Yes, I had the same problem. Had to remove all the ramps for this, because you only have to get the screws from the bottom and completely dismantle the glider.

I am not talking about snubbing capacitor(s) directly connected to the DC motor. I'm referring to the inline capacitor cable that Stern includes with their shakers. Every recent LE will have it too (mine do).

Rob

I talked to my distributor about that, the rod is just there to align the screw holes of the shaker with the holes of the protector housing.
To adjust the shakers strength unscrew the weights and retight them somewhere between 90 to 180°. the screw will dig into the rod.

However I was not really able to find a nice setting on my stern shaker, it makes the same rumble noise or its too weak... and TMNT shaker setting was lacking- have to take a look at the new code.

He said it was Marco, plus that 20% BS sounds like Marco.

I'm having the exact same issue!!

I got my LE delivered yesterday on code 1.21 and everything worked perfectly (and what an amazing game this is btw!). Upon updating I'm now having the same issue as you. Have you found a fix? Is there a way I can go back to version 1.21?

Do not load the old code back into your game. The new code has a firmware update and when I loaded V1.21 back in, game told me coin door was open and no 48Volts. I checked the 48Volts and everything was fine. I loaded V1.22 back in and the game fired straight back up and works fine.

I took all the balls out, cleaned them, cleaned the opto behind the turtle van, made sure the opto behind the turtle van works properly (switch test) and the game works fine now. Remember to get the balls out of the van as well, you have to hold the door open manually to get them out.

The game reloads the balls in the van as you are still playing the end of the multiball. I think it is possible that you can shoot a ball up the right ramp at the same time as the machine shoots a ball out from the shooter lane.. 2 balls would go into the van and the machine would think one has gone in the van.

Hope this helps you out.

Thank you for your help - did what you said and all is ok again.

It seems spot on in what you’re saying about a ball being able to sneak in there. Did some testing and was able to replicate the problem again by shooting a ball up the ramp the same time another ball was auto plunged in to fill the van.

Anyway glad it’s nothing major, I’m really loving this game!!

So....if I am going to possibly buy a tmnt pro I should have it unboxed at distributor to see if playfield art isn’t shitty.

When I bought my premium 2 weeks ago (8/12/20 build), at my request my distributor unboxed one first to inspect the play field; it was not good. He unboxed a second one and it was fine. Dodged a bullet there. A pre-purchase inspection would be a good idea.

Yes! Definitely! Because right now Stern is not addressing the issue at all if you are stuck with one with shitty art. No call backs, nothing. They clearly don’t give a shit about customer service.

What was wrong with the playfield?! About to purchase a pro and wanna know what you look out for

probably the print quality. There have been reports of some playfields printing not being great.

Talked to Marco on the shaker motor, pay to ship it back for them to test, then pay to ship if back if they find it not defective..... I'm just going to drill it out and add a bolt and be done with it. can someone send me a pic of the bolt that goes through the shaker motor if you have one available? TIA

Tightening the bolt a few quarters turns fixes sloppy, loud shaking for me every single time. This is true for others as well, since Pinside is where I learned to do this.

Print quality was bad on so many pros.

Ugh, it definitely sounds like Stern's calculus is to send out all the bad playfields they (still!) have. Clearly, the cost of sending out new playfields to the those that complain is less than the cost of scrapping all the obviously bad playfields and reprinting new ones. They must have quite a few of these bad playfields if they are still shipping them through August.

This is purely profit motivated and they don't care about these quality issues affecting their brand/image, which is sad. I just paid for a Premium from Flipnout and if I do get a bad playfield, I will be one of the louder complainers so that it's replaced promptly. I can fix something mechanical but I can't fix a bad print job.

I updated my pro machine with V1.22 on a spare SD-Card. The new Code seems to be nice. For testing i but in back the old SD-Card.
At start i got again something about node Board update, but it seemed like it skipped it. But after that the code V1.21 loaded normal.
So i am not sure if it will work for everybody and if there are more risks involved.

I have a pro with a beautiful playfield... thank goodness... that's y I waited to buy a basically new out of box pin so I cld c it first. Wonder if bad ones will sell for less than nice ones? I'm guessing it will come up when buying/selling.

Talked to Marco and they said there might be a problem with my motor and agreed to take it back, going to order a pinball life one and be done with it since all the sterns dont have the bolt

Yeah, the first one that my distributor offered to me had a bad print job on the play field. Pretty obvious problem. Not sure why it was not rejected at the factory but I am guessing that the assembly team's standards are simply lower than what most customers want and expect.

They actually responded to mine and is sending a new playfield. Of course it’s unpopulated so who knows when I’ll get around to switching them out...

Can you share the gist of what you emailed them to get a new playfield in case anyone with a bad playfield (hopefully not me!) wants to know what gets results?

Do you get to keep both? Or you need to send the bad one back?

You get to keep both. No way Stern can put an expectation on when you do the swap and have a deadline for the bad PF to be returned. If that was the case, they would need to send out populated PFs as that can be done in under an hour.

We have not had it happen again but we have not played the game much either. We logged a call to Stern through their website .

Game rocks. We love it.

Interesting. I though of burning a new SD card with the old code. When I turned the machine on after loading V1.21 back in, I got no firmware or nodeboard update messages. Same when I went to V1.22, no messages. I am no code expert so I do not want to experiment with the code and firmware versions. Machine costs too much money.

If we have any more issues, I am going to replace the SD card.

Great fun game!

Yep... been talking to support for a few weeks now. I get 6 balls stuck behind the van and diverter. They claim no one else has reported. PLEASE REPORT to Stern support. I believe it’s a software issue. Happens regularly. Have to take glass off to clear balls.

Yep, same here!
Played on code 1.21 for a few weeks and never had this problem.
Updated to 1.22 a few hours ago and had the game loading 4 balls in the van when it only should be three.
Noticed it at least once every game.

I’m pretty sure this is software related...
I’ll notify Stern about this.

EDIT: It happens EVERY game during Turtle Multiball since updating to 1.22 on my LE.
To test I choose Donatello and immediately start TM to and every time the software loads 4 Balls in the van and loses track of how many balls are in play.
When I lose my second last ball the multiball keeps running, and when I lose my last ball, multiball ends and ball search starts looking for the ball that’s clearly the fourth one in the van.
The diverter+optos work as they should.

Maybe the issue occurs when playing Turtle multiball and draining a ball when ball save is still running simultaneously with the machine reloading the van??

I think you may need to get your opto behind the van checked (make sure it is working correctly) and also make sure your diverter is not sticking.

If 100 of us report the same problem to Stern, Stern will tell 100 of us that no one else has reported that problem. Chaz (RIP) was the honest one and would at least let you know that the problem has happened on other machines. This is why Pinside is so good. We only started having this issue since we changed to V1.22 code. Before that, no issue. The more people that report the issue, the better as Stern will start to look at the problem.

Good move. Hopefully Stern will go back to the old way the van was loaded in the current code.

I have checked everything on our machine. Connections, voltages, diverters, optos, etc, etc. I have taken the glass off, started Van multiball. Wait for the timer to end, loaded the van one ball at a time. No ball search problems. I am going to buy a new good quality SD card today and replace the shitty Stern one to eliminate as many things as possible. It could be something simple like the ball is jumping over an opto or is going too fast to register an opto but I am thinking we did not have the issue before the code update.

I am fairly sure it is a code related issue. As more and more people load the code I think we will see more and more people say they have the same issue.

I must add, since I turned the game off, removed the 8 balls from the game. Turned the game back on and reloaded them, we have not had the issue. We have not played the game much either.

I started sending Gary pictures of his house and kept telling him that I know where he lives

I just got my distributor involved (shout out to hemispheres amusements!!) and they went to bat for me.

Correct

Be aware, in my Pro, I removed all six balls and each and every one of them was magnetically charged. Each ball would pick up small screws and washers.

Of course cleaning the balls did nothing to fix this.

I replaced the balls with standard carbon steel balls which were not magnetized and did not have any trouble with the 'van lock'/multiball lock that was not releasing the balls correctly.

I checked the vertical upkicker 'lock' and adjusted it slightly away from the wood, in case that was contributing to the issue.

I also checked the optical sensors and tested them, but they were not misadjusted. They worked as expected.

After I replaced the balls, the game played as expected.

Your mileage may vary.

So you like the new code? Noone seems to care...

I dooo!!!!!

The new additional code is quite good and appreciated, however I’m having the same issue as the rest of you since updating. Also, there are a couple additional issues addressed as well. I’ve just sent this PM to @xavery Dwight (since Mr_G_Hosting already wrote out some of the wording, I used it... thanks!):

Hi Dwight,

Thanks for your attentive work to detail on our fab TMNT game coding. However, there is an issue since code was updated with an extra ball loading into the van, 4 since 1.22 instead of 3. Played on code 1.21 for a few weeks and never had this problem, with too many balls loading into the van.

Updated to 1.22 a few hours ago and had the game loading 4 balls in the van when it only should be three.
Noticed it at least once every game.
I’m pretty sure this is software related...and now it happens EVERY game during Turtle Multiball since updating to 1.22 on my LE.
To test I choose Donatello and immediately start TM and every time the software loads 4 Balls in the van and looses track of how many balls are in play.

When I lose my second last ball the multiball keeps running, and when I lose my last ball, multiball ends and ball search starts looking for the ball that’s clearly the fourth one in the van. The diverter+optos work as they should.

Maybe the issue occurs when playing Turtle multiball and draining a ball, when ball save is still running simultaneously with the machine reloading the van??

Another issue since updating is now I hear the up post in the pizza parlor firing randomly, even though there are no balls in the pizza parlor to eject into the lane coming out of the parlor. Please fix that too.

Thanks and appreciate all your hard work to make our TMNT machines even better!

Dwight is the one that will fix this in the code and the obvious and best person to contact, imo.

Good on you TBird. Please let us all know if you get a response.

Here is Dwight’s 1st reply:

“I really do not believe that the latest code update could have caused those issues. It really only changed a small handful of stuff that is laid out in the readme. I will look into how the game could load 4 balls into the van. I appreciate the feedback.”

So he’s looking into a fix and will let us know ASAP I’m sure.

Did any of you guys successfully downgrade to 1.21? Where do we download that code, if so?

Is this happening to everyone going to the latest code? My mate was going to upgrade his LE and I told him to wait off just Incase it’s definitely the code.

I admire your faith in Stern. Maybe I have lost my lustre for the company over the years. I know plenty of people that have reported the issue to Stern.

Code V1.22 has firmware undates and the firmware updates could be causing issues with the code. I am not a software person but worked out a few things when I tried to go backwards with the code. I successfully loaded V1.21 back in the machine via usb. Machine would not start back up saying coin door was open. (Our coin door switch is de activated and wires are clamped together). Leaving the game sit for 10 minutes, the game would start back up. I tried this a few times by turning the game on and off. Machine did exactly the same thing every time. The old firmware may not be in V1.21 so going backwards is not a good idea I think. Burning a new SD card may work, but I am unwilling to try it, Stern have not responded to any of my requests since Chaz (RIP). Maybe some of the software gurus can help us out and let us know how to successfully go backwards with the code.

I would hold off. At the start I though it was just our LE, but it is not. I know of plenty of LEs with the same issue.

Thanks Dwight for looking in to this issue!

Today I did the ultimate test and went to my buddy who also has an LE but was still running on 1.21.
We played the game for about 3 hours or so and my main focus was Turtle Multiball of course.
Not one single time the machine tried to load 4 balls in the van during those hours.

With my friends approval we then upgraded to 1.22 and literally at the first time I started TM, the machine reloads 4 balls in the van... Looses track of balls in play en goes into ball search.

This proves to me it is 100% software related.
I believe nothing was changed on purpose, but something really did change...

I think it has something to do with the ball saver running while reloading the van and draining a ball at the same time.
Wanted to turn TM ball saver off to see if that cleared the issue, but apparently the lowest setting is 0.
At 0 it still has a little bit of ball saver.

When a ball drains after the very short ball saver, the van loads 3 balls.
When a ball drains during the short ball saver the van will load 4 balls.

Hope you can solve the issue very soon Dwight.
Cause my buddy blames me for updating his machine.

Awesome feedback. Thankyou. Hopefully Stern will listen!

I have an LE and no issues with the new code. It’s great!

I have an LE too and no issues with 1.22

I installed new code on my pro... really not noticing much at all. It was a very small update. I even considered not bothering and waiting for the next one.
I would really like dwight to address the scoring issues... Jackpots (aside from cowabunga progress) are not worth going for at all... i simply aim for getting octopus and Max out switch hit frenzy during multiball.
Dwight usually places a lot of emphasis on gaining Jackpots. This game the jackpots are garbage.
When there is an obvious scoring inbalance or scoring exploit it should get sorted.

If you get ball search issues could you please let us know.

you can just modify the link on the site and change 1_22 to 1_21 they still have it in the background, but not visible

pro:
https://f002.backblazeb2.com/file/gamecode/turtles_pro-1_21_0.Release.8G.sdcard.raw.zip

premium:
https://f002.backblazeb2.com/file/gamecode/turtles_le-1_21_0.Release.8G.sdcard.raw.zip

LE:
https://f002.backblazeb2.com/file/gamecode/turtles_le-1_21_0.Release.8G.sdcard.raw.zip

i don't know how many versions you can go back, i had luck with this method most of the for version before the latest.

On my pro version i downgraded again to the 1987 1.21 code, it did flashed again the node modeboards in this process. Going back again to 1.22 they were flashed again. I had no issues while playing in the downgraded version.

Thanks so much! Will try your links!

Are those download links for the 1987 TMNT software 1.21 update?