Are you able to get the right or left orbit shots with the flippers up that high?

I bought the Ultimate LED set from pinballbulbs.com

http://www.pinballbulbs.com/products/star-trek-next-generation-ultimate-led-kit

If you look at the listing, he lists the spotlights. There is also an LED strip in the trough and under the back wood.

I cleaned the play field with 91% alcohol and then novus 2.

When I restored (or shopped - I say restore because it looks beautiful to me now ), I posted over 280 photos here.

http://purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2015.html

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It did play well. I will continue to test it. The sweet spot may lie somewhere in between. But I can state that it is definitely not what I thought was the perfect straight angle lines up with the holes. I will continue to play and possibly adjust. So far, so good.

I have always wondered how hard the game should be. When I first got my STTNG, my flipper angles were closer to your second picture.

I since then re-adjusted to your first picture, thinking I was a "purist". The game is WAYYYYYY harder when complying with the first picture, no doubt.

I've always wondered how other owners setup their flippers. Thanks for your post.

With the first picture setup,my flippers felt wimpy and just was not making shots at all.

With the second picture setup, my flippers feel crisp and strong. All shots can be made. It feels a bit harder to get it up the left lane than the right.

I will adjust them slightly down to see if the outside shots are more solid while still making all other shots.

Everything working, with the flippers aligned properly, you should have no problem making any shot. There are all sorts of things you can do to make a game easier, but if it's not working correctly with the flippers lined up maybe something else is going on.

are your eos lined up properly

I remember reading somewhere that you are supposed to put toothpicks in the holes below the flippers and align the flippers *without rubbers on* to be resting on the picks. That said, I have no idea what generation of machines that was for or when I read it (or if that was even correct).

The picture with the game off (top picture) is the original way I set the flippers about a year ago. As I said, it was wimpy. In hindsight, I can see I probably over extended the angle and covered the holes. The bottom picture (new) seems to have a more straight line between the inlane and the flippers.

I readjusted this evening and you can see the hole below the flipper bat about 1/8" above the hole. The flippers worked crisply. I was able to get all shots.

What is interesting and I have not noticed before is that (at least on this game) the artwork is not centered with the flippers. I was originally trying to line up the flippers with respect to the cyan box beneath it. But you can see in both pictures that the left flipper extends past the cyan box and the right flipper does not extend.

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My $0.02. Use a straight edge to line the front of the flipper (with rubber on) up with the inlane side of the lane guides, and then adjust lane guides for zero ball hop during ball transfer. Like talked about here

I use my Data East hex backbox wrench as the straight edge.

Yup, that's how it's done. I adjusted mine in that manner and as you can see in the photo they are up just a smidgen from the alignment holes.

I'm just wondering if the increased flipper angle is to make it easier to trap the ball...if that's the case, you can always try to swap out the factory 8mm coil stop with a 7mm one, doing so will give the flipper more throw and as long as you adjust the EOS properly so it still activates at the end of throw, there should be no loss in power.

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Permission to come aboard! Picked up this sweet pin from transprtr4u . It came with lots of goodies...

Color DMD, Shaker motor, laser cannons, painted borg ship, decals on the toys, outlane extenders, topper (won't fit in my basement currently) extra plastics, subwoofer. Probably a few other great things.

It's an awesome game and this one will stick around for a long time! Love me some picard

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The right flipper looks good. The left flipper is a little too high.

One trick that I like to use to see if the flipper are even, I like to compare them while they are fully extended. They are closer to each other and in my opinion, much easier to see if they are not even.

I set my flippers so that they are the same angle as the lane guides, I ignore the holes.

Permission granted. Welcome to the Enterprise!!

Thanks. I was hoping to ignore it. But it is there and I will adjust.

hi guys
How and when does a score get in the q continuem ?

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reposted from RGP:

Question: In Star Trek: the Next Generation pinball, could you explain the logic behind getting into the Officers' Club and the Q Continuum?

Answer: The original concept behind the various high score tables in Star Trek: the Next Generation is as follows:

- Scoring 10 billion or more would qualify a player for the Q Continuum.
- The "regular" high score tables would be for scores obtained with one buy-in or less. These tables are Grand Champion and Honor Roll.
- Otherwise, a player would end up in the Officers' Club. (The concept being that people who can afford to go to an Officers' Club can afford to buy-in multiple times.)

There was much discussion about where someone who qualfies for more than one table should get to enter his/her initials, and whether those initials should only go into a single table under this circumstance. After these discussions and some very bleary-eyed late night programming, here is what ended up in the game:

IF (buy-ins <= 1) AND (score > grand champ score)
THEN { player is Grand Champion }

ELSE IF (score >= 10 billion)
THEN { IF (score > any Q Continuum)
THEN { player enters Q Continuum } }

ELSE IF (buy-ins > 1) AND (score > any officers' club)
THEN { player enters Officers' Club }

ELSE IF (buy-ins <= 1) AND (score > any honor roll)
THEN { player enters Honor Roll }

Note the consequences of the second test above. If a player gets 10 billion or more points, but does not make it into the Q Continuum, he/she does not get to enter initials, even if he/she would have otherwise qualified to enter either the Officers' Club or Honor Roll. Also, consider another odd possibility of this pathology. Since Grand Champion scores get bumped down into the Honor Roll table when a new Grand Champion score is entered, it is possible to have scores greater than 10 billion in the Honor Roll, even though no one can directly enter initials for that table with a score greater than 10 billion.

basically, the STTNG high score logic is confusing and kind of messed up. the Grand Champ function works fine. but if you score over ten billion, there is no way to get on to the Honor Roll or Officers Club, because the logic ONLY checks against the Q Continuum if you are over 10 billion. but if your score doesn't make that list, then the score is thrown away. to top it off, when a new Grand Champ score is achieved, the old Grand Champ score is moved on to either the Honor Roll or Officers Club lists, even if it's over 10 billion -- so after a while you end up with those lists full of scores over 10 billion, even though it's impossible to directly get on those lists with a score above 10 billion.

effectively, once your Grand Champ is above 10 billion (which is not unusual -- it's equivalent to about two trips to the Final Frontier), all the high score slots except for Grand Champ are basically broken.

(edit: Pinside messed up the formatting of the pseudocode, not me)

aaaaand i just went downstairs and scrolled through the high scores on my STTNG, and it directly contradicts a bunch of the stuff stated above.

my Grand Champ score is 29 billion. I know i've had MANY games over 10 billion since then, but for some reason ALL of the other lists -- Q Continuum included -- are all just the factory default scores. so for some reason it doesn't even record 10 billion+ scores into the Q Continuum like it's supposed to. Grand Champ is literally the only functioning high score on the game. :/

You know, I think your tip just diagnosed an issue on an another Williams game I rebuilt the flippers on. Don't feel like they're as strong as they should be, and it wouldn't surprise me I need to adjust the EOS to tighter tolerance so the coils get max power for as long as possible. Thanks!

thanks Pezpunk!
now i understand, wont anyway because i don't have the buy in function on.

I'm having a small issue with ball loading. After a game, there are times where the launcher loop fires repeatedly as it tries to load the one ball in the back trough area behind the bumpers. It seems like its not lined up properly? Similarly locking balls for the borg multiball or reaching holodeck is quite tough even if you hit the right lock/holodeck lane.

Any suggestions?

Alignment yes. Also, huge difference for me when I cleaned and waxed the wireforms. The added ball speed made a huge difference.

It's possible you could have a mechanical issue with the drop target not falling; easy check as there is a test for Drop Target down in the test menus, or just look at the drop target to see if its actually down when the game is trying to pre-load balls

The drop target is down when this happens, the ball usually rattles around that area and pops back out. As I mentioned it happens on the launch/re-load as well as normal lane shots.

Maybe the solution is a little more ball speed so I will give the machine a quick/wax and polish and let you folks know

What kind of setup are you using? Do you have outlane extenders? My GC is just over 4B, but I have my game stock and set up to play tough. I'm not a snuff player either. This game just eats me alive.

Factory settings mostly. Slightly steeper than normal. Laser cannons ... but I don't even play the cannons mission, because at least on mine Neutral Zone rejections are almost always a drain.

I do have the outlane extenders, but they don't make a huge difference.

The main thing for big scores (assuming Final Frontier strategy) is to only play the easy modes -- Rescue, Time Rift, Asteroid Threat. Cradle the ball and let the other modes time out. Don't get suckered in by the long timer and potential 2-artifact reward of the explore the galaxy mission. pick up as many artifacts as you can from video modes.

Oh also -- my scores went way up when I started pretending the upper flipper doesn't exist!

This is a good strategy tip, I play is slightly different as I just repeatedly shoot the beta ramp over-and-over during modes I don't want to play; this is super easy as I only have to hold the right flipper up and it passes the ball perfectly to cradle it in the left every time.

Re-check that drop target.
I had the same issue and was very confused at TPF'16 as I couln't get the damn thing to load right.
After about an hour of debug; I figured out that my drop assemblies screw holes were stripped and the assembly would fall partially out due to gravity. This cause their to be a shallow "hole" that removed the inertia of the ball and it would fail to actual transition to the subway.

Putting some toothpics and glue in the stripped hole; made the assembly flush against the drop target hole... which allowed the ball to transition into the subway like it's suppose to.

Probably my setup, but it tends to go SDTM if I let it come around the orbit.

Perfect fix for any stripped out screw hole.

LOL - agreed; but hard to do when it's "live" at a convention with people waiting to play in your booth.
I need to pull that assembly back out and redo the screw holes with wood glue and more toothpicks.
I think I used SuperGlue and a bamboo skewer at the show.

Thanks Zitt, I will give it a shot

I just purchased an led kit and would like to repaint the backbox reflector board as it has discolorerd from the 20+ yrs with incandescent bulbs. Is there a trick to backing out the light sockets for removal? It looks like they snap or screw in? I would rather find out the right way instead of forcing them and possible breaking one.

Thx

I moved sttng between a garage and back and the sound is crackly now. Not super noticeable but its definitely there, dont recall it before. Any ideas? Reseated the audio board connectors already.

Did you try reseating the connections at the speakers themselves? I've had loose speaker connections cause crackling/static type noises.

the speakers aren't very good I had to replace them all.

Check to see if something has fallen onto the speaker in the cabinet.

No real trick, these are hard to get out as they were designed to not come out; Seems like I just grabbed them with a pair of pliers and gently twisted back and forth while I pulled.

The best advise I can give you is to make sure you start with the last socket installed and work backwards. How do you know which was installed last? Well...it's the one with no thru wires and it's wires will be on top of all the others. Once you have them all out a good sanding on the back will make it look great! As for the front side, you would be amazed at how good a magic eraser will work on it!

This is the order I removed mine in:
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Thanks for replying to my post and the map! It will make this project a lot easier.

I had hoped on only cleaning the reflector board but unfortunately what I thought was heat stains from the incandescent bulbs on the edges of the board was actually black overspray from a poorly executed touch up of the backbox. I sanded down with 180 grit and shot it with white satin. I'll give it a couple of days to harden before I re-install the sockets. In the mean time I have the brackets and hardware in the tumbler with walnut media and novus 3

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Just added my new Color DMD. It looks really awesome. I left it at the factory settings, but has anyone found any adjustments that make it even better? I only found one problem, now I want one for all my games

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Turn the contrast and backlight down a lot then bump them up slowly if necessary for your room lighting. I see you have it on HiRes which is my preference for this game as well, great improvement over the plasma DMD!

Thanks for the tip. I will try those adjustments.

Is the Borg symbol sideways? Maybe resistance isn't futile

And I thought I was the only one that noticed that

It now makes sense why my machine acted strangly and would load the cannons half the time when launching a probe. It raises the target perfectly but only a ball strike drops the target (barrier). You can see the fold over tang flange is missing from the coil as well and its fully sprung. Found the broken brass release section in the back of the pinball. Also some of the components had black lithium grease on them? I was under the impression never to use grease or oil ever. It's the only place I've seen it. Parts ordered

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I'm sure this has been addressed before, but my meager search skills didn't seem to work. I recently got a STTNG, and every so often is gets two balls stuck in the vuk for the habit rail to the flipper, and the game seems to lose track of the balls.

How many balls are supposed to be in when you start a game, and where should they start?

As a general rule this is very true but there are exception, and STTNG has some. The following items should be greased:

Firing pin bushing
L/R Cannon shaft/screw assembly
Delta ramp diverter shaft/bushing
Front and rear subway diverters/bushings

These are all metal-on-metal contact areas, I also grease the slide rails and pins on this machine since the playfield is so damn heavy

Congratulations on your recent acquisition! There shoould be one in each of the three VUKs, and three balls in the trough. You will want to check your optos, there are several posts in this thread that deal with troubleshooting optos.