Okay, so hypothetical question here:

What will it take to convert a M-100 game to an M-200 game? Let's pretend I wanted to change my Dracula into a Quicksilver.

Besides the cosmetic stuff (PF, plastics, BG, stencils), what else needs to be redone? If I were to use a weebly mpu, that should take care of the mpu swap. A soundboard SB200 would be needed.

I see previously in this thread that the M100 games us 16B-3 transformer, and the M200 use 16B-6. Anyone know the difference?

What else would need to change (besides a LOT of re-wiring)?

Anyone happen to have a lockdown bar they would part with?
My project Magic came with out one and my efforts so far to find one have been fruitless.
Please PM me with details.

So this post led me to finding and overpaying for a mint Star Gazer. And I'm so happy with the results. I love the game.

Now I'm on the hunt for a Quicksilver. I'm willing to consider any reasonable condition. Hit me up - I'm desperate and will overpay.

Lockdown bars seem to be getting scarce. Data East bars will fit.

You will need a new lamp board and SDU (Alltek) . You will need a play field harness and displays/back box harness; I believe Third Coast pinball has tooled up for the QS play field harness. He does have the back box harness. Shawn's wire harnesses will be the best money you ever spend.

Weebly has a new sound board, I think.

16B-3 vs. 16B-6 flipper amps from rectifier board is 5 amps on the MPU-100 pins and 7 amps on the MPU-200 pins.

How about showing us a pic of Star Gazer you snagged.

Good to know thanks!

I’m having an intermittent issue with stars and stingray. When I power up the games sometimes the lights come on but the the game doesn’t boot up. Usually I turn power off, wait a second, and in the second power up they will boot.
Any suggestions? Is this a common issue?

I'd try re crimping the connectors that bring the power from the SDB to the mpu.

They are both stock MPUs. I’m not sure how many flashes. Ill have to take the glass off and watch until it happens again.

Thanks, I’ll do that.

I tend to agree. QS is really hot right now, but I prefer Seawitch hands down too.

What 6-digit games are you rolling?

Had this issue on a Stingray, it was the connectors for me.

Set them harder for sure. Set Meteor at 7.5 degrees or just under where it feels like Pachinko. Turn the lane guides around on the Galaxy X and Y lanes so there’s more bounce action between the flippers.

Simply making Meteor harder put it in my top 5 classic Sterns.

That’s how they should be!

3” leg levelers, in the back, cranked way up is the way to go!

Will people please stop perpetuating the myth that some random pitch number of 15.946 degrees makes their game mean and hard. Sure maybe the ball is faster rolling back. But it’s slower going up! And you lose all the side to side action so your drains on the outlanes decrease. It also makes the game easy to trap balls. There is a good medium and not enough pitch makes a game play like dog doo.

Go buy some 31” legs from PBR.

Yes go with 31” legs. 3” levelers all the way up will not be enough for Meteor.

I tech for ReplayFx. I run a location with 50 games. My games play perfectly. Yeah my meteor can be rolled on occasion. That doesn’t mean it plays bad.

I would agree with this on most games except Meteor. The playfield design has no side to side action and the single pop bumper provides no real benefit at any angle. If I didn’t tell you the angle on mine you’d just think it’s fast and that’s it.

On the other hand, people have told me to jack my Quicksilver up to 6.5 degrees. I tried that, but found the best play was when the slope was between 5.5 and 6 degrees.

I also tried Xenon at 7 degrees to make it harder, but found it too hard to make it up the ramp and the pop bumper action was not as good. 6-6.5 made it much better.

I have put a lot of science into where I set playfield slope.

Makes your game more stable not wobbling on the extended levelers.

Take the outlane posts out of meteor to increase difficulty.

I prefer my classics with the back legs jacked all the way up and front all the way down. Like pictured above. All mine are like that. Haven’t had any complaints.

Xenon proves the ball is slower. Too hard to go up the ramp. More pitch equals slowing down a rising ball.

My meteors somewhere around 6.5 and it is plenty fast. Sensitive slings give plenty of side to side action. No rubber posts on the outlanes. Center post rubber is in because pulling a Kirk post is blasphemy.

You can do it as you are doing, which works. I got some 31" legs at a swap meet for real cheap. I don't know if I would pay retail for new 31" legs if I had others laying around. but if you really want to jack it up put on some 31s and adjust the levelers up and you will really be steep.

Here are the front and rear legs on my Big Game. The rears are 31". My opinion is that the 31" rears are a little more stable than a 3/8" bolt supporting all of the weight. This was just a tad too steep so I had to raise the fronts 2-3 turns to adjust.

This setup is great on Big Game. However, I recently placeed some 31s on my Seawitch. My jury is still out; I'm not sure I like my Seawitch up this high in the back.

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IMG_1164 (resized).JPG

Oh year, one more item you will need that is not on your Dracula. Quicksilver uses one 3-place drop target assembly. It also uses a 4-place drop target assembly. AFAIK, QS is the only classic Stern to use a 4 -place drop assembly. I could be wrong, but I think you will have to get creative.

Seawitch

This is true. Another example is the top lock on Firepower. I rebuilt my flippers with all new parts and new coils too. At 5.8 degrees I had a 75% success rate. At 5.9 degrees it dropped to 50% and 6.0 degrees it dropped to about 10%. No perceivable decrease in ball speed or flipper power, but the results didn’t lie.

Each game has its “sweet spot”. Meteor just happens to be one of those games that you can jack way up with no detrimental effects on gameplay.

Firepower absolutely needs the newer Williams flipper mechs. Makes the game WAY better.

True! I did an experiment with Williams Flash...
I was able to boost the power to the old flipper mechanisms by doing the "Game Plan thing".
I have yet to try it on a Firepower... I did however add extra red voltage wiring to the playfield
to a Firepower many years ago.

I need to do that. WPC mechs didn’t help much over Sys6 mechs, so I added WPC coils and a 50v transformer. No missing the lock now.

Yeah, WPC mechs on the late 6 games, and into 7, don't give you much change other than a replaceable coil stop and smoother return spring. Otherwise they're mechanically the same. Though doing the thorough rebuild does get you a lot better playing machine.

The older style mech, system 3-4, and early 6, without the unified plate? Those see a big difference with the upgrade as it takes out a lot of slop.

-Hans

True.
But Black Knight rebuilt with 1988's style flipper mechs are much better and more powerful than the 1st
generation style flippers...
All of Williams games in the early 1980's had 2" leg levelers not 3" as people have put on their games as today.

After collecting Sterns for several years now, finally was able to acquire the one on the top of of my list.

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It's beautiful!