I just bought a Lightning Pinball a week ago! I'm looking for play field parts like the playfield light cover inserts, plastics, etc. My game will have to be completely restored so any suggestions will be great, since this is my first time do a restoration.

You can buy a plastics set from www.starship-fantasy.com for $145. You should be able to get the majority of the playfield parts from Www.marvospecialties.com. If you ever need a brand new backglass you can order one from Pinsider greatwichjohn.

John

Correction
Www.marcospecialties.com

Bluespin thank you for the suggestion. Yes, I saw Marco's stuff a day or so ago, but was hoping some members here had extra parts. It would be great if could help a fellow or previous owner of a Lightning.

I connected everything up and there is no power. The on switch is very loose but it is flipping over to the on position. Also the board below is the only board on the game with a burn mark. All of the fuses have been checked for continuity and correct type. I'm not familiar with working on, well anything electrical, but what can I check to find the power issue?

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Your game looks amazing! What a great job!

John,
Thanks for the lead on plastics. I looked at Starship Fantasy's items and they nice! I've added them to my list of vendors.

I used to belong to the club.
For years i had my Stern Lightning set up next
to my Williams Flash and Bally Voltan Escapes Cosmic Doom.
But when i moved to the NW,
for some reason or fashion the BG on Lightning went to sh*t
with large areas of the paint falling off in sheets of ~3 square inches each
in several spots.
Was not aware at the time, that i decided to sell it, about 18 months ago
that greatwichjohn might have been in process of making one of his direct ink to glass
reproductions of this BG.
Anyway, it is gone now, no use crying over spilt milk.
Also wondering if any of you thought the PF's bottom drain area and plastics artwork
look like they came from a game with completely different theme,
more of a pre-columbian (Mayan) motif which does not seem to fit in
with the BG or rest of the PF artwork them.
Weird.

I joined the Lightning owners club a couple months ago. Overall I would say my machine is in above average shape for a "player's quality" machine. Machine appears to be close to 100% original except for the playfield plastics and a couple new-ish bridge rectifiers soldered into the rectifier board.

Aside from two bad light sockets everything is working, with all the other original boards too. Backglass has a couple hot spots and a little bit of flaking but still above average quality IMO. Playfield is in OK condition, aside from a couple very small chips the paint looks good, but there are several cupped inserts that I'm smoothing out with floor polish (see photo). I've converted the machine to 100% LED as I'm told heat from incandescent bulbs is one of the many causes of cupping.

Also the flippers are a bit weak, they're using (until I rebuild them) 500-turn coils instead of the recommended 475-turn, so ramp shots can be frustrating. Still, I've managed to crack a million on this machine and the rare game where I light up the whole board, hit multiball, engage Valhalla Time, and nail the Special makes up for all those endless games down in the 150K score range.

Not sure how long I'll be staying in this club as I already have a friend who's asking me about this machine but I'm glad there's a place for us to talk about Lightning, a very challenging and underrated pin.

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Count me into the group. I bought mine about 6 months ago. Now its fully working minus voice. I love the game.
Next is a plastic upgrade.

Good to see a club on one of my favorite games. I have had my game for 4 years now and never tire of it. Glad to see some other nice examples of it here.
Mike

I'm just getting my game to work, and now I'm starting on a full restoration. I'm in need of parts, so if anyone here has even a couple of parts then let me know. I'm especially looking for the plastic in the photo. I know there is a set of plastics on eBay, but I'm hoping to find the one I need by not buying an extra 35 pieces!

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Which Plastic? The center strip? If that one, then I can't help, but the other ones I can.
Mike

Yes the pic shows that I'm missing about a 1/4" off the left of the center strip. If you have other parts then I would like to know, because I'm doing a full restoration on the game and hope to have it in at least excellent condition if not collector's quality. I will need the paper cover's for the display, among other things. I believe the rest of the playfield plastics are fine.

That is the way the center plastic piece is. It is not broken. It does not cover the left half.

I see someone already posted that the center is fine. I do not have any extra parts other than plastics that I do not need as I bought a new set for my machine. My game was almost 100% complete except for the drop targets which I ordered from PBR.
Good luck on your restoration.

Hey everyone. I just got my Lightning back and did all the board work and it boots and plays. I’m having a weird issue though that wasn’t there before I stored it. When I turn the switch to turn the game on sometimes it doesn’t boot it will make a weird noise or say a quick word from the speech or a scratching sound then I just turn off and on a couple times and then the beep boot sequence starts. Anyone run into this before? Also when it was stored in the garage a mouse got in the head and chewed and ate half of the paper with the Switch assignments. I can’t find it online. Does anyone have a picture they can send or the ability to scan theirs and email it to me? Thanks in advance. Love this game!

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Manual has some switch assignments. Don't know what you would be looking for but here is the shortcut.

http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/1441/Stern_1981_Lightning_English_Manual.pdf

Sounds like there is something stuck in memory. I remember having a similar issue on mine and it went away when I installed NVRam and cleared all of the audit settings.

In case anyone wants to join the club...here is your chance:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/for-sale-stern-lightning

Here’s my Lightning story. I bought it around 2015 in a package deal with Andromeda. I was planning to sell it pretty quickly because I thought it was too similar to Black Knight, which I already have. It had some MPU issues, so I put it in my climate-controlled storage unit and forgot about it for a few years. Last year I got on an early-Stern kick, so I pulled it out and gave it a full-on restoration. I got the backglass from John Greatwich, which is an excellent repro. Installed an Alltek and a new set of plastics, and rebuilt J1 for the MPU.

Wow, was I was wrong about the similarities to Black Knight. Lightning has a much better rule set, and I’d say it’s more similar to Medusa. The artwork is chaotic but in a good way, like a Heavy Metal magazine. My biggest problem is that the ball likes to jump the flippers.

Things I’d change if I had the code and compiler:
1. Add an option to release the captured balls at the end of the game.
2. Make the attract mode lighting less schizophrenic.

Jappie what don’t you like about the multiball rules?

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The biggest problem with multi ball is that you can re-lock balls while in multi ball. I may have kept mine longer if it would kick out the ball while you're still in multi ball.

When I was playing this game, back in the day, that was my biggest complaint.

I had to strip a Lightning recently (Bad termites) so if there are any game specific parts you need let me know!

If you look in the first picture with the back box door open on the lower right side right under the power supply is a piece of paper with dip switch settings etc. Mine was mint before a mouse eating a bunch of it when it was stored in the garage for one winter. That is what I’m looking for.

Can anyone scan a piece of the playfield for me?

Mine has a spot of wear under the drops ... if I can get a scan of this area I can make up a decal and fix her up!

rd

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I’ll do it RD. Remind me in a few days if you haven’t heard from me.

Super sweet!

rd

Well, got my Lighting back in play. Had a fried coil and a bad replacement. Now I'm stuck with no GI or back box lights and no voice. 20 fuse was fine, but replaced anyway. Still no dice. Any suggestions on where to go next?

UPDATE: Got GI working, appears it was a bad connection on the upper left connector of the three on the rectifier board. Still no luck on back box or voice. Thanks in advance for any help troubleshooting further!

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Looking for someone that would be able to scan the piece of paper in the back box in Lightning? Mine was eaten by a mouse while in storage in the garage.

Just joined the club. She's a project for sure but is mostly complete. Several coils missing, drop targets missing, one drop target mech in pieces, battery puked on the MPU but doesn't look too bad. Has the Blue Ski Jumps for inserts, LOL. Looking forward to getting it up and running.

Bay78, I can get you a hi res picture of those papers in the backbox. Could be a little while though before I can tear into this thing.

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Thank you very much! I’m looking forward to it. My clear coated playfield will be going back in soon.

Well, I'm back to running 100%! A few minor adjustments were made in general, but the real culprit was the lower connector on the rectifier board under the play field. The red wire near the middle (right of orange) was not making good contact, leading to no lower back gi box lighting (feature lights worked) and no voice. But all better now! Thanks for the advice everyone.

Hey All, New to the club here. I blew a fuse today and replaced it without incident - until I went to play next game. Everything looked good - all test bings happened and displays came on. 2 balls served into the plunge area. If 2 balls are in the locks, then the ball in the drain will not serve. If I take a ball out of the locks and place it in the drain then both serve.
Not sure if the issue is with the arms that the balls sit on in the drains, or with the locks. Anybody dealt with this issue, or have any idea what I'm experiencing?

LOVE this game and need to play again soon!

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Hi! I'm new to the club and a owner of a 1981 Lightning! I have a question... Can someone advise me how to change the multiplier to carry over to the next ball? My machine is resetting after each ball.

If you are talking about the Blue playfield multiplier, that is normal. If you are talking about the yellow bonus multiplier, that should carry over until you reach 5x, then it will revert back to 2x. I have looked over all the dip switch settings and there is no adjustment for that. Is your game set for 3 ball or 5 ball?

It is set for 5 ball.

Added #44 sockets under both of the lock holes in my Lightning, makes them really stand out but looks pretty 'normal' because kicker holes were often lit this way. They should have lit these to begin with!

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Great idea!

Recently Joined the Club!

A few bugs to work out but so far I'm liking the double playfield setup with the "feel" of a Classic Stern. The speech is another fun feature. Nothing like calling out the gods with a robot voice!

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Okay, so I’ve joined the club.

Every insert is raised and/or loose. And as you can tell from the pics, it’s been sitting in a warehouse for 30+ years. It’s filthy, but seems to be complete.

So my question is: Is this game worth putting all the work into? I’m sure I’ll get biased answered from this crowd

I’ve got a bunch of other project lined up, and am trying to gauge where it will fit in the queue.

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Is your game worth fixing? My opinion based on your pictures is yes -- your playfield looks complete, artwork looks good, and even the large blue triangle inserts do not look overly cupped (but that can be difficult to see in pics alone). Lightning can feel like you are playing two smaller games at times and random lower shots on the playfield can feel clunky -- but if you take the time to target the ramp/drop target shots it can be very rewarding.

Not seen as commonly as Flight 2000 or Meteor, so its a nice Classic Stern to have as a future project. If you are still working on your Quicksilver conversion I might take on something different as your next project to mix things up a bit. . . unless you think jumping from one Classic Stern to another will help you work thru it easier.

Thanks for the feedback. It seems like a pretty decent games once you understand the rules, but I've never actually played it, so the input helps.

I do have the ability to fix the pf inserts and clearcoat. I'm just trying to decide if it's worth taking on, or passing to someone that can get to it quicker.

Thank you. Yeah, no doubt that it can be fixed. Just lots of time to invest. The blue inserts do have a decent amount of warp, but should be fixable.

QS is completed. But I already have 4 projects lined up before I could get to this--currently working on the KISS you can see in the background. And I have a Big Game in the same shape as Lightning. Which would you do first? Big Game or Lightning? It'll be three years until I can get to it though...

That is an easy one. Sell me the Big Game, then you can start the Lightning.