Evidence suggests you may not be the single pinball machine person you thought you were.

Just got my Wonka as well, so great! Perhaps a little too easy of shots? But seems great for newer players. Goes super well alongside my WOZ (medium difficulty) and Dialed In (harder difficulty). Will be a challenge to figure out which one to sell in the new year, maybe the Woz even though I think it’s the best overall pin package.

New owner questions!
1. Why is the camera on sliding screws? Where should I tighten it down? It’s currently kind of loose but uncertain why it would slide at all.

2. When does the camera light go on? Not sure I’ve ever seen it even when streaming video which is when I’d presume it on.

3. Ball gets trapped above the right inlane. I’ve got it on easiest setting, I can slide it north a bit to prevent but curious if there’s a solution without widening my outlane. EDIT: Seems like this might have been due to a worn out rubber. Replaced and will see how that fares.

4. Not wonka-specific, but I either just caused this problem or noticed it: the shooter rod kind of rubs against the auto-plunger metal. Not sure what to adjust to fix.

Any other new setup tips to check for or implement? Looks like it could use a little Mylar at the wire form exits based on wear there.

Thanks!
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Still unclear about whether to tighten camera down in glass position or back position and I can’t for the life of me understand why it should slide at all.

Also I loosened screws of shooter housing and was able to partially/mostly fix the rubbing, but are there any adjustments to consider for the auto-plunger? It seems a little off when looking at my DI. Should it ever be adjusted? Does it slide upward at all?

Anyone able to advise on either of the above? I still have shooter rubbing the auto ejector, but can’t lower the shooter rod any further. Should I be finding a way to adjust the auto eject metal?

My shooter rod rubs clips the autoplunger fairly regularly. I unscrewed shooter compartment and seated it as low as I could, but the top part still sometimes bumps the plunger. I couldn't figure out how to adjust the autoplunger -- is it meant to be shifted around at all?

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Thank you, Vitty!

For future reference, I also received this related response from Ken@JJP on the topic, very quick response:

Try raising the lock down bar receiver.
It's the unit mounted to the front of the game that the playfield hooks rest on and the lock down bar latches into.
There should be two 1/4 inch phillips / hex head shipping screws, one at either end. Remove those.
Then there are 3 carriage bolts with nuts mounting it to the front of the game. Loosen the 3 nuts and lift the lockdown bar receiver to the top of the mounting holes and while holding it up, tighten the 3 nuts. This will raise it and should correct the issue.

Yeah that’s a little annoying that they use different phrases, it’s hard to explain to new players as-is, but I think they don’t switch them up. The center ramp I think is the camera ramp. I think left ramp always refers to gobstopper.

Recently my diverter mech has started buzzing loudly whenever activated. Functionally the game plays fine and as intended but I’m worried about the motor burning out or something. Here’s a link to a 3s video. Any tips on addressing this?
https://photos.app.goo.gl/nbsiyPdkbDT842S26

I think I read that Roald Dahl hated the movie so much that he wouldn’t sell the rights to the second book.

What should I even be looking for? I’ve got 3 JJPs and hear a lot of playfield complaints but haven’t noticed anything. Am I not looking in the right place? Are there typical pictures of the issues? Thanks

I don’t want to misrepresent what I’ve got when I list them for sale someday, and I like being aware of potential maintenance issues.

To add on to this, it’s the rightmost shot under the TV. The left shot under Wonkavision is called the ‘center loop’.

Trying to get audio variety, but I think they went overboard there. That TV shot is also called out as ‘shoot the saucer’ if I remember correctly. Sooo confusing for new players, and even still I have a hard time remembering some things.

It is remarkable that there appears to be no clear description of what’s going on in a lot of these moments! I’m glad I’m not the only one struggling to find answers.

It’s a phenomenal game, and that chart gives the high level view, but there is a ton of information omitted even from that chart. The website linked earlier contains some of those omissions, but not all. Let’s be honest here.

I get confused when it says shoot for flashing white green, for example, but I see flashing green yellow or some other combination.

thanks for sharing! I think I have used that to understand things better. Much appreciated!

Btw, I am a 3rd owner of an SE Wonka and saw the camera indicator / red light was out. Tried many ways to fix it, but ultimately realized it had been wired wrong from the factory presumably. Pulled a wire out and put it the right spot and now it works. Curious if mine was the only one.

It’s a bright red light atop the camera and comes on frequently (any time it takes your photo when hitting that ramp). Let me know if you need help on a fix, I actually just looked at the adjacent connectors near that one and realized mine looked different. I pulled the black wire from one hole and into another to fix it. Didn’t even solder or anything, it held well on its own.

Attaching a picture of the incorrect factory wiring. You can see the pattern of correct locations for the black wire is not the same for the camera LED. I was able to gently pull the black wire out and stick back into the correct spot as seen on these other two connectors.

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Anyone else experienced this buzzing issue? Also it appears that the diverter just barely moves, even though it works as intended despite that limited motion. (I don't know what it normally looks like when diverting, though.)

https://imgur.com/a/M9kWd9r

Anyone ever have their game just decide to end mid-game?

I had a kid multi ball going (and possibly gobstopper multi stacked), and then suddenly my flippers went dead, all the balls drained. As far as I recall, the screens weren't showing anything special, and definitely no Tilts shown onscreen, although it acted like it somehow activated the Tilt code. I didn't even have any tilt warnings, and my sensor is set at the easiest tilt setting, all the way down.

Fortunately it wasn't an amazing game, and I've not seen this happen before. I haven't updated the code in a few months, but I think it is the latest version as of late Dec.

I was confused by this too. I think it advances one of the three factory tours, but necessarily the factory tour. See if either of the other two modes qualify for you.

Fantastic game, but that's our biggest complaint too. Just feels like there's no way to nudge or do anything about it. I tried replacing the rubber next to the pops per advice here, but that didn't do anything.

I’ve been confused by that too, but never bothered to look it up. I hit spinner a few times and seems like eventually it says to hit gob stopper to finish.

Lately I sometimes get a random ball added during gameplay. I’m assuming there is some trough opto issue, but I can’t see any issues when I fiddle with the trough connectors in switch test mode, and there are no errors showing. Anyone have suggestions?

Not sure, I'll take a peek when it ejects one, but it's usually after I've been playing for a bit.

Thanks! Was there a particular solder joint you reflowed?

Thanks, will try that too.

Thank you everyone!

Thanks for all the info! I demagnetized all the balls and it still occurred. I just now clumsily tried adding solder to the one board, and first test game showed no errors yet! Fingers crossed!

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I too am curious about flipper power. Recently noticed that both of mine will whine a bit when held. Power seems to be a little decreased, maybe related to it being hotter in my garage?
Also it universally seems quite tough to hit that captive ball sufficiently. I think it’s probably intentionally that way, but I’m always tempted to increase flipper power a bit from defaults. My machine is leveled to bubble just touching the second line. Open to any suggestions!

Thanks for all the responses, will experiment a bit! Is a low whine noise when flippers held not necessarily a problem sign? I can't recall observing that on any others, but I've been in this hobby less than a year and haven't really tested that specifically.

In general, is there a good reference (thread, or site) for "when to replace flippers"?

I feel like glancing or my numerous slightly weaker hits simply don’t make it all the way up, but perhaps the switch could use adjustment.

I do believe it is intentionally designed to be a bit harder to trigger than other games, but I have wondered if perhaps I need to adjust anything. The inside ball is at a slightly off angle to the newton ball given the width of the tunnel and the gravity pulling it leftward, but my newton ball is firmly fixed and so I don’t readily see any adjustment to make. I still activate it decently in the game, I’ve gotten up to 4 tickets (with a liberal set of extra ball scores in settings) but the captive ball is so often unsatisfying to hit, and pretty difficult/impossible to do ever off the right flipper.

The Hobbit, Ghostbusters, and other captive balls I’ve played feel SOO much easier to trigger. I looked for foam but didn’t see any back there. Maybe I will try to make it a hair-trigger distance on the leaf switch. Thanks!