Hey Mark! I joined the club too! Just an FYI, I soldered my sub in parallel to the existing terminals in the 7 games I have hooked to subs. You can certainly hook up as many as you'd like to a single sub but I wouldn't play any more than one at a time if they are sharing. I ordered several on Black Friday, but we often have events where all machines are being played at one time. You should hear when Smaug growls on the Hobbit with a sub. It made one young friend of my sons cry. I felt bad, but the devil in me was screeching with delight.

Once. It was quickly disabled. Lol. The wife was not amused.

Exactly. I buy 14 or 16 gauge (can't recall) at Walmart in a 50 foot stool for 10 bucks. Always served me fine. It is also a cool electric blue. Haha

So I am reaching out to ask for some help. I have been chasing an issue I keep having with balls becoming magnetized. I have searched and searched on pinside and I have done the following:

1.) Replaced balls. Often. I am talking three times within 100 games. Nuts.

2.) Changed ball suppliers. I am using carbon steel pinballs from different manufactures. I even looked up some posts here on pinside about Pinball Wizards version, who people claim that they have had better luck than normal not becoming magnetized.

I am getting trough jams, ball lock jams on the sword lock etc. I am at wits end (its a short drive for me). Any thoughts?

Regarding the post quoted below, you may be experiencing what I am. Any help would be appreciated fellow LOTR fans. Thanks.

Thanks for the reply. I currently reverted to one ball on DTR. Two was impossible, as when I would shoot it, the two balls would latch on to one another. I replaced the balls after this and checking for magnetism (they were). Trough is not pulling on a paper clip, so I am pretty certain it is not magnetized, or very slightly if it is. Same with the sword. The issue is the balls are, and any place there is metal, they do not want to function as they should. I bought a demagnetization console type tool and when it shows, I am going to run both the trough, the sword and the umpteen balls I have put aside that pick up paper clips like a cheap parlor trick from their magnetized state. It is mega frustrating.

Plexi is now installed in the trough. I hacked up a piece that pinbits provides for WPC games. It isn't a perfect solution but it has helped. Pinbits also makes a magnet buffer for the sword lock, but I haven't tried installing it. Bottom line, is even if these are installed, the game is affected by the magnetized balls. They just behave slightly "off" on soft shots along rails and when stacking balls on a flipper during multiball. Argh. I'll keep digging on it.