I've been making custom color posts lately (reference http://rocketcitypinball.com), and so I decided to put black ones in my Space Shuttle. I think the black ones look great on space themes (and card game themes too). I also should be receiving some new filament today that's black with sparkles in it -- could be space post with stars! I'll print some of those and you can see what you think there too.

For Space Shuttle, I left the red ones in up by the rollover lanes since they light up well and match the lane guides, and I left a few that were inaccessible under the ramp (didn't want to tear the whole machine apart right now), but replaced all the others. I like it!

I also noticed after to taking these pics that the right side of my ramp entry is cracking, eesh...

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Looking nice Andy, I like the contrast against the white rubbers. Also, I saw your ad for your photos here on pinside, good luck with them. As always, great work.

Found some

Anyone know of someone who is looking to join the club?

Machine - For Sale

Space Shuttle Archived

Partially shopped/refurbished - “Selling a fully functioning players Space Shuttle. Recently cleaned a few months ago with a new rubber ring set. New cap kit on power supply. New set of Game roms, nvram from pinit...”

2020-10-28

Li, NY

Crispin

1,500 (OBO)

Archived after: 15 days

Viewed: 856 times

Status: Not sold

I'm in.

What is an upgraded coil for this title? 23-600 seems like a weak sister to me.

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https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/space-shuttle-crew-members-club-prepare-for-liftoff/page/55#post-5602487

That is what I ended up with and it feels a little too powerful for me. I mean, it's fun hitting the spinner at the speeds they produce but the shuttle ramp is a bit too easy.

Ah so you went to the later parallel wound coils vs the stock early series wound coils.

The only way I can make the shuttle ramp now is if I'm striking the ball while its at speed. If I cradle and take the shot it doesn't have enough power to make it. Bushings have been changed out and I'm using Titan flipper elastics.

LED displays, flippers rebuild kits with orange coils on the way from thepinballwizard.net!

Did a full rebuild/vid upgrade on mine shortly after I got it a few months ago. Went from not making it up the ramp to the ball flying everywhere. Didn’t change the coils just everything else.

Too late! Ordered.

If the coils end up to be too much they will just end up in my parts cabinet. New coils and rebuild kits only $60

Everything looks ok and I even installed a few pieces which didn't make much difference. Will only get worse when I crank up rear adjusters another inch

So my parts came in yesterday and I rebuilt the flippers and installed the FL11630 coils.. and a very UNSATISFACTORY change. If anything I think the flippers are even weaker now. New links, plungers, springs, EOS switches, stops, etc. Made sure cabinet flipper buttons were cleaned and gapped correct. Checked voltages at flipper board and at coils and coil ground path. Even swapped out the 50v flipper power board just to be double sure.

In retrospect, I should have ordered the orange coils FL15411, I'm no better off than where I started at the moment.

Vid's flipper guide with different coils listed:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-upgradingrebuilding-flippers/page/35#post-3644296

Instructions for wiring:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-upgradingrebuilding-flippers/page/35#post-3644406

Installed the Rottendog LED displays, thumbs up there! Reinstalled the original William's power board with high voltage circuit disabled.

Regarding flippers being too weak.... This may be an obvious statement but be sure you don't have your back legs too high.
All four legs should be set at the same height on this table.

Set fairly level.

And I want to raise it as I feel the game is a little slow as it is.

I am getting rather exasperated with this pin!

Tonight the FL15411 (orange) coils from Marco came in.. and no better than FL11630. Seriously.

I'm getting ready to slap some Data East flipper mechs and coils in this bitch.

I'll drop Marco a line in the morning, this is very disappointing.

Is it just the gap on your eos switches?

Gap needs to be an 1/8th inch. Make sure you adjust properly. If it’s not you’re losing power

Did you replace the sleeve and coil stop too?

Space shuttle, the game you love... To hate! mine has had a bit of a mean streak in her lately to, but I've been in it for the Long Haul and it's worth the fight.

All flipper hardware is brand new including EOS which is gapped proper. Voltages are spot on.

This is something I have to check on mine since I'm chasing flipper issues.

I noticed the range seems short and wondering if this is the cause of my problems.

I’ll take a pic for you of how far my flippers go up. Will post for you around lunch time

Thank you, really at my wits end on this.

New parallel wound orange coils wired correctly, springs, sleeves, EOS switches, plungers and stops. Voltages and ground path at the coils checked. 50V power board swapped for known good unit. Flipper switches cleaned and gapped. I'm getting full voltage to the coils but very little power to speak of.

Did you adjust the gap yourself? My understanding is that they don't always/ever come pre-adjusted.

Of course.

Weird. I hope you get it figured out.

Hey misterhare a special shout-out and thank you to you. A while back you mentioned in a post using an electric toothbrush for cleaning contacts and parts. Would have never occurred to me and it's become my go-to tool around the pinball machine. It's also been serving me well in my glass business for cleaning up repairs prior to fixing them. Although I did get in a little trouble when my granddaughter saw her princess poppy electric toothbrush in my workshop. Again great suggestion , thanks.

Shuttle has not been my friend lately. I just can't seem to get a great handle on playing this for particularly high scores, or even for what FEEL like good games played lately.

I'm planning on paring down probably three games early 2021..I don't think shuttle makes the list (right now I'm leaning Alien Poker, Terminator 2, and most likely high speed as I have getaway now and HS already left my house on loan anyway).

Maybe I need to check my legs and see what kind of slope I'm using. Idk. Doesn't seem like this game would be one that just dunks on me until the end of time for for some reason it just does.

//edit

This is where they were when I checked. The front legs were up a tiiiiiny bit. I dropped them ALL to the floor and it was just dreadful. Obviously it was super slow and floaty but ironically it didn't seem to help my gameplay any. I ended up adjusting the back legs slightly lower than they were (but probably ultimately about the same slope with the front all the way down).

I played several games and it was pretty dreadful. Maybe I'm just in a funk with it, idk. Even 500K was a 'good' game with how today went.

Oh, and now my spinner is acting up (in addition to the wonky pop light that's been that way since I got it and wasn't resolved when I tried resoldrring). Sigh, calling it a loss for now.

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Really? I don't remember suggesting that but I'll take undue credit for sure!

Had to go back 6 months but these are words of wisdom

You should have spent that time looking up the post, working on shuttle!

To be clear, I said toothbrush. You came up with the electric part with your own brain. Which is a great idea, btw!

I'll accept half credit.

Sorry for the delay. Wasn’t able to step away at lunch

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If I was at home I probably would be, slow work day for me today. Getting a little frustrated with the shuttle, if it was a horse I'd take it out back and shoot it.

Best reference point! Bell's? Founders?

Bell’s double two hearted!!!

Can your flippers make it to the beer?

If my flippers make it to the beer, I think we're in trouble.

Two hearted is what got me into IPAs. Double Two Hearted is what got me into trouble.

Ok this is what I found today-

1) Came home from work and noted that the flippers only come up to the bottom of the orange inserts.

2) Removed the rubber stops

3) Readjusted the flippers so at rest instead of being over the alignment holes they are in front of them like yours are.

4) Took the flipper bracket steel stop plates and bent them back a bit so there is a slightly wider range of flipper travel.

When I was done, the flippers are almost to the top of the orange inserts now.

After doing all that I can utterly RAIL the ball up the ramp now. Had zero problems pounding the ball up the ramp several times and can backhand into the locks now which could never do before.

wOOt!

well worth the fight. Keep Flippin

Ok so a couple of questions. Steel stop plate- the coil stop? You may have home that is to thick at the bottom. Of you bend it, that could cause the coil to move. That’s not good. What rubber stops where in there? Glad you can hit the ramp now but could have troubles down the road.

Ended up with an Ohio beer then 2 more Michigan beers!

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Dark ,rich ,full-body goodness and some pretty impressive coasters as well.

The coasters do come in handy

Since I would not sell my buddy my space shuttle, he bought 2 for me to restore. Very time consuming for sure, however I have finally finished 1 cabinet. Now to paint the second next week and then move onto the playfield swaps with new CPR playfield for 1 and a hard top for the other.

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Happy with the results sanding down the side rails. Here is a before and after sanding them from 220 grit to get the scratches out from removing the nails to 5000 grit wet sand using WD40. Just about mirror finish.

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No, not the coil stop but where the rubber plunger stop is installed. I have seen the plates bent back like that on a few William's and now I know why, to increase the travel range.

I'm going to look it over to come up with a permanent solution. Either the new rebuild kits have plungers and stops that are hair too long or some other issue with the arm ratio. I think I'll break out the micrometer this weekend and go over the old and new parts and compare them to my Blackout as well.

In your photo, the back leg is way to high IMO. The ball will have a hard time making it up the ramp. Flipper position is also critical for this game. They need to be set above the guide holes.

can you post the link to the part that had the rubber stop?

Picture attached. The hole is where the rubber plunger stop goes and they do come in 3 different thickness. Bending the tab back on an angle gains you more flipper travel.

I'm thinking the plunger and link assembly is too long, hence the reduced travel but will have to measure everything up this weekend.

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gotcha. that rubber stop just saves the linkage from getting damaged.

Yup, it's the at rest position of the plunger.

The distance between the coil stop, plunger length and plunger stop dictates flipper range of travel.

Respectfully I disagree on the rear legs. I ended up with them here. Much lower than this ends up resulting in AMAZINGLY slow gameplay. The ball should never feel floaty on a hardtop...imo.

As for flipper position, I played around with this a lot because the ramp was extremely hard to hit originally. I ended up buying two new coils and settled for the flippers set here. Any higher and it's almost impossible to lock balls left or right.

I'm not saying I'm set up 'correctly' but based on my many trials with this, this feels far closer to how I think it should play than other setups I've tried.

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It seems earlier in this thread within the last 2 months, someone and I forget who, was having the same issue setting up their flippers. They ended up 3D printing a narrower piece for that plunger stop, that seemed to be the ticket. might be worth checking out.

Possible, or I can break out my bandsaw & welder and move the stop back too =)

Few ways to skin this particular cat now that I have identified the problem area.