Both are great pins.....prefer Rush because I worship them musically and I am not at all into the cartoonish nature of ANY pinball machine. Both machines flow wonderfully.....it's a close call. Personal preference of music wins out for me.

Just got emails Marcos has toppers and lights in stock.

So does this mean everyone else is getting their stuff in. Hopefully flipinout.

Sold out on the EL lights

It means you have the 1-2-3 and are ready to hit the Time Machine to collect the album.

Just got my Expression Lighting today from Marco. Can't wait to get it installed on my Premium and check out the difference.

$1600 topper… packaged like a $50 china knockoff

Broken in the box. I’m fairly certain they broken it putting it in the box and just said f it.

Packing inserts were not even installed correctly…

IMG_4958 (resized).jpegIMG_4959 (resized).jpegIMG_4960 (resized).jpeg

So I finally made it to Cygnus Book 1 wizard mode today! Can’t believe it has taken me this long. Managed to clear the mode and got all five achievements for it. Felt so awesome. Now to focus on Book 2. I haven’t even been close to starting that mode yet so I’m sure I’ve got a long road ahead of me.

Looking forward to the Pacific Northwest pinball show this weekend. So many new games I want to check out.

Damn that sucks. After such a long wait and now damaged. Really Sorry to see this. Hopefully they can get you a new one shipped today or just send you a new mold replacement instead of doing a full RMA.

Supposed to get mine today - was told this week, but was also told that 3 weeks ago so Stern is obviously trickling them out as they can…Already received John’s light mod yesterday so I’m ready to go. Really hoping I get the call to pick up today.

Agreed. Mine arrived undamaged, but it sure isn't packaged in any way shape or form to go through a shipper packaged the way it is. There's just foam on the ends (kind of) and bottom. Nothing on top. It should either be packaged protected completely or be put in another box with packing peanuts or similar.

I've received NIB pins from Stern with literally no packing on the bottom. Just wood against cardboard. It was a miracle that it arrived unscathed.

All but one of the many Stern toppers I've purchased over the years came directly from a local brick and mortar distributor. I drive the 1.5 hours each way to get them the second they arrive. The boxes are always pristine when I get them, so pictures like those above give me shivers! I'm thinking the toppers shipping in bulk in the same size boxes all stacked together helps them to arrive at the distros with a minimum of banging around, dropping, getting crushed, etc. For those having them mailed directly to them from a distro, maybe it is a good idea to ask for double boxing?

How white is the white setting? Every pic has looked blue-ish.

Yeah, mine wasn’t broken like that but I did notice they only put a foam piece on one side like the photo for some reason and one corner of the base got bent…

The white is definitely a cool white, and you are not wrong that it looks blueish. I wish there was a way to change the tone of the white but it appears that white is white on the remote. Some of the other colors that you can choose actually look pretty cool too, but in a perfect world it would be nice to have a warmer white than the LED strip provides. Still light years better than an unlighted topper, IF you are playing in a dark room!

I’m just even more convinced now that accessories are being outsourced.

The plastic shell is so fragile it’s really disappointing given the price point stern is selling at. You’d break this thing grabbing it anywhere but the base.

it's funny that you mention that. mine was the same, 2 end pieces of foam on the bottom, and 1 on the right end. nothing on the left.
and yet the 1st step of the instructions tell you to remove all [4] pieces of foam.

at $1699, I want that piece of foam that I was shorted. I specifically had my vendor overbox mine after seeing some of the damage on earlier received toppers

I have only ever ordered two Stern toppers and both came damaged, so I’m at a 100% damage rate. Luckily, my RUSH topper only needed the bottom mounting plate bent back to normal. My Black Knight - SOR topper had more extensive damage. The boxes are too thin and the packing material isn’t good enough. This is all probably a good indicator of Stern’s actual cost to make the product or they would do a better job on packaging.

Yes there are differences. I bought a BASIC set of sling protectors from a pro and quickly learned they were different. Didn't fit the premium. Largely because the vuk returns the ball to the right side, that plastic is different on the sling as well as (likely) the vuk area. The Premium has the forks on the slot behind the drops (not sure if plastics change for this or not). The ramps are slightly different and possibly the plastics in the sides might be? The area under the clock? The right scoop on a pro can't fire a ball but don't know if this affects the plastic (doubt it, but don't know).

Apparently my expression lights arrived at my distributor broken. Still waiting on topper as well. After waiting for forever for my GNR and months for my Rush it doesn’t bother me at this point. I’ll be stoked when they arrive, but I’m not going to stress about it. Helps that I haven’t ever had to put a deposit down for anything from them too though.

I need some help to understand why i cannot force a ski pass from right to left flipper. Ball travels up the right inlane after right flipping just fine but its momentum dies when returning to the rubber. Left corner nudge just results in a danger but there is not enough force to get the ball across. I use stock flipper rubber and my incline is 6.8.

For those that can successfully do this. What flipper rubber do you use? What incline? Anyone had to make adjustments to help that you can pass along?

Help!

Installed expression lights
But now keep getting this message (pictured below)

Then keeps telling me to power cycle.
And same messages issues again.

Anyone know ?

Thanks
F52D8A96-CBCE-44A7-A1CD-3723DEDAEA55 (resized).jpeg

There is no message shown, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say"check the dip switches"

Set your dip switches on the node board to on off on on. .. come wrong from the factory set to Node 8 (all off) and it needs to be a node 2

Key post with picture here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-official-rush-owners-club-1/page/279#post-7556704

Did you do it with the game on?
If so reboot your game it needs to update the board.
And it needs 48 volt power so pull the pin or leave the coin door closed

Mine came broken in the box. I had to ship it back for repair. It was missing the packing on one side and that is the side where the topper broke.

IMG_6882 (resized).jpeg

check the black wire, looks like the connector came out

532E5285-591A-4573-99A2-9A4BBDE54B12 (resized).jpeg

Why not post pass? Right to Left is not as easy as Left to Right, but it’s pretty safe.

It's obviously sloppy work when they are packaging it. The foam in mine had two end caps and one kinda scrap piece. Only one end cap (that holds around the base of the topper was actually where it was supposed to be. Pretty sure mine looks like they broke it trying to push it down into the box.

The whole thing looks like some cheap knockoff. I still want proof these are being built at Stern.. I'm highly suspect.

I just hope I get my damn topper soon. I'm At the point where I wish I could just cancel my order and reorder from a shop that actually has it in stock. tired of waiting as I Could of had this thing weeks ago. I'm Never preordering ever again!

Mine was shipped with one foam piece on the end and some cobbled up bubble wrap covering the top.
No damage but clearly a real miss on the approach to packing these Stern.

they sent me the wrong topper

First question, did you do all of your work with the power off? You should, if you haven’t.

Double check your work with the instructions provided, also you can compare to pics in my previous post, when I installed the LZ kit in my Rush.

It’s either something simple, or you did a no no, if you did anything with power on.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-official-rush-owners-club-1/page/184#post-7108717

Problem solved.

Expression Lights are working

I had this wire (picture below) reversed.

Corrected and all good.
Thanks to everyone who replied and advised.

69648DD9-5BE9-448F-966F-25DA9EAF3347 (resized).jpeg

Cmon stern, should of been done like this for $1700. Thanks to Space Coast Pinball, I now like our topper. Very easy 10 minute install. Well done John!!!!

Outstanding

Isn't the connector keyed so it can't be plugged in reversed?!

Do you know how expensive those plastic key pins are? They had to get cost cut, bro.

Arrived today from Nitro Pinball and had all the foam in correct spots and no damage to the topper! Waiting on Johns led illumination kit to install it. Looks and feels impressive so far!

AF91ABC0-AEFA-4211-AF93-D8D596962377 (resized).jpeg

Installed my EL kit this evening. Pretty straight forward and works great. What a huge improvement over "stock". Time frame to install was just a hair longer than listening to all 4 sides of All the World's a Stage on vinyl.

20230602_214615 (resized).jpg

20230602_224509 (resized).jpg

That's killer! Wow.

Delivery of my topper delayed to Tuesday now. Terrible.

What!? It's installed in 10 minutes!!!! Do it.

I'm calling shenanigans, it takes at least 15min to install the dozen EMI interference magnets!

I didn't try, but remain fairly certain that without them a space/time portal would generate inside the cabinet. No way Node 10 would survive. LOL

Topper install

D'oh! I'm not adequately caffeinated apparently, carry on.

I'm waiting on my espresso now....
But looking at the EL pics, I noticed all those... Crazy. Are they ferrite cores? Why are so many needed, or why needed at all?

Yep, and 3 different sizes as well, some looped and some not, on CAT5 as well as power. Crazy. PinMonk could probably explain it. FWIW, I ended up with a large one uninstalled and my game hasn't blown up yet. ....yet.

Yeah the kit seems to come with an extra one. The instructions are hard to follow for the ferrite cores, but no matter how I looked at it there was an extra one.