GREAT stuff.

Agreed. Great community on this here pinside.

We had Dave Thomas (STS-65, 70, 83 and 94) speak at our library last Summer. Space Shuttle is just a ploy to get the girls into science. I mean, pinball is all physics, right?!

We also got to finally visit KSC a few years ago and had a great time. The shuttle museum was awesome. The Atlantis reveal is excellent showmanship/staging.

Hey Paul, speaking of great stuff, I know you were putting together a pretty shiny shuttle a few years back. Do you have a current pic you can share with us?

Great video, John! As you'd probably guess, I have a lot of photos from those few days.

Chokes me up every time. I was in love with the Space Shuttle ever since I was old enough to be in love with anything. Spending the first nine years of my career working on it was a dream come true.

If any of you folks make it down here to FL and plan to do KSC, let me know -- I'll meet you out at Atlantis and will walk you around her for a tour of the airframe and answer questions and whatnot.

That sounded like a tease, so here are a few I shot during those last few days before Discovery headed up to the Smithsonian:

103SCAB&W_Discovery (resized).jpg

FuselageReflection (resized).jpg

HitchingARide_Discovery (resized).jpg

Sendoff (Discovery) (resized).jpg

This one below is my favorite though -- got a sweet shot with my car I had at the time. I have a big print of this hanging in my garage.

IMG_0882a_smallTFP (resized).jpg

So John came by earlier today and we played around with the truss. Using his modular setup shown in previous posts, he printed white caps and white trusses, and clear ones as well. We tried them atop the original caps and then removed the caps and tried again -- wow, check this out!!!

This setup is with clear printed caps and a white truss. (Clear truss disappeared too much, so white looks better -- but the clear bases light up so well, it looks amazing!)

John is going to enlarge the cap diameter -- and will have to have incorporate a little dome clearance for the bulb -- but then these will just fully replace the original bumper caps.

20200606_144607 (resized).jpg20200606_144610 (resized).jpg20200606_144630 (resized).jpg

Just to hold it until John makes the new caps, I attached it with double sided tape and played a game to see how it looks. Here are some videos...

BOING!!! oops, I'll admit it , that was the sound of a space shuttle boner.

But seriously guys, that looks really cool. That said, do those caps align with the screw holes on the existing bumper caps?

After seeing how good the thing looks without the original bumper removed, I'll be making a new set of caps to replace the ones in the model and make them a little bigger around. I will use the diameter of the new flat Stern bumper caps as a model.

The reason I ask, is because a setup just like that would look really spot on for what I've got going currently. Looks really nice John, hats off!

20200421_215510_005_saved (resized).jpg

Can't blame you for that, hell if it was me I'd probably take it out before bed... And sleep with it. That might just be the shuttle boner speaking.

Here's a question John, since you'll be tweaking the model again anyway. How difficult would it be to change the posts on the bumper caps to hollow tubing to allow for light transference up to the nibs?

We did put clear nibs in the setup shown, they don't appear to light up very much. A hollow shaft in the posts might help a little but it'll probably still be pretty subtle. I could be wrong though!

Derp, I hadn't checked that and could use that to hold em on, just without fully seating them. Yep, screw hole alignment seems just right.

1591491602986178131595974396901 (resized).jpg

Looks sharp Andy, did they interfere with being able to see the ball going through the USA Lanes?

Could also allow for wiring if a guy wanted to run an led up to the top perhaps.

Could also allow for running a wire up through there with an LED perhaps.

Not at all. Granted, I'm tall.

Looks pretty damn fantastic.

Here’s some shots of the pre modular print. All in grey. I never thought of putting this in sans caps so I have it on top of my caps. The screw holes aren’t perfect but line up pretty close. I think a bit of reaming and they’d be fine as is.

I do think even with caps the clear modular a bases would look good.

Sorry for the sideway pics. Doing this on my phone and the rotate buttons aren’t playing nice.

5C423CD4-42CA-48A9-9870-26C86CD87D94 (resized).jpeg

9DBBED8D-23AA-4592-8C8E-7B958C6A2E68 (resized).jpeg

C52B76FF-FE52-4E83-96A2-B0AADBCA709C (resized).jpeg

CD09483B-7692-4F7B-BDC2-2003E23B0F7C (resized).jpeg

E08F9533-5270-4347-AC5D-4148B9BC35BC (resized).jpeg

No not really, mine is nothing special, put my Let Lights and Cup Light on it and a lit Angle Eye start button on. It does play nice though. I have a mirrored back glass for sale if anyone local need one. I will not ship cuz it's glass.

This version seems doable. It seems whether they're painted after the fact, or different sections printed in different colors and materials ,there's a lot of potential for this piece. Even sideways

Guys, I am happy for you to do what you wish with the design. The one thing I don’t want is anyone selling them for profit. I made the model with the intention that it is free for all who want it. Printing it at cost for others is fine but not making profit from somebody else’s work.

I have an MPU board that needs attention, it is cooked in a few spots beyond my repair abilities.

Does anyone have a recommendation on where to send? Thx.

http://www.edcheung.com/album/album05/pinball/shuttlepin.htm
Dr. Edward Cheung
Contact this guy there's nobody better. He received my board ,which was toast ,on a Thursday and on Saturday had a video on YouTube of it working 100%. There's also a lot of great information on his website's shuttle pinball pages. Did I mention he was one of the lead engineers on sts-125 to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Works on the shuttle boards as a hobby and knows this machine inside and out. And an all-around nice guy.

That reminds me SkyKing2301 , if you have a chance you might appreciate his page as well. He's got a collection of astronaut signatures all over his Plastics that would rival yours.
http://www.edcheung.com/album/album05/pinball/shuttlepin.htm

Btw, while I wait for new caps from John, in the meantime I counterbored the existing ones with a Forstner bit to provide clearance for the bulb, so now they sit nice and flush.

20200607_220734 (resized).jpg

20200607_221707 (resized).jpg

I can personally recommend Chris Hibler. http://chrishiblerpinball.com/

I regularly do repairs on Bally and Williams MPUs etc but with my system 9 board I was a bit paranoid because they are so rare and expensive. So I sent my Space Shuttle board to Chris. The price was reasonable and the work was fast and top notch. He does great work and is a regular here on pinside.

Haha, looks like he and I both have Scott Altman and Mike Massimino. Perhaps these are the only two astronauts to autograph two separate Space Shuttle pinball machines. lol

We interrupt your 3D Printer Lovefest program for a mundane-yet-pleasant look at an eBay keychain find.

key (resized).JPG

OK, now back to your printed trusses.

-Jason

Thanks for the reply!

Had a chance to look at this today.
Going through self-test of coils, when I trigger the hot dog flashers, these 4 thruster lights to not pulse.
During gameplay, getting the hot dog flashers to light also doesn't make these 4 thruster bulbs light.

So, something's amiss w/ this flasher circuit.

I'm not familiar with this scheme, with the ceramic resistors & bonus little boards.
Where do you recommend I start troubleshooting, or what is the usual culprit here?

Thank you very much,
-Jason

thrust (resized).JPG

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/anyone-else-love-key-fobs-showm-off

Jason I wish I knew for sure what direction to send you on this ,I'm far from the go-to guy for the under the hood stuff. with that said ,if it were me I would check for continuity back to 1j12, check that connection is seated well. If that checks out It could be a bad Drive transistor at q59.good luck.

So here is my weekend offering, it's a print of a reverse painting on glass I did back in the early 90s. Enjoy! On a side note, I see the wheels have come off the bus of our " 3D Love Fest", LOL, if anyone has any images of the latest printed version that we haven't seen installed yet please share them.

20200607_145221 (resized).jpg

Update on truss mod -- new cap options.

Ultimately I was torn between the original clears and the new clears, so I put all the new clears in for now. (Truss itself staying white.)
20200613_164348 (resized).jpg

Looks nice Andy, my vote definitely goes for the new design in clear.

Now, I can neither confirm nor deny any specifics, & I will admit nothing, but in completely unrelated news, because these 4 flashers are arranged in 2 series strings of 2 bulbs each, in theory, if 1 bulb in each of those 2 strings is burned out, then 0 bulbs will flash.

The flashy rocket thrust effect is pretty sweet indeed.

-Jason

Hey that reminds me, I was going to say , have you checked to make sure all the bulbs are good.

Gee, thanks a lot.

My SS sound quit working. If I crank the potentiometer up and down I hear crackles so I know the amplifier is working but no sound. I pulled the three chips and reseated them and all the sockets are in the correct holes I reseated the ribbon cable still no sound. HELP!

Check the connector j15 at the bottom of your board give that a wiggle

Rescued this one from a flooded house that was falling down. There was literally a waterfall coming down from second floor about 10 feet from it.

After alot of elbow grease... It looks fairly presentable and actually plays so good. Man, I ended up loving this game. Thanks to Chuck at Spooky for really getting me hooked on this title...

Cheers.

Brian

20200612_222825 (resized).jpg

Looking good! FYI, you're not spose to open a door with a "Doorsock" on it

Finally! https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-playfields/shuttle-playfield/#playfield

Cool, but I don't think I even paid that much for my game and the included extra populated pf.

I'm new to the repair world and am looking for advice on how to trouble shoot an issue with my Space Shuttle. The spinner is not scoring any points when I hit it. Any help is greatly appreciated.

This may be a simple fix. First check to see that the wire attached to the spinner is seated in the right position. Sometimes it moves its way up that shoulder and won't register points. If that checks out check below the play field ,that wire should be attached to a switch stack. It attaches through the hole in the long tab on the switch.

20200614_115051 (resized).jpg

Thanks a lot. That was quick, I'll check it right away.

Ha! Thanks, man. The “door sock” is a bit of an inside joke if you could see the rest of my game room,,

Really love this game. So many rules that I had no clue about when I used to flip it at the local arcade back when this baby was new!!