I found mine on CL, picked it up New Years Eve ‘21. 7K. Came with a lot of mods already on/in it. Including colorDmD, ledocd board, flipper fidelity speakers/lights orthanc tower mt doom etc. added even more. Lots more. But still classy.

Here are a few more pics, needs cleaned and all new rubbers of course. I had to drill the lock out last night as the owner didn't know where the key was. I don't think they ever even had the playfield up on it. Said 1,000 plays & had original batteries that I took out, thank god no acid damage,

PXL_20220901_155119815 (resized).jpg

PXL_20220901_155124921 (resized).jpg

PXL_20220901_155209073 (resized).jpg

PXL_20220901_155407955 (resized).jpg

PXL_20220901_155422661 (resized).jpg

please post some pics of playfield with glass off after you get the "protective" layer of dirt/rubber off!

Looks great! Leave the incandescent lights I've had them with LED ng, LED w/LED OCD, and I still think incandescents look best. Enjoy the incredible game.

I'm looking for the Ring of Fire Mod. If anyone has one to sell please DM me. Thanks.

For future reference, if the bottom pop bumper is disconnected, power will not reach the coil controlling Barad-Dur tower. With the bottom pop bumper working properly now, the Barad-Dur tower is finally working correctly.

Hey gang,

just produced another batch of Palantir Sphere mods (available here on Pinside), however discovered one sphere that has a tiny cheap in the sphere that is visible when the eye is off. When on it is not noticeable. Due to the small defect I'm selling it at a reduced price of $150 shipped CONUS. Please PM me if you would like to get it, payment via Paypal.

1F1EC310-9FA5-4B2A-B445-3D5CFDCD27A2.jpeg

27BFC119-35B3-4788-8A21-2EFA93DF081B.jpeg

Hey guys, I just bought a MMr from a guy yesterday, and he has a brand new LotR playfield for sale, if interested or needing. His price is $800..not sure if he will go down on price. Anyways he’s here in WA state. Just passing the buck here.

2EB9182E-2CD8-439A-91EF-A237D7219E83 (resized).jpeg

D6B1AC80-57DE-474E-837C-E8235A398415 (resized).jpeg

Hello, a question about the color DMD lcd, do i need to order this for my LOTR?
https://pu-parts.com/clear-display-shield
or does it need something else more?
Thanks

Are you transferring the colordmd from another machine? If so, you might require some standoffs to mount the DMD controller board behind the DMD itself (I know I did). Also, is this the Lcd or dmd version?

You can reach me by PM by the way, I'm in France

Hi all,

Just a tip+demonstration for anybody interested in LED OCD.

I was experiencing terrible, head-ache inducing, flicker on my GI lights (the effect is exaggerated by the video recording/frame-rate, but still very much visible to the naked eye if looking for it):

I also had equally as bad flicker on my inserts, but that video is taken after installing the LED OCD hardware to control inserts (which worked perfectly!).

After installing the LED OCD Gizmo (which is the GI smoother for SAM/Whitestar games, and hence LOTR's), things look much better:

(Apologies for the video qualities. I made these as a short demonstration of a problem I thought was related to LED OCD but wasn't - read below).

Huge shout out to LED OCD for such awesome products solving my problems!

However, the keen-eyed among you will notice that the lights along the backboard of the playfield are out. It took me a lot of diagnosing/trying different configurations with such as with/without the Gizmo board, fuses, LED types etc, to figure out the problem. I'll save you all the details, but it turns out on my game there was a diode leading to the backboard lights:

Diode on GI lights.

Not sure if this is standard or on other peoples games? If it is, then likely mine is installed in the wrong direction or on the wrong wire. I believe if it was on the other wire and placed the other way around it would still work fine for AC globes and also with the Gizmo mod (I'm not an expert though so you would need to confirm for yourself). My guess, however, is that the diode was installed by whoever did the poor job of installing cheap LED's on the machine prior to me.

Regardless, in my situation, removing the diode (or shorting it) solved the problem for me and I have backboard lights again! So should anybody have any problem with only some or none of their GI lights working when installing the LED OCD Gizmo board: have a check for errant diodes!

I also want to give a huge shout-out to Comet Pinball (who are the distributors for LED OCD) for their super quick support, help in diagnosing the issue, and very generously sending a replacement Gizmo unit out unprompted when the initial thought was a bad SMD fuse.

Techy talk mode on, just to explain what ledocd is all about

Some will claim that leds are not created equal, and that non ghosting led would work as well in many case.
But that's simply not the case.

An incandescent light brightness is a function of the current, which in turn is a function of the voltage applied for a fixed resistance. So in the case of LOTR inserts, the voltage curve is relatively slow on many inserts, creating a nice fading effect.

An led has no intermediate brightness level. It's either fully on, if voltage is above the trigger threshold, or fully off.
Worse: when your voltage is oscillating close to the trigger threshold, your led will turn on and off, and will appear to flicker.

The ONLY way to solve this is to add a control electronic system which will allow to recreate some level of brightness perception (note the perception term here).

Basically it's a high frequency (4khz or more) pulse cycle, for which you can adjust the "On" duration vs the "Off" duration (this is called the duty cycle). If duty cycle is set to 100%, "On" duration is 100%, "off" duration is 0%. If duty cycle is set to 50%, "on" duration is 50%. So the led is actually flickering at a high frequency (4khz or above as noted)

Retina persistence does the rest, because of the high frequency you don't see the flicker, but you have a "perception" that light is less bright (because your eye receive less photons).

Without this control electronic, it is absolutely impossible to recreate a nice fading effect with LED bulbs, period.

Hence why I have a ledocd (or an Afterglow, that's the open source DIY version) in all my old pinball machines, I can't stand the strobe effects without it

Techy talk mode off

interesting, so is that also how the dimmable leds in my ceiling work?

My kid has figured out a hack or a glitch and i'm curious if others have it. He basically will start a game, get to ball two then while the ball is in play hold the start button. The game will restart into a new game and he immediately gets rewarded with 12million for whatever fellowship he gets, plus other points. Effectively he can jump to 45 million on ball one on the freshly started game in seconds. I'd like to disable this lol as it messes with our scoring obviously

Anyone seen this or can reproduce?

Just set game restart to NO

Most likely, yes.

The technical term is pulse-width-modulation (or PWM), which basically refers to switching on and off really fast as Ashram56 explained. This looks like a square wave and depending how "wide" the wave is (ie how long it is on vs off) defines how bright the lights will be (the technical term is duty cycle).

https://siytek.com/how-does-led-dimming-work/ goes into more detail if you're interested . (Disclaimer: I haven't read that article but at a skim it looks good).

Well for completeness sake, I should point out that you can control led brightness by controlling the current flowing through it. But it's much more complex for the control board, whereas PWM, especially when driving this with a digital micro controller is far easier

My LotR behaves the same... in the middle of ball 2 I can hold start to restart the game and it lets me play the ball in play as ball 1, but where does the 10mil come in?? My score and progress is reset like a new game and I start from scratch with the ball in play with no points.

(On other pins, the ball must be in the shooter lane to do the ball 2 hold start to restart the game.)

Does anyone happen to have a set of slingshot plastics? Unbroken, new or used?

UPDATE: found and purchased, thank you!!

Does anyone have any warm white LED suggestions that ACTUALLY look like incandescents?...temperature/color wise.

I currently have an LED OCD but incandescents still have a better color in my opinion. These aren't cointaker frosted warm whites though...

See post 7462

Comet retros in sunlight or warm white are pretty close as well.

Believe it or not, these are LEDS with an osd board. I bought this way, so my guess is that they are comet warm whites

05840440-F4A4-476D-A49C-959806E24D0F (resized).jpeg

When you get to destroy the ring, you hit the playfield shots, then is a ball supposed to stay suspended in the ring when you hit it and then launch another?I got to it yesterday, and it didn't stay in the ring, then launched another ball so I had two balls out, I hit the ring and it said destroyed and did it's little sequence. Then balls drained as flipper power was cut. Is there supposed to be anything after that or start game over. I thought I saw a video that said there is more to do but I didn't see anything

Normally the first ball is held in the ring, you get a second ball to bang it through the ring to complete DTR. - that is standard "2 ball DTR". Some find that both balls get stuck with the magnet or it is not awarded if the switch in the back subway is not working reliably, so they set it to "1 ball DTR" and you just hit the ball through the ring twice to complete DTR.

When DTR is done you can go to final wizard mode "Valinor" if you do everything Keefer says (LotR programmer Keith Johnson):

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-is-valinor-started#post-284574

If all above is not done, it tells what is left to complete on the DMD and you continue.

Check your fuse for the ring magnet..VERY common issue..if the ring does NOT hold your ball (when it's supposed to), then the magnet is not working..the Stern bulletin, back in the day, was a fuse upgrade on that circuit..I beilieve stock was a 4amp sb, and the 'fix' was a 5 amp..better double check though..It happened to my machine..the magnet is just too powerful for that stock fuse..has worked flawlessly eversince..the other ball shooting out, is not normal..it most likely did a ball-search, and spit another ball out..then you lost flipper power..I think the same thing happened to mine..it's the ring mag.

Yeah can someone else confirm if the upgraded fuse is a 4 or 5? The manual states 4amp. I have a 4amp in mine (recently replaced because it was blown) and often times it won't 'suck' the ball back and just dribbles it. Wondering if a 5 amp fuse would solve that...

If the fuse is to small, it will blow and the circuit won't work at all. If it's not blowing, it's fine.

Looking to get and install a Shire cliffy. Thoughts on if this will need any repair prior to Cliffy install?

A0F90B61-6B66-4F83-8327-FD92A44EE05A (resized).jpeg

the cliffy will sit on top and cover all that up.

Aye - just not familiar with the threshold of existing damage that will cause dents in the cliffy if not leveled with epoxy first. Seems like it's probably still minor enough to not do any repair but figured I'd ask folks that have done more of that work.

I'm curious as to how many plays equate to that type of wear.

No idea on this one, it was a route machine in its previous life before I bought it 10 years ago. The amount of usage in the 10 years I've had it is embarrassingly low, but been trying to rectify that lately. Gimli scoop and the two towers barely have any wear.

Anyone interested in this LOTR Topper? $190 + shipping. PM me
IMG_4029 (resized).jpgIMG_4030 (resized).jpg

just look at the fuse matrix, in the manual, and it should tell you what's stock...I'd take my backglass off, but just had neck surgery. Or just search online..it's somewhere here on pinside.

pm sent

EDIT: If the manual says 4amp, it's going to need a 5amp. And that lines up with my faded memory of doing this last year.

Neck surgery...geez man I hope everything went well! That just sounds scary...

I’m Terminated! My neck was screwed (not literally) before. This second surgery should mostly do the trick! The pain!!

13AC5824-703A-447C-A17C-6CDE682731BB (resized).jpeg

99A19E92-0E4E-4DD3-84F3-BA64B7303666 (resized).jpeg

I’ve never seen that trough so dark before..maybe just a unique piece of wood? But *almost looks like i saw water. Anyways, clean it all up, wax it. Perhaps get the shire stickers (like I have) to cover/protect it. Seems silly, but those shire stickers really help that area!

Yeah, I have the shire stickers on hand and ordering the cliffy (which will cover the stickers somewhat but w/e). Might run it by cliff himself as I'm ordering just to see if he would advise getting any epoxy to smooth out & reinforce that top edge. Mini bummer that the cliffy doesn't protect the bottom edge.

HOLY COW. Man you are a machine! Here's to hoping for a smooth recovery.

Not trying to derail the thread, but THANKS BUDDY..Yeah, it's been17 days (we're not gonna last 17 hours! lol) since this second surgery..they did the bottom half-C6-7-T1 (top of my back)..I've been up since 5am, because of the 'healing pain'...no pain, no gain! My arms are killing me, but a LOT was done here..even the surgeon and his assistant said, 'you got worked'. I should heal up good..my life drastically changed when my neck started collapsing..couldn't lift a playfield up, let alone moving anything else..I should be staring in the next Terminator film, in about 6 months OK, back to the FELLOWSHIP!

Wanted to add a topper but I don’t have much room. Any recommendation on how I can display the sting sword above the machine like this?

24826EC5-2C78-4C29-8259-40EFD3EB8049 (resized).jpeg

I have to share the frustration I'm sure we have all felt. Last ball, did Two Towers and ROTK multiball, then shot the ring, then shot all 4 lanes to open destroy the ring. After 4 shots at the ring, it goes SDMT. Man, it's lousy to get down to one shot left and can't hit it. Thanks for listening.

backlight it..even tie in the modes to some GI lighting, via 5v ..so when the balrog goes off, it lights up blue behind it (with blue led of course) and there's just a billion ways you can implement it..

I was asking how to mount it up there but you gave me some good ideas for lighting. It would be cool being lit up with balrog

lol, I misunderstood, and another funny here..as I was looking at your Sting, I was thinking of those circular wire napkin holders, but you'd have to put more more ballast (weight) on the block..and that could be velcro'd to the top of the backbox...SO, using that napkin holder concept, come up with your own holder like that, which would be basically 2 rods, spaced out on each side of the base (like a tuning fork shape)..so that it blends in with the sword..the trick is not only hold it in x/y direction, but to also have the support disappear' ..just another .02. maybe wrap the 'fork' in black velvet? Hell, the base could be a piece of flat steel, and weld those guide right onto it..

Screen Shot 2022-09-18 at 3.12.01 PM (resized).png

Love the diagram! . Time to go to the hardware store and see what I can find

After 10 years I finally got to Valinor. Bonus: on ball 1 Bonus 2: I scored like 37m as I didn’t know what I was doing. Got through most of the gifts and multiballs again, TABA a 2nd time, but ultimately fell.

E633042C-A2D0-453D-80D0-9278EC6E527A (resized).jpeg