No, but they apparently built at least a few at the end of August.

https://twitter.com/sternpinballinc/status/1431638917950971907

What was the build date and does it have insider connected installed?

Thanks. Interesting, I thought they were closed down on the weekends.

I hope they make enough with this run to at least handle the May premium orders before they start cranking out Godzillas. I haven't heard anything from my distributor, and wouldn't have even known they were running them earlier than October if it wasn't for that Stern twitter post.

I was told a month ago they wouldn't get any more before October, but that was before this unplanned premium run. No idea where those are going, since I've only seen one person posting that they got one recently. I was expecting around October all along, so nothing really to complain about there, but if it is an extra $1000 I'm not going to be too happy about that considering I have a signed invoice with the old price. What a shitty way to do business if stern can't guarantee the price a distributor will pay for an order from 4 months ago. I get that some may order way more games then they expect to receive based on anticipated future orders, but stern should at least lock in the price they will pay for a specific number of games. That way a customer could be told that they are outside of their allocated games, the price isn't locked and may go up, and they could try to find one somewhere else.

It puts the distributors in a very bad spot if the prices for the number of games allocated to them by stern for specific production runs can go up. Customers that put down deposits on games will either be pissed off, cancel their orders, or both. Now if they took pre-orders for games beyond what they were allocated then that's on them unless they made it clear that the price wasn't locked in for those orders.

Is my relatively small deposit considered a partial payment if I got an invoice?

I guess we'll find out sooner or later. Imagine the shit show if some distributors honor the old price and some don't for people that ordered back in May.

Flip N Out said it is December now on their podcast.

That's good to hear. For those wanting pros it looks like my local distributors have spots still available for a November build.

My distributor just told me this afternoon that the 12/1 stern production update they received has the premiums being built the weeks of 12/20 and 12/27. No word on how many. So that clears things up

My distributor requested payment today for the premium I ordered in May. Production is supposed to start the week of 12/20.

My distributor told me on Monday that production of premiums is supposed to begin on 12/20, and run through the following week. They were calling to confirm they received my payment of the balance due that they requested a couple days prior. They didn't sound fully confident that stern would start building them on the 20th (mentioned in progress BM66 build wasn't going perfectly) or that they would get all of their allotment from this run.

I guess I need to get my money back from my distro then. Not sure why I was invoiced a few days ago for the balance due unless they got some bad info from Stern. I'll take the over on February or whenever they say it is rescheduled it for now. On the fence about cancelling too. We'll see what they say about the increase.

I was told they might build "a couple" Mandos this week if they get done building the games that have licensing expiring at the end of the year. So if you are at the top of your distributor's list there's at least a slim chance. The run is now scheduled for February. I'm staying in because I still do want the game, and even if I change my mind between now and then I shouldn't have too much trouble selling/trading it.

I know, it almost seems like they are releasing conflicting info on purpose just to confuse the shit out of everyone. My distro told me February last week which matches FlipNOut's info.

Cool, let us aspiring owners know what the build date is when you get it.

He confirmed that here too: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-is-on-the-line-at-stern-pinball-delays/page/8#post-6695961

Sucks we couldn't get into the December run before the January price increase. At least we should get ours before the next price increase...I think.

I don't have the game yet, but when I get it I'm holding that button down and going with the flamethrower every time.

If there's a cheap-ish 3D hologram fan out there with an HDMI input that would be pretty sweet. The ones I've seen just loop through stuff on a card.

Wow, I've got one coming sometime in the next few days that I hope shows up a little better shape.

It looks like a forklift was driving by and snagged it.

Mine was supposed to get delivered yesterday, but has been stuck in Ohio for the last couple days due to the ice & snow, so it is now supposed to show up on Tuesday. R&L, so I'm hoping for a mostly intact box with as few forklift holes as possible.

Just right-click on the "Download Game Code" button and select "Copy link address". Paste it into your browser and change 1_02 to 1_01.

That should work for both the raw images and the spk files. I don't know how long they keep the older code around, but 1.00 and 1.01 are still there.

I finally got a premium on Tuesday after waiting since May. I had a Pinwoofer GT ready to be installed, but I put a couple dozen games on it with the stock speakers first. I didn't adjust any settings, but the sound was very hollow with the stock speakers. The Pinwoofer install took about 20 minutes and couldn't have been easier with the included speaker brackets, wiring harness, and power/audio boards that piggyback on the stern connectors in the backbox. I used the recommended amp settings from the Pinwoofer blog and it sounds great now. I'll probably make a few minor adjustments, but it is pretty close as-is. Those stock Stern speakers and sub are really, really cheap. You'd think Premiums would get something a little better than that.

I could have went the DIY route, probably with an external sub, car speakers, and an amp, but this was way easier with the benefit of using an amp and speakers that are proven to work well in a pinball machine.

I originally only put the end bolts on too, but then I figured since I'll never take the side armor off I might as well put those screws in, and it looks a little better without those empty screw holes.

Thanks to the posts about fixing the left orbit SDTM issue. It wasn't a problem the first several games, but got really bad yesterday, so I guess the guide moved. Not surprising since I had a few loose screws, including at the entrance gate to the upper playfield which flew off mid-game. After that I checked everything.

I did have a bad switch (59) on the upper playfield exit that I had to replace. It almost never registered, even when manually testing it, and when I pulled it out to check things it didn't have that distinctive click when pushed. For now I replaced it with a slightly modified rollover switch.

Anybody having the ball fly off the metal ramp at the intersection if you hit the right scoop from the left flipper? I've had that happen a few times now.

I just offset my Stern Rev C shaker by 90 and the set screw was a 3/32 hex. Also used a little silicon spray lubricant to get rid of a minor squeak. Much better now.

The ball bumps off the post at the end of the left orbit when coming around, so you need to adjust the metal guide to be out towards the center of the playfield a bit farther. See the picture here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/this-is-the-way-the-mandalorian-owners-club/page/65#post-6699324

Has anybody seen the playfield and screen go dark, and the flippers die mid-game? Sometimes it is preceded by the screen going off/on a couple times, sometimes not. It doesn't completely lose power, and if I open the coin door and pull the interlock, it will restore full power to everything, and the in progress game keeps going. I saw it happen once a couple days ago and I didn't need to do anything at that time since it recovered on it's own after a second, but it has gotten worse today. Sometimes I can play a 2-3 games in a row and its good, then it happens a couple times within 5 minutes.

The connections at the power supply are good, nothing loose there, and I've checked every other connector too as far as I know. I was going to play with the coin door and backbox open to be able to see that status lights on the boards show when it happens. Any suggestions?

First, insider connect isn't enabled yet for Mando.

Might be similar to what I've been seeing: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/this-is-the-way-the-mandalorian-owners-club/page/86#post-6802692

Check the power status LEDs on the CPU board in the backbox and see which ones are lit. My issue was intermittent, and I saw the VNB (node bus voltage) light would go off/on when the issue was occurring.

Yesterday I found that the ground wire for the CPU board (upper left 48V connector CN7) was a little loose and had backed out of the connector a bit, and due to the wire tie for that bundle of wires was getting pulled on. I created a little slack on that wire, and pushed it all the way back into the connector. After that I played for about an hour, let it sit in attract mode for a couple hours, then played again for about an hour more without seeing any issues, so I'm hoping that was causing it since it seems like the kind of thing a flaky ground would cause, but we'll see.

Good luck. When mine would die I could usually get it to come back by opening the coin door and pulling the interlock, but not always. And sometimes everything would just start blinking off and on. If it isn't an issue with the 48v connector at the CPU board the only advice I can give is to start checking for any loose connectors, and loose wires going into connectors.

Too bad it didn't have IC a couple days ago because I could have gotten an achievement for scoring 500mil while the playfield and flippers randomly lose power.

Carl should say "Eye of the Tiger, Mando!" once in a while.

No issues installing the new code and getting it connected and registered. I'm really glad my wifi password isn't that complicated or I'd still be entering it. WPS would have been easier.

Glad you got it sorted out. Was the node board itself bad or just one of its connections?

They got back to me almost immediately with some initial basic things to check, but I had figured it out on my own by the time they replied again the next morning. I guess it depends on who you get.

I originally didn't put the screws in either, but for some reason the empty screw holes bugged me. There's a little rattle without them since this side armor only has the larger bolts at each end since none of the rail screw holes are used.

If I'm understanding, you moved the post?

You want to move the metal guide out towards the center of the playfield to clear the post. There's just one screw that holds the guide in place near the post, and you really need to torque that thing down to keep it from moving back in again.

My January build has that screw, but it still had the issue because it wasn't tightened enough and the guide moved. I had to really tighten that down to get it to stay put.

Me too on the helmet gate screw. I guess installing it is a 2 person job.

You could try removing the post mentioned here too. It helped on mine.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/this-is-the-way-the-mandalorian-owners-club/page/92#post-6847842

I've had to replace 3 of the back panel GI bulbs now (112-5034-WW). Anyone else seeing that?

No issues with the replacement bulbs going out again so I'm guessing the stock ones were crap quality.

Same here. I needed to do it twice since I didn't tighten it enough the first time, but it hasn't moved back now after a couple hundred games.

Does anyone have any tips for the ambush u-turn shot going SDTM from the left flipper? Game is level and it doesn't happen every time, but enough to be annoying. Can the exit guide be adjusted any?

I placed a rubber ring underneath the screw here (not my picture). A few washers would probably work too. That plastic just needs to be raised up a bit.

Edit: And while you're fixing that remove that unnecessary post next to the pop bumper which can also cause hang ups.

5f81bbb4562c1d92343e2798f8e1d4b4b33f1a67 (resized).jpg

Noted, I assume all risk I've had it removed for hundreds of games now. The angle between the pop bumper and the spinner doesn't seem to lend itself to many direct hits, but anything's possible.

It would be interesting if they added that post after noticing issues with the spinner during testing, but somehow missed the cracking plastic ramp and diverter.

Has anybody seen this one before? Hitting the action button for the amban rifle add-a-ball a little too late after going down to 1 ball on the victory lap of I Like Those Odds put the balls back in play but the mode ended. So a non-multiball multiball mode ensued. Which then made it a little challenging to buy stuff at the foundry.

So that cool Black Knight topper released about 2 1/2 years ago was $450 (is that right?) and the Mando topper is $2000?

It's almost like they priced it so they wouldn't need to produce that many, while making the same amount of profit (or more).

I'd be willing to try if somebody confirms the node board part number and I can find one somewhere.

Yeah I just saw that in the manual too, and it's been in there for months. Those probably won't be available anywhere for a while if all the newer toppers use that version.

I've used black industrial pipe, elbows, and flanges that you can get at home depot to wall mount helmets. You could probably rig up something with that stuff, using a board that sits on top of the backbox as a base.

I'm guessing they will tell you to try reseat the SD card, and if that doesn't work to try a new SD card with the latest image file.

Just needs to be a class 10. 32GB is big enough.

After finishing This is the Way the missions and MBs reset were still playable, but not the encounters. If you get through either the missions or MBs again do you get to play those mini wizard modes a 2nd time?

My local distributor has a special on the topper for $1700 delivered.

I bought my Mando from Will. Just passing along the info on the topper in case anyone wants a "bargain" and that new ones can be found for under MSRP. I just went with a Mando helmet on mine.