And the play field is off of the rotisserie !

I still have much detail work to do. I still need to restore the apron. I was trying to decide if I wanted a black apron or a green apron. I like the green so I will need to get some custom paint mixed up; It is sort of a candy green.

Next up is to finish the back box. There are some items I cannot finish under the play field until I can stand it up against the back box.

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All I can really say at this point is that the silver on the cab and the green on the play field look great together.

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The cat seems to approve.

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My paint supplier is stocked out of a chemical he needs to mix me up a custom spray can of green for the apron. It might be a week or two before his stock arrives.

In the meantime, a salvage Seawitch apron is going to be converted to Quicksilver duty.

My washer spacer trick is not working so hot this time. I don't want the apron cutting into the paint of a brand new play field. Trouble is that the washers on the right side were getting in the way.

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Without the washers, the apron cuts right into the paint. I'm not having it.

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Here is the fix. Cut about 1/4" inch of apron material away.

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After cutting the "excess" off, the apron now sits above the surface of the play field. You can see the ball roll line on the apron so the ball will still do what it is supposed to do. I also rounded off the sharp corners on all the apron corners; They can hurt.

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Here is a pic of my Catacomb. You can see where paint has been rubbed off in the corner of the apron because of the apron.

I also just noticed that Mirco did not drill the small hole in front of the apron to install the small bump rod so I will need to drill those two holes for the bump rods.

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What I have learned about getting the inside shooter rail lined up for optimum location.
========================================================

For openers, you want the the rail inline with the drop target rubber. I cut a wood spacer block on the table saw to get it set up right. For this part you will need to use your imagination: Using a "C " clamp I clamped the inside rail to the spacer block and the outside rail. Then I was able to drill the first hole to match the hole in the play field and install the needed screw.

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I had another spacer block of same width and drilled a hole down by the apron area. And that worked---until I actually put it all together.

What you can see is that the rail is not running inline with the plastic. Yeah, I know, It is minor, but I like symmetry.

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So, all screws had to come out except for the first screw by the drop target rubber. The rail needs to be able pivot.

Next is the pic showing the 2nd spacer block. Notice how the rail is sticking out from under the apron. That is not factory.

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This is factory with the rail sitting under the apron.

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Once I got the rail where it needed to be I marked the position with some masking tape. Since the rail can pivot on the back screw I could pivot and see where Mirco's holes were at.

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The open hole in this pic is a hole that Mirco provided. And if I tried to use this hole one half of the hole would be visable and the screw would have gone up the side of the rail. I had to drill a new hole by drilling down in the center of the two pieces of masking tape. The open hole will be filled with dowel rod.

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The finished job shows the rail in perfect alignment with the plastic.

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The result is the rail is on no way going to interfere with launching a ball. And it looks even and not cockeyed.

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I assume you are talking about removing the stars without breaking the insert. If I assume correctly then I will tell you how I remove the stars after I broke an insert.

I consider the stars as consumable tools and bought a handful for a dollar for each. So now, to remove the star I cut the bottom of the star off, remove it from the insert and throw it away. 10 second job.

OK. I see.

I'm getting close. The back box is on. Tomorrow I will get all the wiring in the back box wired up and connected.

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Sure. My motivation for coming up with this was watching how my Big Game wide body play field would get all twisted when sitting on the side mount prop stick. The prop rod, with its center mounting, takes the twisting stresses away from the play field.
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It is 1/2" copper tubing. I made a small shelf and mounted 2 coat hooks for holding the rod in place.

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I made a pinch clamp from some wood. This only needs to be clamped when the pin is in transport or folded up against the wall.

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This is how the clamp looks when the pin is set up and playing.

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The upper end sits inside a PVC end cap that is screwed to the play field with 3 screws in triangle fashion.

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Semi-related to the prop rod, I have also gathered up some Gottlieb play field brackets.

The is the first position in lifting the play field.

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With the Gottlieb brackets I can also pull the play field back into stand-up position before rolling it on up against the back box.

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What is allows is for accessing the unaccessible area at the back of the cab. With the play field in this position I can reach down inside and feed the wiring up into the back box which I will be doing tomorrow. This is a minor benefit but I always take what I can get.

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Truer words have not been spoken. The way Stern made its wooden blocks and the replaced them with the metal "Z" brackets is my biggest thumbs down with the way Stern forced you to be a he-man to set an upright play field back into playing position.

Before I bought my Big Game I had bought a Gottlieb Target Pool. When I had to horse this huge Big Game play field into position I remembered how it is was to move the Gottlieb play field around with those cool "W" brackets.

This is my current remedy for Big Game. Trying to get this play field back into playing position is a Herculean task as you have to hold the front of the play field in the air with one hand while you reach around to the back to huff and puff and lift the play field over the "Z" bracket.

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This is my last mod on this Quicksilver. I fairly well figured early on I was going to have to do something.

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My Wall of Lights shadow box has some depth to it. I could have probably left well enough alone but I saw interference with the sound board coming to be a problem.

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So, I moved the sound board. Actually, I moved the lamp board over to the right, lowered the MPU into the lamp board position. And then moved the sound board to the "old" MPU position. I may try to move the LDA up above the MPU and the sound board to where the LDA now in in the lower right; I think I will have enough wire to do this. But for now this is where I am at.

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Since this is not a standard wiring position, the wire looks a little bit messy.

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And one of the sound board wire connectors has wiring that is now too short.

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I replaced the 2 wires on the sound board connector and made a support post to anchor the wire harness to so that it is in a more solid position and wires are not moving and shaking around.

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Pulling the play field all the way back on the Gottlieb support brackets makes doing wiring so much easier. I can stand along side the cab, make any last minute clean ups to the wiring, and then feed it up into the back box and make the connections.

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This is most of the wiring all connected in.

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All of the rerouting of wiring I did several weeks ago has left me with too much solenoid wiring. I'm done for the day. cleaning up the solenoid wiring will be tomorrow's project.

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The back box and all back box wiring is complete.

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My apologies. The back box wiring will be complete after I install the flipper solenoids green and orange wire in the upper left corner of the SDU. My orange wire was too short so I will be replacing it in next couple of days.

I am starting to get into the fit and finish of the small detail items.

The shooter rod was not going to cut it. Stern did not exactly install the shooter with adjustments in mind. My thoughts are that it goes back to my theory that the operator did not care about fit and finish as long as the quarters were rolling in. The casual player in the bar, or arcade, would only be interested if the ball shot out of the chute in some fashion, and the drunk in the bar, well......

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To get the adjustment I needed I had to cut/dogleg a corner of the shooter rod support bracket as it was meeting interference with the edge of the lockdown receiver.

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All better now.

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I have lights ! Sort of

I turned it on 2-3 hours ago. Raspberries.

I have a whole of of things to work through like some solenoids work during solenoid test. Only some of them work. But during game play, NO solenoids work. I'll worry about this later.

First item up: I my credit display is hosed up.

This is what you see as the player. You see 1 credit on Ball 3.

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But if you move over to the left side of the pin and look inside you can see there are actually 13 credits on. I don't recall any other QS builders talking this issue. This is the same then I had happen with my Star Gazer and by shuffling some pins on the display around, this issue went away.

Do I need to be using the Star Gazer trick to correct this?

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I have installed the Weebly boards in this QS. They are brand new and only had power applied for the first time about 2-3 hours ago.
==================================================================

Next up: My lights all flicker. I thought with the Weebly boards flickering lights were not supposed to be happening.

I don't even know where to look for the solution for this.

I have installed the Weebly boards in this QS. They are brand new and only had power applied for the first time about 2-3 hours ago.
==================================

Closely related to the flickering GI lights are the play field lights that do not turn off. Another loss of where to look for this stuff. I am tempted to replace the Weebly LDA with one of the Alltek lamp boards I have but would like to see if someone my have a different idea.

And this problem: All of my solenoids are dead. I swapped a working transformer/rectifier board assembly from my working Catacomb. But this working transformer sitting in the Quicksilver build I get nothing for solenoids.

I ran a straight line jumper wire from Rectifier board J1-pin 6 that sends power to the flippers and solenoids and I still get nothing.

As stated, this transformer/rectifier board is from my working Catacomb and the transformer I had in this Quicksilver is working 100% in Catacomb. So the problem is not with the rectifier board.

But I am clueless to why A2 Rectifier J1-6 is not sending power to the non-fused flippers.

Looking for help. Looking for suggestions. No idea is too far out there. And I am really hoping I am blind as well as stupid and someone can come in knock me on the head.

Thanks.

If I had some Quicksilver ROMs I would plug them into one of my Stern boards as a means of isolating the Weebly MPU.

If no answers are forthcoming I may have to order some QS ROMs to use for trouble shooting.

No. I don't have that. I seem to remember it now that you mention it but it must have gotten lost in the shuffle since I bought the boards some time ago. It looks like a standard .156 pin connector? Correct?

I can make one easily enough but which pin of the 3 is the active pin?

Thanks.

I have the connector for MPU J4 connected to the J 4 pin array on the MPU. But I don't know what you are saying. What is the J4 driver?

Thank you Andrew.

I have just replaced the Weebly SDU with an Alltek SDU I have. The problem persists. The displays harness is a unit from Third Coast. I'll make a quick swap with another, know good harness I have and see if that changes things.

If the problem still persists then I am going to start needing to really learn the electronics side. I know what the MPU J4 connector is.

But I do not know what, or which is, the driver J4 connectors. This is my confusion.

Easy things first. I'll get the lights wired up properly.

Thank you again.

Here is the latest.

First, note to self: DO NOT waste time cinching and tie wrapping your wire harness down until you verify everything is working.

What looked like this...
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Now looks like this...

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What has transpired:

The easy item first. I install the jumper lead as Andrew instructed. That resolved the lighting issue. All of the lights work fabulously. They are nice, bright, and clear.

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What follows makes me feel like I am shoveling shit against the tide.

1) I removed the displays harness from Third Coast Pinball and installed a harness that Marco was selling for Stern Flight 2000 that was produced my Mike's Pinball Shop.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/12B-STD-110-2

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Doing the harness swap cured my credit displays issue. 15 credits look like 15 credits. So, there is something amiss with the 3rd Coast harness ( I will need to lay them out side by side and see what is different with regards to the credit display).

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2A) But I still have no solenoids. To recap, with all the boards being new Weebly boards, I had no solenoids. Removing the Weebly MPU and replacing it with an Alltek MPU offered no change with the solenoids.

2B) Replacing the Weebly SDU with an Alltek SDU still left me with no solenoids.

2C) Replacing the 3rd Coast displays harness with the Marco harness did not fix the solenoids issue.

Two sets of boards, and two different wire harnesses did not resolve my solenoids issue.

I have one more harness to try and figure this out.

But I am going to take a short break, get my pen, and make some new entries into my book of profanity

On a positive note, comparing my 3 wire harnesses I found the problem with the credit display not being in correct position.

The 3rd Coast harness is on top.

The correct way for the wiring on the credit display is yellow wire on left, the green wire in the middle, and the white wire on the right. I was close yesterday with my try with the Star Gazer credit display issue. Once I moved the white and green wires to the right one space and move yellow left 2 two spaces the problem was fixed.

I'll need to advise Shawn of this. Since no one else has come around complaining about this I am going to assume Shawn had a brain fart happen while he is busy crimping 100s of contacts and stringing 100s of wires.

Now, back to my solenoids issues.

1) I do not have flipper operation. They are dead.

2) Some of the solenoids work in test mode.

I'll call later.

THanks.

No. Only some of the solenoids work during solenoid test. None of them work when a credit has been loaded.

I thought I posted this but I cannot find my post. I made a jumper wire from A2-J1-6 straight up to the flipper 1 amp fuse. I get nothing. The fuses check good. I do not have power to the field fuse.

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Sorry. I forgot to post a picture with this. I swapped the green, yellow, and white wire to match my Marco harness. That fixed the credit display issue.

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The Bally information is very nice to know. I will be studying that, for sure.

I appreciate the help and I will get a copy of the Bally drawings. But in the meantime...

I figured out what you were saying about driver J4.

Since I have 3 wire harnesses and my play action (no flippers/no solenoids) remains the same with each of the harnesses I took some pictures.

Here is the Driver A3-J4 connectors in comparison with each other.

1) Marco A3-J4 is on the left. The Stern Big Game harness is on the right. All wires match up pin to pin.

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2) This is Marco A3-J4 on the bottom. The Third Coast connector is on the right. All wires match up.

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3) Marco MPU A4-J4 is on top. The Stern is on bottom. All wires match up. (The Marco unit has one extra purple wire but that is related to the voice function for Flight 2000.)

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4) Marco is on the bottom. Stern is on the top. All wires match up ( The purple wire is for F2K voice.

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All connectors are keyed correctly so there is no chance any one of them can be plugged in incorrectly.

To recap,

1) I have installed 3 different harnesses: One from Marco; One from Third Coast, And an OG Stern Big Game harness.

2) I have installed both the Weebly MPU and SDU. I have also installed the Alltek MPU and SDU.

3) I have installed two different, proved working, transformer/ Rectifier boards combos.

I have jumpered a wire direct from A2-J1-6 straight up to the flipper fuse.

In every combination, I have no flippers or solenoids.

There has to be something simple going on here but I am not seeing it.

I have to step away from this for a couple of days.

I am open to any ideas. And thoughts.

Last night something happened. I don't know what and I have to other things I need to be doing some other things around the house for a couple of days. I'll leave with this head scratcher.

What you are going to see is that the flippers and all solenoids are dead, save one.

One of my pop bumpers started working. That is just one pop bumper only.

I had not paid attention to that. When I get back on this I will let you know.

In the meantime, where is the flipper relay on the Weebly SDU board. I see a small reddish brown "box" soldered to the board that I assume is the relay. Is this correct?

OK, after a few days away from this pin, I am back and still scratching my head with my flippers and solenoids problem.

Here is the lay of the land.

During solenoids test, all solenoids fire. All 3 pops work. Both sling shots work. Both drop targets work. The outhole works. And the saucer kick-out solenoid works. This is during the solenoids test.

When I hit the credit button and start game this is what I have.

The center drop target works. The right drop target works. The upper right pop bumper works. And the outhole works.

What does not work are:

The flippers.
The left pop
The lower pop.
The sling shots
and
The saucer kickout.

There is voltage to the flippers but I don't know how much. And obviously there is voltage to the flippers otherwise the 4 items I have working would not work. I also shorted the blue-white flipper power wire at the rectifier board to ground and blew the 7 amp fuse. I replaced the fuse and what was working before still works.

The 4 items I have hi-lighted in green are the working solenoids. All others are dead, but they work in solenoid test.

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Here is the little bit of flipper action I get from the right hand flipper.

I am clueless as to what is causing this problem. I have looked over all my solenoids wiring and everything looks right and as noted, everything works during solenoids test.

I'm still looking for ideas. Throw anything at the wall. Let's see what sticks.

Thanks

Oh, and to answer Andrew's question: I do not hear the SDU flipper relay clicking.

Thanks for coming in Quench.

I manually rotate either flipper and they stay up.

These are brand new flipper assemblies from Pinball Life. I filed the contacts to make sure they are clean, but there is no change. The flippers will stay up when I manually rotate them, but offer no action on their own.

My voltage is varying a little bit buy hovers right around 43-45 volts.
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For right now, I have pulled the 1 amp fuse and disabled the solenoids until I get the flipper issue resolved.

Thank you Quench. I now have flippers. What a dumb mistake. I'll need to correct my other post.