I went with this. It seemed to be the most factory solution. Thanks.

Yes I got that according to the "01" there is something about the 1st coin chute that is wrong.......but the number does not appear to fix itself.

I noticed a hack in this area - I will post a photo later. Not sure if possibly this entire coin door area is not right - it seems like my self-test is not performing like I thought it should.

I'll post a photo later, and will look at some video showing how the Stern tests run so I can better understand.

Thanks for your patience, would love to get this thing finally dialed in correctly, I think I'm close.......I may not be able to continue this evening.

-Nate

When switch test is up you can pull the coin door connector and see if it changes to zero.

Fwiw the modified mpu200 software also shows all the closed switches, as does the test ROM included in the weebly multi ROM.

Coin switches usually don't have isolation diodes on them. When stuck closed it can really fudge up the switch matrix.

The start and slam buttons are often found leaning on the grounded coin door which will also mess up the switches, lamps, and displays.

Meant to say modified meteor software v66-76 and up.... Not the nvram clear only one.

Here is my coin door.

There is a piece missing, I found from searching videos that the earlier Sterns had a solenoid that would activate "on" during gameplay to allow coins to be fed, and would sit without power, causing a metal bar to stay in place that would feed the coins back to the coin return if the machine were not powered on.

That same video showed the test sequence, and I definitely do not have the ability to touch a switch and see the corresponding number appear on the score displays, I was watching an older Stern video, Memory Lane, but I'm assuming the diagnostic sequences work similar. As mentioned, I just get that switch test, a number 01 appears on all score displays and the "number of balls" window - but nothing changes that display, not touching a switch or anything else......

I have what I suppose are the two wires that have been soldered to a solenoid plastic "plate" with a diode that replaces the solenoid that was mounted to the side of the coin door.

I can probably find a coin door photo and see what's going on.

Once I get back to my machine, I will also look for the start and slam switches making any contact with the metal coin door.

This could be the cause of my 3 target problem?? The switches on that bank are definitely making contact. The closest 3 is still not registering at all.

Thank you again everyone, getting closer......

-Nate

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Yep. Any switch in a matrix can affect other switches in the matrix.

Your slam switch looks like it has an insulator strip between the door skin and the switch, so that should be ok.

The wires to your Coin Chute #1 (closest to the hinge and Switch 01 in the Self Test) look strange. According to the schematic, Chute #1 is supposed to be Red w/ Yellow and Blue wires. Kinda hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like you have Red w/ Yellow, Black, and also White??

It would be great if you could isolate the machine from the coin door for the switch test. You can disconnect the coin door wire harness from the lower cab wire harness, and then on that empty connector on the wire harness side, short the Red and the Yellow w/Red wires together to start the Self Test and again to advance through the tests. If you no longer see 01 in your switch test (or see a number >03), then you've confirmed there's an issue with your coin door wiring or a shorted switch on the coin door.

There is always the possibility that the white button you push on could be defective. I have had that problem twice. I replaced the button switch and then I could run through the all of the test and adjustments. You might try putting on some alligators clips at the wire tabs and make connection that way.

He can, easily. It's a weebly board, has the advance switch duplicated on the board itself.

I keep forgetting he's got a weebly.

Since I sent him a single ROM of the stock version, I am guessing it might be an older board before I went to the 256x options 16M combo ROM, thus lacking a ROM with advanced switch test.

Surprising Bally and Stern did not have a better stock switch test. The stock software that only shows the lowest number is almost worthless in some cases.

MPU200 6digit with advanced sw test - off on on on on off off off
MPU200 7digit with advanced sw test - off on on on off on on off

Hey everyone, hoping for a little guidance. My neighbor asked me to take a look at his Nugent machine that hasn't worked for a few years. Apparently he had the upper right flipper coil replaced, and it blows the coil fuse ever since.

It took a while to find it, but one blade on the lower right flipper switch stack is shorting out on a screw that attaches the linkage assembly (not sure if that is the proper term) to the playfield. There seems to be some play in the switch stack as that blade can be wiggled to contact that screw as well as the metal piece of the assembly on the other edge of that blade.

There doesn't seem to be much tolerance between that screw and the metal part of the assembly so I'm wondering if this was an improper replacement of that switch stack or perhaps the blade itself. There were some switch blades in the bottom of the cabinet, likely from the previous repair job. Does this look like the proper switch stack for the lower right flipper on Nugent?

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You might try tightening the 2 small screws that hold the switch stack together.

Repairing/ fixing a broken Stern lockdown bar receiver.

I have 2 broken lockdown bar receivers. I have a choice. I can buy a new receiver from Mantis for $100.00 each. Or I can fix my receiver. I'll fix mine.

This is a good Stern receiver. All Stern did to make this unit is to bend some metal on a spot welded plate.

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This is what I have. All 4 metal tabs that the handle needs to activate the receiver have been broken off. Don't ask me. I don't know how this stuff breaks. And this is what I need to repair.

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I got a piece of 3/16" steel strap material and went to work.

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First, I sanded the strap smooth and shiny. And you can see my green marker lines that are my cut marks. I used my Harbor Freight cut-off wheel to make these cuts. The work went surprisingly fast.

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Here is the cut piece. It is ready to bond to the broken plate on the receiver.

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For bonding the repair strap I used some stuff called PC-11. You can also use JB Weld. And you can use the brown Gorilla Glue. I almost went with Gorilla Glue but I still have some PC-11 left in my kit so used that instead. Here is the repair part bonded and clamped.

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And the completed job.

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And the completed job.

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And action. It is now working as intended. I have about an hour's worth of work in it. And saved $100.00. The steel strap cost me 11 cents down at the surplus store.

Usually it’s when the mechanism is forced because it has rusted between the bracket and the slide, or whatever is spilled in there is sticky and bonds the surfaces together. The mechanism the gets over stressed and fatigues those thin metal tabs over time, until they eventually fail. A better original design would have had the plates use screws rather than press fittings to allow for it to be cleaned and lubricated.

I like your fix, but you might be better off using an epoxy like jb weld or brown gorilla glue on any future repairs of this type. PC-11 has a rated lap shear strength (this application is only loaded in shear) of 1710 psi, while both epoxy and brown gorilla glue have a rated shear strength of over 3500 psi. I actually didn’t know brown gorilla glue was that strong. I’ll need to pick some up.

Thanks for a great write up. Maybe a mod can make this a sticky.

Can anyone please confirm whether Magic utilises sound 5 on the sound board? All tones except 5 are working.

Yes, Magic utilises all six sounds. The fifth sound is the "add bonus" sound effect.

Thank you. I had not thought about shear stress. I doubt I will have any problems with this PC-11 repair, on the next one I will move to Gorilla Glue; I have used GG to bond 2 pieces of aluminum together; They are never coming apart.

Yes. It grips. The real nice thing is that is swells and fills all gaps between the 2 bonded pieces; Since it swells as it is curing you must clamp the pieces you are bonding together. You will be left with all kinds of squeeze out. But the squeeze out looks like dry spray foam from a can and removes easily.

Thanks for confirming!

Cotton and Mathazar:

Thanks for your comments - you are correct about the wire colors - I'm thinking this entire coin door is not quite right.

Also, do all Meteors have a 2 button test mech? I see on older machines it is just the one.

I may ask for a good photo of a correct coin door wiring, unless I find one already online.

Haven't had a chance to tinker, but will return with report!

Thank you again for your patience and helpful comments.

-Nate

I have an older. It has an extra red screen printed layer on the meteor art around the bumper and a single button in the coin door.

My Meteor (S/N 2062) also has just the 1 button. I believe the second button is to "clear" which is kinda handy so you can perform all of the clearing functions right there at the coin door (and not have to remove the backglass, open the backbox door, and access the memory clear button on the MPU itself).

Not sure when the 2nd button on the coin door was introduced, but I'm pretty sure my Meteor is considered "early" based on the S/N (and that they made just under 8,000 of these according to IPDB).

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My original playfield had that as well (I've since put in a CPR). Would be interesting to know if all 1-button Meteors also have that extra red screen printed layer and vice-versa.

A photo can be had easily enough. But how about we show you how to look at the blue prints and teach you how to wire it up without a pic?

Can someone please show me where the backglass lock bar should sit in the open and locked positions? I just added the tabbed trim piece to the top of my Seawitch backglass and I can't get the lock bar to engage with the backglass. I can lift out the backglass in the locked position regardless of where the lock bar is positioned. The tabs seem to be about a 1/4" to short to make contact.

This is the repro lock strap from Kerry at Mantis. There is always the possibility that Kerry mis-measured something on your lock strap but I think that is not likely .

Also, to make sure we are on same page, the locking strap with the tangs, such as this one, requires you to use a plastic trim rail for the top of your back glass.

If you have installed the back glass trim piece that looks like this one with the tabs, then you need then lock strap without the locking tangs.

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This is in unlocked position. The locking tab is leaning back and butting up against the back box wood.

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This is locked position.

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Butting my 12" scale up against the tang on locked position,

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And then measuring up from the bottom, my tape meets the 12" scale at 13 5/8.

12 + 13 5/8 = 25 5/8". This is the measurement from the the lock tang to the bottom of the back box where the bottom of the back glass /lift rail .rests.

And my back glass does measure 25 5/8" from top to the bottom. So, with both of my dimensions measuring 25 5/8" it is a tight fit for the locking strap.

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So, get a good measurement of your back glass and then do what I did to measure the opening in the back box. And go from there.

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I went with the method shown in your first photo. On my game I can still easily lift out the backglass with it in the locked position. I need to measure my glass. At this point I am thinking my glass is a tad small or my channel for the glass is a little on the deep side. Either way I think I can salvage things by adding a little height to the tabs on the top of my backglass. I feel 1/8" piece on metal or Lexan should do the trick.

Try this: On my pin, if I leave the back box key fully loaded into the slot, the weight of the lock strap is enough that the strap rotates backwards and the back glass will not be locked.

However, if I pull the key part way out of the key slot, then the lock is locked and will not rotate and the glass remains locked.

If you have not done so, remove the key from the slot and see if your back glass stays locked in.

And now this: Is your lock strap loaded into position by using the factory location for the locating screw on the opposite side of the key lock? If the lock strap has been removed and then reinstalled and maybe someone made their own hole location instead of the factory screw hole, that could be enough to cause you problems. How do I know this? Because I did this on the Quicksilver I am building; I missed the factory hole and made a new hole. I was not off by much but it was enough to mess with the locking action.

Thanks for the help on this one. Got it sorted out. Had to tweak a couple things including the lock plate for the backglass lock and tab height on the top backglass trim. Works as it should now ( two hours later).

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A lot of people dislike the SB-100 sound board. We could take the SB-100 triggers and use them to turn on a mosfet transistors to ring chime bars. It would be a bit of work wiring it up but could probably retrofit a Bally chime box in these games.

From working on the GTB pop bumper one shot boards I think we want around 50ms - 100ms coil pulse length. I have not timed the SB100 sound signal pulse to see if it is long enough. I need to add / split solenoid ground. Probably don't want that return through the ribbon to the MPU. Flyback diodes on the board would be nice but need to bring in 43v to do that.

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Are early stern cabinets the same length as today’s standard cabs (57”-ish)? If not, can some let me know what they measure?

51-1/2” for Seawitch and Quicksilver.

Awesome! Thanks. Hoping Ali measures the same, and then hope I find one eventually.

The two level pins like Lightning had a taller back to accommodate the second playfield. What do you need a cabinet for?

Just trying to figure out how many pins I’m eventually going to be able to cram into a 150” by 180” room.

Stars is 51-1/2" also.

A back box is 30 inches wide. So, you can place 5 pins side by side on the 150" measurement. 150/30= 5 However, one back box will be nested against another. That is not practical so you will have to cut it back to 4 pins.

If you use the 180" measurement, you can "stack" 6 pins side-by-side. But again, you are squeezing the back boxes, so you need to cut it to 5 pins.

You are will have some empty space. You need room to stand and play. You might be able to squeeze in 2 more pins in that space. So, 7 pins if you have a shoehorn to squeeze them in. And then hope you don't need to drag one from the wall for servicing.

My front bedroom has been turned into my pin room. The bedroom measures 11" x 12" or 144 x 132. I can get 5 pins side by side with room to spare between the backbones.

And I can have 2 more pins sitting sideways behind me for a total of 7 pins. The 7th pin makes it a PIA for doing any service work, especially play field glass removal. With 7 pins, to remove a play field glass involves slipping and sliding 2 pins around to make room for the glass to slide out.

So, you can fit 6 pins somewhat comfortably in your area on the 180 inch measurement. Number 7 will be a squeeze.

I just put up a thread for the Quicksilver I have been working on.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/quicksilver-build-is-proceeding-along#post-6633478

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If you Jack up the front of the cab high enough the glass will clear obstructions.

Anyone have a line on where to find 2" 6-32 carriage bolts?
I'm starting a restoration on a Lightning, and some of the posts are fastened with those, rather than the usual post studs - and none of the post studs are actually long enough to work with the taller plastic post spacers used on this game.
The ones on the machine had semi-welded themselves to the nuts and had to be broken off to be removed.
Online I can only find places that want me to buy 3,000 at a time.
Anyhow, I figure I can't be the first person to come up against this problem. This isn't some exotic thing, but if somebody could point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful!

There is a discussion around post 3298 mang!

It is nice to be used as a reference a year later. Thank you.

I have since change my ways. I know I wrote about it somewhere.

I am still using the T-nuts. But now I am coming from the lower side of the play field with 4" long 6/32" screws and then cut them off to the height I need.

This will work for you if you cannot find those carriage bolts.

Get this bench top cut-off saw from Harbor Freight.

https://www.harborfreight.com/2-in-mini-bench-top-cut-off-saw-62136.html

and some of these 3 inch cutoff wheels.

https://www.harborfreight.com/pack-of-5-3-inch-metal-cutting-discs-66393.html

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You have to replace the saw blade with a cut off wheel. The cut off wheel is larger then the saw blade so you will need to make your own protective guard. I used some Lexan.

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Make yourself some wooden jigs and cut to length the screws you need. And you will need to dress the threads after you make the cut.

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I also used this method and replaced some post screws that were in high impact areas and were just screwed into the wood. instead of fixing some wallowed out hole with some dowel rod, I went with this T-nut-screw-in-from-the-bottom combo.

Yeah, you will spend $50.00 on this tool set up, but it will make life simpler.

Oh yeah, one other problem I ran into with these #6 T-nuts is that the 3 small prongs that lock the T-nut into the wood like to fold over when pulling the T-nut into the hole. To overcome that I had to make 3 small impressions in the wood with the prongs and then drill small starter holes for the prongs to seat in properly.

That is a combo of cheap carriage bolts and someone known as an over-torquer. The nut gets over-torqued and the threads on the post compress at the top of the post and you are SOL.

One other thing: If you are cutting your own screws/bolts you can cut them long enough so that you will always be able to tighten the post nut down all the way and not "clamp" your plastics to the post. This way you will have extra room and your plastics will always remain free-floating and loose. A loose, free floating plastic can expand and contract without binding and is less likely to warp from GI bulb heat. Especially the arch plastics up in the back.

I'm an electrician and I cut 6-32 machine screws down to size with a $12 pair of wire strippers.

I do the same.

Thread them in, snip!

Sorry, it has been more like 3 weeks instead of the couple of days I promised.

I could not get any access to the wire windings to measure the wire gauges.

Here is what I have.

This is the smaller 16B-3 MPU-100 transformer.

The winding measures 3" inches across.

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And the larger 16B-6 unit. This one has been identified incorrectly as 16B-8. It is a -6.

The windings measure 3.5" across.

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I'll call these 2 measurements as X-axis measurements.

Now, traveling along the Y-axis, the measurements are the same.

16B-3

Measures 4.25"

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16B-6

Measures 4.30"

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I'll call the Y-axis measurements the same.

Here is my question for this difference: How can 2 windings that measure differently along the X-axis have the same measurements along the Y-axis?

And while there is the difference in transformer size, there is also the difference with the F-4 connection on the transformers.

The MPU-100 pins carry a 5 amp fuse at the F-4 43 vdc coils fuse.

And the MPU-200 pins carry a 7 amp fuse at the F-4 43 vdc coils fuse.

(This pic shows the lower fuse callout as being for Catacomb and Seawitch. This is not correct.

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Everything on the smaller 16B-3 transformer is the same as the 16B-6 transformer.

All we need is a separate transformer to meet that 7 amp call out and then the smaller 16B-3s can be used with impunity. I would l have no problem adding a 2nd small transformer to the mounting board for coils power.

But where do you find that special little transformer at?

My final observation:

Per the Stern Electronics manuals, Meteor, Galaxy, and Ali all show the larger 16B-6 as being the transformer for these 3 pins. However, the transformer schematics list the 5 amp for the transformer F-4 circuit. This schematic anomaly is corrected the Big Game, the 4th MPU -200 pin.

I will assume that Meteor, Galaxy and Ali all have the larger 16B-6, but the drawings for these 3 pins are not consistent.

The thickness of the metal E core is probably the same, hence the Y-axis is almost the same.

It's dependent on the type and number of flipper coils. Meteor and Ali had standard spec 25-500/34-4500 flipper coils. The upper coil on Meteor has a resistor in series to reduce current surge and power.
Galaxy had higher power flipper coils but only two of them.
Big Game had a mixture of standard and higher power flipper coils but there are four of them so potential for high current surge when all four flippers activate at the same time.

I just picked up a Seawitch this week and it's been fitted with four standard 25-500/34-4500 flipper coils. I've replaced the 7A slow blow fuse with a fast blow as a slow blow seems like overfusing to me.

Ah, of course. I should have come up with that on my own! That reminds me not to seek help with simple problems at 11:30 at night, lol.

Trickier question: there is a ball feed mechanism which prevents the ball from bouncing back into the outhole - it uses a *very fine spring* to reset. I’m actually working on two of these machines; one has the spring but it seems not long for this world, the other is missing it entirely. Does anybody know a part number or alternative part for this?

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