I’ve owned 2 and have another coming in the next couple of weeks. I’ve seen some incredible players play this game with finesse. There IS skill with Orbitor! Different isn’t always a bad thing!

Stern Electronics Club (1977-1984)
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/price-check-1980-sterns-quicksilver-stargazer-seawitch

Cool Club! I always wanted one of these and then they became pretty pricey.

I was gonna started a club for Orbitor but there are too few people who own one and use it. Honestly, the best is the Classic Stern club YeOldPinPlayer quoted. They only made games for 5 years and they’re all basically the same parts and circuit boards.
Orbitor is a special game, and the most unique ever made! However there are too few produced.
It would be like making a (Classic Stern) Iron Maiden or (Classic Stern) Viper club. There’s only like a few hundred that were made and maybe less than a hundred out in the wild.

Kinda like the Monday Night Football Club, it’s mostly dead as a door nail.

However if you’re interested follow my threads where I rebuilt an Orbitor 1: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/orbitor-1-a-scratch-build-reaching-for-the-stars

Now this is related.

This is most likely due to the bearings going bad that hold the axle straight. If the bearings are shot then the motor will wobble which causes it to slow down. There is no way to fix this other than taking it to a small motor repair shop and have them rebuild it.
It will only get worse with time, as all Orbitor’s are.

BUT THERE IS HOPE!

Currently I’m taking the bold step and working on reproduction Spinning bumpers for O1! https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-orbitor-1-spinning-bumper-replacement-interest-check

Picked one up last month.

Glad there's a club, i'll give you a run for best Orbitor around i hope when i see mine. Was picked up in Victoria last week and dropped to a tech's place down the coast for him to see if he can make a scoring board and spinning scoring discs for one of the bumpers. Hoping to get it scoring and then buy the parts from Isochronic_Frost to complete when he has them available.
I love the weird and different, don't care what anyone says about the gameplay.

I only have some pics from the seller as i haven't seen it in the flesh yet, but it's beautiful. Wanted to buy the Space Invaders next to it too (i've been looking hard for one) but it had a few too many problems for the price.

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Looks nice

Any preventative maintenance I can do to the out hole to prevent damage?

There was some stuff in the build thread listed above where someone found a piece that fit in there from a plumbing supply shop or somesuch.

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Picked one up today. Such a cool little oddball. It's pretty much original condition barely touched since '82, including rubbers that are about to crack off. Can't wait to soup it up a little, new rubbers, LEDs, maybe do something different with the under playfield lighting or add some mild LED strips along the sides.

Mine finally arrived yesterday. It's beautiful and absolutely wonderful to play (especially after a couple of brownies). No way anyones talking me out of this one. What a find.

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I think the gameplay is exceptional, seems like there's a lot of airswings sometimes, and it's hard to reach the top of the playfield, specially the top right loop shot, but wow.

Congrats.

What's a good score on this machine? Bit hard with my bottom bumper not scoring, but had a good game this morning with a 300+ sec ball that got me to 912,000 odd.

That’s top 3 on both Pinside AND on the Pindigo app!
I think most people don’t log their scores on such obscure machines honestly.

That's why i figured i'd ask here. The factory (i think)score on it at the moment is 1.55m.

I never thought i'd say this, but my pinball machine is going moldy.

How hard is it to get the perspex playfield off of the plastic base?

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That looks like the usual “white fuzzies” this machine is plagued with. Captain Neo talked about it at length in his for sale post.

The vacuum-formed moonscape is not properly suspended and rubs against the plexiglass molded playfield. The moonscape rubbing becomes tiny white dust particles of plastic and clings to the playfield like dust on a static-charged balloon.

To take apart the playfield and clean those is a bitch and a half of work.
You have to first depopulate the playfield, then unscrew all the screws securing it to the top and bottom of the playfield mounts. Then you’ve got to separate the layers that are screwed together and slid into the rails.

It’s awful. The rails are used as a spacer, and the vacuum-formed playfield is so exceedingly delicate it feels as if it will break apart at any moment.

Here I circled all the places where the vacuum-formed plastic was rubbing and creating fuzzies. Most noticeably clear is the arrows. The ones by the flipper are messy and probably indicates the flipper itself may be pressing against the plastic playfield at some point.
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Here you can see the playfield has multiple “peaks” that rub against the plexi. All the fuzzies have amassed near the insert light, probably something to do with the heat, I assume. Once you clean these areas (with extreme care) just touch-up the color and replace.
Perhaps CaptainNeo has recommendations on how to match the color and prevent this issue from reappearing.
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Dunno, it looks like mold spores to me. It's even green in places. It's new, wasn't there when the machine was delivered two weeks ago. I was thinking that having it turned on 14 hours a day may be generating heat from the tube? When it goes down the back it'll only be turned on once or twice a week.

Is it possible to put LEDs in without taking the moonscape plastic off? At a glance I doubt it, but ya never know. Pinball people are creative.

Yes because Orbitor 1 is the only pinball machine to NEVER have GI. There is only one large fluorescent tube under the playfield, just take it out and hook up color-changer strips instead.

Personally I’m going to custom light mine in a better way. Experimenting with the entirely dissembled playfield to find the best lighting effects and angles.

I’ve been thinking about doing the exact same thing.
Was thinking about LED strips that change red, orange and yellow. Kind of a volcanic Martian surface.
Only machine I’ve ever considered doind some kind of “pin stadium” style lighting to.

Also thinking flame LEDs on the trails of the games name on the vacuform backglass and maybe a color changer on the planet.

I meant the inserts, but looking at it again today, can the wood underside be taken off the metal chassis, allowing access to everything underneath? I just wanted to get an idea of what I'm getting into before ordering LEDs, plus the anti-flicker adapter. I couldn't find any stories here or elsewhere of people changing the bulbs in their Orbitor and if they had any tips or specifics as this is obviously a pretty unique playfield and not your basic "lift table, find bulbs, replace bulbs" sorta deal.

Pinballbulbs.com sells an Orbitor 1 LED kit with the optional (but seemingly required) flicker fix adapter or all new lamp board, but they don't mention what's in the kit. https://www.pinballbulbs.com/products/orbitor-1-pinball-led-kit

The bulbs are easier to access than your standard game. They are all mounted in housings that pop right out. No need to do much more than lift the playfield.

The fluorescent tube is a pain to get out.

Are there supposed to be capacitors on the EOS switches? I see leads that where clipped.
If so, what value should they be?

I also have overly sensitive spinning bumpers. I’m wondering if the issue is linked to EOS caps or perhaps I need to track down a shorted diode in the switch matrix. Or maybe faults on the spinner opto boards.

Thought I’d say hello and join the club. I’ve just acquired an Orbitor, been after one for a while and they certainly don’t appear often in the UK. It’s in fully playable condition but does need a complete going through as it’s been in storage for many years.

I’m assuming this is a no as my first google hasn’t revealed anything but are replacement rubber/foam rings available for the spinning pops?

I'm in! Found one in really nice condition, will enjoy playing this one until someone makes me "an offer I can't refuse"

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Problem Solved!

Once I removed the boards, I found cracked solder joints on the opto solder pads. Just a simple reflow stopped the phantom switch hits.

Shot a video of mine, Pinball Chaos coming out tomorrow for a photo shoot.
Here's a walk through I shot today

I shot this video with the camera behind the Orbitor drop target. Different perspective, I was bored..

Not yet, I’m working on it, but it’s gonna be delayed due to the pandemic. Really haven’t been able to get much done in a while.
I will post any updates when I have some.

See quotes post for info and links.

Please see this post about those interested in a new clear PF. Trying to figure demand to st pricing for first run: see this thread;

Orbitor-1 Clear PF replacement part coming available.

Hello. I’m new to the club. If anyone has pics of adding the led changing strips I wud lov to see them. Great idea.

More
Hello. I’m new to the club. If anyone has pics of adding the led changing strips I wud lov to see them. Great idea.

I have a backglass available:

ebay.com link: whalers9

Don't bid - that would be silly. MMAO here instead.

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Anyone know of a rules document for Orbitor 1 ?

It's pretty quick to figure out. I find that never having both flippers up at the same time can lead to all sorts of ball returns too.

The instruction cards are pretty complete:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/orbiter-1-modded-instruction-cards

Ex-owner here! I've had two Orbitor 1's in my 'career' as a pin collector. While I love everything about it (and oddball games in general), my collection is just too small to make it a keeper.

My last O1 is part of the Dutch Pinball Museum's permanent collection now and available to play there. It's also featured in two pinball videos I made.

Wow I bought a spare on eBay 2 or 3 years ago for $150. And I had NEVER seen one for sale before that.

Jappie’s videos are the best you’ll find and cover tons of stuff you never knew. I’ve surprised a few O1 owners with stuff they’d never heard before

UK here. Been an owner for 2 years now. I take it to gaming events for everyone to experience and play. Such a unique game!

O1 was the source of my first successful software mod in 2008. No more timed game! I've been looking back over my working directory (which is named 'o1hack'.... still) and boy, did I just not know what the hell I was doing then (relatively). (Although, it does work.... just eliminates the minimum time requirements)

It's available on IPDB if anyone wants to check it out. I owned 2 O1 at the same time once (package deal) and a complete parts playfield (sorry, most of those parts are gone.... the spinning bumpers went first, of course). I wanted to put one of them in the downstairs bathroom (no one used it) so you can go into the narrow bathroom, shut the door, and have a surreal experience with the game. Sadly, the game was too wide to fit in there (and probably didn't clear the toilet, either).

Far too kind! Thank you!! I'm happy you enjoy them.

But what a very important mod it is! Thank you much for doing it! People (pinheads and non-pinheads) just don't understand why an Orbitor (with a regular game rom) just keeps spitting out balls.

I'm hoping against hope you will one time have the time and energy to work on the software of Stern's Lightning. Amazing game, apart from that idiotic situation where, during multiball, re-locked balls stay locked. Simply getting balls to eject after a re-lock would make that game -so- much better.

Well, 1/2 the work is already done, IIRC I commented up the lightning code a while ago I'll have to look around for that. I suppose the thing to do is let the ball go into the hole, score <something> and then eject it again.

I no longer have a lightning though so no way to test... can you test if I come up with something on it?

Also I recall on O1 when I had one.... my best ball time (or was it only game time?) was over 10 minutes. That was one hell of a game.

slochar PM sent!

Anyone have a rubber ring chart for Orbitor 1? I've looked in the manual and a lot is wrong there, so I can't rely on it. my old ones are really stretched out so I can't tell what they were that way, either. They are "ABC" rings with numbers like "240" (sling) and "245" (long lower side rings)... are those referring to these?

https://www.allorings.com/O-Ring-AS568-Standard-Size-Chart

If so that may help me figure it out. Though a "245" is 4.359" ID, so I'm not sure what size would be best there... round up to 4.5"? I know I could buy a black or white kit from any of several vendors, but I was thinking about bringing in some color, so I'm really just trying to figure out what size goes where.

On another note, has anyone managed to figure out a part number for the upper spring (the one that sits above the coil, not below it) in the ball trap/lock mech? Mine is pretty mangled, I can't find anything in the manual, and my searches on the internet have been fruitless.

Thanks in advance!

How about making one? See any obvious errors with this?

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