This might sound stupid but I like the look of the original
labels and knowing they are original.

Of course I sound like a hypocrite if you consider all the new boards and displays i put in the backbox. Haha.

Yeah I'll print the new ones.

So I fire up game to do some more tweaking. All my control lamps are flickering which they haven't done since I applied power a week ago.
I've had an alltek light board in since power up.

Anything anybody could point to for me to check.
Went out with wife for some margaritas for a bit.
Thx.

Were the lights flickering before the margaritas...or after?

Do they flicker when you hit the flippers? I noticed that after my rebuild with LEDs. Seems to be normal

Man I feel like a real jackass.

While I was out eating some fajitas and drinking
margaritas it hit me that I had plugged into a
different outlet today when I fired it up.

This outlet is by my workspace/worktable and is just a multistrip but its wired
off one of my overhead led lights so there is no real
true ground!
Sure enough when I got home and plugged into
original outlet
All was right with the world.. No more flicker.

Uh, oh. Playfield is in the cabinet now and I'm working through a punch list of items on my way to a flipping pin. Worked through the electrical, lamp, and switch issues so far and actually played my first test game tonight. Then noticed this.....WTF? Right flipper and the middle drain post are too close together and the ball won't drop through with the flipper in the down position. It's not like I can move that post or move the right flipper. What the heck do I do?

This is an early run of the CPR playfield with the missing DT scores (which I've added back in). I can take the rubber of the middle post and then there's enough clearance for the ball to drop through. Do I just try to find thinner rubber (for the post or flipper bat or both)? I suppose I could fill in the hole and drill a new one next to it to move it left, but I really, really don't want to do that.

Ball Stuck 01 (resized).jpg

Ball Stuck 02 (resized).jpg

JFC. Sorry, I have a PF from the same run and am just as excited as can be to find out this additional problem might be in my future as well. Missing scores, missing small details, slot cut too small, clear has ripples, and now this. Worst PF ever. Regardless, thank you for bringing this possibility to my attention and best of luck with finding the best solution for you.

My center post on my meteor is off center when looking at the graphics, but is perfect for game play. They have some odd issues with the CPR playfields.

I was so excited to get this playfield. I didn't plan to put in a new CPR for this project....was just going to get it running as a nice player, maybe re-stencil the cabinet, and then wait for Outside Edge to someday produce a hardtop. But I got the CPR for a steal - brand new, never used from a guy local to me so no shipping costs or sales tax. The price was so low (slightly more than I paid for new CPR plastics and cheaper than what I paid for a new CPR backglass). The guy I bought it from took a bath - he paid full price from CPR a couple years ago but never used it. I didn't care that the METEOR DT scores were missing - I had the waterslides in the correct font and put them on myself. The wrong fonts for the other DT banks text didn't bother me, either. The smaller cut out for the 333's DT bank didn't affect me because it worked ok with tombstone drop targets (which I had).

During topside assembly for the playfield swap, I noticed even before the flippers went on that the middle drain post seemed closer to the right than the left. It become more apparent after putting on the flipper bats and the rubbers, but I noticed on other Meteor machines that some playfields had that "slightly to the right" look so I pressed on. It wasn't until I actually put a ball in play that I saw that the ball doesn't even fit between the two. You've got to be kidding me.

I'm going to think about it some more, but I've got a feeling the only right move is going to be to fill in that hole with wood epoxy and carefully drill a new hole slightly to the left. It should be close enough that the base of the post, while in the new hole, will cover the old hole. If not, perhaps a very thin washer between the playfield surface and the post base will extend enough to cover the previous hole.

Arrrghh......I was so close to finishing this thing.

that totally sucks. i would fill it in too . i know its driving u crazy. it would make me nuts.
good luck.

You might be able to use one of Cliffy 's carbon fiber washers to help hide the hole filled the wood epoxy. It might even look kinda cool on the black background.
http://www.passionforpinball.com/jjp_guns_n_roses.htm

CF-washer-compare (resized).jpg

jjp-gnr-base-02 (resized).jpg

Hey, I kinda like that. Make lemonade out of lemons.

Plan this weekend is to get the old, original playfield out of my storage closet and measure with a caliper the exact distances from the flipper holes to the middle drain hole and see exactly where the post should go on the CPR. Just from eyeballing it, I'm guessing it's going to move 1/8" to the left and 1/8" down toward the apron.

Yep - the distance is definitely off. I think both the right flipper hole and the center post are slightly off, not just the middle post by itself. The distance from the playfield bottom edge to the post is consistent between the too, tho, at 14cm.

I don't want to mess with the flipper hole, so I think I'm going to wood epoxy the middle post hole tonight and measure out a new location tomorrow, probably down and to the left a bit enough to make the post equidistant from both flipper holes. That means the middle post will be a cm or two closer to the playfield bottom edge vs. the original, but that's a good tradeoff to me so that I don't have to mess with the right flipper hole.

Middle Post Distance Comparison (resized).jpg

Wow! That's.... like really something.

I was able to do my Meteor swap with a NOS playfield I bought before CPR was reproducing them. It only had half of the holes marked and it was *still* easier than my CPR Centaur swap. On that one, I had to fill in half of the holes before redrilling them, and I had to buy a router to modify the shallow cuts.

I'm glad CPR exists but sometimes I feel like they take advantage of their status as the only game in town.

I measured mine too with calipers as I did my install since it appeared that the graphics were off registration. The dimples where right on mine, and measured the same as my original playfield, but you can see it is off center from the graphics.

39264CAC-32C1-406D-AC15-DF4B02D61A42 (resized).jpeg

Mine is off center of the graphic but centered relative to the flippers on an original playfield.

image (resized).jpg

Yikes, that center post thing is horrid. Such a disappointing reproduction.

If it were me, I'd probably move the flipper hole as it'll be hidden by the flipper.

While both the middle post the right flipper hole are off a bit, I can't move just the flipper hole. If I move the right flipper hole back enough to create equidistance for the post in-between both flippers, the right flipper will be too close to the inlane wire guide. I'd have to either move both the middle post and the right flipper hole each "a little", or just the middle post "a little bit more". I'm opting for the latter - I filled the middle post hole with wood epoxy this evening. Tomorrow night, I drill a new hole after some careful measurements.

I like @bigguybbr's suggestion of the carbon fiber washer. After the post goes in the new hole, I'll see how much of the previous hole is exposed and go from there.

Most of the factory meteors are like this as well. I wouldn't put it past manufacturers' to offset something a little bit to fool the player into thinking they're getting a save opportunity based on the artwork but not on the actual pin placement.

Moving the flipper hole is going to change the shot geometry so I wouldn't do that.

I have a very-well aligned (i.e. inserts line up with artwork) Meteor NOS PF in my machine and the center arrow is slightly 'off' as well. IIRC CPR asked about if they should correct this or not and most people said no because it lines up with what the machine came with (intentional on Stern's part or not). My PF wasn't dimpled at all so I got really good at making templates out of oaktag to get my spotting correct (which I also prefer doing, anyway. I never trust anyone's spots after both Centaur and 8 ball... both of which had horrible spotting on very important ball travel areas (left outlane on 8 ball, trough on centaur).

The last CPR I finished (mystic) had pretty good spotting, but mistakes where they drilled through holes instead of leaving for wood screw. I still checked each one before installing parts.

I think I'm pretty happy with the results. Here's a picture of the old hole filled in with wood epoxy and the new hole drilled right next to it after carefully measuring for its new location. I used a brad-tip drill bit to minimize issues drilling into the clearcoat:

02 (resized).jpg

And here's the post installed.

06 (resized).jpg

The tip of each flipper is now 3.8cm from the post with enough clearance for the ball to just drop through when the flippers are in the down position. I seriously considered removing the post permanently as the game is quite easy, and that middle post-save makes it that much easier to carry on games seemingly forever. My family rejected that idea, so it stays. Keep the family happy, and I can keep putting pins in our rec room.

I had a small black washer in my parts stash and it nicely covers the area where the original hole was located. I was going to paint the exposed wood epoxy black and dab on some clearcoat but now I don't think I'll bother - the black washer blends in nicely and hides it while protecting it at the same time. And the rubber on the post protrudes enough that the ball hits that and doesn't come into contact with the washer at all.

On to the next issue on the punch list! I think I resolved the two solenoid problems plus the free-falling drop target problems in the METEOR DT bank (at least on my bench) and I'll get to test those fixes out later today when the playfield goes back into the cab.

The art on my meteor is slightly off center to the post as well but nothing near as bad as that CPR playfield.

I think calling it horrid is being a little dramatic. And moving the flipper will definitely change the geometry so won’t play as designed.

Mine plays great, and the post isn’t too far off from my original. Still one of the nicest meteors out there.

With the middle post issue behind me, I moved on to the METEOR DT bank issues:

#1 - the O and R wouldn't drop in the self test but do drop fine in gameplay and they reset ok
#2 - random targets in this bank don't stay up...one or more targets fall after every reset.

#1 was easy and my fault after reassembling the bank when I cleaned it and put in new targets. The two memory solenoids for O and R were mis-aligned - took them out and screwed them in straight. Works again!

For #2, resetting the bank by hand on my bench worked consistently well, but not in the game. I surmised that the targets were not getting enough height on solenoid-activated resets and therefore could not consistently rest on the fingers of the memory solenoids and instead, they'd just drop. There didn't appear to be an inordinate amount of play on the reset bar, but taking a closer look there are definite worn-in grooves from the DT arms rubbing against it for more than 40 years.

DT01 (resized).jpg

My solution for that was to secure a piece of rigid PETG plastic (1/32" thick) on the bar to give the drop targets a bit more height during reset and more of an opportunity to latch onto the memory solenoid fingers.

DT02 (resized).jpg

DT03 (resized).jpg

Works like a champ so far. Ran Self Test burn-in for 50 cycles, no more random falling targets!

It's time that somebody started to reproduce these parts. If this were stainless it would last for decades.

I have seen some significant wear on stern drop targets.

Luckily had a friend at work whose husband has a sign/banner business.

Was able to make a few stickers to help cover
some defects on my apron.

20211123_100222 (resized).jpg

20211123_100248 (resized).jpg

20211123_101713 (resized).jpg

Lol, there is so much wrong with the CPR playfield that it is 100% horrid.

I kinda agree. I'd totally agree if I paid $899 for this when CPR was selling it. I paid under $200 for it (new/unused) with no tax or shipping charges since it was a local-to-me pinhead that was selling it (and an extremely nice guy). For under $200, I'm happy to deal with and fix the issues I came across. It was frustrating at times, for sure, but in the end I'm really happy to have a new playfield for about the same price as I paid for a new set of plastics.

17 (resized).JPG

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/meteor-1st-swap-resto#post-6624608

Hey guys got a quick question. I finishing up my meteor, when I got it it was was pretty bad, most lights didnt work so on so forth. I redid and cleared the playfield, installed a new power supply, redid some connectors, pops and the drops. Installed the Weebly anti flicker boards and fired it up.

Surpringly everything looked good except the knocker was locking on due to the rod getting wedged between the screw head and the plate, but easy fix. Lights looked good except the #1 rocket lights still flicker, need to figure that out and the flippers dont work. When I press the right flipper it lights the shoot again insert, so i need to figure that out, and the left does nothing.

Any Ideas before i dig in?

Meteor is known to still have some flicker lamps even with anti-flicker boards. It was covered earlier in this thread. You can try adding a 470 ohm resistor across that lamp.

Flippers not working could be bad relay. See if the relay clicks when running coil test. If could also be a power interruption on the PF somewhere or from backbox to the PF. Follow the daisy chain with a meter to verify power. Insert lamp lighting when pressing flipper is most likely a short somewhere, may have happened when replacing connectors so double check your work.

RGarriott - I can attest to some control lamps still flickering on Meteor even with an Alltek lamp board and an Alltek MPU (and even more control lamps flickering with an Alltek lamp board and the original MPU). As Lovef2k pointed out, I had to add 470 ohm resistors to the few (3) flickering control lamps to get them all working despite the fact that I was reading 470 ohms between J13 (power) on the Alltek lamp board and to every control lamp pin on the Alltek lamp board. That essentially means that the Alltek board is doing what it's supposed to do (add a 470 ohm load to lamps in support of LEDs) but there's something different on these early Sterns vs. Bally SS pins. On Bally's, I've had ZERO flicker issues (in three previous restores) in what is essentially the same board set design.

Adding the 470 ohm resistors at the lamps did not help the Alltek Lamp board + OEM MPU flickering issues (about 12 lamps). My next attempt at resolving that, when I get time, is to swap out the U14 Hex Inverter on the MPU. Stern used 4572's for that IC whereas Bally used 4049's.

I need to send a email to Weebly to see what he is recommending for his flicker boards. Thanks for the info guys.

I put in color matched Comet Optix LEDS in my Meteor with the original lamp board and no flicker. They look awesome in the game. Expensive but worth it. Also used frosted (not super bright) LEDs in the back box and three fire LEDs under the missile rockets. Highly recommended. Worked well with original code and the new Meteor 2021 code. Just a fantastic game. Have it right next to a Firepower which is another example of a game that doesn’t need to be overly complex to be fun.

Have any of you sold a fully restored Meteor? I need to make some room in my game room, and was thinking of posting 3 pins I have restored for sale, hoping to move 2 out and make room to bring in one new one.

While I was adding up everything from my Meteor restoration, I realize I'm into it for about $5500 (all new Alltek boards, CPR PF/BG/plastics, new rails and legs, sound system with arduino controller, etc).

If I listed it on pinside with a list of everything that went into it, do you think there would be any interest, or do you think it would just draw a ton of ridicule to price it to break even on a pin that can be had for around 1100-1500 in "players" condition.

I think it would be a pretty niche market to get north of $5K for a primo Meteor and ya, you'd likely have to endure a bunch of "you're crazy" comments. But I'm the same boat - I've got about $4200 in my restore with what I'm calling a "Meteor LE" with powder coated legs and armor, CPR playfield, backglass, and plastics, LEDs, new boardset, and on and on. And Arduino is on the way! Got notice it shipped yesterday, so over the Christmas holiday my Meteor LE should be complete. No intention of selling, but if/when I do I think I'd be pleased to get $3200 out of it.

I’ll probably end up keeping it. It was a fun project, and I probably have one of the nicest Meteors out there. I do see a bunch of similar quality quick silvers and star gazers listed at 6-7k, but people are crazy for those right now for some reason.

So who did the artwork for the reproduction? Have them send me the files and I will improve them and make a new and improved reproduction.

Huh?

CPR

Would you be interested in selling me one?

You’ll love it. It adds more depth to the game play, and if you get the wav trigger, having music and call outs is awesome. I have a switch y the coin box so I can start it for people to play with original code, then turn it off and toggle the switch to the new code and let them experience the difference.

Is there any chance of a hard-top being produced for Meteor?

What kind of switch do you use?

I bought these on recommendation from another Arduino user.

bigguybbr - indeed, I'll be mounting this switch inside the lower cab near the coin door running the cable back up to the Arduino!

switch (resized).jpg

I have briefly looked into the new code but was thinking that you pulled the sound card ribbon cables and put in the anduino in its spot. I guess im not sure what the whole process is for the switch .

I actually use these ones so that I can toggle the jumper at the same time I toggle the cabinet speaker input, so there is no hum.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XMH174C

IMG_1915 (resized).JPG

Brief video of it in action from before I did my resto

The sound cables get attached if you want to use the sb300. It acts as a pass through if the jumper isn’t there. The switch just saved you from having to open the back box to select the code. I took a picture from my Trident since that was easier to get to.

5EE491A6-7A94-41F4-A647-79C1D3523FD4 (resized).jpeg

6C22DF4B-016B-4ABF-8C9F-241011F8758C (resized).jpeg

Ok Im with ya know. If the switch isn't selected for the Arduino it doesn't boot up and the sb300 does. The new board fits in the same spot as the ribbon cables but still has pins to attach the ribbon cables.