Yep, had to think on that one as I changed my eons ago to the gen 2 style.... Big Game is where they made the change.

The gen 1 isn't a bad design except for where the plate cracks at the weak spot.

for sure, most of the machine i worked on with gen 1 had at one broken plate on that narrow section :/

First swap going good but found something I forgot about when I did initial teardown 10 months ago.

My right lower flipper is missing the switch that engages the upper r flipper.

It looks like this was hacked up top to work. Does this look legit or should u rewire with proper double switch.

Thx. Beau

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I would replace all EOS switches while you have the PF out of the cab. The upper flipper has it's own EOS and can run directly from the power wire coming from the lower flipper. Some guys like it this way as it takes away the lag between the upper and lower flipper, but this might cause a larger current draw and make the GI lamps dim for a split second. It shouldn't be a problem if your power supply is healthy.

Thx ! I've got new EOS's in my rebuild kits so I will
replace.

In search of a couple of reasonably priced Meteor keyfobs...somebody's gotta have an extra couple of them around...each new set of plastics comes with four.
If I can't find two reasonably priced keyfobs...I'm looking for a Meteor project with a blown out playfield....so I have an excuse/need to order a set of plastics...

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

A couple of generic "Stern" keychains would work too.

I think you need to define what you think is "reasonable". I see them on ebay for anywhere from $17 to $25 each with $6 shipping. You could always make your own for less if you want to go that route.

ebay.com link: itm

I think "reasonable" is just that.
It isn't my intent to argue about the piracy that is practiced regularly in the hobby based on "capitalizzim" or "it'z biznizz"...yet, you gotta pay what the man asks--or not.
It's also true that ebay has some steep embedded fees that cause folks to pad their prices in order to protect their $10 profit.
$25--perhaps plus shipping-- is a bad joke when you consider that every set of new plastics comes with FOUR keyfobs...so to do the math here--if a guy buys a new set of plastics and sells the fobs at that price, then his cost for the set is $40-50...which seems skewed to me. The plastics are the important part--they should be worth more than the keyfobs, right?

Just put a price to it. Are you willing to pay $10 plus shipping? $5, free shipping. Say what you want to pay, and see if anyone wants to sell it at that.

I would think that $10-15 shipped might be reasonable (I mean it's not like the shipping is going to be anything other than an envelope and a first class stamp). It is a specialty thing, so certainly more than $3.

Here's the thing though, since it isn't mine, I don't set the price.
Somebody either wants to sell or they don't. We could negotiate. I'm reasonable.
I can ask and I did.
and I'm sure there are plenty of douche nozzles out there who just said "well, if only he'd said $27.50 shipped...he's out of touch"

They can set the price at whatever they want, I don't need to buy it for a stupid price and neither should you.
If I want it bad enough I'll pay $8k ("capitalizzim")...but a new set of replacement plastics will run you $150, so... as an aside, many of those plastics can be had for less than what people list the fobs for. It doesn't make sense to me, but it doesn't need to.

It is a matter of expectations.

If it means that much to me I certainly am able to go buy a set of plastics and then get my key fobs and then keep the two plastics that typically break on this pin as extras for myself. Then I could list and sell each of the remaining plastics at some wild markup, groaning about losing money and postage and mileage and "my time" even though nobody on earth asked me to go into the pinball business.

Or, since I already have a job, I could ask if anyone has a couple of extra fobs sitting around that they want to sell.
If they don't, ok. No need to discuss it.
If they do, it would help lower their cost and help to de-clutter their stuff.
It would satisfy my OCD and have a matching keyfob for each machine.
We could both win.
Luckily, my OCD isn't that advanced.

There you go.

Unfortunately it is hard to mail anything for $3 these days. Postage alone is usually more than that and the people have to get a padded mailer unless they reuse an old one. Often it ends up priority mail and you’re at around $9 to ship so best to pack flat rate shipping materials as full as possible. Unless it is small enough to slide through as a letter shipping can be more than the item.

There doesn’t seem to be a good way to inexpensively ship items.

It is frustrating to see I can get .99 items with free shipping sent to me from China and it would cost many times more than that just to take the unopened package to mail to my next door neighbor.

I have been using Stamps.com for first class mail, since the USPS site doesn't offer first class option. I found that sending a small bubble mailer that weighs 2 oz or less only runs about a dollar and change. So a promo key FOB should be just about the same price. The only kicker is that there usually isn't a tracking option on this service. They also have a discount option on UPS services.

Working from a post from killerrobots (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/playfield-wall-art-w-programmable-leds-a-guide#post-6551656) I started turning my old playfield into some cool wall art using an arduino and some ws2811 addressable lights.

IMG_2838 (resized).JPG

This is driving me crazy. I'm rebuilding my pop bumper
and the pics I took months ago suck . Where do these pieces go?

Haha thx.

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Those spacers go between the pop bumper base and the mounting plate listed as 4A-123-16 in the drawing

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sorry about all the questions but im getting almost to finish line on my first
total refurb/playfield swap and im trying to do everything correct. ha.

seems like i read somewhere a sequence of what you connect when
firing up for the first time after restore / refurb .

anyone point me in right direction. thx.

Here you go: https://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally/Stern#First_Things_First_.28WIP.29

I'm putting my posts in and according to my pics the meteor playfield post kit from Marco specialties is way short on the taller posts and way too many short posts. Anybody buy this kit and have same problem? Only 8 tall posts.

Very frustrating. I sent message to them but I bought the dam things back in January.

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I didn't buy the post kit when I realized that the bulk post purchase from them was actually cheaper once you factor in the discount for over 25 pieces.

Meteor was inconsistent originally. Best thing to do is figure out how many you're missing and keep the extras as spares. You'll use them eventually.

I forget where I picked this up (I didn't make the chart - props to the originator) but I used it for counting and laying out the smaller (pink) vs. larger (red) posts during my Meteor restore. It was very helpful.

Post Locations (resized).jpg

Yeah I hear ya. I put an email order in with Pbr for
30 ( 1 3/16 ) posts red facetted and added 2 new flipper
button cabinet switches for good measure.

After all that underside work was really looking
forward to getting topside repopulated tonight.

My plan is to have this flipping soon. Planning on
taking to pincinnatti along with my prospector.
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Does anyone have posts in a color other than red? Pics? How does it look? I've got a spare playfield that needs some parts...thinking of clearing it and am looking for inspiration for the reassembly (and I've got a few orders coming up and might as well throw in some posts and screws).

Got my spinner adjusted the other day. Took a little while but really cooks now.

I've added decals to both sides since this video.

Looking good!

I'm reflowing header pins on my displays and trying to replace any suspect parts.

2 of my displays have resistors installed on back of pcb board.
Is that kosher? Should I remove.

Haven't seen this in any post.

Thx for any help

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Are they bridging the a resistor on the top of the PCB? The 100k resistors on the display board do like to burn up, so I could see someone (who sucks at desoldering) just slapping extra resistor in parallel on the bottom to beef it up.

I agree that I've not seen that one before though.... I mean... if you have the display board out anyway to do that, why hot do it right?

I'd probably reverse it though and put the proper 100k 1/2 watt resistors in there, just on the top.

If they aren't beefing up the resistors no idea. Not near any displays to go check right now what it's actually connected to.

Edit I see Quench had the correct information as usual - and I learned something new about displays that I'd not heard before re: the updates.

I've seen it before, this mod I believe was done at factory on very early displays and then became standard once the PCB was redesigned, though they got changed to 2.2k ohm resistors. Leave them there, they limit the 2N5401 digit driver transistors from being over-driven.

Displays_DigitDriver_change.png

Thx !

Holy crap. Learn something new all the time. Nice!

Had to put my metal orbit
guide and last rail on end of playfield.

Figured this would be easiest way!

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Plugged everything in.
Of course not everything
working perfect . Haha

My left flipper is chattering and I rebuilt with proper coil and new eos and.coil stop.

Stumped on this one since all is new.

Other problems I'm addressing one by one. I think I have some switch matrix issues.

Gonna put new header pins in sdb board. I repinned all rect.mpu and sdb connectors
so I'll finish the job with new headers.

Don't want to clog up member thread. Is it cool to post anymore issues here or should I start a new repair thread.

Thx again. This is all new and I'm trying to learn.

I don't mind seeing anything and everything related to Meteor in this club thread, especially pictures of people's Meteor progress updates, modifications, or newly acquired projects. I'll volley out another one - here's a GI light test I did last night on my playfield swap after putting on new Reese Rails and new plastics, making sure it still worked after dozens of spins on the rotisserie over the last several weeks. My newly painted apron and shooter is still black after sandblasting and painting - no repro early Stern apron stickers around anymore so I'm going to commission my artist brother-in-law, when he visits for the holidays, to airbrush the apron graphics directly on it.

Perhaps if/when your troubleshooting gets down to the nitty gritty, it should be done in its own restoration or early Bally/SS troubleshooting thread.
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I've still got work to do restoring the backbox and coin door, but the lower cab is just about ready. Working on the last remaining missing screws and reproduction tech cards now.

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I like to see issues and the solutions. It helps all of us I think. My upper flipper just started chattering / machine gunning. My research so far indicates a loose connection or bad solder. I haven't had time to investigate under the hood yet but I will post the solution when I figure it out.

Sounds like the EOS switch needs to be adjusted.

Or the hold coil in the flipper coil is bad, wire broke, etc..

So I screwed up rebuilding my high voltage section on old sdb.

Bought alltek sdb and installed.

Same missing segments etc.
Bought wolffpac kit and assembled . Put them in and I'm still seeing some errors on displays. So safe to assume
I have to repin display connectors??

Also fixed chattering left flipper.
Not solid connection from eos. Resoldered properly this time.

Gonna post a pic of switches not registering / scoring.

Going through today to check diodes caps or connections.

Ran switch test and zero came up so nothing came up as closed

Couple feature lamps not lit during attract sequence.

Thx for any suggestions.

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Can you look in then end of the connectors that plug onto the MPU for the displays. I’ve seen some pins that were weak and others that had brittle contacts that were broken. May just need to rep in those.

Just checked. It's one of the connectors I repinned.

Did all sdb and mpu connectors last winter.

Maybe I got order wrong?

Also on my sw matrix problem.

All diodes checked out good.
Replaced r target diode anyway.
Might do other 3 also.

Showing continuity on their common wire white-orange.

So will keep digging.

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Following up one more time.

Dug into display problem checking continuity between mpu and display 4 and so on.

All checked out good.

After doing that and unplugging some connectors and removing boards because I dropped
A screw put everything back together.

Displays still wonky.

Fired up a game and all the
switches . Left outlane
R target
Last 2 drop
Middle 3 drop
we're working !!
Unbelievable.
Don't know if it was the diode on the r target I replaced or who the hell knows!! I was floored!!

Crazy ass hobby for sure.

Will start a tech help thread for my display problems.

Can anyone tell me where this tech card goes in the backbox? Is it the right side, with the orientation being arrows pointing up toward the top of the backbox?

I'm getting toward the end of my Meteor restoration and mine didn't come with this card (I've since got a repro set). I can't find any pictures on Google, IPDB, this club thread, or various Meteor resto threads that show where this card goes.

Thanx in advance...

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Thanks to Lovef2k for this photo!

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Nice I'm missing that in my backbox.

I've got some of my old signage in mine. Would it look bad to add the ones I'm missing or would that look too different.

Guess I could try and patina the sheets/labels I'm missing

Just print all new sheets?

Got all the cabinet cards and labels in. Backbox door repaint is done and I'll start re-assembling that tonight with a newly cleaned wire harness. Hoping this week is the week I put the new playfield in, turn the power on (in stages...no need to blow up all the PCBs all at once!), and see what kind of troubleshooting I'm in for after everything is back together.

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That feels very deja-vu.

I like the powder coated rails.

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28.5" long are the right height. These work and for $65 they are a good deal

https://www.pinballlife.com/bally-gray-legs-set-of-4.html

For anyone here lurking and wishing to join the club I have my Meteor listed in the market.

SOLD!

Machine - For Sale

Meteor Archived

Partially shopped/refurbished - “Selling a classic Stern Meteor. Playfield torn down and shopped with new clear silicone rubber rings and flipper perfect play rubber. Nice playfield with just upper flipper drag we...”

2021-11-13

Li, NY

Crispin

1,800 (OBO)

Archived after: 13 days

Viewed: 1264 times

Status: Sold for $ 1,800

Contributed to Pinside