To answer my own question, looking closer at the schematics it looks like both boards draw 12v power from J118 on the powerboard. I also see that fuse F116 is labeled +12V Secondary, which sounds like the closest match. So I'll check fuse F116 to see if it's blown.

I also hooked the sender board to a 7.5v power adapter and it lit the red LED no problem, so seems like it must have blown the fuse.

(machine is 40min drive from my house so can't check immediately, in case you are wondering).

She lives! Take that you blown out aux board, cut wires, and shorted coils (and blown fuses and corroded CPU). Off to Marco to order a bajillion parts and to Zitt's store to get some lamp boards for my ship. Woo!!

Btw: my playfield shudders (drops a bit) in the top left corner whenever the ball is launched into play. Is this normal?

Also the VUK that feeds the left inlane is so strong it's slamming the wireform hard and has even left a light ding in the metal. Coil strengths match the ones in the manual.

Fused at the Power board only, you would know if it was blown since your display would tell you to check F116 unless you have a ColorDMD in which case you would have no display at all.

More than likely there is a broken wire (gry/yel) that goes to the boards

Edit: the 12V fuse is F116 not F118 ... needed a maginfying glass to read that The above still holds true as you would have no unregulated +12V

12V (resized).jpg

Does anyone have extra plastics? Looking for: Slings, Ferengi, and the curved plastic that sits below the advance in rankplastic/lamps. Thanks.

Hmm, I'm curious to know about this as I can say mine does it as well. I always wondered if something was loose...maybe they are all that way?

I have seen this before on different machines, but mine does not have this behavior.

Just checked my machine and no shuddering. So much stuff mounted above and below these playfields. Could the shuddering be a result of slight warpage? Is warpage even a word? I am just happy that my STTNG is rocking at 100%. Awesome pin.

http://www.thepinballwizard.net/index.php?p=product&id=1865 for the slings

Says its out of stock. Thanks though. There were a few different pieces over at Marco but I hesitated and missed out.

Scratch that. Marco had multiple listings for the same plastic. I was able to get what I needed. Excellent!

Has anyone put a playfield protector on their sttng? Very curious what it looks like, how it plays, and how annoying it was to install.

I was able to find this:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/playfield-protector-full-sheet-plastic/page/3#post-1142723
But I'd still love to hear more feedback.

Honestly, this game is a lifetime keeper for my family but I don't see paying to clear the PF or going to all the trouble of stripping it to do so. The protector seems inevitable for me...

Thanks for the advice. Turns out it was F116 that was blown. I had swapped out my STTNG trough boards for a set from my IJ but they kept
blowing F116.

So I put the original boards back in and determined via some smartphone flash and camera tricks a buddy showed me which opto sender was failing. Was able to replace it and get the game working again.

I've also ordered some new boards from Great Lakes to avoid further issues on either IJ or STTNG in the future.

LOL. I think the protectors are a waste of money... but can see the appeal. I wouldn't really want even a small ledge over the switches / etc.

I have a mirco PF in storage... and maybe when I retire (not for 20years); I'll consider swapping the PF. I agree the swap look daunting; and that's really the rub for me. I have no problems at all clear coating a PF. Done it too many times with great results.

I am extremely concerned about the small ledges, but the newer protectors are so thin it's hard to imagine the ledges being an issue. On the flip side are they now too thin to stay in place and not flex?

To the same extent that you have a spare playfield if anything happens to yours, I see this protector as allowing me to have a "spare" under the protector.

Also, we should all be so lucky as to be as talented at restore work as you are. Mirror universe is insane.

Doing a playfield swap on a STTNG is obscene PITA.
I only did it ONCE in my lifetime.
Playfield rotisserie is a requirement here based on the playfield weight.
It is just too bulky to work with otherwise, and you can damage parts.
If you are skilled you can still pull it off with testing in less than 72 hours.

I still would rather have 10X root canals.

I thought it was rather fun myself, took me roughly 20 hours to completely disassemble the play field ... 6 months to disassemble, clean, and repair everything that was going to be put back on. Followed by another 60ish hours to assemble and adjust everything; however, I did have several work stoppages while I tried to determine where in the hell part X came from.

You know you took enough apart when the bottom of your playfield looks like this ...
1223 (resized).JPG

While that sounds deeply satisfying,
I'm not sure I would personally use the adjective fun. No judgement, of course. I'm a guy who codes pinball and pinball frameworks for fun, I just find shops and playfield swaps stressful. I can undo a mistake in code easily. If I scratch, bend, or break something physical..? Stressful.

I'm the same way, coder by profession, always do better when I can "undo".

...but, I still totally stripped my IJ to get the playfield refinished, and have parts in bins all over the place! No worries though, just think of it as the world's biggest mechano set.

This morning I went to install a bunch of parts in my new Sttng. I powered on to eject balls prior to starting any work and I was greeted by some really crazy sound behavior. Terrible hum and really distorted sounds. I popped open the board and found a cap (C52) taking a nice slow leak on the rest of my DCS board.

Some days keeping your pins running really feels like a game of whack-a-mole.

It doesn't seem like this specific cap is a super common point of failure, so I guess I'm just lucky.

image (resized).jpeg

Hey... It had to relieve itself... You can relate, right?

Interesting, I wonder what causes it on some then. Thanks for confirming!

Bad time of year to deal with this nonsense. I put a PinSound board in the machine and now I'm rocking again.

Something odd is going on with my Star Trek. I noticed today that some of the letters on my DMD are being distorted. Any idea what could be causing this? Possibly a bad DMD cable?

IMG_4804 (resized).JPG

Simply awesome:

thats going onto my pinsound this weekend

What's up everyone...I joined the club today and I'm definitely excited to snag a great machine. I need to properly level it this weekend and really get some time with it. I have a few questions:

- Does anyone have a set of the lane extenders for sale? I'd prefer the metal ones I guess. Pinbits is sold out on both.

- Are the "hallmark" ships still available somewhere?

Thanks!

IMG_2590 (resized).JPG

I just picked a set of hallmark ships up off ebay for under $20. 2 - birds of prey, 1 - warbird, and 1 - Enterprise. There was several to choose from.

I can build you a KBOP if you need one:
http://pinball-mods.com/oscom/game-specific-products-star-trek-the-next-generation-stng-klingon-bird-of-prey-p-30.html

If anyone's interested in a sttng shaker kit from pinbits please pm me

I appreciate it but I'm actually a lot more interested in those extended lane pieces than the custom ships at this point.

How did you mount them? Pics would be awesome

+1 vote for that question. I have an Enterprise but couldn't find anywhere I could mount it that wouldn't block the playfield unreasonably.

http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation#Replacing_the_OEM_Starships_with_Hallmark_Ornaments

I haven't mounted them yet. But I did on my first STTNG and remember having to drill into them. I'm pretty sure I followed the above directions.

Edit: I never did mount the Enterprise on my first STTNG. I also couldn't find a good spot to mount it so I never put it in.

This is where I placed mine

image (resized).jpeg

Thx. I'll look into mounting mine there as well if it isn't too obtrusive.

"Thx. I'll look into mounting mine there as well if it isn't too obtrusive."
Will not affect gameplay ...

Welcome to the club! You will find tons of help here on everything related to the pin, please don't hesitate to ask.

You can still get these on ebay at a decent price (~$10 last time I checked) . This is actually a good time of year to be looking for them if you aren't afraid to mod to them yourself. IMO the Romulan ship, while not simple, is far from difficult...I actually purchased 4 of them, assuming the at least one would be destroyed in the process.

I haven't mounted the Enterprise on mine yet either as I never found a good place to put it

This one ... while it worked, I considered unacceptable as taking it apart in this fashion is a guarantee you will chip paint from areas that should be covered to prevent light from shining through. It wasn't worth my time or cost to repair as I was primarily concerned with removing the circuit board intact so I can analyze the circuit board to see it it was needed or not...it's not; IIRC, it basically has a bridge rectifier and zener diodes to apply a controlled DC voltage for each side of the ship. It also took a significantly longer amount of time to separate the ship in this fashion.

900 (resized).JPG

It really is best to just cut through the board and fix the wiring when done, I drilled through the first half, then cut out the board and moved the remaining wires out of the way of the hole saw before completing the second part of the hole.

937 (resized).JPG

958 (resized).JPG

STTNG Memory ...

While looking for the Romulan ship pics, I came across this restoration picture that was one of my favorites ... its one of the first pictures after installing the playfield, head, and putting the legs back on. The machine wasn't completed since the playfield wasn't wired to the head and none of the serial number/inspection/warning decals are on the machine yet, but the machine was in better than new condition with 0 plays at this point.

IMG_1345 (resized).JPG

This is where I mounted my Enterprise. I just used the existing lighting for the BOP and Warbird. The Enterprise is unlit. Basically I just clipped the power cord and used that rubber area to mount it. The Enterprise I made a mount from a wire hangar. For the Warbird, I bought a hole bit for my drill and slowly drilled through. Never realized how many circuit boards could be inside the Warbird

sttng hiscore (resized).jpg

My error report is telling me to check switch 31 (borg lock) and 48 (borg entry). I checked the manual and I can't figure out where these are so I can test them. I'd appreciate some help determining where they are and how to test them. They're both optos...right?

Thanks!

Lol, this is the most common switch report on STTNG. Generally means that nobody has made the left ramp shot to lock a ball in the Borg for quite some time. When you lock a ball in the borg it saves it there until borg multiball starts then shoots it back at you out of the little black shute that comes out of the front of the borg unit.

To trigger the switches run a ball up the ramp to the borg unit.

Most likely everything is fine.

Seconded. And work on that Picard Maneuver so it doesn't happen again!

Good stuff...happy to hear it!

As others have said, they are common errors. To answer you your original questions, you are correct that they are both optos.

...and this is where they are located:

Borg Optos (resized).jpg

Thank you, very helpful. They both work and I finally had time to spend with the game and got to borg multiball...very cool. I didn't notice the ball shooting out of the black chute in the borg cube but perhaps I missed it with all that was going on.

It only shoots out if you lock one of balls up there with the upper flipper, or make that upper flipper shot during the Multiball.

Alright...so I had a chance to put the machine through its paces over the weekend and have a few issues to report and would love some diagnosis help:

1) With all of the other games (williams and stern) that I've owned, you can press and hold the start button once you're in ball #2 and you can restart a game. When I do this on the STTNG, it will restart the game but does so by immediately launching a ball automatically selecting flipper skill shot? Is this normal?

2) During gameplay (I don't think this behavior is specific to any given action or mode), the left probe launcher will activate and the picard soundbyte launch probe will occur. A ball hasn't been fed to the probe because there shouldn't be one there, but it acts like there is. I'm thinking that I should start by cleaning the opto on the probe entry as well as take a look at the one on the ball popper that feeds to the left probe launcher. Any other suggestions?

3) The machine is rattling a bit off of the glass and I suspect its the launcher wireform (the loop ramp) hitting the glass. I've included a pic to see if yours looks like mine. There are two washers stacked on top of each other underneath the adjustment screw...is this normal. I tried putting a little foam in the playfield glass channel to lift the glass a little as it slides in so it sits a bit higher to clear the ramp.

IMG_2601 (resized).JPG

1) Yes, unfortunately this is normal behavior for the game.

2) You are on the right track, I would suspect the wiring harness or harness connection causing the cannon opto to fail from game vibrations. If this is the case, you can probably duplicate the problem by wiggling on the cannon harness while monitoring the Switch Edge test.

3) While the loop wire form comes very close to the glass, it really shouldn't hit it. The position of this wire form is not only controlled by it's own mounting to the playfield but also its mounting to the the Delta ramps wire form and it's positioning. You may be able to lower the loop by adjusting the position where these two wire forms connect.