Putting on some new plastic protectors today and lift my playfield for a peek under the hood. I spot a random component rolling around underneath and it's a dowel pin. Uh-oh. Drop target trouble. Turns out the O in Meteor lost its Jesus clip, on Good Friday nonetheless.

I'll have to step out to the fastener supply tomorrow so this can be resurrected on Sunday.
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If you shoot the ball, and do not his a switch and the ball ends up in the outhole, the game will do exactly that - flash the 'shoot again' light, reset all the drop-targets, and try to serve you the ball again. This is why I asked.

Okay, you have no coil power. At all. Did you check the fuse under the playfield?
You need to look at the schamatic, and find out where your coil power is not making it to the playfield.

If you have a Meteor with the original power cord could you get some clear pictures on how it is secured in the lower cabinet and attached to the filter box? Someone had done sort of a hack job and spliced in part of a yellow extension cord for power. I have the correct original replacement cord and would like to install that the way it was from the factory. Securing it in the proper locations with enough slack before it get soldered to the filter box. I didn't see any good photos that show the way it should be done. It may help others having good reference photos in this thread.

Thank You.

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I just changed a bank of drop targets (METEOR) and now when I start a game, all four banks of drops cycle through resetting endlessly until I turn the game off. No switch hits are registering. Any idea what could be causing this?

Is it kicking the ball out? This seems similar to the problem above: endlessly trying to start a game and can't because the trough switch is activated.

Thanks, I adjusted the trough switch and all is well.

Yes! I was able to get the new power cord installed and secured just like it would have been originally. Thank you.

Great! Another thing to think about is those filters tend to leak and there are so many games out there with poor grounding, cord ends without grounds, or bad grounds at the receptacles. I'm an electrician and I've gotten more lifters playing pinball than I ever have at work. Two leaky machines next to each other in a row of games can easily cause substantial current to travel across someone's chest if they put a hand on each one.

It's actually changed my behaviour... when I'm at someone's house or an arcade, I no longer lean on the machines like I used to and I only ever touch one machine at a time.

Up here in Ontario, this has been a known issue since the 1960s... so there is a reason why every imported machine with this type of power supply had to have an isolation transformer. I see people pulling them out all the time and it drives me insane as they're the last point of safety in poor power supply design. These games were never double insulated and are completely reliant on the ground pin being present and secure to not put line voltage on the exposed metal parts of the game. That filter design is the culprit, but this era of electronics is very susceptible to spikes, and pinball machines are very noisy pieces of electrical equipment. Can't really live without them.

That is a great point you bring up.

I have gotten into the habit of checking the voltage difference between all my machines. Just put the meter in AC and check across lockbars on each machine. Found one with a bad ground and nearly 60vac between the two games. Replaced the plug on the bad cord and back to 0 difference.

My Meteor was properly grounded. It just had a yellow extension cord as the power cord. Now it has the correct long flat cord secured just like it should be.

I keep forgetting to post pictures.
Recently acquired/installed a set of the Convolux plastic protectors in orange. They may not be for everyone, but I really like how they look in my game.

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I really like that look!

Do the original posts have enough length to accommodate the protectors?

I had enough thread above the protector and plastics with the standard posts. Because of the added height/reduced exposed threads I used 6-32 acorn nuts to secure the plastics. I could snug these up a bit; I think if you tried using the standard caps not enough post is exposed and they'd pop off easily.

I 6-32 stainless acorn nuts that i can use. How much does this set cost? I plan to do a meteor restore next year.

Got my Meteor in a combo lot along with a Black Knight 2000 and a 1981 8ball Deluxe (not a keeper for me, i just don’t see the love for that one) and I’m working through the kinks. The METEOR target bank, of course, is crap. Had to locate a loose wire that prevented one of the targets from scoring (fixed now!) but now I’m waiting on actual replacement targets and springs before I adjust it any further.

I started off thinking this would be a quick fix-then-flip but now that it’s working fully, I’ve really discovered some of the charm and it’s a freakin blast!

There are two shots that are just absolutely gratifying for me: right flipper to the “2” target bank, sweeping all three, and then sweeping all remaining METEOR targets; and of course, dropping all but one of the 200 point targets and then cranking the spinner.

I thought the sound grated on my nerves and in some ways it does (the ambient background noise does annoy me to a degree) but I love the sounds hitting targets makes.

Anyway, long pointless post this ended up being..this is getting added to my lineup for a bit (just needs to be dragged downstairs!) and I’m glad I got the chance to play it! Still have plenty of work ahead before it’s tuned where it really needs to be.

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You are absolutely right on those two shots.

You're building a nice collection, we have several games in common.

It gets tough when you have to choose to fill a 4-5 game lineup. Realistically I’m pretty close to my max, but I’m really happy with the games I’ve been able to grab!

I think I’ll be in Lincoln on Sunday. Delivering a bunch of stuff to a good friend of mine up there!

Beautiful machine!

Has anyone used the Stern MPU-200 NVRAM Adaptor from https://nvram.weebly.com/ (bottom of the page) successfully in their Meteor? It replaces the U8 and U13 chips. I was thinking of putting one in mine so I don't have to mess with a remote battery holder.

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I have one in my Flight 2000 and it works great! No more battery.

Meteor has compatibility issues with NVRAM chips. I used the Pinitech adaptor in all of my other games, but for Meteor I used the TNT Battery Eliminator: https://www.tntamusementsstore.com/wptnt/product/franks-famous-battery-board/

I thought the compatibility issues were only that the ram chips had to be matched. Confirm / deny, anyone?

Any other details on that? Is it something specific in the ROM code or maybe just a bad NVRAM module? My Flight 2000 has the same MPU-200 and it hasn't had any issues. The first time I powered up I had to clear settings and set all the adjustments, etc but nothing since.

I ran it in mine without any issue. Sound or otherwise.
I eventually replaced my MPU200 because of stuck/broken DIPs, but I still have the board.

Well, I haven't personally tried NVRAM in my Meteor, so I'll make that clear. Pinitech, the shop that I usually order these from, is quite adamant that NVRAM is fine with every other MPU-200 board but causes issues with Meteor and they've struck it out on their site: https://www.pinitech.com/products/stern_mpu200_nvram.php

The one from Pinball Electronics, I just don't know... but since they're using the same RAM chip I decided not to risk it.

Your mileage may vary.

I've heard that Meteor has some very specific mpu ram issues that other mpu 200 games don't

Hi Meteor crew, hoping someone can suggest what I'm missing. I thought I'd be able to get this done before Allentown but I don't think I'm going to make it. I bought this game as a project with a blown mpu and have never played the game before hand so I don't know how the drops behave. I installed a new weebly board mpu and a set of new J5 connectors from the mpu and the sb300 sound board. I re did the 3 connectors on the rectifier board and installed the proper fuses. I recrimped the 4 connectors at the mpu and the J3 and J4 connectors on the sdb.

The game boots up and plays but there's no sound and only the flippers work properly. The rest of the coils don't fire when the proper switches are engaged even though the 1 amp slow blow fuse is good under the playfield. I can fire the coils by grounding the resistor's tabs on the sdb and they all fire in coil test. I noticed strange behavior with Column ST1 which has the #3, 3 bank drop targets on the right, the 1 and 3 bumpers, the pop bumper and the slings. The drops scored fine when dropped and didn't engage anything else but when I engaged the rt sling the meteor targets reset, left sling drops the letter O, pop bumper drops R, advance 1 bumper drops T, and the advance 3 bumper fires the right sling. None of the switches that enacted other coils scored points.

While checking the columns I noticed that all other columns switches were wired the same way with the column wire on the top lug, the row wire on the side lug attached with the unbanded side of the diode and the banded side of the diode is on the back lug. The column that I have in question had the 1st 3 switches of the drop target bank wired the same way with the column wire attached to the top lug shared across all 3 switches and their respective row wires on the side lugs. The rest of the switches in the column had the order reversed with the column wire on the side lug and the row wire on the top. I switched the 2 wires on the slings, the bumpers and the pop bumper to match the wiring configuration from the 3 drop target bank. Now all ghost firings are gone and the bumpers, pop bumper and slings all score when hit but the thumper and the slings don't fire their coils when engaged. I checked the switch test and receive a "0" indicating ther are no stuck switches. The one thing I forgot to mention is the 2N3584 transistor that regulates the high voltage is shot because I get a 230V reading at the rectifier board. Could that be hampering my coils from firing correctly? I'm running out for a birthday dinner but will be back in 1.5 hrs, hopefully I can at least fix the coils and then maybe I'll bring her to the show and see if I can fix the sound on Thursday. Thanks in advance for your time.

I'll be at the show tomorrow. I can bring an extra sb-300 to throw in your game for testing. Make sure you connected the ribbon cables correctly. It's easy to be off by 1 pin. Did you buzz the 1 amp slo-blo with a meter, sometimes those fuses look good but fail when ohming them out. Those old fuse clips get weak on those also. I'll be in the back row with my F2k. I have a red Ram with a big old red rental trailer behind it.

Thanks Lovef2k, I wasn't going to bring her because she wasn't fully functioning but you have inspired me. I made sure the new J5 cables started at pin 1 and set the next set with pin 1 right next to it leaving 2 pins at the end not connected when both connectors are on. I also removed the fuse and checked and made sure the clips were grabbing the fuse. I'll throw her in the car and look for you tomorrow. Thanks so much!

You got it bro.

That's why we have this forum, to help out other pinheads. It's a beautiful thing! Speaking of EBD, I have 3 1981 versions on the chopping block for restoration this coming year. I do complete high end restos on my games. I'm going to work on the cabinets this year. I'm hoping to get all 3 completed. Then over the winter and next spring I will do the pf swaps and re-assemble them. 2 will be for sale and 1 I will keep.

You have good taste. I did a Fg a few years ago and sold it to a well known collector in CA. Fathom has been unobtainable for me so far. Paragon is cool but I'm not a huge fan of Bally wide bodies. Except for Embyon, I like that one.

Other future restos will be Meteor, Seawitch, Xenon and high Speed.

cool, thank you!

I love Meteor but I really can’t figure out why 8BD is so cherished. That was the third pin I got in my lot and I felt it was an easy sell to recoup costs. I just don’t see $2000+ worth of fun there. What am I missing?!

I guess I can see some of the draw, I just struggle seeing it as something that would warrant a $2000+ price tag. But nostalgia can go a long way, I get it. I certainly don’t think it looks like a BAD game, by any means...

Technically I still own one, for now.. maybe I’ll bring it into my garage and dink around with it a bit once I move Meteor downstairs. Probably still won’t keep it, but eh.

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You're missing hanging out in a 24 hour arcade with a friend and playing EBD all night long for 25 cents.

<knock><knock><knock> "You got the DELUXE. Nice shot!"

Haha, I’m thinking so. It does look like a nice game—good layout, good rules, etc—but I have a feeling this may just be one of those pins where if you don’t have any nostalgia surrounding it, and you’re not a pool buff, it’s probably a struggle to justify its cost. If it were a considerably cheaper pin, I think it’d be a solid keeper for a low-budget collector like me lol

There is something up with the early mpu200 boards found in meteor that may make sound act up when nvram is used. An audit always gets the same junk value stored in it too. I think it is related to the schematic error and jumper / cut note you can find on pinwiki.

The problem only seems to show when nvram and four masked are used. If you convert a problem mpu to two 2732 instead of four masked roms the issue goes away in every case I have dealt with.

Big shout out to Rich,(Lovef2k), who helped me revive my Meteor because apparently I can't handle simple directions. I had my Meteor dip switch settings backwards because I misread the instruction sheet. What made this even worse was both Andrew who made the board and Dennis who was gracious enough to spend the whole afternoon helping me fix her asked if I double checked the settings! The dip switches are upside down on the board so the they read from 8 to 1 not 1 to 8. Rich sauntered over and immediately knew what the problem was. I took out the dip switch sheet and corrected the game code and everything was perfect. Thank you Ivan, Dave and crew for an awesome weekend! Thank you Rich for inspiring me to bring her then fixing her. Thank you Dennis helping me all day and for not choking me out after I told you the story!

I'm glad you brought the Meteor and I was also glad to help. I'm sure Andrew was thinking it was deeper issue and he wasn't there to witness the odd behavior of the game to notice that the dips were out of order. Anyway, I'm glad it all worked out and that the game also had working sound after all. It was a fantastic show with awesome games and record setting attendance this year so I heard!

Also, did anyone see the Rage Tilt shirt that said "I'm not fat, I'm a wide body" and the game on the shirt said "Meatier" on the backbox, so clever I had to get one.

Folks,
just noticed that Meteor replacement play fields are about to go into production by the looks on CPR...

Neil.

Yes, it has moved out of the "boutique zone" but I think they are at least a year or so out before they release. There are 6 titles ahead of Meteor still. They just did the backglass as well. I got one and it looks great. I just noticed that there was a significant price increase on their backglasses though. I wonder what's going on there. Knowing CPR, there must be a legitimate reason.

Hello,to everyone,new owner here,was needing the decals on the drop targets>The ones that spell " meteor" does anyone know who sells these??Thanks,great pin!!