Third Coast Pinball is now set to manufacture Stern back box harnesses for Star Gazer. This harness is constructed of all new 18 and 22 gauge tinned and stranded wire with Molex and Mate-n-lok plugs and trifurcon pins where available. Proper wire color coding is adhered to. All plugs properly keyed and clearly labeled. This harness connects all five displays with the MPU (J-1 and J-4), SB-300 sound card (J-2 and J-3), light board (J-4), solenoid board (J-3 and J-4), the plug for the volume pot and speaker, the plug that powers the back box lighting(GI and controlled) and the rectifier board (J-3). I know a lot of the beautiful play fields that were recently produced are going into scratch builds and you guys are going to need these. I want to get an idea of how many people are interested in buying one. I already have the materials and there is no down. Payment is upon completion prior to shipping. The price is $150 plus shipping which should be between 10 and 15 dollars depending upon where you live. I can give shipping quotes to any Canadian, European or Australian customers. Those of you who have already spoken to me about these need not post. You are already at the head of the line. I construct 1-3 per week depending on my day job work load.

I can also produce the lower box harness if there is interest. This harness consists of everything from the power cord on. (You provide the power cord.) This includes the filter with varistor, plug to the service outlet, tilt panel wiring, plug to the coin door, power switch, plug to rectifier J-2, MPU J-3, all the wire in between and the wiring to the flipper switches. I'll also throw in enough 1/4" ground braid to outfit the cabs and the ground wire and terminals to do the shooter, legs, side rails, etc. The price for these would be $75 plus shipping and are constructed from all new materials and products sourced in the US.

Once I have completed the run of cabinet harnesses I will start construction of play field harnesses. This will include all the wiring and plugs, ground wire and GI in between wire. The wiring to light board J-2 will include the branch off to back board lighting and the wiring for that if you need it.

As always I can do coin door harnesses and transformer to rectifier wiring for anyone who needs it. I'll get those up in my Pinside store this evening. And rest assured all sales through this forum will have 5% sent in to Pinside.

Once all this is done I would be willing to do the same for Sea Witch so if you are interested in that just say so and I will start a list for it as well. All of this will be on first come first serve basis. Thanks to all of my customers who have helped me grow through word of mouth and those of you who found me here.

Shawn
Third Coast Pinball

PS - The picture is from a KISS harness build I did and is only to show what the plug labeling looks like.

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Thanks for all the kind words and let's get this show on the road!

Shawn

Anyone who has done board work or at least plug and pin changes on a classic Bally or Stern knows that the MPU (A4) plug J1 is a .100 28 pin plug that is now unobtanium. To avoid this problem I have found the best solution is to get some 25s and 3s and join them up with some super glue. It's not a perfect solution but it gets the job done. And until someone gives up a huge load of them or gets them manufactured somewhere it's all we've got. They have been discontinued for years and have become impossible to find.

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Order up!!

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Noted!

Three things to note:
1) All wiring is tested extensively before it leaves my shop.
2) My test bed machine is an '84 model Eight Ball Deluxe.
3) I am lazy when I can afford to be.

With that info in mind, all y'all should be able to guess what this contraption is for...

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Done

Here you can see a test of the last one off the line. I test each one to ensure basic function before it rolls out the door. Until my Star Gazer play field is assembled, my testing is done in my EBD cab with the Ultimate MPU on Star Gazer settings. Took awhile to get it set properly for credit and match to show and get credits put in it. Bally and Stern machines are close, but NOT the same! The next harness is being constructed as I continue to map out the harness for the play fields. No sound yet as my SB-300 seems to be non-working for now...

Shawn

Yeah, well I'm one of those crazy old coots that buys boxes of old boards and fixes them up like new again. Except for MPUs. Got tired of dealing with battery acid issues. Waiting on a cap kit from GPE who once again seems to be up to his elbows in orders. A terrible problem to have.

Next production pair completed and mailing out Monday after a few delays caused by a massively full work week at the day job. Everyone on the list moves up one spot.

Here's some shots of the upper harness and accessories:

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Here's the lower:

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Quick update as I dance out the door for the annual two days at WindStar then four days in Frisco family vacation. And by family I mean me and the spousal unit. Upon return from TPF I have one lower to finish and one more to make along with three more uppers. At that time I will begin producing the play field harnesses at the rate of 3-5 at a time. Everyone ordering will be contacted regarding the plugs for playfield assemblies.

Once those are completed I'll be getting back on track with the acrylic Bingo project. My prices will likely rise a bit at that time as postage and copper are both increasing. Thanks for everyone's support and patronage! If you see me at TPF be sure and say hi. I'll look something like this...

Shawn

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Thanks for the kind words, Craig.

I have completed the unfinished lower and have begun the next pair. It occurs to me that not everyone is an expert, so here's a quick tutorial on installing the lower kit. By the end of next week I'll do one on the uppers as well. Now never mind that the test rig is an EBD, the cabinets are basically the same inside. I'll present this in what to me is the most logical order. You results may vary.

1) Step one with a fresh cabinet is to ground the stuffing out of it. Without proper grounding, your machine is a potential death hazard waiting on a victim. So lets start by running the ground braid.
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Start about 8-12 inches from the back of the cabinet and staple it to the side about 4 inches or so up from the bottom. Don't go nuts, just keep it tight and a staple every 5 inches or so will do. Run it under where the tilt panel goes and then across the front panel and up the other side. This should take about 7 of the ten foot length. Use the other 3 feet to run from your starting point up to the head where it attaches to the back plane. Be sure to screw it into the front leg supports as it passes by. Nevermind the part running acrodd the cabinet to the speaker. Not required in your machine.
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Next you'll need to take the grounding wire and ring crimps and make a series of grounding straps to connect all of the metal parts to the braid. In the next picture you can see where we connect the braid, which is screwed to the leg brace to the bottom and hinge side of the coin door frame.
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At the top of the hinge piece we'll run more wires to ground the side rail, lock down bar and top of the coin door frame.
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On the other side of the cab we see the braid run through the other leg brace with another wire running to the other side piece of the door frame.
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A little higher up the side we see the braid terminates just below the flipper switch. There we have run two more wires to the plunger back plate and the right side rail. This makes sure that no one will get shocked should something happen. ALL of these wires must be in place to ensure a path of least resistance in case a bare wire touches anything of metal within reach of a player or someone just touching the machine.
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Now we're going to lay out the main part of the harness. The filter will need to be wired to your power plug first. It has three tabs on the top that you can solder to. Just be sure to match the colors below. White over white, black over black and the green ground on the center tab. (Not on the mounting screw tab!) The green on the center tab grounds the entire casing of the filter. To pass that on to all the work we just did, mount the filter with the bottom screw passing through the two eyelets with green wires in the harness and directly to the braid stapled on the cabinet.
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Once that is good and tight go ahead and add another screw to the top eye of the filter. This ensures it won't move.
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Now lets work our way down the harness to the left of the filter. The next part in line is the offshoot that powers the service outlet. I have also provided the other half of the plug already wired and ready to connect to an outlet of your choosing. And remember, when the machine is plugged in, it is live.
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Next we come to the wiring for the tilt panel. If anyone needs more info on what goes where there I'll be happy to post that up as well.
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Backing out a little you'll see the tilt panel wires, the blue and orange wires get routed up to the left flipper button. Then we have the coin door plug and the rest of the wiring crosses the cab to the other side. You will probably need to trim the flipper wires a little for a good fit. Always leave wires a little loose. Make them up too tight and they may eventually break from the stress of constant tension.
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Halfway across the cab will be the A2J2 plug that goes to the rectifier.
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On the other side of the cab the harness will split into three parts. First is the green and black/yellow wires. They go to the knocker. Solder the two green wires to the banded side of the knocker coil and the black/yellow wire to the other side. Get this wrong and the knocker is the first thing you will hear when you power up the machine. Next is the double orange and red wires that go to the right flipper switch. Double orange to one side and red to the other. Doesn't matter which side here, its a switch. Trim as necessary. Lastly is the on/off switch that can be mounted in it's metal plate. And if it is in a metal plate, run another grounding wire to it from the braid.
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Lastly, at the other end of the harness are the two plugs that go to the MPU and the solenoid board. Secure them to the backplane and plug them in. Now, before you do ANYTHING ELSE, lets put our grounding to the test. And if your machine already has it, test it anyways. Can't hurt if you do, might hurt if you don't. Take your multi-meter and put it on continuity check. Connect the black probe to the ground on your plug that goes to the wall. Now touch the red probe to ALL of the metal parts at the front of the machine. Legs and leg bolts. Coin door and frame. Plunger. Side rails. If any of these do not check out, find out why and fix it. This is the most important thing we'll do. Bringing a machine to life is cool. Doing it safely is even cooler. More tomorrow.

Shawn

Came on the ebd. I'll look up its part number and see if anyone makes it still.

So here's a quick overview of the upper harness and what comes with it. As some of y'all know, I am not building an entire machine, just the play field. So with the author's permission, I'll be using a few pics from the Redketchup thread for photo reference.

The first things you'll be dealing with are the power rail for the light board and the GI and controlled lamp wiring.

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Once you have made all the cut outs and mounted the light sockets you will need to run the bare wire provided as the power rail. Once you have it all layed out and soldered in, before you add bulbs, do a continuity check between the parallel lines to make sure you didn't cross it up somewhere. Here you can see the basic layout along with the red, white, green, orange and blue wires that close the circuit for these lights.

The 5 covered wires should come together leading off the lower right hand side of the light board.

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One can see that the blue wire powers and daisy chains to all of the controlled lamps in the light board. (Game Over, Tilt, etc.) The red and white power the upper GI and the orange and green run the lower.

Here's a picture of the completed back board with all of the wiring. The wires that complete the circuit for the controlled lamps is included with the play field wiring.

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The rest of the harness is pretty much plug and play. Every plug is well labeled and should go in with the label facing up or to the right of the machine. Now, for those of you building a franken machine (Bally and Stern parts) pay attention to this part - Star Gazer is a 7 digit game so this applies to the player 1,2,3 and 4 displays. I am sending the harness setup for Stern displays which have a gray wire in position 11. This is the one that powers the seventh digit and is not found on the credit/match display. Bally displays have a black striped green wire in the number 12 position.

So if you are using Stern displays, leave the harness as it came.
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If you will be using Bally displays, you will need to move the gray wire from position 11 to position twelve. To do this, you will need a sharp pointed tool to release the catch of the crimp.
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Simply press down on the catch at the top of the slot while giving a light pull on the wires and then insert it in the next slot up.
(12)
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Once you have all the plugs inserted and the harness secured in the back box, run the tail through the hole and down the left side of the lower cabinet to plug in the rectifier board and the speaker/volume control. Easy, right? Feel free to message me if you need more explanation or better pictures. And thanks again to all of you patronizing my business.

Shawn

Also, to keep shipping down I role the bugger up so you may need to do some twisting and tweaking to get it to plug in correctly. I recommend starting at the light board and then working my way from left to right.

In the mail today, I'll email you the tracking number in a few. Thanks for your business!

I could do that soonish. Starting on the play field harness layout for Star Gazer today. I have over a dozen of those to make up and then I can get back to other stuff.

Shawn

Started the populating today, lights first. I learned a long time ago that when replacing light sockets on a play field it was advantageous to take some 120 grit and scuff the base where the power braid would be soldered on. Like so.
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After the third one I recalled that this was no "couple of sockets" replacement job. I ran down to my Ace Hardware and picked up a steel wire brush for the Dremel. Much better idea.
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83 GI and controlled lamp sockets later. Am I missing any?
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Shawn

Thanks! This is what a thousand feet of power braid looks like... Quit drooling!

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I cheat! No, actually, I am too lazy to dig out my big watt gun so I use my desoldering gun. Works like a champ! Also, see above where I scuff the finish. It helps for sure.

Shawn

All connected. Will start adding in the wiring tomorrow.

Shawn

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Aaaaaand I just saw my first mistake. Booby prize for the first one to spot it!

Shawn

Here's a hint...

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Ding! Ding! Ding! I must have been getting tired.

Shawn

Starting to get crowded 'round here.

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A mostly productive day. While getting the rest of the GI and controlled lamps installed along with the power wires to make them glow, I found the need to thoroughly clean out the Hakko desoldering gun I am using as an iron. Apparently it was overdue. Old solder is one thing but the flux residue was thick and gooey. A little elbow grease and some 97% alcohol took care of that.
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After lunch the mailman brought me a new toy. I was obliged to waste some time making sure it was operating to standards. So far, so good.
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By the end of the day I had most of the GI and all of the controlled lamps ready to rock. Here's a quick test.

So a bit of a quick primer for those not in the know. Play field lighting 101 if you will.

The GI or general illumination lights are powered by the red and white wires coming from plug A2J1. Red to one side of the sockets and white to the other. When good bulbs are put into the sockets, the circuit is complete and the lights will come on. If you make a mistake anywhere in the chain you will blow fuses all day long. Once you have all the sockets connected, test for continuity with a multi-meter across the wire runs. (Do this with the plug out and no bulbs installed.) Once you establish the wire runs are separated, add the bulbs in and call that half done.

The other half of the lighting is the controlled lamps. These bulbs are turned on and off by the MPU via the lighting board in response to the action on the play field. The bulbs are powered by the blue wires coming from plug A2J1. Usually the bases of most of these sockets are daisy chained to the power rail composed of the 18 gauge stripped, bare and tinned wire you'll see stapled to the bottom of play fields. (Lots of folk refer to this as "ground braid" but its actually carrying the power to these bulb sockets.) On the other side of the sockets will be a small colored wire that will lead back to the light board. When the game needs to light a lamp, it instructs the corresponding transistor on the light board to open and that completes the circuit and lights the bulb.

Everyone's set up will be a little different so I intend to send a big chunk of red, white and blue wire for each customer to use as needed to power all the lights. I joined all the GI with the braid as best I couls and then tied in the red and white wires to each side. The controlled is a little tougher. Basically, try to separate it into two halves so that one side isn't taxed any greater than the other. If anyone needs more clarification or pictures just say so. This thread is your "how to" for the harnesses so feel free to make it as interactive as you need it to be.

Shawn

I know a few of the GI lamps weren't cutting it last night so this morning I rolled the rotisserie to get a topside look at it. Total bulbs out, 5.
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After adding a little bit of wiring and replacing two bulbs that were bad out of the box I think we got it!
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So now that all the lamps work I'll start adding in the individual wires for the controlled. Once that is solid we'll move to the next step.
1) lamps
2) switches
3) solenoids

Shawn

Here's a light key from the backside to assist with bulb identification. Hopefully legible enough. Missing J2-6 which is the right out lane Special light.

Shawn
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Spent this evening getting more machinery attached to the underside of the play field. That way I can ensure no interference with the wiring runs. In the process of putting in the thumper bumpers I realized I had missed three lights! One per pop. The sockets were removed when the pops were disassembled for cleaning. I took a few minutes to straighten the legs and tin them up before adding a few inches of 22awg wire. Eventually I'll need to add some wire to the GI traces to get power to the bulbs.
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Once I had the pops and bulbs settled out I added in the spoon switches and adjusted them as needed. I like mine gapped nice and tight.
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Shawn

Doing the best I can with what I can acquire. Believe you me, I would rather have the right stuff. Meanwhile, I have to have a placeholder to be able to make accurate harnesses. One of my customers already hooked me up with the proper sling arms and my flipper mechs should be here Monday. It'll still be a Franken-field of Stern and Bally parts. (Frankenstern?) Will work mostly the same.

As far as height issues due to play field thickness, if anything my pops end up too low. My fear is that if the ball is traveling fast enough as the ring pushes down and out on it the ball may chip the edge of the play field hole. In the end I may get the PBL ones to prevent just that. Moving on...

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Lights!

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Here's the pigtail and mini-harness that goes to the controlled lamps in the back box insert. ( TILT - MATCH - GAME OVER - HSTD and SPSA )

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Lighting done! Onto the switches...

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Aaaaand a short pause whilst I run off to Portland OR to check out Ground Kontrol and Quarterworld, at a minimum. Oh, and watch a niece get her doctorate. And probably go see DP2.

Shawn

Got the switch harness worked out, knew that one was going to be the hardest of all. On to the solenoids which should be the easiest of them all.

Messy, but complete. Just need to knock out an upper harness and I should be testing all of this by this evening or tomorrow morning at the latest. I'll also do examples of plugs for the play field machinery and a sample of the backboard control lamp harness that comes with the play field harness. I'll also post some pics of how to read the switch matrix and what it should look like on your play field.

Shawn

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Initial testing. Obviously some problems but nothing that isn't easily fixed!

Round two of testing is complete. Figured out why the flippers weren't flipping. I'm a schematic guy, first and foremost and often find little mistakes here and there. Normally nothing of great consequence. So I wired up the flippers as shown in the Star Gazer schematic. Note the position of the wiring to the EOS.
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I had 43VDC but no action at all. After looking at some of my other Bally play fields lying around I figured out what was wrong and then came across this Stern bulletin describing proper wiring of flipper systems. Its the EOS switch wiring that was wrong. Once I put it right, the flippers worked like a champ.
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During the first round of testing I found that the Libra target would light the Scorpio light and vice versa. I decided it was a light wiring mistake rather than a switch wiring mistake because a switch mistake would be visible in other places. Easy fix.
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Next, I found this excellent illustration in Pinwiki for those who have less experience wiring up switches. Very handy. I someone still needs better pictures/explanations I'll be happy to post more.
http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:BallySwitchwithDiode.jpg
http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:SternSwitchwithDiodeCapac.jpg

Lastly, still working on 2 of 3 D/Ts to figure out why they will not reset.

Shawn

All issues resolved, production begins today.

First run of six harnesses well under way. I'll be writing to the first six in line either tonight or tomorrow to get specifics on what they may or may not need.

This will include everything you need to wire the playfield from the GI lights to the solenoids. There will also be the small back board harness that runs the controlled lighting there. The box will have 4 or 5 separate sealed bags, one for each stage of your build. ( GI, controlled lamps, switches and solenoids.) Each section of wiring will have a single yellow zip tie to indicate where the harness goes in relation to the play field and each will have sheet that tells which wire goes where. Every wire should have a little extra length on it and I recommend leaving on as much as is practicable. If you are unsure about anything just ask.

For those that want pluggable drop targets I can do the switch wires easily for $10 more. The business end would look like this and the harness would have the opposing plug in the proper place. Also, I will need to know which drop targets have top switches and which have back switches. I can also do it to include the reset solenoid wires in a 9 place (3 X 3) connector but this will require you to do the crimping of the yellow wire. I will provide the crimps. They will be .062 Molex.
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Anybody wanting anything more exotic like plugs on every solenoid or fuses on every solenoid can PM me about that and we can discuss it.

Shawn

The first few have shipped out, more to follow shortly. Here are the reference pictures to go with the packages.

Here's the layout of the lighting harness. The marked position of the yellow zip tie will be the same for all of them.
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Here is the switch harness.
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And the solenoid harness.
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Last call for play field harnesses. After this batch I am back to upper/lower back box harnesses for Bally and Stern machines.

Done and done. And just in the nick of time my restock order has arrived. Pretty sure the FedEx guy is starting to hate me...

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Done.

Thanks, John! This thing is B-E-A-utiful!

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Okay, so I completed my permanent jigs for the Stern back box harnesses and needed to simulate the back box of said machines to check the fit. My '84 EBD Classic cab does well but the lamp insert is all wrong. To correct this I made a slightly modified version of the Star Gazer lamp insert board that would fit in the EBD test bed. This was a quick and dirty build and I do mean very quick and very dirty. In the words of Doc Brown, "Please excuse the crudity of this model as I did not have time to build it to scale."

Step 1 was to get a piece of cheap 3/4" ply and cut it down to the overall intended size.
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Not so difficult, right? Sadly, the next few steps involved repairing the garage door as one of the cables decided RIGHT THEN to break!
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Lucky me. Fortunately we have an Overhead door company nearby and I had them make me up a new set. (If you have to replace one side, do them both.) Back in business. Next was to cut the door shape, display openings and light holes. I did this with the pattern brenna98 offers. Once that was done I performed several modifications to the basic design to make it fit the intended hole. At this point you can see I have added the EBD hinge, shortened one side and made crude cut outs in the bottom to account for the back box folding hinges. I have also mounted the trays for the score displays.
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Now it's time to populate the light holes with some lamp holders. First I'll label the controlled lamps to keep them separate from the general illumination or GI lamps.
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Next I added in the lamp holders oriented to the wire runs that will join them together into a few separate runs. Two large GI runs, a short run of three for the controlled lamps on the left and then the high score and match lamps sit by themselves.
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To keep them in place I'll staple the outer tabs of the lamp sockets in preparation for the power and ground braid being added.
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I provide 25' of bare 18AWG braid in my kits for this next part. I based that on an estimate I made looking closely at the @redketchup Star Gazer build. I was able to wire mine up with 21' and 6" leaving a couple feet for mistakes and oopsies. Perfect.
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I stapled the braid as I laid it out to help hold it in place for soldering taking care not to cross sides along the way.
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Before soldering I used my multi-meter on the continuity setting to ensure I did not cross lines and mess this up. I prefer to do things once. Doesn't always work out that way but that's how we learn, right?
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Time for a nice hot blob of solder on the lamp tabs. The braid is already tinned so I only need to heat the blob and press the wire down into it and wait until it melts together. I check each connection is solid so I won't need to revisit this again.
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Part of the back box kit is the power harness for the GI and controlled lamps on the insert. Red and white will power one GI run and the green and orange wires will power the other.
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After adding in a few harness clamps I'll run the mini-harness to its destinations.
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First are the green and orange wires which will power the lower GI set. I always try to leave a little loose wire for vibration and jostling during play. Tight wires look neat but the constant pull on the soldered connections will eventually cause problems.
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Next I'll use the res and white wires to power up the upper GI run.
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Finally, the long blue wire is utilized to bring power to the three parts of the controlled lamps. The first part goes from the plug to the "Match" lamp where I will cut it to an appropriate length, strip the ends of both parts and solder them together on one tab. This is daisy chaining. Using one piece of wire to power several areas.
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Now take the loose end of the cut blue wire and run it to the three connected controlled lamps on the left hand side and perform the same operation. Cut to length, strip both ends and solder together onto the common power braid.
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Run the loose end back along itself and make the turn up the insert and run it all the way up to the "High Score" lamp. This is where the wire will terminate so you only need to cut it to length and solder it by itself to one tab.
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Here is an overall look at the insert with the mini-harness completely run. Do you need to run your wires this way? Of course not. I left a little extra on all of them to account for any oddities or mistakes along the way. Just be sure to check for continuity befor adding bulbs to make sure your runs are all separate and don't cross sides.
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For those of you having a play field harness kit as well, now is a good time to add in the mini-harness that connects the lamp board to the controlled lamps on the insert panel. You can easily strip the end of each wire, solder it to the appropriate lamp tab and then add it to the other run wires in the clamps.
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You should end up with around this much play at the plug ends. More or less is okay, just make sure your plugs will meet loosely before making anything permanent. Remember, there should be enough slack in the controlled lamp plugs to fully open the insert.
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And voila. I have no idea why the shoot again light is blinking to start with. I'll have to look into that. Meanwhile, I have made adjustments to my jig and can now start pumping out orders at twice (or better) the previous speed!

Shawn

I get it from the same wholesaler that I get my regular wire from and sell it in my Pinside shop for $.50 a foot plus (US)shipping for 25'. At 50' (US)shipping is included. (You'll have to PM me with your address for Canada shipping rates.) Probably my best seller. And thanks for asking. I just realized I hadn't relisted it back in my shop since I unlisted it when my last reel ran out. Got a fresh 1000' reel ready to go. Try not to drool.

Shawn

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The more bulbs you have on one circuit the higher the temp will get on the crimp which is what I perceive to be the weakest link in the circuit. I assume at some point they decided it to be best to split the load between two circuits. Also, if one goes down the other is still lit and you're still making quarters. Different colors so you don't mix them up? Bally does the same thing on theirs so I would assume the whole industry does. Just a guess.

Star Gazer also has two controlled lamp circuits on the P/F. I guess because there's that many lamps that could be lit at once?

Could be, never thought of that! I'm a Bally guy not a Stern guy so...

I was going to put up the "The More You Know" meme but I'm too lazy...

As promised - 5% of sales generated through this thread that did not go through the store. Thanks to all of you!

Shawn

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