Quoted from chuckwurt:LOTR same issue.
I had a LOTR. I swapped out the coils with the bigger ones and agree it played better. I hadn't heard of anyone putting fans in it but maybe they did. If NST plays better will larger coils I'd probably try it. My guess larger coils will also get warmer over time and a fan will keep them cooler
Quoted from chuckwurt:My friend has fans on all his Sterns. Not because the shots become unmakable, but because the timing changes.
How much does the timing change? 1 ns, 1 ms, 100 ms? My measurements seem to demonstrate its well under a 1 ms.
Quoted from chuckwurt:But when I make the same exact shot and is doesn’t go, nothings to blame except for flipper performance.
I just don’t see how it could be anything else. Are you and your friends playing for 2-3 hours at a time? How many rejects would you say you get on perfect right flipper shots to the lock? Mine are near zero. Maybe 1-2 in a 2-3 hour session. Just had a long session tonight with a friend and counted them. I would’ve lost count before. Again, nothing changed but fans.
My game plays well now without any fans. I'm open to adding them, but I don't really care about the temperature of the coils - I want to know the effect on the strength of the flippers or the timing. If the difference is real this is something that should be easily quantified. Right now this seems to be the fix of the week. Remember last months fix:
Quoted from chuckwurt:Okay. The left ramp cover seems to be the issue. It’s impeding the progress of the ball to the magnet.
I guess to start strong shots are making it up there but once the flipper power can’t muscle it up there it becomes less consistent.
I took this off and now you have perfect lock shots but they are WAY TOO STRONG.
I had to dial back the flipper power to 200 to not fear that I was going to break optos and plastics from the ball smashing into them.
Quoted from chuckwurt:They are working on it. That’s all I’m allowed to say. Haha
I think the main issue is that the TK lock is just a poorly designed mech. Both of us have spent a lot of hours getting our games set up and gone down some dead end roads that initially felt like they might be helping. I initially liked the fan idea and it may have merit, just can't convince myself that the temperature of the flipper coil is really the issue here. If it is an issue it is larger than just this game, and we owe it ourselves to know just how much difference it makes.