I don't there is a hard and fast rule you need to follow. Other than tall posts at the sling shots.

The Star Gazer build is still progressing. I have another question. Which post should go in this location? I have seen both a metal mini post and a short plastic post used here. What did the factory install?

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install metal mini is usually what factory uses, but plastic post if you want to block the shot more

Thanks, I was leaning that way myself. It seems over time that post gets sheared off and replaced with a larger plastic post.

Use longer machine screw one with washer underneath it will never break

I am attaching the harnesses onto my Star Gazer and noticed my new pre-built pop bumpers from Pinball Life don't have diodes on them. Shouldn't they have them?

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Yes! You know what ya gotta do.

Now I have to find some in my stash. They are in my shop someplace.

It took 3 days but I got the harness attached and dressed on my Star Gazer. I am almost ready to fire it up.

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Bravo for ignoring the ignoramus, and/or idiot, and his small minded power-play, and pushing forward to where you are at.

That's how I learn. Some reading. And asking lots of questions. If someone wishes to think I am a fool for asking, my retort is to ask if they fell from their mother's womb knowing everything.

My new harness has a wire on it the goes to a unused pin. It is the A2J1 pin 3. This plugs into the rectifier board in the bottom of my cabinet. The blue pin 3 wire should power 1/2 of my feature lights. Currently half my feature lights are out because of it. Does it need moved over or spliced into pin 7? My old Meteor harness doesn't have a wire in the pin 3 location.

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I answered my own question. I moved it over to pin 5. I now have all my feature lights.

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I am NOT the electronics wizard. Far from it. But the drawing shows J1-3, J1-7. and J3-6 all feed into bridge rectifier BR1.

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J1-5 splices into J1-8 into white return wire on your GI lights. That might cause you problems.

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Another one coming soon. Just stacking parts for now. Basically have almost everything but a wiring harness. Hopefully this winter, I’ll get the cabinet ready so then I can start assembling everything till I figure out what I’m going to do with the harness. I’ll probably end up doing a heavy blue metal flake on the cabinet or something with some good pearls in it. Might even do the same with the apron and rails.

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I think you are correct. Looks like I have a burnt up trace I need to repair on my rectifier board. After I do that it should work with the original pin locations. It is always something.

I took the easy road with rectifier boards. I bought some Weebly kits. They have nice, wide traces.

My Star Gazer has achieved "Magic Girl" status. It sure is pretty to look at but doesn't work. I have ac power where I shouldn't. The madness is happening in the rectifier board. I need to replacing that before moving forward. I guess I'll order up a new one tonight.

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The original early Stern rectifier boards didn't have pin 3 wired. See the Meteor rectifier board schematic below. You will have to jumper it to pin 7 on the back of the board. Later factory boards had a trace connecting them together on the front side.

Power_J1.png

I figured that was the case after I shinned a bright light through the PCB (pin 3 has no trace). My OEM rectifier board does have an issue I can't seem to isolate. To be honest, I don't want to. The OEM board is ugly. My gen illumination and feature lights seem to be combined. I can actually tone out test point 1 to test point 4 when nothing is plugged into it. Time for a new board.

On mine, the top left spinner & the center right spinner have the metal mini post.
Note: The right spinner post will break/or tear up the wood... around the actuator hole.

Ditch the wood screw style of mini-posts and go with the 10-32 machine screw style of posts. They will lock down tight and if you use an elastic stop nut they will never back out of the hole.

There are 2 styles:

I like the one with the round base. It looks more finished when installed.

https://www.pinballlife.com/1-78-tall-metal-post-with-10-32-threaded-base.html

This unit has the hex base like factory.

https://www.pinballlife.com/1-78-tall-metal-post-with-10-32-threaded-base-15430.html

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Still nice to see the games being restored or scratch builds for Star Gazer, & Seawitch.

I have toyed around with that idea. But I have never shot metal flake before and really need to study it. I think flakes would look better than pearls but no way to know without seeing it.

Would you use large flakes or small?

I have both. I can do spray outs. It’s more or less finding a blue that would look good.

So I looked at my SG yesterday and the right spinner has the minipost, but the left spinner has the plastic one. Go figure.

SG is a major game of they put stuff on that they had, with many variants. Wouldn't surprise me if it was on the line and they were waiting for flight 2000 to hit the line as their first multiball, talking game.

I have to ask: What is a spray out?

When shooting metal flake, does it take a special gun to keep the flakes in suspension. Do you have to have a larger tip and needle point?

Basically making color swatches to see what looks the best. Depending on the size of flakes you would need a special tip.

If anyone has a special tip it's you.

I looked this morning, didn’t have any blue flake in stock. My paint supplier has this blue in stock. It might work ok. I’ll get my apron stripped and primed and go from there.

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Looking through my cabinets today I found a blue that might work for the apron as a base. Still looking for the right flake that still dances and shimmers but not too overbearing.

How does this color look?

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The color by itself looks good. How does it match up to the play field blue? When I did my Star Gazer I had to have a can of custom blue made up as I could not find any rattle can blue to match well.

I have declared victory. Star Gazer is done. The new rectifier board is installed and I now have feature lights. She plays great. I had a lot of fun making this one. I am somewhere between 160 and 200 hours of labor. The cabinet paint is oil based Sherwin Williams while the legs, doors and apron were custom powder coated.

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Looks great!!

I've had mine playing in a wild fyre cabinet for 6-8 months or so and I'm finally getting it in its proper cabinet. Thanks for the inspiration!

Nice work. It looks good !

Really nice work! Looks amazing.

Is this a Fantastic Playfield?

Yes it is. It looks beautiful but there were a few issues I had to overcome. The most serious is the grove in the shooter lane. It is too far to the right. I had to cut a notch in my right rail to gain enough room to make it work. The right apron hole is also about 2mm lower than the left one. I had to fill and re-drill that. The other issue is the post in the left slingshot that doesn’t pierce the plastic. That dimple is too far to the left causing a ball trap. I had to move that to the right a couple millimeters. After doing those 3 tweaks it was spot on.
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Glad it made it ok! Can't wait to see how it turns out for you.

Same pb on John's PF, groove is a bit too much to the right-

Technically, this still is a John made playfield. The new company took possession of John's wood and fixed the art to be color correct. Hopefully the future releases will have the shooter lane fixed. It is my understanding that John's playfield cores are depleted now. As is, I still feel fortunate to have gotten one and it all still worked out in the end. The ceramic clearcoat is amazingly tough.

Ok. This is important. I was just about to hit the button to start cutting, and I called John to ask about possible changes. I need to know any and all potential edits to the cut file ASAP. Please contact me to assist with product updates.

Fantastic

I measured an original playfield and the center of the shooter lane is 29.7mm from the right edge. On a Seawitch repro, the measurement is 32mm. I am going to place the shooter lane at 30mm from the right edge. I'll add a photo here when I get a chance. I'd like to see the other changes required.

Fantastic!

please dont make me swap my PF again!

Old stock playfield, shooter lane groove is approximately 1 1/8" center from right edge.

I had a Halloween party last night on my patio that faces my arcade / workshop. Most of the guests aren’t pin heads but look forward to playing the games. Star Gazer was the most popular pin followed by Halloween. Kozmik Krooz’r took the crown for most popular arcade. The older games rule!!!!

There's another stargazer in the world!

This game started out as a really beat up Stern Trident and was slowly converted over to this stargazer.

You may have seen this stargazer playfield in a wild fyre cabinet at the last Texas Pinball Festival but now it finally has its own cabinet and plays a lot better too.

I could have been a lot more meticulous on the cabinet work but this game is destined to go out on location so it didn't make sense to obsess too much over it. I hope to have a quicksilver sitting next to it within a 6 months or so.

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were you able to find a MPU200 style transformer or you had to stick with the one from the Trident cabinet?

I was not able to source the correct transformer. I went with the highest stern flipper coils and it feels pretty snappy still. I'd love to find one eventually but l think this will work fine for now