Hi Aurich, I am waiting on mine too. Tracking shows it was supposed to be here Friday and it's running late, not a big deal, it will get here I am sure but an FYI for you is that this is very typical of the post office right now and not just because of Christmas. Since about June or July they have gone to shit. I had two priority mail packages coming from Illinois to Ohio back in August. The 1st package took 6 weeks! The second package did a bit better @ 3 weeks. Ever since that happened I stopped using the post office for packages and I won't use them again until they get their crap together. Don't be surprised if you get a lot of late deliverys from them.

Hey again, quick question, I have your package coming but I totally forgot the speaker grill was coming too. My question is this. I have the vault edition. It has a nifty little metal tag on the speaker panel showing it's a vault edition. Have you seen anyone remove the tag and reapply it to your speaker panel?
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Well here's hoping the PO can get back to normal. Thank you for the tip on the vault plate, I will give that a try.

I sent you a pm. I'm 11 days into waiting on USPS. I'm in Ohio, if the package is coming from west of Illinois, I can expect anything from 5 to 30 days late!
To be clear, This is totally not your fault, but as you can see from the post above by ECW0930, I am not alone with this problem. Regular letters seem to be ok but packages are a total crapshoot for me these last 5 months.

Thank you for that.

I believe it's a three-fold problem.

1) "Postmaster Louis Dejoy" has been all over the news this year for gutting the post office machines, stripping overtime and stopping repeat deliveries on the same day. I don't know if that's all 100% accurate however as I said, I started noticing a decline right around the time this was in the news..July/August.

2) The pandemic effects PO employees just like any other place. For most big businesses, If someone even coughs at work these days it usually means a covid test and 10 to 14 days off mandatory. So they must be dealing with under-staffing on a daily basis.

3) It's the busiest time of the year for the PO.

I've stopped using them for packages whenever possible and I hate to do that because using ups or fedex is more of a hassle but at least they arrive on time.

Ohhh...I know the Ohio someone!
Seriously though I love it, it was totally worth the wait.
Thank you again!

Just checking the cointaker site, shows shaker still at $109. Where do you see it for $45? Is it a discount code or something?

I couldn't help but notice these are not "Stern approved" and they mention a warranty could be voided if non stern equipment is installed.
The Stern shaker is $109. The coin taker versions are $45 although one of them is sold out.

Pros? Cons? Who has a cointaker version? Who decided not to get one and why?

If all else fails there is an option in settings to disable the magnet. When you do this the game will still lock a ball up there for you by trapping it behind drop target, when I got my machine this is the setting it used. I didn't actually realize at the time that I had a magnet back there! I think if you do this and you still have issues with the drop target not activating when you try to lock it then you must have a problem with your optos.

You are right it is a great story and I am one of those kids that was there when it premiered in 1979. I saw Disney's Black Hole on the same day! (talk about awful) Up until then Star Trek consisted of 10 years of TOS reruns, I don't recall ever seeing TAS reruns. So this movie was a very big deal.

As for the story. For me it seems to really just be a retelling/re-imagining of a previous TOS episode "The Changeling" except with a big budget. Nomad=V'ger.

100% correct! My favorite all time Enterprise. I actually felt worse about seeing it burn up over the Genesis planet then I did when Spock died.
I knew they would bring back Spock..they ended Wrath of Kahn by ejecting his body onto a planet that was growing life from nothing. Duh.
But I had no idea how they would replace the Enterprise. Who would have ever thought that all it would take was an "-A" to make it all better again.
At the end of Search for Spock no one thought that, they had never done the A,B,C thing until then so it was a very nice surprise to see it at the end of "The Voyage Home"...OH CRAP!..SPOILER ALERT!

I am one of those hard core Trekkies you speak of. I grew up watching TOS with my Dad when it originally aired on NBC in the 60's. I was all of 5 years old.
Throughout the 70's I lived on reruns, when I could find them, we only had 4 channels at no VCRs or internet at that time so it was sparse. In 1979 when TMP came out it was the beginning of something great and that lasted all the way up to the present.... but the Kelvin timeline, that's something else altogether. I also gave the 2009 movie a pass, in fact I liked it. It makes total sense that a new timeline could be created and so it was ok to overlook all the differences. However, Beyond and Into Darkness are little more than, popcorn pushing, senseless action, rehashing-old-in-a-very-unclever-way, action fodder, there is absolutely no substance. The BEST thing those 2 movies ever did was to inspire this Pinball machine. The new movies might draw in new fans but those fans have no idea what Trek means to so many of us 'Boomers"

I have to ask you about the way you have the Hallmark Enterprise hooked up with that hex post. How did you affix it to the bottom of the ship. Would you please tell me exactly what hex post that is? Part number maybe?

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Toys on the playfield and I think the Vengence also moves from side to side, not just front to back and lasers!

I also used the Hallmark ornament, it's the perfect size and it's more detailed than the Stern LE ship.
Here are two very good threads about it here on pinside...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-trek-pro-mod-anyone-doing-an-enterprise-model

and

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-trek-uss-kelvin-diy-mod

Using the info above I did this mod myself, here is mine, I painted the post "hammer-black". In these pics it makes it look like the post is chipped but it's not, in real life it glitters and sparkles like stars as the light hits it.

One correction to my friend above.... I could not personally find this ship for less than $25 on eBay. Maybe he found one for $7 but I don't think that's a typical price.

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That's the one and make sure you review those links and understand you will have to work with some small wires and solder. 99% of the risk is on the ornament though. I actually melted the saucer section on my 1st attempt. I use a butane soldering iron and I failed to account for the heat coming out of the side....the little flames should have been my first clue but I digress! I did it correctly on my second attempt. Even at $41 bux a piece it's STILL less than 1/2 price of the one you can get at Marco. There is some good info on the mod here in this thread also someplace back about a zillion pages...search for that..hallmark is a good keyword to search for I think. The other small challenge in this is that you have to run power supply wires up to the bottom side of your playfield. You have a free 5v plug sitting there right now coming out of your power supply on the bottom of your cabinet. I bought a splitter with 2 plugs so I would still have another a 5v plug down there if needed and I used the 2nd plug to run a wire to the back of the machine and then from the back of the playfield, with enough slack to open and close the playfield and carefully following other wires and securing with zip ties until I had the extension plug right under the area I needed it to be. It's not real hard but it's not child's play. On a difficulty scale of 1 to 10 for pinball mods I would put it at a 3 or a 5 if you've never soldered before in your life.

Yeah it's not a mod so much as it is an art makeover. The main component is the new translight. It's superior to the one that comes on the PRO. It was the 1st thing I got when I got my machine. It also comes with new speaker panel sticker, several stickers for the playfield and cabinet and alternate instruction cards. You can use as much of it or as little as you like. Search the forums for Aurich to see it.

It was about 2 years ago when I asked the same question. Someone advised me to pm him here on this forum, I did. He replied and told me he was doing a new run I got one of them. For all I know he may have a few more....it's worth a pm to him to find out.

I would try swapping that flasher with an identical flasher in the game. If it acts the same way in it's new spot then replace it.
However if it acts good in the new spot and If the new bulb back at the old problem spot is now acting up then you can at least determine if you have a bulb problem or not.

I also have the Aurich package and while I do not have the custom backbox boards you have, I know exactly what you mean, I have debated getting them myself. I can tell you that some LEDS fade slowly when powered off and I am not just talking about pinball machines, I have some shop lights that do that and they've done it since they were new but they work fine so I didn't care. As for the pulse coming in, that's the real mystery here. I guess if it was bothering me enough, I would next try removing that custom backbox board set and going back to stock to see if the problem persists..... if it is all better then you have your answer, if there is no change then at least you have eliminated that from your list of possible suspects. Having said that, the problem would have to really annoy me to make me take such action. I am a firm believer in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it school". I've seen people screw up a game really bad trying to fix the simplest annoyance...I think I've done it more than once myself. Be careful!

Won't do any good, he was given a cease and desist by Stern I was told.
If you've got an Aurich setup now, you have something special.

I wouldn't sweat it too much. It could be something connecting to some other mod that the previous owner had or it could be that Stern uses the same harness for all 3 models and that specific plug is unused on a pro.

He has a nice video at his link above explaining it but basically the combination of a perfect fit and the button itself is what holds this in place.

Sounds to me like the switch under the apron that detects when the ball drains is acting prematurely. It could be a bad switch but it could also be a badly adjusted switch, as in the little arm could be bent out of whack or it could even be a bad wire to that switch. Whatever the reason my guess is that it has something to to with that switch.

I'm thinking the two are linked somehow and if one is not present then the other one simply won't work.

First things first, you need to find out if the bad one is actually bad or if it's something traceable back to the driver board.

I think I would attempt to hook them up backwards.... left side on the right, right side on the left and see if the problem follows you.

If the one that causes your machine not to boot up is on the left side then after you switch it the problem STAYS on the left side, I think you can assume the lights are good. If on the other hand the problem has moved with you to the right side, you can safely suspect the left side light strip.

Then I would try to replace it. I don't think repairing one will be an easy task.

Should be in the settings menu. You should have a few opens when you find it like On, partial or Off.

I think the biggest difference is time. That vault is at least 6 or 7 years newer than the original.
It will contain the newer code and most, if not all, of the original bugs will have been worked out already.

Other than that they are virtually identical.

I am aware. I'm just answering the man's question the best I can.