Anyone here install the Modfather Interactive sword mod on their LOTR?

http://modfatherpinball.com/products/lotr-interactive-sword-mod

Of all the mods I am still wanting for mine, I'm thinking this one might be tops on the list, but I've only seen pics and not in person. Want to make sure it doesn't block to much because it appears to be quite a large object. I really don't care about seeing the balls in the sword trail below, but I don't want it to block the ringwraith, shooter lane, or anything else too much that it detracts. Any opinions would be appreciated.

I'm also looking to do the path of the dead with the translucent green armies of the dead figurines... and possibly a shooter rod, though can't decide between the red knob with gold ring or the round globe that looks like earth tone layers. Leaning toward red knob with gold ring, but again, haven't seen it in person.

Decisions, decisions!!

Those two wraiths look absolutely sick there!! Awesome mod and a must have for my LOTR.

A hex post on mine. Looks to be about 1.5" long or so. The wires from the ring wraith flasher and switch appear to be zip tied around the hex post to probably prevent pinching when raising/lowering the playfield.

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LCD in mine and it looks awesome. Haven't seen an LED version in LOTR, but based on other impressions of LED displays, the brightness would be overpowered for the dark theme of this game. Can't imagine it would look good... but would love to hear from someone who has tried.

I think you will find that either solution will work, but if you want the best looking results, you should go with the LED OCD board w/ normal LED's. Don't use the non-ghosting LED's with the OCD board (explained a bit more on their website I think). That's what I did with mine and couldn't be happier.

@radius118... Looks like nobody has posted pics for you yet. Here are a couple. I love this upgrade, but I keep the speaker leds on red all the time rather than color changing.

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Welcome!! Mirror blades on mine... as for pics, just browse the image gallery for this topic and you'll see at least a couple pics. I can't imagine not having mirrors, they are that great!!

I've seen several in the past in this thread. Here are just a couple posts. Have to enlarge the images of course, but can see mirrors. There are a few others as well, but have to click on the full image gallery and go through all 5 pages. I think you were smart to go straight to the good old Google... works every time!!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-lord-of-the-rings-journey-begins-members-club/page/17#post-3239081

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-lord-of-the-rings-journey-begins-members-club/page/21#post-3364091

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-lord-of-the-rings-journey-begins-members-club?gallery#g

Some have discussed in the past changing out the mosfet transistor that powers/controls this circuit. Read this thread and google a little bit. I almost had to go this route, but turns out I just had to increase my fuse by 1 A, but from the sounds of it you already at the higher fuse rating, right?

http://rec.games.pinball.narkive.com/pzpD1KVt/tech-lotr-ring-magnet-fuse-q6-the-conclusion

Wait... what??

I thought I read something about the mounting of the PinSound board conflicting with the mounting of the OCD-LED board. Can anyone on here confirm that they have both and have not had an issue with placement?

I always thought they were called habitrails.

Maybe it's been covered in this thread before, but does anyone know what causes that flasher to lock on and overheat? I had the same issue with mine shortly after acquiring the game. Luckily, I was shopping the game first before playing and it locked on after turning it on, so I was able to unplug the flahser bulb quickly and only lost the bulb and not the surrounding plastic. I think I had been replacing some of the insert bulbs with LED's and installing OCD LED Board and thought maybe I shorted a wire somewhere, but couldn't find where. I've left the flasher empty for almost a year now, but would like to find the solution if it's a common problem.

Nice job!! The first time I completed DTR, everything came together perfectly and I'm not sure I'll ever beat that time. At this point I'm still just trying to clear my sons gc score (easier since he left for college) or make it to valinor.

Went to the Pinball Life part yesterday at Expo... great event and a fun time.

Also picked up one of these middle ring ramps that had been unavailable for quite some time. I know a few others had been looking for this part… So thought I would alert the club.

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=4723

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/13/16644782/the-lord-of-the-rings-amazon-television-show

This is a bit outside the pin-realm, but definitely thought people in this club might enjoy this news. Let's hope Bezos and his mega-empire don't tarnish this awesome world of Tolkien by just throwing an insane amount of money at it, all in the name of feeding his ego!!

There is no luck in pinball... just play better!!

As said above, there is a setting for that and I have used it. It's #35 in the Standard Adjustments menu titled "Game Restart".

Not that I've been unlucky or anything like that.

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It will go up for a few seconds after the right inlane switch is tripped. So after coming out of the sword release, I generally go for the left orbit unless I’m in a mode or specifically going for another shot.

Tony

You should probably be posting over in the Twister forum! Sorry, couldn’t resist... I’ll see myself out.

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.

Yes! My favorite ramp in all of pinball and a perfect shot comes screaming back at you if the game is setup properly. Difficult to get a good pic without disassembly, but hopefully this helps.

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Looks great... the warm whites really photograph well!!

Now, if I might be so bold, I would offer up that ColorDMD and mirror blades would make that baby even more beautiful. Oh yeah, don’t forget the Palantir Projected Eye mod. And Ryan’s habitrail mod for left ramp return. And... ok, the list gets too long... just play and have fun!!

Couldn’t agree more. Can’t image stainless steel on the LOTR backboard looking good at all. Change my mind with pics... I’m open.

WD-40 is my go to for adhesive removal. Get backglass off of machine first.

And before you take a razor blade to it, run a hair dryer over it first. It might even peel off depending on the adhesive used. Has worked for me before.

Mine is set to 1 ball as well... always has been and never had any issues. I’ve been curious about switching it to two ball, but after 2 years I guess not curious enough to actually change it.

Thanks... but I'm not sure I could get any more excited than I already do when I DTR the way it's setup now. I'm sure you're right and it's special, but my existing goose bumps (with one ball setup) don't really need more goose bumps on top of them.

Love this game!!! I wish there were more pins out there with the music/callouts that build such excitement during gameplay. Can't really think of any others that come close. TWD is pretty close at times (during Horde or Siege), but still lacking slightly.

The files being discussed above are if you want to add a pinsound board to your pin. You don’t need this to do what you’re trying to accomplish. In fact, if you’re just trying to connect a subwoofer, some (including myself) would say that you don’t even need the pinnovator hardware. But since you’ve got it, I’m not exactly sure how this is hooked up. My LOTR just uses a Polk PSW10 connected to the speaker at the bottom of the cabinet with speaker wires snaked under the mesh in one of the vent holes near the back of the cabinet and terminated with alligator clips. They’re are many ways to pull it off, but I’m guessing if you want to use the pinnovator board, there must be info on their website regarding the connection. Good luck and let us know how much more you like it.

I limit to 2 pins per sub because it my sub has two inputs (left and right). I keep 1 pin per each input on the sub. If you hook up multiple pins on the same input, I would think you’d get voltage traveling back up the wire to the other pin. In other words, you not only hear LOTR on your sub (which is awesome) but you’d also hear it on the speaker in the pin next to you. This is just me speculating, so someone correct me if I’m wrong. Might be able to pull it off with diodes but sounds complicated.

This is absolutely not what’s happening when you hook up separate sources to separate inputs. Of course I agree if you’re trying to stack wires on a single input. But, the inputs on the subwoofer are electronically isolated internally. Otherwise how do you think it would work that it has a left and a right input? With your supposition, the left would travel back up the right and vice versa... and in your home audio system you’d no longer have stereo sound. This is not how subwoofers are designed as long as you keep one source per input. Voltage will not travel back up to the other amplifier.

Out of curiosity, do you have DTR set on one ball or two ball? Or is the magnetization happening even when your aren’t making it to DTR? I haven’t had this problem (DTR set to 1 ball), so can’t give much practical advice... but just thinking about any potential sources of induced magnetism. Have you tried the plexi piece in the ball trough to reduce ball contact with the trough? Not sure what you’d do for the sword though. At this point, I’m wondering if you’ve also secondarily magnetized the metal in the trough and sword slightly (thus increasing your problems). I guess you could try to put a paper clip up against the sword or trough to see if it wants to attract to it at all.

Sorry I don’t have more concrete solutions... good luck as I can imagine this would be frustrating.

Well... if we're getting that picky, then technically, a bare Arwen plastic is the the most accurate version of how the game was "intended" to be played. I mean, come on... the coefficient of bounce has to be affected by that plastic protector you suggest. Who knows how that will affect your score. You might never make it to Valinor!!

Definitely the best choice... love the look! Now, I would also recommend a gold or black cooler to go with the them a bit more.

You have to ask yourself, how would a vault even change your game IF they did make it? If it's an immaculate HUO example, then a vault would not be of greater quality. And no way they'd add figures to a vault, so if yours has those, you're ahead with an original. Only thing I can think of would be a possible upgrade to the audio quality, but would stern really spend the time to re-master all the original clips? Or could they even do this with licensing issues? Maybe it'd end up being like a SMVE with new audio callouts that everyone complains about. The jackpot callout alone is worth it's weight in gold (wait, do callouts really weigh anything? oh well, you get my point). I personally don't think they'll do a vault because finding an original is not very tough... you said it yourself that you're considering three separate ones. Sells would be lackluster at best for a vault. Now, a tron VE is more likely I think (if they can get disney licensing to agree) because of the difficulty in finding these. I'm not worried about that either, because my LE will still be way better than any vault they can release (unless they put Daft punk multiball in the vault, and then I'm gonna go ballistic).

TL;DR - Get the original LOTR now... you won't regret it.

I guess the answer to this question lies i whether you have a condition similar to the board’s name. In other words, are you OCD about how things look? I was very OCD and spent a little time (but not much) tweaking a few bulbs for brightness so they blended in with the others. If you don’t see any issues then skip it and stick with the stock profile that you initially loaded.

The three lights that cycle will stop on whichever one is lit when the ball leaves the switch position at the bottom of the shooter lane (next to the plunger). So you have two options... either 1) plunge at the exact time you need to select the skill shot you want, or 2) do what I do and just bump the plunger with the palm of your hand just enough to make the ball leave that switch when your option is lit. This will lock in that light and allow you to take your time plunging.

PM ryan1234 and he can let you know. If it, I believe laserrific (can’t remember for sure) makes a nice alternative plastic with elven engraving.

This is only for the lower section though... not the mid section.

They didn't wrap it... it was soldered... but the wire broke between the solder and the insulation. If you look closely at the solder on the switch leg (attached to the diode) you should see some broken strands of wire still there.

For the most part I’ve been ok with my stock coils and no fan. Not everyone has had the same experience... but possibly the coils just start out colder up here in Minnesota!!

Mine has been quite reliable. Any problems I've had are well documented by others and easily fixable... such as the wire harness for balrog breaking due to the opening and closing action. Easy enough to replace... I rebuilt my own. Also had a transistor short that controls a flasher (documented by another just recently in a post). I'm not so keen on board work, so I just pulled the flasher, but I'll get to replacing it eventually now that I ordered a desolder gun. Others have switched out flipper coils for the APB versions... but I have been good with stock. Had the current #1 player in MN over recently and he put up a new GC score with a monster game that went forever (I forgot to turn off extra balls before he got here). He had no trouble hitting shots even after what was probably 30-45 mins or more. Overall, it has been a fairly rock steady pin for me for about the last 3 years and it get a lot of play. Mine wasn't HUO, but lightly routed and in really nice shape.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/final-four-greatest-pinball-game-of-all-time-tournament-edition

Time to get out the vote for the greatest pin of all time!!

<To the sound of trumpets playing in The background >

By owning LOTR and making your first post in this thread, hitherto reserved for members only, you are hereby granted full club membership with all rights and privileges forthwith and henceforth and shall be recognized as such by all card carrying members when out and about and shall be expected to greet each other with the official handshake of Middle Earth. A membership packet will be mailed out posthaste with more details.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lotr-volume#post-1316781-parent

The most common problem with the Balrog switch is that the wires going down the post get twisted back and forth over and over as he moves in and out and eventually break. Search in this thread and you’ll see lots of advice how to replace. I had to do it on mine when I first got it years ago due to intermittent response from the switch.