You may be able to get that part out with minimal disassembly as the only thing holding in place are the two hex spacers. The hardest part is going to be getting the switch wire out; because of this you may need to remove Gandolf. You wont need to remove him from his playfield plastic, just take this out as a single part.

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Gandolf is fastened to the path plastic with tie wraps; the whole assembly can be removed by taking out the two small hex spacers on top of it.

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You only have to remove 4 screws and two small hex spacers to get to the point pictured below:

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I'm looking for a plastic on the right side bottom, the piece that holds the flasher. If anyone has an extra they'd like to sell me I would greatly appreciate it.

As with any pin that you need to partially diassemble your cameraphone is your friend. Take tons of closeup pictures around that area, especially each fastener one at a time with you finger in the pic pointing to the screw/nut/fastener location that you are removing. Then once you can get at the switch and replace it you use those same pics you just took in reverse order as a guide to putting things back together.

Can you take a picture of the part or do you have the part number. I have a ton of extra plastics.

ruzeo thank you. The book calls it part number 545-5409-01. Right side Thank you

IMG_0560 (resized).jpeg

All 3 of the horse riding figures are molded with a base that is held down with 2 small tie wraps. You can see Gandalfs base when you look from the right side.

If I were adding Leds again, I’d get all warm white smd bulbs and let ledocd do it’s thing. Personallly, I don’t like rainbow colors on LOTR.

Can someone who has stock lighting on their game post a photo of the lights on the backboard (modes, POTD, and that strip of lighting that runs across the top).

Thank you so much

Its all clear imcandescent except potd which are clear green

Everything is clear in stock except potd sign and flasher on right ramp

Hmmmmmm... Trying to figure out what to do with that strip of lights.

I'm doing warm LEDs for all clear insets and GI bulbs (frosted for GI) and then green LED for greeninserts, red for red, etc...

I did green over the PotD, Warm white in the middle, Red on the right.

The thread that has been linked shows what slight color accent looks like... some green over potd... red over mount doom.

I like clear retros for GI where the bulb can be seen.

Don’t use yellow LEDs... they look orange. Green can look off too compared to stock. I tend to use white, red, blue, and usually green... but may swap green for white.

I have 2 green over the POTD, 1 blue right over the Orthanc tower and the rest red . The blue really catches the tower nicely.

I'm trying out the two SMD clear warm white bulbs for the inserts. Right now the game has color-matched bulbs but I'm going to see how it looks when everything is warm white.

Above the pf, I went with the same bulbs, but frosted.

These new bulbs are in my TWD, and they look pretty sharp.

For the strip on the backboard, I'm going to experiment with some colour combos.

Quick question... When you don't fully make a right ramp (sword) shot, and the ball rolls out, does it generally go to the middle of the flippers (often causing a SDTM) or does it go to the left sling?

Watched a couple of gameplay videos, and seems it often goes to the sling which makes is much easier to play.

The ball is wild coming out of that ramp on a reject. It is a wide enough ramp that the ball can take multiple angles on an exit. I really need to give my machine a hardy nudge to keep it from draining.

Yep... my experience as well. No single point of exit for any games out there. Ball speed, slope and a little bit of nudging will all change the trajectory completely.

I decided to reset my settings to factory just to make sure everything was stock, and one major thing I've noticed is there is no ball save now.

Is that how the game is supposed to play on factory settings?

Yup. Standard Adjustment 38 if you want to turn it on.

Here are some other I used and wrote down in my notes to find quickly later if needed:

SA 4 replay levels = (tiers of replays or EBs)
SA 6 Sepecial Award =
SA 9 EB Limit =
SA 15 Tilt Warnings = 3
SA 29 High Score = 10 letters
SA 30 Free Play = Yes
SA 42 Coindoor Ball save = Yes
SA 49 Tech Alert = coin door and startup
SA 3 replay award = EB ==> replay
FA 33 Cave Troll = ON
FA 34 = consolation balrog = none
FA 36 = Extend attract = Yes

So "cave troll" is just that sequence before Balrog comes out?

And what is "attract mode"? It's not in the manual.

And last thing, the Palantir target keeps getting bumped to the left. I manually center it, but after a couple of games, it goes back. Any fix for this?

Yes.

Attract mode is what the pin does when your not playing. (not sure what specifically this setting does)

You can tighten up the screws of the leaf switch stack. They also make splints to keep them upright:
https://mezelmods.com/products/stern-target-splints?variant=923513721

HEYO - finally got my LOTR last night!

I want to update to the latest rom. Can someone help point me in the right direction of whats all needed and possibly where to get the stuff?

Check out my post 2698 on p.54 for pics of installed splint

Actionpinball.com, Ray there is your guy for all the ROM needs, been serving the pinball community for decades.....

Has it kept it in place?

They worked on my tron and met. The install on single small targets is easy, the big guys like lotr require a tad more work to get the splint on so I haven’t done mine, but it’s waiting and ready for it

Quick question...

In the menu, I have the following set as default:

Flipper Adj 1 - 20
Flipper Adj 2 - 50
Flipper Adj 3 - 3

First, what do these settings control/change, and the manual shows that Flipper Adj 1 should actually be 10, but the factory reset has it at 20.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Anyone?

Lucky you, my manual doesn't even have these settings since I was on code version 4.01 and they weren't added until much later.

CPU Release 8.00
Date July 13, 2004

Game ROM 1M U210 $94FF 8.00 lotrcpu.800
Game ROM 1M U210 $AEFF 8.00 lotrcpul.800

- *** THIS CPU RELEASE REQUIRES DISPLAY VERSION 8.xx ***
- Flipper code rewritten. The game now uses the EOS switch where available
to turn off power to the flippers earlier. This should generally result in
the flippers staying MUCH cooler over a longer period of time and reduce
player dissatisfaction on a heavily-played game.
- 3 adjustments were added to control the flippers. YOU SHOULD NOT CHANGE
THESE WITHOUT CONSULTING TECH SUPPORT.
- Standard Adj 53: Specifies the minimum flipper fire time in ms.
- Standard Adj 54: Specifies the maximum flipper fire time in ms.
- Standard Adj 55: Specifies extra fire time after reaching EOS in ms.

Last weekend I finally took out the 5yr old Lithium batteries and installed NVRAM. The first game after doing this I immediatly noticed that the flippers were way too strong, I reduced them all to 15 where they were prior to installing NVRAM.

So this was added in an update to address the overheating issue with coils?

Just curious, because I know a lot of people have switched over to medium and high (PBL) coils, so wondering if I need to.

I find I often can't make the ring shot, but that could either be power or my shitty aim. Sometimes when I'm on, it feels good, but otherwise, I generally feel like there is a lack of power.

correct.

Ring shot can be hard to dial in as too much power/low angle can cause shots to strike too high, this can be worse than them hitting low as a low shot has a chance to bounce up and in, where a high shot seems more likely to bounce down and out.

And then I ended up pulling out the PinSound board. I was never quite happy with it in LOTR. I've got PinSound in other games, and I love it. It's awesome in BSD and Getaway.

I think it comes down to owning LOTR so long that any changes in the sound always felt wrong. The default soundtrack in that game has queues that I missed. So it is back to the default for LOTR and I'll find another game to put it into.

Win some, lose some.

Looking for a little more help - I had posted previously regarding replacing the 5 SMD LED light for the Balrog flasher.

So I got the new LED bulbs finally and went to try but got nothing when I did the balrog flasher coil test. So i swapped the bulb for a Red 5 SMD LED I had in the GI lighting at the back panel and the red LED works just fine in the flash test. I then tried my new white bulb in the socket I had swapped the red LED from and it worked in that GI socket. So what am I missing? I think those back panel sockets are 6v and the Balrog flasher is 12v, regardless I would have expected both bulbs to work in both sockets. Why does the new white bulb not work in Balrog but work in the back socket?

Thanks for any tips or guidance!

Ok after a bunch of digging I think it's an LED polarity issue. Does that mean the socket is wired incorrectly or that the bulbs I got were bunk?

I still have a couple of these apron magnets left. PM me to order yours. Thanks!

Parts - For Sale

LOTR Custom Apron Magnets Archived

New (selling multiple, business) - “Hello, I still have a few sets of these left. Selling a great addition to your LOTR! These are brand new custom apron magnets. Very high quality!! Use these to cover up the girls o...”

2018-07-07

Howell, MI

Jimmyhonda

24 (Firm)

Archived after: 42 days

Viewed: 207 times

Status: Not sold

Fitted my Mount Doom mod today from PinballCharlie - took 10 minutes and plugged nicely into the PowerTap I have set up in the game (too many mods that use the same connector!). I can claim first fitting in the UK too!

20180610_124416 (resized).jpg

Most certainly the first (and so far only) to the UK! Did you put the power tap in the backbox or cabinet?

Just an FYI for others interested in the mod - I have about 1/2 dozen left and then there might be a considerable delay in making more. The red transparent ABS plastic I use to make the mod hasn't been in stock for a couple months and I haven't been able to find a suitably colored alternative. But on a good note, I do offer a splitter cable as an option now for those who do not have an available power connector or a fancy PowerTap.

12v5v splitter (resized).jpg

Not too long ago I installed a Color DMD in my LOTR. One thing that bothered me about this installation is the way Stern routed the +5V for the display driver board, through the Plasma Display Power Supply. Having it routed this way didn't allow me any way to disconnect the transformer cable to the Plasma Power Supply, granted I pulled the fuse on the board, but I was still not happy having these voltages going to an unused board.

Rainy Sunday here...Perfect day to clean this up.

Tools and materials: (NOTE: Links are for reference only)
24" of black stranded 18 AWG wire https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011JC76YA/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2
24" of red stranded 18 AWG wire https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011JC76YA/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2
3 pin IDC connector (.156") https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/5792-10817-03
3 Pin Molex connector (.093") https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/5791-09111-00
3 Crimp Terminals (0.93") https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/CT093M
.156 IDC Termination Tool https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=4045
Wire Connector crimp tool https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4L8QMW/ref=sspa_dk_detail_2

First thing to do is make your new wiring harness using the materials listed above; this harness will be used to reroute the 5 volts originally going to the Display Power Supply and send it directly to the Display Driver board. I cannot understate how important it is to get this cable right; any mis-wiring of this cable can cause severe damage to your game!

DSC00475 (resized).JPG

Next, remove the Plasma Display cable conected to CN2 of the Plasma Power Supply, the other end of this cable has 2 connectors, one of which will be connected to the Display driver board mounted to the backside of the Color DMD. This cable can be removed from the system...I put mine in a bag and tossed it in the coin box.

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Now we need to disconnect CN1 (Input Power cable) from the Display Power Supply, this cable leaves the head as it has wires that connect to the main transformer in the cabinet, it also has a 3 pin Molex type connector that is part of the main power harness; the 3 pin Molex connector has +20V, +5V, and GND, this is the connector we will use to power the Color DMD. I left the Display Power Supply input cable in the back box, but this can be dropped in the cabinet if desired.

IMG_1244b (resized).jpg

Now that all the unused wiring has been attended to, all that's left to do is connect the new harness to the game.

DSC00477b (resized).jpg

And turn on the game....

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Finally hit TABA after years of trying...

88EC1CD8-AED6-46DB-B212-4C64B717A2C5 (resized).jpeg

Congrats! Did you end up finishing it?

I only tried to play it once, and was one ring shot away before it timed out.

Now when I reach it, I'm usually chasing down Valinor, so I trap and hold onto the ball as it's too much risk for drains.

Now that we're on the subject of TABA... anyone else notice... when screen says "Shoot a lit shot" the ring is lit? And when it says "Shoot the ring" all the shots are lit? Like, it's backwards.

Drained pretty quick, but at least I finally got there!!

How often should shots to the ringramps fail to make it into the ring?

Not sure what is going on with my game, but I finished DTR in 35 seconds last week, and now it's taking me over 2 mins.

Feel like at least 60-70% of shots don't have enough juice to hit the ring.

Have not noticed.

How do you switch between the mixes on pinsound?