Hi all, just picked up a project Meteor. Overall in nice shape. Replaced and adjusted some flipper switches, cleaned up a few problem areas and aside from a flickering 2nd player display I'm only having one significant issue:

The kickout trough coil stops firing after the game warms up. I can turn the game on and get about 10 minutes of gameplay before the coil stops firing. The game cycles through the solenoids repeatedly until I manually move the ball off of the trough switch. It works again if I turn off the game for a bit and I've never seen it start working again once it has quit.

I have looked at the coil wiring and it looks fine. Operationally it is fine during those first 10 minutes which leads me to suspect something on the boards. Unforunately, I'm an EM guy and don't know where to start on the board. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Edit: behaves like this

Circling back to say thanks. Reflowed the solder on the header and it took care of it.

Meteor pop bumper question: where does the pop bumper cap with the red star first show up? It isn't on the flyer. Did all games ship with the star on the cap or was that introduced later?

Does anyone have a list of the full arsenal of parts needed for a re-pin/re-header on Meteor? I've gotten by reflowing solder here and there as needed but the time has come to do all of them. Figured if someone has a list already done it will save me a little time getting an order together.

Mine are, yes.

Achilles heel parts seem to be the board connectors simply because of their age. $100 and elbow grease will fix that.

Blown out playfields and cupped inserts seem to be the norm. Rumor has it there is a whole subset of Meteors with incorrect fonts, smeared details and missing playfield text...

On location I've seen trouble with the upper drop bank quite a few times.

IMO it is worth working through those things. The game is pure great.

Hoping someone can help me troubleshoot an out hole kicker issue on my Meteor. The kicker coil doesn't activate when the out hole switch is pressed. All other solenoids fire just fine and cycle endlessly as long as the drain switch is closed. Voltage coming across at the wires but circuit stays open when the coil should be activating so it makes me think it is a board issue. I get continuity from the pin on the board to the wire at the coil. I just replaced all pins and headers on my solenoid board hoping to get rid of this issue but no luck. Beyond that I don't know much about board troubleshooting. Where do I go next?

Sorry - bad write up on my part. I have voltage at the coil - but the circuit doesn't close when the coil is supposed to activate.

Not familiar with this. Just jumper the ground leg of the transistor to see if the ball kicks out?

Wiring checks out ok. If I ground the pin at J5 - 8 or at the leg of transistor C16 the out hole coil fires. What do I do from here? How do I determine if it is a bad transistor and if so, what transistor do I replace it with?

Ok, Meteor coin door - large Stern decal or no? Flyer and IPDB examples don't show a Stern sticker. I see some with stickers in member photos but most of those coin doors look rehabbed so it might have been added later.

If yes, which decal?

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I own a red Meteor variant as well. Planning to strip the pf next winter for a restore. I'll definitely scan and share for anyone interested.

That's just CPR's shoddy art department. They autovector everything and end up missing quite a few details. Not a high level of QC.

To be fair to the CPR buyers, there are a lot of Meteor playfields out there that are so trashed that CPR is the only "affordable" option. I know I'd fight tooth and nail to get my player's condition one rehabbed first, but not everyone is in that situation. It is just disappointing that there isn't a better option. When I finally tear down my "red meteor" version I'd like to go get it professionally scanned, either for posterity or with some hope that a different small manufacturer might do a higher grade repro.

Could be, but take it with a grain of salt. CPR always says that when they screw up.

Measured my original pf (red Meteor variant). 1 and 3 drop holes measure the same. "Extra" post is there behind the Meteor targets.

No, same as the one pictured above. Diagram shows six across the bottom and one at the peak.

Only the missing scores appeared fixed to me. All the poor font matches elsewhere on the game remained.

My project/players Meteor came with a Beehive playfield protector to help the game survive some play before a proper restoration could move forward. One of the few issues the protector introduces is a small lip near the drop target banks that frequently traps a slow moving ball above a dropped target. These can not be shaken loose.

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So today I printed some clip-in standoffs to help keep the drop targets at the same level or just slightly above the top of the playfield protector.

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I had thought about some makeshift solutions like popsicle sticks or some beerseal, but these clip nicely into place at all four target banks, are easily installed, stay in place when working on the game, and are easily removed.

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Problem solved. Hope this helps anyone else that uses a playfield protector.

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I have what I assume is an early-ish run of Meteor. It has 3 coin entries, a single menu switch, and the red screen layer. Interesting how a number of changes seem to have happened midway through Meteor's run.

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I keep a pile of transistors for the driver board. Doesn't happen often, but when I get a lockup I don't even bother testing the transistor, just pull it and replace, plus a diode replace as stated above.

If you can be patient it sounds like Fantastic Pinball is interested in remaking these.

I remember Yopp saying he was working on custom Yoppsicle units for Meteor. I hope that is still happening.

+1 Not my native skillset but repinning these boards isn't difficult with the right tools and a little practice.

Get the Coos backglass. It has much better mirroring.

The meteor (object, not wording) is stippled between green and mirror so a lot is going to depend on where you're standing. Looking at mine and then at the photos I'd say the Coos version looks more correct. The CPR one has that silver material that doesn't really look like mirroring. There are also incorrect colors on the CPR. For example the R in METEOR should be the same color as the STERN just below it.

Hey all, I have a METEOR drop target (O) that rapidly registers hits anytime it is down. The score just keeps ramping up until the bank is reset. Switches are cleaned and gapped correctly. I suspect a diode but was wondering if anyone else has run across something similar before I dig in.

Would it be something in the same switch matrix then? It only happens when the O target is dropped.

Looks like pretty typical CPR quality. Sad.