I have a stern TWD Premuim. I got it 2 years ago and it has always had this problem but I just decided to try and get to the bottom of it.

Upon initial power up, go into coil test and ball trough eject.
There is nothing wrong with the trough eject, but I use this to get balls into the shooter lane.

First 5 or so auto launches will get the ball all the way up and hit the tower target and into the skill shot lanes above the pops.

After about 10 the auto launch will make it just to the star rollovers.

After 15 or 20. Just making it outta the shooter lane and dribbling through that first gate and down to the flippers.

After that it won’t even clear the shooter lane and ball rolls back down shooter lane.

I have checked the auto launch mech and all was good. Compared it to my other games that have the same mech and looks identical. Nothing binding up. Launcher appears to be hitting the ball squarely.

I ordered a new coil sleeve and a plunger assembly and replaced them just out of “why not”. No change.

I have tested the resistance of the coil and it gets 4.0 Ohms just like my other games with same coil. That matches what the coil label says it should have. Confirmed it has the proper coil in it. (I’m not the first owner of this game so you never know the history)

Is this normal for TWD cause it’s shooter lane has two one way gates and has to wind around the pops and up to the top? Or is there something I’m missing?

Any ideas of things to check or other owners of TWD comparing their exp with their machines would be nice.

Thanks

Ok heres some pics as requested

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Manual operation of mech

Some autoplunges after boot. Inconsistent results. Some made it to top lanes others just to the first pop bumper

I did. Just took a but to upload the videos to youtube so was giving ya a chance to see them and see if that was still recommended

Will try and get back to you

Adjusted them some and its better. But still not consistently getting up to top lanes. I held up the first one way gate and that helped. I might adjust that some so its up a bit more and takes less force to push it

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Kinda hard to get a good pic of that gate. Should it be leaning out more toward the pops/playfield?

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Appreciate the feedback!

I did notice that the ball hits the rail that runs up the left side of the star rollovers high like near the prison and not down at the curved part by the pop bumper. So maybe lowering that point you circled might make it transition to rolling up the second rail smoother

Ok i think i have it working pretty good after just fiddling with the kicker arm and how the ball sits on it in the shooter lane. I noticed there was a fair amount of side to side rattle motion on the slowmo shots that didnt make it.

Cant explain how to fix other than i just fiddled with it till i eliminated the side to side rattle motion with most shots.

Thanks for the help!

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Heres a before slo-mo video of all the side to side motion up the lane.

After slo mo

Thanks chuck for all your help. Think its pretty good now. Probably wasted $$$ buying parts but machine is not going anywhere so im good for the long term now.

Thanks again