Here’s kinda what is should look like

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I think that extra switch it to drive the upper flipper.

That’s s good guess, but the upper flipper was working before I tore the playfield down, so who knows!

Probably for lane change or to enter initials then.

As djblouw and chuckwurt showed/mentioned, that extra switch is for activating the upper left flipper.
It looks like somebody's bypassed that second switch so the upper flipper activates the same time as the lower flipper. The consequence is the left flippers will be weaker than normal because there's more current strain on the transformer the moment you flip.
Those flipper mech switches should be setup so the EOS switch opens first, then the secondary switch closes to activate the upper flipper.

Indeed I looked and a previous owner soldered those two wires together as if that switch was permanently closed. I’ll definitely get them wired up right, thanks to everyone’s good direction!

May I also add that this is undoubtedly the most active and practically helpful group I’ve encountered on pinside, I’m glad I found you all! Thanks!!!!

Just bought a Lightning project... Looks like a keeper...

Rat rod, chimey, gladiator Nuge is all modded out, and ready for a beating at York!

PS Look for the Blackjack backglass and the Night Rider cabinet!

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This is the pile of crap when I started out.

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Anyone have a spare that they would sell me or know where I can get one? Please PM me if you can help.

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Picked up another classic Stern tonight. Magic made it's way home. Backglass is the only bad thing on this one. I'll try my hand at some touch up since it's a difficult one to find in nice shape. Needs a bunch of connector repinning, but I'll get her going. No chance to set it up. Went to see Joker after we unloaded it.

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Ouch!

Last week it was a Nine Ball cabinet. Today, it is a Quicksilver cabinet.

Stern threw these cabs together using a lot of staple guns. The first order of business was to buttress the landing for the throat and back box ( on one of my cabs, this landing rocks back and forth and the only thing keeping the back box from falling over is the stainless rails.

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Attachment blocks were anchored to the cab.

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And the entire landing assembly is screwed down to the anchor blocks. It will go nowhere unless I decide to unscrew it sometime in the future. All of the screws (that I did not show) will be hidden underneath the throat. Unseen. ( Another added benefit with this setup is when you have one of those large T-nuts fall out like what happened on my Seawitch. I have it held with a piece of tape right now. But I am going to do this cabinet mod to the Witch cab and fix that T-nut properly.

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We got a new floor.

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Two extra wedge braces were added to the back side of each cross-board. These are there to keep the floor from sagging and opening hiding spaces for dropped nuts and bolts.

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The cradle strips for the coin door were removed and lots of sanding with a vibrator sander cleaned away 35 years worth of spilled drinks. The corner wedge braces were cracked and coming unglued so replacements were made and installed. The factory used staples: I use screws. Not original but I don't care. The screws can always be removed and staples added if someone is so inclined.

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First coat of silver has been applied.

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I'm going to grab a phrase from Jesse Pinkman (Breaking Bad). Pinball Pimps stencils are The Bomb !

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The paint may be a little over the top, but I went with automotive paint. The silver is a color from a Subaru. The black is a Honda metallic black.

I laid down several coats of clear this afternoon. It will need to cure for a couple of weeks, then I'll color sand it and buff it out. In these pics you can also see the outriggers I added for the slider buttons. This way if a slider button gets trashed, the cab is not destroyed from being slid on the floor.

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Really, really nice effort
cotton. Looks terrific!

Can't wait to see it in person!

I'll have to sign you to secrecy. Up close and personal you will se all of the flaws and boo boos

There is a small chance I can have both Star Gazer and Quicksilver done in time for TPF 2020. But if I have to choose, which one should I try to complete first ? I can only transport one pin.

EDIT: Wrong post.

Getting to the finish line with my Dracula. Couple of questions:

1. I'm having a hell of a time setting up these thumpers to be super responsive. I've got the skirts centered on the spoons and the switches adjusted really close, but the ball seems to not be triggering the switch (like the skirt isn't high enough?) pretty often. The contacts are good, and the thumpers were working great before i rebuilt them... so i'm clearly missing some trick or consideration with this setup. I've rebuilt tons of pops before and never had this kind of trouble. I'm considering starting over with this plastic base: https://www.pinballlife.com/classic-sterndata-eastsegacapcomalvin-gspookyheighway-thumper-bumper-housingbase.html - thoughts?

2. I've got an issue with sound that is a little elusive - if i leave the machine on, but not "in game" for awhile, after about 5 minutes (haven't timed it), the machine starts making garbled sounds and when i turn it off and on again it stops. I've got the alltek board if that makes a difference, but i'm assuming the problem is some bad/weak component on the sound board. Any obvious thing I should look/test for?

Thanks! And here's a shot of the playfield looking purty:

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I love those plastic bases. You can wire up with a Molex connector, remove the pop assembly and make perfect adjustments at the kitchen table and then reinstall.

Which Molex connectors do you recommend? I want to do this to all my Stern/DE games

I think I will direct you to asking Ed at G-P-E. I have been using the small molex connectors and pins without issues. But I have not given any consideration to how they are rated ampere wise.

Got the Magic stripped down to the bare playfield. Upon doing so, I realized I'm missing the right spinner target. Bracket and switch are there, but the spinner is MIA. Anyone have a spare Stern spinner that will fit?

As usually happens when working on these things, I've run into a snag. Right flipper pawl has one of the 2 allen screws snapped off below the hole, so I can't get a tool on it. Flipper bat not budging with only removing the other screw.

Major bummer.

You might be able to drill into the screw and use an EZ out, but I think those screws are pretty hard. I would not waste my time trying.

You are probably going to need a Dremel Tool with a cutoff wheel and slice into the flipper shaft above the pawl. Or you might be able to use the cutoff wheel to whittle the flipper bat off. Either way you are looking at buying a new bat and possibly/probably a new pawl from Pinball Life.

Yeah, I've got new bats and stuff. Just sucks I have to stop in the midst of the job to go get a cut off wheel. Mine snapped.

Another weird thing. This is a pic of the Magic in display test. These all look bad. Not sure if out gassed or what. The weird thing is none of these displays do anything in my Harlem but my Harlem displays with perfect in the Magic. Is there some non compatibility about early Stern displays with Bally games?

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Nope. Perfectly fine to swap. I would reflow all those header pins as a baseline and then see if you still have all those issues

Take some sandpaper and run it across the pins that lead to the displays and reseat connections.

Sometimes one bad display can affect the others in weird ways.

Before proceeding: it's critical you *never* unplug or plug in a display with the power on. You'll damage *lots* of stuff if you do. In addition to that, it's high voltage at the displays, so proceed with caution.

Power off, unplug all but one display. Power on and test display. If good, power off, plug in another display, power on and test, repeat. You may find most work, but there's one or more that don't work properly. Once you fix the bad ones, they should all hopefully begin working properly (or at least better, they may still have minor issues). There are a number of recommended fixes/upgrades for these displays, as described by other posters above. Don't worry about compatibility, either Stern/Bally will work fine.

I'll try this tonight. Thanks. Just weird that none of the Stern Magic displays work in my Harlem. All of my Stern Meteor displays work fine in Harlem.

Could potentially be a connector issue in that case. I'd still process this way and see if that reveals anything.

Here's what they're doing one plugged in at a time. This is in display test when all 8's should be showing. Player 4 looks the best. 1 and 2 have some little dancing dots outside the segment lines. Hard to see in pics.

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That is weird. So if you put the Harlem displays in the magic they all work fine? I would think that would rule out the mpu and connectors. Hard to imagine you have 5 bad displays. You said the Magic displays do nothing in the Harlem, but you also mentioned a Meteor. Have you tried the Magic displays in the Meteor or vice versa?

One other idea: have you tried clearing out all the audits? Not sure why, but apparently sometimes a factory reset can clear garbage out of the ram or something, which may be leading to this weird behavior. Does the game have a battery or NVRAM?

Game has an Alltek MPU and Driver. I did not install these, so I can do the reset procedure and try again. I did not try swapping Meteor and Magic displays. I can do so. This game was owned by a family for over 30 years, I'm told. They played the crap out of it and didn't really care for it properly. Both sling armatures were snapped off and flippers were dragging due to worn bushings.

Ok. Did a quick swap of meteor and magic. Turns out all my Meteor displays are Bally lol. Meteor display works fine in Magic. Magic display shows same garbage in Meteor. Looks like I have all bad displays. I've fixed issues before like missing digit or really bright digit but not like these.

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Also, I did do the memory clear process and no change. Who's got 5 good displays they recently replaced with LED that they wanna sell cheap?

Did you reflow the header pins yer?

If that doesn’t do anything most of those look likened out segments. Would need new glass.

If you put one display at a time in your Meteor (the rest of the displays being good ones), do they have any effect on the good displays? If so, you probably have a bad decoder chip on the bad display.

I've rebuilt these displays a number of times. Steve Kulpa has a great resource at http://stevekulpa.net/pinball/bally_disp6r.htm for repair tips... but I would second the poster above who suggested a reflow first.

I reflowed one to test and no change. Putting one Magic display in Meteor has no effect on the good Meteor displays.

Did you try all of them? One bad display can affect all displays.

I think it’s just burnt out segments on the glass at this point. No need to keep swapping displays between 3 games. Order some led replacements and be happy

I feel the same. I've repaired some in the past with missing segments and missing digits using Steve's guide, but these have dancing flickers indicating burned segments or maybe outgassing. A fellow pinsider has messaged me with a good deal on working originals for now. Thanks all. My pinball resource order should be here today, so pops and flippers will be rebuilt tonight.

Have you swapped the solenoid driver board? A flaky or out of range high voltage can sometimes cause the segment issue your pictures show.

I'll bet the display glass itself does not have the vacuum port or "tit" on the back. There is the word "displays" readable when you look at the back of the glass. These are cheap and unreliable display glasses. They were sold through one of the parts wholesalers like Wico, Peach State, or Great Amusement Emporium back in the day. The seal around the outside edge has finally let enough air back in the display glass that the segments fail to glow. Notice on your displays that most of the missing segments are near the outside edge of the display glass closest to the seal? Probably time to swap out the display glasses.

Didn't swap the SDB since there is a newer Alltek in it. All the displays are Stern branded, but I do see your point. Got some used working originals lined up though.

Hoping someone can help. The GI on my Galaxy works fine but the relay will not trigger for attract mode or when Galaxy is spelled. Relay is new. Not sure what wire triggers it.

Do you have dip 23 set to on?

Does this help?
Soon there will ba a Tech Chart for Galaxy too.

Peter

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I tried switch 23. Didn’t fix. I’ll double check the wires.