I just took delivery of an IM Premium and it seems many of the problems from years past have been addressed. The sticker on the back shows it was minted December 2021. It is every bit as excellent as I could have imagined having this rig in the basement.

The good: full plunge (orange spring) goes all the way around as does the auto plunge. I didn't have to touch any adjustment there. It came with a metal playfield protector under the Pharaoh. And at only 70 plays, seeing the abuse it has already taken WOW no kidding. Cliffy's are on the way.

The bad: the newton ball. One came out of adjustment on arrival. What I did to solve it was actually bend the metal bracket holding the leaf spring so the spoon sits centered on the metal pin and some appropriate bending with a leaf switch adjustment tool. Blue locktight on the pin too. We'll see how they get on.

More good: That's literally the only thing I've had to adjust was one of the newton ball switches, and only the one. The orb ball was fine out of the box. It came with 1.10 on it. The stern insider thing is there. I've not connected it yet but might. It works, it knows it's not connected to the mother ship when I scan my barcode.

Mods done: Shaker. No brainer. Stupid easy install. They put the mounting lugs into it already so you just screw it down and plug it in and service menu turn it on. Huge difference in gameplay feel.

Looking for: IRON MAIDEN PINBALL PHARAOH PLASTIC PROTECTOR. I've already cracked it. sigh. Can't find em, if anyone has a lead, TIA. I'm on the email notification list at mezelmods.

Anyway, CHEERS! UP THE IRONS!!

Mine from Dec 2021 had the pencil shaped. And yeah, sometimes they get stuck. Not looking forward to maintaining these, we'll see how it goes.

As mentioned... "It is."

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Stylin'...

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He looks right well in-game too.

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Search "neca powerslave"

Why need a full manual plunge? I also have an assortment of random LEDS not working right now on this brandy new rig... sigh.

I have my Neos not connected to any flasher at all right now. We think my machine has some ground fault problem. When I connect the flasher to the pharaoh I get an overcurrent fault in the setup menu. Connecting it to the right side orb flasher works fine but like you mention is too much flashing for my tastes. And you can't turn down the brightness on the flasher on the Neos, I wish we could. I learned after receiving the Neo, that the Ultra+ version adds the functionality of turning down the brightness and/or even adjusting the colors on the flashers, in addition to connecting to up to 4 different flashers.

I've actually ordered some tint tape that I'll play with a bit to see if I can find a happy medium but for now - the flashers are just disconnected entirely. I don't view this problem as a total waste of the pinstadium neos, quite the opposite. The extra lighting on the playfield is perfectly adequate for my use case which is playing in a dark (ish) room. I'm glad I put 'em on. Knowing what I know now about the version differences I might have saved the extra coin for Ultra+ so I could have flashers without retina burn but.. that's a substantial increase in cost.

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"Mode practice" - a friend with an AIQ showed me how it has a way to get into mode practice, not sure what they called it. Instead of playing a regular game you select a mode and just play it. Does this exist on the IM? Haven't found anything about it.

There is a tech issues thread I've found helpful: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/iron-maiden-issues/page/50

Catch a ball and hold it: Stats screen. Another appropriate way to see the stats: at the beginning of the ball BEFORE you plunge, just bump the plunger to make the ball hit that switch. Walla, stats screen.

+1 for the pinmonks. Super easy and look nice. Couple screws out, couple screws back in, done.

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Is one ever "done"? Recent additions are Tilt graphics on the ramps, ULEKstore heiroglyphics on the two bats, Titan pinball silicone posts.

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Mine minted in Dec 2021 came with this metal protector. It really takes a beating and didn't last long. Definitely better than nothing, I'd do it for sure if it was the only option. Cliffy's carbon fiber protector is there now, so far it looks like it's going to be a better protector.

I tried to get a good image showing the bends, you can almost see it. Somewhat like a "crease" down the middle from the repeated blows, it not only lifted up on the ends so the ball would get stuck or disrupted by it, but it lifted up all the way down the length of the sides also, like a taco shell. I had to remove it after about 600 plays.

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Wondering if you installed the protector on the left or the right side of the hole. I think it's supposed to be "behind" the drop targets, on the right side of the hole.

That being said, I also have the ball rest there if the top two drop targets are down, quite often actually. The ball rests on "top" of the third drop target. I can give the rig a bump to dislodge it but I usually take that opportunity to breathe for a few seconds and wait for the "ball search" routine pop the targets up to send the ball out.

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Nice! How'd you screw it down?

I had this problem, and it finally resolved and I only "think" I know why/how it happened. I think I turned the machine off when the (edit: anubis, not sarcophagus) was maybe in the action of raising or lowering, I'm not sure. When it came back on, the test logic got confused where it was "supposed" to be, vs where it was "reporting" it was.

Anyway, I just started monkeying about in the back there with the power on, manually clicking or holding switches, and telling it to raise or lower and then finally just got it back in the logical "groove" that it expected it to be in and the error cleared.

Hope it helps.

I don't have a pro to compare it to but I can say the newton balls are a pain in the a$s to keep in adjustment. Maybe eventually I'll find a happy spot where it's more stable but I'm not there yet, about 800 plays in.

Never any problems with the captive ball. You might actually be seeing the ball drop over the sarcophagus while it's already got a ball locked in there, so rolling over it and dribbling onto the playfield is normal and expected.

Given the option, I'd choose the premium. The guardian shot makes it unique, vs just throwing it up the middle ramp all the time. The ramp lifting for shots to the underworld to start a mode is a nice touch.

TAKE MY MONEY!!

FWIW, my premium minted in Dec 2021 came with the leafs bent like that. They're still fiddly but I think it's settling in finally at about 1k plays. I fiddle less now than initially. One of the plastic spoons is actually cracked so I'm threatening it with replacement next time I have to adjust it.

+1 for the Cliffy carbon fiber. I lifted the bent metal gently to get it off. Cleaned up the glue residue with some alcohol. Waxed and installed the Cliffy. No problems since, going on 800 plays or so.

FWIW I would upvote this wherever and whenever possible. Super cool functionality to be able to jump into a mode and play it.

To expo or not to expo, that is the question.

I'm considering hauling my Dec 2021 premium to the local expo here in Denver for a weekend of abuse.

Thoughts? Hell no don't do it? Why subject your machine to that damage? Or it won't be sooo bad? I have no idea how many plays it would get over the course of three days. It's at only 1200 now.

The benefit of course is free admission for the weekend for bringing a machine. Plus just sharing this awesome machine, I'm sure people would appreciate it.

I'm handy, so I'm not worried about some extra cleanup during and after or maybe fixing something earlier than I would have otherwise.

I have a virtual pin I'd bring if I don't bring the IM. Hauling one or the other and not both is the design requirement so I'm choosing which to bring. The vpin has been there 3 years in a row.

Well, for sure the pinmonk fans help with flipper fade over the course of an hour while I'm playing it. Running all day with players waiting in line would be another whole level of coil test..

Game Exchange usually has a whole front row of a dozen or 15 new machines so it'd have all that good company.

Among the chores of the puppy is helping Daddy play the flashy-noisy-shiny-ball game.

http://duprints.com/unpub/bodhi-pin.mp4

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I quite like it...

Had to file a small bit of the sculpt away for the guardian mech. Also had to take a rasp to the wood above the guardian, his ears were hitting the top and preventing full travel. Recommend adding three posts on the right side, just like his instructions say to include on the left. Also paint the white wood behind the guardian (I used sharpies) else you see that ugly white when it's in the down position.

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#1 is probably the white original pharaoh eye light. if you have the red eyes now, that could be the original white light.
#2 probably belonged to an LED strip that was connected to your #5 mystery wires and is now missing.

FWIW with pinstadiums - no lighting problems with the new backboard. I can't imagine this game without the pinstadiums, and not only for this reason.

I "painted" mine with shades of copper/gold/brown sharpie to make a good color match with the backboard. They're still visible screws of course, but at least they're not shiny silver. I've lost that "plug" that covers the big screw since I took this pic so I need to do the same thing there.

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As much as the original red IC is so ugly, it's not that hard to dress it up. I hit it with some black sharpie and glued this image on.

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If it's like mine the ears of the guardian are hitting some piece of trim wood on the way up before the "up" switch engages. Lior's suggestion is to bend the switch metal piece that senses the guardian "up" position so it triggers earlier in the upward travel. I took a rasp to the offending piece of wood. (image) Super easy.

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++1 for the pinstadiums. I've said before and I'll say it again (here it comes) I can't imagine this game without them.

I left the apron in black and went this purple lighting for down low:

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Yes indeed. An uncommon Dec 2021 minting.

PSA - Plunger spring strength? At about 1250 plays I was struggling with all the normal adjustments related to the skill shot but finally found the original orange plunger spring just needed to be retired. A new orange spring restored the same original skill shot feel.
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After selecting the song you want, bump the plunger so the ball touches the first rollover switch. That "locks" the song selection.

Fans on those lower flipper coils are a must IMO. Without cooling fans can't even run it for a half hour before noticeable shooting difference.

Yet another autoplunge tip:

While "de-burring" the shooter lane metal wall is a thing, over time my gentle scrubbing (~1400 plays and I've deburred maybe 10 times) actually bent the metal enough to knock it out of line. The ball was hitting the flipper every time.

I discovered this when I finally resigned to lifting the plastics and loosening the screw to move the wall. I found that the screw had dug itself a "home" and it was near impossible to get the wall to stay anywhere other than where the initial installer placed it. Tighten the screw, it scoots back into its old "butt-groove".

Lineman's pliers, and a gentle bend on the very end of the metal wall and I'm back to 100% auto and manual full plunges that go all the way around. Back to being able to drop it in for the 15M skill shot again.

I hit it with a sharpie and stuck this one image in there:

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Don't give up. In my experience once it got dialed in, it's been very little upkeep. haven't had to touch either newton adjustments in probably 800 plays (I'm just over 1400 now)

Had a "Baller..." ball one last night...

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This reminds me of an early fix I had to do, is affix down the metal rail on the right side of the lane. it was loosey-goosey and the autoplunge teeth were rubbing on it.

One of the recent "things" I've done to keep the skill shot going up the lane properly is to gently bend the tip of that shooterlane rail. Just the very last 1 cm of it. Over time, gently sanding off that "burr" actually bent that metal rail toward the backbox, just the tip. A very slight bend back is one recent adjustment I've made, and it's been good for a while. I didn't have good luck with loosening the screw and moving the whole rail because when tightening the screw, everything just settled back into its former "groove". So instead of loosening the screw and moving the whole rail, I barely bent the end of the rail just a tad.

Don't have to remove it. Used a sturdy lineman's pliers, just a tiny tweak. Yes, you should gently scrub off that burr once in a while. I've been using a 400 or 600 grit paper to do it.

At least you still have the head on your screw... I was working with tight tolerances (on purpose, but) I guess inferior metal in the screw and the head popped right off. The auto-plunge rubbing was solved so... I left it just like that. Maybe find a mini-eddie head to squish on it or something someday.

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This is what I did after a couple years in a row hauling a 70's era Atari machine (300+) up and down for a trip to the local expo. I screw a pair of 1x2 tracks down to the stairs and the machine slides up and down real easy.

The winch was yellow. I had to paint it black and added some steampunk 3d printed gears to cause it to be aesthetically pleasing enough to earn the "OK you can leave it there" approval...

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1. https://www.pinballlife.com/desegastern-leg-bracket.html
2. As mentioned, be sure you've gone into setup and turn the BG brightness down. There is a setting to dim it when gameplay. But yeah a good non-glare glass could still be had. I've never done this.
3. Pinstadiums. I can't imagine this game without them. Adds so much life. I run the game with the room lights off, like a dark 80s arcade vibe.

Like others, because it's a home game I unscrew the weight just enough so it falls to the floor and run it like that with only that metal wire left hanging. I view it as somewhat of a contact sport. Death saves allowed...

I just measured this IM Premium and it consumes 70W in attract mode. With a presumed kWh cost of $0.15, that's $0.25 per day.

Open the coin door and it drops to 40W. That's $0.14 per day.

Ain't that the truth.

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Thanks for this advice! +1 for the bushing replace. At 1700 plays, the autoplunge was getting squirrelly.. This bushing replace brought everything back to normal.
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She's arrived, and she's a beauty...

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Thanks for posting about this. Caused me to finally try a new node board in hopes of settling the symptom of "coil fade" on my autoplunge. eg: for the first part of a game, the autoplunge would run all the way around the circuit like it should but over time the kick weakened and then it'd start hitting the post consistently.

While I didn't visibly see obvious damage like you did, a new node board solved it. Back to almost 100% auto plunge success. Now I try to work the warrantee repair through my dealer...

3D printed flasher cover:

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Yeah, it's a glow-in-the-dark filament. Not that it needs to glow in the dark, but it works to reduce that sharp glare. I had that mezel mods obelisk one on for a while which I actually liked. But after installing Lior's backboard I felt that mezelmods obelisk covered up Lior's stuff too much...

meh, not HQ, but...

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Plus 2. I eventually threw that plastic piece in the trash.

New callout? I've heard plenty of "Baller" from the both of them. But tonight for the first time after a good ball she said "Quite the baller".

Whheee!!! Only the second time to NOTB. Did 79 million better on it than the first time which lasted all of about three shots before a quickdrain...

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Same. My original metal "protector" came off easy with gentle lifting and tugging. Had to clean some sticky glue residue after but it wasn't a big deal. Waxed it then stuck the cliffy carbon fiber on. 1300 plays later, no sign of wear or problem at all.

I also considered a wire gate adjustment when searching for answers to auto plunge brick problems. In the end, my machine's problem was actually a driver board power fade (minted December 2021). Gradually over months the auto plunge would miss more often. Eventually after almost two years a tipping point was reached and the power sent to that solenoid after only a few minutes of gameplay would no longer be performing to spec and it wouldn't launch the ball hard enough to send the ball all the way around. This could also be misinterpreted as coil fade. But it was just "node 8 board slot 3 fade"... as evidenced by replacing the node 8 board. Hundreds of games since, and only the random "once in a while" miss as expected. You could "easily" test this solution in your rig by swapping the two identical node boards, see if the autoplunge is better after swapping.

Three balls rolling down to "BEGIN THE CHARGE!!!" should be the norm, not the exception.

My solution to Mummy of late has been to make it the primary objective from the jump. Hit it hard and early and get in there as soon as possible. Knock down 20 or maybe 30 or 40, knowing that through the course of the game there will be another chance to get in there again and finish it off.

It usually works out better than it did for me last night. I went into mummy without getting it FOUR TIMES. On the fourth, I had all the other cards and was at 33/50 on my last ball when it drained. sigh.. So near yet so far...

Last night's score 795,583,340

Weird coincidence, tonight's score 795,843,440. I did get the mummy first tonight....

I have yet to get the next tomb treasure after the one that gives more points for combos, which I really, really would like to get to (light extra ball).

Installed a flipper rebuild kit today. Upper left flipper was sticking open after ~1800 plays. Failed coilstop, ruined the plunger.

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I would advise against going straight for the metal wall adjustment as the first effort to solve the problems with plunge not going around the loop. I mean maybe it's the answer for your rig but then again maybe it's not and bending that metal wall might cause complications that could be difficult to recover from. So be careful. As one who has moved that screw out and experimented with moving that metal wall: there are so many other (and safer) adjustments available. Case in point, this 2021 machine I've been playing for ~1800 plays now.. Moving that metal wall was never. ever. the solution. It was always one of the other nuances. Cheers.

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Well I'm not sure whether this helps, mine being 2021 and yours being 2023 but here is a shot of my metal wall vs black line alignment:

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I like those comet fire lamps, I used them behind a TOM Flyland backglass (both the red and blue versions of the bulbs in the appropriate places) they were ace in there. Also in a MTL up around the upper rollover lanes they work great. Haven't fit them into this IM yet, but still might.

Welcome to the party. I'll recommend looking into the pinstadiums, or making your own if you're handy like that. I can't imagine this game without them. I do play the game in a darkened room...

As mentioned, get savvy with adjusting that spoon position and leaf switch under the newton ball. Once you figure out the things to look for and fix/adjust, it can stay stable for a while in my experience. The "needle" coming loose is the first easy fix, get a small dab of blue loctite on it. (small dab, just enough to hold it) In order to service the bits above eventually, you'll need to remove the needle.

There are lots of still images of the with/without comparison out there.. but it's more about what's happening live, not just the still lighting effect. Strobing, flashing, color casting, etc along with the game, enhancing greatly the games own lightshow.

That looks fkn ace!

Why do you say "besides loctite"? Loctite (or some other type of threadlocker) is the answer for threaded things that come loose due to vibration. I'm not sure what other answer would exist. I cleaned off the factory white stuff and put a drop of blue on it and it never comes loose, outside of that once I unscrewed it on purpose to take the whole thing apart.

Agreed. And the blue loctite is easily removable. Red isn't, don't use the red.

If by "splint" you mean what I think you do.. there isn't good surface to fasten on the ball side of the "fracture". (pic) It's that hexagonal needle that comes loose. It's screwed onto the male piece of a bolt that is integral to the ball above. That's where you'd apply some loctite.
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My flipper rubber of choice right now is rubber. Real genuine old-school rubber. I picked up a pair from the comet pinball booth at the last expo on a lark. I've tried superbands, perfectplay, titan standard, titan low-bounce. The 'real' rubber from comet is my choice at the moment. Just feels better IMO.

I would advise against going straight for the metal wall adjustment as the first effort to solve the problems with plunge not going around the loop. I mean maybe it's the answer for your rig but then again maybe it's not and bending that metal wall might cause complications that could be difficult to recover from. So be careful. As one who has moved that screw out and experimented with moving that metal wall: there are so many other (and safer) adjustments available. Case in point, this 2021 machine I've been playing for ~2000 plays now.. Moving that metal wall was never. ever. the solution. It was always one of the other nuances. Cheers.

I was skeptical but I put this "pindefender" in and quite like it: https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1426-pinhead-mods
Had I not liked it, was going to just mylar but the pindefender seems to be doing just fine.

Precisely the reason for my skepticism but it isn't a problem. This rig's plunging is spot on with the pindefender.

HULK SMASH high score. Almost doubled my prior. FknA! You never know when the magic is gonna happen.

2x light REVIVE, plus a third via tomb treasure. Three Cyborgs. Three Troopers. Two Mummys. Two 2MTM jackpots. Battled the Beast to 8/15, best showing against the beast so far. So much fun.

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I might have done a similar, tried to get a good enough pic:

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