i know what you mean by missing it, i am On My Fourth , Really 3rd because i bought one back after i sold it (same example) , although not my current one i Bought From a Fellow pinsider here who decked it out before i got it .
mine is loaded with stuff and plays great . Enjoy it

I guess it's not. If the goal is to lighten up the back of the game, that's really all I'd need it for.

Can someone post a closeup pic of their LED OCD board installed?

I’m trying to find out how to plug in the J136 connector properly.

D0D0AFF4-6719-4369-B72D-E3DC85C1DA10 (resized).jpeg

Thanks! The instructions for the GI OCD board say the GI power input connector is near the back end of the cabinet, but I don’t see any such connector near the back end.

Can someone point to it in the 1st pic? (The 2nd pic is from the GI OCD instructions)

64C2F01F-EAB2-433C-97A1-E08CC264205E (resized).jpeg

9DBE8B1F-5F0D-4ACE-9022-C8B0B8037D6B (resized).jpeg

the yellow one coming from your transformer...

Ah, ok. I had thought that may be it, but it’s not in the “back end” of the cabinet and it has 7 pins and the OCD board has 6.

Thanks for the help.

I was catching up on my forum reading and saw you used my photos. That was vey nice. I didn't have the photo scrolled down all the way and I thought it looked like my finger.

STTNG is my favorite game and I have refurbished it at least 10 times. The last few times I have taken hundreds of photos. So if you need any photos to find stuff, look at the following refurbishments I did:

http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2015.html
(This is the one I currently own and need to update with more bling added.)

http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2016.html
This one is not a lot of photos but concentrates on fixing the trigger for the phaser gun.

http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2015-JV.html
This has a lot of photos as well.

http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2013-03.html

I also used STTNG to show people how to pack and unpack a pinball to move:
http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/TakeDownAPinball.html

and finally, although there is a great amount of repair info on pinside, I have been documenting my STTNG repairs and the latest ones with some photos:
http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/BallyWilliamsRepairs.html#StarTrek

mbelofsky
thank you so much for the info. LOVED THIS PAGE and your posting

SPEAKER LED LIGHTING ----- Recommendations Please.

....Note: Yes I know the speakers on stock STTNG machine are different sizes. Not mine. The right side has been made identical to the left, and the speaker replaced with PinSound ones. And the power I would gather should come from something external, like my switched service outlet.
I have seen BriteSound and others. What does everyone like??? Thank you so much for your thoughts !!

Eric

H-E-L-P PLAYFIELD Damage.
Is there anything which can be done to repair something like this (see photo)? Sorry I am posting so much guys/gals, deeply involved in this STTNG restoration.

Or at least make it look less ugly. Kind of embarrassed to even post this.....The machine has had a hard life, but over the last 3 months, received the well deserved TLC. New color DMD, New PinSound System, New Power Driver Board, New DMDLux Video Board, New 8 Driver Board, New Fliptronic Board, New Opto Board, New Optos everywhere, New Trough, New Trough Opto Boards, New Cannon Looms, New Cannon Motors, LED OCD and GI OCD systems, New Flipper Rebuilds, Paint Job for cannons and borg by Back Alley.....more

IMG_20201126_140716[1] (resized).jpg

IMG_20201231_032350[1] (resized).jpg

What did you do with the old power driver board? Still have it?

Also, your shield insert decal seems to be chipping a bit and delaminatung. Curious to hear what others recommend. Could be dont eff with it.

Reread your old posts. Did you ever resolve your opto related ball issues?

I have touched up several playfiels like this. I am not a professional restorer, but my machines look 10 times better after repairing these little tears around inserts. To do it the right way, look up vid's guid to ultimate playfield restoration. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration/page/144#post-5985373

If you want a solution that looks 90% as good, my method of choice is to simply paint the area in the cracks where you see white with black paint. I would recommend going to the dollar store and getting a bunch of those cheap plastic toothpics. Something like this with a very fine tip. https://www.amazon.com/Brushpicks-250-6822-275-Count/dp/B000P1TYEM/ref=sr_1_2_sspa
I would also get some Hobby Lobby plain black plaint. I use this and it has served me well.

With these two in mind I would first throughoughly clean the area, then very finely paint into the cracks. Note that the white area is slightly below the surface of the playfield so this will survive ball travel just fine. I've done it on several machines and have not had any issues with the paint coming off. Just make sure you let it dry at least an hour and then wax it for protection. If you are painting something raised, you would have to deal with clear or mylar, but for this, $5, 20 minutes of very fine and careful painting and some care will do. If you don't like it you can just wipe it off with a towel while wet.

The official right way to do it would be: As for fixing the inserts, you can order new ones, use a heatgun to loosen the glue around them, hammer them out from the bottom, replace them, use waterslide decals and clear on top, paint edges and let dry, and clear. See Vid's link if you want to do it the "right" way.

ac869f30ff88d40da51ee20ca85e576ac10c83d5 (resized).jpg

Did you try and paint the metal bracket black?

I don't believe you can find these teal inserts anywhere anymore.

Since I was doing a full restoration that involved stripping EVERYTHING from the playfield, I just replaced it with new.
http://www.planetarypinball.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PPS-36-50023&Category_Code=GS-2357

Looks like the new playfield doesn't have the teal inserts anymore either.

Looks like MrPinball (Aust) and PPS now have them in stock, although I've not seen them in person to know how the colour compares to the original teal

http://www.planetarypinball.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=PP&Product_Code=PPS-50-26-25&Category_Code=INS
https://shop.mrpinball.com.au/product/playfield-insert-cresent-transparent-teal/

No offense Eric, but you have messed with perfection by brightening up areas that are inherently dark. In reference to your old post where you want to cover up the switches and stuff between the Borg lock and delta ramp... THAT AREA IS SUPPOSED TO BE DARK. In fact, as a huge fan of the show, the color balance of Borg Multiball in darkness is almost identical to the color scheme of the show when the enterprise is in trouble and taking damage. Yesterday's Enterprise is a good example that comes to mind if memory serves (not that that was a borg battle). The other cool thing about the default lighting is that the neutral zone is inherently dark. Its far away... faint, like space....

All these mods... Love the herg LED stuff, but some things I think you really need to preserve the spirit of the original design. But to each his own. Unmolested incandescents attached (Romulan flasher is LED, as is the entire borg cube).

IMG_8251 (resized).jpeg

Thank you everyone for your follow up answers to questions. VERY appreciated
Some addition follow up to comments given:
* All my Optos throughout the game are new (new opto sets -16 pairs)(new opto board)(new trough boards) and all the connections repunched with a tool. They all work. I am nearly positive the (1) Subway steel protector may be slightly restrictive on the ball flow. An opto set shines through it. If and when I removed the subway again, I will either enlarge the hole in the subway protector, or remove it completely.

* I may need to slightly tweak the "Home" locations of the Cannon switches underneath the playfield, however they seem to locate fine. The right side seems to cycle once early when Picard says "Launch a probe". Then the cannon waited for the ball to load, and everything works as expected.

* YES. Painted the trashy steel located and the ramp entry into the Borg ship. Also touched up the eye sore screws where the ship mounts. Photos coming soon. Looks way better.

* Comment on the "dark look" of the game. Yes I am familiar with why the game is dark, and all the GI lighting goes out when encountering the Borg gameplay. I think it's fantastic. My "newly painted" Borg ship by Back Alley is fantastic, however gets lost in the darkness. As a photographer, I added some side lighting tied into the GI so during normal gameplay, you have a hint the ship is there. I have always felt the lack of any operational GI lighting was terrible inside the ship, so I added some led lighting. The "Borg Ship" (2) bulbs are barely visible and are hardly on at anytime. So this is a must do mod for me. But good comments on the "feel and flow" for the game. Agreed.

* Thanks for the links to Planetary Pinball for the shield inserts. I think I will order some. However even though I've worked on dozens of pinball machines, playfield stuff I have never attempted. Very scary.

* Outer Loop Gate: Got something from Marco to try, however as you can imagine to install it, requires removing the Borg ship completely. Not feeling it just yet.....but I will.

Looking forward to sharing my project WITH photos soon. It's been a 3 month journey and countless (seriously) hours of work. Happy New Year..

Our family joined the club a couple of weeks ago. I have a Stern Star Trek Pro and the entire family loves STTNG more including my 15 year old.

It looks to be in pretty good condition but needs to have the rubbers changed out and probably a really good cleaning. I think everything works currently.

Are there things that I should do to this game to prolong its life? Someone told me that there are board repairs that need to be done to preemptively fix it. I was hoping someone could give me an idea of what is involved along with anything else that I need to do to make it more reliable down the road.

Any good decals or mods that make this cooler looking?

Also should all the ugly switches on the playfield have grey covers?

2299DB47-E169-4C65-A818-B5AA28456BC3 (resized).jpeg

They're most likely talking about the tieback - if you google STTNG tieback you'll find a raft of links

https://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation#Diode_.22Tie_Back.22_missing_causes_8-Driver_Board_transistor_to_fail
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-tieback

I've never seen the switch covers installed on a STTNG however there are decals to cover alot of the bare steel on the playfield

Zitt sells these http://pinball-mods.com/oscom/game-specific-products-williams-star-trek-the-next-generation-stng-vukbracket-dressing-p-25.html

STTNG (resized).jpg

Good call on the tie-back mod. I’d do the cannon looms too if they are older. And have a bunch of optos on hand...

Yep really depends upon the condition of the machine, some STTNG's seem to be quite troublesome in which doing these can be quite fortuitous, although mine has been pretty good (only had cracked solder joints on the VUK optos). I guess it depends how much you want to bulletproof your machine upfront versus fix it if/when something fails, of course failures mean troubleshooting the issue but at least with those you haven't burnt out any coils and transistors.

That's a good question; the answer is maybe. The Williams Green Parts catalog says there should be 1.
pasted_image (resized).png

However, the STTNG parts list nor the STTNG manual doesn't list these covers but that doesn't mean you cant add them if you desire.
pasted_image (resized).png

Thanks, I may cover a couple of them but they probably stand out more with the covers on them then off them.

I have had the covers for the switches previously. Kind of a mixed blessing. Yes, it looks better, but sometimes they will pop off if you don't install the additional metal clips. And if I remember, those clips require you to remove and reinstall the 2 switch screws. That is easy enough, however may be hard to get to ANY if you've got them adjusted perfect, you'll have to adjust them all over.

I may do it again on my current STTNG, still undecided.

Current mod for the STTNG pin restoration also the newly painted Borg Ship by Back Alley Creations (they totally rock!)
The backboard image was custom created in Photoshop and printed by Walmart photo.

133507320_310865540277777_5215108103372843584_n (resized).jpg

134418130_908493883229049_5434497749092107763_n (resized).jpg

134728419_363727128286666_770339213641439487_n (resized).jpg

133653961_880194772754865_5142049075622416439_n (resized).jpg

134107188_215670013495938_7082055975214495221_n (resized).jpg

Oh having two birds of prey looks cool!

QUESTION:
Recently I posted on the topic of playfield issues, so I have been reviewing the Shield Inserts. When did they go from Blue to Green (Teal)?
These are some random images from a google search. Recently ordered 3 replacements from Planetary Pinball in the Teal (all they had), but I do like the Blue ones. Thought I would get them while they are out there to get. Putting them in is beyond my skill set.
STTNG020 (resized).jpgsttng-5 (resized).jpg

I don't think they ever changed color in their original run. I think what you are seeing is a game lit by LEDs on the top with "Natural White" lighting under the inserts on the top. See the pink and blue GI in that top game? These lights are bright as well and push more light through the inserts, and the white lights behind them are probably the color of old fluorescent lightbulbs (high color temperature, read white light). The machine on the bottom is lit by incandescent bulbs. They are not as bright and tend to give off a more yellow light. The image on the bottom is "correct" factory look.

The inserts have gone from teal to clear on replacement playfields in the past 20 or so years as teal inserts are no longer available from anyone. Anytime you see those it is a preproduction playfield.

I believe the teal ones are now available again - https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/100#post-6047931

Thank you everyone. Here is the website which has them. Planetary Pinball
When I had the game 15 years ago, nobody knew what LED bulbs were. And recently I didn't notice what the shields looked like before I turned everything off, and began the restoration. The LEDs now in the machine are blue flex ones. So certainly the bulb color will influence the results.

33 (resized).JPG34 (resized).JPG

IMG_20201126_140716 - Copy (resized).jpg

The insert used for the shields in STTNG is part number 50-26-25 (the top image). Don't use the 50-26-11 (bottom image) as that is the wrong part/colour.

I guessed as much, thank you much for chiming in on that.

As mentioned above, using different lights will give you the teal effect. Here's mine after I did a restoration and switched to comet LEDs (with OCD controllers).

20201103_201726566_iOS (resized).jpg

I like the lighted star-posts at the bottom of the slings especially, may have to add those to mine.

If you haven’t played around with comet’s matrix lights I highly recommend them. It only takes a couple minutes to add or remove stuff like that, and I had a lot of fun experimenting. The spot on the left sling is another matrix light. I also added spots to JP and Avengers - it’s fun and nothing is permanent.

This is likely a dumb question, so go ahead and laugh at me....What is the purpose of the round colored lens in the corner of the playfield on STTNG??

Capture (resized).JPG

The red insert under the apron was put there for testing purposes to test the strength of the adhesion of clearcoat on the playfields, some playfields of a run were scratched over the inserts. They originally did this test on some of the actual playfield inserts which of course ruined the playfield, so it was more cost-effective to add an extra insert to every playfield in an invisible place. That way playfields used for testing could still be installed in games.

Here is some information on the various PF manufacturers, their process and identification stamps https://www.flippers.be/pinball_playfields.html

Did anyone watch the Marco Tech YouTube video about Led Zep with Steve Ritchie and Tim Sexton? There's a short section when they are talking about licenses and SR mentions working on STTNG, how the first attempt was a no-go because they told them they couldn't use phasers, photon torpedoes or anything else so they (SR and WMS) were ready to walk-away from the license completely. Roger Sharpe (who was in charge of licensing at WMS for those that don't know already) went back and there had been a change in personnel responsible for licensing at Universal and they were then completely open with all assets, etc. He talked about how great it was to have everyone do custom voices even though some were more into it than others and how he doesn't think they'll ever get that kind of cooperation with a licensor again. This was around 1:18:30 mark of the video:

He was correct, and this is something that really makes this machine so special to own.

It serves no in game function, it was there for the playfield QC inspector. Producing quality products used to be important at one time; unfortunately, all that matters now is reducing production costs.

Hey STTNG Pinball fans. Still working on my machine (month 3). Did some mods to light up the ramps, which traditionally are dark. The color is good on them so I thought they needed to be seen. In addition, used the cool Cliffy protector in the launch area, with a few extra things. Lighted that. And tied a light into the "Spinner" flasher with a diode to highlight that aspect of the gameplay.

135224952_419991085909097_8999475667939847079_n (resized).jpg

135537501_222663072763329_7475255525097533306_n (resized).jpg

135623225_2111726655630384_6553223200951490871_n (resized).jpg

135853842_257540609157822_315903952277700259_n (resized).jpg

136980679_775158576771509_2711987404262576414_n (resized).jpg

137326334_395086124896014_2793103555910842385_n (resized).jpg

I added some to mine, but then move them up by the Ferengi and Klingon faces instead (the bottom ones shone too much in my eyes, even when I changed them to darker blue star posts). Clear star posts at the top of the slingshot not only spotlight the two adjacent faces but nicely light up the Ferengi and Klingon target banks.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (LX-7C Competition MOD)

been seeing posting to this.....What Is It? How is it any different than what's out there....?

What-is-it (resized).jpg

Borg gameplay question?
During the 2nd of 5 ball gameplay, without any balls in LOCK, and without encountering the Borg yet, I hit a ball up the LEFT Ramp. Normally the diverter will prevent (I believe) the balls from entering the Borg Ship. However one went in. Normal game play continued until finally entering the Borg gameplay, and then it shot the ball. Does a ball normally "load in advance" ?? I seldom get a ball into the ship.

Have no idea what "normal" is. Thanks. Also, as previously posted, what is the LX-7C Competition MOD ROM???

Thank you as always for your thoughts and suggestions

locutus (resized).jpg

Are you sure it didn't just have that lock shot lit, I've never seen the game allow a ball to be loaded there unless lock was lit. Did it play one of the Borg lock animations / audio clips when this happened?

This is completely normal. You must’ve shot up the right loop to light borg lock. From here, The Delta quadrant ramp is lit for borg lock as is the right loop. If you hit the Delta quadrant shot before the right loop, your ball will lock in the borg ship. The right loop will also remain lit for Lock. However if you hit the right loop first, the ball lock in the Delta quadrant will unlight.

In borg multi ball then you will get shot at with that locked ball. Pretty cool touch.

Thank you for the Borg Game Play comments....Useful!! LASER CANNON question....I made the plunge and ordered them today. And I understand they are powered off the motors themselves. Do they use a lot of power? And is it 12 volt power? Anyone have any installation tips or suggestions??

Even though I've taken steps to reduce the 12 volt usage on the machine, the last thing is needing something else which may affect the machine's ability to "know" where the ball is.

Galaxy_class_firing_phasers_HD (resized).jpg

sttng_cannon (resized).jpg