If you have a pair of Sargent 1026-CT or 1028-CT, the end of them crimp contacts well. https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/products.asp?cat=80

Special shout-out to cottonm4 - but to all you guys/girls on this thread also!!

cottonm4 - Thanks for helping me out so much and helping me learn the electronics side a little better........

Happy Holidays to all of you!!

Hope the New Year brings new pinball joy and much less pinball headache!!!

lots of good info thanks guys!

Thank you. It is nice to receive acknowledgment. But all I did was help you figure out how to trace some wiring and read a wiring diagram.

Quench and Slochar are the electronic circuit board gurus here.

So, did you get the coin door wired back up correctly? What did you find on those extra wires?

Merry Christmas to all my classic Stern friends.

This was a hack in my nine ball I posted in the club thread. Someone added an additional reset coil to the large bank—actually I plan on leaving it.

However, they added an additional wire for the added coil (ground). It eventually ties back to the other coils ground, in the head.

My question is: can you drive two coils from the same transistor?
I’ll clean up the wiring hacks, and just daisy chain the grounds. But wanted to see if there would be any adverse effects by grounding two reset coils by the same transistor.
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historically on older game they have had set of pop bumpers on the same coil but that is uncommon. i am not sure if the reason of having different transistor is for activating them individually or because it would overload the one transistor?

The best answer I can offer is what happened to me on a William Laser Cue.

I had one pop bumper down. I jumpered across from a good pop bumper to isolate whether is was the pop or something else.

What happened with this jumper test is that I also blew up the the good pop.

Sorry I can’t offer more info other than be careful jumping across transistors

Depends on the amp rating of the transistor.

Yes, Bally did it on drop target banks with 6 or more targets: Someone installed a 27-2300 coil on your bank which is used on 5 drop target or less banks and it might not have been strong enough for that big bank so it might be the reason they doubled up the coils. The Nineball manual lists a 24-1600 coil for that assembly.

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Spot on response, as usual, Quench. Thank you.

I thought I had seen the doubled reset coils somewhere, but couldn’t remember what game it was. I should have thought of the large bank Bally’s.

Thanks again.

where the transistor for this "double coils" bank larger than the std one?

Nope. But I should say if you're thinking of doing this don't use the super strength 24-1600 coils Stern used for this 8 bank. Use two of the weaker coils (26-1900 or 27-2300)

The picture djblouw posted above shows a Stern 27-2300 coil and a Bally ??? coil (which is unlikely to be a super strength unit).

Good info @quench.

Would there be any harm in leaving the large 24-1600 coil on the 8-bank that I converted to a 5-bank for my Cheetah?

Wouldn’t want to break targets or blow up the drive transistor. Thx

Note- Black tape is because there are a number of lamp sockets very close to the target bank.

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You won't blow the transistor. The Cheetah manual actually specifies a 24-1600 coil for the 5 bank drop target assembly so you should be ok.

Thanks. Just double checked the manual too.

The Bally coil is a 24-1400

So what are you going to do since the assembly already has a Stern spec coil?
If you're staying with double coil, I would check your other Bally/Stern games to see if you can swap the 24-1400 out with a weaker drop target coil from another game.

My original plan was to just leave both in the game. I assume it worked, but really can’t be very. Will this create extra stress on the transistor?

I’ll dig into Dolly & EBD to see what they have in them currently.

Not really stress on the transistor, but you will likely prematurely blow the playfield fuse.
The lowest DC coil resistance this architecture uses on transistor driven coils is about 10.5 ohms and that's what the 24-1400 coils resistance is.

The 26-1900 coils are 22 ohms. Two in parallel equate to 11 ohms DC resistance
The 27-2300 coils are 32 ohms. Two in parallel equate to 16 ohms DC resistance.
Both of these setups are still in spec.
I would swap out the 24-1400 with one of the two coils mentioned from another game (preferably 5 bank if a game has a weaker coil) or buy a new coil or convert the bank back to single coil (I realise twin coils are better mechanically).

Got the coin door wiring all put back in place, no idea why there were two wires additional along with the wire nut mess.

Unfortuately, the "3" targets (on Meteor) are still not operating correctly. I checked the schematics and the wiring is correct. I noticed that a heavier metal wire was used to carry current from the power source across all three switches - instead of having the actual wire providing power running to each switch, was that standard for Stern?

I will run another switch test, but that was not working correctly last time I tried to see if any switches were closed. Activating a switch would not indicate the switch number on the display........

I might also go ahead and re-solder the entire "3" switch bank to make sure all connections are solid.

Urgh.

Nate

The heavy metal wire carrying the current is Stern practice.

Try this: De-solder the 3 wires that power each switch. Get 1 or 2 jumpers and jump 2 switches. Leave the 3rd switch disconnected.

See if isolating each switch helps you find the problem.

With one switch disconnected you will have to manually lift the dropped targets

FYI: I am getting into harness production in 2022. Hit a wall with Bally until I source out stuff that is not in stock or not readily available. So I will start with Classic Stern harness in the head for games like Nugent or Dracula that are in the shop. Have no idea on costing, so wait until production is under way. No problem with wiring source, & I will sub another 24 pin connector used in the head. Dracula Head in the shop pictures & Nugent set up for play.

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Meteor is now working!

After all the poking around, I noticed that the drop target mech looked a little "skewed." That may have been the problem all along, the bottom plate can go one of two ways and will "seem" correct, but just that little bit of a spacing difference really caused havoc.

Glad to start the New Year with a working pin. Now for the other three..............

-Nate

Feels good when you learn new things and fix them, don't it?

Very much so!!

Hey all - in case folks missed it elsewhere...Dick Hamill has programmed fantastic new code for Galaxy. I loaned him my machine back in July, and as of December, he had worked out this amazing new rule set. Completely changes the machine, for the better. The whole playfield is really brought into the gameplay for the first time.
Dick's working on a second draft of the code to make a few more options available (as it is now, it's ridiculously hard for a middling player such as myself!), but even as it, I think you'll agree it's pretty great. Check it out!

Lightning is slated for a re-write as well, I'm restoring a pair of them currently and one will go to him at some point to tinker with.

I have some blank pcbs on the slow boat from China if anyone wants to install this on their game. Board assembly looks very easy (headers and a resistor). PM me!

Is there anyplace online or on Pinside where all the classic Stern upgrades are listed off with how-tos?
I know that the knocker should get a fuse, but not what rating, and I know there are a few other safeguards like that which are supposed to be followed on these machines, but haven't seen them compiled in one place before.

"In Bally/stern Games add a 1.25a sb fuse to the knocker and chime box. Then you should never have burnt up coils or ... circuit boards. I think it was a pretty major oversight not having dc side fuse on those .."

"Get some of those fuse holders with a screw in the middle.

Find the solenoid bus wire (yellow i think in all games, at least bally). Put the fuse in series with the bus wire going to coils with no DC side fuse (knocker and chimes, if present). It can go anywhere, probably near the coil makes the most sense. If the game has a chime box there will be one bus wire going to the chime box for all chime coils, add a fuse in series with on that bus wire near the chime box.

1a sb for the knocker and 1.25a sb for the chimes is probably good choice considering that is what is used on the playfield coils that has a DC side fuse."

Pinwiki has all the board upgrades

Man…I always forget about PinWiki!

I need to find a source for the flanged spacer / bushings used in classic Stern pops. The stuff I am finding locally isn't beefy enough. Thanks.

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I’m sure I have some around, if you haven’t found any yet Mad_Dog_Coin_Op

Glad to have had a project to keep myself busy today. I am in the process of building up my second Quicksilver and the stencils arrived today. Now, I had intended to make this one nicer than my first (and it will be) and then sell the first one. Now that game is going to be too sentimental for me to ever let go and this one will go up for trade/sale.

Aside from my first scratch-build, it now holds the distinct honor of being the last game my dad played. He passed away a couple days ago. It’s a terrible feeling that I won’t get to play my games with him anymore or hear him scream when a ball goes straight down the middle after hitting one switch.

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So sorry to hear about your dad. Never let that Quicksilver go.

The new machine is looking good.

Very sorry for the loss of your dad. That first QS will always be a special machine.

Condolences on the loss of your Dad @play_pinball.

Man that sucks. I’m sorry to hear it.

Luckily it seems like you were able to share something you both enjoy, and hopefully were able to build a lot of happy memories that will live on.

sorry for you loss...

Thought I would reach out here in case anyone might have any idea off the top of their head.

Basically I'm having a sound issue with my Seawitch.

Everything plays and sounds fine except for the wave crashing sound. Instead of the nice drawn out wave sound.. The first part is like it is condensed to play in a half second.. And then the second part of this sounds ok.. Difficult to explain.. But thought it is so specific perhaps someone may have encountered it before.

I have gone over the 2 ribbon cables and they seem fine and test out ok.

Thank you.

had similar issue on mine, ended up rebuilding the capacitors and it fixed the issues. Typical problems are, ribbon cables, cold solder on board and old capacitors.

http://www.bigdaddy-enterprises.com/repairkits/stern_kits.htm#SB-300
https://ksarcade.net/stn-sb300-capkit.html
https://nvram.weebly.com/bally---stern-pcbs.html Wiring Harness Only MPU J5 to SB-300

GL

Thank you, I replaced most of them, but didn't have the 1000uf on hand, so ordered those to try out.. presume it is one of them since it is like drawing out the sound. Such a specific issue, I'm glad to hear you resolved it with that.. Thank you-

or the last option is to buy one of those great Weebly replacement sound board

The weebly sound board is $115 delivered, but the ribbon cable is only $13 delivered.

+1 on the Weebly recommendations!

Clear the ram if you have a replacement MPU board and then check sound test (end of solenoid test). Is the white noise wrong there too?

When the white noise (rockets, explosions, wave noise) is distorted this is usually a problem with the 128 bit shift register, 4562. Bad 4562 I have encountered caused an issue like you describe, white noise effect is distorted. The shift register has a multiple different outputs used (layered?). If one shit output is blown you may get silence at times or wrong sound at other.

This chip is super obsolete. The pulls out of China are even pretty rare. I need to come up with a stack up multiple other shift registers to get an in production jelly bean solution for this obsolete chip. I could not find any other shift register that had all the needed outputs packed in a single chip like 4562. Still have quite a few for replacement boards, but it is going to dry up.

I would gladly pay for a Seawitch head and cabinet harness.