OK, Joe Shadetree, I see you also own a Nine Ball. Beyond thinking that your problem is electronic, the only troubleshooting guide I can offer is one you have already started. Parts swapping; Or when parts become troubleshooting tools.

* Since swapping the MPU offered no change try swapping the SDU.
* Did you swap your Seawitch ROMS into the replacement MPU? Did you reset the DIP switches.
* Disconnect and reconnect all of your wiring connectors.
*If that offers no change, try swapping the rectifier/transformer.
* Disconnect the sound board maybe?
* Disconnect and reconnect all of the LDA connectors.

These are wild ass guesses, I admit. But since you are asking...

I am dealing with an MPU problem on one of my Sterns. Swapping MPUs did not solve the problem and then the (electronic) problem went away on its own but left a different electronic problem that has me scratching my head. I feel for you.

Thats correct.

Does it play a sound effect when you drop a coin?
Is the coin chute configured to require 2 coins per credit?
Have you already reached maximum credits?
Do coin chutes 1 and 2 work properly?
Post a picture showing the 32 MPU board DIP switch settings.

I actually have a second Seawitch, so rom swaps weren't necessary. That said, both games are projects, so no guarantees the boards in either are solid.
I was trying to isolate it to a single board, but so far, no luck. Will go through the other steps you offered and see if there is any difference.

At this point, I'm leaning towards a possible connector issue causing the problems. We'll see.

Mike

Coming when I get home.

My P4 display just took a dump while playing and I can't seem to get it sorted.

I don't suppose anyone has a spare 7-digit Bly/Stern display laying around that they'd sell? All I have are 6-digit displays in my shop. D'oh!

Wanted to follow up with the solution. Clue number on was that the game didn't seem to be recording high scores despite an NVRAM being in the MPU. Showed "1 1 1 1" on the screen. Solution was manually going into adjustments and hitting the 33 reset switch for each setting (presumably to clear the ram and whatever trash was in the coin settings. Rebooted everything up and all is good - game accepted coins as normal. Was truly pulling my hair out on this, and I don't have much hair left to begin with.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Hope this helps someone down the road.

Mike

ofc went full Williams a long time ago to get lightnings on the top flippers. Opens up the lanes.

This sounds brilliant, can you share more of your experience, and what pins you've tried this on. Are you saying it's what Stern moved to after seawitch? the smaller coils?

It varies by the game. But more powerful coils sure, will change it up. The software end of the mpu100 games (at least the ones with chimes.... and I might be thinking bally here, not stern) pulse the coils for slightly less time than the later mpu200 games do, so the stronger coil was likely in the older ones to get the faster reaction.

It's like anything else you can change for preferences. I myself changed the metal pop rings to the later style plastic rings but I probably could have taken 100 windings off each coil instead for similar results.

I don't have any of my stern games with the metal pop rings now, they're all the plastic ones. Hot hand smokes the pops (figuratively) with the plastic rod n ring (mine are originals, this was all done before swinks remade them)

All of the Stern MPU-100 pins in IPDB.org, all of the MPU-100 pins use the J-26-1200 solenoids at the slings. And all have J-26-1200 pop solenoids.
======================================================

As you can see, Stern's sling coils are all over the place. Star Gazer was a surprise.

Big Game.................pops.....................................slings
..............................J-26-1200..............................J-26-1500

Star Gazer...............J-26-1200...............................J-26-1200

Meteor....................J-26-1200...............................J-26-1700

Nine Ball.................J-26-1200.............................. J-26-1600

Quicksilver..............J-26-1200...............................J-26-1500

Seawitch.................J-26-1200...............................J-26-1700

Catacomb................J-26-1200...............................J-26-1500

:

Big Game: I have removed 100 wraps of wire from pops and slings.

Catacomb: I have removed 100 wraps of wire from pops and slings.

With Seawitch I have left the pops alone and swapped the slings to J-26-1200 solenoids. I like the fast zig-zag sling action the stronger pops provide and plan on being at this level of aggressive performance on Big Game and Catacomb. But there are some players who don't like this fast zig-zag action. Pick your poison.

If you are interested, I have made two videos of Seawitch.

The first video is Seawitch using the smaller 16B-3 transformer. I would imagine the sling performance would match the performance of the MPU-100 Sterns using the J-26-1200 sling solenoid.

The 2nd video is the same Seawitch, except the 16B-3 transformer has been replaced with the original, larger 16B-6 transformer. The play performance is much snappier. Whether you can see this by watching the two videos depends on your eyesight, I suppose.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/price-check-1980-sterns-quicksilver-stargazer-seawitch/page/154#post-7309855

post #7660

Got my Swinks drop targets installed. No more bricks. I also installed modern flippers. They don’t help much on the loops but the ball comes off the guides very smooth now.

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That's interesting.. Never seen anyone retrofit the tombstones on Seawitch. I figured the new style was better for sweeping? maybe not.. curious to see them in video if you could share some gameplay?

Should be noted, that WMS style 3" bats are the shortest. Bally carrot style are the longest. Bally/Stern are somewhere in between.. I think the Stern are actually less wide than bally? Either way, it's amazing the difference that tiny bit of thickness and length can make.

That's what she said.

Interesting. Mine has modern hooded replacements and they work fine. No issues with bricking or anything like that. My Meteor on the other hand.... Original tombstones worked great in the 123 banks. They were swapped with modern hooded targets for...some reason...and they were awful. They're much better with the Swinks targets. My Meteor bank is also better although I still have two targets that only like to drop about half (but they register, so it's more just annoyance than anything else). I've rebuilt it multiple times but my results never changed, so I gave up for the time being. The targets work great, it's something else.

Interesting note on the flippers too, I guess I never saw the need to switch away from Stern bats.

Those are Williams, Data East, and new Stern style flippers.

Classic Stern flippers are in the middle. Between the wide Bally flippers and the thin Williams style.

The tombstones and the hooded drop targets are the same size. The difference in width that you see is just part of the hood extending over to the side. You can sand the hood off and have a tombstone.

Yeah, I guess I was thinking maybe the ball made some contact with the hood.. but on consideration, it must hit below.

The hooded work great on my Galaxy but not so good on Seawitch. I have not had a brick yet. Used to get them every game on the middle bank.

From the upper left flipper? Needs either the sand resistor in there or eos opening earlier so not as much force which you don't need for that flipper anyway.

Was getting bricks from bottom flippers. Game was built from scratch, resistors are in there and it has the smaller transformer.

Same on mine, shot from either lower flipper would get you a brick the majority of the time.

The silver ball measures 1 1/16" diameter. The halfway point of 1/2" inch is your contact area.

It has been stated in the past that the latest replacement hooded targets from PP (who get them from PBR) and PBR are a softer / more flexible nylon which is contributing to the bricking effect

This counts as being part of the club right?

Just brought this home, only the playfield. The playfield itself is in fairly rough shape but might make a nice player.

The mechs are pretty clean, some surface rust here and there.

Should clean up nice.

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Yeah, looks like it will clean up pretty nice.

Some plastics, a flipper, and toss 'er in any ol Bally/Stern cab and you're in there!

I started with less, welcome friend!

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A Bally cab will work. A Bally back box is different and back glasses will not interchange .

I used a Harlem Globetrotters Cabinet and the backglass fit. The playfield hangers are different but everything else was fine.
Maybe there is an issue with the backglass lock? I am not sure since I don't have one.

Good point. I guess I didn't realize that.

I'm still planning on building out my Goldeneye frankencab to house Bally/Stern stuff. But it obviously won't accommodate any original glasses since its a DMD cab. HOWEVER it will absolutely accommodate speakers which are front-facing which will be *perfect* for all the games using Arduino-based code and a WavTrigger rather than a SB300 and a down-facing speaker (although I may well cut a hole to integrate an in-cab subwoofer, I haven't decided yet). I've got big plans for that one, but I'm slow-moving on it right now.

I have Seawitch backglass in a Bally Star Trek head, the difference in height is but slight.

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Man, I haven't turned my witch on in several days after my P4 display blew up. I suppose I should start trying to get that dealt with. ;|

Hello Seawitch fans. It has been a while since I ran my last batch of "S" deflectors. I get emailed abount making more a couple times a month. I just placed an order with my laser cutter. These should be ready to go within the month. Just need to find the time to assemble them. Same price as last time ($35) if in the US with free shipping.

I am doing a new color too:

Blue
Neon Light Blue
Neon Yellow (NEW / photo coming soon)

PM me, and I will put you on the list.

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You KNOW I'm in on this one, PM sent!

I have a Bally Night Rider EM, and a Bally Party Animal. The PA definitely will not work since it uses pivot points to lift the playfield. The NR actually looks pretty close, but it would need a new lockdown bar receiver. So it looks like I'm building a cabinet, eventually.

Bally lockdown works fine, just have to use the bally playfield brackets

The hanger brackets on the SW have a different spacing than the lockdown receivers on both of my cabs. I suppose the hangers could be moved on the playfield, but I'm hesitant to drill more holes into this thing.

What I did as the only thing I had to work with.

Don't even have to drill, 4 wood screws and you are done.

My raw materials arrived for the new batch of S detectors. I made one up out of the new color. This one would look great in games with yellow pop skirts. I am going to do some test fitting next weekend, and then I'll be ready to ship. I will reach out to you in a few days for payment if you are on my list. PM if you want one in any of the 3 colors.

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Ok - it is official. I am ready to start selling the Seawitch S detectors again. The first photo is an earlier version of the defector installed for reference. The other photo is the newest version showing all colors available (yellow, light blue and blue). PM me if you want one.

IMO:

Blue is the best for color matching and works great in all lighting.

Light Blue matches the color well and reacts to LED lighting a little.

Yellow is bold and looks great if you have yellow
pop skirts or flipper rubber in your game. Looks great with LEDs and reacts a little too.
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S Deflector not S Detector.

I'm in the club just got mine tuned up & looking great. Fun & fast! Started playing it tonight. Few questions.
1) balls smacking glass alot at middle drop bank. Any suggestions?

2) that plunger lane divider flap thing seems flimsy & it often affects my loop shots as the ball hits it and the flap kinda absorbs it in. Do they make sturdier flap?

3) any other suggestions on what I can do to make it play any better? Also has anyone ever actually made that shot under the upper left flipper on purpose by shooting it? That's an insanely tight shot!

A few have mentioned they have this problem. I don't know their solutions.

You can buy a replacement from Cliffy, the guy who makes those Cliffy protectors. The flap is a little bit longer. I have one. I found it made little difference in the shots.

A couple here have made their own custom flaps but I don't know if they ever made any to sell.

I bought the launch ramp Stern used in Beatles and retrofitted it to my Seawitch. It help a little bit. But is not a big game changer. I'm not sorry I did it but not sure if I would do it again.

I made this mod a couple of months ago. It has helped with improving the left orbit shot. See post #1331

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/any-seawitch-fans-on-pinside?tu=cottonm4#op

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EDIT: One other thing you can do to help with shooting the left orbit is to install a Williams style flipper with its narrow nose.

Test fitting is complete. These are shipping out on Monday. Here is a photo of each color installed. PM me if interested.

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Those look nifty, but is there a specific reason I want them? Never had issues with balls going up there, but that's all I can think of...

You're lucky. It was a constant problem on some games and not so much on others. The ball gets trapped on top of the plastic (always during a great game). The glass has to be removed to free the ball. The deflector totally stops that from happening. It was even more annoying after I rebuilt the flippers. That is when I decided to make a deflector for myself. I posted my fix on Pinside, and the PMs started rolling in. This is my third run of them. The last couple runs have been laser cut and blend well with the game's art package. Hopefully, everyone who needed a deflector got one. I am running out of raw materials again.

Got mine and installed immediately. Love it! No more ridiculous side drains.

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What'd you install? The S deflector thing? I didn't quite get get the purpose of it.

Yes. I bought the yellow.

Mine airballs a LOT from that upper left flipper. If yours doesn't then you probably don't need it. I've played around with various coils and resistors and it doesn't seem to matter in my game. The deflector 100% prevents the dumb left drain.

I bought one of Mad Dog’s “S” pieces a couple of years(?) ago. It solved the fairly common problem of the ball getting stuck on top of the plastic. I’ve always understood this problem to be much more common than not.

Your play field must be sitting 1/8 inch or so lower in your cabinet. This gives your ball clearance to roll over the top of the plastic.

The more common problem is for the ball to get stuck between the glass and the plastic.