Hey, thanks! Will try the 8 SMD flex.

Cheers,

Evan

Sidebar: I'm looking to polish the wireforms and on the LE they look to be brass... any thoughts as to a safe metal polish? Was just going to use blue magic.

A sincere thank you to you all once again!

I think if you try to polish the factory brass you’ll end up with chrome wire forms. I just used mild soap and tried to clean the best I could

Ah. Well I'll go with that then. I figured it might be a bit dangerous.

Thank you, sir!

I used Nevr-Dull at the advice of a previous poster and it worked great. Certainly I wouldn’t go crazy because I’m sure you can rub off the factory plating but in my case it turned out fantastic.

Continuing to clean up a routed LOTR. Does the area around Gandalf look stock?

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The plastic pieces in that general area all appear to be there.

And my journey begins….Proud new owner of a LOTR! The plastics are in great shape, all the mechs work, BUT, there is some damage to the playfield where the ball drops into the inner lane from the sword. The coating is brittle & flaking a bit. I’m hoping someone will be kind enough to provide a few links/resources that will help me repair this problem properly.
Thanks!
Gramps

Most install a 'cliffy' to cover the damage and prevent further damage.

http://www.passionforpinball.com/switchslot.htm

I would recommend to clean and wax that area as nice as possible, and once you have it clean, I would recommend to cover that particular area with a piece of mylar (to protect the underlying clear coat and playfield from any further damage).

This is a nice set of different sizes, and for 10 bucks from Marco, can't beat it and not a bad thing to have around the shop:

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/66-MAS

The area where the ball drops from that sword ramp falls right at the top of the right inlane (above the switch), so any mylar/covering or cliffy just at the immediate periphery of the switch would be unlikely to cover the area where the ball actually drops from the sword. So, you would probably want to choose some small square/rectangle of mylar at that area that you're speaking of (at the top of the right inlane).

Additionally, as in the above post, they do also make metal cliffy protectors that can protect the playfield around the inlane rollover switch, and those protectors are good from preventing damage (or sometimes covering damage) at those particular areas intimately surrounding the switch.

You can find those here:

https://www.passionforpinball.com/switchslot.htm

I think I'm actually going to drop Stern an email about this, hopefully they'll have something to say.

So believe it or not, Stern suggested Novus 2. Which, as I understand, is a plastic polish... Anyway I've emailed back for clarity. But I'm thinking if you've had success with Nevr-Dull, I picked up a jar yesterday and will try it out on the upside of the VUK as a test.

Thanks again!

Thanks, Neal & Chip, for the suggestions. I ordered a complete set of Cliffy’s for LOTR, just to provide long term protection in high traffic areas. I will begin the process, as you suggested, of removing the damaged material, then replacing it with Mylar.I also I appreciate your expertise!
Gramps

Let us know how this works

I have used this Nevr-Dull product on these ramps with good success (wireforms, center and right ramp as well as the sword ramp).
I rubbed it on, relatively lightly I suppose, and then wiped/cleaned off with a microfiber cloth and I've gotten very nice results. No thinning or dulling of the brass plating or anything of the sort, cleans and shines it just fine in my experience.
I suppose Novus 2 would also work ok as well.
Let us know if you use both to compare and the results if you do.

Can someone let me know what the stock stern coil is for the trough ball eject please. My game has a Williams coil in its place. I’ve started to get weak ejects, sometimes takes 4 or 5 tries to get the ball into the shooter lane. Sometimes if it happens on a ball save it will just end the ball if it can’t eject on the first couple tries. Could there be any other issues causing this other than the coil needing to be replaced? The Williams coil has worked for a while, so I think it was compatible for the game, would just like to replace it back to a stern coil. Thanks.

090-5044-0T
Here is a picture of that coil.
Probably also want to change out your balls as some of them might also be magnetized exacerbating your issue...worth checking.

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Clean up or replace the coil sleeve and make sure everything is tight. If it was working, likely some cleaning/maintenance will get it working normally again.

I used some grey foam I got from Loew’s. I put it on the wall by the backboard using double sided tape. Originally I had it at the end of the saucer but that didn’t solve the problem. Putting up by the backboard worked like a charm.

Weirdly it just kind of fixed itself after a few plays. Not sure why.

PinRex47
Beautiful looking game. I have an LE which I think is in pristine shape after 1000 games.
Is your sound package available to be down loaded?

I have it stored in my hard drive. Its hundreds of files. If there was some way to drop it to a dropbox I would say it's possible to transfer it.

If it's a pinsound mix, you can simply zip it and post it to pinsound community website, they have a hosting service precisely for that

It sounds like one of the Pinsound mixes… Wool or Hawknole?

It's based off of the wool mix.

They were absent for a while, but it looks like Pinball Life is selling those backbox flashers again that cycle a red/orange flasher light behind Sauron's eye at the top of the translite (lighting linked to the spinner).

I had it on a previous LOTR that I had and the effect looked really cool and I was excited to see these come back such that I could pick one up for my new machine.

https://www.pinballlife.com/backbox-flasher-kit-for-lord-of-the-rings.html

do we need polarized pinballs for LOTR?

or regular ninja pinball is ok?

Carbon core pinballs. Ninja are chrome and will get magnetized easily.

Has anyone ever had to print water slide decals for the “gift” or “pippin” inserts? I’ve got some wear on one and because they have greyscale dots I think they’d be incredibly difficult to touch up by hand. Any ideas?

I need some help

When i press to start a game, the ball can launch automatically after +-10 sec without me lunching it with the ball plunger.

Any idea?

The switch in the shooter lane is not working or needs adjustment.

Thank you, i will see how to figure that.

Such a great game, very happy with my purchase.
Added a bunch of parts.

Pinsound
Speakers kit with ring acrylic.
LCD Color dmd
Comet warm white led
Led ocd board
Gizmo board
Palentir mod
Shooter ring
Apron cards

To do
-install art blade
-install speaker art

And play the game
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Disable the auto launch in the settings. It's there for operators so people don't just sit there and tie up the game.

Still cleaning up my LOTR. Just found out why my bottom pop-bumper isn't working. See pic. Would this be why my Barad-Dur tower coil isn't working? Transistor, diode (not on the coil), and coil measure fine with DMM.

IMG_20220813_154729121 (resized).jpg

Yeah, if you have two yellow wires there, then the 2nd one probably goes to the Barad Dur coil. Easy to measure with a meter. Is there voltage at the Barad Dur coil? Probably not.

The bigger question is why somebody would do this. Obviously they were having some type of problem with the bottom pop.

Ck the diode on that coil. The yellow goes to the banded side of the diode. The blue signal wire goes to the other lug.

Thank you for the reply LOTR_breath. I'm going to take the entire pop assembly out and rebuild. New parts coming. I can tell someone had changed out this particular coil as well - not a factory coil. Bottom pop transistor was also shorted on the driver board as well. Just to clarify, the blue single signal wire is positive - left (anode), and the two yellow wires are negative - right (cathode).

Correct. The yellow wires are the supply voltage and go to the lug on the right in your pic. The blue wire is the signal wire coming from the transistor circuit and goes to the lug on the left in your pic.

lotr coils (resized).JPG

Added new siderails to the LE.

#lovingit

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Alright, so I tested the ring trough switch and seems to be working fine. I tried to troubleshoot destroy the ring with the glass off and it took like 4-5 ring hits after the first one where it says golem has the ring. My understanding is that once you hit the four shots, it's two ring shots to destroy the ring. My destroy the ring mode is set to one ball. Thoughts?

spinner switch isn’t sensitive enough. Or bad solder on that switch.

Testing with a ball or finger?

Ball

It’s strange, the ring shot registers just about everytime for starting modes, and the trough switch works fine in test mode, the ball triggers it when I pass it through.

Almost done with my shop out and mod job on LOTR.

Things I added:
Lit the ball trough
Added Path of the Dead laser etched mod (designed and made by @mr_tantrum) and figures. Lit with the GI circuit. Also lit underneath the original POTD with a green LED strip.
Replaced cracked Arwen plastic with custom reproduction. Thicker acrylic which should wear better. (Designed and made by @mr_tantrum)
Added fly away ball protector at the Legolas ramp (designed and made by @mr_tantrum)
Eye of Sauron start button mod.
The One Ring shooter rod mod
Etched clear plastic with The One Ring poem.

Still on the want list:
Color DMD
Gandalf on Shadowfax mod
Sting sword topper
Cliffy set to protect my worn Shire and rail.
Lollipop side rails to cover my worn decals at the flipper buttons.
? Pinsound (not sure on this one yet).

Overall super happy with it and huge thanks to Mr_Tantrum for all his help!

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Electrical Question. I just installed an LCD Color DMD board and now when running I would say the GI and other lighting is roughly 25-30% dimmer. Roughly 90% of the bulbs in my game are still incandescent. I have nothing else plugged into the auxiliary power. I was not planning to do a full LED conversion just yet but would the lower power draw of the LED vs. incandescent set the power draw correct and everything look back to normal? Is there a potential underlying power issue where this is the sign of things to come? Appreciate any advice or if people on here have experienced the same thing.

As a follow-up to the post of @pinball_gizzard, I'm going to do a one-time run of custom plastics for the 2003 version of LOTR (I know the Path of the Dead plastic will NOT fit the 2009 version, but do not know if the other plastics will or not).

Pricing is as follows and includes US shipping (will quote international shipping as needed).

- Path of the Dead Plastic with etching (2003 version only) | $46
IMG_7717 (resized).JPG
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- Arwen Plastic (made from extra thick 1/8" extruded acrylic) | $22
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- Wireframe ball bracket plastic (single mount point plus adhesive to secure in place) | $12
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Total for the 3 pieces priced separately is $80 but if you order together, I will discount to $75 including US shipping.

Please PM me if interested in purchasing during this one-time run, and I will close orders in a week or so (I'll post updates regarding cut-off times).
image4 (resized).jpeg

I'm curious how you are running the lights with that POTC plastic... is there other posts on that? It's kinda of washed out with the green LEDs in these photos. Curious about a POTD mod... but not just for the flat plastic alone.

thx

I don't own LOTR, but PantherCityPins should be able to answer your questions.

I used Comet Matrix for the lighting. There are three green star post LEDs which are affixed to the underside of the upper clear acrylic piece with double sided tape. The wires run down underneath the laser etched path and aren't visible from above. The wires are routed out through the same slot the main connector goes through and then alligator clipped to a GI bulb under the playfield. If you wanted to link the lights to the flashers at the rear of the POTD you could do so fairly easily.

The figures are attached with the same Gorilla mounting tape to the top of the etched acrylic piece and just placed over top of the star posts below.

thx for elaborating.