# Star Wars Fall of the Empire Live Unboxing!

**Source:** Don's Pinball Podcast Live Streams (YouTube)  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2025-10-08  
**Duration:** 44m 31s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykp4HK1DOyE

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## Analysis

Don (host of Don's Pinball Podcast) performs a live unboxing and setup of the new Stern Star Wars: Fall of the Empire Premium Edition pinball machine. He demonstrates his box-opening technique, assembly process, identifies internal components, discovers a mechanical issue with the Death Star mouth (repeatedly opening/closing), and plays test games while answering chat questions. He confirms he will keep both his 2017 Star Wars and this new machine.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Don decided to keep both his 2017 Star Wars machine and the new Fall of the Empire machine rather than selling one — _Don, opening remarks: 'After seeing this game and playing this game. I Still think there's room in this giant heart of mine For both of these guys, so that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna keep them both'_
- [HIGH] The Star Wars: Fall of the Empire Premium uses the same coin door and keys as previous Star Wars machines — _Don, during backbox examination: 'This is the same coin door, by the way'_
- [HIGH] Premium Edition receives specific playfield toys compared to the Pro version: Java (Jabba), TIE Fighter, and Pez Heads — _Don, late in stream: 'So what do you get with the premium? You get the Java, you get the TIE Fighter, you get the Pez Heads. I think that's it... You even get the same flimsy AT-AT, he just doesn't go down.'_
- [HIGH] The AT-AT mechanism uses a small stepper motor with plastic linkage on a metal wheel — _Don, examining playfield mechanics: 'it's for the doggy daddy. Alright, so here's the mech for the AT-AT, the AT-AT. It just looks like a small stepper motor with a... what is this? A pinion? Or a little linkage, a little plastic linkage to them. Alright, on a metal wheel.'_
- [HIGH] The up-down ramp mechanism uses a small stepper motor with plastic linkage and takes up considerable space in the cabinet — _Don, analyzing undercarriage: 'This is a giant ass area with the same kind of plastic linkage on a tiny, tiny stepper motor and a couple of optos. This must run the up-down ramp.'_
- [HIGH] Don observed the Death Star mouth repeatedly opening and closing on startup, possibly an optical sensor issue or code glitch — _Don, first power-on: 'For whatever reason my Death Star is opening and closing its mouth over and over... That's really weird... It's just sitting there like yum, yum, yum... You think it could be like an opto is trying to sense and it's not getting anything so just cycling through it?'_
- [HIGH] Stern is now placing protective film on the black T-molding on Premium machines — _Don, unboxing: 'I've never seen this on a premium, but they're putting this little protective film on here... What are they putting the satisfying peel tape on the black T-molding for?'_
- [HIGH] The Spike 3 instruction manual references are outdated and predate the actual game release — _Don, examining documentation: 'Like, it's incredibly dated. It's got a bunch of like, Spike 1 references.'_
- [HIGH] Don noticed the backglass frame was extremely difficult to remove during unboxing — _Don, during setup: 'the back glass frame is in here like crazy tight. I can get the one side out. Is that normal? Jeez, I can't get it out... I can't even lift it up on that end.'_
- [HIGH] The game ships with six pinballs that came oily and require cleaning with isopropyl alcohol — _Don, opening cash box: 'we got six balls... If they come oily, you need to clean them off with some, uh, ethyl alcohol or isopropyl.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "After seeing this game and playing this game. I Still think there's room in this giant heart of mine For both of these guys, so that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna keep them both"
> — **Don**, ~0:35
> _Sets context that Don owns the original 2017 Star Wars and is impressed enough with Fall of the Empire to keep both machines_

> "I mean, how exciting can you make a Stern unboxing? Because there's not a ton to do."
> — **Don**, ~17:00
> _Meta-commentary on the unboxing process; shows the routine/procedural nature of machine setup_

> "The budget engineering is nuts."
> — **Don**, ~26:30
> _Criticism of the plastic linkage design choices and space utilization in complex mechanisms_

> "For whatever reason my Death Star is opening and closing its mouth over and over... Like, it's talking to me. Yum. Yum. Yum. That's so weird."
> — **Don**, ~54:00
> _Discovery of mechanical/software anomaly during first power-on; potential hardware or firmware issue_

> "I know the popular take is that Stern lost its way, but this game's fun. I mean, it's still pinball, right? It's gonna be fun."
> — **Don**, ~59:00
> _Acknowledges community criticism of Stern while defending the gameplay quality of this title_

> "You know, it's not like, it's like a Funko Pop. You don't wanna take it out of the box."
> — **Don**, ~40:00
> _References the R2-D2 topper included in the goodie bag as a collectible item_

> "I'm $5 away from hitting $600 a month. So if you haven't, patreon.com backslash donspinballpodcast would be super awesome."
> — **Don**, ~10:00
> _Patron fundraising goal; shows creator is close to $600/month support milestone_

> "I need plastic protectors. I need a shaker motor. I got to put expression lights in here. I need Vader on a hammock. There's so much stuff I need."
> — **Don**, ~50:00
> _Identifies immediate mod priorities and customization plans for the Premium machine_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Don | person | Host of Don's Pinball Podcast, performing live unboxing and setup. Experienced pinball operator and collector who owns a 2017 Star Wars machine and is acquiring this new Fall of the Empire machine. |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Star Wars: Fall of the Empire and other modern pinball machines. Subject of performance criticism and praise throughout stream. |
| Star Wars: Fall of the Empire | game | New Stern Pinball machine with Premium edition being unboxed. Features Death Star toy, AT-AT mechanism, up-down ramp, and multiple playfield toys. Available in Pro and Premium tiers. |
| Wes Merkle | person | Appears live on stream to help Don open the machine box; referred to as 'man' |
| David Fix | person | Referenced multiple times; appears on Don's t-shirt. Described as 'homeboy'; seems to be a known community member. |
| Star Wars (2017) | game | Don's existing Stern pinball machine; comparison point for the new Fall of the Empire machine |
| Pinball Expo | event | Major annual pinball trade show; mentioned as one week away during stream, to be held soon |
| 1UP Lounge | venue | Located in Bellingham, Washington. Don plans to ship this Star Wars: Fall of the Empire machine there soon |
| Spike 3 | product | Stern's pinball platform; the underlying technology powering Star Wars: Fall of the Empire |
| Keith Elwin | person | Mentioned as legendary Stern designer; context suggests he may have designed this machine or another discussed game |
| Costco | venue | Don mentions playing Star Wars (another version) at Costco recently; destroyed Death Star on ball two |
| Kevin from Arcade One | person | Chat participant mentioned during stream |
| Michael Faucus | person | Chat participant; attending Pinball Expo; machine recipient (Don notes the Stern box will ship to 1UP Lounge) |
| Borg | person | Community member; Don jokes about karaoke with Borg at Pinball at the Beach event |
| Pinball at the Beach | event | Upcoming pinball event where Don may attend with Borg |
| Medieval Madness | game | Classic pinball referenced in implied comparison context during stream |
| Ball Bearing | company | Supplier of premium pinballs; Don mentions needing to order Ninja Chrome and high-carbon balls from them |
| Stranger Things | game | Stern pinball machine; Don mentions he owns one and will need to move it to display Fall of the Empire next to it |
| Insider Connected | product | Stern's digital ecosystem; referenced in documentation included with the machine |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Machine unboxing and setup procedures, Star Wars: Fall of the Empire Premium Edition specifications and features, Playfield mechanics and internal components (Death Star, AT-AT, up-down ramp), Initial gameplay testing and machine troubleshooting
- **Secondary:** Customization and modding opportunities, Stern pinball quality and engineering criticism, Premium vs. Pro edition differences and pricing, Live streaming setup and community engagement, Pinball ball maintenance and sourcing
- **Mentioned:** Upcoming Pinball Expo and community events

### Sentiment

**Neutral** (0)

### Signals

- **[product_launch]** Star Wars: Fall of the Empire Premium Edition arrived in good condition with no visible scratches; machine powers on and is playable within 10 minutes of unboxing (confidence: high) — Don: 'No scratches. I think Luke looks alright... game arrived. It looks good.'
- **[product_concern]** Death Star mouth mechanism exhibits anomalous behavior on first power-on—repeatedly opening and closing without player input, possibly an optical sensor issue or software glitch (confidence: high) — Don: 'For whatever reason my Death Star is opening and closing its mouth over and over... It's just sitting there like yum, yum, yum... You think it could be like an opto is trying to sense and it's not getting anything so just cycling through it?'
- **[design_philosophy]** Premium machine uses stepper motors and plastic linkages for complex mechanisms (AT-AT, up-down ramp). Don criticizes the budget engineering and flimsy plastic linkage design despite adequate functionality (confidence: high) — Don: 'The budget engineering is nuts... It's just the flimsiest little plastic linkage... If not, it'll be easy to replace... these are off the shelf parts. Like you could 3D print something that would work with that.'
- **[product_strategy]** Premium Edition distinguishes itself from Pro with specific playfield toys: Jabba (Java), TIE Fighter, and Pez Heads toppers; AT-AT mechanism on Pro lacks the moving linkage component (confidence: high) — Don: 'So what do you get with the premium? You get the Java, you get the TIE Fighter, you get the Pez Heads... You even get the same flimsy AT-AT, he just doesn't go down.'
- **[manufacturing_signal]** Protective film added to black T-molding on Premium machines (first time Don has seen this); backglass frame extremely tight during assembly (possible QC variance) (confidence: high) — Don: 'I've never seen this on a premium, but they're putting this little protective film on here... the back glass frame is in here like crazy tight. I can get the one side out. Is that normal? Jeez, I can't get it out.'
- **[collector_signal]** Don retains original 2017 Star Wars instead of replacing it with Fall of the Empire, indicating both machines have distinct value to collector; plans to display machines together (confidence: high) — Don: 'After seeing this game and playing this game. I Still think there's room in this giant heart of mine For both of these guys, so that's what we're gonna do.'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Fall of the Empire is described as 'fun' but acknowledged as not the deepest game rules-wise; Death Star kicker is somewhat unreliable (2 of 3 good shots went in); Jedi Ball save mechanic proving difficult to execute (confidence: high) — Don: 'Maybe not the deepest, but it's super fun... I've not been able to get the Jedi Ball save to work... I tried on location, I'm trying at home, I'm gonna keep practicing with it'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Don acknowledges widespread belief that 'Stern lost its way' but defends Fall of the Empire as enjoyable pinball despite critical sentiment (confidence: high) — Don: 'I know the popular take is that Stern lost its way, but this game's fun. I mean, it's still pinball, right? It's gonna be fun.'
- **[content_signal]** Don is $5 away from $600/month Patreon goal; offering sticker rewards for the 600th patron member; actively seeking funding for better camera equipment (POV camera) (confidence: high) — Don: 'I'm $5 away from hitting $600 a month... If you get one more Patreon member, I might be able to afford it [POV camera]'
- **[venue_signal]** Don is shipping the Star Wars: Fall of the Empire Premium to 1UP Lounge in Bellingham, Washington for location play (confidence: high) — Don: 'I need that box to ship this game to the 1UP Lounge, Bellingham, Washington. Go check it out. It'll be there pretty soon.'
- **[event_signal]** Pinball Expo is one week away during the stream; Don mentions wanting to attend Stern Tour but didn't secure ticket; multiple chat participants discussing attendance (confidence: high) — Don: 'Can't believe it's only a week away... Dude, Evil Dead was so heavy... I wonder how well that decal on the back is going to hold up'
- **[market_signal]** Don questions whether machines at $10-13K+ price point deliver sufficient entertainment value compared to alternatives like luxury watches (confidence: medium) — Don: 'It's all fun, but is anything they make right now 10 to 13k worth of fun? That yeah, I don't have an answer for you'

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## Transcript

 And with any luck, we are now streaming live on the interwebs into your home and I've switched over to my gravelly radio voice. Hello everybody, how you doing? Welcome to the chat. No robotic fix on a dinosaur this time, although Mr. David will be represented on the t-shirt. Let me just, let me kick my light on here. Excuse me. Amateur hour over here, don't you know? Boom. Okay, that should be plenty of light. Welcome to the live stream. This is gonna be dope. We got Star Wars. Follow the Emperor right here. Emperor. Emperor. Can you guys hear me okay? Before I start cutting boxes, I want to make sure that everything's good to go on my end. It looks good right here. Sounds good. B-Dubs, we're ready to go. So I went in I got the call this morning to go into Chicago as you know I've got a 2017 Star Wars and I was thinking that this game right here was gonna usurp it This was gonna be the usurper and I was gonna have to sell my 2017 for this game After seeing this game and playing this game. I Still think there's room in this giant heart of mine For both of these guys, so that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna keep them both I'm gonna keep them both. So let's pop this bad boy open. I got the new Harbor Freight lift that I'm gonna debut here. We're gonna switch to the wide view camera so we can capture everything here and then we'll kick this off. So thanks everybody. Louie's here. Wes Merkle, what's up man? Why don't you get over here and help me open this thing man? What the heck? All right. As David Fix is all of our homeboys. We are David Fix at this point. I'm glad he's here represented on my chesticles. Alright, let's go. Alright. Need to move Stranger Things. I don't. I mean, I'll have to move it to put the Star Wars next to it to complete the whole motif. Alright, so if this works, I should hit this button and we'll go to the widescreen camera. I kind of think we can make this better. There we go. Something I got. We'll work with some... Hello everybody! Hey, camera two over here. Alright, it's time to go. Let me show you... I got a brand new way to open these things because I do reuse the boxes for shipping purposes and so I'll debut that technique here. First off, we got to get rid of the straps. This is always a fun time. Everybody remembers being a strapping young lad. We're gonna make such a big mess down here. R2... R2 is gonna be I'm going to the homebrew topper contest, I think. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. All right, you can go over here, guy. You can get over here. All right, so we've seen all kinds of ways to open up the box, tearing open the front, just pulling it out. If you don't care about the box, that works great. This game, she's getting her makeover, man. This is her glamour shots. So we're gonna save the box for shipping again, and I think I've got the ultimate way to do that. What you can't really see is I'm kind of starting towards the back and doing a diagonal cut forward which is going to make this more of a lid. And then we'll do the traditional cut down the front. Cut down the front, cut that across, the top cut, oops, I didn't want to start there. Right here is where I want to go, right here. One of these days I'll get it perfect. Alright, so what that should allow us to do... Once we complete this, hang on. This worked out great with Kong, I just cut my finger with the box. There we go. So with a little fold here, we should be able to clear the ceiling. And come right up like that. Now the joys of doing that is we now have like a better lid, right? I've tried it all. I've tried pulling over the flaps, laying the box down, gingerly sliding the game out to preserve the box in pristine form. It's a pain in the butt to get back in there. This method, I can load the game exactly like it is. remember to subscribe! I have to put you in my pocket while I do stuff. Johnny, I'm sorry, buddy, I'm sorry. Didn't work, so it did. I have to run the choo-choo tonight. Wes, perfect, all right. Do you wanna win some packing foam? Email me now, donspinballpodcasts at gmail.com. I'm gonna try to make a nice little pile of these because these little bastards get everywhere. What else do we got, what else do we got? This would be so much more fun with a cameraman, or like POV camera. If I get one more Patreon member, I might be able to afford it. I'm $5 away from hitting $600 a month. So if you haven't, patreon.com backslash donspinballpodcast would be super awesome. And if you're number 600, go ahead and email me. I'll send you some stickers. Okay, what do we got? The legs fell out. This of course, Star Wars, Fall of the Empire Premium Edition. So you don't get any fancy powder coats, man. This is what you get. This is what you get. You get black bumble. All you get is black bumble. Now because I have a lift cart and I have carpet, I like to set these front ones at about a centimeter. That allows me to get the cart underneath. Cool trick, you want these to match of course, right? So, if you put them where they're gonna be and measure the tops, this one's slightly taller, couple of spins there. Then for the front legs, those should be perfect. They will be. Hang on. Booyah. All right. We'll set those aside. We'll prep the back legs. Ow, you bastard. Stay up there. There we go. It'll probably happen again. All right. We got this other box. These are sometimes good to ship as well, because these legs are going to be powder-coated in what I'm calling Vader Rage. I'm going to try a mix of things. I want to see if black glitter is a thing with powder coating over a red base, so it'll be as if you were in the fires of Mustafar itself for the Vader Rage edition of Star Wars, Fall of the whatever. All right, these guys, I think a little steep at the back. We could always bring it in. You know, we'll fine tune it and everything is what I'm saying. But like same method. Shout out to my buddy for hooking me up with how to do this. Because before I was just eyeballing it. But now when you put them together, even though it's on carpet, yeah perfect. Alright, we got back legs. That's essentially all we can do at this point. Oh, yeah, you tried to get me, didn't you? Emperor Palpatine, you will need to learn more ways of the force in order to best me. Alright, let's get this bastard out of the box. Let me read some comments. Go steep or go home. I mean, right? Especially for a game like this. I mean, 7 Shots Fan Layout, they will tell you in the instructions not to use a device like this. But if you're ginger and basically don't cross thread the bolts, you can do this to save a lot of time. I will say I also have a tap and die set, and I have had some bad threads before on the inserts. And so I use my tap to go in there, clean it up, and then you can still use the same bolt. It works great. I've been there. Oh, I had this already prepped. I mean the art's okay here. It's Star Wars-alicious, you know. Front leg, again, just the black bumble, nothing special. It's gonna be though, it's gonna be. We'll get this game set up. I've got a second set of legs that I use to get powder coated and then we just do the recycle method. And that's through the magic of buying two of them. Two sets of legs. That's it. Hey, we're almost ready to stand this guy up. Not like I was stood up on prom night. I don't know, the art looks better in person. I think that's a true statement. Alright, just... oh you son of a crap. Well, I'm sure you guys have set up games before. Maybe you're people from the internet and you haven't, but... Here we go. Alright, let's get this guy in. The fun part was about to commence. So I'll hand tighten these to make sure that I'm not cross threaded at all. They go in at a nice 45 degree angle. Very satisfying turns there. I love it. Who thinks we're gonna see Walking Dead at Expo? I wasn't sure but now I'm still not sure. Alright. Here's a new technique. I'll make sure you can see the ground here. We're making a mess. See? There's no way to do this without just trashing the room. Gah. All right, so if this works, we'll bring out our lift cart. Somewhere, somewhere right about there. Let's try it. Come here. All right up with you It took me like three years to realize that I was doing it like the worst way possible I mean not like the absolute worst, but I could have been doing better. Come here Brandon box lighter. Cardboard is getting hot from the incandescent light. Alright, alright, so there she is. Let me check the camera, make sure you can actually see what's going on. Hey, that's not so bad! That's not so bad. Stern Tour people are supposed to give us a nice surprise. Uh, what day is the Stern Tour at Expo? I didn't get a ticket. Dude, Evil Dead was so heavy. Evil Dead was so heavy. Uh, I will defend the airbag though. The airbag, once properly set up, was totally working. It was a fun way to do it. It was a great idea, you know, but just like the smokeless ashtray, its utility is, you know, it doesn't go as far as you would like. Where's Lando? There's Lando. Get some Billy Dee Williams on here. All right. I love this art now. Remember when Billy Dee Williams was doing all the Colt 45 ads in the 80s? Billy Dee Williams, the Colt 45, the smooth operator. That's not even tall enough. Guys, a couple hours ago I was playing Star Wars at Costco and this guy was in my truck and it was super funny. I don't care about scratching these legs because they're getting powder-cutted. They're probably not getting powder-cutted for this game. Join me. And we can drink Colt 45 as father and son. That would have been such a cool frickin' plot twist. Lando's your father? That's right, Luke. You know it in your heart to be true. Someday Bespin will all be yours. What if Billy Dee Williams was Darth Vader's son and it was really the guy that voiced Simba's dad was actually Darth Vader, not just the voice? Somewhere there's some expanded universe lore. Alright, so legs are on her. I mean, how exciting can you make a Stern unboxing? Because there's not a ton to do. All right. Yeah, so I should be able to just drop this guy down. And that's it. They're on legs, the back is fine. The discs are unherniated within my lower back. I played Star Wars Costco yesterday and destroyed the Death Star on ball two. It's a fun game, right? Maybe not the deepest, but it's super fun. Kevin from Arcade One. Alright. What's up, Phil? How you doing? Alright, scroll back here. I'm going to the 8.45 a.m. tour. Guess I'll find out then Wednesday. 4.20 a.m. Albert. You're crazy. Friday. Alright. I wonder if I can crash it. Wonder if I know some friends at Stern. I guess whoever's doing the tour in the morning let me know if you're seeing something cool, and then I'll see if I can't find a way to sneak in there. How many Costco hot dogs did I eat? None, because I went to Pop Belly and got sandwiches before that. Where'd my knife go? Yeah, so at this point she's on four legs, she's out of the box, there's nothing else in the box except packing material. So yeah, we stand up the backbox, plug it in, and that's kind of it. All right, this is the big move that bust moment. Star Wars, hopefully not fall with a backglass. Let's see. Oh, get out of here. Oh, look at Spike 3 Nunes. What am I getting hung up on? Oh, little paper triangles. Ta-da! All right, cool. Cool man, cool. All right. Yeah, it's a Star Wars pinball machine. Cool, cool. Cool. Look at the back glass. It's kind of dope. All right, what do we get? Who wants some epherma? Has anyone not unboxed a Stern that would like some of this stuff sent to them? I don't know if anybody collects this crap. Like back in the day, in my like coaster days, this is the kind of crap I would totally go for. Epherma, they call it, right? Just like the packing material inserts, this is just some stuff about Insider Connected. I've got a whole drawer full of this stuff. I don't know what to do with it. Cut towards your body, not your body. Absolutely. Shall we? Ay, Papi! Ay, oh! It's sticky icky. It's sticky icky. All right. Should we switch to the other camera or is this one good? I have a lot of light from this one. Let's go with the other one. I was two weeks too early for Expo to post my Stern Factory tour on Facebook. Sweet! What's in the goodie bag? I don't know. What else did we get? You get this stuff too. How to set the game up. Like, it's incredibly dated. It's got a bunch of like, Spike 1 references. Alright, so, yeah, game arrived. It looks good. No scratches. I think Luke looks alright. Oh, what the hell? All right, so I've never seen this on a premium, but they're putting this little protective film on here. I've seen this on the LEs when it's like a silver or shiny, but that's just straight up black. What are they putting the satisfying peel tape on the black T-molding for? I mean, I'm not complaining. This is just like, this is weird. All right, so pro tip, T-molding, If you don't like the color, change it. This stuff is $20 for 20 feet of it. And you only need about 10, maybe. So $10 a T molding, you can change this to whatever color the hell you want. I'm gonna do like a red motif. I don't know if I'll change this or not. I'll see how it comes out. I'm gonna have to make some new, print some new badge backers because this is a different size. That's a different size for spike three. All right, what else we got? Let's open her up. Ooh, I have a tool for this. Um, what the hell did I do with it? I got some little cutters. I just found them the other day after missing them for like a year. And now they're gone again. Scissors? This is a bad idea. Yeah, that's not gonna work. Alright, well I guess we'll do the knife. I hate not having my proper tool for the job. We're redoing this shooter rod anyway. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. All right, so for some reason, both sets of keys are now on here, unless I got an extra set. They gave me two sets of keys, so four keys. Normally they're inside the coin door. This is the same coin door, by the way. All right, that set unlocks the coin door. This set doesn't. All right, so okay, that's the first time. They put the backbox keys in the coin door. Wait, let me make sure that the actual back spot keys, yep. All right, so that's weird. This speaker panel doesn't feel like it comes down as far. Like it's not completely flat. A little board for the screen, speaker, speaker. Oh, there's some metal speaker plates over the area where the tweeters go. So that'll be a pretty easy upgrade. Does anybody, has anybody figured out What speakers are using on the LEs? So I can go ahead and switch those out. They're still using these security bolts for some reason for the badge on the front. Like anybody wants to steal a premium badge. That just means I have to go and grab like my special bit to get them out of there. It's a Torx bit. It's not the, it's not the security Torx. That would be ridiculous. Man, why is this guy in there so tight? Seriously, dude, the back glass frame is in here like crazy tight. I can get the one side out. Is that normal? Jeez, I can't get it out. What the heck, man? I can't even lift it up on that end. Lift it up on this end. Huh, I'll have to mess with that later. That's really strange. All right, otherwise, gigantic speaker panel. I mean the screen is only there to there, but the whole panel is like another centimeter bigger. All right, well, that's in, that's in, that's in, that's in. New power supply, empty over here, it's right there in the middle. They've moved the location for the plug in the back to also coincide with that area. Eh. All right, what do we got in the coin door? There is one apron card. I got a plastic that says premium. If you can come pan down here. Plastic that says premium, one apron card, pretty flimsy. Nice apron, cool graphic stuck on there, user code, emblem right there. We got two channels for the expression lights. I'm going to go put those in. I have some expression lights from another game and as As far as I know they'll work in here so I'm gonna throw them in and then why does Jabba have a dirty ball? Where'd they get these balls? It's gotta be a Newton ball that they plugged in there. I'll have to disassemble this. I hope my Death Star doesn't reject. We'll find out. Let's see if there's any packing materials inside. Let me pull the cotter pin here. Oh what? They zip-tied the cash box in. When did they start doing that? I guess right now the cash box is literally zip-tied in. That's a pain. Why'd they do that? I mean, you got a cotter pin. Okay. This is a fun time here. Let's see what's in the cash box. Borg shared a video this afternoon of Mo Rejects Of Mo Rejects or No Rejects Alright here what get here hope you didn want a plush toy or nothing power cord looks the same throw it back there we got six balls a tilt bob and the backbox securing bolts those will be the backbox bolts the BBBs we got six balls they If they come oily, you need to clean them off with some, uh, ethyl alcohol or isopropyl. We'll use that. Ow! You bastard! We'll use isopropyl. This is the tilt bob, which we're going to leave right there with the cotter pin because I ain't got no time and no love for tilt bobs. Only tilt bobs I love are the ones that make ramps road trip. All right. Okay. Lockdown bar. She's the same. She's getting powder coated. Oh, for fuck's shit! That is a tight glass. Set you right there. So this is the point where you go through everything, make sure everything's tight, make sure there's no packing materials anywhere. Anywhere. My drop target shipped up. I guess that's cool. You know, for a seven shot fan layout game, they really did utilize all the undercarriage here. These are a ridiculous amount of light boards. And it looks like they're daisy chained except this one. Was this one supposed to go somewhere? Probably not. We'll fire it up make sure they're working. This one's daisy to that one, this one daisies to this one, this one does not daisy there but it does daisy here, and this one comes off this This board. Alright, that's the VUK kicker for the Darth Vader scoop. This coil is for the pop bumper. These two, sling sling, flipper flipper, giant magnet. Ooh, she's a beefer. She's beefy. Is this my Node 10 board? Everything looks okay there. Alright, we'll play the game and see how it all works out. What is this guy? This is the mechanism for... Oh, it's for the doggy daddy. Alright, so here's the mech for the AT-AT, the AT-AT. It just looks like a small stepper motor with a... what is this? A pinion? Or a little linkage, a little plastic linkage to them. Alright, on a metal wheel. That's interesting. This is a giant ass area with the same kind of plastic linkage on a tiny, tiny stepper motor and a couple of optos. This must run the up-down ramp. So I don't know, mechanistically it looks like they've taken up a lot of space. Maybe not with this thing, but definitely with the up-down ramp. I wouldn't think an up-down ramp would need necessarily that much real estate. I guess they left it open so you can work on it. But I mean, it's just the flimsiest little plastic linkage. The budget engineering is nuts. All right, well, I mean, hope it holds up. If not, it'll be easy to replace. Another pop bumper, another pop bumper, Vuk. What else have we got? Sling sling, flipper flipper, trough, magnet. So with the premium, I'm getting this little mechanism here, this little mechanism here. Those look like the same. Same little separate motor and same little linkage. And then, uh, magnet. There's your one, two, three special things that you get in addition to the plastic guys. Alright, somebody was asking about the goodie bag. Um... It's like an R2-D2 plastic in here. What is this? It's kinda cool. I mean, I'll take whatever you give me. I like bonus stuff. I wanna leave this attached, you know, it's not like, it's like a Funko Pop. You don't wanna take it out of the box. Um... There's some Stern Army plastics in here, some replacement plastics for the slings, and a square plastic R2-D2, and just like a node board instruction sheet. That's all you get. Cabinet speaker. I gotta plug expression lights in here. Um, alright, well, there's no packing materials to remove. Just the way you look tonight. Alright. Follow the Empire. Um. Death Star's cool. Man, this AT-AT. Man, she's like... He's flimsy. Oh, it feels so light. Oh god, these are Pez toppers. Um, alright, well, let's go radiate it with the code. This needs a sticker. Ah, okay, there's so many mod opportunities. So many mod opportunities. Should I powder coat the wire forms? I can't decide. Alright, can I plug it in? I don't have any like clean balls to put in here. I don't have any like ninja chromes or nothing. I'll clean them off and we'll check the comments and chat. How about that? That's the way I look tonight. Alright, I have an extension cord. Alright, we can fire her up. I know that's what you guys want to see at the end of the setup. This was very quick. I mean, start to finish, I mean, I'm experienced at this, but, I mean, in 10 minutes you can have one of these things ready to go. As long as you don't have to download any updates. We'll plug her into the surge protector. Alright, let me clean my balls and we can take some questions from chat. I should give something away too. Just the way I look tonight. We should use two towels. Alright. I'm going ball cleaning. How many balls? Install six balls? I got six balls right here. All right, let's jump over to the front cam. We'll read some comments. We'll wash some balls together. Show you guys how we do this. Because I kept getting loose, no baby yodas. Don't use the factory stern balls is common advice. Yeah, I get that. For my purposes, they'll be fine for now. I've got to put an order in to ball bearing Because I had two bags of balls. I had the Ninja Chrome ones and then I had the high carbons, which you're supposed to use for games with magnets in them. And I've just about used them all up. So I need to get an order in. So I think, you know, just for today and whatever, we'll go ahead and go with the Sternies. They'll be fine. Please don't forget to squire down the backbox. Oh, secure down, yeah. You should give away the Stern box. Michael Faucus, how you doing buddy? Good to see you. So I need that box to ship this game to the 1UP Lounge, Bellingham, Washington. Go check it out. It'll be there pretty soon. Don't be doing karaoke with Borg at Pinball at the Beach. Depends on how many banana daiquiris I get in me. Do you know the quick trip installing expression lights without pulling the playfield out? Sterling, no. Please enlighten me. I know you can push it all the way to the side or whatever. Or um, oh I think it's uh, you put the game up on blocks, the playfield up on blocks above the box. Michael Faucus, we'll see you in a week, you going to pinball expo? Can't believe it's only a week away. Oh dude. I'd love me some lemon drops. I loved lemon everything since I was a kid. I think when I was a kid nobody else liked lemon cake. And so I was like, well, I'll have that and then no one will eat my cake. Damn it, it worked. More cake for me. Now I am known for breaking things that are unsecured. Like if I put a topper up and I don't secure it on there, oh, I'll get it down before I break it. Nope, eventually I'll shake the crap right off of there. She's got balls, guys. Let's see, let's plunge a couple. Oh, okay, first test. I want to know if I get any ball rejects. Ooh, she shoots good. I played a couple of the LEs and they were, um... I was getting some hangups occasionally with shooting the ball. Not a problem this time. We are pretty steep, which should make this game play pretty good. Oh, these are opto spinners. Alright, this is gonna be fun. At least ripping the spinners is gonna be awesome. Let's get the glass in. Just the way you look. A 2.9. How fast do you think this thing boots? Pretty faster than I get the glass in. Gosh, that's tight. There's no special plastic to peel off of the start button. Can you guys see stuff? I don't know if you can see the game. There you go. All right. Oh, I need, guys, I need plastic protectors. I need a shaker motor. I got to put expression lights in here. I need Vader on a hammock. There's so much stuff I need. All right. Start button in the same spot. It looks like, ooh, it feels beefier for some reason. Here we go So oh you know what You know what I forgot to do I got it on my Wi smart system here Stupid me Alright There we go I should have started a timer I go a little bit late to this Alright, stopwatch is going. It's sensing. That was nice, I didn't have to remove any packing material around any of the mechs or nothing. What was that, THX? Spike 3? Oh, that's so funny. I'm at 30 seconds. Sprecha? English. Yes, please. Our Sprecha will be English. USA country, free play, yup. Enable home team, yup. Game volume 30, networking, we'll do that later. Save and exit. Should we play us a game? Man, that's washed out. That looks like crap. People say the balls come all beat up and scratched. Where are parts and rubbers faster? These balls looked okay, and I'll swap them out. Oh, shaker motors went up? I did notice that. Configure video. Let's bring the brightness down a little bit. What do you think? Is that okay? I mean, this won't be a gameplay stream. I'll do that and we'll grab like good HDMI and everything. But let me just fire up a game real quick. Dude, the screen looks great. All right, for whatever reason my Death Star is opening and closing its mouth over and over. My Death Star mouth is just sitting there. Open, close, open, close, open, close. That's really weird. We gotta figure that out. Let's see if we can, uh... Here, let me switch this over. Let's see if you guys can see this. I don't have a wireless camera. Look at the Death Star. Oum. Yum. Yum. What is it doing? It's talking to me. Yum. Yalala. Yalalala. That's so weird. What's it doing? I'm gonna smack it in it's damn mouth. Oh my goodness. That's weird. That's probably not supposed to happen. Unless that was in a new code update. Yow! Yow! That's the weirdest thing! It's just sitting there, rawr, rawr, rawr. Oh God, alright. So, I don't know. Um, you think it could be like an opto is trying to sense and it's not getting anything so just cycling through it? That was really freaking weird. We'll just power cycle it and we'll see what's up. It's just sitting there like yum, yum, yum. Like, maybe there's supposed to be a limit switch that's there? Let's see. The AT-AT was on a stepper. The up-down ramp looked like it was on a stepper. I didn't see the mechanism for the Death Star. But that smooth motion... I do like the Spike 3 logo popping up there. Oh, here we go. Open. Closed. Okay, Death Star Mouth is closed. Good start. Alright, it's not moving. That was so weird. I'm gonna see if I can't throw a ball up there real quick. And then we'll get the game like registered and everything. I'm trying to backhand it. All right, let's see ball two if it does it. No, it's still good. It's working now. That was like the weirdest thing though. All right, my Death Star is open. I was in on it. That guy was really good. Oh, that was right in there and that rejected. Come on, man. There we go. Stay in? Okay. Looks like my Death Star's working. That last ball looked like it should have went up there that first try, though. Completed. Alright. I'm just, I'm playing off to the side so everybody can see here, but I'm hitting all the shots. I know, I know the popular take is that Stern lost its way, but this game's fun. I mean, it's still pinball, right? It's gonna be fun. Alright, so, I mean, I've played, I've put literally two good shots up to the Death Star. One of them went in, came right back out pretty quick. The other one went in and stayed in, so here's hoping. Looks like it's chewing gum. That was really weird, man. That was weird. But no, the Death Star is working now, so maybe that was just like a first booed up boogie or something. It'll be fun to see like how this game holds up at home here. Like let me put a hundred plays through it. All right, can we backhand it? Yes. Oh, it stayed in. It stayed in. All right, so we're two for three. Two for three with good shots going up there. How does this work? I've not been able to get the Jedi Ball save to work. I tried on location, I'm trying at home, I'm gonna keep practicing with it. Bless my circuits, you did it! Oh look at that, I got a high score. Well done! Alright. You'll be remembered throughout the galaxy. Backglass is cool. It does look like an action figure kind of deal. How am I the Han champion? Alright, so I'm gonna play this game the rest of the night and we'll see where it goes. I just saw the Cup Chess shirt. Oh my god. It's all fun, but is anything they make right now 10 to 13k worth of fun? That yeah, I don't have an answer for you, you know. People spend 20k on a watch and I can't see getting that much enjoyment or fun out of at this time you know the same with people get it weren't likely that Hitler them Bana That's fun. I wonder how well that decal on the back is going to hold up on a hyperspace getting blasted with balls constantly. Although, it's a decal, you know? Heck, there might even be one in the goodie bag to replace it. You know, it's not that big of a deal. It's fun. So what do you get with the premium? You get the Java, you get the TIE Fighter, you get the Pez Heads. I think that's it. I think the Millennium Falcon's on the Pro, too. We get a lot on the pro. You even get the same flimsy AT-AT, he just doesn't go down. I wonder if it's still coded for the pro though. I wonder if you could just get that little linkage and put it in there. I mean, it looks like off the shelf parts. Like you could 3D print something that would work with that. Make him move. I think with where mod makers are at, I don't think that's insurmountable. Let me know what you think. I'm gonna play this for a while. I'm gonna feel for it. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. New pinball day. So this one, I've got plans. I've got expression lights in her. Give it a good powder coat. I'm thinking a dark red with like a black glitter. I've got to figure out the speakers because I want to upgrade to what the LE's got. And then, I don't know, we'll figure out if they sell the speaker lights or not. If not, I'm sure someone will come up with something. Fall of the Empire, Star Wars. There it is. What do you guys think? Turn that... Oh yeah. Oh, that's right. I'm gonna go through and configure everything. I know this is all washed out here. We'll do some gameplay live streaming next time and it'll be all set up really good. We'll capture right off of the deal there. Does that kill it? That kills it. I'll go through. I don't know in the new menu system like where it is so I don't want to fumble around for right now. But yeah, there's the box and there we go. We'll do some live streams. It'll be fun. I'll see you guys at Expo. We'll be live again soon.

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 7e60e3a3-fb08-492b-8549-b87f26e842dd*