So I just looked again, I do have the correct Bally bar. It's the stern bars that are straight, with the molding top that has the tab in it to hold it in place instead of on the bar. I meant to measure stuff.... I must have the wrong top molding on the BOPP glass.

I’m not knowledgeable enough on this topic yet.

Can anyone comment & help me understand why a sound board in a Stern Nine Ball would cause the machine to reset? It gets through boot up (7 led flashes), then starts over again.

If I disconnect the ribbon cables the machine boots up and plays fine.

Does it 'ding' on each LED flash? If your ribbon cables have all 34 positions populated, you can get rid of the left 2 as one of them is the IRQ signal, which the sound board never uses back to the mpu board.

Are you sure you have the ribbon cables pin 1 to pin 1 (rightmost positions) then the 2nd cable butts up against that.

Edit.... it seems that the sound and display and other wierdness is associated with the Player 2 display wiring harness. This coupled with the mpu apparently remembering previous errors. I disconnected P2 display, power cycled the machine and played a handful of single and multiplayer games without any hiccups, etc.

Prior to above edit....
Thanks slochar.

I’m not sure it makes a difference at this point but the machine has a Bally Solenoid Driver board installed instead of a Stern board.

Yes I do hear the “dings” (when ribbon cables are connected) and with the assistance of the key, the ribbon connectors are in the right place.

Before installing LED displays, this problem didn’t exist (note that P2 display is dead and disconnected). I would hear feedback and sound distortion at times but no reset issues.

When I swapped in the new displays, I pulled the high power fuse and connector from the solenoid driver board.

See below. dup.

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The ribbon cable to the sb300 goes from j5 pin 1 to sound board pin 1. The last 2 pins (33/34) are blank. Not going to work with pin 1 empty in j5 - that's the D7 signal, and everything would be shifted over 1.

Help, I have a nicely re-done Meteor with new power board, new CPU, new lamp driver (so I can use LEDs) and I am not getting the correct power readings at any of the test points on the CPU or the power board.

I WAS getting the proper readings on the power board when tested with an external power supply out of the machine.

When I hook it up and flip it on, the measurements are low, there is no sound, no fire-up, and the cpu LEDs sit in the lit position only.

All voltages to CPU are low, you can see my reading on the photos for each test point.

The score displays obviously don't have enough voltage, and only show a glow as in the photo.

No power in flippers or anything, only good voltage is to the GI, head and pf lights all come on.

HELP! This is so frustrating!

I also included photos of the ribbon cable, to make sure I seated these correctly. There are more pins on the board then the cables. I left the left-most pins (first two) exposed. One pin is exposed on the LED board.

I also checked the three box connectors that supply power to the boards, they appear all good, no loose pins, etc.

Thanks, It's crazy to have this not running after all the work I put into it!! Argh.

Oh, I also re-pinned all power board connectors.

-Nate

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Thanks, for some reason, my looong text was deleted!!! Added another post below with helpful explanations.

Nate

Help us out. Tw of your pics are showing upside down. Click on your pic and you will see these blue dots. One let's you add you pic. Another one let's you delete your pic. And the dot in the middle let's you rotate your pin into proper rotation.

Robin is aware of this sideways pic action. No solution AFAIK.

bad ribbon placement on the MPU/Sound board as serious impact, i would start there or start from scratch following "https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally/Stern#First_Things_First_.28WIP.29" (section 4.8 especially while testing TP progressively as I connect more).

That how i always start my troubleshooting

Started to tear the top side of the pf down....this kicker is broke. Is this a generic part I can use or is this a stern specific?

Pictures show my left one and broken right one

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Ahhh it's not an official teardown until hou get a drywall screw. Mission accomplished!!

That style kicker is Stern specific. I you can get different style replacements. But you may have to adjust the placement of the new unit and drill some new holes

cotton
Do you happen to know if one from a Big Game is compatible?

Anyone know someone who can refurbish a Magic sound board. Mine is missing some sounds and hissing.

AFAIK, all of the classic Sterns used the same sling kicker. I don’t know about Chicago Coin

Haha oh man. A few sheet rock screws. Then some odd plastic “fixes”. I should post pics. The clear layer must of broke so they took spacers out and had the art plastic be the guide. The galaxy curve shot was blown out and some cut tube was the guide, lol.

When the game is in attract mode, I see lights, sound and relay gi. So it’s a start! Player 3 display is not working, player 4 seems to work but goes on/off. When I switched plugs p3 and p4, then that display stayed lit so not sure why p4 would blink unless I need to check harness pins. I was thinking of going led displays...unless fixing the 1 can be done with some cheap parts.

Hmmm! Thank you, maybe I’ll try to find a stern kicker first and if no one has one I’ll look at a replacement. Is there any pictures of someone who installed a new version?

Looks like PBL has been making new parts, maybe we can get them to make the stern kicker. Is it the same as a bally of that same era?

Nope, not even close.

Gottlieb ones have the correct looking profile on top, but the underneath is completely different (better, IMO, since it can't twist)

hmm. That makes things complicated.

What is the typical post screw used? I think I measured mine and it will probably be this one?
DE-530-501002 @ http://www.pbresource.com/postscrew.html

Need to get new hardware and the spacers...those are kind of interesting. I see some random ones at Marco, is that the usual?

spacer / sleeve sizes I measured

1" tall x 3/8" OD
1 1/8" tall x 1/4" OD
1/2" tall x 3/8" OD (short gray ones for plastics)

I saw a few in other sizes on PBR and I see marco has some like this:
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/254-5000-01
Is there like for sure replacement ones people get?

I have a spare populated F2K playfield i can rob one off of. Pretty sure the kickers are identical.

From Meteor to Dragonfist, all of the sling kickers are the same.

This is one I did not see before. It could almost be direct replacement for the classic Sterns. But it is out of stock.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/515-5818-00

As a close 2nd to the classic Stern kickers that are available to buy, I would probably go with this:

1) https://www.pinballlife.com/williamsbally-slingshot-bumper-crank-assembly.html

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2 ) https://www.pinballlife.com/williamsbally-slingshot-kicker-mounting-bracket.html.

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The above bracket is almost like the bracket for the classic Sterns. The hole patten for one of the holes does not match the hole pattern of the Stern. So you have to fill a hole with some dowel rod and redial a new hole.

You also need some spring clips to hold the two pieces together

https://www.pinballlife.com/e-clips.html

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These E-clips are not the best choice. You would need to call Pinball Life and ask if they have any of the hairpin style clips.

The thing you want to keep in mind is that there is not too much difference between the kickers. On any pinball machine, the sling shots all use the same posts and the same rubbers. You can pretty much swap in any sling kicker set up you want.

There is a way to set the kicker assembly on a new play field for maximum action. If you are interested, ask.

Sorry I should of updated. A MN pinsider had a kicker off a parts pf, so I snagged that. Thanks everyone! I’ll get that swapped and post pics

Interested! Doing a Flight 2000 playfield swap now. Thanks

You can, but they (subtlety) play differently, especially if you decide to swap a Bally linear sling mech (although who would do that? Most slots wouldn't accomodate that anyway).

I was lucky in outbidding marcospec about a decade ago on ebay for several NOS stern ones, which live happily in my playfield swaps and play great. The sling arms tend to wear in the holes with long use and you don't realize how sloppy it makes the sling action until you replace them with new - glad that Bally/Williams ones are still available new and wish the stern ones were as well.

There is not much, if anything, to it. Since you are doing a swap, all the better because you can have your play field laying flat with good access. All you need to do is set the kicker assembly into the slotted hole and then pivot the arm forward all the way and get it as close to the slotted hole without the arm touching the edge of the hole. Then mark your holes that you need to screw into. This will give you max travel when pivoting. Pay attention to make sure you are installing it into the hole on a straight plane; You don't want it sitting in the hole all cockeyed.

If you locate the kicker arm too far forward then it is going to crash into the edge of the play field/ slotted hole. If you set the assembly too far back it is not going to give you a good solid hit.

.

You made a good buy.

.

Most of my wear has been on the pivot bracket. I was thrilled when I found this other bracket at Pinball Life. It is not quite like the Stern bracket so it needs a small mod to work with an original Stern kicker arm. I don't have time today, but its a couple of days I can put up a pic showing how it needs to be modded.

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https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/515-5818-00

Last night, at first glance, I thought this out of stock unit work work for the classic Sterns. I found it for sale in Germany at $15.00 a pop. But it won't work because instead of pivot hole on the arm, this one has the pivot pin located on the arm which is backwards of what is needed.

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Now I am thinking that maybe Kerry at Mantis could tool up and make some of the classic Stern kicker arms to sell. I'll haver to ask him. Technically, I think he could do it but I don't know if there would be enough demand.

My Stingray

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Were these brought back for a limited run?
Where's the box?
WOW!

Looks like you already did a while back @cottonm4! https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/price-check-1980-sterns-quicksilver-stargazer-seawitch/page/18#post-4798194

That said, I'd maybe be interested in some reproductions from Kerry depending on the price. I had to shoehorn a Bally arm into my Trident after one of my sling arms literally shattered in 3 places at once. It wasn't an easy fit nor ideal -- works though.

Thanks for finding that. I forgot all about it.

Price, as always, depends on how many people are interested buying.

Can we see a show of hands?

how many people want some replacement kickers? And how many do you want?

I had to put the WMS/Bally in my Seawitch, i would definitely be up for a few of those.

how many is "a few"?

Trois.... lol for Germaine.

I’d probably be in for at least 4, maybe a couple more depending on the price. Would it make sense to have them remade to fit the existing brackets without having to do modifications (aside from the pf holes)?

While I don’t have an immediate need, I’d be down for a couple for spares to have on hand....

Now you are talking about taking the time and money to do an engineering redesign. I’m not knocking you but that would take time and money. And there is already that bracket that works with a minor mod.

Make it "Quatre"!

Thanks so much for pointing this out!! I am a little closer......after moving the ribbon cable over, I got seven "bings" followed by some sound like a jet getting ready to take off but sitting idle, and some display/attract mode on the pf lights. The score displays also now how full power. HOWEVER, I cannot start a game, the game does not go through and "click clack" the mechs and reset the drop targets. So something is still "off."

I have a new ROM that is set for free play, so pushing the credit button seems to start a game, but there is no power to anything on the pf, flippers etc. The right flipper seems to be getting a TINY amount of juice and slowly moves forwards as though in extreme slow motion when I press the flipper button in.

Urgh! What's the next steps to try?

Thanks!

Nate

Sorry, I am evidently past a time-frame for editing pics. Sorry two of them are upside down. The only is just the score display, I could re-post the board pic if anyone really thinks it will help.

I don't have time to get on here much, so please excuse my delays in responding - but I AM checking and DO appreciate any help to get this favorite game of mind working!!

-Nate

Thanks, I was using a site talking about Stern/Bally "protocol" when going over an old game called "Flipperwinkle", will check out the link you provided.

-Nate

I would be down for four replacement kickers, maybe six.

I bought the closest match from Pinball Life and can see already that I'm going to have to "scootch" the entire mech forwards like you mentioned to get the maximum kick out of it once I get things working.

-Nate

I have communicated with Kerry at Mantis. This morning I sent him a sample sling lever. Now we wait and see what he says he can do and for how much.

That's really cool your working this.

Thanks.

If we could get an economical fix for the transformers, with the classic Stern play fields being produced, and the back glasses, too, it is amazing to think of how many of these classic Sterns could be built up new.

I’d buy 4 right off the bat as backups for Seawitch and Meteor. Maybe a few more in case my grail stern shows up one day!

Yup, I'd be down for a few to keep around.

Would it be feasible to swap in pf's of other sterns that use the same board sets? I wouldn't mind having another PF of a game to swap in and change things up. I do have all the alltek boards in now.