.

The only conceivable one that could be affected is the Prem, but if this mod costs $1500-2000 to implement and is still janky because you're running Prem code on a Pro, then I don't see much of an impact.

Doesn't mean anything. The revision screened on the board tells the story.

Absolutely. Start somewhere. But don't stop at the casing and marketing. Find out if the two are the same product or not by looking at the boards.

I forgot, do you have a multimeter? Testing continuity on the drive wire for that coil would be easy with a multimeter.