I think I'll take the METEOR target bank out tomorrow and give that the going over. How did he put it? "I'd clean them until the drop like butter." Hehehe.

I think I'm glad I didn't put that Cap in this Meteor though, it's neighbor, EBD, is mysteriously rebooting, and going to sleep at the damndest of times. I think that cap might go better on that machine. I'll get some more of them when I order those .1 plugs form Great Plains.

Cleaned the Meteor targets. Very Dirty, Dirty, Dirty, (Said in an old Grandmother scolding tone) And I did buff the plate that they slide against, along with the rest of the thing! I found one of the pins holding the targets in place was completely gone! I put an apporpriate sized bolt in place since I didn't have a pin of that exact size. It seems to be okay now. There were some other pieces here or there that were every so slightly bent out of shape, so I straightened them, or polished, or whatever I had to do to make it work properly. It is better, but there are still times when a ball will hit a target, usually from the side, and the target won't drop. it's hard to say where the mechanical problem is. These targets are unusual in that they sort of "balance" between the pin connected to the solonoid that the target is resting on, to be pulled out from underneath the target, -or- the ball hits the target knocking the target off that pin.

The more I look into this machine, the more stuff that is broken, or kludged back together when it broke. The flipper coils are in shambles. The Right Flipper, it's base plate is cracked at the middle, the weakest point. They've made this bracket with 22Ga steel, and made the smallest point an OBVIOUS point of failure. So instead of replacing it, they've put some screws on either side of the plate to sort of hold it in place. VERY poor form in my opinion. So, this makes for a wishy-washy flipper, that sticks sometimes, and doesn't have the proper "oomph."

Apparently the "mechanics" working on this liked this method of repair because they've employed it in several other places on the machine. The other flipper, the base of the coil stop, is broken in such a way that only one mounting bolt is still viable. The other one is just gone. They again employed a "helper" screw, right into the bottom of the playfield, angled so it supplies a little bit of force to the back of the coil stop. Again, flipper sticks, has excess play, and low power.

It pains me to find these "fixes" to a game. I guess I can be MILDLY sympathetic (VERY Mildly) because if you only have one game, and you really want to play it, you might be willing to cut some corners. But if you loved the game so much you couldn't wait to play it, you should have ordered the broken parts and had them there ASAP. An early pinball mentor of mine explained that for this reason it's good not to have just ONE pinball game, because when a game is broken, there is no excuse to play it in it's broken state, what USUALLY happens is MORE damage happens from the broken part wigging around, or affecting an adjacent part causing a sort of cascade of broken parts. I'm exaggerating slightly, but I think you see where I'm going. When a machine is broken, it shouldn't be played (abused!) until whatever it is is fixed and in working order.

I've got some pics I took of the Drop targets, as well as the "Helper" screws.

-Brian

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Oh! Does someone want to give a brief dissertation on ferrous vs. non, coil stops? I had one from a flipper kit that was unused, but the holes didn't match. I grabbed on off Honey, which fit, but it wasn't made of copper like the first one it was replacing. It seems to be working.. does it matter what they're made out of?

Regarding those newer flipper plates, I almost wish I had.. the upper flipper has that base installed. I bought the old style, thinkinking it would work better with the current EOS, coil, pawl, etc. but since ALL the pieces were broken, incorrect, mismatched, installed/adjusted incorrectly, or geez, were there other conditions? This pin has been a learning experience!

I'm starting a sister thread to this for the issues I'm having with it's Galactucal sibling. This Galaxy doesn't have the same mechanical issues issues as the Meteor had. However the guy who sold it to me recommended I try to fix the problems with the Galaxy switch not activating with contact cleaner. I don't think I'll ask him for any more advice.

New flipper plate helped a lot. New Coil Stop, EOS, and coil sleeves. It played like a new top.

But then a target broke. I'm probably going to just replace them with the set from Marco that come with the decals and all. I have "Repaired" the drop target, and if it doesn't collide with the ones next to it, might last for a week or so.

The problems that I reported previously, and that were fixed by re-seating the connectors have returned. Luckily, the parts came from Marco to replace both the headers, and the plugs, so I'm on it. I'll let you know how it turns out.

-Brian

UPDATE!!!

That target did NOT last more than about 5 games. But, I suppose if I was testing, and it was a temporary situation, I might do it again.

FYI- Superglue didn't last long enough to get the piece mounted in the target unit! I was fidding with it trying to get it in the slot, and it just fell apart. I suppose if you have to be "gentle" with it, it's not going to be a good fix for this. I then went with Epoxy, I tried to put some nails on either side of the shaft to strengthen it. I was looking at the target unit, it was disassembled at the time, and it Iooked like there would be clearance for my little 'wings', but I wasn't looking at it when it was assembled, and the wings definitely interfered. I broke them off, and put the target back in the target unit. this time the shaft held for the re-assembly. Like i said, it played about 5 games with the Epoxy fix until it gave up the ghost for real. looked rather amusing too- When the thing broke the "E" sort of waved back and forth like a swinging target or something.

I think I'll start a new thread to explain the NEW targets, and how I went about it.

-Brian

I saw some sort of destructive plastic glue, I didn't try it.. Plastaid? I see JB Weld has a product, and without trying it, I sure woudln't knock it as I've has EXCELLENT luck with their products in the past. I've also heard about Plastic Welding. I have my doubts as to the strength of such welds. At least with any sort of consumer product.

-Brian

Funny you should ask.. Things were great! I had installed the new meteor set, was holding back on installing the 123-123-123, since I have the meteor, and I thought maybe those targets needed to be replaced worse than these did, and it seems I might have been right. Of course I already stuck the decals to the targets already so I'm sort of out of luck I guess. I'll figure out something. I guess I saw individual targets for $5 a piece.. I only need 4 for the Galaxy.

So you'll recall I had problems with, A4J2? The START of this topic? Reseating the connector had resolved the problem temporarily. In the mean time I had had it happen one more time and reseating the connector again fixed it again. So, when I finally go the 28 pin molex connectors, and the terminal ends, and everything I needed, and having such good luck on repining stuff on the Galaxy, I decided to go ahead and do this one. It was a few more pins, and it was also a different style than the White ones. These are black, and apparently made by TE. I do -NOT- care for these at all, the way the terminal pin is designed, it's easy to crush the square housing that encompasses the pin. Maybe Molex ones don't touch as many sides or something, but the system is a lot simpler, and IMHO works better. But the WORST part about it is, these TE ends do NOT work with the standard pins that they sent me that mate with the white molex connecters. They're not long enough to go all the way up into the square housing that I spoke about earlier. This is the second time on the same order they screwed up what I wanted. Mouser is GREAT if you know what you want, and know the part numbers, and how it all fits together. If you don't, um.. Maybe a smaller outfit is better. I've since ordered a bunch MORE ends from GPE to fill in for the TE parts that I'm going to try to get Molex to make right.

It'll be a nice game when I'm finished. It was playing very nicely in between putting in the targets, and this connecter fiasco- It's a great little game! Once I got that mini flipper out of there, and got a regular flipper in there, and got the bottom flipper wired up correctly, the whole thing started working correctly together, and I'm really quite satisfied with the game!

-Brian