It's commonly recommended specifically so the mylar can be pulled off again later without damaging the playfield. Less important on a clearcoated game than older stuff, but

I might be one of the only people who appreciated the weird side rolls that would make it into the scoop!

It still sticks great over wax. The key is a flat uniform surface.

I use wax under it everytime

I wouldn’t have posted pics of the new protector if I’d known how folks in this thread would react to them. I feel bad for the engineer(s) at Stern reading this thread. And no suggestions for an alternative, just endless criticism. I’m not gonna let any of it bother me. It’s a solid fix, it’ll do the job, and a year from now the hysterical reactions will seem silly.

Rush's new YYZ video sure would look good on the backboard screen

Cliff will come up with a great solution. Stern ripped off his steel protector idea years ago when he innovated it and gave not so much as a "thank you" originally, so I do not feel the least bit bad when I criticize their less-than efforts to do what he does best. Stern gets as much protector respect as Stern gave Cliff when they ripped his innovation off.

Mylar can be a bitch to get up. Over the years I have seen a number of people recommend putting down wax before applying Mylar and that is how I have always done it. If for some reason I have to remove it, I want it to come up. Never had an issue with adhesion.

Ya.. That's what I was told also. Make complete sense.

Ok. Flipper coil temp testing is done on RUSH. I did it on an LE and played for 2 hours straight (best score ~840 million, still barely understanding the game yet).

Overall, not bad. It has some interesting things going for it due to the way the software has what seemed like weird delays and holding some balls in the scoop in multiball rather than having them all out all the time in multiball. Playing it, I wonder if it isn't an attempt at temperature management. Even a flipper break of 3-5 seconds frequently enough can help keep flipper temps down. Whether intentional or not, I think it helped slow the heat advance on RUSH. Temps rose pretty slowly for the first ~40 minutes and flippers felt very good. In the second hour I was well into the fade zone, but the only things I noticed is more frequent bricking shots and I was having increasing trouble hitting the time machine ramp and making it with the right flipper. Just more rollbacks on the Time Machine ramp from the right flipper in the 2nd hour.

Generally speaking, the right flipper ran hotter than the left, except for one brief period of about 15 minutes where the left and right flip-flopped. Glancing down at the temp display while it was happening, I was surprised to see that in real time and paid attention to what I was doing to try to understand why. I think it was because I was trying to hit the right ramp repeatedly in a multiball, so I was working the left flipper more than usual. I also was using the left flipper more than I generally did to hit the time machine because the right flipper was having trouble with rollbacks. So it seemed that for this brief time those two extra tasks together in addition to normal flipper duty pushed the left flipper to be hotter than the right for the only time period in the 2 hours.

But overall, even though the peak temps put it on the moderate to severe category, it FELT like mild to moderate to me. And those breaks in the action where it's holding your ball while it's telling you or showing you something really helped dial back temps after a multiball.

Here's the data from the test. I wrote down temps every 5 minutes, but in the interest of clarity, I deleted temp labels (just the text, not the data) that were similar as the graph was too messy with all the temps on it. The graph data still reflects the temp, it's just not labeled if I deleted it to make room. All the peak temps are on the graph, though.

I'll be doing the "with Tibetan Breeze fans" 2 hour test as well, but that's honestly not as important as the stock temps because the story in every case is the fans bring the temps down a LOT and fade of any kind ceases to be a problem no matter how long you play. Might not have time to do it until next weekend as I'm still trying to catch up on GnR diverter/magnet coolers and godzilla magnet coolers, but I will do it soon and post an updated graph.

rush-temp-2022-03-12 (resized).jpg

Nice!! And I see you've also added Rocket City's start button mod. Awesome!!

CAMEL TOES ® scoop update

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How did you get the mylar to curve around the hole uniformly so no kinking up etc?
I have automotive grade thick mylar that is used to protect car hoods from stone chips. Thinking of using this for that scoop.

I wouldn't feel too bad for the engineers or anyone else at Stern. It's not like they didn't know this was a problem from the very first test game played at the factory. Someone made the business decision to "ship it and we'll deal with it later" -it sometimes happens when you are schedule-driven. That's fine, but when you do that you need to immediately institute a recovery plan to cut off the inevitable shit storm that will ensue. First step of the recovery plan should have been to preemptively shut up the Pinside chatterheads by declaring and owning the problem immediately. Instead they let it be discovered, rediscovered, and regurgitated ad nauseam - death by a thousand mean and nasty posts if you will. The second step should have been to contract THE subject matter experts on a problem like this - Kerry or Cliff. Pay one of them $10K to solve the issue and let your customers know they are resolving the issue - a small price to pay to keep the angry mob at bay. Yes, Stern's in-house fix will protect one of the scoop holes from damage (they seem to still be ignoring the other one for some reason!), but the resolution has to be not only functional, but aesthetically pleasing. You wouldn't buy a car with a bumper like the one in the picture below, even though it is technically functional.

I do agree with you on one thing, this will all seem silly, but not in a year, more like a month, when Kerry or Cliff come up with the real solution.

WTF (resized).jpg

At least it can be played without further damage with the new fix. It was in self destruct mode before. Eventually at least.

Someone made that decision, yeah, but it probably wasnt an engineer?

Definitely wasn't an engineer!

What exactly are folks expecting from Cliff and Kerry Stair? I think the fix HAS to prevent shots from the upper flipper from hitting the bottom scoop. You could go with a stronger grade of metal, but eventually those hits from the side will chew up any protector.

Can some owners talk about tweaks they’ve made to shorten ball times?

I’m interested in this title, but was a little concerned about ball times after playing on location.

Were the outlane posts in lower or middle position? That affects it a ton. Doing "install competition" also helps. It makes some of the Multiballs a bit harder to get to, and more importantly sets the adjustment which disables lighting the outlane saves during multiball. There's also a setting for how hard it is to light the outlane saves. Making the scoop feed less controllable also helps a ton

Lay a piece over the hole with plenty of margin. Cut an X shape with an xacto knife so you have triangular shapes to fold against each edge. Now, cut 4 rectangles that fit each edge and stretch from black key lines and wrap around to underneath of the pf. Replace protectors on top.

Looks like they may have been open?

6ECEB5A8-396C-42A0-A0C3-39EEE24BBC5F (resized).jpeg

If you were playing a pro it shipped default at middle. Premium and LE shipped at the bottom spot

Really? I do appreciate the point that you make in saying folks posting need to come up with solutions rather than beating up the engineers; however with that said the engineers at Stern are professionally paid employees assigned with the task of producing a sound product. If that does not materialize then I do feel people have the absolute right to air their frustrations.

Operative term here is that they are employees. That doesn’t make them perfect. And as an engineer, Things that look great on paper or even in test or not always cut out for production. Some people don’t buy first year models of cars because their tolerance for the kinks is really low.

It is also pretty common for the first runs of something to be the first real test runs. Chevy Volt… Toyota Prius…. Even the Tesla. All had first run issues and those engineering teams are a lot bigger than Stern’s.

So watch how the evolution occurs and see what version 2 and 3 look like.

I have a pro with 300+ games on it. Mylar on the front scoop and no protector. I probably won’t put the stern protector on. Maybe a Cliffy or other. And I may just make one myself. But the game is holding up great with mylar and we play it daily at home. It just isn’t that bad of a problem.

100%

It can never be played

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So I've had my premium for a few days now and I'm really digging it. Did anyone get any spare plastics or decals with their game? I got none, not even a key fob. Not a big deal, but I'd thought I'd ask. Maybe they just forgot to put them in my game.

Anyone else getting a lot of shots bouncing back out of the VUK shot? I may need to add some foam or something.

Stern Insider has a nice condensed rule summary. Made it into a printable PDF - a lot easier to read than the tiny print rule card! Print and keep by your game

Rush Rule Summary.pdf

Unfortunately nothing came with any of the machines..

I got basically an empty baggie,I have an ad for it on FB

I’ll give you $100 for it! It will go great next to my empty baggie!

FWIW, the LAX show is closing in an hour. I looked at every Rush (I think there are 6), and none of them showed any signs of wear on either scoop. Just a data point.

None of the wizard modes are programmed yet correct?

Very good news - hold the fort until the cliffy reveal!

Thanks for update. May be resolved.
We all wanted a fix for the scoop issue but never imagined it being a scoop cover too which will impact ball path in game play. May not matter by tomorrow or a year from now, but it’s quite a change.
Rush is a real fantastic game either way.

Correct

Did anyone increase the auto pull ? (Whatever it's called) my balls don't seem to make it around the loop

Are they rattling? If they are, it robs energy and could cause what you describe. If you don't have a smooth auto launch, you need to make adjustments.

well its been about 3 weeks since I brought it home and I am very happy with this homerun of a machine.

Also is there a way to reset the high scores ? My dad's not very good but I'd like to have him on the scoreboard haha

Yes - in the utils menu if i recall

standard adjustments in the menu starting at 35

Bless

Totally agreed!

It looks like it's rattling, but hard to tell exactly. Can you shoot that again with slo-mo mode on the phone? It's the best feature ever for diagnosing these issues.

EDIT: Using youtube's controls, I can slow it down some. It looks like it's catching air on the ramp flap and hitting the underside of the plastic ramp above. If you shoot with slo-mo again, if you can do the overhead AND ALSO a shooter lane view looking forward from the shooter position, it should make it clear.

IF catching air is the main issue, then turning down the auto-launch power might fix the problem for you.

Mine does too. The auto launch on this machine flat out sucks. I think the issue (on mine) is the under the flipper shot. It hits the wall/corner on that gap.