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The Complete Guide To Unboxing & Setting Up A New Pinball Machine (Flip N Out Pinball, 2021)

Flip n Out Pinball·video·45m 42s·analyzed·Oct 22, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Complete unboxing and setup guide for new Stern pinball machines.

Summary

Zach Minney from Flippin' Out Pinball provides a comprehensive step-by-step guide to unboxing and setting up a new Stern pinball machine (using Godzilla Pro as the example). The video covers tools needed, proper box opening technique, leg installation, head securing, glass removal, playfield service position, ball inspection and cleaning, and initial power-on setup including free play configuration.

Key Claims

  • All four legs on new Stern pinball machines are identical; leveler adjustment on the bottom differentiates slope/incline, not leg length variation

    high confidence · Zach explains leg assembly mechanics directly during machine setup demonstration

  • Front legs should be installed all the way down (fully retracted); back legs typically adjusted to approximately 2 inches up to achieve 6.5-7 degree playfield incline

    high confidence · Zach demonstrates preferred personal setup: 'all the way down' for front legs, ~2 inches up for back legs

  • Bolt tightening should use one-hand strength for wooden cabinets; over-tightening can damage wood, under-tightening causes wobble

    high confidence · Zach provides specific tightening guidance: 'tighten it with one hand, the grip and the strength of one hand'

  • Green straps holding head during shipping must not be cut until all four legs are installed and machine is upright, or head will flop and break glass

    high confidence · Zach emphasizes safety warning: 'If you cut this, then the head is going to flop over, it's going to bust the glass'

  • New Stern pinball machines have power switch on top of head (newer design) unlike older machines which had power under cabinet

    high confidence · Zach notes: 'Some of the older machines that you may be accustomed to, pinball machines, the power is under the cabinet. On these newer Stern games, it is right up top here.'

  • Factory-fresh pinballs come with protective oil layer; should be wiped with microfiber towel (optionally with water) before play to prevent fingerprints

    high confidence · Zach demonstrates ball cleaning: 'These pinballs come with a very fine layer of oil on them, so it does prevent rust'

  • New pinball playfields will develop small divots/dimples over time as balls impact the clear coat; this is normal and will eventually even out with hundreds of plays

    high confidence · Zach explains normal wear: 'Over time after so many plays there is a nice clear coat on here so you're gonna see little bitty divots or dimples'

Notable Quotes

  • “if I can do it myself blindfolded, check another video I've done, then with a hand, you can do it easily as well”

    Zach Minney@ 1:11 — Sets tone of accessibility and confidence for new machine owners who may be nervous about setup

  • “Don't cut this strap until we have all four legs on and it's in the upright position and we're safe to lift the head. Don't cut the strap.”

    Zach Minney@ 10:45 — Critical safety instruction to prevent glass breakage and cabinet damage

  • “tighten it with one hand, the grip and the strength of one hand. So I've got one hand strength, nice and snug.”

    Zach Minney@ 9:34 — Specific guidance on bolt tightening technique to protect wooden cabinet from damage

  • “It's one of my, I'm a nerd, it's one of my favorite parts of unboxing a brand new pinball machine is kind of unveiling it by lifting that head up.”

    Zach Minney@ 17:44 — Personal commentary revealing community passion for the unboxing/setup experience

  • “I can't really play a game and experience it fully without it [Stern Shaker Motor].”

    Zach Minney@ 27:08 — Strong endorsement of shaker motor mod as essential enhancement for gameplay experience

  • “Enter, left and right, back. Enter, left and right, back.”

    Zach Minney@ 33:26 — Mnemonic device for remembering coin door button functions on Stern machines

Entities

Zach MinneypersonFlippin' Out PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyGodzilla ProgameGary SternpersonStern Insider Rewards ProgramproductStern Shaker MotorproductStraight Down the MiddleorganizationPinball Networkorganization

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Stern Shaker Motor identified as essential enhancement that creator cannot enjoy machines without

    medium · Zach states: 'I can't really play a game and experience it fully without it' regarding Shaker Motor, indicating mod normalization among experienced players

  • ?

    community_signal: Flippin' Out Pinball providing comprehensive educational content and customer support infrastructure for machine owners

    high · Zach emphasizes distributor support availability: 'that's why it's important to have a great supportive distributor you contact us at flipping out pinball we'll walk you through the process'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern machines ship with comprehensive setup guides and instructional documentation for new owners

    high · Zach references included materials: 'instructions...shows you how to set up your pinball machine...guided setup brochure...as well as pinball basics'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.137

0:00
Thank you. Hello out there and first off congratulations on the purchase of your brand new pinball machine. I'm Zach Minney with Flippin' Out Pinball, Straight Down the Middle and the Pinball Network. So you're probably really excited to get your pinball machine unboxed, but maybe a little bit nervous too. Fear not, in this video I'm going to walk you through how to properly unbox and set up your brand new pinball machine. This particular model is a Stern Godzilla Pro model. Now fear not, if you don't have a Godzilla Pro model, this is going to apply for every Stern pinball machine that you open, and even some other manufacturers as well. But we're going to stick with Stern today. You may be a little bit nervous, but I assure you, if I can do it myself blindfolded, check another video I've done, then with a hand, you can do it easily as well. Let's get started. Okay, before we get started, you're going to need a couple tools, very minimal, like a box cutter go get yourself a box cutter or a knife to open this thing up and then we're also going to need a ratchet or a 5-8 socket to secure the head and legs so a knife a 5-8 and it's always helpful to have a stool just a bar high stool you'll see why here in a bit so if you need to press pause go We need a knife, a 5-8 socket, and a stool. All right, everybody, so you got your tools. Good deal. First, we're going to do a little pinball education here. Whenever you receive your pinball machine, brand new, it's going to come in a box very similar to this. But certain games all look the same for the most part on the outside. But what I want you to focus in on is this area right around here. A lot of details on the box here. First off, make sure that it has, I don't know if you can see this, has the name of the actual game and it didn't get the wrong game. But second, it says do not truck from this side. That's a good indicator for us not to open from this side. We're going to try to find the bottom of the pinball machine and you'll find out soon why. So slide this around, get it to where you want to unbox the pinball machine. Then you will see truck this side only. Only one of the sides of your pinball box will say truck this side only. All the other sides are going to say do not truck this side. It says truck this side only because this is the bottom of that pinball machine. So when we go to expose this machine and open it up, we want to do so from this panel right here. Again, there's a couple of different ways to unbox a pinball machine. This is just the way that I prefer, especially if you don't have to keep the box. Some people like to keep the box, really not that big of a deal. You're going to keep it in storage for a little bit and then your spouse is going to tell you to get rid of it or you're just going to be tired of looking at it. So we're just going to pop open the top first here with your hands. The only thing you need to be careful, there are staples on top of a lot of these pinball boxes. Whenever you are detaching this box, just make sure that the staples get placed somewhere securely. You don't want to step on these. four or five times that's happened to me. Not really that fun. Wear some shoes. And I guess for legal reasons, wear eye protection so that I don't get sued. Please wear them. I'm a professional, but please wear protective. Does anybody wear protective? Just wear the glasses. Okay, now as we take a look inside the box, you're going to see the front of the pinball machine right here. you're going to remove some of this packaging.

  • Stern Shaker Motor is an easy installation mod (~$100+) that can be installed in pre-routed holes on the cabinet

    high confidence · Zach recommends: 'if you're going to install a stern shaker motor in this game you can't see it right now but it's down in this corner here we already have four holes that are routed out for you it's an easy install'

    • 4:15
    Here's where I'll remove all four main top packaging pieces. And then right down here, I don't know if you guys can see it, but right down here, see this right here? These are where the legs are. I just always shift those up as such. That way when we open that front panel there, the legs don't go flopping out on us. but we'll remove those before we go pulling out this pinball machine. I did forget to mention that back here in the back of the box, you have instructions as well.
    4:47
    It shows you how to set up your pinball machine. If you're more of a, if you like reading, just follow the video. I got you. I got you covered here. But just how to unlatch the lockdown bar, we'll get into that. Also a guided setup brochure that shows you how to properly set up the electronics on your game. as well as pinball basics to keep your game running well, to keep it clean, etc. So keep these on hand. Yeah, so if this looks better to you, then shut off the video. You can just follow this. I'm not bitter. I'm not bitter at all. You just follow this, shut off the video. I can tell you this, we're going to cover all this stuff just fine. Well, most of all of this stuff. I'm going to walk you through it, and you're not going to have as much fun if you shut off the video. But no, here's my... forget it. So we have removed all of the packaging from the top, going to move the legs out of the way. Our next step is going to be to cut this front panel down, exposing the bottom of that pinball machine so that we can get the machine out of the box. You may elect to lay this whole thing down with help of course and kind of pull it and shimmy it out if you want to keep this box. But again, if you do keep the box, message me at Zach at FlippinOutPinball.com. Let me know how long you kept it before you ended up throwing it away. Okay, so again, truck this side only. That's the one we're cutting. We're going to take our box cutter or knife, and we're going to take one vertical cut all the way to the ground, and then one vertical cut all the way to the ground to expose this panel downward.
    6:26
    Okay, we've cut our panel. We've exposed the bottom of the pinball machine. You feel so vulnerable right now. It's okay, baby. And now we have the legs as I was talking about before. See, those legs are right here. They're in a cardboard cover. And then we got them in plastic sheeting. There's going to be two on this side and then we're going to find two on this side. We're just going to set these over to the side first. Okay, with the legs out of the way, we're going to position ourselves towards the front of this pinball machine. There's your coin door right here. and your plunger. So there's going to be two bolts over here that are going to hold that front leg on, two bolts over here that are going to hold that front leg on. We're going to take these bolts out, apply the leg, reapply the bolts, and tighten. Let's do that now. You're doing great. Let's keep going. We have our 5-8 socket here. There's going to be two bolts, two leg bolts right here. We're just going to loosen those up, take them out. Each of these bolts is going to come with washer on there as well. You hear that? This washer is simply just going to protect the powder coat of that leg whenever we go tightening it so that we don't, with these sharp edges of the bolts, just so it doesn't cut into the powder coat. It's just another preventative measure to make sure that your machine stays looking nice for years to come. Next, let's talk about pinball legs. What's super nice about these pinball machines is that all four legs that come in the box that you received are all going to be the same. They're all identical. There's not ones that are longer than the other to create a slope. None of that. They're all the same. What differentiates that slope that you're going to see on a pinball machine is just the leveler on the bottom of them. Each one of them has the same leveler. And you'll see a nut that once you level it where you want to, you secure this so it doesn't go moving on you. But what we're going to do for the front legs. The front legs, a good measurement, it depends on your height and stuff, but for the most part, all of my personal machines, all the way down. See that? All the way down. So they're all the way in. So the front two legs are always going to be all the way in. So let's fasten those now. I've got my bolts here. I've got my five eights here. I've got a leg here. We're going to take one of them, place it through the hole there, and find the hole in the side of the cabinet. And they're going to be, because they're freshly manufactured, they might be a little tough. You're not going to be able to get them in all the way just hand tightening them. You're going to need that 5A's. Now we're going to take the ratchet and tighten these up. There's not an exact science to tell you how tight to get these, but what I tell individuals is that you're going to tighten it. You don't want to under tighten it because this thing will be wobbly and that's no good. You don't want to over-tighten it either because this is a wood cabinet. You keep crunching down and those bad things will happen there as well. I always tell people, try to tighten and you'll go back and forth until you get them both equally tightened. But tighten it with one hand, the grip and the strength of one hand. So I've got one hand strength, nice and snug. Go to the next one, nice and snug. Go back a little bit just to make sure you're snug. Make sure you're snug. You don't want to hear crunching. That means you've gone too far at the end of the world, but you don't want to over tighten it I also don't want to take this and take both hands. We're not putting lugs on the car people Just nice tight one hand straight one hand strength and we'll repeat on the other side then voila We've got the front leg securely tightened now Our next step is going to be with your help you guys kind of shimmy this out of the box We're going to get this box out of the way, that way when we go to assemble the back legs, we have nothing in our way. Let's do that now. But first, hold on, but first, I do need to tell you this. See this green strap right here that's running down here? Do not cut that thing. If you cut this, then the head is going to flop over, it's going to bust the glass, and you're going to be sad, and you're going to call me, and you're going to go, Zach, what do I do now? It's going to be a mess. Don't cut this strap until we have all four legs on and it's in the upright position and we're safe to lift the head. Don't cut the strap. I'm going to do it. No, I'm joking. I'll try to do it from the side. Show you guys here. Okay, another little tip for you. On the bottom of these pinball machines there are little plastic nubs that protect it from scraping the ground or tearing up the back of the pinball machine But whenever they come shipped they have the leg bolts Remember those leg bolts in the top here They also in the bottom So when you're removing it from the box, you need to be very careful that those sharp leg bolts don't cut up your floor or your wonderful, beautiful hardwood floors that your wife would kill you if you scratched up.
    11:45
    You get me? Just be careful. All right, did you get the box out of the way? Did you make sure the bolts aren't going to scrape the floor? Good deal. Next thing we're going to do, see these legs right here? We're going to take them all the way to the ground. Remember, I'm a professional. I'm doing it solo. But have a helper lower this thing down. So essentially, you're going to see the butt end of the pinball machine on the ground. And then you're going to have two legs sticking on the ground. I'll show you. Just check this out.
    12:19
    See, it's not that bad. You're doing a great job. We have it on two legs. Now let's get it on all four. Next we're going to employ that helper again. Get them off the couch. They're going to help us pick up the back of this pinball machine and we're going to rest the back end of the machine using this stool. I'm going to show you in greater detail some video right now. Now as I lifted that up, you will with your helper, you place the stool underneath so that you don't have to continue holding it up as we take out these bolts, apply the leg, etc. Everybody's different of where and how far they like the stool to be under the game. As long as it's sturdy by itself, don't 100% trust it, but it's just there to where you can get these back legs on. For myself, I like the stool to be about two-thirds of the way under the back of the machine and then have this portion, again, sticking out. That's again just my preference. I find that if you push it further in, you get more wobble to it. I want it to be as strong as possible while I'm putting on these back legs. Again, when you're taking off these bolts, make sure that you're not shaking the machine. You don't want it falling off of that stool.
    13:47
    These are on there tight. Come on, baby. All right, let's apply the back legs. But first, we need to make sure that they're adjusted. If these are all the way to the ground on the back, you're going to have probably a six-degree incline, maybe a little bit less. In my opinion, it feels way too floaty. Now, depending on your preference, this is a preferential choice here. I like to take mine, as you see, about two inches up. I don't need to go all the way up. I don't need to do that. It's almost like a half in between. Typically what I find is that right around here, it gets me at about six and a half to seven degrees of incline on my playing field, which I prefer personally. Secure the nuts there. And again, once we get this all set up, we'll be able to determine with a level left to right to make sure it is level and the incline as well. For me personally, that's where I like to be, but you can change it over time. It's really simple. You just get under the machine, lift it up, change these, even them out, and you're done. You don't want to cross thread these, so if it's going in odd, just make sure that they go in clean. They might be, they may be a little tough though, because again, they're factory fresh. So they may be a little tighter than they used to. All four legs are securely fastened. So now we can, again, with your helper, you're going to pick up the back end of this a little bit so that you can remove the stool and then set it down on those third and fourth back legs. Very nicely done. I'm proud of you. Look how far you've come in just this short video. We've got the machine on four legs. Next, we get to pop that champagne on the side of this boat and lift the head. But first, the only way to secure this head is going to be via two bolts that go in the back once the head is in the erect position. Don't laugh. To get those bolts, they are in the coin door. To get to the coin door, we've got to get this thing out of the way. So now's the time that we take this and we pop it.
    15:56
    Didn't. And we cut it. Again, I'm a professional and I do this for entertainment purposes. Whenever you are cutting that strap, make sure that there's nobody parallel to the machine in front or back or else that strap, with the tension provided, can fly back and you can pop an eye out, kid. Don't do that. So, secure it. I should have...that's why you needed to wear the safety glasses. I told you about the safety glasses, but you just didn't listen to me. get in the coin door you're going to find the keys zip tied on to the rod here. Get these suckers off. Two sets of keys, one set, see if I pick the right one, goes in the coin box. This is responsible for opening the panel on the back of the head that you have access to like the CPU and the LCD screen. There's going to be a pin in here that you need to remove in order to get the coin box detached. In the coin box you're going to find things you need such as a power cord and tilt bob, balls, and the bolts and washers that secure the head to the cabinet. I meant to do that. We're going to lift the head up and secure the bolts to the back of the cabinet. That way the head does not fall down. It's one of my, I'm a nerd, it's one of my favorite parts of unboxing a brand new pinball machine is kind of unveiling it by lifting that head up. Let's do that now. Again, as a reminder, in the back there are two spots for bolts. Once you lift the head up, you can insert them and screw them. You don't have to have them super tight. You can do hand tightness. It's not going to go anywhere, but just take your 5-8s and just securely tighten. Not even close to as tight as you're doing on those legs though. You guys ready? The moment of truth. At least that's what happens in my head. You're going to have a thank you here from Gary Stern himself.
    18:32
    And you can sign up to the Stern Insider Rewards Program. Scan the code. Don't scan my code. Here's your game. As you see right now, the head is not secure. The only thing you really want to make sure whenever you're doing this, there's one bundle of wires in the back there. You just want to make sure they're going down into the cabinet and not getting hung up on anything. As you hear now, I am screwing in and securing that head. Oh, this game is pretty. Hey, guess what? We are nearly there. about to start playing your brand new pinball machine, but first a couple more things to secure before we begin. Number one, we've got to install the power cord on the back of the head here. Remember, your power is on a switch right here. Some of the older machines that you may be accustomed to, pinball machines, the power is under the cabinet. On these newer Stern games, it is right up top here. So we're going to install that power cord. We're also going to take out the glass. I'm going to show you how to do that and And sometimes when you get a brand new pinball machine you'll have things for shipping purposes and packing purposes. There will be zip ties and different foam that you need to remove. We'll lift up the playfield just to show you how to do that in the service position. That way if you need that in the future you'll know how. But also under the playfield, very rarely anymore do they put anything but just for precautions we'll make sure to look under the hood if you will and to see if there's anything that we need to remove before beginning. After all of that is done, we'll do a final inspection, we'll put the balls in, we'll put the tilt bob in, and then we'll fire it up and you'll be playing your brand new pinball machine. To remove the glass from your pinball machine, you'll open up the coin door and inside, approximately right here and right here underneath, there are latches. They're going to hold this lock down bar in place. To remove this glass, we need to unhinge, pop open those brackets. You're going to hear them right here. It's really hard to get an angle on that, but just believe me, you'll feel it right here. Ready? Almost like a luggage latch. Over here, right now it is detached. We'll lift this up, and there, now you have access to the glass. Now, as a reminder, some of the older machines, especially when you're going to put that lockdown bar in position this glass could slide out and break you don't want to do that this is a tempered glass so it is hard to break on top but if you tap one of these little corners on a hard surface you're just they bust i don't i don't know why uh but they're very safe this way and they're not plated glass that way if they do break there there's not shards that are going going into your eyeballs so that is how you access the glass but just make sure see this one's pretty tight This one's pretty tight. It's within a channel system here. Whenever you do remove the glass, you need to make sure that the coin door is closed. Otherwise, when you come slide that glass out, approximately right here could scrape that coin door. And then you've got a big nasty line in your glass. No one wants a line in their glass. So as you can see, I can remove the glass like so. We want to keep it level as much as we can.
    22:04
    safely remove and set somewhere soft somewhere that is not going to break email us at Zach at FlippinOutPinball.com let us know if you've ever broke a playfield glass all right now now we can get into the machine look around make sure that there's nothing that we need to detach let's take a closer look as we take a closer look I do not see anything in particular no zip ties that need to be detached that's always nice other thing you want to make sure go through make sure that all of the nuts are tight everything is tight in here nothing wobbly And if you miss something not the end of the world because when you start playing you will notice if something is loose These kind of things happen a lot in shipping. It just, it happens. nothing more satisfying but as you're playing this if you run into any problems that's why it's important to have a great supportive distributor you contact us at flipping out pinball we'll walk you through the process of troubleshooting and if it's too complex or if we need some parts or whatnot, that's what we're here for. We'll get you out the correct parts, and if it's complex to install, then we'll get you out of tech, and they will take care of the rest. Comment below on what machine you ended up with as your first new in-box pinball machine. Which one did you pick? It's hard to pick a bad one nowadays. Man, I want to play this. Next, I'd like to show you how to get the playfield in the service position, if for any need in the future you need to do so. We've identified no real things that we need to remove from the top here, so we're good there. To lift the playfield of a brand new pinball machine, you're going to use this arch, they call this the arch, or the apron. We're going to use this as a handle, like so. So using this as a handle, you're going to pull up and there's going to be service rails positions. Pull that out and it can rest right on the front of that pinball machine like so. Keep in mind though that if you've already inserted the balls into the game, you're going to have to remove those balls. If not, when we lift this all the way up, those balls are going to come tumbling. It could break, it could break plastics or a ramp, whatever it may be. To remove the balls safely, we don't have them in here. again to remove them safely make sure your game is turned off number one and again there are multiple ways to eject the balls from the system one of the ways if the machine is on there's an option in the menu that will clear the balls if the game is off and again game needs to be off otherwise if you if you touch one of these when the game is on electricity just gonna get you but see this plunger right here this is what plunger is responsible for kicking balls into the shooter trough. To clear the balls you simply put your finger there and eject it manually and the ball will come out of the trough. You remove those, put them safely somewhere before lifting this in the service position. Now that we've got the game sitting right here, we have our service rails to get it in the vertical service position, you simply hold on to one handle. There's going to be a little bump on Stern Games. Little bump right there, don't keep pulling. There's a little bitty ledge and if you continue to pull, the play field will fall into the cabinet. You don't want that. So after that first bump, pull slowly until you feel it stop, then proceed to lift. As you lift, it is made to lift and rest on that head. Look at that. Service position. Now you have access to all of the coils, all of the circuit boards, node boards here. These are universal node boards. You're going to find one here and one here. Sometimes this is in a different position. If these are universal, you can use those between games. That's for an advanced video though. We're going to look under here and make sure that there is no zip ties or any packing that we need to remove before starting the game. One of the things I will have you look at inside here, there should be a goodie bag attached here. This is going to hold your manual any operational manual needs you have as well as a little goodie bag with extra replacement decals key fobs plastics etc if you're going to install a stern shaker motor in this game you can't see it right now but it's down in this corner here we already have four holes that are routed out for you it's an easy install very impactful uh effective mod that i put in all my games. They're a little over a hundred bucks. They're easy to install and I can't really play a game and experience it fully without it. If you ever need to access any of the plunger shooter springs and stuff, it's right over here. But again, more of an advanced video to come. Looking good guys. Let's put the play field down and get this game started. To lower the play field same way as we lifted it up, you're going to take both hands. You're going to pull it down as such. And when you're going back, you have two options because you're going to get to that bump, that stop right there, right? You can simply set it down if you'd like on the service rail position. They've got a little handle back here. You can take this handle, take your hand up here, and just simply lift it just ever so slightly and guide it back over that bump. And then you can continue down. Again, handle, handle, handle. Use that handle and there's two notches here that sits right back into. You can do that. Or it's made for this method as well. Remember that bump? Don't keep pulling. If it's up, pull it down. If you don't want to use a handle, go back a little bit and bump it right back into place using this as the handle to lower it. A little more clunky that way, but it's made for that. It works. Can you feel it? We're almost there. We got the power cord here. I'm going to plug it into the back of the head. It's always good to plug this end into a surge protector before going into the main power of the wall, just as an extra precaution. Now remember we had our bag of balls here. Each particular game is different how many balls it needs. They're always going to come from the factory standard with the required number of pinballs. You can always check down here on right by your apron. It should have a decal that says install X balls. This one says install six balls and that's in fact what they did give us. I will do another tip for you guys. Always inspect the pinballs whenever you get them out. These are things that Stern, your other manufacturers, they buy in abundance. So if If these are sitting around a long time, you could see some rust or some pits or something like that. Not always the most ideal to use if that's the case. It's always good to have an extra set of pinballs in stock for yourself if you ever need to change them out. What's also important, these pinballs come with a very fine layer of oil on them, so it does prevent rust or pitting or anything like that. So before we just go throw these balls in here, we're going to do a, no solution needed, we're going to wipe down with a microfiber towel these pinballs. You can add a little bit of water if you like. Water, water, water. It's water. It's water. If you want to add water, you can. I usually add water and then I wipe them down, kind of buff them out, if you will, with a microfiber towel. I'm going to do that right now. Sorry to be all up in your personal business, but check out, look, back from the cleaners. Check out those shiny pinballs. Look at that. Just look at them. Oh God! Now the reason I've got them in my shirt is because it bugs me if I see like a fingerprint when I'm playing so I try to simply lay them down. You just naturally lay them down they'll go in the trough and you are good to go. Another thing to keep in mind this is a brand new pinball machine for you. Over time after so many plays there is a nice clear coat on here so you're gonna see little bitty divots or dimples almost like a almost like a fine golf ball you're going to see those that is normal maybe not always the most ideal aesthetically but this is a brand new machine so every time a ball takes a little air and hits down it's wood and it's a clear coat so it's going to dimple it over time over hundreds and thousands of plays it will end up evening itself out. So if you see those, not to worry. That's very normal. I don't know about you, but I think it's time to turn this game on. We're going to put the glass back in. I'll do that now. And I'll start the game up so that you can see how we can set this thing up. Again, when you're installing this, always keep it flat. There's two channels, one there and one there. Find the channel, keep it level and push it back in factory fresh it's going to be a little bit tighter and over time it'll kind of work itself lockdown bar remember to see where my hand was i'm going to get my lockdown bar it's still secure there so i don't uh look away and this thing goes sliding out all right check it out see there's two notches right here bam but a bam those go into the two notch holes there see how that works look at that now open the coin door remember the two latches now instead of taking them off we're going to insert them back on snap them down there's one ready snap and here's another boom
    32:28
    The moment of truth. Congratulations, your game is on and it's ready to go. Almost. It's almost ready to go. One of the most common questions I get is, Zach, how do I put it on free play so that I don't have to insert coins in here? Let's show you that right now. The basic setup on the operating system. To access the in-game settings in the operating system, you open up the coin door and you'll see four buttons here. Now what I try to tell people, picture these four buttons very simple. If you're wanting to turn the volume up or down in a game, at any point during game player when the game is on you open up the coin door and you'll see these red buttons that indicate volume down, volume up. But if you want to get into the operating system instead of just the volumes, picture these four buttons as follows. Enter, left and right, back. Enter, left and right, back. We're going to press the enter button twice. By hitting the enter button twice on that coin door, you're going to see some options. Again, the left and right can guide you through and the enter key will go into one of them. Diagnostics is for your test settings. If you want to make sure an LED a coil works, a switch works, et cetera, you'll go into Diagnostics. AUD is for Audits. Audits identifies all of the statistics of this game. If you want to know how many times the ball went into the left out lane, you can find it here If you want to see how many games were played in a lifetime on this Godzilla machine you can also do so here Adjustments is where you going to change game settings and machine settings. This is where we're going to find free play as well as putting on extra balls, maybe ball time. We want to increase the ball time, add extra balls to a game. Maybe you want five balls in a game rather than three, etc. Net is a new feature for Stern Games. You may or may not see this on your game but if it is insider connected enabled net is going to hook you up to the internet via wi-fi this is also a place you can go for any of the code updates that you can now do so over the internet rather than a usb jump drive utilities you can be you can use for setting your time and date adjusting custom messaging and so forth tour tournament just enables the tournament mode if you want to turn that on for competitions. And red is an indication for redemption system. These are on location and you want a ticket dispensering system, you can do so there. To the right of that is quit. That will quit and get you back to the main gameplay. Let's dive a little deeper into the settings. When you just open up and are setting up your brand new game, there's really little to no reason to go into diagnostics quite yet. same for audits adjustments is what we're looking for again with the four buttons on the coin door back enter left and right we highlight adjustments and press enter you're gonna see standard adjustments and feature adjustments and then previous if you want to go to back to the main menu or quit the service menu altogether to go back to your game If you need any help, it's there as well. Let's start with standard adjustments. This is all your preference as to how you want to set up your game. Some of the most common adjustments before starting your game include the following. I tell a lot of our customers that when the game is at home, being awarded a replay is special. However, right now, the default is set to credit. That is, whenever you achieve a replay award, you'll simply get a free game. Now if this is at home, it doesn't really make sense since your game's already on free play. So a lot of people, pressing Enter, like to change this, pressing left and right, to earn an extra ball.
    36:47
    We'll do so by pressing Enter. Continuing right. Once you become more proficient at pinball, A lot of really competitive players like to decrease the extra ball limit, or the amount of extra balls you can earn, to none. For me, that's a little tough. While I may not need five, my current level and preference of having fun is about three. But let's keep default for now. You can also set your extra ball percentage, change pricing, how often you match at the end, what What happens when you match? How many balls are you playing in the game? Let's say you want three balls, that's standard. Some of our friends and customers like to play more. Five balls, six, seven, ten. Don't play ten. If you're just glutton for punishment, one. One ball only. Let's keep it factory three. Tilt warnings, etc., etc. One of the other things I like to change, you can also, this is one thing a lot of people change, whenever you get a high score you can enter your initials. The default is three initials. That's pretty standard across the board in Pinball. But Stern enables a ten letter name if you so choose. That way you can put your full name in or nickname. There's our free play. If you're at home and you don't want to put quarters of dollars into this thing every time you press start you press enter change it to free play yes you press enter again and now that is installed adding custom messages all save time if you find yourself getting really frustrated because you keep draining and going to the next ball you can increase that that's what i love about brand new pinball machines in the 21st century there are so many different options that you can change if your heart desires. Even the LED brightness, how much it's flashing, and we're back to the beginning. Now I'm going to press the back button. Remember the far left back button. It gets me back to the main adjustment menu. Let's go to feature adjustments. Here you can select things that are more specified to the game at hand, this being Godzilla. I don't necessarily recommend when you're first getting used to a game changing any of these things. Over time of familiarizing yourself with the gameplay, you'll know what each of these means and how it's best built and adjusted to your liking. But as always, you're here for the extra info. This is another tip that I use. As we get far enough into the feature adjustments, you'll see things like left flipper power. 240 is a number that equates to the power of the coil or the power of that left flipper. I don't change those. Right flipper, I don't change any of that. Slingshot, if they're going a little wild, you might turn those down. But what I do adjust on every game in my home setting is the trough eject power. The trough eject power is the velocity, speed, and power the ball takes from the trough, where the balls are stored down here by the apron, and how fast and powerful it kicks it up into that shooter lane and ready for a plunge. The reason I adjust this is because 225 is not a level that you need in the home setting. Why might you change this? we're throwing a steel ball bearing into wood over time. The more you do so, at some point, you're going to show some wear to that wood.
    40:59
    I prefer to limit how quickly that shows wear. So I bring it down to 165. Some games, the lowest you can go is about 176. Go low. 165, I find, is a good medium. and I've never once had a ball in my ownership of hundreds of machines. Never once have I had the ball not be strong enough or the coil not be strong enough to kick that ball into the shooter lane. Believe me, turn it down. You will thank me later. If you ever go to resell this game, one of the first areas people look at to see and judge how much a game has been played is the shooter lane. This will save you hundreds. And we're back to the beginning. Let's press back. and we're going to we could go to quit but I'm going to just press simply back again and back again but if you wanted to set up the internet connection you could do so now but we're not going to be doing that in this video this is just showing you how to unbox and properly set up your pinball machine back and we're good you get a message on the screen that says the 48 volts is disabled it knows when the coin door is open to cut the high power to some of those coils so that it minimizes any risk of injury from touching or being electrocuted. Before we press start and begin playing this fun game of yours, I want to personally thank you again for all of the support and the business that you've awarded Flippin' Out Pinball. Nicole and I are very appreciative and we're one phone call away. If you're having any troubles with your brand new pinball machine, please reach out to us at Zach, Z-A-C-H, at flip, the letter N, out, pinball.com. Or you can text me at 812-457-9711.
    42:47
    Unless it's like 2 in the morning. And then I'll probably still respond, I just may think you're a little weird. I'm just being honest here. And if you didn't buy a pinball machine from us, but you're watching this video, hey, we've got more room aboard for you. Come on, let's do it. First time I'm seeing this. Alright everybody, enjoy your machine! Remember to comment below, share this video so that your friends will know how to properly unbox and set up their pinball machine. Also comment down below to tell us which one you bought. What did you buy? And the most important question before we close is, are you flipping out? It's super corny, but if not, if you're not flipping out, if you're not with us at Flippin' out, please reach out to us. Let us know why. We would love to help you through the process, and we'd love to catch you on the next one. But until then, let's get it going. What if I could play backwards? That's how crazy I am. First game I've ever played on Godzilla that I'm playing backwards and not even looking.
    43:54
    Come at me, Keith Owen. You serious, Clark? vacuuming the kitchen floors right now. Ouch! That's why you take out the staples. Ouch! Geez. Almost got my nip. Ouch! Drool, boy. It sounds like a groundhog digging holes. You're just gonna pop in. So like the pinball machine, its butt is on the ground and the ouch. Are you flipping out?
    45:28
    Thank you.