I look forward to the solution - I have the same problem and my ACDC has recently developed the same problem. Nothing worse that hitting the skill shot or a 2x song jackpot dead on and the drop target rejecting the ball.

May I recommend changing your thread title to "Stern Star Trek Drop Target Doesn't Fall"? Just to maybe get browsers who have experienced this problem on other Stern titles that may be applicable to this issue.

Yep, mine has started doing the same thing.

must be a problem with stern drop targets in general. They are probably a little too thick at the hole allowing the target to recatch. I don't recall ever seeing sopranos do this. So they must have changed their design somewhere down the line.

I was having this same problem with one of my AC/DC drop targets. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to fix it. It turns out the target was slightly warped. Gavin Miller is the one who pointed this out to me. He used a heat gun to straighten it, and it has been fine ever since.

Mine does the same thing, has since day one. I have looked at it but haven't been able to see what is causing it. It seems to only be hard hits that cause the problem, any soft hit it seams to drop every time.

This is exactly what was happening with my AC/DC target. Direct hits from the cannon would bounce off, but virtually any other hit would knock it down.

Same thing was happening on my ST Pro when I first received my machine. I adjusted the tension of the drop target spring under the playfield, like people were doing for their Metallica drop target issues, and I haven't had the problem since.

Same here on AC/DC. Haven't looked at it yet but happy to hear suggestions. For the time being I'm aiming to hit the song jackpot target by hitting the edge of the target rather than a direct hit.

Talk about adding pressure to an already high pressure shot ...

yep mine does this too. how do you adjust the tension on the spring ? stretch it out ?

Unhook the spring, stretch it slightly and reattach at the middle of the spring. So you end up hooking the middle part of the spring with about 20 or so spring coils hanging free.

To better understand,there is a picture of the "fix" on page 1 of this thread:
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/unplayable-drop-targets-metallica-pro-anyone-have-a-fix

Yep, this happens on my ST & MET. I will have to try the spring adjustment. Thanks for the info.

thanks i will try this tomorrow

I ran into this problem and have the official solution from Stern. There is no need to stretch the spring. Stern included the wrong spring on some games and on some they included the proper spring in the coin box

Original Spring (Red) installed on mine

20140506_185736.jpg

Correct spring = BLUE - was in a bag of parts in my coin door.

20140506_185547.jpg

After installed no more problem with target failing to drop from direct hits.

wonder if this is the same reason AC/DC bounces once in awhile? Personally, I think the cannon just fires to fast and it bounces and recatches the lip.

I had to adjust my spring better get the correct one off stern thanks for sharing

I have the blue/purple spring in my Premium, not red. It wouldn't reject all shots, but a dead on hit smack in the middle hard would bounce back sometimes. I went ahead and stretched my spring tonight, worked in testing but I'll need to get more games in to see if it really solved it or not.

Any update on where to get the correct "blue" spring? Mine didn't come with one.

This happens every now and then on my Star Trek pro, i've never had the second hit to it not drop it though.

Something that was happening however (and on a WOZ I had at the lone drop target) the connector to the the pcb board for the drop target would fall off every couple dozen games or so from the vibrations or what have you. I recommend using a bread tie wrapped around it to hold the connector in place- hasn't happened since.

Contact Stern and they will mail you one free of charge.

thanks!

Here is a good picture of the end result. Just had to do the fix on a friend's game. 8 year old thread helped me to get to the problem fast thanks to all the previous posts!

PXL_20231017_012636513 (resized).jpg