I did the testing for Shawn with this new wire harness. Star Gazer uses the same back box harness as Dragonfist. Shawn shipped his test harness to me for review.

I received the harness, looked it over, removed the harness in my Dragonfist and installed Shawn's new harness. It was a hassle free installation and as soon as I turned my pin on I was playing pinball with all four score displays and the credit/ball in play display recording the scores correctly.

Shawn does nice work. This is quality wiring work. I'll be buying his play field harness when he has them ready. It is going to save me endless hours from not having to build my own harness.

Thanks to Shawn for seeing the need and providing an easy solution.

I sent Shawn at Third Coast Pinball some pics of my factory harness to show how some of the connectors were wired up and he sent me a prototype harness he built that was plug-n-play. It is quality workmanship. All of the connector pins are those better quality trifurcation pins which are so much better than the single-surface pins the factory used.

I do not think you will be disappointed when your harness arrives.

In case anyone would like to see the back box harness installed I took a few pics of the prototype harness Third Coast Pinball sent to me for tryout. These pics show the harness installed in my Dragonfist since it and Stargazer use the same player displays and credit display layout.

This pic is showing the two connectors that attach to the MPU plus one of the connectors that plugs into the sound board. I use the Alltek MPU which has a different profile than the factory MPU-200 board. The wire bundle that plugs into the upper connector on the MPU is too short to work with the Stern factory MPU-200. This short condition will be corrected on the production harness that you will be getting. All of the connectors have been labeled so you don't have to scratch your head trying to figure out what plugs into where.

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Next up is the back box connector where the displays harness connects to some wiring that will lead to other places.

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This is the harness where it attaches to the displays. There is some excess wire between Player #1 and Player #3 that I have bundled up with tie wraps to take up some slack. This excess wire has been addressed and will not be present in the production harness.

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All connectors are labeled for easy identification.

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And here is the other end of the harness located at the rectifier board and speaker connector. There is plenty of wire length in the harness do all you need to do.

EDIT: I forgot to add this: If you have one of these Classic Stern pinballs that you preparing to move and you have to remove the back box to make the move, you are going to need unplug all of your wiring so you can remove the back box. If you will disconnect the J-3 connector at the rectifier board and the connector at the speaker and roll this wire bundle up and feed it up into the back box you do not need to remove the wire harness from the displays.

I did not know this when I bought my first Classic Stern and went to the trouble of disconnecting ALL of the wiring from the circuit boards and all of the wiring from the display connectors and dropping it all into the cabinet. Others have done worse and cut all of the wiring that went to the displays and pretty much ruined the displays harness. You don't have to do all of that work or create any destruction to remove a Stern back box.

I'll say it another way for clarity. If you need to remove a Classic Stern back box for transport, or any other reason, first disconnect all connectors from the circuit boards and let them drop into the cab. Then disconnect the J-3 connector at the rectifier board and the speaker connector and roll this bundle up and into the back box and it will travel and make the trip inside the back box.

EDIT #2: Do not remove the wire connectors from the SDU board. The bundle that goes to the SDU are part of the displays harness. My apologies.

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Nice write up and pics. Where did you get that plastic insulating cup that covers the on-off switch? I want some of those.

Keep the pictures coming, Shawn. I'd like to watch the construction on this harness. Nice work!

Well, I 'm glad you found and not me

GI lights and control lamps on same circuit?

The plastic yoke, yoke bottom, and rod and ring assy. are out of stock. Not coming back. PBR has the plastic base in color blue only. But there is no hardware.

Pinball Life has a pop assy. you can buy with the plastic base in color blue or black. You can buy the plastic bases by themselves but there is no hardware. When I say "no hardware" I am talking about the nut plates that hold your coil stop bracket. You need those buy can't buy them and would have to make your own.

Also, the Pinball Life pop assys. use the more common steel rod and ring assy.

If you want pops with plastic bases then this unit from Pinball Life is your only option. You can have blue or black. But these have steel rod and rings assys.

https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=4009

You may also run into another problem for proper mounting of your pop assys. If you measure the thickness of your Gazer play field you will find it to be undersized, as in the factory play fields measure 1/2" thick. The Gazer play fields measure 7/16". So, for proper mounting of your pops you need to add some wood or your pop skirt will sit too high above the play field. I glue some tongue depressor sticks around my pop bumper hole for the correct elevation.

How your pops install may be OK for you, but they are not sitting right, the above is why.

Also, with the thinner play field, you have to double check all of your screws so you don't start driving screws thru the top of your play field.

Now, back to regulat scheduled programming.

I just sent you a PM. I'm ready for my SG play field harness.

I have not really sat down and tried to figure out the logic of the wiring. That will come later. Buy why does Stern have a R/W pair of GI wires and also a O/G G-I pair, as well ?

My Big Game has two separate circuits for controlled wires on the play field? I dod not understand that.

That sounds reasonable.

#4 3/8" wood screws.

DOUBLE CHECK. The repro Star Gazer play field is only 7/16" thick. It is not 1/2" thick.

Take your screw and whatever you are going to attach and place them at the side of the play field to make sure the screw will not go through the play field.

Make sure you double check. Even 3/8 makes me nervous. 7/16 -3/8 = 1/16" is all you have between the tip of the screw and the the top of the play field.

I have gone so far as to grind about 1/16" off the tips of some of the screws i Have used.

I have started stringing up the play field lights part of the harness on my Star Gazer build. This is nice stuff. I cannot imagine how many hours Shawn's harness kit is going to save me.

I restrung the harness on my Big Game and it seemed like the Stern wiring employees would see how many times they could wrap wires around and through every other wire when wiring from point "A" to point "B". It was one big mess to trace wires on. It seems like they did everything except tie the wires in knots.

Shawn's harness looms are laid out straight and true. The wires, as much can be possible with a wire harness, are all parallel to each other.

The instructions, if you read them--and you should--, are clear and concise. However, you will need to reference this picture that was posted several posts above to get a good idea on how the wires attach within the "bonus star".

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This picture is the best roadmap you could ask for. Especially for center bonus star.

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I learned how to read Stern's drawings when I restored my Big Game and I must confess that I used Stern's drawings when I started this job. But I got stuck on just how to wire the bonus star and had to refer to the above picture and the included instructions to figure it out. Also, the 8 lights down between the flippers were a bit of a puzzle using Sterns drawings. But the instructions make perfectly clear on how to wire those 8 lights up.

Also, since I was referring to Stern's drawings I installed two wires in an incorrect way. And then I saw Shawn's pic that corrected Stern's blueprint.(see post #82).

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BRAVO !! Bravo Shawn !! That's about all I can say. Just BRAVO !!