This did it for me! I jerry-rigged some wires into the connector and ran them up with the loom into the gun. The lamp is working now! I'll have to get a crimper and pin kit so I can do a permanent fix but at least I know what's wrong. Thank You!

Better replace the complete loom, and do the otehr side as well whiloe you're at it. They are a common point of failure and a headache to troubleshoot. You can get pre-configured looms online.

I would verify the "Tie Back FIX" has been completed, or you will be replacing burned coils and a Mini 8 Driver Board. I would also confirm the connectors along the bottom center and bottom left corner of the PDB are not burned or worse. Most of them are.
Also confirm you are using LX-8 firmware, it will display your version on power up. LX-9 likely will not be out of months, it's on Ingo333 timeframe, however you WANT LX-8

PinSound system? It's worth it.....

I'm still in the process of putting my STTNG back together and haven't installed all the lamp boards or my LED/OCD yet. Are all the shield lamps part of the GI? If so, I'll leave them incandescent like the rest of my GI, but I always assumed they were part of the controlled lamps.

Shields are part of the GI. Not the shield flashers though. So every shield insert has GI on edges (2) and flasher(1) in center.

So the six lamps I've circled in pink in this photo, and only the six lamps circled on the photo, are on the GI circuit on this lamp board, is that correct? How about the two "nacelle" lamps at the bottom of the photo?

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Tie Back investigation is first on my list - didn't see anything from J108 and didn't look like J107 was jumped in my initial look. Has LX-7 so I plan on getting LX-8 in. Going in I figured I'd probably be re-doing some connectors - didn't see any crispy connectors though there were at least a couple that are loose with age on the PDB. GI OCD is on the list, had a pinnovator sub hookup in the misc parts bag that I installed & I'm happy with the audio as a result. This thread has a lot of good info for sure!

Thanks so much, that's exactly what I was going for! My brother actually did the painting of the ships, he does airbrush painting of 3d models as a hobby. I sent him some examples and this is what he ended up doing. I'm really happy how the borg ship came out, most of the ones I have seen didn't seem right to me.

So when I got the game, it was a bit of a basket case. Missing parts, missing ribbon cables, quite a few hacks. 1/2 the game had LEDs the other half incandescent. I had to splice several wire extensions for some GI connectors, trough optos, etc.

Here's a pic of my power board, it has a sticker that says "fully rebuilt 8/22". I have no way to confirm this. The caps all look pretty new. Nothing is obviously burnt or damaged. Everything else on the game works flawlessly, other than the G.I. dimming.

I'll guess I'll have to pull it and check for a broken trace at BR2?

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6.28.2.1 GI Lamps Not Dimming

Small traces leading from the through holes of BR2's AC solder pads (pads circled) can be easily damaged, causing GI lamps to not dim. On this board revision, the upper/right through-hole has a small trace on the solder side of the board that connects to the "via" visible to the left of the through-hole. These traces lead to vias which can be seen just SouthWest of R194.
The primary cause of GI lamps failing to dim is broken traces at BR2, usually caused when BR2 was replaced. These traces lead to D3 and D38. Both of these traces must be intact for dimming to work as they supply the power to generate the signal to the Zero Cross circuit (ZC) which is key to dimming.
Before you go too far diagnosing the hardware, if your WPC game will not dim the general illumination, make sure that Standard Adjustment #25, "Allow Dim Illum.", is set to "YES". If set to "NO", then the GI will never dim, even during General Illumination test.

I'd put my $ on this. Too many "repair technicians" thinking they can fix stuff on a board but actually make it worse. They lack the tools (and/or knowledge) to verify their work properly.

The trace issue would be far more common than someone discovering adjustment 25 before even changing it.

Another thing to look for is C2 leaking. I just repaired a board (that I have yet to write up) that had this issue. Leaking C2 that tore apart the GI triac latch and zero cross comparator.

YES, they are on a separate circuit, HOWEVER if you get the GI-OCD change them to leds. This is a must do for the OCD system. The want all the bulbs in the machine leds.

I would REFLOW ALL the connector solder locations on each and every board you take out. Cold solder joints will VEX you with problems later. Also clean all the pins on the boards as you go. NEW fuses the proper size is also a must.

looks like somebody has already been upgrading the connectors, good!!! look elsewhere for missed ones. Looks like a Bridge Rectifier got upgraded too

Wasn't happy with the borg paint job so I redid it. Painted all black and then used a tube of really thick silver paint and my finger to rub it on slowly. Then finished with new windows. It came out pretty good but took a while. Gotta go slow...it rubs the lotion on its skin...

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Wow. That looks awesome! Well done!

What did you do with the "windows"? Did you replace the blue film?

https://www.pinballlife.com/star-trek-the-next-generation-colored-borg-ship-window-set.html

Yes, I replaced most of the GI connectors. None were burnt, but some had some yellowing. I'll probably get to the others at some point. How can you tell the BR was upgraded?

Ok, reporting back on my GI dimming not working issue. I'm gonna need some help here.

Verified adjustment #25 is set to YES.

I pulled the board and it looks like it's had quite a few repairs over the years. Some ugly solder joints and a few jumpers. Looks like all of the caps and BRs were replaced at some point. I'm shocked everything else is working perfectly really.

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I followed the test procedures in Chris Hibler's video for the BR2 traces -

These were my results -

Sorry for the crude drawing. I'm confused on this as there is no continuity in forward bias, but 1700 mv in reverse? Is this because of the jumper wires that were installed?

PDBoardtest1 (resized).jpg

I also verified C2 was in good condition. I tested BR1 and BR2 and they both tested fine. I'm new to testing these, so maybe my procedure is off.

Thanks for all the advice so far everyone!

Ok. You need to re-watch Chris’s video. Your checking continuity of the trace (just buzzing it out). Your checked the ac leg of the bridge to the plus leg of the bridge. Chris showed checking both ac legs (across from each other). You also need to follow the trace all the way thru to the diode like his as it looks like c2 was reflowed at the very least. Second you need to change you meter to diode test (the horizontal arrow with the verticals line thru it). Neg lead on the positive leg of the bridge (the one leg of the 3 that’s closer to the middle). Then you put positive lead on each of the ac legs of the bridge (to the right and left). If memory serves, something like .400-.600ish. Next you put the positive lead on the negative leg of the bridge (across from the positive leg) and check each ac leg again (right and left) with the negative lead. Again .400-.600 ish. Open or buzzing tone means your bridge is out

Is the spinner fixable? I can't find an online retailer with that part (A-17023) available nor in production. There was a similar post many years ago, and I'm hoping others have come across this same challenge since then and have come up with a decent solution.

I'm adding a pic of my spinner, and also what the part looks like (for reference in case you are thinking another spinner might work). And I'm sorry, but I do not know where one of the previous owners found that cool Federation decal for my spinner.

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I'm not sure if the wire goes all the way through, if so you could probably bend it back.

From my recent comb through this thread, a couple things I saw about the spinner that you may have already seen:

Generic spinner assembly that you'd have to manually bend:
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-7861-KU

A post suggesting a spinner from Banzai Run is similar:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/207#post-8108069

Yeah sorry, I didn't do a good job recording that. I did have the MM in diode test and confirmed the BR1 and BR2 were good via the proper test method.

Good news, I added a jumper as shown in Orange and now the dimming works!

PDBoardjumperjpg (resized).jpg
Someone must have broken a trace when replacing BR2. I couldn't even see it.

Now my dimming works properly in all the levels. I do notice that when I start the game, the shields drop from full to level 2 and there is a slight flicker even with incandescents. Is this normal?

Yes. Shields in attract mode are set to level 6 (or 5?). In normal gameplay they are 3 (or maybe 2?). Only if Cardassians or Borg attack, they go up to 6 again (and down to 0, which is actually still lit)

In LX-9 they are going to be disabled when "down", and you can disable them - along with GI dimming - in attract mode too.

Not exactly, I only said that the prism decal for the Banzai Run spinner was similar. No idea if the spinner itself would work.

You should be able to carefully bend the wire back to where it should be though, I've done it for several of my pins. Just make sure you hold the rectangular part tightly together where the wire meets it when you bend, or you may pop the two halves of the spinner apart.

Wow, that sounds like a great feature! I'm excited for LX-9 to come out.

Thanks for the tip! I will have to give that a try. It was also suggested to me that I could use JB Weld to fix the wireform if it is truly busted off.

Congratulations on an awesome paint job! I love it! However I’ve never been a fan of the renegade ship to begin with. Another guy was doing a borg cube mod, but I’m stepping up the iron and doing my own borg cube, based off the ST game board cube. It’s absolutely perfect for this application as its already backlit.
I will cut it down to size and purposefully melt the bottom off it. If stock id go with your solution all day long .

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Any suggestions on the amateur glue job done on these shield inserts? I can't even find the correct replacement components. One looks like it has small cracks. I'm wondering if I'm just gonna cause more harm than good trying to make these look better or try to replace them.

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On the NZ subway mod:
The NZ entry now has a switch wired parallel to the middle NZ target.

You would only miss out on the shuttle departing animation (or limo drive by if you hold the trigger) this way no?

Certainly that is an Ingo333 question for sure

What limo drive by? Please do tell.

When the shuttle is flying on the display pull trigger and see doho limo drive by instead

See rule sheet for Easter eggs

Wow! I can't wait to try it!

Thanks!

The secret mission is a better easter egg.

The secret mission should be worth more it's not very lucrative right now.... Does it lock you out of other stuff I forget since I never pick it

There also a big combo of button presses before a game (haven’t tried it yet since I got mine running!) that turns the DMD into a game of ‘breakout’. and rikers poker? I’m sure there’s a handful of easter eggs!

not as I recall.. just the crazy switch sounds.

I was testing this.. actually, this is the command decision subway opto trigger (when no NZ switch is hit)... so you get it a bit less frequently, since there are no more unhit NZ switch holes, and command decision is not triggered when coming from a NZ switch hit.

Actually that animation is for the left hole, if Command Decision and Advance In Rank is not lit.

exactly.

So, the mod is not to get rid of the animation... it's for when Command-Decision or Adv.In-Rank is lit and a slow ball goes into the NZ.

And speaking of the limo drive-by easter-egg: in LX-9 you can set the probability for the "The Borg are real Party Animals" animation to be shown instead of the limo one...

You have to start the Cardassian Encounter when the secret mission is running. Then they don't shoot at the Enterprise until the secret mission is over. That means the NZ jackpot stays at 50mil. And there was another side-effect.... I guess Q-counters are not running down iirc....

And one thing I was always asking myself: to start the secret mission you have to hit the trigger 3 times when holodeck 3 is ready... That has to be done while the animation "holodeck 3 is ready" is being displayed. If you light lock or something and thus only hear about the holodeck, because another animation has priority, it's not possible to start the secret mission. So there is no use in pulling the trigger because it could be "holodeck 3" when the animation isn't being displayed...

Right shirt for the job…?

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The right shirt. Period.

Thanks for the heads up. I ordered two new upper cannon looms, found a great deal on this website https://wirebot.xyz/collections/cables-harnesses

Was looking into the tie-back on my new-to-me game. Kinda interesting in that it seems the small wire is attached to the target knock down coil lug and not the main coil like I’ve seen on posts here.

I still plan on using J108 using a 3-pin molex connector. One thing I did notice is it seems difficult to source the 22-26awg .156 trifurcon pins, with the 18-20awg pins being common. I tacked some on to a PBL order and I guess I’ll see if that wire crimps to one of these pins.

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Marco has them
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/08-50-0185

And you can keep the wire going to the drop target in place (it will not hurt anything). Thank you for being PROACTIVE in taking care of your machine. The TIE BACK FIX is vital to do BEFORE burning up your subway coils and blowing transistors on your mini 8 driver board.

Hi. Can you or anyone explain to me the tie back please ? And what’s the function it does to the game? Thank you.

Put "tie back" (with quotes) in the Search box for this thread and you'll get all the info you need on the Tie Back mod.

Williams STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION with TODD's TIP tip-TIE BACK WIRE!

Outside of the new coding for STTNG, is anyone aware of any other coding projects for old machines going on by other people for other titles?