Found them The old SST I bought 5 years ago

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinblades-on-machines-that-they-werent-designed-for

I think they work better on SST rather than Star Trek!

Those are pretty weak...

Well, I took everything off my playfield to clean my SST up. What do you guys do about the mylar parts? The pop bumper section is some custom shape. Do you just cut a new piece to match the shape? Or just remove the mylar and leave it like that? What do you recommend?

I will need to purchase mylar, what is the recommended place?

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I ordered a large piece of mylar from Marco along with some other parts so I will try to make my own shape for the pop bumper mylar.

Now that I have my playfield torn down, I could use some recommendations on leds to put in it.
Can anyone offer any advise with this game? My understanding is that I need non-ghosting leds for the inserts.
Does the GI also need to be non-ghosting? It turns off at specific parts of the gameplay and I do not want to lose that effect. Has anyone tested this with LEDS? I want to get this part right as you have to tear down the playfield to get to all the gi lights for replacement.

I know it's personal taste, but any recommendations on specific colors? I'm thinking orange for the BUG rollover lanes, white for the rest of the GI, and color match the inserts. Also, that one bayonet flasher next to the hole up at the top of the playfield, what was that flasher used for? I can't remember and it was probably burnt out on the machine prior.

Any tips are welcome!

The orange LED's I have tried to use have always been much dimmer than all other colors. I personally would do all white. I never bother with non-ghosting, but a little ghosting doesn't bother me like it does some people. You can't go wrong using Comet LED's. If I remember right, I zip-tied a socket and bulb under the plastic directly to the left of the scoop as there isn't any illumination there from the factory.

All white is a good suggestion. Colors didn’t look good to me on the BUG rollovers. You will want non-ghosting for the inserts on this game.

Yeah that's what I keep reading. Looks like Comet recomends using pink leds under orange inserts. Weird, but worth a try I guess. As for the orange lane guides, I think I'll just go with warm white under those.

Are you talking about the arm nukes/extra ball scoop on the far left? Or the main vuk in front of the pops? Looks to me like neither of those locations have any lights.
Also, the right ramp seems a little dark too if I recall correctly. Has anyone added anything to that?

Are you talking about the three clear inserts? Dang, I was thinking of trying blue or purple. Maybe cool white is best. At least the inserts are easy to change.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll make a main GI order and some inserts that I know I want, then do the rest later when it's all put back together again.

Yeah, I think I tried red and blue. Just wasn't able to see the letters well. Looked cleaner with white. Maybe you'll find something you like. When in doubt, I stick with the original color scheme of the game. Try not to color bomb. Be careful with purple... seen plenty of examples where people destroy the look of a game with those... freakin' Barney nightmare.

haha yeah, I'm not a fan of the unicorn poop look. I'm still going to keep most, if not all, GI white. Also, when I see games that look like a police car with red and blue everywhere it just looks bad. I don't get why red and blue is so common.

On my stargate I left most of the G.I. white. Only put some purple under the lower lane guides and a red flasher under "Ra's Bracelet" for the explosion. I've been happy with that.

I played around with colored LEDs under the planets, just so they were a little more distinct and different from each other. Turned out pretty good. Sorry, I don't have a pic to share.

I take that back. You can kinda see them in this video:

Very cool, I've been wanting to do exactly this. What parts did you use?

Are you talking about the colored bug counters? More details on those in this post:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/do-you-want-to-know-more-sst-owners-club-past-present-and-future/page/9#post-3196656

A small run of those boards was made. I did not sell them, and I no longer have the game, so I can't supply any details. I do still have my original prototype, which was just a modified original board. So I could tell you what parts I used on that. The production boards used different parts.

I did the same thing to mine. I tried to match the color LED to the color of the planet to make them really pop. I think it looks better than just a white incandescent or LED.

Sorry, yeah. I was talking about the colored counter numbers. That looks awesome.

Was the brain bug soft when it was new?

I have a "NOS" brain bug to replace my old one but there is a metal bracket inside the old one that I can not understand how it got in there. It is too big to fit through that hole in the bottom unless the brain bug was squishy. Both of these brain bugs are hard solid plastic.
IMG_20200627_003429880 (resized).jpgIMG_20200627_003443285 (resized).jpg

Can you bend the metal inside to kind of make it into a 'C', then transfer it out of the old one, into the new one, then unbend enough to re-mount it? I don't own my SST anymore so don't know how tough that bracket is.

No way I'm bending it, it's a good 3 millimeters thick. Looks like I'll just have to cut it out, then cut a slit in the new one so I can fit it through.

EDIT, dang, I got the same rivets for the ramp that is listed in the manual but they are too short. I guess they didn't use the ones listed in the manual. These plastic ramps are pretty thick.

Does anyone know what these two holes are for next to the ball drop? Looks like they were there for a wire guide or screws at one point. I don't think anything was in them on mine.
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EDIT, found it, it's in the manual as 535-8148-00. Doesn't appear to be sold anywhere either.

You'll have to do what I did when I needed one of the Stern 'M'-shaped outlane guides for Avatar that nobody sold: Call Stern parts department, explain your situation, tell them it's not available anywhere, and hope you get someone cool enough to look for it. First person never got back to me, after a week I called again and new person put me on hold, and a few minutes later told me "Yeah, we got a TON of them!" because the part # was never put into the database for parts dealers to buy. He put it in the system, I told Terry at Pinball Life, and now it's available for $7 I told Marco too, but he put it up for $15

Hopefully Stern still uses/used the SST guide often and still has it in their system. It helps if you can find a newer Stern game that used the part too, I told the guy the outlane guide was on Metallica and that's how he found it.

Good Luck!

I doubt any other machines use this part. It's kind of an odd shape to fit around the nearby posts.

I bought some "music wire" form a local hobby shop that matches the thickness and plan to just make one.....but it's too hard to bend with just the locking pliers I have. I might need to buy a vice and use a hammer to bend.

I kind of wonder what happened to the original....did the owner at the time find it in the bottom of the cabinet and think to himself "huh, that's a strange piece of metal", and then promptly tossed it in the garbage bin?

all the guides on my Baby Pac Man were broken when I got it. I bent all new guides with this. All I did was screw it to a board and it worked great for me. Maybe it could help you out. It was pretty cheap as well under 12 bucks.

https://www.amazon.com/SE-8593WB-Wire-Bender-Piece/dp/B005M5TSFG

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Hey all, just joined the club. I took my playfield kind of apart so I could clean and wax everything. I'm noticing that in the middle of the playfield the trajectory of the ball will change suddenly. Maybe just needs to be waxed again?

Also It's giving me a switch 40 error in the tech menu. U trough Exit Hole. I played the game thoroughly and tested everything and everything seems to work fine. It says switch 40 is a DOTS switch. This is my first pin so I'm a bit of a noob.

Welcome to the club!!
First about the ball changing trajectory. Is it over the brain bug area or over the planets? If it's over the planets you might have a raised insert or cupped insert. If it's over the brain bug that is sorta normal. At least it is with my pin. I have changed the brain bug plexi and upper metal frame and it didn't really help.

As for your switch 40, it could be a few things. A broken wire, a bad switch, or a bad diode on the switch. It doesn't do much that I know of and if it does more then what I state maybe someone can chime in. All I can tell it has ever done is it add some points when triggered and can also stop the hurry up timer in nuke mode but the pop bumpers will also stop the timer. The switch is in the drop down hole in the pop bumper area. If I get a switch fault if there are no broken wires, I just replace the switch. They are cheap enough and easy enough to replace. New Diode, new switch and done.

I found some shop pics online of that area with the guide, hope they help.

EBAY-8349 (resized).jpg

EBAY-8426 (resized).jpg

EBAY-8427 (resized).jpg

EDIT: just know that this guide appears to be of a thicker wire than the standard guides.

I just posted a wanted ad for SST.

If anyone has a project or good restorable game they want to get rid of, let me know please.

Finished putting mine all back together after tearing it down to clean and fix.
-Changed to all LEDs except the two flashers on the warrior mech (bare LED flashers are just super ugly and there are no domed ones).
-Added one LED behind the arm nukes hole and one under the right ramp, using the comet extension thingies.
-Replaced all plastics with new ones (marco didn't package them well enough and the left long one was broken in shipment, so I have never seen one not broken. I have 3 of them, all broken).
-Replaced all orange rollovers (2 were broken).
-Replaced all rubbers with GITD Titan silicone rubbers. (the old 1/2" ones on the posts were hard as plastic, pretty amazing). Now the ball bounces around the pops like crazy! Fun!
-Replaced all the toys and bugs with "new" ones. Several of mine were broken (hopper missing a leg, drop ship missing a tail wing, brain bug nearly black with dirt).
-Replaced the ramps with a NOS one (it's one huge piece).
-Replaced all the flasher domes.
-Did a bit of bad touchup around the magnets and holes, spot cleared, then installed cliffy protectors on them all.
-Added the third amp on the sound/cpu board and connected the existing 4ohm backbox speakers to their own amp. added a volume control for the backbox speakers. Someone had previously installed these speakers and had them both hooked up to the one existing amp. Looking at the board, it appears this amp had been replaced at one point, likely due to it failing.
-Waxed the playfield before installing the ramp.
-and of course, put 4 new balls in it.

Short video:

Ahh, the above post with that hole wire guard. Mine doesn't have that so I need to bend one myself. It's the last thing on my list to fix on this machine. Oh, and the lock core for my coin door broke yesterday so I need to get a new one of those as well.

Thanks miracleman for the pictures of that rail guide and Lithonion for the suggestion of using that simple wire bender.

I used 1/8" "music wire" from a hobby shop to make this. Took three tries to get one that fit and I was happy with.

IMG_20200715_185513563 (resized).jpg

My game keeps double-stacking the balls in the ball trough, and loses track of them/thinks a ball is missing. It looks like later Stern machines added a second opto to detect this.

Any idea how to prevent this? It seems to happen every time I enter orbit multiball (when launching a third ball). The game loses track of the balls and once my two multiballs drain, it does a ball search three times and then finally launches a ball into the trough. It happens occasionally at other points in the game, but seems to happen 80% of the time in orbit multiball for whatever reason.

Does this happen to anyone else? Is there any fix for it?

Have you gone through the switch test?
Does any of this help...
https://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Data_East/Sega#Ball_Trough_Issues

I have similar issues. I'm just replacing the 3 switches on the trough and if that doesn't fix it I'll replace the opto

Does anyone know where all the stickers go? I ordered replacement decals and there's all kinds of stuff in here I can't find at all. There's a 3rd flipper bat sticker it looks like but to my knowledge the mini flipper doesn't get one. There's a generic space sticker. And electrical field one that's red.

Hello all, I have a chance to buy a Starship Troopers. I was wondering if you owners, past and present, had any advice of what to watch out for or look for when I inspect it before I buy it. Thanks in advance. Return to Battle soldier.

I say dont buy it, but have the seller contact me directly

Im looking for one...

Don't do what I did. I was so happy to pick one up for the wife I failed to notice one of the toys missing. lol

I'd say definitely make sure the live fire assault range works and can travel the full range (it does a self test on startup). Other than that and the ramp not being destroyed, there isn't much else to worry about that can't be fixed or replaced.

I'll add to what was said above by telling you to rub your hand across the playfield to make sure none of the inserts are raised up or chipped, and that the cab doesn't have planking from moisture exposure. Pretty much all SSTs are gonna have wear around the flipper buttons, if it's not too bad you can get the larger Stern lollipop siderails to cover it.

You will have to drill a second hole in the right lollipop rail for the second button on that side.

Thank you for the advice. Keep the tips coming please. I'm going to look at it Friday.

Check the two magnets at the very back, top of the orbit for wear. That magnet grabs the ball on every plunge. You can see the wear on mine in post #604.

What sort of mods has everyone done on this to make the game better? I love the game, but feel like its not quite there. Have issues with launched balls auto plunging. Soundtrack is great, but the quality is ordinary. I feel like this game with the right tweaks could be well ahead of its time

I added color dmd, added the right channel to cpu/sound board and a right speaker. Had to add a separate mini amp with volume control as the sounds in the game are mono. But once done and volume set it made a huge difference. Made an led light kit under the pin that is tied to the I/O board that is linked to the flashers. So for example if you hit a yellow bug and the yellow flasher goes off the led strips under the pin flash yellow as well. I added strobes on top of the head that are tied to the loop and multi ball flasher. I included a pic of it, this was before the color dmd was installed. It's quite the light show now.

As for the auto plunger it is horrible. I replaced everything with NOS parts and it works better, but still at times fails to launch correctly. It's the only thing I have issues with.
SST Mod (9) (resized).jpg

love this, thanks mate.

I read somewhere else that someone replaced the shooter with a williams auto-launch coil + button. Ever heard of this being done and if effective?>

The Color DMD on this should go off - so many awesome graphics - surprised a PIN2DMD file has not worked its way in yet

I have a bare main ramp, new old stock going up for sale, getting an ad together for the market place . Let me know if you are interested.

Protip: reduce wear by holding left flipper button when plunging; the magnet will not grab. Plunge the ball into the orbit hole to permanently light the orbits for that ball, or plunge around and shoot right ramp for 5M.

The sound is actually stereo on the board but they got cheap and populated only one amp circuit. Tap the line out on the board and run it to a stereo amp for best sound. The traces and pads are labeled so shouldn't be too hard to find the audio.

IIRC, the sound samples are all mono, so that’s not really going to help. With the correct speaker config (proper impedance for the series or parallel wiring), you can drive both speakers safely off the one existing amp. Simple easy upgrade. Anything more is a waste of time.

No, there is definite stereo separation. It's wasted because of the stock one speaker, but there are definitely sounds that favor one channel or the other (left/right inlane sound fx), and you can hear a bit of stereo in the music. This requires tapping the right channel audio off the board and amplifying that, not just doubling the left channel.

If you've already amped your sound using the left side, it's probably not worth redoing, but if you're starting with a stock game, IMHO it's pretty easy to tap the signals and run them to a little 2.1 amp like Spooky uses (or equalized amplifiers if you're lucky to find them... great for equalizing the Hopper scream down a bit)

As for being a waste of time, my SST's "Best in Show" trophy from Pinbrawl/Expo some years ago politely disagrees

I added a second BSMT 2000 speaker in parallel and it sounds pretty good, but is it worth populating the circuit board and adding an amp for the second channel? Do you have any pictures of what you changed on the boards?

Interesting. This was years ago, but I recall looking at the PCM data for the sounds and only finding mono samples. I'm sure I didn't look at all of them, so I suppose there could be some stereo in there.

I didn't add the amplifier components to the board, I tapped the line-level signal for the left and right audio from the board and ran it to separate self-contained amps, leaving the left amp on the board unused. This was back when it was easy to get amplified equalizers (car radio power boosters), so I ran the L and R signal to one car amp driving good coaxial speakers in the head. I think I may have just used a line-level converter on the cabinet sub speaker output and connected that to the other amp, which drove a much better replacement cabinet speaker.

One thing I do remember: the cab speaker was a weird 7.5" size.. the mounting screws don't line up with a regular 8" subwoofer speaker, had to install new mounting screws.

Most of them are mono. A few (likely reused from other games, like the BSMT attract sound) were in stereo. BSMT allows panning of mono samples, so for things like ramp or orbit fx there may be some panning across the space.

The sound engineer knew the hardware was going to be mono, so no effort (and saved the space) was made into designing a true stereo game.