My LE arrives in a few hours, pre-installed with UV kit from the distributor

Reading thru 57 odd pages of posts, I see there's a few important things to check...

1. Telekenesis mechanism
2. Get some Black Diamond for the main screen

Anything else you'd suggest checking on the LE when it arrives?

Despite all the bad press early during it's release, can say I thoroughly enjoyed playing the Pro so can't wait for LE to be delivered.

Got my LE today...any new pin day is a good day indeed.

Plays well but a few things I've noticed...

Seems a lot faster with never ending airballs compared to the Pro I'd been playing at the distributor - is this normal till it settles down? Pro seemed nicely bedded in without much airtime, but this minty fresh LE is all over the place, balls flying everywhere!

Dimples...the age old bug bear. Just a question though, either side of the main ramp seems problematic for airballs or rebounds, are people putting myler strips there? I recall on my other Sterns such as Metallica near Sparky's feet everyone recommended strips of mylar to minimise wear.

Likewise the kick-out on the left, I seem to be getting a high concentration on dimples almost like a small channel from rebounding down onto the playfield. Again, anyone recommending a smsll strip of mylar there?

Shooting the Demogorgan is hard to get a hole-in-one. Kinda don't mind that to be honest makes you need a good clean crisp shot on target to get it...for the regular punter I guess they could just keep bumping it 6 times.

The dreaded TK ramp shot with ball lock isn't too bad. Sure, if there's not enough power in the shot or its off the left flipper, it typically falls back down the ramp and SDTM. Doesn't seem as bad as some are experiencing but certainly not ideal. Will check the guide tomorrow on tweaking it and see if there's any difference.

On the flip side, great unique theme...UV kit is awesome, absolute must have for all models. Looking forward to where they take this one over the next 12-months.

Dimples aren't really a major concern for me, with the exception of the high concentration in the one spot near the saucer. Are others experiencing the same there?

Typically near kickers and outholes I thought Stern were doing small mylar pieces for a while there.

Had my LE for a few days now, made some adjustments thanks to chuckwurt video! Thanks heaps for this

Everything seems okay now except the Demo and the TK lock, like everyone else.

So my Demo shots are very difficult to make, but on the un-modified Pro recently I seemed to be landing lots more shots. It just seemed much much easier to get it in the Demo on the Pro I played compared to my LE for some reason???

Also the TK lock, sure it works. But even with the sweetest timed shot the TK lock only seems to work 50% of the time. Like most people it seems to clamp the ball, then when it releases the ball just continues around the ramp.

How is everyone else's TK Lock holding up? Does mine sound more or less reliable than others? I've checked carefully twice through the PDF guide and the measurements all seem within range. Although the main nut is tight, there seems to be a fair degree of movement up and down near the hex bolt/black washer (under the ramp) - I assume that's normal?

Such a great game...aside from these 2 pain points!

Looks like I still have more work to do

Any idea what is actually causing it to pinch? Is it the right flipper tiring?

Every so often during transition between modes or ball drain I get a weird blank green screen on the large lcd for about 2 seconds.

Anyone else get this?

I'm out no combos for me today. Spent the day trying to get TK tweaked to increase reliability, marginal improvement but still not entirely happy...shots in the sweet spot still only about 60% reliable to lock.

Great game...really enjoy it, TK lock is a good idea for a Prem/LE feature...just not sure about the execution. Will keep plugging away at this to try get it more reliable.

Mother of god!

Just finished roughly 4 hours of tweaking trying lots of things to improve Demo...oh man, finally hit the sweet spot. Not easy, but conversion is now 100 times better.

I need a beer now, will post what I did shortly

Okay so here's a brief explanation of my 4-5 hour journey to improve my Demo. Firstly, what I've discovered is almost every machine is going to be subtly different, so what works on one machine may not completely solve it on another. And by no means am I suggesting what others have written is incorrect, this is just what I did and it seemed to make a massive improvement to mine (so far!).

I got my LE last week, and had been playing a Pro at the distributor for a few weeks. The Demo at the distributor just seems a LOT easier to shoot, if the shot was remotely on-target, somehow it would go in. Yet when my LE arrived I was lucky to land one shot in 10 games, if that!

Yesterday I was back at the distributor and paid particular attention to how it was setup out of the box and how it differed to mine. Today I set about trying all the suggested mods in this thread and the other couple floating around the web. Here's what I found...

1. Size of the Demo Mouth Opening : I found at the Distributor that the Demo in the Pro there was obviously the same, but the mouth seemed a lot more open. When I came home to compare, my Demo had a slightly different shaped mouth - it was easily 5mm narrower on both sides and the overall diameter of the "hole" seemed significantly lot less. Later in my journey today when I had the Demo apart, I noticed the plastic molded Demo body can be slightly manipulated. Ever so carefully, you can increase the size of the mouth...but I stress, do this very carefully! I recommend if you do this, you do so with the Demo disassembled, remember there are delicate optos in there (do not damage them!). I manipulated it to look "more round" and slightly larger opening, much the same as the Pro model at the distributor. Just looking at it I could see the massive difference from what my Demo in the LE shipped as.

2. Height of the Demo : I also investigated and experimented changing the black spacers under the demo (above the rubber grommets), this effectively raises or lowers the Demo on the vertical axis. However if you reduce the height it couldn't shake or the ball would get caught. Obviously raising it up, made the shots almost impossible. The key lay in trying to open up the angle of attack (next point).

3. Angle of the Demo : Think of it like basketball hoop, if you angle the front of the hoop down more it'll be easier to hit the shot. Apply this to the Demo as others have suggested and it "should" make the shot easier. Now I tried a number of different ways to open up the angle more and angle the Demo down more towards the front of the machine. Putting washers under the plastic demo seemed to work temporarily, but the grey plastic of the demo does bend...so what I found was putting washers on the back to raise the rear of the demo up on an angle eventually ended up after a few games raising the front too...the Demo wants to be flat and will naturally try to bend back to it's natural molded shape, so raising the back ended up raising the front after a few hits...then the Demo sat higher, which is what we don't want. I then tried to put washers under the rear plate of the demo between the demo bracket and playfield...at this point let me say, this is a perfectly workable solution, however the Demo has a lot of moving parts and force being applied to it from both the horizontal and vertical axis, so I wanted to find something more solid let say, I'd just personally rather the bracket remain flush with the playfield if possible.

How I angled the Demo down without using washes: Let me say, if you don't feel confident doing this, then use the washer method. I disassembled the Demo and ever so slightly added some angle to the front of the bracket very carefully in a bench vice (dipped the front), now we are only talking a very slight angle, a few millimeters. Now what this achieved was 2 things effectively....angling the Demo face slightly more down and towards the front, and in turn also reduced the front travel of demo when it vibrates. In other words, when you tilt the Demo head forward, it has less room to travel forward, but still enough to shake noticeably. Now I found that changing the angle down isn't enough by itself, because after 20 games or so the Demo can still rock backwards a lot and after lots of hits, will tilt backwards still, but just not as badly as before - still not enough to make regular and reliable Demo shots. So I needed to adjust the rear travel (how far the Demo can rock backwards)

4. Rear Travel Distance : The demo "floats" on some rubber grommets and it seemed to have a lot of travel front to back - the front we've reduced (see point 3). Sure it needs to shake about but it just seemed to be moving back and fourth A LOT. When I inspected it I found that due to the wires coming out the back of the Demo, the more hits the Demo absorbed or the more it shaked, it would gradually angle more to the back. I'd lean it forward more, then after a few hits it would start leaning back more, also I found most of the demo weight is distributed towards the rear because of the internal bracket that guides the ball and holds the optos. So to get around this I needed also reduced the rear travel distance (how far it rocks back).

How to reduce rear travel distance -> To do this you simple move the rubber coil stop further towards the coil that bumps the Demo from underneath the playfield. Now the only problem here is the screw that holds the rubber stop for the post isn't long enough, so I changed the nut from the outside to the inside of the coil bracket and this game me about another 10mm of reduced travel on the rear, but changing the nut to the inside of the bracket still effectively "locks it off" so it can't unwind or loosen during play - longer term solution I'll source a longer 8-32 screw. So pushing the post that shakes the Demo from the rear higher by about 10mm reduces the amount of travel to rear and means the Demo cannot violently rock backwards and over time make your shots harder.

Now my Demo was still able to rock and shake and take hits, but the travel now front and back was significantly reduced, and when I tucked the wires down the side and tested it, the difference was huge. It would no longer slowly lean back towards the rear after a few hits, and nor would it move so much when taking hits from a pinball.

WINS:
- Larger Demo mouth opening (like what I had played at the distributor and landing regular shots)
- Demo face angled more towards the front and down
- Reduced travel front and back (more stable Demo, no more tilting back after a few games)
- Demo still maintains all it's characteristics - shakes and moves about with good effect

Okay I hope this helps guys, I literally spent hours trying a variety of different things to see what the results would give me. Again, I'm not suggesting this will work on every machine, but it has made my Demo play amazingly well on my machine now - every Demo scene I'm able to land shots with a reasonable effort to aim. It's taken my Demo shots from impossible and frustrating, to satisfying and enjoyable.

I apologise for the long post, but I've tried to explain as much of the logic as possible. It's quite late her now, so perhaps tomorrow I'll try and post some pictures and maybe cleanup my explanation better. I know it's morning in the US so just wanted to give you guys a heads up on what I worked through today.

Just wanted to report back for those who were curious. It's been a few days and put lots of games through the machine including some longer sessions. The tweaks I did are still holding up strong, my Demo is playing like a dream.

The Demo shot is oh so satisfying now

I have noticed the more games I put thru mine, it is very inconsistent. Thanks for the suggestion.