LOTR is awesome, great game, but after a game or two, the flippers become quite weak. Nearly impossible to hit the ring. It evens gets tough to hit the ramps during multiball! Should I buy the replacement coils sold by pinball life? Or add a heatsink to the coils? Any other suggestions?

This is my first Stern/Sega/DE game, and not impressed with the mechanics! I see where the hate comes from.

Quoted from jonny_eh

Should I buy the replacement coils sold by pinball life?

Yes

Agree with Adam.

Don't let this experience taint you. The flipper issue is a hit and miss. I have heard some have it and others don't. I have a HUO LOTR and the flippers never get weak. It was played all day at one of Medvet's pin party and they were as strong at the end of the night as the beginning of the day. I've personally had 30+ minute games without issue.  

Duane

So I guess that some coils are just defective?

It's not the coils, I tried everything when I had the problem, new coils, new eos, rebuilt the flippers, replaced the cabinet leaf switches, basically put in brand new flippers and I still ran into the problem.

Put in the pinball life coils, they are a little more powerful for a Stern then usual but after an hour of playing I can still make the ramp shot, which I couldn't say with my old LOTR flippers.

It's just an inhernet problem with some LOTR Sterns, the coils from PBL are a bit bigger hense why they are stronger and last in the long games.  

Never had an issue with my flippers either
(ie. they've always worked fine )

But I still bought the PinballLife coils because I wanted extra "zip" for the RingShot
(...especially when you have it set to 2-ball Ring Shot )

Still no issues.

But yes, I will grant you that the Stern Flippers are a lot louder
and "mechanic-sounding" than the Williams/Bally .
(...it's VERY noticeable when I play LOTR then TZ or vice versa.  TSPP is even worse... )

Steph

I guess that is it. I know when the game first came out there were folks bitching loud and clear on rgp. Even then some said they didn't experience the issue. Fortunately....knock on wood...mine is fine. I think Adam ordered those as he was having issues when he had TOPL over. The game would get ALOT of play and the flippers would start to get weak. I think all is good with the new flippers.

Duane

Speaking of LOTR, my palantir light is not working. It looks like a red #44/47. Should I replace it with the same colour bulb? How about purple? I guess a colour changing LED would be best, but I can't find any for sale.

Quoted from jonny_eh

Speaking of LOTR, my palantir light is not working. It looks like a red #44/47. Should I replace it with the same colour bulb? How about purple? I guess a colour changing LED would be best, but I can't find any for sale.

Check Bay Area Amusements, I think they have the colour changing LED.

Duane

It's out of stock

I'm also missing the Merry action figure from the left sling. Let me know if you know where I can get one.

Quoted from jonny_eh

I guess a colour changing LED would be best, but I can't find any for sale.

Yes, that's a very cool (yet very simple) mod.

I really like it. Well worth the $8 or so...


Steph

Not a fan, I personaly prefer the slow pulsing of the red.  Looks alot better to me, the slow glow as the red goes from bright to dark, also fits the theme better as the actual Plantir orb would glow red when Sauron was looking threw it.  

Here's a dumb question: How do I change the palantir bulb? Do I have to remove the wire ramp the sits over it? Bit of a pain to change a light bulb.

You have to remove the metal guide that is around the bulb in order to access it, you don't hyave to remove the wire form, but you do have to remove the nut that attaches the wire form to the metal guide.  I think there may be one or 2 other nuts/screws that are holding it down, once they are removed it will come up easy.  

I recently bought a routed LOTR and it works just fine with the original coils. I can easily make all the shots and the ironic thing is I still have to do a proper shop job on it.

Some have it, some don't I missed valinor because of the weak flippers once, vowed that would never happen again.

Ya, there's no excuse for a home game to not be working 100% all the time.

I put the Pinball Life Coils in my LOTR and the whole game plays so fast now it is a bit of a toss up whether it is better or worse. The Ring shot is way easier and destroying the ring is a snap, well the flippers are strong enough anyway. On the flip side, if you hit posts or targets sometimes the ball comes back so fast it is amazing! I find the ball some times comes off the habitrail on the left ramp! Very fast game now! My friend (Who keeps hounding me to sell it to him) says if he buys it he wants the original coils put back in it! I personally prefer it with the Pinball Life Coils in it but regardless, Make sure you completely rebuild the flippers, and I mean everything!!

Dave

The (still original) flippers on mine are very powerful.  In fact, I find them a little too powerful sometimes...
I believe these were upgraded or tweaked by Stern in the later runs.  FYI mine was build on December 2006, one of the last ones ever built.

mine's dec 17 2003. Gotta be one of the first.

I just took a closer look. Turns out that the flipper pawls (I think that's their name) don't have the hinge that opens the EOS switch. In other words, the EOS switches aren't being touched. This could cause the coils to overheat, no? Should I replace the pawls? If i do that, do I need to bother with the coils? Or do I replace both?

If the EOS isn't getting opened, your coils may already be fried.  Your best bet if you want to keep everything original is get a new crank/link assembly and new coils and try it out.  

I thought EOS was obsolete anyways, due to CPU controlled flippers?

Is this what I need?
http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1094&parent=0

I would just buy this:

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=247&parent=173

You are going to need to rest of those parts at some point anyway, guarnteed.  

But no the EOS still plays an important part, it kills the high power to the coil when the flipper is in a holding position.  Or at least that is how I understand it.  So when you craddle the ball on either flipper by holding the button in, it kills the high power to the coil, or something along those lines.  I'm sure someone who understands this stuff better could explain it better.  

Ya, not hitting the EOS switch before CPU controlled flippers, would be disastrous. On my T2 I made damn sure that the EOS switch was getting hit when I rebuilt the flippers. It probably fried in the first place because the switch wasn't getting hit. With WPC, games that have a fliptronics board don't really 'need' an EOS switch at all. When you hit the flipper button, the board counts to 30-50 ms then switches to the low power coil, no EOS needed. I've heard of people not bothering to replace broken EOS switches on fliptronics games.

With Stern/Sega/DE, I have no idea when they started to use fliptronics style flipper control. They obviously must have switched to CPU controlled flippers at some point, otherwise my flippers would have melted by now. Also, the software has an option to set the timing of the flipper EOS control, you can adjust the 3 flipper settings in LOTR to make your flippers weaker or stronger, these control the EOS behaviour. See here

With Williams flippers, there are two coils in one, a low power and high power, the high power is used to flip the flipper, and then power is switched to the low power coil to hold it. DE/Sega/Stern used one high power coil, but to hold the flipper, they use a 'duty cycle' to not burn out the coil. This involves sending a pulse of power to the coil, on and off, over and over. Pretty smart actually, makes the coils simpler, and the wiring simpler. That's why Stern coils only have two leads.

Quoted from jonny_eh

With WPC, games that have a fliptronics board don't really 'need' an EOS switch at all. When you hit the flipper button, the board counts to 30-50 ms then switches to the low power coil, no EOS needed. I've heard of people not bothering to replace broken EOS switches on fliptronics games.

Errr..  yes you need it.  Once you're in "holding" mode, if a ball strikes the flipper bat and makes it drop, the CPU won't "know" unless you have a functioning EOS.  With the EOS, it senses the movement immediately and re-pulses the high power.  You would barely see the flipper bat move if it's adjusted properly.  This applies to Wms and DE/Stern.

Quoted from jonny_eh

With Stern/Sega/DE, I have no idea when they started to use fliptronics style flipper control. They obviously must have switched to CPU controlled flippers at some point.

Data East are the ones that first came out with electronic flipper control (Fliptronic).  While we're at it, Data east were also the first with stero sound, and first with DMD (although it was small).

Mike

Do I need this? The light in my balrog is working ok now though.
http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=198&parent=30

You might already have it, mine has it and it was an early run.  The bulbs go out really quick because of the beating the balrog takes.