Thanks very much you guys. I will try adjusting it first, or swapping it out if necessary. Mine seems to miss exactly when I need it to finish DTR. Last night was my chance at 30 sec or under.

Thats the only time its used.

That makes sense. I’ll adjust it. It does register, just not consistently.

Thx.

I have the 3 figure POTD on my machine, the wiring for it is routed below the playfield but is not tied into anything. What should it be connected to?

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I’m also looking at swapping out some of the LEDs for warmer colors. The 555 bulbs look easy enough with the twist out from below the playfield, but the 44’s I’m unsure about. Do I need to undo the gold flat head screw holding it in place to switch them?

not sure if you have the pinball refinery potd but that has connections to its own little circuit board as well as switches at the tower vuk and trough.

you may have some other diy variation , the type of connector at the end of the wires might give you clue where it goes.

while playing fotr mb got the ball stuck in an unusual spot

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Yes, I did not find on any US site....but now there isn't shipping from UK ( corona..... )

Yeah, they come only from Retro refurb. Shipping doesn't take too long. Unfortunately you'll have to wait for coronavirus to die down before things are opened up.

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The game should have come from the factory with those.

I had the ball on top of the Balrog once as well.

Wow this is really cool
after the virus I will be order one

Where did you get this info? Shipping is working from the UK.

I don't know pay, this happening if I wanna pay with paypal. ( US )

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Paypal was making some updates or something a few hours ago because their service was not working. Did you try again?
Anyway, all post office services on every country is working right now. Only people are not allowed to travel for some countries but parcels are being shipped.

I tried last week, yesterday, today...

This is not a PayPal issue, I've used PayPal several time this week, both on the sending and receiving side and both international and domestic without issues. You should probably contact them to see whats going on.

put an addressable led strip controlled by pinduino in the volcano mod. will work on the programming

everyone lay low , stay healthy and play more pinball!!

I ordered! The PayPal working now.

Still can't believe it but by huge luck I managed to get a great deal on this pin, so since yesterday I'm a member of the club!

Anything I should know as a new LOTR owner?

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Get a plastic protector for your Arwen plastic, rebuild your flipper and if you want get semi stronger or stronger coil. Check both Ring switches work (to enable destroy the ring), get a couple spare switch for Golumn/Shire shots. ColorDMD looks great on it...

Don't trust Golem!

As mentioned above, if you notice flipper power fade when they get hot after an hour, install the medium power coils or a fan. LotR has bad insert ghosting with LEDs, so I recommend sticking with incandescent bulbs for the inserts.

Or as we misquote when playing - "Don't trust Golem's two balls".

Just in case anyone is still wondering. I found it.
It is this one, under the path of the dead.
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Now I just need to find this to buy somewhere. Luckily not essential at all.

LED OCD has a Very nice solution to this situation.

CONGRATULATION! You should know that you now own one of, if not the best machine ever produced by Stern Pinball, AND its one of the original LOTRs which is considered to be a better manufactured game then the remake edition.

This has already been mentioned, but a colorDMD really is a must for this game! Please see the post below for information on how to disable and remove the HV plasma driver board after completing the Color DMD upgrade.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-lord-of-the-rings-journey-begins-members-club/page/61#post-4442968

I also consider the 2Niro Fire ring mod (120.00€) to be one of the must have mods for this game.
https://www.2niro-pinball.com/boutique/Fire-Ring-Lord-of-the-ring-p138508948

I second that! It’s a must if you’re switching to LED’s on this game. Works great.

I would add a Palintir mod from AU Kraut or niro as a pretty nice addition !!

I would get the palantir mod from AUKraut. Not cheap but it's amazing! And I agree colorDMD is a must.

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Here are some lesser known mods that are pretty cool:

Pinnovators Subwoofer Output:

https://pinnovators.myshopify.com/collections/stern-subwoofer-kits/products/pinsub-whitestar-stern-kit

Pingravings Rule Cards:

https://sites.google.com/view/pingravings/pingravings-home/gallery

Pinball Life Sword Ramp Ball Lock Guide - First Run:

https://www.pinballlife.com/lotr-sword-ramp-ball-lock-guide-first-run.html

Hi,

I need to sell my LE machine, if someone interest: https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/93686

Thanks

I just went on a Valinor run but came up just shy.

The game is set to Factory, 3 ball, Replay with opened outlanes. There are NO scoring tier specific extra balls set on this game, only the ones that could be earned throughout the game.

I earned all of the gifts, destroyed the ring twice, completed all 3 multiballs and started There and Back Again. The last thing that you need to do is destroy the ring after everything else is completed. I had to start all 3 multiballs again to get back to Destroy the Ring. I had two started of the multiballs and was about to start the third when my last ball drained. SIGH! So close! I feel like I just gave birth.
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Does anyone have a 51 plastic to spare or have a source for it other than a whole set? It's the slim little piece near the VUK by pops. TYIA.

Majorly good try!!,having to requalify the 3 multiballs to get back to dtr after everything else is done has made me want to cry

That is one beautiful LE. GL with your sale.

Wow.

Thanks everyone who responded! I am thinking of buying a ColorDMD (my Shadow has one and I love it) and might do the Eye and Palantir ones too. But currently my Palantir is already not working, so trying to fix it first before doing any modding.

Well crap.. That's not needed anymore, game came with the worst Arwen plastic (and fix) I have ever seen. No replacements available? Might buy a new plastic set because multiple plastics are missing a piece or cracked.

Also my game suffers from planking, it has vertical lines running across (mostly the bottom of) the playfield.. Guess I can't do anything about that right?

Will also add cabinet protectors for around the flippers, the decals are gone there and someone used black paint on it on both sides.

DAMN! It is going to take another year or two to get that close again, lol!

You have outscored my best game by at least 2.5x - well done!

Thanks, buddy! I'll be back there in about a month after I clear my head. LOL

Is there an extra ball in the elf gift “ring multiball”? My game is on factory settings and after a number of the 1M shots I’ve gotten a 5M shot and I’m pretty sure extra ball lights up. After that shots are worth 1M again. Thought maybe the ball dropped into Barad-Dur for the 47th tower shot, but I just had it happen again recently, so I’m unsure. Anyone else get this?

I've noticed I'm starting to have an issue with the ball hanging on the ring return wireform just inside the plastic hole in the rear panel where it makes the turn. Should I adjust the wireform from the two screws on the plastic panel or is there a mechanism inside the rear panel that needs to be adjusted?

My little TV mod

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nice!! , I like the book effect you are going for but those are some damn thick pages!!

always thought the gimli vuk did not look right with the bare wood so working on small decal for the area
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I've been searching various LOTR rulesheet wiki pages, and I haven't found an answer to this one. Qualifying FOTR MB.

1st: All characters are lit for collecting
2nd: Only one character is lit for collecting at a time
3rd, 4th, etc? Its different than the 2nd...but I'm not sure exactly what the qualification rules are. I think its something like you have to hit a shot and then hit it again to collect? (like collect all shots twice)...but it might be different rules between the 3rd and 4th?

Anybody have an answer on this?

I believe it is going to depend on how Feature Adjustment 6 is set up as this controls the starting difficulty; then each time you play this MB, the difficulty advances to the next setting. If you want to see exactly how each one works all you have to do is change this adjustment, pull the glass and run through the mode with ball-in-hand.

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Thanks...now I feel dumb for not looking at the manual.

So I did confirm exactly how it operates.

Hard: is basically like Easy, where it just takes 2 shots to collect a member. No member is blinking on start, you make a shot, it makes that member blink, and when you make the shot again, you collect.

Extra Hard: 2 shots per member "in-a-row". From the manual it makes it sounds like you have to make the same shot twice "in a row", so I was thinking you can't make any other shot in between lighting and collecting a member, which would be much harder.

But its really...on start, no member blinking. Make any shot, and that "locks in" that member and starts it blinking. You can make any other shots, but it doesn't change which member is blinking. Once you hit that member shot the second time, you collect. The next shot you make "locks in" that member and it starts blinking, etc.

Got these killer wood maps with magnets from pingravings on facebook. They are laser engraved.

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Love that topper!