Hey guys. Does anyone by chance has a spare kit to convert a standard to LE in order to add shaker?

I was just about to purchase the kit from Matts website and he looks like he is taking some family time off.

I recently bought a home use only game with only 184 plays. The back glass was stuck shut. Had mess with it to get it loose from the foam edge. Chip is a 6.0.

Also just finished adding leds with ledocd board and color dmd. Came out great.

Shaker is next.

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Gary Balrog-
You can back up to 1:33min to see what he does. Turns off competition mode so the 'consolation balrog' is on, then enters flipper code 6L R 9L R 6L R 9L R and you will hear the balrog roar if you enter it correctly, then start a game.

The story is that programmer Keith Johnson only wanted to see the Balrog to come out in Fellowship MB, but Gary insisted the mech was expensive ($100?) and all players should see it every game so the consolation Balrog was added. Keith added settings to turn off the consolation Balrog if you want and the flipper code with Gary's face was to get back at Gary.

I believe Astill sells all the roms for LOTR, he also has nvram so you can take out the batteries. He has a shop called PINBALLROM here on pinside, I’ve bought from him before and have been happy with his products.

Pinball Life sells a complete kit with shaker. Not cheap though.

How do your POTD figures stay on? Are they just glued down to it? Do they also light up or are they the figures only?

For mine I used thin 2-sided tape for the figures and trees, and I added a green led under the potd.

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How difficult would it be to install a set of these adhesive decals over an original LOTR? I didn’t know if sanding and priming would be necessary given that the original art is screen printed? I’m assuming that the machine need to be laid on its side and back to prevent slippage during adhesion.. would the playfield and head need to be removed? TIA

https://www.retrorefurbs.com/shop/lord-of-the-rings-pinball-cabinet-decals/

You could do it without removing the head, but it would be annoying. Basically you'd take the hinge off one side, do that one, then put the hinge back, then do the other side. You have to take the playfield rails off anyway, and no lockdown bar, so glass has to come off, too. Definitely need to do normal cabinet prep of sanding and priming, so it will be messy. Might as well do it right and just strip it down, prep, decal, and re-assemble.

Could bring a NOS Bill Davis clearcoated LOTR pf to Allentown.

So in follow up to my flipper problems, I did a whole flipper rebuild. No question it improved the performance. I have a couple questions.

1. Should the eos switches register in test mode? Mine don’t, either before or after the rebuild. I put in new eos switches.

2. When I start up the game, my flippers soca tiny little flick. I don’t remember that from before the rebuild. Is that normal? Anyone have thoughts about that?

3. There is a shaker in this game from before my ownership. But I don’t think it ever fires. How can I check to make sure all the other steps to enable a shaker were completed?

regarding the shaker,off the top of my head thoughts without having to do a search

check in menu that shaker is enabled and i think you can test it in the coil menu

if does not work check wiring , iiirc it has a 2 wires , pos and neg for power and a ground that goes to maybe j5? in the backboard

check you have the correct chips i think revision 10.01 needed?

I don't have a shaker but I assume there is an off/on setting and a shaker test in the settings.

(10.02 rom and updated PAL chip are needed)

Lots of info in this thread:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-to-install-shaker-motor-in-lotr-standard-edition/

Potential spoiler alert…

…but figure it’s fine since this game has been out for almost 20 years.

One month into ownership and just have to say this game is as good as I hoped it would be. Love the theme and still learning the gameplay as apparently after many games I thought I understood everything. However, a couple of nights ago I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my efforts against Saruman weren’t over after being sent to the top of the tower and the display showing me the “Gandalf vs. Saruman” total. One additional shot up the middle continued the journey. I tried to replicate it again but it looked like that additional shot changed to Merry’s. Does that shot rotate or was I not paying attention?

Are there any other episodes that have continued scenes after showing the episode’s total by making additional shots?

I would check out this rulesheet, I know I learned a ton about the modes and MBs:

http://www.pinball.org/rules/lordoftherings.txt

have not seen what you are describing but with the multiballs you can register shots for a short amount of time after you drain down to one ball.

that rules sheet is very helpful and recommended reading as suggested above , hitting the lit gollum shot quickly after draining to one ball on the multiballs
extends the multiball

Great, I’ll definitely read up on that at some point. For the time being I don’t mind learning live and being pleasantly surprised.

That mode requires some shots(4 I think)to Orthanc. This is followed by hitting a roving shot that starts on the left. Final shot to finish the mode is Orthanc again.

If you have a MB running then you have to guess where the roving shot is. MB should be avoided when doing this mode.

The way to know you’ve finished a mode is when you get a gift from the elves.

Hi guys,

On this picture from right underneath the shooter lane of my LOTR, you can see there's a wire just hanging out.

Can one of you send me a picture of this area with the wire soldered on so i can see
where it belongs?

I think this is the problem why: the War of the ents /Barad Dur won't work and the Popbumpers don't pop anymore.

Thanx Nico.

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This is my LOTR auto plunge.

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Yup, power is chained from coil to coil, so that would do it.

Thanx for the quick response.....i'm gonna solder it tomorrow.

So does anyone have tech support on the eos switches? Should they show up in switch test?

Couple questions for the experts from a new LOTR owner!

Appreciate any comments, advice or experience to share. Thank you in advance.

1. Audio, I chased this demon on my Addams Family and now fear it may be the same thing, but.... So thee is a very audible hiss/staticky audio noise from the speakers when the audio tracks start, stop or are silent. This of course is so noticeable at home where its quiet. And I'm concerned its once again (like TAF) the quality of the audio files on the ROM. OR from your experiences should this sound quiet. After my TAF experience I'm pretty confident its not a speaker issue, but I am wondering about the sound card ?? I really don't want to buy another pinsound card & speakers only to find when I down load the original file that the same poor quality/noise is still there. Although I'd make the investment to eliminate this - its really annoying. Also curious as this and TAF are the only two "older" pins I have - is this just typical and the way it is for audio quality, which i doubt you'd ever hear on location or when the volume is turned up? at home I can turn it past 3 or 4 or its too loud ?

2. Barad Dur tower, so this mechanism appears to have multiple "movement" options from the game software, one is pretty subtle and quite. But the other (not sure yet what triggers it) is much more animated & very noisy, which is my concern/question. It has a rattling sound that stands out & continues a few seconds beyond motion, sounds similar to plastic gears grinding or stripped. But the gent who helped me set it up and has played/owned LOTR said that is normal. Still - it is annoying & I'd like to confirm if potentially I have a damaged mech ??

thanks you all for your time

best,

Mike

1. The hiss is common/normal. You're dealing with an era where sound quality wasn't important. How loud it could get was the only real concern. Audio compression quality also wasn't what it is today. The advantage with Pinsound is the equalizer. You can probably tune out most of the hiss at the expense of sound clarity. There is no "sound card" in LOTR. The audio section is part of the main board. There's a special adapter required to make a Pinsound work.

2. There are no gears. The "grinding" noise you are hearing is rapid coil pulsing (so the coil doesn't overheat and melt). Yes it's normal. If you haven't destroyed the ring yet wait for it. It'll "grind" a LOT lol.

Mechanical sounds are part of pinball. I'm a bit shocked that you find these noises "annoying" as you put it. It's a mechanical machine... The only way to avoid it is to get a virtual pinball table, and even in those people tend to put coils to have mechanical sounds like a real machine.

Yup, the tower buzzes at the end of 'destroy the ring'. Its normal.

Thank you!

and let me clarify my comment about "annoying" - the annoyance is really more about my ignorance to knowing what is normal and what may be a issue/error or defect

I am learning as fast as I can, but during the journey, certainly after spending $$$ to get a machine then not knowing if I have an issue or not, is really the thing - I will get over it, with time

And since these are things I have not noticed on location (likely not quite enough) - it gave me pause, no worries

I just need more noise in my unfortunately dead quite game room

thanks again!

mike

follow up on pinsound - your comment on the EQ aligns with my thinking, would you advise/agree that like happened with TAF, if I do get a pinsound and then download the "original" audio file from pinsound (like I did with TAF)

the hiss will still be there and thus getting the "plus" card with the EQ is the advantage to try and EQ it out a bit

I unfortunately got a NEO for my TAF and was left wishing for the EQ, since the scratchyness & hiss on all of gomez' callouts is still there

Thinking the investment in pinsound will NOT resolve the cause for the poor audi0 - its the compressed files on ROM (or original file download) Not an electronic failure/leaky caps/etc of the audio/amp components

you would agree?

thanks much!

mike

Also as mentioned above, the sound is low-fi, so it does sound slightly scratchy.

Might be a bit better on LOTR than TAF as the compression was better by then. However getting the real music from the movies is the real advantage of going with a Pinsound. You can be a purist and keep the scratchy low-fi sound or accept modernization and get a Pinsound package for your game that really enhances the experience. Search for Pinsound and LOTR on Youtube. You'll find examples of how nice it can sound.

Totally aligned with that advantage...

except, there were 5 additional (modernized, updated, newly sampled, etc) files to download for TAF

and each one of them was problematic (at least to me) - 3 of them did not use the original character voices (Roul Julia, Angelica Houston) - and the others were seemingly poorly designed, music to callout transitions were misaligned, music sequences were cutoff early - example the them music where randomly the flippers will automatically operate to the "click, click" - was cut off and changed to something else, so teh flippers clicked and the music was not right
many many examples - which drive me to want the original, I was just bummed as I was thinking the original would be a more modern audio quality, but found it to be basically the same audio file that's on the ROM

what I need to do is learn how to make my own file from movie clips, etc - that is the real power of pinsound, but not in my capability window

so my fear is LOTR will be the same, I wont like the "altered" files & the original will sound exactly the same, hiss included as the stock ROMS ??

A lot to invest for that outcome risk, although it is a great product!

There are some pretty quality roms to try out for LOTR. I love the direct HQ rips from the movie audio tracks and the addition of some Howard Shore scores both new to the game as well as replacing the ones they did use with CD quality sound. Up there with the best mod for the game since the audio is enjoyed by you whenever you play it and no matter what you are or aren't looking at on the pin unlike other mods.

There is also an OST original mix where as many of the sounds have been replaced as possible with HQ replacements.

This ^^^^^

LOTR is very well done in Pinsound.

Thanks, I am tempted to go pinsound. I already have a card in TAF I can test with, I just have to buy the adapter and I anticipate they will sell me a card less adapter cost if I chose to then get another.

I went on location today at lunch, specifically to see if the audio is the same. But.. there didn't seem to be any static/hiss between clips, etc like I am experiencing, so something might be up. It was pretty quite in the bar, no one there, no other machines on

some one on an earlier thread from years ago said to make sure I have the latest sound ROM - version 8 ? there was a link to a tech bulletin at Stern, but that no longer exists, anyone have a clue on this? How do I test my sound ROM version?

the thread said the original one released with the machine in 2003 was really staticky & they improved it in later ROM releases ? any truth to that?

Static between clips does not sound normal. How about in the diagnostics menu - sound test? Are the music/callouts OK there?

planning to run through that tonight, will update if anything unusual there

the other variable I need to test further is volume, this thing is loud! I had to have it at 1 or 2, literally last night or it was amazingly loud, but...

when I turned it up to 4 for example, you then really can't hear any hissing at all, so it might be a noise ceiling issue of the 2003 dated amplifier tech, Im guessing though...

thanks

That's not normal. Level 11 is a reasonable speaking level on mine.

Just tried the diagnostics - speaker. You select + to cycle through a tone and various music and FX. They sound good with no fuzz here.

update - ran diagnostics last night:

the sound/speaker test runs through a sample of a spkr sample tone and then 4 or 5 ROMS, one titled music, the others titled voice

although there were no voice callouts tested? just sounds from each ROM

anyway - the tone test sounded perfect, the "voice" ROMS were fine if not just a bit scratchy - but nothing of note

however the "music" ROM - had a very high level of hiss, clearly stood out from the others - same hiss I am hearing during play

or when the machine is on but quiet, you can hear the hiss from the speakers from a few feet away in the room

I tested for ground loop, but its not that, and doesn't sound like a ground loop "hum" anyway, its more of a hiss - still thinking noise ceiling

on the volume, 4 is about where I need to be, in contrast to the hiss once you get above 4,5,6,7 - the hiss is not noticeable

but on 1,2,3 the hiss is disturbing, again maybe this is not abnormal? I was under the cabinet adjusting feet levelers and the hiss from the cabinet spkr/sub was very very noticeable even when there is no audio playing at all. I do not have this on any other pin, even TAF doesn't have a standing hiss like that ??

I wish I could turn the volume up higher but at 5 - I was getting scolded from my wife upstairs in living room, that she could hear the pin over the TV

thanks all!

mike

on an unrelated observation (sorry ) -

while I was running diagnostics, I noticed something really odd

haven't noticed anything incorrect or odd in pin play, but the series of diagnostic test windows (15 of them) is shifted one to the right starting midway through ?!?!

Fine 1st through 6th, then the 7th screen is filled with garbage characters & the actual titled test is run when you go into the 8th screen, which is titled different, then the 8th is the 9th, etc to the end, the final test screen content is no where to be found ?

I observed this because when I went to run sound/spkr test - it fired the knocker and no sound test, after doing that 3 times, I realized it was performing the previous screen test so I had to go to the next screen "begin burn in" to run the sound test

this is a bit disturbing - any thoughts?

thanks!

My volume is at "normal" at about 10 or 11 as well... and that is even with the custom soundtracks as well as the original.

The broken diagnostics menu makes me guess the CPU ROM has degraded.

Tried my sound test again on volume 3/4 which is low, and the tone, music, and FX had no static.

CPU ROM - that is the "CPU GAME" ROM ? U210 yes?

I can get a new one of those if needed

Quit LOTR LED insert question - I fear the previous owner was not as thorough as needed when installing LEDs, I am hoping this is a case of not using non ghosting bulbs? But if I have a different, more significant issue, please advise...

when I run the lamp test, one lamp at a time - referring to the lamp matrix - what ever row I am on testing a lamp, the lamps in the adjacent rows (row before & row after) but same column are also lit but at a significant lower intensity. Although bright enough to see.

I noticed while playing that some lights seemed to be on at ~ 1/2 or less intensity when they should be off, which is why I ran test - now I see what is happening

this is consistent throughout the matrix, every row has the same effect, row before is a bit brighter, row after you can just barely see a flicker - buts its there every time

please tell me this is non ghosting bulb issue and not a circuit board issue ??

seems I have some voltage on the adjacent rows, but haven't got a multimeter out

unfortunately I don't have any handy 555 non ghosting or 55 incandescents to swap out to test - just ordered some

thanks!

That is ghosting. Best fix would be the LED OCD board which corrects the ghosting and can make your LEDs brightness rise and fall like an incandescent bulb.

yup, thanks

choice seems to be get insert OCD board

or replace all the LEDs with non ghosting ones, which is a bit cheaper, but a pain in the....

also get the fading benefit from OCD board

only fear would be if I still need to replace bulbs after installing OCD board

Or the cheapest and best option, put incandescent bulbs back in

I finally installed an OCD board in my LOTR for the inserts and I’m very happy with it. Non-ghosting bulbs do perform better than standard LEDs without the OCD board, but I still noticed ghosting and flickering on my game. Now the lights look great and gradually come on and off like incandescent bulbs. LEDs produce less heat and use less energy too, which is nice if you tend to leave your game on for hours at a time. Many people do prefer the original bulbs on LOTR.

Thanks all, I have considered going incandescent, but honestly I like the crisp colors and pop of the LEDs

also, when you consider 555's use .25Amps each, wow that's a bit of a current load across the game & the heat - I get it was designed for it, but still

I am ordering the OCD board - appreciate the insights

Also, for those that were interested in or may have a similar audio/speaker hissing issue on LOTR or likely any whitestar game...

there is an old thread, I cant take credit - search for LOTR speaker hiss -

The cause is that the audio amplifier circuitry built into the CPU/sound board was apparently designed to run at a higher audio level/volume level than many of us HUO owners have it set, thus the noise floor is pretty high and it wants to be driven higher, so at lower volumes you hear the noise.

The solution is to change the bias on the amp driver circuit by lowering the resistance at R106 (backboard) and R110 (cabinet) - in my LOTR those resistors were 10K and 33K respectively - you can attach a small potentiometer using micro test lead clips across R106 and R110 - thus adding resistance in parallel, which will lower the overall. And its easily removed so no permanent mod to the board.

I did it last night and WOW, works perfectly! saved me $400 + for a pinsound board. I used a 10K pot for R106 and a 20K pot for R110, the R106 one set at 4K, the R110 one set at 12K

this keeps the ratio between backboard & cabinet ~ the same as it was

two outcomes, noise floor almost completely gone, cant hear any hiss unless you put your ear right on the speaker, seriously! Also the volume adjust is also lowered - but there is plenty of top end, so actually no concern

now my volume setting is at 10 for the same level that I was originally getting at 4

this is a great solution to remove the hiss

LOTR DMD Woes...

I could use some advice on direction. My dmd is currently out. Here's the backstory.

Installed ColorDMD. Loved it. Worked for a month.
Was poking around behind my dmd and laid down on it's face. Yes the game was on. Yes I have done this a million times. Yes I know I'm stupid.
Heard a fairly loud pop in the dmd controller board. No smoke. No visible damage.

I assumed it was the dmd controller board. ColorDMD still had a visible menu, so I assume that is OK.

Ordered a Rottendog board. Still blank. Did a bunch of reading and thought my CPU/Driver needed to be updated to v10. Had a buddy download and burn them. Put the ROMS in the boards last night. NOW i don't even get the game to fire up. Before I could play with no display.

I'm not a great board tech. Where do i find the problem or go about isolating it? How possible is it that the source board for the dmd (sound board?) is now wonky? The ribbon...worked before, could that be it? Of course I'll buy cuz it is cheap to try.

Nonetheless, I need to get this game going again. Any advice? Thanks in advance.

You may have put the ROM in backwards. Don't go by the label, go by the notch on end of the chip to determine the orientation. (more info about it online)

Did you check the basic things - fuses, test points, all the LEDs in the backbox lit (with the coin door closed)?