Bristow, VA
I've mentioned my USS Rio Grande mod a couple times on here and had a few PMs requesting more info so I thought I'd post some details. I'm pretty proud of this mod and I haven't seen it done before. Basically, I replaced the stock shuttlecraft with Hallmark's USS Rio Grande and rigged the thing to light up when the Holodeck Shuttlecraft Simulation is lit.
(warning: the next couple paragraphs are intensely geeky ... those with lower tolerances towards Star Trek minutiae are encouraged to skip ahead! 
)
The stock shuttlecraft:
old.jpg
The original model on this machine basically resembles the Type 6 Shuttlecraft commonly seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but the model is lacking many of the ship’s details and is kinda cheap looking. The USS Rio Grande model, however, is far more detailed and accurate to its namesake, which is a Danube-class runabout (a beefier type of shuttlecraft). Although the Rio Grande appeared primarily on Deep Space Nine, various Danube-class runabouts did appear several times on The Next Generation. Picard, Troi, and Data are riding in one at the beginning of the episode "Timescape" – that’s the one where Picard’s hand suddenly gets old when he reaches for some fruit, and then later on he goes space crazy and draws a smiley face on a time-frozen warp core breech in progress.
You remember that one. The runabout shows up at the very end of this clip.
Anyway, when I first did this mod, in the back of my mind, it always bothered me just a wee bit because I felt like the USS Rio Grande was really a Deep Space Nine ship, and maybe didn't belong on a STTNG pinball machine, technically. But then, as luck would have it, I discovered to my delight that according to Memory Alpha (the Star Trek wiki), the USS Rio Grande was in fact initially dropped off on Deep Space Nine by Picard’s Enterprise! This suggests it was among the Enterprise’s standard complement of shuttlecraft at least at one point. Therefore -- and I fully realize I’m the only human being in the universe who cares about this – the USS Rio Grande is canonically totally legit on a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" themed pinball machine! Hooray!
Ok, on to the mod itself.
Materials:
1. Hallmark USS Rio Grande Christmas Ornament. I found mine on Amazon. EBay is also probably an option.
2. 2 pieces of wire, maybe 20 inches long.
3. Something with which to prop up the ship. I used some leftover extra-long motherboard offsets from a computer I built, but there are plenty of options here.
4. Something small and round to muffle the ornament’s speaker. I used a thick button, but a piece of rubber or even a healthy dob of hot glue would probably do the trick. Unless of course you enjoy hearing Lt. Worf intoning “I WISH YOU AN HONORABLE HOLIDAY” whenever you light the holodeck. During attract mode, as the holodeck insert blinks on and off, you get the special techno version: “I WISH YOU AN- I WISH YOU AN- I WISH YOU AN- I WISH YOU AN-” (with something covering the speaker, though, you don't hear anything)
Procedures:
Installation is pretty straightforward. First remove the old shuttlecraft by removing the plastic it is mounted on, flipping it over, and then removing the two screws underneath the shuttlecraft. Note the two holes on the bottom of the old shuttlecraft where it screws in to the plastic:
underside.jpg
Drill 2 small holes on the underside of the Rio Grande, making sure they are the same distance apart as the original ship’s holes, so that the new ship can be mounted in the same place on the same plastic. Screw the offsets into these holes. Also, clip and strip the ornament’s wires a couple inches from the ship:
prepared.jpg
Next, attach the sound dampener. After putting this button over the speaker, Worf’s voice is no longer audible during gameplay:
prepared2.jpg
Next, solder two wires as shown. This board is directly beneath the holodeck insert:
solder.jpg
Then feed the wires up through the hole in the playfield for the right shuttlecraft target at the base of the right side of the Beta Quadrant ramp:
feed.jpg
Feed the wires under the lip of the right side of the ramp, and around the back of the plastic that the shuttlecraft mounts on.
feed2.jpg
Install the Rio Grande in the same holes that the original shuttle was in:
attached.jpg
Attach the wires, re-attach the plastic, and feed the wires through the target hole so that there’s not too much slack.
done2.jpg
And that’s it! The shuttle should light up whenever the Holodeck insert is lit, including during attract mode. Here's some more pictures:
Canmore, AB
Burleigh Waters
