If I had to guess, I'd check you wire loom for the right side.. have you checked continunity back to the board from the coil lug?

Did you start by ensuring the wires didn’t pop off one of the coil lugs? That happened to me a few weeks ago.

OK, I think I've found the issue, I was checking continuity and at one point everything was checking perfectly (when it wasn't before!) so I plugged the machine back in and tested, it fired once and a small puff of smoke came from the coil. After a little bit of poking around, I've found this metal wire is loose. putting it back into position makes the coil work but the test vibrates the wire away again, causing a spark and the little puff of smoke. I guess I could try soldering it back on or just replace the coil.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

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nice...coil is probably fine, just resolder it back on....must be soldered....

Soldered it back on and it's all OK now. I'd imagine it's vibration that's caused this.

Thanks for the help.

Here is something cool! For the Star Trek Pinball Fans on this page, I will be posting a 1-hour 4kHD video designed to be used with your Star Trek Pinball.
If you have a monitor or a display laying around, needing a purpose, this would be something to enhance your machine with.
Moving star fields, ships, the LCARS Interface, the sounds of the bridge and ship engines and more. I will also provide you with a YouTube link, for downloading. FREE!
For the best experience in playback, a high quality / high speed thumbdrive is suggested for media playback.
Coming later tonight or tomorrow! Enjoy and stay creative!

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My gun handle was looking pretty ratty, and I didn't feel like dropping 150 on a new one. I needed a durable paint and figured that Rustoleum Epoxy Appliance spray paint should fit the bill. Can't say enough good things about this paint, it dried super hard and looks great. Before:
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And after:
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I'm going to respray my spinner with it also. Here's the stuff:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rust-Oleum-Specialty-12-oz-Appliance-Epoxy-Gloss-Black-Spray-Paint-7886830/100141519

I used that on my Demo Man handles, came out great. My STTNG gun needs to get done as well and the coin door.

I'm pulling apart my speaker panel so I can freshen it up and install a new plastic panel, and I noticed an interesting detail. Maybe this is because mine is a pretty early production game, the Star Fleet insignia artwork on the speaker grilles is different than every STTNG game I've ever seen - no black keyline between the silver and gold inks. I'll have to see how well they'll clean up with soap & water, I want them to look good and they look like ass right now, but I'd hate to lose the originality by completely repainting them.

I'd love to hear from other Trek owners around my serial number (50223211062) and what speaker panel artwork yours has.

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I'm curious as to where you got your new panel ... ?

Classic Arcades on Ebay. My original had a scratch/dent right in front of the DMD so it really was a "must replace". The printing is a little darker in some spots compared to the original, but honestly it's not a bad piece.

"The Star Trek Video Topper"
1 hour of amazing star fields, nebula, flying ships, Starfleet Logos, LCARS Interface and sounds....
Great for a display on top of your pinball header, or for something to play on a screen on your game room wall.
Free to download and enjoy.
1080hd and digital stereo.
For best results, download to a fast thumbdrive. Check out the other videos on my channel, please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE.
Thanks for making pinball great, and stay creative!

LINK:

CPR makes a new style replacement as well.

Thanks all...

I’m looking for the Alpha ramp and both sling cannons. Where should I look to find them? Thanking you in advance for any suggestions.

cannon covers
https://www.mickspinball.com/pinball-parts

ramps
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/PR004
https://littleshopofgames.com/shop/ramps/star-trek-the-next-generation-alpha-ramp-with-flap-decals-and-hardware-for-williams-pinball-machine-a-16756/
https://starship-fantasy.com/ramps/Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation-Alpha-Ramp

He's still around ... looking over 1000 posts or so. Looks like DumbAss and others picked up my slack.

Could be, looks like they were also tacked in with nails and not stapled.

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I finally bought an airbrush and decided to try my hand at painting the various ships on the playfield. I figured the cannons were a good starting point. Here's what I came up with. The masking took WAY longer than the actual painting, especially all the little raised bits. Overall I'm happy with how they came out, not sure they match the colours of the game but I figured anything beats that pale blue plastic. Next up, the Borg ship. Feedback welcome and I'd love to see some examples of what others have done with the Borg. Thanks.
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Nice job. Much better than the plain blue/grey.

Bird of Prey and Borg ships, not my handy work , whoever painted them did a great job ..
Always wondered about coating wireforms noticed your coated your forms in purple , see that it's chipping.

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That's a Romulan Warbird. The Klingon Bird of Prey is the smaller ship, that's mounted next to the spinner.

The purple powder was done by a previous owner. I think it looks pretty cheesy and would not recommend it. I'm actually debating scraping it all off but I'm afraid of what the chrome might look like underneath so I'm leaving it for now.

It's possible to strip powder coating chemically.... But I haven't had much luck with store bought stuff. I'd leave it alone.
That said, If you don't want to leave it alone... You could powder coating it in chrome.

Guarantee that the leg/armor isn't chrome.. best case it's raw steel which looks ok.

Received by Dumbass Opto board. Have cleared the ground wire issue to this board and works like a charm.
The power to the through board is still an issue for me.
I have no continuity for ground or power(grey-yellow) going to the trough.
Where is this board getting power, the manual says J118 .
The opto board and the cannon motors are also driven by the J118 plug , no issues with those.
Is the power run off of something else other than directly from the J118plug
From the main board.?
Checking before I undo the whole harness for breaks in the wires.

Trough runs off of J118
Opto board runs off of J118
Cannon power off of J118

I offered a better solution
PM sent

Having a problem with GI on the playfield. Half the playfield GI is out. Not the fuse, I mixed the 5 fuses up, and the GI that was on is still on as well as the backbox GI. When I run the GI lamp test under GI 1, nothing. I reset the connectors on the main board, moved fuses, and checked to see if the wire run might have come off at one of the bulbs. Everything looks good.

Any suggestions as to what to try next?

Which GI String is out? Have you tried testing it in the test menu? Could be a bad transistor but it's more common to have a burnt connector.

Playfield GI 1. When I go into the test menu and test GI, GI 1 does not light at all. GI 2 lights fine, as does the backbox GI. I will check the connectors again, but they looked fine.

If connections look good, consult the schematics. You probably have a bad transistor which drives the gi dimming feature. Look at pinwiki for test instructions

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Matt08 I hope these colors are correct, J115 is likely labeled wrong
The perils of using a 3 year old image ... I remember now, everything in that image was color coded to match the wire colors of the lamp strings. The color names next to J115 are the actual wire colors from the transformer lighting harness.

Thanks for the help, I will check this out tonight.

I just realized I never pasted in the screenshot I meant to.

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For those who would like an amazing Star Trek multi-media experience on a pinball or in your game room display, this video is perfect. "Star Trek - The Pinball Experience Media Topper" version 22

1 hour of amazing star fields, nebula, flying ships, Starfleet Logos, LCARS Interface and ship sounds.... Even a tour of the Shuttle Bay! Great for a display on top of your pinball header, or for something to play on a screen on your game room wall.

Free to download and enjoy. 1080hd and digital stereo. For best results, download to a fast thumb drive. Check out the other videos on my channel,

please LIKE --- SHARE and SUBSCRIBE.

Thanks for making pinball great, and stay creative!

I do not see any burnt wires/connectors. I have 5.25 v on the good playfield GI line and .3 v on the bad line. Wire is white with green stripe.

Okay, so following the schematic Pin_Guy (welcome back!) posted you should check Q15 and Q16. If the voltage on R15 toggles when you turn the GI on and off in test mode you probably have a bad SCR at Q16, if not check the voltage on the base of Q15 and make sure it toggles when turning GI on and off. Assuming you have good continuity to Q16 it's almost certainly one of those two are bad.

With 2.0 kits coming out for alot of games, do you think we will ever see one for STTNG?

To be honest - no...There's already quite a lot to do on this machine and most of it is pretty solid. Some asks have been taken care of with the LX-8 rom, and the creator says he's still looking to push it even further in a few years.

Third party licensing involved so likely not.

Specific Technical Question:
In reference to the non-flashing internal general illumination for the Borg Ship. I believe that circuit is ONLY active during the actual battle with the Borg gameplay section, is that correct?

Working on a mod which needs to only be activated when you go into the Borg Multi-ball gameplay. Does that seem correct to you STTNG Pinball experts out there? Are there any other times which those lights function in the game? Thanks for your thoughts and insight.

I was thinking about adding a sort of "red alert" alarm and hooking it up to that. I'm pretty sure that in gameplay what you are saying is true. If I remember correctly it may also come on briefly after a game is finished while the after music is still playing but you'd have to double check.

Interesting... I will have to see if that's active in the "End Light Show" for lack of a better description for it. I know if you have PinSound Plus and/or possibly the shaker motor from PinSound, there are triggers for external things. I have both but didn't want to mess with that.
I have the video topper (posted previously) running, and will be using a device which interrupts that playback, for Borg destruction media, to play at that moment. To expand on that, any event can instantly trigger a specific video playback. Say a ball drain, encounter with the Romulans, etc.

This is early in the process of seeing how this might work.

If you are going to go through this effort and it really only goes off during multiball, as a suggestion I was thinking of adding red LED strip lights to the rear and underside of the machine that were only on during borg multiball. Remember, it starts off with, "Red alert".

Here is an idea for you. Using the Wedge Style Lamp Scoops, typically used to add additional lighting to the playfield, I used (2) of them, mounted to the back of the backbox on opposite sides and shooting up. (You can't see them from the front of the machine). Installing the flasher style led in each one, and running a separate circuit wire pair to each.

Each flasher is PAIRED with the Borg Ship Flasher (left rear backbox external flasher with Left Borg Ship Flasher) and same for the right. You can tie into the flasher circuit behind the backglass or the circuit going to the flashers in the actual Borg Ship (they are the same and activate at the same time).

The effect is during the Borg Multi-Ball Gameplay, the additional flashers will strobe your ceiling area (in a dark room) enhancing the dramatic effects of the battle and explosions. This is an amazingly cool effect, almost like lighting in your room.

Granted it helps if your ceiling is white.....

I also have a "starfield generator" running, which the flashers override perfectly during that moment.

Someone in the early pages of this blog had mentioned doing this, so I gave it a try. Thank you if you're still on here for the suggestion.

200% agree. Welcome back @ Pin_Guy.

• Q15 is a PNP 2N5401 transistor in a TO-92 package.
• Q16 is a 4-quadrant triac in a TO-220 package.

The software rapidly toggles the triac to control the amount of current flowing through it resulting in incandescent brightness. I have never seen a bad triac on any power driver board that I have repaired. I have only seen really bad repairs and attempted repairs of the headers.

<disclaimer>This is NOT a personal attack. I do not know your experience and knowledge.</disclaimer>

I have seen many people post that "I don't see any obvious problem" or "I don't see any battery alkaline corrosion" (when dealing with the CPU board not the power driver board). When pushed to post an image, there is an obvious problem (or obvious problems) to people with more experienced eyes.

Please post an image of the board (headers at J115/J120/J121) and the corresponding connectors. I could be 100% barking up the wrong tree here but I have seen a few too many instances where a person asking for help says one thing but the actual situation (not seen by everybody else) is different. A picture (image) is worth 1,000 words.

One other thing to verify is that you are measuring VAC, not VDC and that you are measuring it correctly. You should get ~6VAC on every other GI string. If you don't get the same measurement on the other strings then you are probably measuring incorrectly. Note that you should measure the VAC when the GI strings are fully illuminated (not dimmed).

I appreciate your skepticism. I also am at a loss. Maybe I am wrong so I have taken pictures of the board at H115,J120 and J121, and the connectors as you asked. Yes, I measured VAC. It was approx 5.3V on the playfield GI line which works. On the other line, only a nominal .25V. All of the playfield GI lights on the white/green stripe line are out.

As to my background, I built computers since the 1990's and worked on these types of mother boards. I have owned MM and AFM since 2000 and the STTNG since 2003 or so. I also had a Creature and have done a lot of work on all (although I will admit, did not have to get into the main boards).

I appreciate you all helping with this. Please look at the pics and let me know if I am in fact not seeing something right, or if I should try looking at something else with regards to the problem.

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Looks like there is prior work at J115 and J121. Always suspect prior work - including your own (if you did it).

The best way to measure GI VAC is header pin to header pin. Pull the connector out and just measure what the board is outputting. If you have the connector inserted in the header and measure that then you are measuring a circuit with a load. Exclude the load as the cause by removing it from your measurement.

First, easy thing to try is to swap the connectors between J120 and J121. Unlikely to cause a change but quick and easy to try. All the traces at J121 except the VIO wire are on the solder side of the board.

After that, the next most likely thing I would suspect is J115. That header has been replaced and quite a fair number of those traces originate on the component side of the board. If the through hole has been pulled there may be a lack of (or reduced) continuity. A view of the solder side of the board would be nice to have. You will have to remove the board in order to acquire this image. It will certainly allow a better assessment of the prior work since the work is mostly on the solder side of the board and hidden when installed.

You could avoid this by measuring continuity between points but you will have to consult the schematic to determine which points to measure between.

Looks like there is prior work at J115 and J121. Always suspect prior work - including your own (if you did it).

I did not do it, but I see that these two have been replaced. I never noticed that these headers are black and every other header on the board is white.

The best way to measure GI VAC is header pin to header pin. Pull the connector out and just measure what the board is outputting. If you have the connector inserted in the header and measure that then you are measuring a circuit with a load. Exclude the load as the cause by removing it from your measurement.

Took of the connector so only measuring voltage output on the pin itself. Touching pin 10 (white with green stripe) and ground, I get 7.7 VAC. I get the same 7.7 VAC when I touch pin 11 (white with purple stripe, which is the circuit that works). There seems to be no difference between the voltage at each pin.

First, easy thing to try is to swap the connectors between J120 and J121. Unlikely to cause a change but quick and easy to try. All the traces at J121 except the VIO wire are on the solder side of the board.

I put the J121 wire connector on J120 and got the same result. The one GI line that worked still works, and the bad one is still bad.

Based on all of this do I have a wire problem leaving the connector?