#2000 has been delivered here in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. August 2021 manufacturing date. I ordered through Player 1 Amusements Group based out of the Toronto area back on November 11th, 2020, so took close to a year to get here. Not going to lie, the wait was making me insane, but this game is well worth the wait. Came with v1.22 installed. I'll upgrade to 1.23 in the coming days.

This one has Use Your Illusion I on the record spinner. (Which I'm happy about, this is my favorite GNR album, I rank it even above Appetite).

So far the game is flawless, no QC issues that I can find. Not a huge fan of the plunge (I find plunges to the back of the playfield more satisfying than a plunge that only goes about 5"), but thats more of a game design issue.

My other issues are likely due to my own low skill level as a player. I have a real difficult time getting the left ramp. I don't know if there's an adjustment to the game I need to make, or just more practice (more likely). The other thing is that center scoop. When I don't need to hit it (ie when I'm already in a song), I hit it non-stop. When I actually want to hit it (ie to start a song), I can't hit the thing to save my life. Again, I think this is a reflection of my own skill level rather than a problem with the game.

We'll have to wait and see how this playfield holds up after a couple hundred plays.

By the way, this is my first pin, so prepare yourself for a barrage of stupid questions that I'll likely have in the coming weeks/months as I learn how to maintain this thing!

I appreciate the suggestion. Is this a setting that I adjust in the menu or is this a physical adjustment? Is there instructions on how to accomplish this? As I said, this is my first pin, so go easy on me/

Nice!!!! I tried to order from Nitro originally and they just told me to go through Player One because they were closer ... Nonetheless Player One did a great job. Game took forever to get, but obviously not their fault. Nice to see more Canadians on here.

Yeah I was really really surprised to get '2000' .. never thought i'd get a nice round number, I expected some random number without meaning. So this is cool.

Nice!! So apparently my GNR wasn't the first one in Windsor/Essex county as I thought it might be. Thats awesome, I've never tried out the SE but I'm very curious to try it out if I see it somewhere to see the differences in the gameplay.

I've got a friend I met on a Facebook group in Leamington who also has a GNR on order from P1 but doesn't have one yet, I think he will have it soon. It seems like JJP is gradually getting close to being caught up on manufacturing... maybe ...

When starting a song, is there any advantage / disadvantage to just accepting and playing the song that they give you rather than pressing the action button to pick a song of your own choice? I know obviously some songs are easier and some are more difficult, but with all other things equal, is it best to just play the song that the game gives you?

Well, 94 games in the books now on my game. I think I've solved a couple issues but not all.

First of all, playfield looks great so far, no hint of pooling or any other problems yet, so that's good.

I found the autolaunch to be weak, and occasionally taking two tries to launch a ball out. I was able to raise this by just one increment in the coil settings and now it seems perfect.

I found that I was getting a lot of weak flips right into the out lanes and that the left ramp was real hard to get to. I raised the flipper power by one increment in the coil settings and now the game plays much better.

As of right now though, my biggest issue is the center scoop! After about 70 or so games, my center scoop was firing balls SDTM. As suggested in the thread, I slightly loosened the 2 screws holding the center scoop in, then twisted it as far to the left as I could (there was a bit of play so I was able to turn it enough. Re-tightened and it was fantastic. However put 24 more games in the book and the scoop is once again firing the balls SDTM. I know one person in here suggested tilting up the scoop with a washer or two underneath but I don't quite have the dexterity to do that without removing the upper playfield (which I think is beyond my novice abilities, at least for now, maybe I'll build up more confidence).

So basically, I was able to correct the problem, only for the problem to be back within 24 games. Why is the scoop working it's way over like that? Would you suggest lowering the power of the scoop so that it doesn't work it's way out of alignment? I don't know, but I can't be removing my glass after every 25 games, there has to be a more long lasting fix.

Has anybody ever contact JJP Support about this issue? What have they said?

Appreciate the reply. So these washers go under the playfield? I lifted mine up just now and took a picture of the bottom of the scoop. So in this picture, it's the screw in the upper left and lower left of this view that need additional washers? Also note that there appears to be a screw missing from the upper right. What size screw/washer should be here, the center scoop assembly does not appear to be in the manual for some reason.

under_scoop (resized).jpg

Apologies if this has already been covered extensively, but is there a reliable way to stop plunges (and auto launches) from going straight down the middle? I lose far too many balls because they get auto launched, hit tip tip of the sling shot, and then bounce straight down the middle, out of reach of either flipper.

Do you mind posting a picture of your scoop to show how it's sitting and the positioning of these washers?

Here's a random rules question. Does anybody know what decides when the left ramp diverter opens or closes, when you aren't in any kind of special mode? I've noticed I'll have a ball cradled, then suddenly the diverter closes (blocking the upper playfield), or suddenly it opens (opening the upper playfield). There's got to be some kind of reason but it just seems random to me. Can somebody explain that to me?

Makes perfect sense! Appreciate the answer. I'm learning!

Is it common to have your Upper PF Rubber come up in your test report as stuck open? If I remove the glass, I can manually activate the switch with ease (with both my finger and by swiftly rolling a ball). That particular rubber is way off to the left of the upper pf flipper, so I feel like any ball that travels over there will be travelling slowly so perhaps the leaf switch just needs to be adjusted?

Does this rubber affect gameplay at all much? I know there is an insert labeled 'FOG' next to that rubber, so that part of one of the modes?

My left spotlight has stopped moving on the X-axis. I haven't attempted much disassembly much because as far as I know, the X-axis movement is directly connected to the servo with no linkage arm to get broken. When I do the spotlight test, the light will slightly attempt to turn left/right and even shake a little bit. So I thought maybe the motor was just bad.

However when I take a closer look, I can see the cogs of the gear for the servo. Is this normal? Looking at this picture would you say the bracket has come loose from the servo? I Can see the screw holding it together appears to be intact. Does this look like everything is sitting correctly or does it need to be disassembled and tightened up?

20211008_012710 (resized).jpg

Yeah thats what I was thinking. I don't think it looks difficult to do.

My machine is only 2 weeks old. I also will need one other part. One of the plastic lenses from the lighting truss above the stage has fallen off. One of the little plastic tabs that holds it on is broken so I'll need to get one of these as well.

For these types of parts should I be contacting JJP directly (through their support form)? Or should I be going through my distro? (Player1 in Canada)

The manual mentions that this game has a mechanism that will hold the balls in the trough even when the playfield is lifted (to position 4). My question is, how much do you guys trust this mechanism? Do you guys remove the balls prior to fully lifting your playfield? Or does everybody fully trust that mechanism and that no balls will come falling out smashing into something breakable?

I seem to have recently started getting a few 'glass bangers' on the lower left side of the playfield and balls that roll up onto the plastics in just past the left out lane before heading to the out lane. Is this a common occurance? I think I've seen mention of fly ball protectors but I'm not sure where to put them. I can't quite place where/how the balls are going airborn as it always seems to happen during intense song modes with 4-5 balls chaotically clanging around, so without the assistance of a high speed camera, it's tough to see the sequence of events that is causing it.

Is this common?

Mine game came from the factory with USA Quarter coin mechs, at least mine did. I'm in Canada so I've swapped out both mechs and reject buttons for Canadian $1 coins (loonies). From there it's just a matter of going through the menu and setting up your pricing settings, how much a credit costs, how much a pulse from each mech is worth, etc.

I know this has probably come up time and time again and I'm sure the answer probably changes as people learn more strategy. But what patches do you guys prioritize getting at the start of a game? What are the best patches and patch combos to work towards as you get started?

I'm a novice player (at best). My best score is about 5.1 million, so I need all the help I can get!

I imagine getting the rights to use it may be an issue since GNR didn't write it. I'm actually surprised they were able to get Live And Let Die into the game for the same reason, I think Slash was able to pull some strings with Paul McCartney.

I know this has probably been asked many times in here. I'm still having trouble with my guitar lock sending balls STDM. I took a video and slowed it down a bit to try to see whats happening. basically my ball is heading to the right as planned, then bounces off the ball guide and ricochet's to the middle of the platfield. I've heard solutions about either bending guides, adding foam or rubber or something. I'll attach the video here so you can see what exactly is happening and maybe you guys can give me a suggestion of what needs to be bent, and in what direction.

If it matters, the left side of the guitar lock also goes STDM, and what happens is a mirror image of this.

What is the best line/point of reference to use to make sure my level is straight when leveling Left-Right? Basically I'm looking for some kind of visual guide to ensure that my level is sitting 100% width-wise without being crooked. I was thinking the top of the 'not in this lifetime' insert above the revolver would be a good straight-edge to use? or possibly the top of the Richard and Frank inserts in the revolver? At first I thought the lines of latitude on the world map would be okay but they aren't completely straight.

Have any of you guys ever had issues with the Hexagon Lens Covers that go on the hex lights? Specifically the 4th light (if you are counting left to right).?

Basically about 2 weeks ago, I found the hexagon lens cover on the Axl lanes of the playfield with one of the little tabs that snap it into place broken off. I contacted JJP through the support form and they shipped me out a replacement relatively quickly. When trying to re-attach the new lens cover, the little tab snapped off instantly. The problem is that the big RJ45 connector is director behind the clip that breaks, so there's no clearance to get it on. I could try unplugging the RJ45 connector and would probably be able to snap the cover into place, but then would there be clearance to even get the plug back in with the little tab there?

Have any of you had issues with these covers falling off, breaking, etc? If so, what did you do to overcome it?

I had a similar concern and what I did to set my mind at ease was just hold a ball between your fingers within an inch or two of the magnet, and then use the coil test feature to engage the magnet and see if it pulls the ball out of your hand. If it does, then you know that everything physically works fine, and that something else in the game (code most likely ) is just telling the magnet not to engage. The coil test is a very quick charge, don't expect it to hold the ball for any significant amount of time but you should feel it pull the ball from your fingers if you are near the magnet.

Hey everybody,

I know this is a topic that's been beat to death on here, but I need some help figuring this out. I'm having issues with my left diverter. It intermittently will not fully go down. When the problem happens, the coil fires, but the diverter only makes it down about 25% of the way, obviously not opening the upper PF up. When the problem happens, it will happen consistently (I can replicate it in the diverter test in the menu).

I removed the glass and checked the obvious (the jam plate that falls off for people) and mine is securely on and in place. The bolts fastening it are 100% tight and the split locking washers are in place.. I checked all screws/bolts on the assembly and everything is 100% tight.

When the problem is happening, if I power the machine off and manually push the diverter down, I can definitely feel it binding somewhere which is likely why the coil has trouble pulling it down. But I can't quite find where it's binding. The diverter doesn't look to be rubbing the plastic ramp, though it might be rubbing the playfield as it passes through, and it might be binding where the jam plate attaches, though I can't quite verify which.

There is a lot of front-to-back play on the entire diverter shaft, and the severity of the binding is better or worse depending on how the shaft/diverter are sitting. I suspect this play may be the issue, causing the diverter shaft to sometimes sit in such a way where it binds.

Any suggestions on what I should be adjusting and where? Keep in mind I'm very new to pinball repair but am very interesting in learning all you guys can teach me.

Also of note, the entire assembly sits angled out from bottom of the playfield, is this normal? (See attached image)

20211107_134408 (resized).jpg

I appreciate the responses both of you. Actually you pointed me in the right direction. The coil had a lot of play in it. The "DIVERTER SOLENOID BRACKET" seemed to be sitting too far from the coil, which allowed the coil to freely move back and forth between the bracket and the coil stop. So I just loosened the two nuts holding the solenoid bracket in place, and slid it back to better sandwich in the coil and push it up against the coil stop and tightened everything back up.

Everything works perfect from the test menu. Will need some "real world" game testing to determine if the problem is actually solved or not.

I got my ball stuck in a new place, was somehow wedged between the record spinner and the scoop assembly, not sure how common this is. but a ball search was initiated, and I noticed, when the game is doing a ball search, the spotlights started moving around and pointing around the field as if they were searching for the ball. Next time you get a ball search happening, look at the spotlights.

Maybe this is already well known, but I thought it was cute/amusing.

haha! I had my GNR LE just sitting in Attract mode while I was working on something else, when I heard a random attract mode callout come from the machine, Axl saying "It's Richard Fortus's birthday today!" ... So I look it up on Wikipedia and sure enough, Nov 17th is indeed his birthday! The attention to detail on this game is amazing. Seriously, callouts based on the current date? Is that common in pinball? I've never seen it before!

95% sure it was Axl. It didn't sound like a studio recording the way Duff/Melissa's callouts do. It sounded like it was a sound bite taken from one of Axl's monologues at a concert.

At any rate, it caught me off guard and amazed me. Is there any other date-specific callouts that anybody has noticed?

Have any of you guys made any changes to your "Game Settings"? (ie any of the rules) to make the game harder, or easier? So far I've just been using the defaults that came with the machine. I notice there are some built in 'presets' that you can use but I've never tried loading them.

Interesting. Sounds like all of these make the game slightly more difficult, were you finding things too easy?

Not gonna lie, I've considered doing that too. For some reason the Center Scoop is the strangest thing for me. If I I don't want it, I hit it non stop. But if I need it to collect an applause jackbot i always bang the ball 'off the goal post' without getting it in. Obviously thats my own short comings as a novice player though. I'm getting a little better though. Maybe.

Anybody have trouble with the gate at the entrance of the left ramp popping out of it's little hole? It's happened to me twice in the 2 months I've had the game. I mean it takes 30 seconds to fix it, but it's annoying to have to slide down the glass for that.

Like many others, I find the left ramp much easier to backhand. A bunch of people have suggested lowering the angle of the right flipper just a little bit to shoot further to the left. I'm a novice with maintenance so I wasn't comfortable doing that. My solution was actually to lower the power of the right flipper by one single increment. For me that little bit sort of turned that flipper from a 'pull hitter' to a 'spray hitter' in baseball terms. I had a much easier time hitting that left orbit and left ramp after that. Banging that stand up target next to the ramp a lot less now.

Does anyone else find Civil War to be an extremely difficult song to play? I get boo'ed off more often than not if that song comes up. And I don't want to ever just choose a different song because that's one of my favourite GNR songs but I just find it so difficult. When you start off your only shots are the right orbit and inner loop I think? Those are the 2 shots in the game I have the hardest time making.

I try my best to, to the extent of my skill level. Doesn't always work out that way but I try!

It's not going to turn the game into a porn or anything, but in addition to the swearing in the songs, there are a whole bunch of callouts that would be offensive to the easily offended and probably not appropriate for children.

The funniest one I ever heard, and i actually only heard it one time in the 600+ games I've played. I had set a new high score and and Duff calls out "yeah! Lets go get drunk and do some cocaine!" or something along those lines. To me it was a hilarious contrast to the early 90s when every single pinball machine had to display the "Winners Don't Use Drugs" banner.

But yeah Duff and Melissa say a lot of non-PC things when the adult settings are turned on.

Have any of you guys ever hooked your GNR up to a smart plug just to monitor power usage? I did today for the first time. So when sitting idle, the game consumes about 90-100watts. During a game, it uses about 175-200 watts. But the most jarring is whenever the Axl magnet engages, it shoots up to 500+ watts. It's only a brief spike, but wow. Is that normal for pinball magnets?

I just received the Airball Drain Barrier from Pinmonk and am trying to install it, following the provided instructions that came with it. I'm at step 3 ("Remove nuts on lower end of long plastic"). My problem is that these two nuts are seemingly 'locked' onto their respective posts, in that when I try to loosen them, I'm turning the entire post, in effect loosening it from the t-nut in the playfield. Since at least one of these posts is under high tension from the rubber below the plastic, my worry that this post coming out of the playfield may put undue stress on the plastic and cause it to break.

Do you guys have tips on how to remove a nut that is stuck (or locked) onto a post without that post coming out of the playfield?

As you (and everyone else) can tell, I'm definitely new to working on pins. After posting this message I realized the two posts in question have nuts welded to them underneath the plastic to use for the purpose of preventing the post from turning when taking off the nut on top. I was able to accomplish the task using a set of needle nose pliers. Not ideal but it worked.

So now I guess I need to find one of those thin wrenches that you describe. I have a few similar wrenches kicking around that came with various assemble-yourself furniture but none were the right size. I'll have to see if I can find somewhere that sells them in the correct size for the future.

Thanks for the replies everybody, sorry for the dumb question.

ANother noob question. I've been working on changing most of my silicon rings over to titans (at least the ones that aren't too difficult to access). I'm trying to change out the 3/16 rings in the A X L lanes at the top. I've got the "Back Stage" plastic off the top. However there we a couple plastic protectors over the posts that i'm not sure how to remove. Do I need to unscrew these posts from the T-Nuts to get these off?

EDIT: I figured it out. Disregard. If anybody else is wondering, yes the posts have to be removed, then it all comes apart easily. Slowly I'm getting the hang of this.

Periodically, I'll start having coils start randomly firing for no reason (including in attract mode). When I go into the matrix switch test, it's easy to see why -- my optos are suddenly stroking out and going crazy, causing the related coils to start firing. Real easy fix, just have to re-calibrate the sensors. But what causes this to periodically happen?

So I haven't seen too many people in this thread complaining about how long it's taking to get their game. In fact I haven't seen much in the way of 'unboxing' type posts in the past month or so. Does this mean that JJP is finally pretty much all caught up in terms of manufacturing? I got my game in September after a 10 month wait, but I'm curious how they are doing for everyone now?

Agreed.

The thing is, the record spinner by it's very design is going to send the ball in all kinds of random directions making it very difficult to gain control. So any mode that's based around repeatedly hitting that record spinner is going to be a lot of quick drains for most players. But then have that mode worth barely any points makes no sense.

I love my GNR, it's amazing, but I really think some score balancing needs to happen. Getting a 50 million point game is great, but when 49 million of that came from your song jackpot, and your album mode that you played afterwards got you almost nothing (not to mention Slash's solo), it's a little off putting.

As I said, I love GNR, it's an amazing game. But definitely some adjustments are in order I think.

Not sure if you still check this thread or not, but I wanted to let you know that I tried your earring back fix on the left ramp gate and it appears to fit perfectly (super tightly) and doesn't appear to be at risk of falling off. This was a genius solution. Thanks for the idea!

When you guys replace your servos in your LEFT spotlight, how do you route the wires through the back of the mech? I ask because I've had a wire break on my Y-Axis servo motor twice now. It's got to be getting snagged or cut on something.

Do any of you have any closeup photos of your LEFT spotlight which demonstrate how the wires are run? Or anybody who just happen to have their playfield open right now that could take a picture? That would be awesome.

I've got #2000 .. August build. Playfield is 100% perfect after 875 games. Had a number of issues that I've had to make adjustments to fix (left spotlight, centre scoop, left ramp diverter, shooter lane gate)... Seems like a lot of issues but I'm a complete novice (this is my first pin) and I fixed them all without too much trouble. Playfield itself has been 100% perfect for me.

Nope nothing. It came with clear washers at the bottom of the posts and everything as held together nicely (so far).

post no longer relevant.

I've noticed this and it's annoying.

The main things that annoy me about this game are that the album modes don't score nearly enough (or the song jackpot is too much). To me when I get a 20mil song jackpot, the 800k-1mil I get from playing the album mode seems meaningless.

And of course then there's the Slash solo mode.

Great game otherwise. I hope somebody who takes care of coding at least monitors this thread because these are gripes I see people have time and time again.

I need to replace some servo's on my spotlights. I'd like to go with EMAX ES3054 since they seem to be the most reliable from what I've heard. Only problem is that since I'm in Canada, the shipping prices seem super high. Is there a good Canadian retailer that has EMAX 3054 servos for a decent price without ridiculous shipping?

I've noticed a couple amazon.ca resellers that have them but they ship from China with an ETA of like 6+ weeks? yikes.

Here's a dumb queston. Like many others, my "Snubber Blocks" around my centre scoop are looking cracked and ready to break. Are these warranty covered parts? Or are these considered consumables (normal wear and tear)? I know they are a super cheap part, but I'm in Canada and no distros here seem to stock them so I will likely be paying more for shipping than the part itself costs.

Also, I'm curious, what is the purpose of the 'snubbers' in terms of functionality/gameplay? I've noticed lately I've had a bit harder time making scoop shots, I get a lot of balls that bounce out or off the hood. Do the snubbers stop this from happening? Could also be my poor/amateur playing of course!

Dumb question. If I select the 'Disable Left Ramp Diverter' does my LE essentially become an SE? My reason for this is that I've got some maintenance to do under the upper PF (changing rubbers, scoop snubbers, adjusting the scoop, etc). And I'd like to be able to play a few test games with the upper PF removed. Will the game function with the upper PF disconnected/removed as long as "Disable Left Ramp Diverter" is set in the menu?

Also curious, if that option is set, how do you activate the Lights multiball, or accumulate ball locks?

It there a trick to disconnecting connectors such as this one? I don't see any type of clip holding it together, just seems really tight but I can't seem to get it to come apart.

pinkconnector (resized).jpg

I appreciate the reply. Still working away at trying to get them disconnected but they are very stubborn! I can wiggle the plug a bit but thats about it. It's almost like there is some kind of clip that I can't see holding it together. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

If there is a tab in the middle, it's tiny. I tried using my finger nail in there and a flat edge screwdriver with no success. I can wiggle the plug but as I said, it just won't come apart. Does this particular connector have a tab in the middle?

I appreciate all of the people who responded to my messages about that stubborn molex connector. I eventually got it apart after a LOT of wiggling and pulling. Was able to get all of my under-the-upper-pf maintenance completed without much issue.

However, after cleaning up excess wax, I found this screw in the bottom of my cabinet toward the back. Any idea what this might be from? I can't find any similar screws anywhere else under the playfield so maybe I'm not looking in the right spot.

mysteryscrew001 (resized).jpg

You are a genius, thats exactly where it came from. Screw re-installed. LED board, right near the USB connector. Hugely appreciate the response.

Okay next issue. I don't recall seeing this discussed in here before. When i have a ball going down the right-most lane of my Fender bass wireform, it falls through the hole onto the cat walk as expected, however when it hits the cat walk, the ball bounces and goes over the hole in the cat walk, landing in my inlane, but also jumping over the inlane switch to activate the GNR. I bet I've missed out on a lot of patches because of this! hehe.

Anybody else have this issue? If so, how did you resolve it? Any way to deaden the bounce into the cat walk? I can try to record a highspeed video of this if it helps.

As far as I know that is normal. The spotlights are especially active during song modes, the slash solo mode and the throw the lights multiball mode. If you get an applause jackpot the lights will go crazy violently. During regular mundane gameplay they don't really move.

If you ever doubt that your spotlights are working right, just test them through the Device Tests menu and make sure they both have full range of motion in both the X and Y axis. If one of them isn't moving left/right or up/down then that may be caused by one of several things.

What is everybody's overall preferred strategy in this game?

For me, I typically try to start with going for Pyro, though depending on how the record spinner is oriented, I can't always hit the target and often I'll end up qualifying Dizzy or Melissa. As soon as the diverter opens up, my goal changes to trying to lock balls. Any time I have less than 5 balls locked, my goal is always locking balls. Generally any time I'm in the upper PF, I get the Lights multiball pretty quickly. Once I have the Lights multiball started, I'm often able to get the other multiballs started at the same time just by chance. Any time I'm not in a multiball, my goal is always to lock balls.

I usually let patch collecting happen through the normal course of gameplay, mostly from when the ball falls through the hole in the Upper PF. As a result I usually don't have a ton of patches but I always try to have Fender selected so that I usually am able to collect that one.

Once my song starts, sometimes I try to go for the power chords for fun, but usually I just try to go for the lit targets. If Band Frenzy starts, then my goal is to fire everything I can into the pop bumpers. I usually don't cash out early unless I have a 10+ million jackpot available.

I typically play album modes and slash mode when lit. I don't time them out, I try to make it through them with varying levels of success. I've never ever been able to start Tour Multiball. I guess I need to work on my orbit shots.

My GC Score is 58 million. a Typical game for me though is somewhere between 2-5 million ... anything over 10 million I consider to be a good game. Obviously most of you guys are better players than me and have higher standards for what a good game is.

What are some overall game strategies that the rest of you use?

Nice! Some ideas for me to try. Using these strategies, what is your GC score?

I've started to occasionally have an issue where the trough VUK is failing to kick the ball up into the shooter lane. Seems to be worse some times than others. The coil is functioning exactly how it should, it's like the plunger isn't hitting the ball squarely, the plunger is hitting 'behind' the ball slightly. When the issue happens, I can't even manually kick the balls up by pushing the plunger with my fingers.

I've heard that this VUK can get out of adjustment. Does anybody know the correct procedure to adjust this VUK so that the plunger consistently hits the ball squarely?

Right now everything is working fine but I think the issue will come back.

Big thank you, LTG!

I will look into this. Unfortunately it's difficult for me to see what's actually happening with the playfield down in position due to the apron. How does the apron get removed so that I can see the trough/vuk more easily from above?

LTG, hugely sorry, I clicked on the wrong vote. I changed it.

Please accept my apologies, you are extremely helpful to me and everybody else here.

I'm looking to order one of the Mezel Mods spot light bracket kits but right now the website said "Not Available." Do you guys know how often Mezel does a production run of these brackets and when I can expect to have one available to order?

Random question. From what I've gathered, on newer games (such as GNR), it seems that the accepted cleaning solution is Novus 1 for basic cleaning needs and Blitz Wax for a full wax. But how often do you do each on a game such as GNR. How often do you a basic cleaning with Novus 1? How often do you do a waxing with Blitz Wax? How often do you do a 'deep cleaning' (ie removing upper PF to clean the orbits, etc)?

I know this is kind of a general maintenance question but I'm asking in this thread because GNR has a pretty unique style of gameplay thats not common across other pins.

After replacing Servo motors, linkage arms, mounting brackets, I think I'm ready to 'upgrade' my brackets/linkage arms. Unfortunately they have been out of stock on Mezel Mods for at least a month now. That german site above does not appear to ship to Canada or the USA that I can figure out. So I don't know what other option there is other than maybe getting somebody local to 3d Print me the ones off of ThingiVerse. Does anybody have any experience with this?

Would an FDM Printer be required? What kind of resin would you suggest for this type of part to make it strong enough to withstand the jerky violent movements of the spotlights?

I don't own a 3D Printer so if I'm to go to somebody local who does have one, I'll need to outline a list of requirements.

Looks like this is likely just a guy who 3d Prints them and sells them which is not necessarily a bad thing if he uses strong materials. With that said I'm in Canada and he doesn't ship here. However it would appear he's in Livonia, MI which is only about a 45 minute drive from the border (I'm just across the river in Windsor, Ontario). So perhaps I'll see if he has any next time I'm in Michigan. Thanks for letting me know.

Question for those of you who have installed either the Mezel Mods/pu-Parts spotlight upgrade kit, or simply just 3d Printed your own brackets/arms. The instructions from PU-Parts mention adding heat shrink to the X-Axis servos not NOT the Y-Axis servos. Is this a typo? Or is the Y Axis not supposed to use the heat shrink?

Additionally the instructions don't mention anything about Loctite, to attach the servos or white grease to lubricate the actuator arms, however the official JJP instructions do. Do you not need LocTite or any like of lubrication with the upgraded spotlights?

Let me know how you did it please.

Is there a way on GNR to disable the "Todays Top Scores" thing? I can understand the benefit of this feature on location, but on my Home Use Only game, where I might have time to play 4-5 games a day, almost every game I play is a "Todays Top Score." It just doesn't serve a purpose. Unless I set an actual all time top score, I don't wanna hear about it! lol

I'm just curious if there was a menu option that I'm missing.

Appreciate the reply guys. Yup there it is. I've had the game for just about a year now and never noticed that setting. Embarrassing! Anyway thanks!

This is true. I don't know what the status of Stern's other games are, but I just got an update (1.00) for my Rush Prem including a bunch of balancing of score values, and a new wizard mode.

Agreed and I find none of the GNR LE's I've found on location have any of that work done on them. I haven't found a GNR on location that plays nearly as well as my GNR at home. And if these "on-location" GNRs are what people are judging the game by, well no wonder so many people dislike it. Play one thats set up and maintained perfectly and I bet they would feel differently. But I understand that this game seems to be more work to setup/maintain than most and it's probably not profitable for an operator to put that much work into one game.

For the third time, I've had my passive diverter in my Gibson headstock stop working properly. It ends up having too much play, and the vibrations of the pop bumpers cause it to rotate out of position causing 2 or 3 balls in a row to enter the same side of the ball lock. The fix is generally easy, take the diverter out, re-bend that little washer to add more tension in the assembly, put it back together and it's good. But the issue I have is that I have to do this about every 200 or so games. Is there a better fix than this? Possibly a replacement aftermarket washer that works better in there?

That is a fantastic run. I'm at about 1700 plays and I've gone through several brackets for the same reason (the little eyelit breaks every time). JJP replaced mine under warranty each time, I'll say that for them, but it is annoying to have to keep repairing them.

Nonetheless, another point of failure I've found is that even if the servo doesn't die and bracket doesn't break, and the actuator doesn't break, I find the spot that the gear goes in the actuator gets rounded out, so the actuator arm just slips on the gear and moves erratically, or not at all.

The mezelmods spotlight parts have been out of stock for months. Maybe they are done making them forever? There designs on Thingiverse that are vastly more robust than the original, if you have access to a 3D Printer that can print in PETG or Nylon.

So I know I'd be preaching to the choir if I complained about how long we've gone without a new code update, but I will say, from what I've read, the new BETA code available looks very intriguing with all of it's new features. I'm considering giving it a try.

Is there any 'risk' factor to using BETA code? Talking risk such as bugs in the code that could say, cause a coil to be stuck energized and burn out, or burn out a transistor, fry one of the boards, etc. Is any of this type of stuff a possibility? I know significant testing happens before BETA code is released, but obviously not as much testing as final production code updates have had. Just trying to decide if I should go for it?

Please folks, talk me into it, or talk me out of it, one way or the other.

Thanks for the advice, both of you. So I went ahead and updated to B31 (took two updates, but I was fully expecting that based on what I've read).

I've only had a chance to play 3-4 games. The first game I hit the action button and picked It's So Easy just so I could see the new light show that everybody was talking about, and yes, it lived up to the hype. It's amazing. In my subsequent games, I just played the songs I was given. So far I've played Sweet Child O Mine, My Michelle and Better. And I am going to say I saw significant changes in the light show for all 3 of those songs as well. I'd say My Michelle probably had the most noticeable changes (besides It's So Easy of course). But the others definitely were noticeably improved.

Lot's of interesting stuff happening and it's hard to describe. The Hot Rails seem to be used a whole lot more effectively, including strobing at certain times, simulating a spotlight at other times and other things. Definitely a whole lot more going on and it's pretty brilliant the choreography that was involved.

There definitely seem to be minor updates to the light show during attract more, the match screen (as mentioned already) and other subtle changes.

It's too early to tell if they updated the scoring yet as I didn't really have any good games to put that to a test. I only played Thirst For Carnage once and only got a few hits in before draining and getting about 200k for the mode.

I haven't noticed much in the way of new callouts as others have mentioned. One very subtle difference was during Thirst For Carnage, I heard Melissa say "Shoot Make Some Noise to stun the Robot" instead of "Shoot behind the flipper to stun the Robot" Not sure why that was, if it's just for variety, but it's the only different callout I've heard so far that I've noticed. Some of the Axl callouts (that were clearly taken from concert recordings rather than recorded in studio) have been cleaned up and sound more clear now.

Don't notice much change in the regular 'non-song' gameplay.

Overall I'd say B31 runs a lot smoother or more fluidly than 1.25 did. By that I mean that in v1.25 there were definitely times where it seemed like the CPU/GPU/Software would get bogged down, for example, the spotlight effect that is periodically shown when starting new games used to sometimes be a little 'choppy' as it panned back and forth, whereas in B31, that is perfectly smooth. Same as when the end of ball bonus was being tallied, it would occasionally look like the software would bog down and act a little choppy, but now it is perfectly buttery smooth.

So in my short time testing, I would say B31 is substantially better than 1.25 .... I wonder what updates we are waiting on before this becomes official production code?

When the magnet grabs the ball, it drops it down the middle lane every time. However the magnet isn't always active. I have no idea what conditions turn the magnet on or off, maybe somebody who knows the rules better than me could let us know.

Strange issue that I've had with my GNR a couple times over the past few months. Curious if anyone else has ever had anything similar and what might be out of adjustment.

When I shoot my left ramp using my right flipper, when the diverter is up, the spot where the ball is supposed to make that sharp 180 degree turn and feed the left flipper, every once in a while the ball somehow ends up launched into orbit, flying over the ball guide, over top of the guitar locks, and landing somewhere in the drum area. In one extreme case, I had a ball get enough air time to hit the right side blade and land on the drum sticks. As I said, it's rare, too rare for me to be able to catch on video (let alone high speed video) but has anyone ever had anything similar to this happen?

My right flipper strength is set to 27 (25 is the default), perhaps that is too high? i thought I heard of people turning theirs up all the way to 32!

After roughly 1800 games, I suddenly have a whole bunch of switches that have just stopped working. The ones I've found so far are 'Left Sling Hi', 'Left Sling Low', 'Left Outlane', 'Left Inlane Left', 'Left Inlane Right', and 'Left Ramp Right Target' ... all of which are in the "Green/Orange" column of the Matrix, however the first switch in that column ("Left Ramp Left Target") seems to work fine. it's just everything under it in the list that has stopped.

Another odd thing that I've noticed is that even with the coin door open, the coils for both the left and right sling both function in the coil test. The interlock disables all other coils in the game except for the light and right slings.

I'm very new to pinball ownership and really don't know where to start with this issue. Any suggestions as to what could be causing this behavior?

Appreciate the reply .. I'll visually inspect underneath the Left Ramp targets and go from there. At least I have a starting point. Thank you very much!

I'm having trouble tracing the wires out just due to all the cable ties, etc bunching everything together. Trying to avoid cutting the cable ties if I don't have to. Visually, the wires all look intact. Using my multi-meter, I don't seem to have continuity between the Left Ramp Left Target and the Left Ramp Right Target on the Green/Orange colored wire. Since these targets are only a couple inches apart I'd expect to see just a short jumper going between them, but both wires disappear into a bundle hundreds of other very tightly wrapped wires. Are the various switches wired in the same order that they are listed in in the matrix? Since Left Ramp Right Target is directly after Left Ramp Left Target, can I be 100% positive that there is nothing wired between them that I should be testing continuity at?

I know this question comes up from time to time and I just can't find the right search query to find a good permanent solution to this.

The passive diverter at the entrance to the guitar lock keeps loosening up. This causes the diverter to rotate as a result of vibrations from coils firing in the area (specifically the pop bumpers and possibly the upper PF flipper). This of course causes the balls entering the lock to not be evenly distributed (ie 3 balls in one side, 0 in the other).

The solution to this for me has been to disassemble that passive diverter, take out that tiny little washer thing that's supposed to act like a spring, and bend it a bit so that the passive diverter has enough resistance no not rotate on vibrations, but not be so tight that balls get stuck.

This works well but this solution only lasts a couple hundred games before I have to do it again and again and again. Is there a more permanent solution to this? Maybe an after market washer/spring that works a little better? It's a minor nuisance.

I've got the common issue where the passive diverter in the Gibson headstock becomes loose, and turning on it's own with the vibrations from the bumpers and other nearby coils. This of course results in the locked balls not being evenly distributed between the 2 sides. The solution is easy enough - remove the passive diverter, re-bend that little tiny washer thing that adds the tension. Re-assemble and it's good to go for a while. I'm just wondering you guys have any tips/tricks for a more long term solution? It seems that I have to re-do this fix every few months, and this is a game that sees pretty light usage these days (maybe a couple games a week).