Im having a troublesome issue with my Stargate.

My game:

The good:

Tournament mode works well, and the game is set on free play.

Mostly all LED lights.
New shooter lane switch, sarcophagus switch, outhole switch, trough switch.
A "light" spring was added to the trough gate to keep balls from bouncing back and triggering false ball counts.

New outhole coil and ball release coil.

New cabinet flipper switches.

Flippers completely rebuilt with complete kits from PBR.

Optos checked and cleaned

Drop target assemblies cleaned and inspected.

Kicker targets cleaned and rebuilt.

All connectors in the game have been reseated, all chips reseated, V4 game ROM and V3 DISPROM installed.

ColorDMD installed with German repro "clear" speaker panel plastic.

Sound is crisp and minimal hum from the cab speaker.

The game plays fast and powerfully and is a "joy" to play!

All switch test and lamp tests are perfect.

The bad:

Problem #1:

During extended gameplay, during multiball, the game loses track of the ball count.

The multiball modes end early, with as many as 3 balls still in play.

The flippers die and the balls drain out.

The it sets up ready for the next ball.

This doesnt happen in all games, and it happens on random mutliballs, sometimes twice in the same game.

It is mostly apparent in a Ra's bracelet mode when all 4 balls are in play, drain one ball and the mode ends draining the other 3.

Again its random and can happen in the glidercraft multiball but only have 2 balls during the mode but when 1 drains the flippers die and the mode ends.

This never happens in a short game, but always happens in a long "great" game.

This happens with the original trough switch as well as the new one recently installed.

It does not seem to be a TILT or a SLAM as there is no indication on the screen.

Problem #2 (could be related to problem #1)

If I take out all 4 balls and replace them "one by one", the outhole solenoid hesitates for up to 3 seconds to fire on the first ball but seems fairly instant on the last 3.

The outhole coil is plenty strong (and its the correct coil and resistance is perfect on it). but it isnt strong enough to clear 2 balls in the lower side of the trough.

It seems that the outhole kicker might also die when the flippers die?

This is somewhat of a problem as, when the mode ends early and flippers die, sometimes 2 balls can get trapped in the lower part of the trough and then the game is unplayable until I remove the glass and manually help one of the balls over the top to the higher side.

Wall voltage is a fairly continuous 117v to 121v.

I havent done any "ground" mods.

I have gad the game for a few months and this behavior is recent.

Any insight to this would be helpful

I started a thread here"

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stargate-woes

Ebay most likely.

Lots of brand new boards are on sale there.

I just replaced my power supply board with the Boston Pinball one. Its not expensive and solves so many issues.

No trim pot, no more problems. I flicked 2 of the dip switches and have STABLE 5.1v always.

Im very happy with it.

Just bend a new one out of piano wire. Use any reference photo off of Marco's website as a guide.

You can get 1/16" piano wire from a hobby shop/store. Sometimes at Ace hardware/Lowes or Home Depot:

https://www.acehardware.com/departments/hardware/metal-sheets-and-rods/steel-rods/5203823?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-JacBhC0ARIsAIxybyPHDx5jbS3Z30Lacti3rbDocjTF63bsuWtRIYqwojaDy5dvyOxv5-IaAvc-EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

It should drag just below the centerline of the ball.

To keep it in place, just smash the loose end in a vice or hammer it flat.
In a pinch just bend a large paper clip for testing the size.

I think that if I had more than just my Stargate, I would just put in the multiturn resistors.

Its an honest straight forward repair/upgrade.

At the same time, I have no problem refreshing my 30 year old boards with newer, more robust ones for future proofing.

I was quite surprised as to how much less expensive the Gottieb parts are compared to Williams.

For $400 I replaced the MPU, Driver and power supply boards.

Chris Hibler charged $335 to bullet-proof a complete set of Williams boards that were basket case.

They looked brand new, he does AMAZING work and they are PERFECT.

This my first Gottlieb game and Im having a blast working on it.

some good info here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wire-bending-a-gate#post-7068436

It is, but the min game time should be turned to zero.

I put in all 5 smd tower flashers (#906 replacements) from comet, on my stargate, for my #67 bulbs and they work great!

I also put in all 2 smd frosted sunlight for all the other bulbs and they also look great with no ghosting.

Im having trouble adjusting the center trough switch on my Stargate.

It keeps getting false closures as balls bouncing around and over it.

This is a problem as muliballs end early and the flippers die with 2 balls still in play.

Im curious what other people have done to dial in the settings on this switch.

I have it bent pretty high and the front edge bent straight down, so that balls that bounce back hit it without triggering it.

Its not perfect and still some modes continuously end early.

The game is not very playable at this time.

Any help or pictures would be really helpful.

I started a thread about the extreme measures I have done to reolve this issue:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stargate-woes

If the first 2 were wrong, maybe try a 3rd? Lol

I replaced my power supply board with the Boston Pinball one.

They are very inexpensive.

It works perfectly, and MUCH better than the original.

If you get the Boston Pinball one, It starts out about 4.92v.

You have to measure the voltage at the CPU board and get the voltage to about 5.2v by flipping the dip switches.

Too high a voltage will stress the logic chips and cause them to wear out.

Too high a voltage is 5.5 to 6v.

You definitely want to stay below 5.3v for safety and longevity.

The Boston Pinball board is super accurate and I never saw it waver from the voltage I selected.

The dip switches are GENIOUS! Perfect voltage ALWAYS.

I finally installed my security strap:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/data-east-security-strap

I would just replace the shooter lane switch and any of the leaf switches if they are 30 years old.
It may be the problem.

Or it could be a bad smart switch.

Bad smart switches cause logic errors, confuse the CPU board and lead to HAVOC.

They can mimic bad switches, driver boards, grounding problems and pretty much everything.

I have a whole write up on why this happens. Its pretty interesting (at leat to me, lol).

They can really drive you crazy!

Before now they were really hard to dignose without an o-scope.

I have devised a simple way to test them and find the bad ones:

Unplug all of them. Run through all the modes in the game manually.

If the problem persists, its one of the trough switches (or the shooter lane switch), likely the center one that keeps track of the balls, if you have already replaced the lane leaf swiches.
Sometimes the trough switch actuators just need to be bent upwards as an adjustment.

If the problem goes away:

Plug the smart switches in 2 at a time, manually run thru the modes again and again, until the bad behavior comes back.

Resolve which of the 2 are causing the trouble.

You would think that I would recommend plugging them in one at a time!

But no, its really time consuming to run through the modes for every single smart switch.

Doing them 2 at a time cuts the process in half.

That may be a plus!

Or the stationary targets were replaced with leaf switches?

Who knows, there were a couple versions of this game from 1990.

Sounds like a capacitor failing.

I would recap the sound board.

It can only help

The crimps were weak all over my Stargate.

The newer Comet LED's are non-polarized. You can put then either direction.

The 5smd tower flashers (12v) are not. Just turn them around if they dont light up.

Maybe some insight can be gained from my adventure:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stargate-woes

Check the fuses in the AC power box.

If you have no lights, no power, I would start at the power cord and work my way up to the fuse block and then the backbox.

Checking voltage each step.

Im certain than you blew up transistors by hooking up flippers wrong, but it should not kill power the the entire game.

Unless you killed the driver board, and then the power board?

Try reseating connectors on the driver board, or all the connectors especially the grounds.