New inside wooden rails will be here tomorrow and this big boy is done. Unless I decide to use the stencil kit I have, but it’s such a nice survivor I’m not sure I will.

New playfield, new back glass, new plastics, rebuilt flippers and pop bumpers, new drops, new rubbers, rebuilt the boards, new headers, repinned everything, color matched led kit… and on and on…

Screen shot of video sorry lol

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I removed the old lamp sockets from the back box insert. (The hinged door like board behind the glass, not sure what the correct word is for it).
That wood is cheap and crumbly, it's like dried out cork. The light baffles are falling apart too.
Did you guys just give it a new paint cost or did you cut a new one?

I sprayed a whole Rust-Oleum 2 in 1 white rattle can on one side and it soaked it up like a sponge...

I'm trying to get mine running. New mpu and rectifier board installed. It powers up, let's me start a game, but won't launch a ball. No switches work when I get to this point. Switch 07 is stuck closed in switch test. Everything else appears fine in test. Any ideas where to go next?

Switch 7 is tilt. Have you inspected the tilt bob? Does it look ok? Nothing stuck?

Try removing the cap from it and seeing if it solves the problem.

There are 3 tilt switches in the game. Plumb bop, roll cage, and a swing tilt on the playfield. Check all 3. The most common fail I find is the capacitor by the plumb bob shorting out.

I cut the cap off the plumb bob but it's still stuck closed. I also noticed that switches 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 register in test but nothing greater than 7 does. Here is a picture of the plumb bob.

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Your roll tilt looks to be engaged. It should be closest to the coin door at a resting state.

Bally switch test only detects one closed switch at a time starting with the lowest number so that is expected. As was just stated, your roll ball looks to be the culprit.

Yes!!!!! The ball is corroded so it was stuck. It plays! Thank you!

Glad you solved it. By the way, your plumb bob is so low, it won’t detect a tilt. That may be what you want, but I figured I would point it out just in case.

Make sure to put the capacitor back, also.

Okay, will do. The only other thing I'm noticing is 2 of the displays have missing numbers. My guess is bad connectors but should I look at anything else?

IIRC There are resistors on the displays that can go bad and disable single digits.

I’d try also just going over the board and just resolder everything if you know how. Could just be a cracked solder joint.

https://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Bally/Stern#Display_problems

I recently had a display issue involving a single digit out on just a single display. It ended up being a bad 100k ohm 1/4 watt resistor. IIRC, There is six total 100K ohm 1/4 watt resistors on each display, and it's recommended to replace them with 1/2 watters, which I did.

Thanks everyone, I'll check solder joints and resistors. This game is just amazing, I cant wait to get it all cleaned up. What is everyone's opinion on playfield touch ups? Mine has a little bit of wear above a few of the inserts and a couple scuffs by the pops. Some of it is just black but some of it also has detail that I can't re create. As for lighting, I'm leaning towards leaving incandescents. They are almost all working and I like how they look so I am thinking why mess with it.

My personal opinion, unless you are an expert and can do a flawless recreation, don’t try touch ups. Most Paragons have a little wear. Unless lots of bare wood is showing, just wax it and have fun playing.

I got the player 3 display working perfectly, just had some cracked solder joints. Player 4 is missing 2 digits and looks rough. Should I try to salvage it by replacing the 6 100k ohm resistors or just buy a new one? I'm not seeing any cracked solder joints. I think someone "repaired" this one before it got to me.
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Agreed, it can wind up looking worse. I'm lucky and my wife is good at this stuff and was able to fix ours. Keep it clean and waxed, play it as is and keep an eye out for someone that can do the repair correctly, lots of talented people walking around willing to help.

This is one of those situations where it's a "win/win" in the sense that repair is cheap enough to attempt and hopefully I diagnose and execute it well enough to repair the problem but if I don't, I had to buy a new part anyway. I always try to make the repair in hopes that I get better at it.

Good point. Pinwiki says it's 2 transistors per digit that isn't working rather than the resistors. Ill try the transistors first, then add resistors if needed, then mess with it a bit more if needed, then give up and buy a new one. Is there a good place to buy resistors and transistors?

Digikey and Great Plains Electronics are the cheapest if you know exactly what you're looking for, but Marco and Pinball Life carry everything too and are usually easier to find, more expensive but we're talking about .10¢ vs .25¢ per item or something similar.

A lot of times for diodes and stuff, it’s overpriced but I end up saying, I want them tomorrow, and just use Amazon lol

Oh, my paragon is up for sale/trade. New playfield, new plastics, new backglass, so on.

Well, you won't be buying from Great Plains as Ed retired.

I'm interested to know how the game plays with that new CPR playfield? I have one but haven't installed it yet due to the saucers being a bit different depth.

It’s obviously smoother, can’t say it’s any faster. Mine was in good shape except for the discs all being sunken in badly.

Have you noticed much difference in play around the upper saucers?
Does the ball seem to bypass the saucers more on the new playfield, since they are a smaller diameter compared to the originals? (Entry angle of the saucer cut is different on the new CPR playfield).
The new playfield I have also shows the inserts have dropped a bit as well. I will be clearing mine as soon as I get the saucers to match the original dimensions.

Interested to hear your experience on gameplay around those areas…

Maybe I’m not that in tune with mine as you’d like, but I honestly don’t notice a difference. If you were local I’d say just come over and play it lol

When i was having issues with mine, I replaced the recommended transistor per pinwiki and that didnt fix the issue. I searched other threads on here and found the asssociated resistor can be the issue....pinwiki doesnt really explain that. Here is my thread on it.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/paragon-5th-digit-out-on-4th-player-display#post-7354985

Having an odd “issue” with my Paragon. I noticed two of my settings (maybe more) seem to change randomly. I notice that sometimes, hitting the bonus drop targets spots a Paragon letter, other times it doesn’t.
I also notice that the bonus will sometimes hold over from ball to ball and other times reset.

Is this an issue or part of the design?

Bonus should reset ball to ball except the super bonus 20-30-40 levels carry over. Do you have your paragon letters strobing? If so the spotting doesn't necessarily spot an unlit letter it spots an already lit one.

Looks like I just didn’t understand the rules well enough. I didn’t realize that hitting the drop gives you whatever letter the light in the top saucer is on. Pretty neat rule.

Thanks!!

Hey guys! I’m almost done with my Paragon restauration.

I noticed today that the upper pop bumper are scoring advance bonus randomly. By randomly I mean, inconsistently.

The sound it makes when it happens is the sound of the spinner.

I suspected the vibration to trigger both stand up targets but I don’t think that’s what it is. The Beast’s Lair bumper doesn’t have this issue.

I checked that wires were not overlapping but they are from the original braid, so not much I can do there.

What would you check for if this was happening on your end?

Perhaps a shorted cap on the bumper? Try replacing it and see if it helps.

Could also be a shorted diode, but looking at the switch matrix, I can’t see how the center bumper would activate the spinner via a shorted diode.

Anytime I’ve had random scoring items, and it’s always fixed my problem, I just start replacing all the caps and diodes if they have never been done. Time consuming but cheap and they will all go bad eventually.

To be sure I follow, you mean all caps and diodes ON the faulty pop bumpers?

He means on all playfield switches, but I would just start with that bumper and see if it helps.

Correct, if it’s a certain sound that I can narrow down to a couple triggers, I’ll start with those. But lately, if I’m flipping the board over, and have all my stuff out, I’ll just take the hour or so to do all of them.

How much?

Thanks newovad. As of right now it looks like it might be being picked up Friday. He wants to talk to night to finalize everything.

My gorgar sold without even listing it for sale. Now I just need to sell this Phoenix.

I would check the star rollover switches.

Can you elaborate? Why would you check the rollover stars?

they are generally adjusted pretty closely and with switch caps on them, so they are subject to vibration and/or electrical noise into the caps causing them to activate. One of the top ones adds a bonus step.

Vibration you can pound on the PF in a game and see if they're too sensitive. Also, you could stick a slip of paper in between the contacts to eliminate the vibration as a cause (or isolate it to that, anyway)

That makes a lot of sense! I'll check this. Thanks for clarifying!

I got everything cleaned and put back together last night. I played maybe 15 games. The only issue was some intermittent sound static. Has anyone dealt with this? Also, switch 9, the right coin slot, is stuck closed. Doesn't keep it from playing but I would like to fix it. Any tips for that issue?

I’m in the club! WoooHOOOO! Looking forward to reading this whole thread.

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I messed around with the volume pot and that seemed to resolve the issue, at least for now. I'm also guessing that the credit switch installed by the PO is keeping the switch 9 closed.

And due to this, I’m no longer in the club but I got something nice to take its spot next to lost world.

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That's what I was thinking to ask. Here is an easy test, put the game in switch test and unplug the front door connector. If the stuck message goes away it's a problem with the door wiring.

Looks great Kevin! You’re gonna LUUUV that Centaur. Mine’s bolted to the floor, and going nowhere!!