I use it just this way to feed the upper left flipper. Works great.

I’m aware of this feature, thanks for the clarification. But what me and s000m are talking about is a non intended rattling that occurs just above the upper flipper when shooting the left orbit. The ball hits something and rattles/bounces around and loses all its momentum and falls back, not making the orbit shot at all. The post comes up intentionally on a successful orbit shot where you get credit for hitting the switch. What we’re talking about is just lots of rejects at the entrance to the orbit, just above the upper flipper, near where the balls exit for ninja pizza multiball. It’s probably just part of the game and hitting it too hard makes it rattle.

My bet is that the ball guide there isn't quite a smooth curve, I had it on both orbits of my AIQ. Basically there is small "kink" in the ball guide rather than a smooth guide. So when the ball hits, right in that spot, rather than hugging the curve, it bounces, rattles, and/or hops. For me, the fix was as simple as loosening a few of the through hole bolts of the ball guide and the wood screws and retightening with a more natural curve to it.

I'm not saying this is your issue but it certainly could be.

Well that is weird as heck. Stern manual and machine has 2” sling rubbers. I made a rubber kit on titanpinball and bought it with 2” but now my kit says 2 1/4”. They change kits based on response or comments or something?

Joined the club tonight. This game has a ton of personality and is a lot of fun.

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That's definitely not normal. That shot should be smooth as silk, as are nearly all the shots in this machine. I would do as shaub mentioned and "reseat" your ball guide and also check for any stray wiring or anything hanging in the ball path. It's a fairly tight shot, but a good shot should be perfectly smooth.

Hi peeps, found this screw in the bottom of the cab, have no idea where it came from. Its very specific looking (looks like it can only be hand tightened, no screw slot and its round, not shaped like a nut) so I'm hoping someone will know where its from? Thanks

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It is part of the coin mech.

Yay! thank you, I looked everywhere for a missing screw...everywhere except the door apparently. Wonder how it got all the way to the back of the cab!

Fell of during shipping when it was upright. I had to fish out the coin box from the back of mine when I unboxed it. Couldn’t lift the playfield to get it out since it was on a bind.

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wow, that's not good! Hope it didn't do any damage, at least mine was just a screw

Couldn’t find any damage and game plays as expected.

Has anyone had the TPMB crash happen on an LE/Premium? I was trying to see if I could reproduce it (glass off), but I wasn't able to.

How about a bit of info?

What turtle were you playing as?
Was it a single player game? 2 player? Coop?
What ball did it happen on?
Anything else you remember about it?

Rob

I had it on my LE. One time I can definitly remember was a 4 Player Coop after completing Cowabunga MB, most likely on ball 5/5. So it was also the 2nd TPMB for that specific player. Don‘t know which Turtle it was anymore, sorry!

I have this problem. Driving me nuts. Do you by chance have pictures of the through bolts you’re speaking of that need loosening? Are you speaking about the ball guide that is the left piece of the orbit or the right one?

This game is fairly difficult, not much to do about it. On the bright side, if you master this table you should be able to kick ass on just about anything else you play. I've been stuck in the 15-25 million range which is pretty lame, but that's just my skill level. It's not the flipper power, incline, wax, rubbers, etc. I simply can't make the critical shots when I need to. I Just have to get better...

I agree that this game is tough. It's certainly made me a better player in our local tournaments. I've seen some folks posting scores closer to 100 Million and I am just trying to find out if they are really that much better than I am or if they are adjusting things to make the game more forgiving.

Took over 6,000 plays to happen...

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Never on a single player game?

Rob

That I can't say for sure, sorry. It has happened 2-3 times overall on ~1000 plays on my machine.

If you (or your family) find it too difficult you can always switch over to 5 ball while practicing. It will give you more chances to get deeper into modes and develop your skills. It certainly helps to lower the frustration level.

Mine's never crashed before. 80's code- crazy -
I also have quite low plays on mine.

My pro has crashed 15-20 times during and/or around TPMB. I don't know what sets it off, but it's not always the same thing for me. Sent Stern an email to their bug report address long ago.

Edit: I will say that for a while it seemed like if a ball got in the Lair at the wrong time during TPMB and hit the Lair switch, it might've triggered the crash, but I'm not 100% sure.

I've had it happen both with the 87 code and without. Always happened when I had fresh code written ... within the first 10 or 15 plays would happen once maybe. Now I have tons of plays on the SD card, it hasn't happened in ages. It's a very difficult bug to reproduce for sure. Probably why they haven't fixed it yet.

My Premium has only crashed once in about 500 games - running the latest Stern firmware. I don't think it was TPMB related. Do you folks with lots of crashes have any third party mods installed? Maybe there's a common thread there?

I have zero mods other than plastic and Cliffy protectors. I'm not a mod guy.

I agree, very difficult to track down.

Rob

That sounds really frustrating. I'm sorry you all are dealing with this. I'd be playing every game expecting it to happen at any moment. I wonder if the first run of games is more prone to this? I got a Premium from the second run from late last year.

Well, knock on wood, it seems to be doing it less frequently as time has went on. Strange indeed.

I've got over 1k games on my premium which was first run. I've not experienced a crash. I do have some mods: Pinstadium Neo, speaker light kits, bigger speakers, and a lit cup holder.

I've got over 1K games and a bunch of mods on my Pro. No memory of a single crash.

Definitely one of those hard to trace issues and I feel bad for the people that it is affecting.

I'm around 800 games on my Pro and haven't had any crashes.

I did have one instance of it trying to boot where it hung for a couple of minutes, then rebooted itself and worked fine ever since.

See animation here:

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Nice! Was hoping to hear from you soon!

That hair is looking good!!!

Wow! That is just amazing!!!

Maybe have her point at the player instead of the OK sign.

Rob

We are really just rocking these out with whatever ideas come to us. Unfortunately, No time for iteration. If you have ideas for other sound clips...suggest them in advance and I will totally consider them.

I have a TMNT and AIQ side by side myself!
They go great together!
Welcome to the CLUB!

Scandell If you have something like a patreon or a tip jar, you should share it here. I'd contribute!

Pm'd! Thank you kindly. It helps.

Stern Pinball get Scandell in your animations department ASAP!!!

Has anyone got to the cowabunga wizard mode? seriously feels like the hardest mode to get to second only to simpsons. I was sooooo close and drained on the last April hurry up...just wondering what it even looks like! Also - Kidrobot has a 3" turtle lineup from 2014 that fit the game PERFECTLY! Pictures included. I've got beebop and rocksteady and shredder on the way. (FYI left Donatello helps block the notorious flying left ball drain from rail)

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The closest I've been was getting to Final Battle on 3rd ball, no extra balls remaining, with all the other criteria completed. So basically, I had to beat Final Battle and have Cowabunga lit. I've kind of stopped trying to go for it and I feel like it's the kind of the Wizard mode you need to set out to get to when you plunge your first ball.

Rumour has it that Dwight might make beating Team Up MB spot one of the criteria for Cowabunga which I think would be a nice addition. It would also provide some room for strategy in getting specific "easier" criteria out of the way before Team Up MB and would also make me aim for the Wrath of Krang mode more often.

It’s definitely not easy but feels awesome when you get there! If you have got to the point where you only needed one more objective to complete then you should be able to get to it soon…good luck man!

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The scoring on this game is most unbalanced I've ever seen. You get 500,000 hitting bumpers, but 2,000 hit shots in a mb.

I'm so impressed by that. I'll admit I am still trying to get there with playing all four turtles on co-op mode, let alone with just three balls. I've made it to final battle several times, but have yet to beat that and certainly haven't come close to clearing all the objectives. Even Neutrino pizza party has eluded me thus far, although I havne't spent too many games actually trying to just do that. I generally don't focus on leveling up turtles but instead just trying to advance through episodes quickly.

I've gotten all the requirements done except the April Hurry Ups. Those are definitely the hardest part to me. Closes I've been if everything completed except 2 April Hurry Ups. The team up multiball spotting one could be a pretty cool idea, but I find team up multiball to be pretty difficult to complete also so not sure how much on an impact that would make. And with my luck it would spot me 1, 2, 3 foot or weapon hurry up haha.

Fair point. But if you aim for Wrath of Krang you only need two shots per turtle to light rescue so that should make it significantly easier than the 6 or 7 or however many it currently takes. As far as spotting requirements, you'd just need to make sure you get the "easy" ones out of the way. Theoretically, with Mikey, you could get all the requirements except Final Battle BEFORE Team Up MB and then get that spotted and have Cowabunga lit. But that's assuming that feature is ever actually implemented.

True, I would definitely try to complete wrath of krang before team up if this was implemented to help me out in getting to cowabunga. That's probably easier than getting 5 april hurry ups haha. Would also need to try to knock out the weapon combo and foot 1, 2, 3 combos before so you don't spot an easy task.