I've seen those but I thought they were primarily to block dmd from reflecting off upper playfield glass. Would it also help my problem of outlane spotlight glare on the dmd? If I draw a line from the bulbs to the dmd, it would go over this plastic.

Usually bent plastic helps block the DMD from reflecting on the upper half of the playfield. I would think apron or sling lights wouldn’t be blocked by it. You may want to adjust any lamps that are reflecting, or consider different flashers? I find frosted domes on standard LEDs reflect less. Or move your playfield characters around to block the lights!

I use mine to block the reflection form the LEDs that the previous owner placed under the apron.

It's not any added lights. It's the factory spotlights near the two yellow dome fashers at the outlanes

But now that im in front of the machine again, that might work for someone not too tall, and not leaning forward. This mock up barely works. This photo is about 1-2 inches above my eyesight and you can see the glare.

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I have the exact same issue and it's the angle that the DMD is at. For example on Iron Man this is not an issue at all because the DMD is angled upwards.

I bought the glare shield and it helps a bit but it's still not perfect. If you are shorter it's not an issue at all. So I just try and ignore what glare is left. I had to turn off the trough light I installed as that glare was too much.

Maybe an invisiglass will get rid of the remaining glare?

Well its glare from the spotlights onto the dmd so I don't think that would help.

interesting, as I have zero issues with this..Is that an LCD or LED DMD? If it's LCD, I have mine on the full-filled lcd pixels..which is probably not even a related thing, just something I observed. I also have potd mod, and my own modded setup with that, that does two things..it illuminated the dead kings, yet blocks the green spots from line-of-sight; winwin. *BTW THIS IS MY VIEW FROM MY PLAYING PERSPECTIVE, in the pic below*

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The LOTR i had sold is not happening now. If any interest, PM me. Its HUO!

You can see the glare in this pic.

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To me, it looks like the light is coming between the dmd and the speaker panel. Do you have a gasket in place? The lights are properly from the back of the playfield.

I noticed the same issue when occasionally viewing from the certain angle. I had thought about a matte finish on the removable dmd screen protector, or maybe an anti-glare stick on screen protector sheet like they put on phones.

I am about 5'7" or 5'8". You can see the 2 Red LED spots and green trough LED strip with the 'bent plastic' removed and the second photo is with it installed. If I stand on my tippy toes 5'9" or 5'10", the bent plastic is not quite high enough.

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I don't know if this is the case, and I've never received a NIB color DMD; they came with machines, but it LOOKS LIKE there's still factory plastic still on the DMD face! That would totally reflect worse ..I hope I'm right, because what an easy fix..ignore if I'm wrong!

looks like a wrinkle in what 'appears' to be protective film, from the factory. lotr DMD (resized).jpg

problem happens even without film (i suspect it would be even worse without the film!)

in my photo in (#8954), i definitely removed the film.

Try disconnecting the aron light and go from there. Make sure your room lights are off when doing all this. You’ll find it

When my LOTR has been on for a while it starts to have issues where it thinks the coin door is open and starts to bounce between open and closed very quickly. Wiping out the high scores and other settings. I checked the memory protect switch for continuity and it seems fine. This video shows the issue. Any ideas what's going on?

Maybe battery leakage? Check the area inside the backbox in the upper right where the 3 battery pack is. If that's leaking it can cause havoc with the electronics with all kinds of weird problems. Any green/white haze around there on the pack or the circuit board? When did you last change the batteries?

So we’ve had our pin for a week or so. We have a few pins in our collection which have long ball times like AFM, TSPP, GZ and EHOH. Was worried that this would have even longer ball times from reading all the reviews. Doesn’t seem overly so. We have next to no ball saver on, open outlanes and a waxed playfield. This thing is fast, especially Gandalf orbit and left ramp. Really enjoying the variety of shots. Most of our balls are fairly short with the odd ball lasting a few minutes. Pleasantly surprised to have such a fast, challenging game with lots of depth. Definitely shoots better than TSPP. Looking forward to exploring more of it.

V2s have arrived safely.

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I love this game but it recently broke me. I went down on Monday night and was having the game of my life. I have only once before made it to valinor or and it took me 4.5 years. I had all the gifts from the elves, gotten to TABA, destroyed the ring twice and only needed one more multiball to get to it again and start Valinor. I was playing and all of a sudden my flippers died. Looked down and my coin door had vibrated open cutting power to the solenoids. Ball 3 game over. I had just replaced the lock with the keyless type and I guess it vibrated open with the shaker. That was harsh. Played for almost an hour and scored 325m.

Would I be wrong in taking the glass off, setting up Valinor and playing it? I feel cheated! Oh well, that’s life, 1st world problems. But can I cheat - Ok, I won’t because you need to suffer like Frodo. Aaarrrgghhhhhh!

Well first of all, turn on the coin door ball saver! If you lose a ball that way or have to dislodge a stuck ball, it will serve up that same ball when you close the coin door.

I wouldn’t be above setting that up and trying again, but odds are you be ice cold and drain that ball immediately. I’ve had to take a pause on a great game and when I came back to it, I immediately drained everything. The flow was gone…

That's exactly why I hate those thumb turn locks. My solution was to buy 20 keyed alike double bitted locks. All my games (arcades and all) share the exact same single key. When I go to sell a game, I swap the original lock back in and keep the keyed alike lock for my next game.

Those thumb turn locks always perplexed anyway. How often dose someone really need to get in their coin door that you don't have time to go get a key.

I also don't like the freedom of my guests or little kids fishing around in there.

Look’n good!

Here is my LOTR. I have added a few toys and in the process of making an awesome topper once installed.

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Love the flipper bat toppers. Where did you get them?

If I'm not mistaken I think a pinsider called ULEKstore makes them 3D printed. Check the pinside shops for them. Hope this helps.

Looks great! One small change that I made to my POTD is to replace the black post rubbers with glow-in-the-dark greens ones. Like 50 cents a piece here https://www.titanpinball.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=52

just a headsup, in case someone needs a NOS playfield, there's one I saw for sale here, on marketplace..I think it was $1200..not sure if he wants to ship it or not..if it hasn't sold yet.

I have a list of issues, and I'm wondering if they're maybe on the same matrix or something.

1) The Shire switch often doesn't detect the ball, so I have to wait for the ball search to finally clear it

2) the top left pop bumpers isn't firing

3) Sometimes when I have Two Towers at 2 balls locked, I hit a shot (not the right ramp) and the multiball starts.

4) When I play DTR, the magnet does not seem to be as effective in grabbing the ball in normal play.

5) Balrog hits don't register often. I would say at least 50% of thenl time, or the first few do register, and then it doesn't, making it impossible to complete the mode.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Literally every one of these is probably needing switch adjustments or replacement. Get into your switch test function and start looking at each one.

Quick question. What would cause this? When i turn on Lord of the Rings, it kicks out all 4 balls and then they go into the ball through. Push start, you are ready to play.. No problem. Only does this when the game is turned off and back on..

Been able to use this thread to fix a couple issues like the gimli adjustments and ring magnet not working. Thanks everyone for that. I have a new issue that my left flipper will occasionally not work. It will be fine for the majority of the game but then not fire when I hit the flipper button. Then a second later it’s fine again. No idea what is causing it. I did just install power bladez which draw power. Wondering if maybe that could be the issue?

It must be LotR woes month~! My game freezes at the moment, when too many things happen at once..haven't even troubleshooted it yet, but it 'could' be my pinsound plus board with the thumb drive that's too large?..It just seems like it's trying to catch up with all the events/modes that 'stack up' and stump the machine, thus freezing and basically shutting the flashers/game into a standby mode. I'm going to put a smaller thumb drive in it (and make sure it's up to par with the board)..I currently have 3 soundtracks in it. I think the leeland? mix is too beefy for the cpu, with the HQ large files on it (theory).
I was testing the legacy ST in it, and it seemed like the magnet/etc was working much better, until I flipped too many targets, then it finally gave in and shut down (well, not literally turn off). Any thoughts/XP?

Probably a loose wire at the flipper switch or the flipper coil. Quick test - do the O.R.C. lanes rotate normally when pressing the left button when the flipper is not working?

Sounds like a trough switch issue. Go in to switch test mode and add each ball 1 at a time and see if all the switches are working reliably.

Is it rebooting? I can’t quite tell from your description.

Generally I think on these whitestars if you have a reboot when a lot is going on, there’s usually some 5v voltage drop causing it to get close to the reset threshold.

On my LOTR I had that issue. Measured 5v on the CPU board and driver board and there was a bit of a dip I think on the driver board, it was a while ago. Anyways, the fluorescent tube can make the connectors right by it go brittle over time. I was able to get mine to reboot just sitting there by poking at one of those connectors. I reseated it and 5v measured better/pretty close between the boards, no more resets.

Eventually it’s probably best to replace those connectors. I took the fluorescent tube out and replaced with an LED backbox panel to stave off any further issues.

My money would be on it being unrelated to the pinsound board SD file size.

For me, you can't beat the LOTR theme. But it is also my favorite shooter thus far. Especially in mutilball where you can keep all of the balls going full speed, hitting shots and spreading out the timing of when they are hitting the flippers. You can literally play multiball without any flailing or cradling. Then you can finish up, get another mode built up and start another multi-ball.

In this regards; what games have people found that have a similarly amazing shot flow.

Hey, thanks for all the cool scooby snacks here! I bet you are right *and the other guy that said it's most likely not the pinsound board USB drive* I don't have a flourescent tube in my machine; it's got an LED light board in there..but I will definitely check/and reseat all the connections in the backbox..and come to think of it, i did move all of my machines from the basement to upstairs, so I can imagine things getting a tad loose..hell, even by age as well. I'll report back and I should also check 5v on the CPU, but I honestly don't know the proper precedure on that..the idea of putting leads on chips is a tad risky, imo..but gotta learn it anyways! sorry, just had a cup of coffee, and I know how to type..

If I remember, I think there are a couple of test spots on both boards that are just labeled "5v" where you can put a multimeter lead.

I probably wouldn't adjust R116 but there's some more info here on general troubleshooting of Whitestar reboot issues and voltage drops: https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sega/Stern_White_Star_Repair#Low_5VDC_and_Game_Resets

I want to say my 5v test spot(s) weren't in the exact location mentioned but I was able to find points on both boards just by looking around.

Surprisingly, Sopranos has similar shots and flow when compared to LOTR. Not as deep, but still a lot of fun.

You have a bad cabinet flipper switch. This is a known issue with this era of machines.
Replace it with this - https://www.pinballlife.com/stern-flipper-leaf-switch-single-contact.html
It's shorter than the original switch, but that is not an issue, just mount it closer to the flipper button. This will fix your issue.
Terry.

Sorry, I meant to replay to this post.
Terry.

Long overdue, but a major cleaning of the playfield was the task for today. Tedious and time consuming, but relatively smooth. Got a few touch-ups to do tomorrow then a good wax job. So, almost 16 year in and no major problems with the playfield. The clear still looks really good. Gotta love Naptha, does a remarkable job on playfields, plastics and rubber. Finally went LED for the Orthanc light. Standard 44's do not seem to last long for some reason in that particular socket.

More cleaning today. The ring ramp post has to be replaced. Got one on order. Pulled both ramps to clean, and put a mylar strip down which overlaps (precedes) the front of each ramp by approximately 1/16 of an inch. Don't really think it's necessary but have wanted to do it for a long time. Underneath the ramp, other than accumulated grime, and not much at that, the clear and paint was in excellent shape. The ring ramp was always off a bit, to the left, but it's off a bit more now. The game always played well so I ignored the ring ramp post, but after taking it off today, it just did not go back on properly, so can't ignore it anymore. Going to work on adjusting it back tomorrow, but the ball goes through the ring with no issue. It just looks off. As old incandescent 44's burn out, I am replacing them with LED's.

Twenty years old next year, 17 of those years in our home and it is still in excellent shape.