I know it's a popular mod, but I really feel like you're cutting yourself short if you install the extended guides. Steve Ritchie said he wished he had thought of them, but back then games were supposed to be more physically challenging to gobble up arcade quarters. The games back then didn't have deep rulesets like they do now, so the challenge came from "beating" the physical nature of the ball.

Call me a purist, but the game plays better as originally made.

Looks great..

All repaired and re-installed. Works like a charm. Thanks all.

Hi guys - least question for a while - just had a few deliveries of spares and need to spend das cleaning…. Does anybody have a large picture of the 3rd pop bumper cap cutout? Mine is missing and I want to use a Dremel on a full one..

Yeah, that is what I was saying.. I dislike the game with the lane extenders and it was a reason I did not hunt the game down.. wasn't until later that I discovered the one thing I did not like about the game was a mod.. lol

Unobtanium, these were only used in STTNG and Road Show:

Please see this post:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/14#post-3269848

Keep in mind these replacement are going to have wire tabs out the end and not the sides. The cannon assembles do not allow clearance for this switch which is why special switches were designed, you are going to have to bend the end tabs over to make these fit.

So how would one go about fixing them then?

Hope this helps. This is what I had to create mine.

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Think there’s any chance this will be remade by Chicago gaming? I can’t imagine Next Generation license being expensive.

I can only imagine what an LE would look like…just look at what they did with Attack from Mars.

NEW STTNG MOD COMING!
The BORG Experience Background Screen 400x1280 HD widescreen
Resistance to playing / modding STTNG pinball, is futile.
Screen shots of the background video

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I like it.
What's your honest opinion?
Are they too dark for the game?
My feelings won't be hurt either way... I just like to offer "different" products from the other vendors. I'm not heavily invested in this color.

That said; do you mind if I use your pictures on my product page for others to see?

I like them. They look sweet all lit up on the slings there. And yes , you can definitely use my pic as you see fit.

Awesome thanks!

Not sure where it goes but it sure is good looking.

I think you have a better chance of them producing Punchy the Clown (where is LTG when you need him) than STTNGR. The BOM is insane and there's nowhere near the built up demand for $7-$9K (this game would have to be 9K with all the stuff in it) games like you had with MM, AFM and MB.

Exactly. Also of note is that STTNG is quite a higher production run AFAIK of those other remake titles. Can only imagine the valuation and demand for TNG is it had a run of 50% of what it did.

Yep there were more STTNG machines made than all of AFM, MM & MB put together

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Nov 1993) 11,728 produced
Attack from Mars (Dec 1995) 3,450 produced
Medieval Madness (Jun 1997) 4,016 produced
Monster Bash (Jul 1998) 3,361 produced

A somewhat fun but basically irrelevant datapoint would be what those totals would look like if you could include production numbers for the remakes.

Star Trek: The Pinball Experience: "BORG Alcove Display"
Located at the top of the playfield. A 7.9 inch, 400x1280 lcd display features 20 thrilling minutes of Star Trek Borg themed, animated graphics and video.
Media content is sourced via a dedicated Raspberry Pi Zero. Everything is powered via USB 5 volt power.
The music within this video is for stand-alone display purposes only.
This is a simulation of concept. Actual installation happens this week.

STTNG BORG ALCOVE Mod Display update.
Overview, technical detail and creative direction.
Star Trek - The Pinball Experience

It depends on how many different soundtracks you have on the same USB. I keep 7 or 8 different ones on one USB stick when I want to sample others work and get ideas for my own soundtrack. That does add some boot time for the Pinsound to be ready. But after creating my own soundtrack, one that I play with 99% of the time, I keep that on its own USB stick. With just the one, Pinsound is ready almost immediately after turning on the game.

Here's an example - the game is turned on at 4 seconds, the game is ready at 14 seconds, and the Pinsound board is ready at 17 seconds (only 3 seconds after the game is booted). Not bad.

The sound for this video is being taken directly from the Pinsound's RCA out jacks into my OBS rig on my laptop, so there's no ambient flipper or cannon movement noise. I'm playing around with different stuff (lighting, sound, player cam, player audio, etc.) so this is a WIP. I'd spend more time on this but I just started a Meteor restoration and I'm really into that right now for my spare time.

It's been a while since I sampled this issue... but I thought it was longer on Bride Of Pinbot that is at work and I haven't been long enough to risk playing pinball in the Cafe at work. Covid is still an ugly beast - even with a vac.
Like I said; it's better than no sound... but I just don't like the delay I see on the BOP.
It's one of the reasons I have installed Pinsound on my STNG. The other is just lazy.
I'm afraid it'll be one of those... Pinsound; then speaker conversion; then Woofer install... ya know... slippery slope.

And the shaker.

So I’m gonna do some under the playfield maintenance today on my machine. I’ve only had it for about a month. And I wanted to start with the subway plastic. I was thinking of disassembling the subway and doing a thorough cleaning of it. Is there anything I should know before I do that or anything else that should be cleaned while I’m doing that. Optos maybe?

Taking off the subway is fairly easy all things considered, it's about 8-10 screws and 2 plugs. There's a couple of lamps underneath it that are hard to get to so might be an idea to check those whilst you've got access to them.

Is there anything else that should be cleaned while I have the subway plastic off? Any switches or anything like that? This will be my first time doing any maintenance like this on my machine.

Have any of you tried using one of the latest Tilt Audio boards? It looks like there is an altsound set available for STTNG:

http://altsound.vpin24.com/

I have an older board that I was using for another game butthe latest version is supposed to work well with the later WPC games. For the price it may be worth trying it out.

You should disasemble and clean up the diverters, Pin_Guy has some really good detailed photos and instructions in this thread.

I only here people moaning about those boards here, as soon as a new version comes out he releases another.
I had pinsound in my last STTNG but my latest one is staying standard and I’m happy with that.

Finally it’s all working, new cannon looms were fitted as had breaks but turns out I had an opto problem as well. Fitted a pair of new opto’s in the left cannon and now it’s all working great, very fast and smooth. Was worth all the effort of stripping down. Just need to stick on the new side rails.

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There has definitely been a lot of churn on that project but the latest versions seem a lot better. Once you get a stable version you can always stick with it. Easy enough to setup new versions on a separate microSD card and if you don't like it just pop in the original microSD card.

So I was doing some maintenance under the playfield today and I noticed the flipper coils are different then what the manual calls for. Anyone know why?

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Also, saw this electrical taped wires and don’t know why.

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Here's a video showcasing the custom Pinsound soundtrack I assembled for my STTNG. I took elements of soundtrack packages from Jedimastermatt, Pinballshark, and PinHead and then added my own touches. I reached into Star Trek Beyond, TOS, and Into Darkness for some music cuts.

In addition to the Pinsound board, I also have their upgraded 2.1 speakers and subwoofer in my cabinet...sometimes the bass in the soundtrack shakes my flipper cam mounted to the lockbar, so apologies in advance if it makes you dizzy.

I took elements of soundtrack packages from Jedimastermatt, Pinballshark, and PinHead and then added my own touches.

Speech is pretty much the same as original although I did re-encode the files and increased their amplitude a bit. You can hear the custom SFX and background music for things like "mission select", "mission ready", "end theme", etc. throughout the video. Here are some time indexes for specific custom music to sample:

Startup
Holodeck message: 00:16

Music
Rescue Mission #1: 00:45
Time Rift Mission #1: 01:45
Shuttle Simulation #1: 02:48 (left flipper button stuck and I crashed into the cavern wall)
Worm Hole Mission: 03:23
Borg Multiball #1: 04:15
Search the Galaxy Mission: 06:20
Asteroid Threat Mission #1: 07:04
Q's Challenge Mission #1: 08:06 (with two wicked saves at 08:29 and 08:39)
Shuttle Simulation #2: 09:13 (made it thru this time)
Battle Simulation #1: 09:53
Romulan Multiball: 11:11 (lots of bass/flipper camera shake here)
Final Frontier #1: 11:58 (6 Artifacts)
Battle Simulation #2: 13:29
Ferengi Multiball: 14:50
Q's Challenge Mission #2: 17:31
Riker's Poker: 18:07
Rescue Mission #2: 19:06 (rescued everyone this time)
Asteroid Threat Mission #2: 20:05
Time Rift Mission #2: 21:29
Borg Multiball #2: 22:07
Bought in one more ball: 23:12
Final Frontier #2: 23:15 (11 Artifacts)
End Theme: 24:53

While I triggered most everything, I didn't get to Cardassian Multiball this particular game.

This afternoon, I submitted the soundtrack (STTNG_Mathazar_Mix_v1.7.zip) to Pinsound for inclusion on the community site, but it needs to be approved by one of their moderators before it's posted. Watch for it soon.

FL-17636 were experimental coils used on the early production STTNG machines.

Take off 3 VUKs first, there were installed AFTER the subway was installed and will make its removal easier...all the optos on the VUKs should be cleaned anyways.

Yes, if you are taking this assembly out clean the crap out of it...both diverters, replace the springs, replace the coil sleeves, clean all the optos.

Strip it down to this level or you wasted your time removing it

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/16#post-3349152

Even though its not show in in the photo, nor can anyone ever see it, but I did remove and regained the SS ball track to make is as smooth as it was when it was new.

Also am having an issue with the Romulan mode. Something really weird happens when that mode starts. It sounds as if a shaker motor is going off during the mode, but I have no shaker. And no balls come out and the machine starts to do a ball search. Also, the green light under the Romulan ship doesn’t light up during the mode either. I have a video but I’m not sure if you can make out the sound it’s making.

Looks like the machine is just doing a ball search? likely you have a opto out somewhere and the machine has lost track of the ball.

Speaking of Romulan mode, for gameplay, does anyone get any use out of it? or generally try to avoid it? It's too bad as theme-wise they are so important.. but in this game, the mode itself seems like the worst of the neutral zone?

Here is a better vid of Romulan mode going crazy. I noticed the red flasher going off instead of the green flasher for the Romulan warbird toy.

Oh wow.. that is crazy.. has it always been like this for you, or is this something that has just started to happen randomly?

It’s Been like this since I got it. I traded my Star Wars pro for this one. I noticed some weird wiring under the play field that looks odd.

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Sounds scary ... I have no idea what that can be; I would probably start disconnecting things until I found something that made it stop doing that and then try to figure it out from there.

What if I put the play field in the service positions and trigger the Romulan mode and see where that noise is coming from ?

So I’m really getting into the lower playfield and I’m finding some cut wires. Can anyone help me out with these ? And a jumbled up taped up mess.

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In your first picture, the way that wire is stripped looks like it may have caught on something as the playfield was lifted and popped it. Just a guess.

The taped junk, I would just start undoing it and cleaning it up and find out what I need to replace. Probably a crappy splice or damaged insulation or something in there at least.

Take your time, it's a must you clean and repair the hack job someone did. Get a bright light, and start matching the color coding on the wires. By the looks of the thicker red wire, looks like someone was attempting to lengthen a wire which was too short to reach something. I would suggest NEVER using electrical tape. Joint wires then soldering, then heat shrink is the only way to go.
If you have to add additional wire to make the connection, add some extra and zip tie up the surplus.
Thanks for sharing another stupid, half-ass attempt to fix something previously in your machine history. We all encounter these wtf? problems.

I checked out the area on mine. The closest I could find to that black wire in the area was opto wires running to subway and to ramp optos at borg ship. I agree with Eric. Take your time and bullet proof the connections with solder and shrink wrap.

So I got my subway diverters all cleaned up. Is the diverter shaft supposed to be greased or lubed?

So would it be safe to solder that black wire back together then? I have shrink wrap too. So not an issue there. I just wanna make sure it’s the same wire

From your picture they look the same. As far as lube on the diverer I'm not sure. I didn't put any during my playfield restore. I'm curious if we should since I haven't finished the total restore yet.