Here's a cautionary tale, about how I turned a small problem into a really big one.

I noticed that my ring insert was separating on the right. I looked under the playfield and I could see that the glue was thin on that side (the side you can't see here).
Still okay

No problem, I thought - I'll just glue it down with some slow-setting CA glue. But I couldn't help myself. I just had to press it to see how loose it was on that side. Disaster struck: the insert popped out, and some of the clear and art on the "good" side broke away.
Noooooo

I've got it back in, and I can live with it for now (until I can get a new playfield):
Back in the saddle

The real tragedy here is that the rest of my playfield was still perfect. Shire, Gimli scoop - perfect.
What should have remained

Long story short, if you ever take off that LED PCB like I did, treat this insert like it's plutonium. I never should have pressed it from that side. Idiot.

I'll put mylar on it for now, and just play it as it is until I get some time to swap in a new playfield. The silver lining is that this gives me an excuse to install an NOS playfield with a few extra layers of clearcoat.

Thanks. On the bright side, Sterns are pretty easy to swap. Should be 25 hours or so.

Good, go collect those facts and report back.

I removed my outlane posts for a tournament and never put them back. Ball times seem about right now.

Listen, nobody in my family complains about balls lasting too long. They WANT longer ball times. My 17-year-old said I should sell IM because it's too hard, lol.

But I've used LOTR for league and tournament play, and before I removed the outlane posts, LOTR and RFM were always the 2 games that kept us waiting to start the next round. I've tweaked them such that they are not a problem now...POTC is currently my big bottleneck. This is with EBs disabled on all DMDs, by the way.

I'll post my DMD audits too, should be interesting.

OK, I'll play.

1:32 - POTC
1:19 - LOTR (outlane posts removed)
1:05 - MET
0:58 - Congo
0:51 - RFM (outlanes wide open)
0:49 - IM

Why do people (including me) think that ball times are much longer on LOTR if the audits show that they're not? Is it because the main theme gets annoying after a while and it just feels like it's taking longer to play? Serious question.

Average LOTR game time here is 4:05.

I would add that LOTR_breath is a top notch player and does indeed have LOTR on his breath. So his ball times should have been MUCH higher.

Ah, I think you're on to something there. While the average ball/game time isn't much different than other pins, a really good game tends to play much longer than good game on other pins. I can definitely see that, and that's why it's a problem in tourneys.

BTW I just played a longish game (destroyed the ring), and it didn't feel long to me. Felt just fine.

Warm white LEDs, LEDOCD. I'd also recommend super-brights in the spotlights.

I'll be very interested to see what KG comes up with. His other games are amazing...LOTR is a challenge for sure. It's easy to push it into Skittles territory, needs an artist's touch, which I think KG has.

Nice to see one that hasn't been color-bombed. Slap a ColorDMD in it and enjoy, great game!

You need Carbon Core balls for games with magnets. The "Ooh Shiny" balls may be Chrome Steel, which is NOT what you want. I've always bought my CC balls from this guy on eBay, and never had a problem:

ebay.com link: Ten 1 1 16 Inch Mirror Finish Carbon Steel Replacement Pinball Machine Balls

I was thinking of selling my LOTR that I bought new in ‘03, but the last 1000 or so posts have insipired me to keep it. I’m the guy who poked out his ring insert by cleaning it. I’m going to swap in this playfield as soon as I find the time:

https://swampfire.smugmug.com/ForSale/LOTR-Playfield/n-g7twNk/i-nxdp5N5/A

The color is slightly off, but the registration is great on this one.

I converted my GI to warm white frosted to get a bit more light, but all of my inserts are still incandescent.

I’ll check when I’m back from TPF, but if they did I probably used incs there. I have a very low tolerance for LED flicker.

talking_goat I generally shoot for 15 degrees on the siderails on all my Sterns. I’m not sure what that translates to for the playfield, but I don’t like taking the glass off to level games.

I use generic carbon-core balls and change them every 6-12 months, and always after a show. $5 tops.

I've played TNA on co-op mode a few times now (4-player), and it gave me a great idea. The next time I have a party, I'll put LOTR on 12 ball play (4x3), and have people play a "4-player co-op" game on LOTR to see how far they can get. If there are a few good players, they should reach TABA easily, and they have at least a shot at Valinor. This seems way more fun than slogging it out to Valinor myself.

You may be right about that. Maybe leave extra balls enabled, and if you get one you pass it to the next player?

I'll check these on mine tonight. It's "normal" for the VUK fork switches to be flaky - it's the actuator, not the switch. I had to bend my forks up slightly to get Shire and Gimli to register consistently. Welcome to the club!

I just started playing mine again last night and damned if the fuse didn’t blow after 5 games. I’m sticking a gum wrapper in there!

LED OCD is a must-have if you want to use LEDs in the inserts. I just use standard white rubber on mine. ColorDMD is excellent for LOTR, probably my favorite out of Congo, POTC, MET and GOT.

Your playfield will probably clean up great, but I’ll be listing a really nice used playfield FS soon. I replaced mine with a hand-picked Ron Kruzman playfield that I couldn’t resist. But the original looks surprisingly good for an ‘04 game. It’s HUO except for a few months at a friend’s new arcade, and a couple of pinball shows.

I’ll post some pics when I’m 100% done, it does look sweet. I felt bad for paying $1500 for the playfield, but now that LOTR are selling for $7k+ I feel like it’s justified.

+1, and there’s no sign that the bracket ever touched the playfield. I’m still going to tighten that screw though, thanks to this discussion.

Start with #3 (original coils), they may be fine after a flipper rebuild. I can add that I replaced my left flipper coil with the stronger one, and now I have a broken slingshot plastic. So I’ll be going back to original.

I’ve had pretty good luck using RC car heat sinks on my coils on Iron Man. Stranger Things has the exact same flipper fade issue, and I’m trying PinMonk’s fans. So far, they seem to work great.

Nope, you’ll need to take him out but it’s not hard. You just have to cut the tie wraps and replace them later.

Mine did too, until I replaced them with plexi washers. I’m switching back to metal. Anybody have a right slingshot plastic they want to sell me?

If the problem is “flipper fade” (flippers getting weaker as they heat up), I’ve had success with 2 approaches:

- RC car engine heat sinks
- PinMonk’s fans

Correct

If anyone has a routed or ratty LOTR and is looking for an inexpensive upgrade...

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/115945

I’ll drop the price once a week until it sells, and I’m open for offers.

Yep, and I wasn’t even pressing that hard. Learn from my fail, folks! I would have been happy with my repair if I hadn’t found a really nice playfield hand-picked and cleared by Ron Kruzman.

It is, but I’m still working through some swap gremlins. I should take some good pics before I play too many games on it.

I finally resolved my last few playfield swap issues, and grabbed some pics of Ron Kruzman’s excellent work before I start flipping. BTW, if anyone has a spare pair of sling plastics they’d like to sell me, please send me a PM.

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I’d check the transistor.

Ha, try 16 years!

I bought a pair of medium strength coils on eBay about a month ago. Search “LOTR coils” if this link isn’t working, it’s the first result.

ebay.com link: itm

Hi all - I’m looking for a right slingshot plastic, and I’m happy to pay $$ for one. Please PM me with the price if you have a spare. I’m in the metro Atlanta area.

Thanks,
John

I left the club last night, after owning LOTR for 17+ years. My son was 6 when we got it, now he’s 23. I swapped in a NOS playfield cleared by Ron Kruzman before I sold it. It feels good to pass the torch to my friend who’s very enthusiastic about it. I’ve got a long wait for its replacement, Rush Premium. I feel that LOTR has the most beautiful playfield Stern ever did, and I’ll miss looking at it.

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I was an LED skeptic. I can promise you that if you use Herg’s LEDOCD and warm white frosted LEDs, you’ll love it.

There are 3 settings to control how long and when the coils fire - it should be in this thread somewhere. I had the medium coils, and I had to dial everything back to minimum since it was too strong with the defaults.

What did you do to your game?

Hobbit hole looks good!