Looking at all of your pictures really makes me miss mine. I would like to pick up another one some day.

FYI - Comet recently added Cyan flex head flashers in addition to standard Cyan flex head LEDs to their lineup. Color matched perfectly to the shield inserts.

I went back to bulbs for my shields. I had cointaker flex Cyans and just too bright.

Just changed the roms in mine from la5 to lx7 and put the funny sound roms in.

Seems now the machine takes longer to register drains.

On the funny roms, do they just sound off when you push in both flippers? if so, totally not worth it.

I am thinking of going with the LG7 rom instead and putting original sound chips back in.

What is the difference between the lx7 and the lg7?

My buddy painted my Borg ship. I have the green window shields and will take some picks once installed. Psyched.

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i had a similar issue. you might try what i did, if you're using flex-heads: I bent them so that the head is as far away from the insert as possible. this made the light uniform across the whole insert, as opposed to there being bright spots where the LEDs themselves shined through.

If I send you mine will you do that please?

I did get it spread evenly for the most part but they were just too bright or me.

This guy will do it if you want to ship him one. I opted for my bud cause I knew he'd do a good job. http://www.backalleycreations.com/bac%20star%20trek%20pinball%20addons.html

Wow, that Borg ship looked amazing!
I just started painting mine. At least with the primer.
But I am looking at ending up with the same colour scheme as you have.
I have seen some that are done very black, and that doesn't look right.
So gray shades with a bit of metallic is the way I am going.
Maybe I have to get a more light gray color for the base?

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Axl

great start! mine is just plain gray but it's miles ahead of the stock light biege, which bears no resemblance to any borg ship ever.

I'm really happy with the results. Pics below and see in action here

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I like that a lot.

Pretty sure the only things left that separate our machine from perfection are painting the ships (and now that we've got an airbrusher...hum..), absolutely perfect decals, and if someone ever releases a speaker panel that doesn't look like it's yellowed over time, a replacement one of those. Now I'm adding better lighted ships to the list. Meh.

Any ideas how I can mount and hook in some spot lights on the ship? The paint job looks great but the light bleed is gone so I want to figure out a way to shine the light more on the intro to multiball

Never ever put LEDs in the shield inserts. It looks really bad and even worse, the LEDs kill the dimming effects of the shields which is the coolest thing about these inserts.

not if you have GI OCD! it fixes WPC dimming for LEDs, lets you adjust the brightness of each dimness level to whatever you desire, and eliminates strobing.

Yeah, remind me, thanks!

For some strange reason OCD does not sell to or in Europe. There is also no distributor that will forward it to Europe. I'd put it in all my pins, but....

bummer! sorry to hear that!

GI OCD is the bomb on machines like STTNG that make extensive use of GI dimming during game play. I have one on mine and WOW, is it cool! Love that you can dim the backbox during the game to reduce glare.

I put green LED flashers in the Borg ship and that lights it up nicely. However, if you want more outside lighting, you will need to wire up a spot light to the Borg ship flasher circuit as all other GI is off at the intro to Borg multiball.

I'll shop for some green flashers, thanks. Is there even a such thing as a flash spot light if I tried to get some external? Too bad I have to raise the playfield, was thinking I could tap the coin lamps lol.

What are the chances of this fitting underneath 2"s...I'll check later today.
http://shop.cointaker.com/product.sc?productId=996&categoryId=8

Not sure that will fit, seems kinda tall. I used the shorter versions of those along with some flex head flashers under the ship.

This style is effectively a spot light.... http://shop.cointaker.com/product.sc?productId=1509&categoryId=8

If you want these on the outside of the ship to light it up you can wire it to the ship flasher circuit using either of these.... You will not need the reflector with the LED.

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=294
http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1542

Schwaggs - I'd think that lamp is too 1 direction for under the ship. I'm leaning with this guy at the moment: http://shop.cointaker.com/product.sc?productId=436&categoryId=8

Sorry for the confusion, I was suggesting the LED I linked above as a spotlight on the outside to light up the ship.

The one you linked above is what I used in the center flashers and I used flex head flashers pointing up on the left and right locations.

Cool, I ordered them early today. I got all 6 in green and a pair of Cointakers High Power (HP) tower 555 greens for left and right. After seeing that I may evaluate just tying a standard GI spotlight in. To be honest the new ship paint job looks ultra realistic and I shouldn't care about the light bleed almond look. Though I still recall the first time I saw the intro as a kid and when that ship lit up I was so stoked.

Green flashers turned out AWESOME!!

(blooming was poor video)

Looks great! Love the paint and I'm using green windows and flashers on mine as well.

(Nice Rio Grande runabout on there too, by the way )

Wonder where I thought of that

agree, looks great, wait until you get a color DMD, even better.

Awesome!

I finished up my STTNG last week and I'm currently chasing the last of the ghosts out of the machine. I think all of my subway optos are working (tested individually, plus no credit dot after a few dozen games anyway) but I have a few questions on expected behavior:

1. Should I ever be in multiball outside of a mode? I noticed this once, but couldn't trace back my steps to figure out what happened. Reflowed some solder and haven't reproduced this one yet.
2. Should I ever get Advance Rank from the Neutral Zone hole (assuming I get a solid hit on the NZ?)
3. When video mode started once, a ball kicked out of the left and drained while the flippers were off. Does the machine stage balls mid-game?

Lots of stuff happening in this game, it's hard to figure out if something unexpected is happening. Probably need a few hundred more games to figure it out

two of the Neutral Zone side-missions are multiball modes. Ferengi multiball and Cardassian multiball. When Ferengi starts, he appears on screen and says "Captain, our ship is disabled, we need Duranium Spheres, now," and has constant DMD animations of Ferengi going "more please" and "thank you". It's hard to miss because it's also an add-a-ball mode where hitting the neutral zone adds more balls.

Cardassian multiball is more subtle though. Picard says "let's attempt a peaceful settlement" and the Cardassian says "here's your settlement, Picard!" and a second ball is put into play from the left VUK.

it's possible you started Cardassian multiball and didn't notice, but far more likely is a dirty or otherwise wonky opto in the subway. a common symptom of this is the left VUK spitting out a pre-loaded ball when it isn't supposed to, resulting in an unscheduled 2-ball multiball.

I don't think so with a solid hit, but definitely yes if it dribbles in. there's no sensor in the subway under the neutral zone, so if none of the targets are hit, the game can't tell the difference between hitting that hole and hitting the advance rank hole.

no, it doesn't. not even after Final Frontier. this sounds like another symptom of a wonky subway sensor. Left VUK randomly kicking out staged balls.

yep. let me know if you figure out exactly when the top drop target is supposed to be up or down!

Sure, once you guys agree on which cannon, if any, is supposed to move and/or fire when you boot up the machine.

In the meantime, I'm gonna take a closer look at my subway optos it looks like.

haha

I'd definitely remove the two popper assemblies on the left and the one on the right. Then reflow solder on the opto pads, clean the opto windows and clean the metal popper ball trough where the balls are staged. Any dirt in there that causes the balls to hang-up can result in a ball getting ejected.

I had these similar issues and just removed, cleaned and reflowed the optos and assemblies and all is better now.

Another thing to check is the 16-opto board under the playfield. I had an issue with the .156" IDC connector on mine and replaced that too.

Both of mine move (not sure about fire) when it's booted up.

Both of mine move as well, no fire. Swing out and back again. That's it.

For those of you who have a topper, show them please

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I see you have armed your topper with a cloaking device! I hope you have cleared this with the Romulans, otherwise it is a violation of the Treaty of Algeron, you know!

My favorite topper! Space dust.

Only my left turns on power up and it fires.

Is the GI OCD kit the only way to keep dimming working with LEDs? I want to convert to take the power load of the connector and board but will not give up the dimming feature to do so.

I have the GI OCD on mine and it is mandatory if you LED your GI IMO. Wonderful piece of technology and very well made. As a side bonus, you can blank your backbox lights during the game which eliminates PF glass glare! Well worth it for this title!

I chased subway opto problems with mine when I first got it. Random balls being added when they are not supposed to be is a classic symptom. For me, it was the switch matrix connectors on the opto board. I used a very light coat of dielectric grease on the header pins and have not had a problem since...

I finally got my Color DMD installed!!!

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Rob

And he shows us .... Orange haha

Congrats! great update

But you missed the white Stars!

Here you go!

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Beam me up! Just ordered some purple pop bumper caps and purple LEDs as recommended by some. I have the Runabout replacement for the shuttle and did the Romulan ship mod to light up.