Occasionally I hear a grinding sort of motor noise from my Station when I turn on the game, and very rarely but sometimes during times of the game where it needs to move.

Almost seems to me like it’s just trying to get set into the right spot and trying to figure out what’s what.

I don’t have any instance of it spinning through wrong way like I believe I’ve read when I went through the whole thread after buying my game last year.

Anyway, it works just fine but just a bit concerned that the grinding is the beginning of something bad.

This might help
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/space-station-club-members-only/page/59#post-5491835

That’s exactly what i was looking for. Thank you!

I have 2 nos space station opto boards to sell. Bought from operator clearance years ago part no 5768-12202-00

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Pm me if interested

FWIW, just replaced the all the rubber on my space station. I originally bought the Superband post rubbers from Marco. They were all just ever so slightly shorter than they should be leaving a little slop on the mounting posts. I ended up going to Titan pinball for the all new post rubber, rings, etc. They had some light blue post rubbers which look a lot nicer than the yellow. I also used glow in the dark rubber rings which look really good in the daylight as well. I'm REALLY happy with the play and the quality as well as the look of the light blue and the Glow rubber.

Rip Barry Oursler, talented Designer of Space Station and many other great pinball machines.

I’m in! Found a nice copy. Needs a good cleaning/shop but everything seems to be working!

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Does anyone happen to have a spare left gate for the left locked ball? I overlooked it when I bought the machine and it was broken laying up near the top lanes. I can’t seem to find one on Marco, Pinball Life, etc.

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My right one broke and I found one close enough on marco. It wasn't marked as being the space station gate. I bought a couple different ones and hit the jackpot!

Picked up this space station about 2 weeks ago. CPU needed some transistors replaced along with flipper work and new displays. Finally got it fully working and shopped out. Looks and plays really well! Here’s some before and Afters. 58A68AA4-6952-467D-A868-02B288576CD5 (resized).jpeg58A68AA4-6952-467D-A868-02B288576CD5 (resized).jpeg58A68AA4-6952-467D-A868-02B288576CD5 (resized).jpeg58A68AA4-6952-467D-A868-02B288576CD5 (resized).jpeg58A68AA4-6952-467D-A868-02B288576CD5 (resized).jpegB319C513-1F38-46AB-A7E2-2172A48EBC73 (resized).jpeg

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When I have the "original" gate on hand but broken:
1. measure the diameter of the wire with calipers
2. go to my local welding supply store and purchase a single stainless steel filler rod of the closest diametre.
3. go to it with a couple of pairs of needle nose pliers, a vice, etc and make a copy

I had to make a gate for my BSD. I also bought one from Marco. I think mine was actually superior, in the end.

Would anyone trade there space station for an excalibur?

I will add cash depending on condition.

Depends if you would like to drive cross country

This is what the excalibur looks like.

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Roger Liberty, you're looking good!

Just joined the club!!

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Join this guy's discord group

He manufactures high quality prints, sent me a new translite, can have cutout version or not. He can also print directly to the glass.

He also shipped me a full cab decal set, he does a pro version with raised inks to immitate a screen printed cab. You can feel thenm with your hand.

Also does the speaker panel and prints for other machines.

Only downside is it takes a while but was well worth the wait.

Good prices too.

https://discord.gg/THJ9PR4chD

Started pretty rough. Decals were stored poorly by the previous owner, so I knew it wouldn't be perfect. Still so much better.

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I just noticed this on the playfield... a monolith. Is this like a little Easter Egg shout-out to the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey?

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Yeah, it's a cool semi-hidden touch.

The bottom of my playfield is pretty dried out and flaking at the drain. Still looking for a possible replacement. Doesn't have to be perfect. If outer edge had made a hardtop for this, I would be doing that. :/

Could someone tell me what kind of black paint is best to use on the cabinet? Maybe a paint code from Lowe's or similar? I am going to do some touching up to the cabinet, mostly on the backside of the cabinet and backbox.

I got some really specific paint codes for work I did to a Lethal Weapon and also Funhouse and wondered if there were similar specifics about the black used on a Space Station.

Thanks.

I’ve got parts on the way but wanted to get started dismantling. Will be getting a good cleaning and assessment of anything chipped, cracked or broken and then new rubber rings and post sleeves, new blue plastic star posts all around, lots of new LEDs as well as complete new flipper assemblies with white Williams logo flipper bats. New leg bolts and protectors, leg levellers, backbox wing bolts and clasp. Probably a few other things I’m forgetting. Love the game.

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Everyone should make their game unique and how they like it, but one suggestion while you have it all apart that I love from doing it on mine is to get the led star post illumination kits. It really brightens up the playfield nicely and you can dim or brighten them to suit you. I went with blue with blue lights on my play field and UV Glow white with UV lights on my sling rubber and sling posts. Gives it an eerie space glow down there.

Those look really cool. And a lot of playing around with combos of different bulb colours, post colours, brightness and whatnot. You got any pics of them on your game?

There are definitely spots on games that need more light. Much easier to play when you can see the ball!

Say, you don't happen to know what is the right black paint to use on cabinet touch-ups, do you? I asked here thinking someone might chime in, but no one has yet.

I need the black paint, myself (and the red and white). I have gotten them yet, either.

This pic doesn’t do it justice. I’ll try and snag a couple more tomorrow.
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Tried to get some better ones

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I’ll definitely keep my eye out for a game with those lit up star posts. I’m sure you’d get the full effect that way.

Found this little guy on my game. Just a normal rubber post sleeve that’s been slit down the length of it and slipped over the wire bar beside the stand up target.

Anyone seen this done before? Common practice? Reason for doing?

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Maybe to try and reinforce the side of the ramp there? Takes an absolute pounding.

Hello Space Station Club.
Glad to be here, got a space station about a month ago. Needed some work, now playing daily.
I have a tech question:
Fuse F2 in the aux power board blew the other day, my tech sheet says 5amp sb, the drawing of the board says 4amp sb, and the actual wiring diagram says 2amp. Images attached.
What should be the correct fuse size for F2 on the aux power board.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

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Way back when,
I tried to explain that little Easter Egg to the home owners of the game.
They just did not get it... looked at me with blank stares.

I'll have to look closer at that as I get everything back together. My ramp has been repaired so maybe that rubber sleeve was added in the interim...

Speaking of those metal guide bars... how were they put into the playfield? I don't believe they are threaded as there isn't anything coming out the underside. Were they just pushed in part way and glued? Or just left snugged in without glue?

Reason I ask is that a couple of these guide bars are pushed down a little farther than they should be. Mostly around the USA rollover targets at the top of the game. They aren't so far down that the ball would ever get hung up or hit a light bulb. Just want to pull them back up a little bit and wasn't sure what I needed to do to be able to do that?

Those are just press fit into the playfield. To remove or in your case, raise, just put something flat to protect the playfield and pry them up.

Guys I’m constantly getting rejects after shooting and hitting the left lock (shooting to the left habit rail and going under the mini playfield)

1. Is there supposed to be a 1-way gate to keep the ball from bouncing out?

2. Is there an adjustment anyone has to keep the ball from rejecting?

There should be a little foam bumper at the end to reduce or stop the bounce back. If not add one.

Thank you, I’ll crack it open

If the price was right...

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What’s up everyone. New pilot here. Just got my Space Station and love it! It’s right at home next to its brother, Space Shuttle.

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Anyone know where I can get a new translight?

Roger Liberty, you're looking good!

Wow, the blacks on your cabinet look really good and crisp! Most excellent looking game, dude! Welcome aboard!

Recently, I fixed the right flipper and the game worked fine without any issues for several days and many plays. When I went to turn it on the other day, the issue appeared and the machine wouldnt boot.

Space Station turns on but the display never comes up and there is a loud buzzing sound coming out of the speakers now.

I looked at the CPU board and it looks like it is burned (on Q79) and this was not there last time I remember so I assume this is the culprit that is preventing the game from tuning on.

Can anyone confirm that this would be the issue from preventing the machine from not booting? And if so, is this board fried or can it be repaired? If this is not the issue, where should I start looking to determine why the game will not boot?

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Start with the basics:
Power supply:
Have you changed the capacitors associated with the +5volt regulator?

I have not done anything yet since the machine failed to boot.

Was there something unique about the Space Station cabinets and specifically about how the backbox mounts? Reason I ask is that I bought a couple new replacement 2” standard wing bolts and they aren’t quite long enough. Just wondering why.

Hi @ all. Joined the owner's club earlier ths year and wanted to share some insights from the revisions i made to my machine.

Condition when I bought it was ok but not great. Most annoying thing imho: The pesky 28V bulbs that you cannot replace with 12V LEDs.

There is probably easier solutions, but I added a small voltage transformer (about 9€ from ebay) an rewired the whole thing. Neat feature: the lights can be dimmed!

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I noticed some holes in the backbox door that were obviously meant for light sockets. It seems Williams saved 2 bucks of production cost by not equipping them, so I added them myself. Pic 1 shows the locations of the "missing" lights, Pic 2 shows the backbox with added lights.

My machine has a translite from PinballCenter (Germany); nice and colorful, but no cut-outs. To make the station wheel lights more "focused", I taped short tubes around them; same with the planet in the background and the "station flasher" (pics 3&4).

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The "flame flasher" (solenoid 06C) was not working on my machine. I traced the issue to the interconnect board in the lower back of the cabinet (pic 1).

I found no schematics for this board in the manual, but I figured, for the solenoid to work, the board would need to be wired as shown by the red line in pic 2. Blue and yellow line are for other solenoids that work correctly, but, strangely, the encirceled pin on the board does not seem to go anywhere at all. After adding a jumper as shown in pic 3, the flasher works just fine.

Is the board defective by design? Does the "flame flasher" (solenoid 06C) work on any of your stations? If yes... do you know, why? (Maybe I am missing something obvious here as I not an expert.)

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