I got my Spooky Pinball Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle pinball NIB last year and I love it....but it hasn't been all smooth sailing and I thought I'd share some of the tweaks and minor repairs that I have made to mine to get it sorted.
I hope this thread can serve as a repository for other fixes people may have. I will start with a skeleton of my notes and add images etc over time to fill it out.
Problem 1: Ball ends up inside cabinet after released from Frankenstein
This used to happen very regularly when I first got the machine (note it hasn't happened since the latest 04 Feb 2020 code update). It was a total pain in the arse. I fixed this by raising the height of the Frankenstein platform in the settings
Problem 2: Only one speaker/crackly sound in two speakers
This one turned out to be a side effect of Problem 1 because we used a long piece of cardboard to reach inside the cabinet and retrieve the balls that had fallen into the cabinet. Fixed this by reinserting the long/thick black audio cable that goes into the output of the amp (has a 3.5mm headphone style jack). Will likely be securing this cable with silicon at some point in the future
Problem 3: Extra balls were being put into play when they shouldn't be
The game would quite regularly spit out new balls onto the "plunger" area when there was already a ball in play or if you left the machine sitting there it would end up with all the balls in the plunger area. Another symptom was that the game would put a ball into the plunger area when the machine was turned on. For me the fix was to re-seat the connections to the opto-coupler (I'll provide more detail later) for the drain
Problem 4: Lock down bar wouldn't stay down
This was only an issue for a short time when the game was brand new. The padding under the bar was stiff and would make it pop out. Over time with pressure the padding shortened and the lock down bar fits perfectly now
Problem 5: Left Flipper button fell out
I hit my flippers hard, other people make comments :-) Over time the ring on the inside of the left flipper button that prevents it coming out of the machine must have worn and the button started to fall out during play. I currently have a 2 cent fix in place where i wrapped the inside edge of the flipper button with sticky tape. It's pretty dodgy but has held for months now without issue. A more permanent solution might be some glue/glue+baking soda solution (or a new button of course) but I see no reason to change my fix at the moment
Problem 6: Left sling above flipper keeps firing when ball not near
I believe I have traced this down to worn rubbers. I'm actually a bit alarmed at how quickly the rubbers have worn on the slings. I moved the rubbers around and it alleviated the issue. New rubbers in order at some stage.
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MarkOZLAD
I got my Spooky Pinball Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle pinball NIB last year and I love it....but it hasn't been all smooth sailing and I thought I'd share some of the tweaks and minor repairs that I have made to mine to get it sorted.
I hope this thread can serve as a repository for other fixes people may have. I will start with a skeleton of my notes and add images etc over time to fill it out.
Problem 1: Ball ends up inside cabinet after released from Frankenstein
This used to happen very regularly when I first got the machine (note it hasn't happened since the latest 04 Feb 2020 code update). It was a total pain in the arse. I fixed this by raising the height of the Frankenstein platform in the settings
Problem 2: Only one speaker/crackly sound in two speakers
This one turned out to be a side effect of Problem 1 because we used a long piece of cardboard to reach inside the cabinet and retrieve the balls that had fallen into the cabinet. Fixed this by reinserting the long/thick black audio cable that goes into the output of the amp (has a 3.5mm headphone style jack). Will likely be securing this cable with silicon at some point in the future
Problem 3: Extra balls were being put into play when they shouldn't be
The game would quite regularly spit out new balls onto the "plunger" area when there was already a ball in play or if you left the machine sitting there it would end up with all the balls in the plunger area. Another symptom was that the game would put a ball into the plunger area when the machine was turned on. For me the fix was to re-seat the connections to the opto-coupler (I'll provide more detail later) for the drain
Problem 4: Lock down bar wouldn't stay down
This was only an issue for a short time when the game was brand new. The padding under the bar was stiff and would make it pop out. Over time with pressure the padding shortened and the lock down bar fits perfectly now
Problem 5: Left Flipper button fell out
I hit my flippers hard, other people make comments :-) Over time the ring on the inside of the left flipper button that prevents it coming out of the machine must have worn and the button started to fall out during play. I currently have a 2 cent fix in place where i wrapped the inside edge of the flipper button with sticky tape. It's pretty dodgy but has held for months now without issue. A more permanent solution might be some glue/glue+baking soda solution (or a new button of course) but I see no reason to change my fix at the moment
Problem 6: Left sling above flipper keeps firing when ball not near
I believe I have traced this down to worn rubbers. I'm actually a bit alarmed at how quickly the rubbers have worn on the slings. I moved the rubbers around and it alleviated the issue. New rubbers in order at some stage.
Edited by MarkOZLADLink to comment
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