We are in, most likely for an LE. Our local distributor will be at MGC, and will give us the scoop afterward.

One example I can think of in recent history where the "top level" trim would be preferred by us is Game of Thrones (GOT), where the LE artwork was better than the Premium artwork. If purchasing, we wouldn't want the Night King White Walker greeting us every time we walked through the basement!

Oh, yeah. Winter is coming this week.

Many of us put our deposit down for an LE by Monday morning after the game reveal. Kind of hope that we are in the "2-3 weeks to shipping" time frame. Ordering now should put one further out. Maybe. I have not heard anything yet, but my distributor told me on 6/26 "You will get one of the first as you ordered early."

Joined the club today. LE 565, born on 8/15 (my dad's birthday). My wife loves it, as do I. Installed SW 1.13 update right away, so no diverter issues. Had a couple air balls stick in strange places. Great fun. Very different than Stern (we have LOTR, SWLE, Beatles). Wonka is slower (a bit) and you have more of a chance to place shots. (Yes, we are getting blinds for the windows.)
IMG_3948 (resized).jpgIMG_3952 (resized).jpg

We've only played with SW 1.13 since our LE arrived on Saturday.

Sometimes (but not all the time), when the ball is coming out of the pop bumpers, seemingly headed SDTM, the magnets take the ball off course, just enough that the ball hits a flipper, or maybe sometimes a sling.

Was this always there, or is it maybe something new to address the danger of the pop bumpers?

We tried putting our auto plunger at 11 on our 3-day-old LE. It put the ball in the saucer 3 times in a row. We've modified the playfiield (outlane posts) and settings to make our machine easier because we're not great players, but even my wife thought that was too much.

We tried to split the difference at 15, but one time that caused a problem in multiball where the coil didn't quite get a ball to the top of the plunger lane / shooter alley. Then the next ball plunged up and hit the first ball coming back down. After a few cycles of this, the machine paused briefly, allowing both balls to settle at the bottom, then sent a stronger auto plunge to get both balls up.

For now, we have returned auto plunge strength to the default of 20.

I have searched the forum and this thread, but may be looking for the wrong terms....

What angle do you guys/gals have playfield set at? Our distributor set ours up at 7.5 deg, and said that it's really up to us. JJP website has no recommended starting angle that I can find. Stern recommends ~6.5 deg, and then adjust from there based on preference. I have our Sterns (SWLE, Beatles, LOTR) at 6.5 deg, cause they are too brutal for us at steeper angles.

So, is there a recommended starting point for JJP, and specifically Wonka?

Some info, and a question.

INFO:

We installed the extra outlane post in 2nd (highest) position, and put the smallest (3/8" OD) o-ring on it. A 3/8" OD ring on the post between inner lanes caused the ball to usually get stuck when going through leftmost inner lane, as documented in the thread. I don't like cutting down an o-ring, cause I'm sloppy at it, it looks bad (IMO), and they always seem to rotate to the thickest diameter after awhile.

If you want something on that post, for now, I found that 5/32" (4 mm) heat shrink tubing works well over the post, but only lasts ~50-100 games (depends on game length). I'll try to search some thin rubber sleeves with ~4 mm ID that will last longer.

We never had the ball fall out of our trough on our LE, but the ball did get stuck in the upper part of the trough often enough to be annoying. We'd have to wait for a ball search to make a bump that would kick it out and have it go into the trough and be registered, Kind of a bummer on a ball save. So we put two 3/8" rubber pads/bumpers at the end of the trough, under the playfield (see photo, from underneath). Seems to have solved the problem so far, and you cannot see them from above.

Had an unusual ball stick - at the top of the plunger lane, trying for a soft plunge. I couldn't nudge the ball out (tilt warnings). So I waited the 4 (or so) ball search cycles until I got an extra ball. It dropped the ball from the Wonkavator, and while I had 2 balls for awhile (once the active one nudged the stuck ball out), I also lost a locked ball in the Wonkavator.

QUESTION:

We've had our game at both 7.5 and ~6.8-7.0 degrees. At both settings, we get stuck balls in the lane above the pop bumpers. It happens a lot when the bumpers kick the ball back up. It kills the momentum in a game, cause nudging won't get it out & we have to wait for ball search, sometimes 2 cycles. Anyone else have this problem? Is there an adjustment to solve it? Since it's under a bunch of stuff, I'm reluctant to take the time to take it apart unless I know I have to.

Thank!

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heat shrink on post (resized).jpeg

rubber stoppers under playfield at trough (resized).jpeg

ball stuck at top of plunger lane (resized).jpeg

Thanks for the suggestions. The o-ring (5/16" OD) is 1/16" smaller than smallest "pinball" rubber ring of 3/8". Might work with one on each post.

I was thinking more like a sleeve tubing. Thinnest rubber that will last awhile. I like the way the ball feeds through the inlanes faster with the heat shrink tube.

Anyone have any suggestions about ball coming to rest / stopping in the the lane above the pops (under the Wonkavator on the LE)?

-Adam

Thanks for the reply. This is kind of what I thought. Nudging hasn't worked, but maybe we need to nudge different.

The ball gets stuck/comes to rest enough to be annoying (especially on multiball or timed modes), but not enough for me to want to take things apart for a "look-see" yet. Game is still too new and getting played a lot. I'll get a flexible rod and put a cloth on it to see if there is anything small in the lane that may be causing the ball to stick.

Yes.

Wonka is my wife's machine, and she wanted the outlane post high, so I figured out a way. It takes quite a bit of force - I used hammer & punch. I suppose I could put the ribbed plastic screw back in the lower hole, but expect that at some point in the future we'll move the outlane post down, or remove it. I tried to be careful and not screw the outlane post in too tight.

Please, no derogatory comments on the heat shrink around the inlane post. I'll end up finding a better thin rubber solution (some suggestions in this thread) or just remove it & leave metal post (also suggested in this thread).
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Possibly this ^^^. I updated last night, and after reboot, the screen showed 1.14 at bottom in settings.

Put all files on usb in trash, empty trash, copy zip to usb, extract on usb, making sure there is not an extra nested folder on windows (Mac didn't do that). Then plug into machine and update, then reboot machine.

We had Wonkavator release problems also. Adjusting the release time helped some for us, but not always. BTW, I found that it helped more to *increase* the delay - it seemed that the plastic pin was coming back too soon and blocking the 3rd ball.

However, the real solution for us was to install latest code (1.14) and set the Wonkavator release time back to default per the release note. Since then, we have not had any balls stick in the Wonkavator at beginning of multiball. See 2nd "*" below.

==============================================================================
== Version 01.14 September 3, 2019 ==
==============================================================================

* Improved upper left flipper magnet firing to avoid overheating.
* Improved Wonkavator ball release firing time to avoid trapping a ball.
- NOTE: We recommend changing Elevator Lock Release Time back to default (210)
* Fixed Wonkavator Multiball Super Jackpot issue when dropping two balls in
the Gobstopper hole at nearly the same time.
* Various bug fixes and improvements.

Thanks for that link. I knew most of the things, but still found some useful nuggets, and a review always helps.

I have these. They work on my Sterns (SWLE, Beatles, LOTR), but not on Wonka LE.

-Adam

I'm about to start rubber (titan) ring replacement today on my Wonka LE. I've searched this forum topic but have found no posts yet on this question: are there any tricks or tips to keep in mind? I've done complete upper playfield ring replacements on LOTR (a pain), Stern SW Pro (a little lesser of a pain), and Beatles (a joy, actually).

Thanks for any feedback or post links. I do know about holding nut under sling plastics (yeah, my playfield has issues).

-Adam