WOZ lower pop bumper / lane guide collision

[System11]

Seems a common problem with this game, I've had it in the house set up since last Thursday, and turned off since then until I can solve this as I'm not a huge fan of metal fragments knocking around the playfield.

The lower pop bumper can impact the crystal ball lane guide, they actually made a new version of this part with a cut section on the crystal ball lane as you can see, but it doesn't address the other problem where the pop ring can impact the front corner of the guide.

I can see three possible solutions, would appreciate feedback on the best to go for.

1) Top right is to cut into the pop ring a bit. Word of advice here getting the tree bracket off is a nightmare due to super-super-super strong thread lock. Worried this will compromise the strength of the ring, it's possible for the pop to come down on the ball just past the position of that hex post. It wouldn't hit the actual cut area but it would be close.

2) Bottom left is to basically copy what JJP did on the middle of the guide and cut a small section out. Concern here is balls coming off the upper pop which will hit the rubber in the bottom left of the image and bounce it straight into the guide. Will dropping the height weaken it sufficiently for the ball to bend it.

3) Bottom right is bending the guide which may make it easier to have the ball to hit the edge head on from certain angles.



I noticed over the weekend the upper pop had something to collide with too - the witch protector bracket corner. Thankfully that one is a no brainer, you can just cut the corner off, theres loads of needless metal there with zero chance of a ball ever hitting it.

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

Well that sucks You would have thought the amount of time that was spent on development of this game that something like this should NOT have happened. Was this NIB ?? Seriously you shouldn't have to be cutting metal guides just so you can play it I'd be contacting them about it, though its hard to see what could be achieved. Maybe they could make some goodwill gesture.

I'd go with cutting a small section out of the guide. Can't see it weakening it too much.

EDIT - I'm assuming there is no adjustment slack in the guide position, you can't move it a fraction away from the pop ?

 

[System11]

Yeah I think it's a shame that they addressed the problem in later machines without actually doing a whole job. Yes it's NIB, I've had a number of small issues this being the worst of them. The mylar isn't positioned properly, easy enough if I can get them to read my support ticket and post new (that ticket mentions this pop problem). The top pop collision was really minor compared to this one and wouldn't have led to shavings. Two leg bolts were cross threaded (they supply them fitted for some reason, maybe to support the leg protectors). The foam blocks they put in to give the playfield extra support in shipping were missing, no damage seems to have occurred though. In terms of everything functioning out of the box there was no problem there other than the castle flipper which someone had turned down much too far on the factory test, turned it up to default and it was fine.

I will be writing a letter to Jack with my observations as a first time owner. Ultimately it's a lovely game (I bought this over Ghostbusters after spending a few hours playing one) but a few of these problems I think are worthy of note to prevent them happening on future games.

 

[RudeDogg1]

If it's nib if u got it from Phil can't you ask him nicely if he can get the modified parts for you?

 

[ronsplooter]

If you can't get a modified part then I'd go with cutting a small section out too

 

[System11]

The guide on my machine is the current JJP part already, if that's what you mean. They used to have a problem catching on the curve, and that cut-in was added that you can see in my photo above. If you mean could I get him to do the modification there seems little point posting it for a few minutes of Jr hacksaw & file. There's the witch bracket 'adjustment'. I smoothed it off nicely and put matching grain into the edge. It took 20 minutes or so because that steel is really thick. It would have taken JJPs cutting machine a second or two, they should have noticed/thought of this.

 

[System11]

So it turns out that guide isn't something you necessarily want to take a bite out of - the edge takes light ball hits (enough to leave a mark) at slightly varying heights depending on whether it rode the pop apron. I had second thoughts about lowering it because the ball would be hitting the rail only mm from the new corner it would have.

I ended up with this solution. I don't like it, but there's now 1mm clearance if the ring is pushed to either extent of play, and there's just over 1mm of normal ring the ball can touch at maximum play before it would hit the cuts. However that's if I push it out of position significantly, the photo shows pretty clearly where the real contact is, there's almost 1cm of clearance according to the ball marks. Will remove and check again after 20-30 longer games. State fair pop definitely needs turning down, it's vicious.

 

[stoptap]

Makes you wonder what the hell they are doing regarding play testing ?
It's not as though they exactly rush games out.