I met Jeff at TPF. Real nice guy.

Shoot, we may have to hook up with the guys who paint those cool Latino paint jobs on cars and gas tanks. With some practice, I could do this with pinstripe tape.

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Do you know a friendly TIG/heliarc welder who could run a buildup bead of stainless welding rod in that gouge in exchange for an invite to play some pinball? It would not be hard to fill that gouge and then smooth it down and polish it.

I spoke to Jeff a couple weeks ago, he said he cant do stencil, due to the small print.
I am trying to get some made by local sign shop. I'll let u all know here if I have any success.

I should have looked there before coming here. I have a thermal 7 amp fuse on that. Hopefully, it will blow again so if there is a problem then I can find it.

Thanks.

I know a printer who’s a long time pin collector. I’ll ask if he’s interested in making some apron and coin door decals.

Found that problem. Old Homer strikes again. I did not have my right hand EOS gapped properly. Before my thermal fuse popped, I fried a coil

We should have a couple of those aprons. PM if interested.

the impact of those EOS are crazy, i always want them gap just tight enough to get the flippers as strong as possible but clearly they need to open!

I’m wondering if a scan (of just the needed lettering) was taken of part of an original apron, & you took the letters “S INC” cleaned them up & made a waterslide decal to complete the wording, whether that would work as waterslide decals are almost invisible?

I recently scanned just the “W” logo on my Gorgar apron to use on my Flash. I just printed that on regular Matt sticker paper to match the old apron’s sheen. You really can’t tell it’s a decal unless you go right up close. Maybe just the needed letters printed & carefully applied would work, possibly even for a template for someone planning to take on reproducing these, may be better than the obvious absence of the correct wording on an existing decal.

I have a real puzzle going

That could be done. Making decals is fairly easy. But since everybody knows the score, is it even worth it?

Is there a way to manually clear the memory on an MPU-200?

I recall something about removing a chip(s) as a way to clear the memory when the machine doesn’t want to get past an initial solid red led. I cannot use the button inside the coin door since it does not progress past that point.

The board was recently refurbished and new batter installed by a reputable board repair shop and it has performed nicely. I removed it to check the working condition of an Alltek (it ran properly) and when I reinstalled the MPU-200 it won’t boot.

The connectors are installed correctly.

Posted an ad for a 3bank assembly, appreciate any help!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-electronics-classic-ss-3-drop-target-bank

I have another problem with my Star Gazer build that has me pulling my hair out It concerns a pop bumper and a spinner.

On Row I3, the common W/B wire controls the left spinner, the left pop, Libra SU target, the top switch on the right hand drop target, and the right roll over button.That is 5 items, one item for each row from ST0 to ST4.

(Since the drop target is molex connected, I disconnected the drop assembly to completely eliminate it from contributing to the problem). So we are down to 4 items: The left spinner, the left pop, Libra SU target, and the right roll over button. In the drawing, the drop target is X-ed out.

Here is the problem: All 4 items work. But there is a problem with the left spinner and the left pop bumper. When the spinner is activated, the pop bumper kicks into action and goes crazy. I have double-checked every diode on the W/B wire string. All my diodes look good; Like they are installed properly.

I cannot figure out why the spinner is activating the pop. I did swap out the errant pop bumper with another pop and the problem persists.

I made a video of this crazy action. Hopefully, someone can send me in the right direction.

Scan (resized).jpeg

In the video, when I manipulate the spinner, you can hear and see the pop going into action. Is there a possibility one of my new diodes could be bad? Why is it only the pop bumper that is affected with this action? The other 2 items, the SU target and the right ROB are not affected by movement of the spinner. Just the pop.

As mentioned, I swapped pop bumpers and the problem still exists.

Any and all thoughts and idea are welcomed.

Thanks in advance.

Reset all your drop targets and see if the problem persists if you haven't already. That may give you another clue where to look of the problem goes away with all the drops reset. Definitely sounds like a wiring issue, or a diode installed backwards somewhere perhaps.

Post closeup pics of the wiring on those 4 switches and maybe somebody can spot something.

I had a similar issue with my QS build that was due to a diode leg being on the wrong lug...

Here is where I am at now.

I have de-soldered the right ROB.
...........................the SU target

And as mentioned earlier, I have disconnected the drop assembly.

Now, the only 2 items in the W/B wire srting on row I3 are the spinner switch and the left pop bumper switch.

So, two items only, and my problem persists.

I de-soldered the spinner switch and if I reverse the wires, the spinner goes dead because the swapped wires make it like the diode was installed backwards. When I reverse the wires again, the spinner starts working and pop stats going crazy again.

I repeat, with only 2 items in this W/B wire string, the spinner activates the pop. And if I reverse the wires on the spinner it is like installing the diode backwards and the spinner goes dead.

Also, as mentioned earlier, I swapped in a different pop and there was no change in behavior.

I'm pulling my hair out now.

It seems obvious that I have done something wrong, but I do not know what.

Scan 1 (resized).jpeg

What's switch test mode telling you?

See how that row is identified as "I3" on the left. Check your coin door switches in the cabinet manual and see if any of those are "I3" as well. I am not sure it will help in your case, but I had a similar issue that was coin door. The coin door switches are part of the switch matrix even though not identified in the part of the schematic you've posted. I hope this helps.

The drop target switches are now disconnected. The other 3 switches on the W/B string have been desoldered. The only active switch I have in this W/B wire string are the 2 wires, the W/B wire and the W/R wire on the spinner switch. Those are the only 2 wires on the the W/B string. And my problem with the spinner firing the pop bumper still persists. But now it starts getting strange.

And it gets more curious.

The W/B wire from the spinner switch is activating the Red/ Yellow solenoid wire from the SDU. I have my pops molex-ed so I can move molex connectors around. I can disconnect all of the switches wiring from the pops so that the only item on the pops that is connected is the yellow solenoid power wire and the return wire that are solder to the coil.

And when I activate that spinner switch, it is signaling the Red/ Yellow return wire solenoid wire at the SDU to go active. I can move the yellow power wire and the R/Y solenoid wire to my other solenoids and the problem follows the R/Y solenoid.

Scan 2 (resized).jpeg

Thanks Quench. I am still learning to think in terms that there onboard test I can do and forget that it is possible. I'll have to re-solder the disconnected switches and try that switch test.

But here is where I am at.

I have the switch wires removed from this molex for the pop bumper. So, with what you are seeing right now with this pic is that the spinner switch will activate the pop solenoid. And the only item still attached to the W/B switch circuit is the W/B spinner switch.

The problem is following this R/Y solenoid wire that feeds back to SDU A3J2-12. I move the molex connector over to a drop target and now the drop solenoid is getting the signal.

I'll put it all back together and do a switch test as you suggest.

IMG_6401 (resized).jpg

IMG_6402 (resized).jpg

Thank you. I will look but I pulled my Seawitch play field from its cabinet and dropped in the Star Gazer play field. I never have had an issue with Seawitch but anything can happen. I'll check the coin door after I do a switch test.

But it will be a little while. I have to take a break; My brain is fried.

Don't worry about resoldering those other switches yet, just go into switch test mode first.

I did re-solder the one SU target and the ROB that are in the W/B wire circuit.

I am trying to work one thing at a time and did not bring up that both sling shots are dead, and 2 of my drop targets are dead. They are on different circuit and I did not think they would are relevant to my spinner issue.

Here is a switch test with no slings and 2 drops missing.

I have an Alltek SDU and it lights up Q15 when I press the credit button. Per Stern blueprint, Q15 is somewhere in the coin door.

And it gets nuttier. I did re-solder the SU target and the ROB back into the W/B string. And now I have a brand new behavior issue.

When I now spin this funky spinner, all of my lights light up for no reason I can understand.

Check this out. And now I have to leave town for a few hours. I cross my fingers that someone point out some idiot move I have made.

Does the coin door/cab wiring (credit, slam, coin, tilt switches) match between Seawitch and Stargazer? When I dropped the QS playfield into Dracula I had to rewire those switches as seen here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-quicksilver-itch-from-scratch/page/5#post-5614420

I think you're make this repair harder than it needs to be. You have other classic Sterns. Do yourself a favor and test your driver board, light board and MPU one at a time in one of your known good games. Make sure they are all 100% ok. Once tested, return them to Star Gazer and make sure your dips are set correctly. That will eliminate a huge amount of the possible problems. At the moment you have to many variables to deal with.

great stream from Ron yesterday showing his epic collection of Stern games.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1023822423

Ron or... Stew McVikor (however that is spelled lol)?

With the actual switch closure and phantom switch closure on strobe columns StO and St1 suggest looking at the other switches and diodes on those two columns.

The switch test, as previously suggested, should help to determine other closures or shorts. Then diode test especially on the row of this other closed switch.

The phantom closure is at one of the corners of a box drawn of these involved switches on the matrix chart.

If you can put the modified big game rom in the game the switch test in that one will show all closed switches in sequence, not just the lowest numbered one to make it easier to narrow down.

Dracula is an MPU-100 Stern. QS is an MPU-200 Stern. Those will not interchange. I am fairly certain, but not 100% certain, that all MPU-200 pins use the same coin door wiring. I'll take a look. Thank you.

After you start a game pull J3 from the MPU. This will remove the coin door switches. Then see if you still have the phantom pop bumper triggering.

Yes. I tried one last thing. This is something I told someone else to try. I never heard back if it helped them or not. So, I gave it a try. The "it" is to remove the wire from the connector at the board in question ( I should have done this before I started de-soldering wires ).

This spinner is wired with the white/black wire ( Row I-3) on one tab/lug. And the other lug holds the white/red wire in Column ST-0. I made 2 jumpers and swapped them for the w/b and w/r wires. This isolates the switch from everything and it gets its signals straight from the connector with no other switches in between. You can see the W/R and W/B wires grabbing air.
IMG_6418 (resized).JPG

And then I clipped these 2 test wires to the switch lugs. Apologies. It is a blurry pic.

IMG_6417 (resized).JPG

So, even with the spinner completely isolated from all other wiring, the problem has not gone away.

I will follow your advise and start doing some board swapping, one board at a time, and see what happens. I have some Alltek LDAs, SDUs, and MPUs I can swap and see what happens.

Thank you.

Thanks man. I did as you suggested. It did not help.

Now I just be board swapping. This is a couple of days away. Tomorrow I have to go and see why my girlfriend's pickup truck has a dead battery.

I am now done for the day.

I'll get back either with the solution, or with more problems

That's solenoid test mode. You need to press the self test button one more time to get to switch test mode. As slochar mentioned, if you have his Big Game ROM use the switch test mode from that which will give you *much* more detail about closed switches. The factory switch test mode is useful but does have limitations as he mentioned.

Q15 Q19 drives the coin lockout coil so the game will accept coins. This is normal. This coil de-activates when maximum credits are reached/game is off so any coins inserted get rejected.

[Edit] Q15 is for the flipper enable relay on the solenoid driver board.

The MPU board signals controlling the switch matrix are the same signals that control lamp selection. So the problems are related.

emsrph and cadmium were right to suggest it could be coin door related (because of a stuck coin switch), but you've discounted that.
It's sounding like you have a switch matrix wire shorted to a lamp somewhere.

BTW, when and how did this problem begin to happen?

EDIT: I have to correct most of what I said above. Jumping from the MPU straight to the spinner switch does not isolate the switch since it is still connected to the rest of wiring. But removing those 2 wires from the MPU and adding the jumpers showed me something else. With those 2 wires removed from the MPU, the spinner switch is dead. The only problem is that the pop bumper is also dead and messing with the spinner wires should not have killed the pop.

And one other item is that I can touch the 2 jumpers together and score 200 points with every touch.

With those wires removed you’ve killed all switches on both the row and the column.

Does the switch test return a zero with all wires reconnected, balls removed and drop targets up?

With the drops up, no ball, and all wires reconnected, the switch test cycles through 01 to 29 and then repeats.

Correct. This did not do for me what I thought it would do. However, that spinner switch scores 200 points per spin. And with me touching my 2 jumper wires together I would get the 200 point score. This tells me there is nothing wrong with the MPU at those 2 pins on the MPU.

I'll swap a couple of boards around and see what happens. But I am thinking I have an issue somewhere with my wire harness install. Somehow, it seems to me now, that current is crossing from the spinner to the pop has some thing to do with my wiring.

If swapping couple of boards does not help, the I feel I have no choice other than put the play field back on the rotisserie and get out the magnifying glass and DMM and start looking around.

Not totally familiar with Alltek but 1-29 that repeats seems like you’re in Solenoid test.

You have 40 switches. I think Switch test is one more press of the coin door test button.

Edit- when you get into switch test it’ll give you the lowest number switch that is closed. Inspect and adjust if possible.

Hopefully you can get it to display zero. Trigger each switch starting with #40 and work toward #1 taking note of which switches read the wrong number and write down what they display.
C992A62A-DC56-404E-B049-96E56872FB1B (resized).png

Just a FYI. I don’t know how many of you have cracked ball drain guides but I did on my Seawitch. I was able to source a replacement but it cracked too. The OEM ones suck. I reached out to Mantis Pinball and they made me one out of stainless steel. It looks great and is up on the web now if others need it. It should fit many of the classic Sterns and will never break again.

https://mantispinball.com/product/stern-ball-guide/

FEDA4959-9958-4047-8D34-1402DB42314A (resized).jpeg

Sorry Quench, I missed this post.

The problem with the pop bumper started immediately, as I recall, but it took a few plays before I linked it to the spinner switch.

Quech, my apologies, somehow I missed your post.

The problem started with the pop bumper. I cannot tell you if it was a problem at turn on and got worse. For sure, I did not notice anything until I het the spinner. But I do not recall any of my feature lights turning on at random with either the pop or the spinner--which sounds like a problem progressing due to movement.
===============================================

Here is the latest.

I removed all of the lights wiring at J-1 on the rectifier board. No lights. Just one lonely blue/white flipper power wire.

I turned the pin on. And hot damn! I'm playing pinball. The spinner behaves properly. And so does the pop.

So, I added the red and white GI wires back into the mix. And I am still playing pinball without issue.

So, it looks like I have a problem with my feature light wiring. But before I go down that rabbit hole, I will try another MPU, SDU, and LDA.

And If I am understanding you all correctly, I can remove my Big Game MPU with the sholar ROM and see what happens with the switches? Is this correct?

I'll try the boards and hope I get lucky that I have a board with problems ( strange to say this. Who wants to have a board with problems) that I can fix by replacing the board.

However, I think I will need to put the play field back on the rotisserie and start looking closely that my lamps harness.

The short answer: The game plays great with the feature lights disconnected.

IMG_6421 (resized).JPG

With what I just wrote about my feature lights, I think I can reconnect the feature lights wires back to the rectifier board and try something else. It may not bear fruit but it cannot hurt.

There are 3 connectors on the LDA for the feature lights. I'm thinking I can disconnect each connector, one at time and try to further isolate where the problem lies. Once I ID which connector is causing the problem, I could pull the pins on half the connector to further narrow it down to which one is causing the problem.

It sounds good. On paper

The issue shouldn't have any relation to the lamp driver board or connections to/from it. The issue in your case is the 5.4VDC feature lamp power running on the playfield that's connected to the braid/base of all the feature lamp sockets has a short to a switch.

By my deductions, the strobe zero "ST0" white-red switch wire is shorted to a feature lamp somewhere. But in saying this you should be seeing the same behavior with the right spinner activating the right pop bumper.

Anyway, closely inspect all the playfield switches on the ST0, ST1 and I3 return wires for now, paying primary attention to the switches on ST0.

Yes you can install that Big Game MPU board/software in your Star Gazer, but make sure you disconnect the small J4 connector from the solenoid driver board. You don't want Big Game software activating the wrong coils for the wrong length of time.

So I just got done going through my Meteor and I'm planning to put it on location. I went to install brand new coin mechs in it last night and they don't seem to fit perfectly and they aren't really letting the quarters go through....

Anyone else experienced something similar? Common stern problem? Suggestions?

I've found that the door skin and bracketry are really easily tweaked out of shape. Then it's just a joyful experience trying to get it all lined up again properly.

Here is the latest ( I know once I figure this out that it will turn out to be something simple and I will feel like a fool ).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Focusing in in on ST1 with the Brown/White common wire.

Why 5 items work and 3 items do not work on the ST1 string is beyond me at the moment.

Issue #1)

5 of the 8 items (marked in blue) are working. I knew I had a switch not working and both slings are not working; Those 3 items are highlighted in pink.

I have 2 SU targets that sit right next to each other on the play field. "Gemini" works. "Cancer" does not work. Why 2 switches sitting right next to each other, and sharing the common B/W wire with one switch working and one switch not working is lost to me.

I have unscrewed the bracket for the "Cancer" switch and looking closely at this switch I cannot see anything out of order. Cancer does not work but right next to Cancer on the play field sits Gemini which does work.

Scan 3 (resized).jpeg

Issue #2)

The left spinner switch at STO/I3 matrix location is the switch that is causing the left pop to act strangely. The only thing in common with the left spinner at ST0/I3 and the left pop is ST1/I3 which is the W/B wire.

I know I need to find out what is going on with spin switch and the left pop, but my big question is trying to find out why only 5 items on the ST1 string are working and 3 are not. They all feed from the common Brn/W wire.

Anyway, with the way Shawn at Third Coast Pinball built the Star Gazer play field harness in layers and I have Molex-ed the Solenoids harness all I need to is desolder the flippers and the slings, cut a few tie wraps and it can be removed as a unit. I think I am going back up on the rotisserie and comb through the switch wires and find out what is the problem with the Brn/W wire.

I appreciate all the ideas from everyone. They all help my thinking processes.

EDIT: One more thing. And this just started. The 10 amp fuse on the rectifier board F1 for the 5.4 volts blew on start up. I replaced it with a 10 amp thermal breaker and it keeps popping/blowing on each and every start up.

10 points to the first person that spots the problem. Hint look at the T-Nuts...
.

StarGazer_Short_To_6VDC.jpg

There's a T-nut directly touching the copper common strip by the LT spinner.

Ding ding ding!
That T-Nut is electrically connected to the spinners leaf switch through the whole spinner assembly.

So depending on where the spinner stops causes the fuse to blow? And after spinning it shorts plus 5 volts on the switch matrix I assume.

Every village needs an idiot. That would be me. I looked to make sure everything was clear of the copper when putting this together. The T-nuts were added at a later time and I walked right passed that one.

Unknown-2 (resized).jpeg

If you were local, I would buy you, or you and your wife, dinner. I cannot thank you enough for hanging with me on this.

Now, I just have to figure out why I have 3 dead switches on the ST1 string.

No. Idiot moves, like snakes, seem to travel in pairs. When I added the blue feature wires back into the connector at the rectifier board, I managed to plug one of the blue wire into the J-1- J2 position. It was supposed to be in the J1-J3 pin position.

Now, I think I will slink away for awhile and try to gather my fallen pride back up from off the floor.