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Alien Pinball Brothers Owners Club - MU-TH-UR!

Those tubular locks are a real pita to pick. I’ve never had success with my picking tool for those but it’s only a crappy one. In theory you just shove it in and twist it at the same time 🤣
 
Those tubular locks are a real pita to pick. I’ve never had success with my picking tool for those but it’s only a crappy one. In theory you just shove it in and twist it at the same time 🤣
I bought a fancy one with a practice see through lock.

Amazon says between now and 6.. probably 7 then? :D
 
I think I prefer the classic Alien back glass art on your SV.
Do we know what they will be charging for the LV version?
I think they are nearly sold out. You need to speak to James asap @ pinball bazaar If interested.
 
LV’s have sold very quickly - which is great. Pinball Heaven selling them as are we. Standards will be here sooner and some on the current shipment available -
again via either Phil or I.

Rumours of beacons and sideblades and backglass are wide of the mark being available via distros, certainly official Pinball Brothers ones, I am sure someone will do them, but official parts being sold onto SV, not confirmed.
 
So finally put the biggest PITA issues i've had with the pin since owning it.

Nearly every game the pin would lock either with the ball inside MU-TH-UR or the Air lock. Most of the switch array would fail and the only solution was a hard reset. Cato at Pinball Brothers had been working with me on it for some time sending me unreleased code then he saw within the pictures that my wiring was different to the norm.

The power connector for the pop bumpers was wired in the old fashion to the very first batch of pins released and also lacked a hook at the back of the playfield to move them away from the circuits.

A bit of cabling routing and voila the issue is gone (fingers crossed) its my bloody Star Trek all over again with the wiring causing EM interferance!

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1632686223244.png
 
^^ I think you have been really unlucky with your pin ownership so far.
You tend to get niggles here and there on modern pins but gee whiz Johnny 🙄
 
They are probably underneath the chip in the playfield.
Stick a picture of the lock barrel up please mate. If it’s a pin tumbler lock Skip to minute 43 of this video mate. It’s one I made a few years ago.
The important thing is tension on the Barrell

Just like watching Oceans Eleven. You weren't part of the Hatton Garden heist were you?
 
So finally put the biggest PITA issues i've had with the pin since owning it.

Nearly every game the pin would lock either with the ball inside MU-TH-UR or the Air lock. Most of the switch array would fail and the only solution was a hard reset. Cato at Pinball Brothers had been working with me on it for some time sending me unreleased code then he saw within the pictures that my wiring was different to the norm.

The power connector for the pop bumpers was wired in the old fashion to the very first batch of pins released and also lacked a hook at the back of the playfield to move them away from the circuits.

A bit of cabling routing and voila the issue is gone (fingers crossed) its my bloody Star Trek all over again with the wiring causing EM interferance!

View attachment 148436

View attachment 148437

next time they should supply the game as a kit, that would have been better than this ****show.

Neil.
 
^^ I think you have been really unlucky with your pin ownership so far.
You tend to get niggles here and there on modern pins but gee whiz Johnny 🙄
@Mfresh knows I find a problem with every pin I touch. When I went to pick up his Stranger Things the gate behind the Demo Gorgon was catching and trapping balls which he never had an issue with till I tried to play it.

On my next visit I tried his brand new restored Taxi and it kept resetting to ball 1. 😅 . Honestly give me a pin and i'll find a way to break it, it seems!
 
next time they should supply the game as a kit, that would have been better than this ****show.

Neil.
I've just been made redundant last week. Maybe I can ask Pinball Brothers for a job at the assembly line. I've got lots of experience!
 
@s000m you do have an uncanny ability to make perfectly working machines malfunction within 5 minutes of you being in their presence. Fortunately both were relatively minor: Pinball Heaven has a video (
) on how to fix the gate for anyone who is interested, and the Taxi issue (actually it was adding new players not resetting to ball one) was the start button leaf switch having too small a gap so it closed at random adding a new player. But it didn't happen before you came by. Weird. If you could fix machines just by standing near them rather than breaking them then I think you could make a fortune.
 
Hey all,

Doesn't appear to be an owners club on the forum for the machine so I thought i'd start one.

Will be documenting the changes, updates and adding a few videos over the weekend and beyond.

Will be updating this evening with pictures and some special ordered protectors from @Colywobbles.

Feel free to share your experiences or any questions you may have around the pin.

Cheers,

Scott
Just ordered the se version, can’t wait
 
Good luck to the pinheads ordering this **** show! Sooom has had the game of doom but check this one out:

B197997A-80BE-4757-A791-D006A039FB8C.png
 
Been working with Col to modify some of the cuts we made for the plastics.

This protector now fits perfect and doesn't interupt the spinner anymore.

W3ZE3E2MnWieOPTQtjoVJzFm42eeRB6e2R8zzvbYw060JBLYh1jVYFbcO9jfzd_JhTP4HmWQD6bXEpkw_xVvajxf2rSORStuyOIt6ROCClcImCqXdkqeveYWB7m6UkjrzVYOj18suVK1VTkFk90geVsQo6X2LTuaWFWNugPsy9txYgzHQ0CQR98v24K12T3nhdk4SchiVeMYRyjZKPERWOeBLZKgcGNzjnGuowDmblSTket3nJolI0K2aENKmf2bgVl6XWh8WNO3S_spuu4LTt_qBe-8_Ds9Pqu_FunC4jxwedOFOlYacdllGCqKxsKa6TL_eA2HrfrKTU_oC_OJ0SWDFeRWzGfVycrQHsibAuE32oWA0Ips-j-552bRPoIzTiohbhqNOqy2Awc-hfhSJ2xVl2TGkN64HxlsZdkSSJCA-ALDkTt9Eou3neOF9rXr9obncmJikCz55EefTvJT5MOS1NAiMP91nwB7SfxinUUkta7BRzfey1Yw5WduZ4ZGNBL2xwEAEafyEzxWUgbZrCxiJoJ9U5NUg6SzzmM3BAJmrRWrkr0voSBBqpsL4ZLNqPCMlQb8dwMZg6_4anSNl6AKIGPKzNJWfWgY9JNeM4W_q_sMIrCldNjLdoOX7tPoMwyH1qoqrrBO664GKJHHY-h5RxmW3ANz4TszSxaGwF-UANM-fW9nXqfBHyp6rbYR6gpYpb127bWdrj1DiGsz2Ocl=w1730-h1297-no



I've ordered some side blades from Italy. Hopefully they arrive soon. I've delayed the powder coat for now as wifes been ill.
 
Good luck to the pinheads ordering this **** show! Sooom has had the game of doom but check this one out:

View attachment 149414
This guy describes most of the issues I hit. Unfortunately he's likely part of the early run like my pin where everything was basically a prototype for others.

I've had to replace:

- All Targets on the playfield, currently on Gen 2 targets for weapons and Gen 2 targets for Xeno. Xeno targets solved the ball skipping on the mouth grab. Its about 90% there on catching it now.
- All flipper bats due to the originals snapping on the rod and housing due to poor manufacturing.
- Bushing needed to be sanded down on the flipper mechs to stop it catching this was a royal PITA to solve I suspect above poster had the exact same issue.
- Needed new coil sleeves these were literally shot I think pinfest may have been to blame there :D
- Had to correctly earth the screen/PC housing as the solder was hitting the housing on the LED's which was causing the lights to short and in turn buggered up the game every once in a while
- Post on the playfield was too short on the thread which caused the now infamous damage on the playfield. I've been sent a replacement and its fitted.
- New Playfield (Maybe once I have all my outstanding issues done i'll draw up the will to migrate everything to the new playfield. At present i've done a patch job on the damage and removed the washer that was protecting it as it was interfering with ball play.
- Trough eject issue requires adjustment of the trough mechanism, its fiddly and requires just the right level or it catches the ball or too much and it stops the ball ejecting. Mine was fixed after some trial and error..
- Adjusted plastic around Hypersleep as it was so tight it was causing the ball to catch!


Things i'm waiting on:

- I may be getting a new wire harness the existing one suffers from EM interferance which caused the game to get stuck like it did during pinfest on the MUTHUR and AirLock ball locks. I've greatly reduced the issue with mine by moving the wiring around but its still not 100%
- Apparently getting a new IEC connector to help with the EM interferance
- I'm being sent a third generation set of weapon targets sometime next week. These are the final targets being used in the latest batch of pins being sent out.
- Apron cards as mine never had any
- Coin box as mine never had one
- New lock for the back box


Things I like:

- Machine design is built well and THANKFULLY is easy maintenance with parts sensibly spaced for the most part and easy to get too, to adjust or replace etc.
- Machine flow - I Love the flow on this machine. After playing designs like TMNT which just have sorry to say stupid designs on the left outlane which causes SO MANY ball drains. Its refreshing to have a pin which doesn't suffer from what I would call bad game design.
- Theme, clips and sounds are bang on. Halloween looks like a bit of a s*** show in comparison and I'm starting to worry that i'll regret my down payment for it. Alien on the other hand has great use of movie clips. The calls out from MUTHUR are great and I always know what I need to do to progress.
- 4 Flippers makes for some crazy good shots and I love the middle ramp. The Hypersleep is one of the hardest shots I've ever made in pinball its crazy difficult...

Things i'm dissapointed with:

- Standard Version will NOT be getting the topper its going to be exclusive to the Limited Version (this is pretty **** IMO)
- Flippers have no guide holes so you are left guessing what the right resting position should be.
- Playfield Artwork looks dated and really needs a new artist at PInball Brothers to come in and show what a well designed playfield can look like. When I look at GodZilla or TMNT it just makes this look SO dated.
- Front decal art work is right up to the edge, Stern know not to do this due to the lock bar. As a result i'm getting some peeling with the constant movement of the lock bar due to all the maintenance i've done. It can't be seen with the lock bar on but it could have been avoided if they simply left a border near the top to stop it from happenning.

Final thoughts:

Machine was far from ready and needed A LOT of work to get it solved. It nearly killed my enjoyment of having this pin.. NEARLY. I'm still glad I have it but putting 30+ hours into solving and troubleshooting nearly made me sell it.

For anyone considering getting one know that mine was one of the first 30 made (I think CATO told me No. 6?) you like won't get these issues. A lot of people on Pinside never mention any of the issues I spoke of and I know for a fact only 6 reported machines have the EM issue that I detailed above.

I still love this pin and its my dream theme. Its not going anywhere.
 
I've been on a unreleased beta code for a while. Much of what is on the public release is on my beta code.

Had a lot of video calls with Cato gained some insight into the whole heighway history. Genuinely great guy to talk to. Even got into discussing the Queen pinball.
 
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