Quoted from scarybeard:New owner! There has been a Space Station in my work break room for many years and no one knew who it belonged to. I decided to plug it in one day, and after playing a few credits found it had a lot of things wrong with it. Over the past year I have been fixing and repairing various issues it had, paying for the parts out of my own pocket. It seems like almost everything in it was original, so a ton of bulbs and such needed to be replaced, and I got the station optos cleaned so it would rotate properly, etc...
My art director tracked down the original owner of the machine and told him I had been putting a lot of work into it, and the original owner said I can have it! So yay! first pin!!
As I said before, the pin needs a lot of work. I'm going to list all the problems it has here mostly as a record to myself, but also there are a few weird things the machine does that I'm not sure if its just a 'Normal' Function or not. So if you see something on this list that is a feature and not a bug let me know.
Problems to fix:
- Battery holder needs to be replaced. Board needs to be cleaned where the old batteries leaked on it.
- The left side of the General Illumination does not work. Not sure why yet.
- None of the green lights seem to be recieving power
- (green mode) does not activate. The white GI lights (on the right) remain on during multiball
- Numerical Display has sections that remain dark, though they usually start working once the machine has been on for a few hours? weird.
- The Ball Ramp is severely cracked and needs to be repaired/replaced
- Carousel feature does not always register the right spot. sometimes stops in weird positions (might need to be cleaned again)
- Carousel sometimes starts spinning constantly and wont stop until another ball goes into the saucer, or a new ball loads into the shooter lane (FEATURE?!)
- the game will randomly load 2 balls into the shooter lane. This does not seem to have any rhyme or reason to it. I'd say there is a 1/50 chance of it happening. (2nd only happens when a ball would normally be loaded, never during play)
- The Right ball lock will sometimes randomly release the locked ball for no reason.
- The saucer above and to the right of "USA" will usually not recognize that a ball is present, and I have to wait for the 'find ball' cycle for it to pop the ball up into the lock.
- Cabinet Damage: The rear of the cabinet is starting to come apart. Needs structural integrity. Scratches and chips on the wood need to be repaired.
- Backbox Damage: Far worse shape than the cabinet Needs some major wood work repair.
- Mylar needs to be lifted and replaced. Some sections (near the random button by the ramp) has already came up and let dirt and grit underneath the surface.
- AUX drop targets sometimes don't register? Sometimes I hit them all down and I do not advance the multiplier and they just remain down. Do I need to hit something after knocking down all the drop targets?
- The call out "Bay doors are open" is repeated almost continuously sometimes when you hit the drop-down in front of the ramp. It gets SUPER annoying to the point that no one wants the volume above a whisper. Is she supposed to say that over and over? Because sometimes she doesn't, which makes me think its a bug.
- 'Tecno static' is the best way I can describe it.... There is a noise that is made when 2 balls are locked that is a technological chaos noise that is extremely annoying and loud and will continuously play until you start multi ball, or loose a ball. It contributes to the 'no volume rule' at work.
- 'Flipper buttons need to be replaced. both of them have cracked plastic.
- All the raised plastic pieces need to be replaced. I am thinking of doing a custom job of this rather than buying aftermarket replacements... Concept images soon on what I have in mind.
- I need a lot of new hardware and need to replace a bunch of hardware currently in the machine. It is clear 'someone' was trying to repair this thing and was too lazy to go buy even the simplest replacement parts. The right slingshot rubber was being held in place by a WOOD SCREW that was forced into the metal threaded bracket under the playfield..... That's an idea of the sort of nonsense I've had to deal with...
- Pop bumpers all work ok, but seem weak. I'll probably take them apart and maybe replace the solinoids.
- A few rubbers still need to be replaced. I have replaced all the easy ones but once I get the playfield taken apart I'll get all new rubber on there.
- Lots of LED's. Again, I think 50% of the game has already been converted to LED. I just need to get to the rest of it.
WHEW! that's a lot of work ahead of me. If you guys have any advice on how to go about some of this stuff (especially the electrical problems) I'd appreciate the info. I'm attaching some images here of the machine. Mostly of the Cabinet Damage. If anyone has experience repairing this type of damage let me know. I'm mostly new to all of this:
Welcome to the space station!!!
Sounds like you have quite the job ahead of you.
First, ask for pictures from us of any connectors that plug into the boards that doesn't look proper... Same for the connectors to the relays under the playfield
Replace and re-pin any brown connectors. Especially for the power boards and the relays under the playfield (those relays control the condition green lamps and the turning off of the GI)
Pop bumpers... Re flowing the solder on the connector pins on the back of the power supply may possibly help with weakness. If the coils work at all most likely they don't need replacing, they just need good clean power.
Rebuild the power supply, Google this or pm me, I'll point you in the right direction
The raised plastics? I'm guessing you are talking about the art plastics on the posts that cover up the lamps / mechanics. Don't do a custom job, buy the set , they are nice, it will save you a hundred hours of work. , or ask people here to sell you their used nice ones.
The "space station" carousel is called the "space station" there are the possibilities that the optic sensors need to be replaced that are under it, or the teeth in the motor are eaten and the motor needs to be replaced.
The ramp can be fixed, or you can buy a new one from freeplay40 here on pinside.
The drop targets switch may need adjustment, or there may be a cold solder joint... Same for the single drop target next to the ramp.
Removing the Mylar may possibly mess up the art that is on the inserts, it will be hard to stomach, but it may be a better idea to leave it in place. (Not every game can be made perfect in this regard easily, not without hundreds of dollars and conplete removal of the playfield and a specialist to restore and clear coat the playfield)
The displays probably have cold solder joints on the pins???
Read the restoration and bullet proofing threads by vid1900 here on pinside, they are a wealth of knowledge.
Oh yes.... And read this entire thread, it will answer several of your questions and help you along 
Olympia, WA
