Hi guys,

Just recieved my space station last week and I'm loving it. It came with some issues though.

Pro's
- Nice playfield, got mylar, almost none insert lift
- Good electronics
- Good display
- Decent cabinet
- Reasonable price

Cons
- Mini playfield could be better and is cracked on the right side
- Ramp entrance cracked
- Reset issues
- Head is chipped at one corner

Power supply has been rebuilt last weekend and new version roms are installed. It's working like a charm again. I added leds and I must say that this machine just loves the leds, what a great difference.

Now I'm in the proces of added trough lighting:

sstrough (resized).JPG

Trough lighting is great but when condition green is active the blue pops out and just is annoying. Therefor I engineered a little solution where in the case of condition green the trough lighting will lightup green as well.
In my "lab-environment" it looks like so:

sstroughblue (resized).JPG

sstroughgreen (resized).JPG

Very sharp eye sir. The left flipper is indeed the wrong "lightning" version. Right is the correct one. I will replace for new flippers in a short while along with all new starposts, silicone bands and a complete flipper assembly rebuild.

It's actually very easy. Just buy 2 24Volts print relay like this one: https://www.conrad.nl/p/fujitsu-ftr-b3-ca-24v-printrelais-24-vdc-2-a-2x-wisselcontact-1-stuks-504392

Buy a rgb controller from like ali-express for 50 cents. Fix yourself up with a led rgb strip (60 leds / meter). Connect the NC side (normal connect) of the relais switch from the rgb controller to the led strip so that in normal mode the strip is feeded by the controller. The NO (normal open) side of the relais for the green wire of the led strip must be connected to ground of the +12 volts.

Now comes the hard part:

Connect the +12V to the rgb controller (and the ground to the relais as mentioned before). I get 12 volts from the drop down target bank which gives the bonus multiplier.
Connect the relais to the condition green relais to the if the condition green relais gets energized your relais gets energized as well.

I will post some pics to make it somewhat more visual.

I wasn't aware that there are 5V usb strips, will most definately investigate this.
Your approach has two flaws though:

1. you cannot regulate the color of the lighting in the normal state as to my approach enables the user to select the color using the rgb ontroller. The solid blue isn't the best color in my opinion, I set it to somewhat "baby blue"
This point was one of my main concerns in my design.

2. with a diode in series to the GI you will see that the lighting will flicker. You need to add a capacitor to stop the flickering.

Another mod I will make is the illuminated flipper buttons. Normaly I tie the leds into the GI string of the coindoor because that's the closest but in this case I will mount 2 leds per side, a green one which will be tied the condition green GI and the other will be blue, red or white (must experiment with that) which will be tied into the normal GI string.

Well, that will never last. You need to protect your work with clearcoat else your decals and touchups will be gone before you know it. Even worse, now you removed the mylar your playfield wear will be imminent.

Great design!

Some lazy day fiddling around. Added flipper button lighting. Blue for normal mode and green (obviously) for condition green. Tied it to both GI strings and came out looking nifty and sharp.

SS-blue (resized).jpg

SS-green (resized).jpg

Great,

Not only the gap is important (well, it's related), but the timing of opening. If the EOS is opening too early the flipper also looses power. I see that the gap of your EOS is pretty big. Maybe you can gain some extra oompf there?

Just count them, open up your pf and count. Color coordinate the insert lights.
Mine uses milky dome warm white for the GI and milky dome green for the condition green. I think it's really hard to make a list of all the leds with its color, wedge or bulb, and all other specs. I regularly exchange the leds until i'm satisfied.

Do not mistake the top field "flashers". There are 2 flashers and 3 "bulbs". Those 3 bulbs look like flashers but aren't!! These are #1251 type bulbs and have a higher resistance as the normal #89 flashers.

The 2 "coils" which are being energized: replace the corresponding TIP102 and leading transistor. If that doesn't fix the issue the leading IC (most probable a 7408) must be replaced but i've never seen that. The TIP102 will be the first suspect.

Testing a PIA is actually done by the program on boot up. Appearantly your CPU cannot communicate with U10 correctly. I would start swapping the PIA as this component is not that expensive. You can also test your pia's with Leon's test rom (search for it). But my best guess is that a trace is bad due to acid damage, judged only on your entry.

Your sound issue is most probably caused by that U10 as that one is controlling your sound output and some of your solenoids.

Hmmmm, typing my reply and reading back through your post made me realize that U10 is bad. Replace it and maybe your issue is fixed but you need to test all traces going to U10. (See schematics)

you can always check for "missing roms" by checking IPDB and downloading the rom files.

sssssss (resized).JPG

About the sounds: what happens if you disconnect the flatcable from the soundboard? Do you still hear the same amount of sounds / callouts? From the top of my head: the background music is handled by the external soundboard.

I meant: what happens when you disconnect j4 from the soundboard?