Exactly, I also use the Computer Fans to keep the temperature constant. However, I would take the APB Enterprises coils, which arme a bin more powerful, but not over-powered.

sounds like an interesting mode, do you have a link?

That's a great suggestion.

There are also some settings in the adjustments menu to fine tune the flippers to help keep the temps down.

Check out Post #78 in this thread and you can see a couple pictures from my TSPP. Exact same setup for LOTR but only 2 fans.

What settings? This seems interesting!

Do you have a picture of the connection to the 12v? Do I need special fans or a special adapter?

I disagree, and that's not been my experience.

I've seen this solution. Strapping on fans? Really? Worst case last resort "problem-solving" IMO.

If I understand correctly, the power comes out of the printer power port that's used for say, the flipper led lighting that you can see in

You can either make a connector or tap directly into the line using a splice connector.

All nicely described in #78 actually.

Is it ugly? Yes (not that it matters since you don't see it anyway).

Is it a "bandaid"solution? Yes definitely.

Is it completely reversible and non destructive to your game? Yes (you could always screw them in for a more professional look but then you've permanently altered your playfield).

Does it solve the problem and allow you to enjoy the game properly for 30+ minute games? Yes

The more powerful coils are simply too strong. If they aren't too strong on your machine then it's likely that you didn't rebuild the rest of the flipper mechs so you require more powerful coils to make up for added resistance in worn parts. I've since switched back to the stock coils and can backhand the left ramp. They are more than powerful enough for every shot in the game. Don't try to convince yourself that wasting money on upgraded coils (like I did) was a good idea.

If you are in disagreement that the upgraded coils don't weaken as they heat up then you need to be able to back that up. There seems to be some pretty solid math and anecdotal evidence supporting the contrary. A fan simply helps to fight against this. Here's a good post from another LOTR flippers coil thread.

As a side note I'm not a smart person. I don't plan on arguing any of this. It really doesn't matter to me what you do with your LOTR, mine plays perfectly fine. Just trying to help others out that want it. I don't plan on figuring any of this out. I didn't come up with the idea for attaching fans to coils on LOTR simply copying off the many others that have done it before me.

Sorry about the delay.

You can change the settings that finely control the flipper timings.

http://www.sternpinball.com/upload/downloads/sb151.pdf

There are a few topics about LOTR flippers on Pinside. It has been well covered.

I recently did a partial rebuild and my flippers were over the top strong. I looked back at my flipper settings and I had messed with those at some point. I reset those to default and now mine are playing just right again with stock coils.

I disagree. Cooling fans on the coils work perfectly and were actually used by Keith Elwin in his recent epic quest to Valinor.

I'll be joining the Fellowship in a few weeks and have been looking for mods to get. The Palantir Eye mod looks really cool but I'm not sure if Jay is going to be making them again. Anyone have a spare to sell or know if these will be made again?

Jay's making another run...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lotr-projected-eye-palantir-mod/page/9#post-3305315

Modfather interactive Sword installed! Just waiting on my PDI glass and time to about call it finished ok maybe lol

IMG_3155 (resized).JPG

IMG_3157 (resized).JPG

IMG_3158 (resized).JPG

Omg need that mod plus color dmd plus need to led my game. So much for this being a cheap pin grab for me.

IMG_2504 (resized).JPG

whoa that is some serious sword action there...? Is that an official mode sold by someone?

Yep Modfather!

One of my favorite things about this pin is how you can have a craptastic game and then you destroy the ring and feel like a total bad ass. If I post my game for sale please pretend to want to buy it and come kick me in the nuts. I will thank you later.
Sincerely,
Hougie

LLOL!!! (Literally laughing out loud!)

Been streaming ( and archiving them) LOTR for the last few weeks. I have the mod Father ramp sword. Love it. Check out the stream and archive

Http://twitch.tv/boomgo_pinball

Http://tinyurl.com/boomgopinball

Ok guys. I rebuilt my left flipper. I think I did a nice clean job. New parts. Cleaned it well. Gapped the flipper nicely. It flips great. But basically the same strength. Nothing was noticeably wrong with the old stuff, so not unexpected.

So, I installed the lotr special moderate range power coil. After double checking the correct wiring, somehow I still installed the wires backward. Lame. So I discovered the left flipper didn't work after the coil replacement. So I rechecked and then switched the wires. Left flipper still won't fire. Did I burn out a diode or fuze or something?

SE or LE? Diode or no diode? Photos?

Dang. Sorry. It's at my office so no photos right now. I'm a new owner so I'm not 100% sure what data to provide. It's a regular edition (not limited rerun edition). There is a diode on the coil and there was one on the old coil.

IIRC, the flippers have their own fuses under the playfield. Trace your wiring from the non-working flipper to its fuse and check/replace. That's most likely the issue.

That was an awesome idea. I really had high hopes. I replaced it with no success. Tested voltage (I'm a newb with a multimeter) at the coil lugs and am getting nothing on the dead flipper and like 14 when I'm holding the right (functional) flipper. I'm so sad! I just wanna play!

Here's two pics from before and on pic as it stands with the new coil.

On a separate note, should I remove the paper wrapper off the coil?

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In your first photo, it looks like the red wire running to the fuse is melted through the insulation, leaving a bare wire a few inches from the solder point. Make sure this is properly insulated and not touching metal - I can't see that wire in the last (after) photo.

Also, recheck all your connectors - it looks like you did a lot of work there, putting cooling fans on the coils. Did you unhook some power connectors leading to the flipper coils when you did the replacement and upgrades?

Ok. I'll check all that. Thanks! The fans were spliced in to the 12 v connector to the right of the coin door. It was already being used to power a speaker ring led mod and I jumped in on that. The mod and the new fans seem to work perfect. Those were put in before the rebuild and have worked the whole time.

So I checked the insulation on the fuse wire. It was fine. It had a little solder splattered on it (I'm sure it was from the last guy...ahem...). It seems great.

So I bit the bullet and took out the new coil and replaced the old one to check. It doesn't work either now. So, I think it's either something systemic or I burned out both diodes while soldering. It did get a little warm as those lugs had tons of crap on them.

Fuses look good everywhere. And the right flipper works, so it can't be anything that would feed both...

I'm considering doing the coil upgrade and your experience is making me a bit wary. Hopefully you can get it fixed soon.

The flippers are on different circuits - you may have blown the drive transistor (Q15) on the power driver board.

Just as a sanity check, before you disconnect everything and pull the board, make sure the wiring is continuous from the coil to the board. Try a continuity test between the coil lug and the appropriate pin on the power driver board.

You didnt break the leads on the coil windings did you? Test resistance across the coil lugs and make sure you get a reading. Meter in ohms.

Check your fuses under pf and on the board with a meter.

I did this (blew the drive transistor) for a regular coil instead of a flipper coil but I believe they are pretty much the same thing on these Stern machines. Being used to B/W machines where the polarity of the wires on the coils doesn't matter I wired up the power wire to the wrong side of the diode. I blew the drive transistor. I had to replace that (as well as the wiring polarity at the coil) and everything worked. Lesson learned (note the polarity on DE/Stern coils).

Yeah. Sounds like that is what I did. So, I thought I would do some really clever troubleshooting and take the wires from my left flipper and put them on the known working flipper. Rule some things out. Nope. They wouldn't fire the right flipper coil either. Then I put it all back.

Now neither flipper works. I suck. I suck bad. I just wanna play lotr!! So , what kind of board repair am I talking about?

It sounds like you need the kind of repair when somebody else does it for you.

At most you need to replace two transistors. You can easily check them with a DMM and find out right away if this is your problem.

Yeah. Possibly. But I'm sick of being afraid of these type repairs. I've desoldered and socketed boards. I think I can get this done. I need a good basic 101 on my dmm because it never seems to read what I'm expecting. So give me a quick lesson on testing the transistors. The legs are the wires that connect it to the board. Right?

When testing components it is best to have a decent quality DMM. It doesn't have to be shit hot but less than $10 is a no-no.

Read this (the part about transistors).

http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=General#Testing_a_Transistor.2C_Silicon_Controlled_Rectifier_.28SCR.29_or_Field_Effect_Transistor_.28FET.29

In my own limited experience, if you have a fried transistor, you should be able to detect it very quickly with three DMM transistor measures between the head and each of the three legs and comparing the results with what you get for a good resistor. I had this exact problem with a dead flipper on a SM. It was super easy to detect without even disconnecting anything. Replacing it took a bit more work.

http://www.tiltgraphicsinc.com/lord-of-the-rings

Hobbit-GameBlade-4Web-01 (resized).jpg

Often when a flipper transistor is shorted, the flipper will engage as soon as power is turned on. If left in this state for any length of time it will blow the fuse. Check to make sure those are the correct 3 amp slo-blo fuses. Remove the fuse and test with a meter. As suggested, test the ohms of the coil with the coil removed from the circuit. Also desolder(or cut) one end of the diode and test it with the diode test function on the meter. Should read .7 volts in one direction and infinite in the other direction. You probably blew the diode and possibly the transistor when connecting power backwards. The transistors in question are q15 and q16. Do you have a manual?

Here you go... The two transitors are marked with blue arrows inside the red circle. Click twice to maximize zoom for more detail.

LOTR_IO_Power_Driver_Board.jpg

Thanks you guys!!! My pin didn't come with a manual but I had located these transistors. Pretty sure they're blown. Also, the right flipper fuse was blown. No others I can tell.

The left flipper (original problem) diode was blown (it read .000 both directions--I clipped one leg to test).

Both coils appeared to test good. (Left 3.4 right 3.9)

Then, I tried to test the q15 and q16. They tested similar. One was clearly a repair (different shape color than the original) and the soldering job wasn't great, or it somehow melted itself on the legs.

Q15 read .001 any way I tested.
Q16 read .027 to the top leg and .004 to the bottom leg. Do those numbers make sense? When I tested another random one to the right of these two, the numbers were very different than q15 or q16

So, there I am. I want to avoid the blown fuse-blown transistor tail-chasing I've read about. My plan is to replace both coil diodes. Test and likely just replace all fuses. Replace both q15 and q16 with the newer (more robust?) ones from pinballlife. Should that do it? Normally I like to power on and test each part of a repair individually, but in this case, it seems like it can just start the drama all over again.

Should I be worried about the little resistors on the board near the transistors? I read somewhere in all the threads about those going and causing continual problems.

Thanks again to all who help. Pinside gets a little snarky at times, but when a newb is in trouble, the community seems to rally. If anyone is ever near Boise, look me up.

Sounds like a good plan. I was gonna say don't pay 2.95/each for those from PBL but my go to place is out of stock right now.

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/search.asp

Usually it's hard to beat GPE on price and availability on anything pinball electronics related.

Thanks for that tip. It's the darn shipping cost that kills with pbl. Minimum of $8.50. But the service is excellent.

Double, then triple check that the diodes are in the right way and that the wires are on the correct coil lugs.
You don't want to go to all that trouble for the same thing to happen again.

For real! I'm gonna be on it. I'm a little in my own head on this one now though.

It seems weird that a fuse wouldn't blow before a transistor. Isn't that what fuses are for? Are the new transistors more robust?