I just bought mine for 1K, but it has a few issues. Which I'll want to discuss without good fellows. Back to this FINE specimine of a machine, before I saw the others' appraisal, I had put my target at $2,100 - Pretty good for a machine that old. It's just beautiful! It doesn't seem to have the nicks and scratches that most machines of it's age get from the usual being on route, being stored in horrid conditions for years, then survive someone hacking away at them again, who may or may not know what they were doing, and then you get my Meteor!

That one is beautiful!!

-dp

I just got my Meteor, and the danger has almost passed. I had a reset issue because the lower EOS secondary switch was missing, and just wired into the first solenoid. What I think is interesting, is they got it to work - they had a stewie flipper at the top, and I guess somehow that was able to not draw enough to reset the game. Anyway, I fashioned an EOS & secondary, and mounted them- They worked fine until I got the ones from Marco. I just haven't put them in yet. At least it plays with my kludged version.

The Displays

I was told one of the displays was dim. DIM? There was a hole in the board where the fixture was supposed to go! The seller supposedly is going to mail me the insert. I hope he does, because I'm thinking that won't be a cheap thing to replace. I have lots of spare Williams parts, but pretty much squat in the Stern arena. I've never had a Gottlieb machine in my shop/gameroom, I'm told they're the hardest of the three to work on, but not as bad as Chicago Coin, which was a bear too. But I digress..

In addition to the missing display, the two wires going to the two two displays most of the time read garbage. When all 4 of the displays show the high score, you can sort of make out that most of the segments work, but something is dreadfully not right. I've tried lightly sanding the corrosion off the pins on the board, as well as the fixture side. I've heard that wiring is suspect on all of these Stern games, and I'm agreeing.

Targets

The meteor bank works pretty good, except once in a while second E in meteor get sort of stuck up, and a direct hit won't sink it, an orange "Down Target" spot doesn't down it, but if the ball hits it from the left side it'll drop. It doesn't act like that all the time, only maybe 1/2 of the time. The other targets are good, except for the the lower left "1"s, and the lower 3rd target does nothing. you can down it, doesn't matter. downing the next target up causes both targets to score. I'm hoping that's something simple - like a switch being pointed at the wrong target!

Watch out for falling rocks!!

-BrianDP

Does someone have a clue as to why they called it WOW instead of just extra ball? Possibly some sort of infringement? Although I can't see how you could copyright, or trademark a name, or phrase like "Extra Ball." It seems too common place, or every day. People use the construction for all sorts of balls.

Is there a story about how Stern came to be using the same exact boards as Bally? I've heard that in the 90s, some manufacturers just stole the designs / reverse engineered them, and then just worked out a royalty fee to satisfy Bally/Williams. Is that what Happened? The boards look identical!!

-B

The pins I sanded had nothing but problems before I started. They certainly work no worse now that I've removed the corrosion (and possibly whatever the plating was that had corroded) Regardless, wouldn't I have had to replace these pins anyway? What are you supposed to do, clean the pins with CLR? What is the recommended way to fix such corroded pins, if not to physically remove the corrosion, or outright replace the header containing the pin?

I do want to get this straight- I've read lots of places where you have to be careful about sanding the contacts on newer flipper switches because they're coated with Hydroximania, platinum, or some other precious metal. But then another tech friend of mine, someone with YEARS of exerperience told me that "Well, what are you going to do? if it's corroded, and doesn't work, it either keeps NOT working, you replace it, or you can try to clean off the corrosion." Another Tech friend of mine was over the other day, and he had a bottle of stuff that he was putting on pins after he would clean them that supposedly kept them from oxidizing and somehow promoted contact.

What say you people about these corroded precious metal contacts?

DTD re Targets: also thanks for the info about the drop targets. I'll be taking those apart and cleaning them.

-Brian

Very good points. Deoxit huh? I'll have to get some of that stuff.

I gather these header pins CERTAINLY wouldn't be the same 156s that williams uses. That would be WAAAY to simple. What about the female pins? They definitely don't look like your standard molex crimp plug!

-B

Geez, and I JUST BOUGT all the miles to do every possible male/female for Williams games. I have a romper I got from gp, but I don't know if it does kk or not.

IDC = one of the crappiest methods I've ever seen for attaching a female plug in a pin/socket situation. Technically all ribbon cables are IDC too, so I suppose I should clarify that.. IDC on anything other than a ribbon cable is for the birds!

I'll look at my crumpets. Damnit. CRIMPERS!

This spell check wants to call a crimper anything BUT! Well honestly I've just Gotten all the crimping stuff, and my very first project is to de-solder some wires from some pins on my BK's mpu, and apply a proper plug.

I'll start slow, but I can see whileing away the hours just Meteor, Ebedie-le and me... <3. <3, repinning her molex plugs, and stripping her copper bare.. applying just a little flux, and... Get out the crimpers.

-B

(The flux was for comedic effect. I know flux goes on the playfield surface, not in a molex romp joint)

Okay. I have one for your consideration- I was playing the game, and then all the sudden, the game starts screeching as loud as God. I tried messing with the volume pot, but it didn't seem to make much difference. After a while it sort of quieted down on it's own, well, if it didn't quickly I've shut it off as not to draw attention from neighbors, police, and others. What causes such horrible screeching? Is it dangerous for the game to make such a loud noise? Other than the damage I guess of blowing out the speaker cone, which wouldn't surprise me. It was pretty loud.

Oh, another thing, what is the difference between "Collecting all Rockets" and just going down the outhole? I suppose if my score displays worked correclty I might see some huge score difference in those vs. just the outhole. But it would seem to suggest that if you don't go out one of the exit lanes you DON'T get credit for your bonus? Like I said, I've heard it make this Crashing noise on exit that I assume is the "scoring all rockets" It's the same explosion that Galaxy makes when you finish all the planets.

-Brian