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In Progress In my house there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, hobbit, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell.... just a very slightly dirty one

cmrl9

cmrl9

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5Years
Joined
Apr 16, 2020
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Location
Belfast
I picked up a Hobbit from @Jason Catrine the other day. Great person to deal with open and honest, he went out of his way to fix the couple of faults the machine had and source the spare part.

The machine needs a proper clean in the difficult to reach places, as in the ones you have to take the thing apart to get to. I also want to re-rubber it with titans in themed colors and sort out some minor niggles with the mechs. For example there a little movement in some of the beast pops, which can causing them to not close properly, the issue relates to a double flange clip bearing that worn out on 3 of the 4 mechs. One of the letters isn't flush with the play field so occasionally will get stuck, this is due to the nylon pan screw missing., etc.

Basically the machine is due a full service :) to get that NITB playing.

I've started only on the outside, as I'm waiting on some parts and need to get the last bits and bobs from the US.

Purchased the last ring shooter rod in red and The Arkenstone start button.

Took out the existing start button, pretty easyPXL_20250419_100243864.webp
 
polished the legs before putting on the machine.

New gold leg levelers, new green bolts, new yellow washers, looks good



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Interesting thing I learnt regarding the shooter.

The manual says replace with brown spring (that colour doesn't exist) So I bought a blue and green one, blue being the lowest tension.

I fitted a green one, the shooter had never been off the machine.

It was impossible to make the skill shots. Having read the game manual for play, the skill shots involved are 4, selected by the ring button. I tried couldn't do any.

Changed the shooter spring to Blue, its now possible to attempt all the 4 skills and be successful sometimes.

I would strongly recommend getting a blue Spring as a replacement if you own a hobbit.
 
Apparently this machine has low plays with 113 plays, according to the audits.....

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This is absolute bull 💩

and why some games that don't have the stern badge the number of plays is irrelevant. If this machine has had 113 plays then I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 
There the discussion with us pin heads that theme is irrelevant, I'm now on my 7 machine. The Avengers infinity quest I thought is up there with one of the best shooting and deep games out there, terrible theme, terrible music, terrible flash animation, but I loved playing it, so much so that in 11 months I racked up 830 plays. However not one person would play it for longer than about 3 minutes ( 1 game), no family members, no friends. Only my friend who is a massive pinball player would play it.

I took a gamble on this hobbit, having never played it before, however my middle daughter has recently watched the 3 films with me and absolutely loved them. This is what I came down to yesterday morning!PXL_20250420_174850976.webp
 
My wife had several goes, my daughter keeps wanting to play it (that might wear off)

All the other machines virtually zero goes, avengers everyone refused to even play it!


So when people ask is theme important if you want this....

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then yes!
 
Turns out non pinball people are only interested in the theme, so if you want your wife or kids to play with your giant expensive toys and there not interested in pinball normally then your have to find a theme they really like!

Damn it means I'm f****g stuck with the hobbit!

thank god harry potter coming out soon. At least I have an option for next year.
 
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Nice attention to detail, I’ll keep an eye on this shop log.

So what’s the point of that audit thing saying the number of plays? I agree it’s ridiculous (plus *you* would be ridiculous going to all this effort if it was true) and am glad to see it questioned, people seem to quote and believe it like they’ve never heard of computers or of cars having their odometer rewound. It’s irrelevant anyway as condition is everything.

So where did you get that cool start button from? I think I’d like to put one in my LOTR.
 
Thanks.

No idea the audit on jersey jack is reset when you update the code, I updated the machine from 2.01 to 4.2. even then the reset is nonsense I've not had 116 games in 4 days. Agree condition is king, the number of plays for me is meaningless, in fact if you got a 20 year old machine that's only had 50 plays I'd be concerned that when any sort of load went on the components it fails.

The start button and custom ring shooter came from pinsound

Super Skill Shot Shooters – PinSound

www.pinsound.org www.pinsound.org

They have a specific one for LOTR, that looks pretty cool. There pricey but the quality is top notch, on my start button it's actually glass, not plastic.
 
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