I read that link but never tried it. This is why: I have my Big Game set on 7 degree slope which is way beyond what the factory designed. When a ball got hung up, I would have to lift the play field up about 12" to get the ball to roll on out, which is the exact opposite of shimming up the top fork.

But eventually, I did have to back that screw out.

I was having a lot of trouble with the ball hanging up right at the exit point. So, I bent an slight angle in the launch fork at the two black lines you see. It took those bends and backing off both fork screws to get the ball to roll on out. The top screw is so far backed out that it is almost there just for looks. But now the ball exits like it should.

I still don't know why the coil was kicking the ball out so hard.

IMG_6149 (resized).JPG

This is my first early Stern SS and the left flipper is inop. Is it wired correctly and what would be the most likely reason for no operation? The flipper button is correctly aligned and I've cleaned the switch. Thanks.

20210413_165651_resized (resized).jpg

The wiring should be exactly like the wiring on the RH flipper. Except the green wire most likely will be an orange wire.

Power comes from the blue/white wire. Check for voltage on the blue/white wire. The blue/white wire also feeds power to the right flipper. If no voltage, look for a wiring break between the 2 flippers.

Tell us what you find.

Someone had made a post (very probably in a different thread) about replacing the wires in spinners. Anyone have that bookmarked by chance? It was to recreate a Nine Ball extended arm spinner specifically.

C83AFC95-7247-46AA-8983-910997329DF7 (resized).jpeg

i know there is a better thread somewhere, jut couldn't find it... found a couple that could be helpful still:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/can-a-broken-wire-on-a-spinner-be-replaced-the-answer-is-yes
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/is-there-a-way-to-add-wire-on-spinner

The top link with the Gottlieb spinner is mine.

That 2nd link has lots of nice info. Especially that Nine Ball repair. Thanks for posting it. Seeing the pics in post #30 showing what that Dubro bender can do has just added it to my buy list. Those pics answer questions I asked of the manufacture and was never given a good answer.

Thanks @hisokajp, that second thread was the one I was thinking of!

I never saw I before. I am glad you asked about it.

Anyone have an opinion on this? My old meteor sling parts were pretty beat up. So I purchased some similar replacement parts to make them new again.

The new plunger is about an 1/8 inch shorter than the original plunger. I’ll use the wrong terminology here, but the shorter plunger should mean more movement distance in the arm’s action. Hence livelier slings?

Just wondering if I should use the new plungers or not. An 1/8 inch is quite a bit shorter.

11856DA7-072A-457B-B45C-05E470F728FA (resized).jpeg

5D462C30-198E-46C6-A42B-184C973B382B (resized).jpeg

Looks like you bought these: https://www.pinballlife.com/slingshotballshooter-plunger-and-link-2-plunger.html

These are what I used and can confirm they work great: https://www.pinballlife.com/slingshotballshooter-plunger-and-link-2-18-plunger.html

Pinball Resource sells a heavy duty spinner as a replacement for Bally/Stern/Williams.

Someone weighed a classic Stern spinner and it was much lighter than the B/W/G equivalent, so they make more spins per hit. I’d prefer to fix a broken Stern spinner over buying a heavier spinner.

It’s from Marco & but it’s the same 2” plunger. I’ll give it a go.

True..
But if you have a route, the last thing you want is a broken part and the location calling and.....

Watch out! you might smack the wood edge of the playfield.
I replace only the worn out link and leave the rest alone.
But then again, I do not know what it is you are trying to accomplish.

When weighing various brand spinners, I found the earlier Stern spinner with the arrow design is lighter than anything else I compared - This is what I found on this:

I weighed two different style Classic Stern spinners & their was a variation in weight, the style with the arrow weighed in at 26 grams & the other style with the stars at the back (Quicksilver style) weighed 33 grams. Seven grams is quite a difference.

The Williams spinner was a very similar weight to the Early Stern at 27 grams & certainly lighter than the QS style. The Bally weighs 36 grams.

The two Stern Spinners are made with different blanks hence the weight difference - The Quicksilver type is .5mm thicker than the arrow type & the "divots" are much lighter than the arrow spinner.

Pics are:

Stern
Stern
Williams
Bally

I guess it's possible even spinners with the same design may have been made using different blanks depending on batches made & avaiability of blanks at the time of manufacture.
IMG_1973 (resized).JPGIMG_1972 (resized).JPGIMG_1970 (resized).JPGIMG_1974 (resized).JPG

If the plunger is too short you risk damaging the play field wood. If the coil stop is not taking the hit, then the inner curve on the sling arm will crash into its own bracket.

I would also consider trimming the leg off of the white nylon paddle. Especially if you stay with the shorter plunger.

012015102168933c5fcfa133e555a403af1b7ef2.jpeg (resized).jpg

I though this way, too. But I have different experience with the 2 spinners on my Big Game. I have that slochar modded ROM that counts the number of spins. I had 2 of the heavier Stern spinners on. And I have been getting some great spinners rips ( I have to get my camera set up to record these rips because they are hard to believe ). Anyway, I replaced the outside heavy Stern spinner with a lighter weight Gottlieb spinner to see if the lighter spinner would spin faster and with more spins. The answer is no. Not in my experience.

I have yet to match, let alone exceed, the number of spins I got with the heavier Stern spinner. I was surprised. I thought that lighter spinner would really rip; And it has not.

The only thing I can equate this to is to look at the flywheel on a drag race car. Drag racing likes light aluminum flywheels. They wind up to high revolutions quicker. But they don't have the weight to sustain the revs. A heavier flywheel takes longer to get to high revs, but the weight delivers the kinetic energy to sustain long term revolutions.

I need to mix and match spinners to get a really good idea of which spinner is the best/fastest. But my inner spinner is so hot that I am afraid to touch and mess up a good thing. I get so many spins with this heavy Stern spinner that it makes me feel like I have lightning in a bottle, and I don't want to lose that.

True.
Plus, in a spinner's care, you have to deal with air friction. With a lighter spinner, it may not slow the ball down much on impact, but without the kinetic mass momentum there, the spinner possibly won't spin as long as a heavier-weighted one.

A common complaint on the older gottlieb plastic spinners is that they are too light to spin properly, some have even drilled holes in them and added weight for improved performance (they are hollow near the edges). probably a great middle ground of weight somewhere and if you went too heavy ball impact wouldn't get it up to optimal speed. such problems and concerns in the pinball world, let's not even get started on height of the spinner mount (some have said the aforementioned plastic gottlieb's do better on taller posts than stock). But we can all agree not much beats a good spinner rip.

that's really interesting stuff... i may have to weight all my spinners now! Any clue what was the weight of the pbr replacement then? Is it the "tichker" kind like the Bally?
I may just buy one in my next PBR order to do some more DD on this.

The PBR spinner was made by Steve at PBR. He said it has challenge to build. To me, it looks like it has the thicker wire.

Marco sells this one for No Fear. It looks like it would work. Some trimming may be required on the long wire out the right side.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/04-10062

The dimensions are correct at 1.50 wide and 1.25 tall. No idea what it weighs

Here is another one.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-3460

Here is one to can bend to fit.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-7861-U

Pinball Life sells some spinners that are from “Aspen”. They are lighter weight but also come with a thinner wire.

Anyone who can tell me the exact size for the spot meteor inserts for Meteor? I'm shopping my game out now and for whatever reason these three inserts are the only ones that are loose, it is like whatever plastic they used was bad and all three shrank and fell out. Anyway I'd like to replace them before I do any more work on the playfield. Thanks.

pasted_image (resized).png

Could use a quick piece of advice.

I've got a customer who ordered a start button in blue, but I don't have any on-hand and need to order it. I don't know if he needs a light blue, a dark blue, or a medium blue. Unfortunately, multiple email attempts have no response. I'd like to get material on order so that I can ship.

You guys know colors on these games better than me. Which should I go with for him? Lighter, Darker, or Medium?

I don't know which specific game it's for.

pretty sure they are 7/8", the one hard to find :/

20210419_201302- (resized).jpg

My best GUESS is this person wants to match the credit button sticker color? Maybe F2K blue? As far as I know, the buttons were always white.

Thank you very much! And damn that sucks

Looks like PBR has some that are white, but that will work, just light them up with a colored LED. Thanks for that help.

One of my experiences with spinners is that the paint always chips on the top front of Stern spinners.

They spin so fast that they come around and smack the ball before it can get out of the way. I’d probably get a lot more spins were it not for that happening.

A refresher: right flipper works/left doesn't. Earlier pix was of the inop left flipper coil. I've attached pix of working right flipper coil (I did notice that diode on working right flipper was bent and broken..will replace).
Have continuity: 1. between leaf switch blades when flipper button pushed. 2. between flipper button leaf switch and all 3 tabs on inop flipper coil 3. between switch blades on EOS switch when closed and between EOS switch and all three tabs on inop flipper coil.
Getting 94 volts to both flipper coils.
Coil looks fine as per the first pix, but it must be coil? During switch test, the right flipper activates, the left doesn't.

20210421_173715_resized[8153] (resized).jpg

Sorry, I missed that. The same principle applies. Both flippers need to be wired the same. Except one will have a green wire to a lug and one will have an orange wire to corresponding lug on the other coil. The blue/white power wire will be on the corresponding lugs on each coil. The EOS switches will wire up the same.

The orange wire in on the right flipper. If one flipper is working and one is not, you more than likely have wiring problem. Get a jumper wire and jumper the blue/white wire on the working flipper and jump to the blue/white wire on the non-working flipper. See what happens. If that doesn't work, then jump from the orange with across to the green wire and see if that lights things up.

If none of this works, swap the coils and see if the problem follows the coil.

IMG_6183 (resized).JPG

IMG_6184 (resized).JPG

Hi Guys

I was wondering if someone Knows where I can buy some decals for my Star Gazer Spinners ,

The Color of these are Yellow Base Blue S and the Reverse has Red Stars, see pics below

any help would be great

Thanks

19 (resized).jpg

20 (resized).jpg

These two are close but not exact.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/14A-7-2D

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/14A-7-13-D

Send TractorDoc a message about the decals. I just ordered some from him and he mentioned having variations on the yellow spinners.

Here's an alternative I will use again. When I restored Galaxy the spinner was hammered. Not a big fan of decals. I just stripped the paint, wet sanded and buffed it to a mirror finish. Still looks great.

the marcos i have got in the past were very grainy... another option is pinballrescue.net but the shipping situation is complicated lately...

Anyone know which stern sticker would be more appropriate for Stars?

BD6DDB7F-C088-4D72-B5CE-73C47A42F12C (resized).jpeg

I checked my game and I don't have one.... Sorry no help.

I have the clear one on mine. Its too nice to be an original sticker tho.

They’re both clear decals, the unused one just has a backing on it still.

I believe the one you have on there is “correct” (and personally I think is the better of the two designs anyway)

The one that's on the coin door is date appropriate for the stars era.... the dots one is more around cheetah/f2k.

They started using the decal with the blue border in 1981, starting with Freefall & then every game after that.

Thanks - glad to know I picked the right one! I'll save the other for my next Stern restoration. My coin door was painted white by the previous owner and I have to say the hammered silver on these Sterns is one of my favorite finishes...

According to pinball rescue.net, the one you are holding in your hand is for the years of 1981-1982.

So, Nine Ball, produced in December 1980, would be the last classic Stern to use the decal with no blue border.

And Freefall, produced in January 1981, would be the first classic Stern with the blue border coin door decal.

Freefall, Lightning, Split Second, Catacomb, Iron Maiden, Viper, Cue (?), Dragonfist, and Orbitor 1 would all have the blue border decal.

Screen Shot 2021-04-23 at 10.02.41 AM (resized).png

Ah man, my Cheetah has the blue border one. The horror... I'm throwing it off a bridge ASAP!

Does anybody have a recommended source for the clear one with the right justified type? My Stars coin door is bare and could use one, and I'll prob update Cheetah as well.

got mine from Marco and I'm pretty happy w/ it. Got the bootleg non shiny credit sticker tho... Mine might go off the bridge too

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/12A-283

Can you tell me what bridge and your eta?

Thanks! Does anybody make the proper foil stamped circular credit stickers? I remade those foil "approved for tournament play" apron stickers last year, maybe I should get some of those credit ones going as well if nobody supplies them. I have a non-shiny one as well on it and it's driving me nuts haha.

I am replacing some of my cracked red plastic post on my sling shots on my F2K One will not come off. The nut will not come off the top and goes about halfway and then sticks then starts turned the steal post that holds the plastic most. So how do I get the nut off? The steel post has no slot for a screw driver. Do I break off the plastic post cover and use vise grips to hold the screw that goes into the playfield then hope I can get the nut back on?