Question:
When manually plunging full power I can make the orbit 99.9% of the time, however, the auto-plunger, which is stronger than a manual plunge in failing to make the orbit 60 to 70% of the time.
I can see the ball guide on the shooter lane can be adjusted, but before I make changes, was wondering if there is anything else I need to adjust?

If your manual plunger is 99%, I wouldn't adjust the ball guide. That's telling you that isn't the issue...plus you do not want to mess that up. I would look at the "tines" of the auto plunger. Make sure the ball is resting equally on both and when it fires it isn't pushing more one way or the other. Make sure they aren't rubbing against the manual plunger. I have also found that bending the tines in slightly is usually beneficial. Bottom line is Stern's autoplunge mechanism is full of slop and there is really nothing you can do to get it 100% all the time. Some machines are more sensitive to this slop than others. You can try adding an E-clip to the auto plunge mechanism to take up some slop, but I haven't found a huge benefit in doing that. I would also just play with the mech a little and make sure there is no binding, no loose parts, screws are tight, etc. There is a ton of info here on Pinside on adjusting Stern autoplungers if you do a search.

Good luck!

Hey new owners, my buddy's game has arrived at our distributor. He isn't able to pick it up for about two week unfortunately. We were talking and I'm curious if all you new owners have the Insider hardware installed in your new games. The Insider program officially launched today and while Maiden isn't yet supported, Stern did say that all Stern titles coming off the line after Sept.1 would be Insider ready. What are your guys' manufacturing dates?

Mine is September 2021 and it does not have Stern Connect. I honestly do not need this for a home pin so I am happy mine does not have it.
I believe the next run will have these on, and the next run is schedule for sometime 2022.
I was told the next in line is DP, however, I am not sure it will have Stern Connect.

Thanks for the tip. I went ahead and check what you recommended to make sure and it is all good.
I ended up adjusting the shooter lane guide and it solved the issue 100%. It was literally 1.5 mm off adjustment.

Freaking love this pinball machine. I honestly can't stop playing it! I played every single game made by Stern and this is the one I can't literally stop playing, the flow is incredible and it is just a lot of fun to play. Absolutely love it and regret not getting it sooner.

August 29th, no insider connect on mine.

I agree with Pin_Fandango . I have no interest on the insider connect as it’s currently presented for my home pins.

what is everybody using for flipper power?
As we all know Stern flippers are super snappy and at max power I am worrying that something is gonna get bent out of shape...

I have everything stock except for the through eject to save the shooter lane but was wondering what setting are you running for flippers.
My game is at 6.8 degrees at the moment and really like it.

I got to cyborg multi ball the first night I got the game, lol, I have been trying to get there again! I dont even know how I got there or what needs to be done to get there! lol Will read the rules tonight.
freaking amazing pin!!

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I left mine at the stock power and all seems good. I could barely get a score over 200M. I suck.

I have over 7,000 plays at factory strength. All good. Just lower the trough eject.

It is either code or mechanical.
If mechanical check for binding, specially if it is on/off might be something loose.
If code, maybe a code update done wrong, this is common when ‘updating’ rather than flashing the card.
To prevent code issues, it is much faster and reliable to download the ‘card image’ rather than the code update.
Flashing guarantees the code 100% whereas an update in my experience isnt reliable as you are partially adding the new code rather than fully upgrading, even when fully ‘updating’.

Check the motor in the test menu too, and see how it behaves.
I dont have a premium so not sire if it is a motor or coil, either way, test menu, game features is where you gonna find it.

You too? Man I thought I was the only one !

Same here, brutal pin for me so far.

My manual and auto plunge were both working 4.0…until about 2 days ago. Now my manual is probably making the loop 75% of the time and auto is probably around 90%. I’ll look at trying to do what you did.

Hi guys new to the club and my 1st Pinside post.

Is there anyway to turn down the "callout" volume separate from the music volume? As you turn up the volume on this game the callouts drown out the music. It's very annoying.

Thanks,

In the adjustments there's a setting to adjust music volume, so presumably you could make that louder and then use a lower master volume setting. I want to say its in the 50s somewhere, but I've never messed with it.

You got me going down the right path. We have found that if you change "Game Adjustments" #173 Music attenuation (-10) and then change #174 Speech attenuation to (10) it sounds perfect with high volume. Thanks for the help brother!

Pinwalker

It is a very easy fix. Before you start bending the guide take it out and put it on a piece of paper and use it a template to draw the curve it currently has, that way, if you make an abrupt change, you can easily use the drawing on the paper as a guide for the ball guide (no pun intended - yikes).

I say this because I small adjustment is a big adjustment/change.

I recommend that you take the guide completely off. Easily done by remove the screw at the bend plus the leveler and it comes out, then you can make adjustments.

once you are done, I use the test-->coil-->single coil test and select the plunger

It might take you a couple trial and errors but in a nutshell, you do not want the ball too close to the ball guide across nor the tip of the small flipper, it has to pass right through the centre to accommodate for a least than perfect launch.

Ok that was long winded! good luck

and just wanted to say again in case I did not before:
Wow this machine in incredible. I will measure all games by this one now. I have to say I played all the Elwin's. This is by far my favourite so far but that might change if I spent more time on JP however, IM is just too much fun, literally, an absolute blast!

I just sold Elvira to buy this and I honestly do not miss Elvira HOH at all.

I think it was originally in the other adjustments menu as a single setting and got moved to 2 settings in the game specific adjustments in a code update somewhere along the way. Just checked and the manual has it as "Music Volume" @ 47 in standard adjustments but when I checked my actual machine 47 isn't even there.

I'm getting my very first pin next week and it's going to be Iron Maiden. Very fun game.

Question though, I drive a Subaru Forester and have about 31.5 inches clearance from the bed to the roof. Do you think I'm good for transporting it with the backbox folded down? The seller thinks I'll have an inch clearance and I'm not sure if I should just rent a pickup instead of chancing it.

Yes, you need 30-1/4” to clear.

Thanks, I should be able to manage it then. Won't be as bad as the Arkanoid cabinet I got. I had to drive 2 hours with the driver seat as far forwards as it could go, that sucked.

Thanks Fandango! I will give it a shot this week when I have some more time. Taking our 11yo to the Kiss concert tonight!

Lol, I have a Yukon that is between 31” and 29” on the side and I need a shoehorn and a lot of moving back and forth.

Got my premium thursday and loving it so far. Out of the box my shooter lane worked perfectly, but the right outlane was firing with the flipper so that was an easy fix. Have had a few stuck balls in the back ally when shooting the tomb shot but adjusting that rollover switch has mostly fixed that problem. Played about 50 games so far with my GC at 640M and up to 400M to get on the board, I've played on a pro quite a bit so my goal is to hit 1B within a week but I need to get the orb working properly..............

Now for the Orb newton ball: Sticks after a hard direct strike from below, then wont register until a hard side strike from the UR flipper. Seems I need to tighten it to the playfield and/or adjust the spoon / leaf? Anyone have a good tutorial pics or video on getting the spoon design dialed in? Appreciate the help!

I drive a forester and I've moved a few pins in it. I would imagine you're good.

Grab a dowel rod and set it under the pin once you start to load it. You can then "roll" the pin inside. It helps a great deal.

On mine, The manual plunger will barely make it around sometimes, but the auto plunger works awesome and makes it all the way every time. Also I notice the stainless steel play field guard around the top of the orbit is getting warped already. It slows down through there and sometimes gets stuck if moving slow. I will probably switch out to the cliffy carbon fiber version. Anybody use this carbon fiber version yet?

Same here, on 3 ocassions balls got held on the upper right.
Not sure what to do, but first guess is replacing it with something else.

I am not sure why Mylar did not work. Maybe it was installed poorly before? Always had great success with mylar.

Mylar doesn’t hold up well with all those ball drops. You’ll find pictures in this thread and others. It gets all chewed up and eventually creates a ball hang point. Sounds like the thin metal protector may not be tough enough for the job either. Mine has curled up a bit, but I haven’t got any ball hangs from it yet.

Quick question for the group, and really I'm fine either way...just want to see if anyone has done anything to address this particular circumstance:

I had owned premium in the past and recently picked up a pro because I just absolutely love the layout and the flow of this game...pro, premium or whatever. Very glad to have it back in the house and stoked to be back in the club.

Question is, unlike the scoop on the premium, the pro modes are started by hitting the center ramp to the bullseye target. After which time, ideally, the ball will roll off to the left and be stopped by a stand-up post while it introduces that mode. Sometimes, however, the ball falls over to the right, in which case, the introduction to the mode begins, but since the ball rolls out of that right orbit freely, the ball remains free to move/actively in play.

Is there any adjustments that I could/should need to make to ensure the ball more routinely rolls off to the left (to be stopped by the stand up post during mode introduction), or is this random left/right nature of the ball after hitting the bullseye target just par for the course (which my guess is that the answer is yes)?
Thanks!!

Some escapes to the right are inevitable, but if it's happening a lot the first thing to check is if the machine is properly leveled, particularly that it's not leaning right.

If you've got a newer run or have the metal playfield protector kit installed on an older one check if its curling/peeling as depending on how that's going it can deflect balls in all sorts of directions.

Yeah, inevitable movement of the ball I figured was par for the course. And certainly it's not every time, I would say maybe 30% of the time it rolls off to the right. I will double check on the level nature of the machine, I believe it is, but always good to double check. This is a new run game, so nothing curling, yet.

I noted curling on my new run before 200 plays. Probably before that, just wasn't bad enough to notice yet. I'm somewhere in the 700s now and so far I've been able to control it by pushing it back down every so often but its clear its not going to work forever.

I had that issue at first. And I still do except now it will fall down to the plastic, roll on the plastic bypassing the right up post, falling into the right orbit and back on the playfeild. Game is leveled at 6.7 degrees and is level left to right measured regularly using two phones, angle finder and digital torpedo level.

Beyond my comprehension but I just act as if it's normal play until I can figure something out.

I appreciate your response.
Yeah, I think/suppose it's inevitable to be a random flow of the ball after hitting that bullseye target. Sure, it would be ideal to consistently and reliably go to the left and get stopped by that uppost, give you a second to get ready for the mode, but I suppose it wouldn't be the first time in any random game that a mode is initiated but the ball remains active in play. I figured that was probably the deal, I just wanted to pan the audience and make sure I wasn't missing anything. Guess when a mode is ready and I hit that bullseye target I just need to be ready!

Mine is from the latest run. Built on 9/2/21. It has the thin stainless piece in the upper orbit. I bought this game brand new in a box delivered to my house. Zero plays. That piece has been curling up on mine since about 10 games. I hope the carbon fiber cliffy piece works better.

Maybe the carbon fiber one will hold up better than the Mylar. But I don't see how that is really going to protect your playfield from the ball impacts. What's really needed is a thicker piece of metal, like the old-school Cliffy's (before they all went "hyperthin").

I have the cliffy version, but I’m waiting to see if the stern protector to fails before replacing.

How many of you guys are adjusting the flipper position? I can’t seem to hit the sarcophagus loop shot with any regularity.

That’s terrible..mine was an August 29th build and I don’t have any problems yet. I did order a set of cliffys, but didn’t install the carbon because I was thinking to not mess with something that was working.

Yeah, just checked mine. Mine has a thin piece of stainless steel, I assume it's stuck down with adhesive? The game is pretty new and I don't have that many games on it yet. Fortunately I don't see any curling. I will definitely keep an eye on it though.

I am sure this has never been said on this thread before but this game is awesome. I have had this game for about two years and it will never leave. UP THE IRONS!!

Who else here is waiting for their Cliffy set to arrive and is using duct tape on the shooter lane because they are bananas like I am?

That's definitely only you. Lol

ok so I have been playing the game for 1 week now and wanted to know what is the general consensus about the difficulty of this game.

I am not by any means any pinball wiz but have been playing consistently for the last 10 months, pretty much daily, I think my game style improved but I can't really measure, all that to put in perspective what I am about to say. lol

How difficult do you guys find this game to be? I am consistently making 400 to 600M scores and although I have not gotten to fighting the devil I am just maybe a few days away from that if I continue playing it like this.
A typical game for me in completing cyborg, getting 2 Eddie cards, etc but I find I am getting to this point pretty organically without much strategy other than stacking maybe trooper MB with a mode (I have not found a better stack yet).

All that to say, I do not find this game very difficult at all, and at this rate I will most likely be finishing the game often.

Outlanes are wide open and pitch is 6.8 and the game plays very fast so I am thinking:
Is this game an easy game?
or is it high scoring?

or what?

I think you’re a solid player if you’re easily scoring at that level regularly with outlanes set at wide. It’s not an easy game, but like most all games if you learn the shots and know the code you will improve over time…….and outlanes wide open means you’re a masochist too.

Yeah I'd agree, that your pretty solid. I got mine on as easy settings as possible and my grand champ is like 410ish

I want to thank you guys for pointing out the orbit protector issue. I noticed some shots seemed to slow down too much as the went around the orbit and wondered why.

My new Pro (9/26 build) has the 'protector' pulling up about 1/4 inch on the right side. This appears to have amplified the many dimples on the playfield just past it (this is the only place I have dimples...so far).

Initially I thought the protector was overlapping the trooper post, but it looks like that is not the case. Game has less than 100 plays.

Looks like I better get me some Cliffy's.

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You are doing good for sure, but you might be underestimating how far you have to go yet. Cyborg is definitely the "easy" mini-wizard mode. One of my favorites though. That gives you one of the cards. Trooper card I also find pretty easy. The other two cards are more difficult for me. Soldier (?) for starting 2 Minutes to Midnight is tough but doable. Mummy I actually find to be the toughest card, and is usually the one blocking me from The Beast. That might just be me though. So you need all four for Number of the Beast. But that is still only scratching the surface if you really want to finish the game, which means getting to Run to the Hills. That requires 10 tomb awards. So stuff like level two cards, soul shards for all of the modes, 6-way combo, etc. Basically you have to do everything and do all of it perfectly. That is a WHOLE different ballgame, and I doubt there are very many humans capable of getting there. To me, The Beast is the wizard mode, but it is nice knowing there is one more layer to strive for.

For reference, my GC score is 1.2 billion, with the rest of my high scores over 600M. I have battled the beast once so far, and I think only gotten one level 2 card (Trooper) a few times. I am a decent player, but not top level by any means. I doubt I will ever see RTTH, but will happily keep trying.

Scoring is easy. If you are indeed "finishing" the game any time soon you are an amazing player. To get to the final wizard mode "Run to the Hills" you have to play a pretty much perfect game, and with factory settings it's hard to get all that done in five balls (3 + 2 EB). I've owned the game for three years and have only gotten to 8 Tomb Treasures a handful of times, and I would consider myself a pretty skilled player. Most streams I've watched it takes about an hour of play to complete the game. Getting to "Number of the Beast" is challenging and super fun, but it is nowhere near the end of the code of this pin.