Basically it's just 'add bonus x'...

Unless you collect it with the spinner bug, then it's A LOT more than one bonus x.

I finally rejoined the club today. I got my first pin, a Meteor, when I was 13 years old in 1982. I stupidly traded it around 1986 for a Space Duel Video game. I've been on the hunt ever since. Today I picked one up that boots and plays but will need a lot of work. I plan on taking it all the way!

I probably would have done the same. Space duel was a cool game but I was lousy at it lol.

I ended up trading Space Duel for DigDug, which was my favorite video game. After the joy stick went south I advertised it in the paper and sold it to a guy who repaired and resold them. Fast forward about 5 years to 1996. I was looking to get another pin and ended up buying one from the same guy I sold DigDug to. Comet, out of the San Jose Mercury news for $475. I still have Comet.

Hello friends, I'm Juan from Chile, I just found a meteor pinball but the playfield is very damaged, someone out there knows where I can find a file to print an overlay and the plastics and decals since I searched on the internet and not been able to find, sorry if I commit any fault to the rules and sorry for my English, have a translator
help me please
Cheers

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I suggest asking Susana Margot if she has a Meteor playfield. She lives in Argentina, sells a lot of pinball parts, and earlier this year she had several classic Stern playfields. Some were nos and some were used.
https://www.facebook.com/VentadePinball

Cpr recently made reproduction Meteor playfields. Ask them if they plan to make them again soon. Cpr also sells Meteor playfield plastics.
https://classicplayfields.com/

You can buy a stencil kit from Pinball Pimp and repaint the cabinet.
http://pinballpimpstencils.com/

Anyone else have a red meteor in the upper playfield? A buddy of mine is restoring one and thinks it might either be a end of run variant or a prototype game.

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I almost looks like there's an additional screen color used there..
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Other tham the obvious touch-up on the black, the design looks identical to mine, but where mine is all orange, that looks to have two different screens. Perhaps with a better shot of mine or someone else's, it'll be possible to see to two separate screens.

What's the explosion look like over by the spinner?

Need to find source for coil sleeve for
big coil on the six drop bank . Emailed
Pinball life but.they don't carry it. Saw
a ton of them on Marcos site but not sure the exact
one to get. Looking for plastic.replacement. Thx

Have you tried pinball Resource? Good selection of parts and charges exact postage, not some minimum $8.95 s&h.

Yeah I've used pbr before. I'll check. Thx.
Was wanting the quick and easy answer. Haha.

PBR has what your looking for.

Just tell them the coil it’s going into

If it has survived, there was usually a quality-control piece of paper stapled to the underside of the playfield (near the outhole) that would have the date stamped.

Sleeve N is what I found on their site.
Need some coin door carriage bolts and nuts also.
Thx for help.

Found it! Looks like it says 10/13/79 - early-ish in the run, but not right in September. Anyone have a game produced earlier?

Here's the explosion, it also has red. I'm guessing the games earlier in the run had red and then they did away with it for some reason.

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I'm guessing the white was repainted, because the rubber sizes aren't there. Heh. And it looks like a VERY bright white.
That's fascinating as hell though - I'm going to guess that they likely purged the red into the orange to save a few bucks. One less color, one less pass, less ink used, less time needed.

That's the kinda playfield I would take apart inch by inch, and see what else, if anything, was altered.

I'm actually right in the middle of restoring this playfield, that's why the GI areas are so white and don't have the rubber diagrams. I have quite a bit of detail work left but I am a slave to the cold weather till I can shoot the next layer of 2pac. I was hoping to find someone else with the red accents to help solve the riddle.

Progress so far. Gonna be on the shelf till the warmer weather arrives unfortunately

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That is a special playfield!
I bet cost cutting, or resources, caused Stern to cut the fire-red out of production.
You should have it scanned and documented!
Note: Gottlieb EM playfields are restricted to six screens give or take...
------ Common screens count is seven.
------ But your Meteor has eight screens!
----- Congratulations on having a special Meteor.

Thanks vector and it is a "stern" so cost cutting is part of the deal. Lol

Ey! I just finished restoring mine about a month ago! It really sucks haha! I probably put more money into 2PAC, supplied air respirator, painting tent, and LEDs than the whole machine is worth. Now I have all the gear handy for my next refurb though I even ended up making my own custom colored inserts (clearing over those was definitely the worst part of the whole process)

Once you are set up to clear you're good to go. The initial set up is the expensive part, and the clear. The clear I use is around $240 a gallon but it gives me amazing results.

This might sound crazy but I'm gonna use
Minwax Polycrylic to clear my playfield. I used 2Pac
on a wing ding and it looked Good but almost too shiny.
I did 6 spray sessions (purple HF gun) 2 complete passes
Horizontal and vertical each session on my flash last spring with
the Minwax Polycrylic
and it turned out great. I've put over 500 games on it since
June and it looks fine. Just wanted to share.

I use minwax polycrylic for tabletops, but isn't that stuff water-based? The first table I did with it required a decent amount of sanding, because the first few layers of poly would swell the wood fibers. You could always give your 2PAC a very light sanding to reduce gloss.

yeah i had to do a lot of sanding. id used it a lot on furniture projects and loved its
quick drying time and that it doesnt yellow/amber with age. it is water based but it
goes on nice. i had started using it on my flash to fill all the cupped inserts and then
just decided to clear the whole playfield with it. its a safer cheaper alternative that i
found to work good for me. the 2pac is awesome though. just a lot of hassle to use it.

I have one from 9/28/79 with the red

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I recently finished a project Meteor restoration. Game was filthy and non-working (the usual suspects - MPU and Rectifier board both completely roached). It's now fully working and refurbished. Really fun game and great retro sounds! Here's the end result:

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Awesome, finally a second game with the red. Must have been the initial early run.

Can anyone post a high def image of the stenciled
Meteor on the back of cabinet. I've seen this on
a lot of meteors and I'd like to paint it on mine.
Figured I can use my cameo to make stencil.

Mine is too beat to take an image. Email Jeff at Pinball Pimp. He makes stencils for many games including Meteor. He made me some custom one offs for me in the past and also some replacement that I FD up.

He made the Star Trek font for me a few years back. The Enterprise was from a partial cab stencil that I had left over and I tweaked it with some red and yellow. EBD as well. And fairly cheap.

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If there is a stencil set for the back of Meteor I'd be interested in one. Someone painted over the back and it's all black. Would be nice to restore that.

I believe the company that makes the stencils, it has one for the back of the backbox.

Edit: Yup, see here: http://pinballpimpstencils.com/meteor/

Please forgive me if this has been covered--I'm working on a Meteor and I have a question about the stand up target. When hit from the left flipper, it bounces the ball back so hard that it the ball hits the underside of the glass every time. Has anyone done any kind of shock absorber to dampen the rebound? Maybe the solid metal bar behind the switch should be angled differently? Any thoughts?

Also on the topic of the stand up. This one didn't have a cap across the switch, but I don't know if it shipped with one originally. The rollovers have caps, so I thought maybe the stand up did before and perhaps it was cut off when it failed?

They do and ordered a set do to the back of the head!

You can always add caps to switches that need them regardless of originality.

If meteor is going to get your arduino upgrade lmk if you figure out how to generate sounds... One remaining puzzle on classic stern disassembly.

Yes, I had the same problem on mine. I put some target backing foam on it that is designed for just this issue... Many games come with it from the factory, not sure if Meteor did or did not, but it certainly helped.

https://www.pinballlife.com/target-backing-foam.html

Thanks so much - I will give that a try!

Yes, I'm wrapping up new code now, but there were too many address pins required for me to use the SB300 for sound. So, for the moment, when booted to the old code my card passes the sounds on to the SB300, and in the new code I send sounds to a Wav Trigger. I do have another prototype card that can access all the address lines, so maybe I'll give that a shot before I return this Meteor to its owner. If I do that, of course I'll send you everything I discover.

Using my first grade pencil with
big eraser and small piece of
Magic eraser soaked in iso alcohol helped get old tarnish/burn marks off bottom
of several inserts on nicer playfield that I'm attempting my first swap here soon. Worked good.
Had been using just qtips but
this works way better on stubborn marks.

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In the past year, I've been re-coding early SS games (Bally/Stern so far) to add new functionality to older machines. I'm wrapping up Meteor now. The machine can be dual-booted between the original code and the new.
This is a quick demo of some of the new rules/modes/sounds for Meteor. The project is documented here:
https://github.com/BallySternOS

The re-coding is done by plugging an Arduino into the J5 connector of the MPU (compatible with the original MPU-200 or an Alltek replacement). Instructions on how to build your own are on GitHub along with the code. You can dual-boot between old code and new, and the whole project can be built for less than $20.

When all the documentation is complete, I'll post the whole project to All Modding, but I wanted to show this group a demo of this mod first.

Is that literally running the original rom/board when you dual boot into the original code, or did you just re-code the same ruleset for it?

When the daughter card is not turned on, it's running all original hardware (original ROM, 6800, RAM, etc.).
The card plugs into J5 (at the top of the board). When switched on, the card lowers the /HALT line on the M6800, to stop it from running, and then it takes over the bus. When it's not switched on, everything on the card is in tri-state mode so it won't change the original behavior of the machine.

This makes it a totally non-destructive mod that can be quickly removed if necessary.
To switch back and forth, I mounted a tiny switch on the left side of the bottom of the head, through that air grate.
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Oooh nice. I didn't think of using the halt line..

I've looked but can't find the color of the
red on the cabinet. I had it written down and
lost it. Can anybody help? Thx. I remember
it maybe being a duplicolor type.

Oh my goodness! This is amazing! The last couple of years have been fantastic for Meteor, with a new software release running 7 digits on the original board and now your complete modern re-code!

I can't wait to give this a try. I hate to ask, but will there be a version that will work for people who have installed 7-digit displays in their game?

I agree, I love this re-code and the sounds. Now I have to learn how to do this since I have 2 Meteors to restore.

I would pull one of the coin door trims and look at the paint that hasn't faded and get a bunch of red color samples from different paint mfrs. and try to match.