Sounds like your friend's Simpsons has been fooling around with The One Ring. Loss of consciousness is certainly one of the symptoms. Proceed with caution.

Oops, wrong thread. Haha! Thank you.

Anyone aware of a US distributor selling a Pinsound board compatible with LOTR?

Or better yet, anyone have a spare they want to sell?

(also posted on the pinsound thread)

I didn't see any when I looked. Shipping didn't take long from buying through the website

Ok I am in the club now! Just got my LOTR today to keep my Met Pro company...

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Enjoy that beautiful game. I would miss it except for my BM 66 coming! Good meeting you both....

why hasn't anyone made a decal for the balrog drag mark that soo many machines have?

They're waiting for you to do it.

But seriously: I reckon the big differences in playfield quality that plague this title make it virtually impossible to produce one fitting decal that looks good on all LOTRs.

So so true...

Brilliant combo buddy!

OK so I've only had my LOTR machine for less than a week. So far the only thing I've done to it is to install an NVRAM since I boneheadedly didn't check that the battery pack cable tie was in place and the dang thing fell off during transport. The NVRAM works great, and now I never have to worry about battery corrosion again! Is there any downside in using the NVRAM instead of the original battery design?

Second question... this machine seems to have 9.0 ROMs. Is it worth getting the 10.0 ROM instead? Seems to be a low-cost item, but not sure whether there are enough changes between the 2 versions to justify even the small cost of it.

Looks like there was a service bulletin with V9. I would read below and the service bulletin as well to check:

CPU Release 10.00
Date October 28, 2005

Game ROM 1M U210 $84FF 10.00 lotrcpua.A00
Game ROM 1M U210 $9DFF 10.00 lotrcpul.A00

- *** THIS CPU RELEASE REQUIRES DISPLAY VERSION 10.xx ***
- *** IMPORTANT INFORMATION ***
If your game shipped with version 9 software, then please read service
bulletin #157: http://www.sternpinball.com/SB/ServiceBulletin_157.html
If your game is affected, please update your sound OS before installing
this code update, or the problems will get worse.
- Fixed a bug with entering initials for Destroy the Ring Champion when it
was earned during a ToPS Tournament game.
- Cleaned up some hacks related to Sound OS problems (the 9.0x releases, not
in 9.00).
- Fixed a bug where Palantir might try to add-a-ball when all balls were
already on the playfield during multiball.
- Fixed a bug where the game would show the FOTR MB Lit display effect AFTER
you had already started it (this happened if Pippen was the last person to
be collected).
- Russian (& other country) coinage/tournament settings added.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISPLAY Release 10.00
Date October 28, 2005

Display 4M Rom 0 $1669 10.00 lotrdspa.A00
Display 4M Rom 0 $B8CE 10.00 lotrdspf.A00
Display 4M Rom 0 $EDB4 10.00 lotrdspg.A00
Display 4M Rom 0 $57E7 10.00 lotrdspi.A00
Display 4M Rom 0 $3D2B 10.00 lotrdspl.A00

- *** THIS DISPLAY RELEASE REQUIRES CPU VERSION 10.xx ***
- New adjustment/display effect support added.
- Russian (& other country) coinage/tournament settings added

Is there a way to repair the VUK switches by any chance? The new one I put in (right Gimli VUK) just went again after only about 50 games or so. The one before that lasted over 500 games probably, but this new one what the hell!?!?! I put it in 2 months ago. Has anyone tried prying those suckers open to see what is going on? Seems like a simple regular switch either open or closed.

I added a small section of dead drop foam. Works like a charm. I can take a pic of the exact placement if you want.

Please do. Mine doesn’t get stuck often but randomly does

Thanks for the info! Do you know if there's anywhere else other than the Stern site to read that service bulletin? The link to Stern seems to be non-functional...

google brought up this: http://www.sternpinball.com/upload/downloads/sb157.pdf

Use a Stern ST vuk switch. The "Y" switches seem to have too much side play. Look at my posts number 1871 and 1885. I sent 1 picture of my LOTR with the ST switch. Has worked flawlessly for a long time.

Excellent! I will try this.

But this afternoon I got so fed up with the Y switch. I tore it out, used a hammer and thin screw driver to take out that centre peg that keeps the plastic shell together. Got out the ole multimeter and played around with the switch, spring and connector. Used a bit of hot glue and she's back to working perfectly. Seems like the alignment had some play and gets a bit off after a while. I readjusted the spring and the open/close mech inside and hot glued it all back together. Doesn't look pretty but can't tell from the top and working 100% for now.

Here you go. This is where mine always got stuck. Now hasn't happened in over 100 games since I put that small price of dead drop foam on the tower.

20180217_174532 (resized).jpg

You must have real good eyesight!

I did lose the small little plastic trigger about 10 times on the floor. But found it each time

I'm in!

IMG_20180217_193910392 (resized).jpg

Welcome to the LOTR club, a great game. Now it is time to start working towards Valinor.

Thank you I ended up just buying the plastic part. I was lazy and didn't want to tear everything down to add it. I'm glad I did, it works well.

If you look a couple pages back in the forum. People were having success using the ST pro switch for LOTR vuk

The main downside to NVRAM is the clock would not keep correct time/date. That would not be cool in a pin with midnight madness or a physical clock like TZ.

In LotR, the time/date is used for configuring the starting and ending of TOPS tournaments, so that would be one possible issue, but not for most of us.

I see many have the path of the dead mod? Did you all purchase these from pinballbulbs or are there other options? Really like the mod but a few bucks more I can get a color dmd

Mine came in the game. On a related note. Mine is hooked up to the g.i., doesn't anyone have a link to instructions on how to hook them up to activate with the ball entering the potd?

I’m not a Stern expert, but isn’t the GI run on a different voltage than the play field lights? You may have to be careful about which bulbs are being used in the figures. Then you hook things up to the 4 lamps behind the POTD backboard. Seems like you could just alligator clip them. Make sure you use 6.3v bulbs

I finally added the four figures to my LOTR POTD and got them at working with the corresponding lights. My cost was under $100.  $60 for the figures, $32 for the plastic with posts and bolts from pinbits, $5 for the green LEDs with resistors inline off of eBay, and miscellaneous wires, plugs z connectors, and diodes. (You could knock $25 off of that if you had some PETG or acrylic plastic and cut your own plastic.)   I added a 5 volt led inside each figure with a restrictor and a diode on a positive side. I made a Y plug and wired them off of the five wires going to the common and 1 2 3 4 POTD lights. The 1 2 3 4  POTD yellow wires go to the positive side of the LED.  The one common wire goes to the negative side of each LED.  (Took me three times to get the darn thing wired right. See my prior post above.)  Attached is a wiring diagram of how I ran the wires. After the wires were in place I put them in green  shrink tubing. I ran the wires down the posts and underneath the POTD and out through the hole for the POTD wires.  I also attached a couple of pictures with the lights on and the lights off. Finally because these figures come 3 in a pack, I have two left over that I'll sell to anybody for $15 each plus shipping.

20180218_173411 (resized).jpg

20180218_173426 (resized).jpg

20180218_173431 (resized).jpg

Bought mine new.

Great choice!

Just replaced the three AA batteries on the circuit board, can't figure how to secure it. Cut the tywrap. Leveling the machine is a problem also. Still a great machine.

NVRAM it and lose the batteries. Never have to worry about them leaking or needing to be changed

Hey all, just bought my first machine and I'm proud to say it's a factory-stock LotR with less than 1,000 plays, in-home only!

I am petrified that I will not be able to properly care for and maintain this beauty, especially since I plan to play every day until I reach Valinor. Any tips for this?

Also, I have been reading up and if I'm not mistaken these would be good to order in order to avoid magnetization: https://ballbaron.com/product/pinball-carbon/ am I correct in that?

Thanks!

Get the Pinbits plastic that offsets the balls from the sword ramp. Cheaper and way more reliable, plus you can use any balls you want.

Also get the specially made coils, NOT the “upgraded” ones from PBL If you value your plastics at all...

Yes, any inexpensive ball will be the type that is OK with magnets.

I found that the Pinbits plastic works great for the sword ramp but the balls (Silverjets) were still getting stuck together in the ball trough and not rolling down to the up-kicker properly. I switched them out for standard balls and everything works perfectly now.

Which specially made ones are these? All I can find is the pinball life ones...

I did see a mod where someone hooked up PC fans to the underside of the table to cool them down once

I think the coils rdoyle is referring to are sold by apb enterprises, they have a pinside shop which markets specially made lotr coils. I had the PBL coils in my game when I got it and I felt they were just too powerful and gave these a try. I think the game plays much better with them installed. Just make sure you get the ones specific to your machine (Standard edition vs limited edition).

APB Enterprises, yes. AMAZING difference. Thy have a Pinside shop too

Does anyone know how and where to wire an LED light from Path of Dead figures? Doing it myself. Got some 3mm Green LED lights with open ended wiring, not sure how to attach to field.....

Check post 2481...

Thank you....not sure I understand all of that, but I'll give it a whirl this weekend!!

I also tried the Silver jets that I have on my other games. I had the same problem removed them and kept old balls. I have owned the game for less than 3 weeks and really enjoy it.

These coils :
https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1065-apb-enterprises/01414-new-stern-pinball-medium-power-coil-lord-of-the-rings-gnr

Can someone of the LOTR-Club Members send me 2 of the "OG Coils" to Germany.
The Shop-system doesn't allow to place an order.

I would be very happy about a pm

Thank you in advance.

His ebay shop will ship to europe. Shipping is a bit steep, one of the reasons I never bought his coils....

ebay.com link: New Stern Pinball Medium Power Coil Lord of the Rings Guns Roses sleeve

Thank you - huh... 32$ for shipping with usps....It is a pity