Hey Classic Stern fans, I'm about to start restoring my Quicksilver and I have a question regarding the coin door. What do people do? Powdercoat or paint? And what colour? What about the coin mechs? zinc plating or polishing? Thanks.

reposted here from the projects forum

Manufacturer: Stern
Game/Type:Rawhide
Cost: $25
Location: Charlottsville VA
Contact:https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2119061884865797/
Vintage pinball machine. Needs electrical work, does not work. Must be able to pick up.
Condition
Used - Fair

Like Colson always says... WIWC 25 bucks people!

Paint it with Rustoleum hammered silver. There is a slight blue tint to it so you could experiment with silver over blue, but silver alone is acceptable.

Rawhide is a fun game. Enjoy mine.

I’ll have to check if that’s available in Australia. Not a brand I recall, but thanks.

It’s available from Bunnings. Rustoleum hammertone

Gotta have your hammered silver!!!

But as also heard it only works perfectly in over 80 degree temps, to really get the true effect.

Found some competition video on Lightning, first I've seen. Too bad the spinner is borked but worth a watch.

Lightning’s in all our competitions. Will be in 24 hour final battle circuit event and possibly pintastic circuit event 2020.

I really enjoy the rules/how it plays. Huge joe joos jr fan.

Make sure to sand/score the legs before applying or else the paint will have nothing to adhere to and will eventually flake off.

Has anyone done a play field for lightning?

No. I wish. These inserts don’t age well. Mines very cratery. Greatwich John does backglasses.

Ok, not expecting many answers on this but here goes!

My Catacomb will 100% of the time award an extra 20000 points each time a drop target set completes. It shouldn't award anything except 1000 points per drop.

Putting an Alltek board in, the problem vanishes.

So, how on earth do I fix the Stern MPU board? Any idea which component might be responsible for the behaviour?

Thanks

I just looked up your MPU board picture you previously posted and notice you have RA28G ROMs meanwhile RA32 are the version in the wild and what I've twice recently seen.

We need you to get your ROMs dumped! They might be special with other differences!

FYI, Alltek is running Catacomb code matching the RA32 code.

Thanks - so it's basically early code?

I guess they decided it was too easy awarding 20000 for each set of drops.

My game is an early German version, with the letters, and I think the audits go back decades.

Finally got to Dragonfist this morning.

It was a blown fuse on the rectifier baord. A 4amp fuse on F3. It is working fine now. But my big question is why did the fuse blow in the first place?

Is there something I need to be worrying about? Just what caused the fuse to blow? Or does this get filed in the "shit happens" file and I move on along like nothing happened?

Thanks all for offering suggestions.

Potentially yes. Looks like the German Stern ROM list for Catacomb may have started at version 25 - see page 3 of the below pdf.

It would be great if they could be dumped and the code preserved for the community.

Stern_ROM_list.pdf

Did the old fuse blow violently or was it just open circuit? Got a picture?
Do you have LED displays?

I agree as it changes the game totally scoring 20000 after completing a set of drops.

Wonder which version is most fun to play?

The question is whether there's other differences in your version.

I will study the ruleset in more detail, but I haven't noticed anything else.

I would say it blew violently. There is quite a gap between blown electrode?/wire.

I have the original Stern displays installed.

Screen Shot 2019-09-13 at 1.26.23 PM (resized).png

It looks like it was a new fuse that blew so it had already been recently replaced?
Suspect it will probably happen again till the cause is found.

It was a fuse that was supplied with the Weebly rectifier board.

I had played quite a few games over several weeks before it blew.

At least it did blow. So I will keep playing. I’ll start studying the prints and track the circuits and try to figure it out.

Hmm that might be a software bug I've noticed something similar before on DF. It's probably not clearing the flags correctly. Does it ever happen in a multiplayer game and if so does it stay on the same *player*?

Good question. I’ll check it. I think it traveled from player to player but typically I play it alone so unsure.

Someone is selling a Lightning back glass on CL.

dayton.craigslist.org link

Seller is Pinsider weir pinball

My first classic stern, Ali, is in the house. Anyone have a part # for this flipper button switch? I want to order from pblife or marco. Thanks!

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If you cant to keep the game OEM...
Just order the tungsten contacts from pinball resource.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/SW-10A-48

That's the cheapest that Marco has that will work I just use this type in all my games if I'm not just replacing the contacts. Sometimes I take the stack apart and put it into the original stack so I won't have issues with spacing but most of the time this one works out of the box.

You won't find an "original" replacement so if that's important to you, get the contact like vec-tor says.

I'll save the originals for the next owner! Thanks for the part#...

I might have a spare, what’s it for?

Ali. No big deal I have to order a bunch of stuff from Marco - thanks for the offer!

Another successful stream with Cloud7 (turbografx7)
Check out Seawitch https://www.twitch.tv/videos/482095553

We are doing a whole series of my collection, so please follow to get notified for the next one.

Very nice stream man! Any chance you are ever going to reproduce those stern aprons like you did for the bally games? I have your Fathom and Centaur and they are just amazing! My Seawitch and Stargazer could use the same love.

I collected some decent demand for Stargazer, Quicksilver and Seawitch. Probably enough to justify making the metal tooling. Splitting up the volume to print the individual titles is one of the issues.
Stargazer has a light blue with white screen OR dark blue with yellow screen.
Quicksilver has black base with green screen OR dark green base with light green screen
I think seawitch only has light blue base with dark blue screen; not sure if there is a 2nd version.

The dilemma: Choose one variant for each game and go with it OR further dilute the volume and make some of each.
Known issues:
- Pinball Rescue already sells decals for the screen portion of the art, which I believe has kept the demand for a new reproduction part relatively low. Not as nice of quality, but presentable.
- Stern's aprons where made of a thicker gauge steel than bally, so the original steel is likely still in good shape compared to the flimsy Bally's

Not saying it won't happen, just showing all the considerations when thinking about making these.

well, crud, I went and messed up my Lectronamo somehow. Has a new Weebly CPU board in it too.

Had it actually playing a game, except the outhole coil wasn't working. The coil ohm'd out ok, voltage was good, and I could fire it by grounding the transistor tab. I didn't have any transistors to spare, so I pulled an unused one from Q1, and used it to replace Q4.

Well, something happened the game just didn't like!

I get into attract mode, but it doesn't reset the drop target banks during boot, I don't hear the relay clicking during boot, and even testing at the CPU board I don't have any stuck switches but they do show up during switch test. I did re-install Q1 with a fresh TIP102, but no change.

Displays work, controlled lamps are working, I have solenoid voltage.

Not terribly familiar with how the MPU-100 works, so not sure what I should be digging into next. From all I understand, if a PIA is dead, it shouldn't get into attract mode.

Just to confirm, it looks like I'm able to register switches on the upper header, but not on the lower header.

I can trigger all coils, and the flipper relay, by grounding their respective tabs on the solenoid driver board.

-Hans

cottonm4 you were right sir! I finally received my Data East lockdown off a Pinsider parting out a WWE and it fit the Orbitor 1 bar perfectly. No idea why Terry thought they didn’t fit.
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Glad it all worked out for you.

Please do us all a favor and contact Terry with the non-debatable information you now have.

I already told him, but I will submit the photos too

Measure the voltage at test point TP3 on the solenoid driver board. If you don't read 5 volts, you've lost voltage to the solenoid logic and predriver circuit on the solenoid driver board. Usually happens due to a bad connection on the 5 volt loop wire at connector J3 that runs from pin 13 to 25.
See the section from the solenoid driver board schematic below:

SDB_TP3 (resized).jpg

Might be onto something there. Crimps do look pretty poor, but unfortunately I'm completely out of hand-crimps right now, have to order more.

Goofing around with the connector I did get some momentary clicking of the relay and solenoids..... now my MPU LED just locks steady-on when I try to power it up. So going to dig deeper into that connector.

What an odd design.

I always hard jumper that Brn-Wht connector in order to make sure the board gets the +5 volts.

Bally probably designed the board in sections, or used manufacturer reference circuits and that was the easiest way to link it together. The jumper fix has been SOP for many years now though but I admit I'm lazy too and don't always implement it when I go through a game (depends on how bad the SDB is in it)

Quicksilver 2 light baffle 3D printed for a friend. Turned out really nice! Thinking about making slots for the screw holes for easy leveling adjustment.
Brian

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still looking for a complete 4 bank stern drop target assembly. If anyone has one or leads I'd appreciate it! Thanks!

I’ve been on an early stern streak it seems. My first was Meteor awhile back which i still have. Next was a Trident. Then in the past 6 months I got a Cheetah (blue cab), Wild Fire, Stars and a Dracula. I need a lockdown bar for my Cheetah, would be great if anyone could help me out with that.