Agreed. I might ask if they replaced any of the optos. Or better yet, all of the optos. If I were going to pay a premium for an STTNG, it's something I'd want to know had been addressed. In reality, the parts are cheap (if you buy raw LEDs and photo transistors). But the labor to install them sucks. You can't replace them all without totally disassembling the machine. Top and bottom side.

But to your point, you may not learn of a problem until 50 games in. In my case, I replaced every opto in the game and still, on a very, very rare occasion, get a random multi-ball. So I have some problem other than the opto itself. The opto board, bad connectors, who knows. I have the parts to replace every opto board header and connector (as well as the driver board connector, I already replaced that header and rebuilt the 12V circuit), but finding the time and motivation to do it is another story. =)

I can't imagine owning a STTNG without having the ability to do repairs. I would never sign up for fixing one for someone else either. Too many variables. Can you imagine taking on someone else's random multi-ball problem, and trying to do it at their house? Nope. I'm sure I'd get call back after call back. But honestly, that's why I stopped fixing machines for others....it's like fixing a car from the 70s and then having the person get pissed when it breaks down a week later, unrelated to what you already fixed. My 2 cents anyhow...

I’m getting 5 tones after the initial “bong” on startup. I replaced U5, ribbon cables, etc.. but still getting the same 5 tones.

What else could cause it?

Unless you are buying a game I restored then it will be perfect and will have my own custom restoration/inspection stickers on it. HEP does amazing work but I've personally seen things like tape edge marks inside the cabinet that I would rate as unacceptable for my own restoration. Of course, my restoration are not for sale either

Have you replaced the ribbon cables between the CPU and sound board?

Yes, I installed a whole new set of ribbon cables.

I don’t see a way to do upvotes on my phone and I’m still a pinside noob.

I’ll load up the website on my pc this weekend and give your posts some attention.

I sent you list off to the dealer. They are updating the rom (was LX-5).

There is some ramp damage and they said they will repair or replace it with no added cost. (Showed me a picture). They confirmed repairs to traces, tieback, and the other things with pictures. Rubbers have all been replaced. Balls replaced. The LEDs are premium non-ghosting.

It’s M&P Amusements selling it for $6,495 with a 90 day warranty/support.

https://mpamusement.com/collections/used-pinball-machines/products/star-trek-the-next-generation-pinball-machine

I got my AFMR LE from Game Room Guys a couple of years ago and they took great care of me while I learned the ropes dialing in my first ever pin. At that point I’d never worked a pin before ever. But GRG free phone/email support talked me through taking out the playfield, routine maintenance, etc.

That gave me the confidence I needed to buy a Revenge from Mars that needed some TLC and I’ve done quite well with that one without support.

So I’m comfortable with dealers but appreciate folks experience and value knowing what to look for since each table is so different. This would be my 3rd pin.

$6,500+ shipping ?! Wow

Yeah, I knew it was high. That’s why I wanted to go in with a punch list of things to ask/check beyond the generic.

If I have confirmed that they or (someone) addressed everything on that list appropriately that’s a lot of time/labor saved for me for now.

So question is, with all those things addressed and a 90 day support window is it worth it?

Worst case I get it. Something blows or got missed, I notice it during the support period, and they send me the part and/or walk me through the repair.

If they have good support, have already addressed the known issues, and I have no intention of ever reselling the pin, is the game worth it?

From everything I’ve read on this thread about maintenance I’m honestly scared to buy this table at all. Let alone from a venue without some kind of support window.

But I don’t want to avoid it either just because stuff will break. I wouldn’t own any.

This pin is cheaper than my AFMR LE but I think I’ll have just as much fun if it arrives in working order. That’s how I am initially determining if it’s “worth it”.

I would try disconnecting the ribbon cable from the sound board and see if it boots.

Check out the market place. You can find them $4-5,500 all day long. For $6,500 it better be mint, have color dmd, pinsound, and $500 in quarters in the coin box.

Agreed. $6,500 is retail price, which is what this is. Certainly you can find a nice one for $1k cheaper. Maybe $2k cheaper. I paid $3,950 for mine, but it needed a ton of work. I bet I have close to $6k in it, but it’s fully rebuilt with a ton of new parts. All ramps, plastics, mech rebuilds, etc. In hindsight, I paid too much. But I love the machine...

Here's the thing... You can't go see the machine first hand; therefore, it's not local to you. This means shipping - since if it were in driving distance; you'd go drive and pick it up.

So; that 90day support is effectively worthless.
How are they going to resolve issues you find? Are they going to pay a pin-tech to come do repairs?
Get this in writing.

IT's all in what YOU think the machine is worth; and you still haven't gone to see it.

I'm going to assume based on your statements that you're new to Pin ownership given a NIB AFMr experience.
You didn't say if the pin was a "Grail pin" for you... Are you buying STNG because your a Fan; or because it's #3 on IPDB.org?

IF your a fan; and this game is a keeper for you... and your not afraid of the complexity / repair mountain in front of you... then $6500 is probably worth it.
However, if troubleshooting isn't in your vocabulary and you're not a Show fan... then owning this pin is going to lead you to sadness. It's going to suck the joy away from owning pinball.

For me; I actually like working on the machines more than playing them and it shows in my skills when playing. I actually welcome project pinball machines because I like making them better than they are.

It's ultimately up to you.

PS Upvoting:

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This is a good datapoint too. This is the exact scenario I’m afraid of with searching for a deal. Not to mention your time is worth something too. So I’d say you have well over 6k into it.

I paid about $2400 in hammer price and fees when I bought my STNG at auction in 2007. It was my FIRST pinball machine. It had cannon issues; opto issues; and all the other things I stated above. I have probably another 1500 is parts and mods in my machine. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything... it's what helped me launch my Pinball hobby and Mod businessso it's worth it to me.

I understand what you are saying. All valid things to consider.

While not a grail pin for me, I do plan to keep it indefinitely. My family has watched the entire STNG series together. We are fans. I honestly don’t care what it’s rated.

As I mentioned before I’ve done quite a bit of work on my Revenge from Mars. Lamp & Switch replacements, playfield cleanup & repair. Software updates. Adding, cliffys, a shaker motor, and knocker next (they are on my bench). It is kinda cool seeing a partially playable game become full featured again. That said, I paid considerably less for my RFM than this STNG.

I also have 7 arcade machines most of which I’ve had to repair or restore all still rocking CRTs (no lcds in my arcade!).

One is a Bad Dudes cab I’m rebuilding from a gutted discarded Data East cab I’ve bondo’d, sanded, and wired myself.

Everything in my private collection is a game I own to play. Not for bragging rights. Many lock in some specific memory from my childhood.

Not afraid of having stuff like this shipped. Michelle always has my back there.

Once here, I have a soldering iron with temp control, a logic tester, an EPROM eraser and burner, I’m no virgin to electronics troubleshooting and repair. Won’t claim to be a pro. I’ve always been a software guy but built my own computers. Arcade PCB/pinball repair is actually how I’m learning about electronics past the plug and pray level as well as how to read schematics.

It’s something I plan to do more of as a hobby as I get closer towards retirement.

Sometimes I honestly don’t know if I like playing the games or tinkering with them more.

I don’t need them to fly a tech to my house. I can execute most repairs myself short of clear coating the playfield. But since I can’t claim to be a pro with years of experience (yet) I like the added benefit of having an experienced tech I can get on the phone/video chat/email to debug and discuss issues.

I also like be warned of what to avoid doing so I don’t need to learn that the hard and expensive way.

I don’t have tons (or really any) local friends let alone collector friends.

So I usually gotta pay for that kind of expertise and experience. Or post on Internet forums (as I sometimes do) and hope for someone like you to give me a bit of your time (which I greatly appreciate).

I do have a hope/assumption that I might get at least a few months and a couple hundreds plays out of it before having to undertake a serious solo debugging and repair job.

But maybe that’s not possible with this table? Only you current owners would know. How many games do you folks feel you can get before “ah, crap?” And the next set of repairs?

My fear is three games, broken. Fix. Five games. Broken. Fix. Ten games. Broken. Fix. Repeat.

Several dozen games. Broken. Fix. I expect and can live with. Replace worn parts every couple of years. No problem.

RFM is my first pin machine with issues and my first itch to mod. Loving it. But that’s for the Hilary thread.

It looks like I can’t upvote on the phone?

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Click the yellow 1 pop cap icon in the same location next to the 6minutes ago timer (in your picture). That will allow you to upvote on mobile.

Given what you said above; then It all comes down to one simple question:
Is the 2-3k "premium" plus shipping worth the "hassle free" 90 days of play?
If yes; then buy it.
If no; then maybe pick a players condition up here in the Pinside marketand save yourself the cash for your next game. You know there will always be a next game; right? ;D

To be fair, I knew most of what my game needed before buying it. I truly love the game and restoration process.

Why not find someone reputable on pinside within driving distance that has one for sale?

Here’s mine, all rainbow puked up, lol.
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Isn't that what Pinside is for?

If you can do all this stuff I'd suggest you find one that's solid for a lot less than $6500 unless the one you are looking at from M&P is nearly HUO, has new decals installed or similar. This game probably should sell for $6500+ all day long based on prices on other games but it doesn't.

Having a cracked ramp is normal on these machines, but I would be a little leery since they claim in the ad it had been “fully restored”

“All refurbished pinball machines are fully restored before they leave our shop. We completely tear apart the play field. All ramps, and plastics are hand cleaned. We add all new rubbers, bulbs, and a new play field glass. We also add rebuilt flipper kits, and new parts on the electronic boards.”

For me to pay $6,500 it would have to have everything perfect and then add: laser canons, ocd boards, pinsound, dual amplifier kit, aftermarket speakers, custom borg ship, zitt led bird of prey, etc..

It should have every bell and whistle available (not about glued on toys).

I agree with others and don’t see how that warranty will be worth anything.

I hope the sale goes well and it’s everything they claim it is. If so, you’ll enjoy it. It’s a great game.

I feel like poeple seem to have confused “cleaned” and “shopped out” with “restored” and “retro-modded” somewhere along the way.

Cleaned = cleaned up. Topside cleaned, burned lamps replaced, everything inspected and repaired as necessary to keep the game working right.

Shopped = topside and bottom deep (tear down) cleaned, repaired, new rubber and balls, relamped, totally working... like it was pulled from the route and taken to the shop to be freshened up before it’s next location. Refurbished is probably a fair term for this these days. I can understand why people consider this a “restore” since it only really happens on the ex route or reimport games these days it seems.

Restored (almost no one actually does this) = restored to as close to new condition as possible. Game should be damn near perfect with nothing broken. That game would have new or unbroken everything with negligible wear... or it would be replaced,
.

Resto-mod (what most people do) = restored to new condition with the addition of new parts that basically make it “better”... upgraded lamps, color display, new more reliable mechs and boards etc. This is what dudes like HEP and BK do.

At $6500 you’re getting a shopped game dashv and I actually think that’s pretty fair, with the cost of parts and value of labor there is no way you’re getting a $5k game “restored” for $6500 these days (more like $12k) and while I personally would feel a lot better at $5500 shopped people gotta make $$... that’s why so many of us look for un-shopped games!

I agree with this, for the most part. I say I’m doing a restoration on mine, but I don’t re-do the cabinet. I simply don’t have the time or skill. I kept my original playfield which is nice, but has some minor wear. I did replace all ramps, plastics, posts, and most of the screws / nuts. So mine is what?

I wish I had the ambition to learn cabinet restoration, but it just looks like too much damn work.

I’d say you shopped or refurbished it, but it’s yours man, say what makes you feel good.

I have ONE GAME I’d call restored myself (more like resto-modded, it has a lot of upgrades) and I sure didn’t do it... I just do shop jobs of varying quality, lol.

The goal (for me) isn’t to make it new, just to make it look and play nice.

Yeah, I agree. Beyond shopping, I am doing a fairly drastic electrical overhaul. I guess I don’t see that as part of a shop job. I always thinking of shopping as what you’d do to a route game before putting it back on route. I think I took it well beyond that. And I’ll keep going. But like you, I just want it to be nice, playable, and reliable. A game with errors is not acceptable in my house. It has to be back to factory spec. So totally mechanically rebuilt, and electrically functional with whatever upgrades I can do to improve reliability. All part of the fun, no small feat for an old WPC machine...

And just because I love the big Lebowski (the movie, never been graced with playing the elusive pin)....

No offense meant, just having fun.

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Should the game start a two ball multiball when the Cardassian’s show up? Happened twice and I dont feel it was earned in any way. Seemed random.

And you know, there’s half measures too. You can definitely restore a PF but not a cab for sure. Or the other way around.

It’s also probably fair to say (and entirely probables) that my definitions could be outdated so yeah, it’s totally just like my opinion, man. Lol.

I’m pretty sure that’s correct. And when you drain one the Cardassian encounter ends?

BTW, not trying to be an interloper. I’m getting a STTNG on Tuesday (my second) and am totally stoked.

Thanks!!!

And congrats! But....be ready to learn a lot about fixing it!

Funny you say that.

My first STTNG was probably too much game for me too soon. Paid $1900 un-shopped and “working” including a new ramp set, enemy ships and other doo dads. I did a pretty thorough shop (my second if I recall correctly) but just never could sort out all its issues. It would play fine then start freaking out and losing track of balls, etc, all stuff that I know now is a power issue more than bad optos (I swear I replaced every opto on that game twice) but I just didn’t know enough about diagnosis at the moment.

I finally got tired of “fixing it” and traded it off for a SWE1, lol. A TERRIBLE deal in hindsight but it really wasn’t THAT bad at the moment. So this is correcting a mistake, and replacing another “one that got away” for me.

I'm not too ashamed to say it took me about 3 years on and off trying to get the tie-back problem fixed. I got so frustrated!
Once I fixed that, it's been pretty smooth sailing. Truthfully, this machine is always on the chopping block for me. Good to hear your warning about
possible regrets after selling.

Just came back home after two weeks vacation, flipped the power switch to the machine and there was a loud cracking noise and all solenoids are dead (cannons still working when tested though!).

I've tested the fuses and found F112 has blown, so I have some fuses on order.

The machine was working fine before I went away, would being powered off for two weeks have anything to do with it?! Also, I think that my arm may have been pressing the right flipper button while powering on, I'm hoping this might have caused it?

I guess I replace the fuse and hope it's just a freak event?

If your game has a weakened component, like a bridge rectifier, they will normally fail at power on. But sometimes a fuse also just blows in the same manner as they can also become fatigued over time.

Unlikely, no buttons can perform any actions until after the system starts.

My Indy used to blow F116 when I’d hit one of the buttons. It turned out to be an opto with a disconnected wire ! The rest of the boards were ok though

Let me clarify...It takes an action of the processor to close a coil circuit as all coil control circuits are held in reset until the system boots up. Since there is no direct connection between the flipper switches and solenoid voltages its unlikely that there is any correlation between the two.

Yes, Since we are clarifying things, i should further clarify that this would happen -after- boot up

Alright, thanks for the info - the plan is to replace the fuse and if it fails again then start looking at the bridge rectifiers. If I'm reading correctly, BR3 is the likely candidate.

Never had a fuse go in any games up until now, maybe I was just lucky.

Thanks again Pin_Guy

After 11 years I left the club. It was time. Second longest pin in my collection next to TZ. Decided to put some money towards towards a nice BMW K1600 GTL motorcycle. My son is off to college this fall and it is time to re-engage my other hobby. I don’t seem to be playing pinball as much anymore and he (like most of his generation) never did get much into pinball as he preferred games on his phone.

Looking forward to the open road. It was a great pin and being a Star Trek fan I am sure I will miss it.

Both BR3 on the power board or BR1 on the Fliptronics board had an equal chance of being the cause. You will have to disconnect the fliptronics power (J104 or J105) to rule it out.

Thank you for your input.

My machine was missing the shuttle craft and a fellow Pinsider was kind enough to send me one. Could someone either via PM or here show me (in detail) how to mount it? Thanks so much everyone!

It's mounted to the plastic bolted on top of the beta ramp.
Most say it's suppose to be mounted with the back of the shuttle facing the player (flying up the beta ramp).
Mine is mounted flying toward the player.

Using the screws on the ramp?

No; I believe they bolt thru the center of the plastic. There should be holes there. I'm sure Pin_Guy has a picture of it... he seems to have nearly everything pictured from his restore.

Do you know off hand what size screws it uses so that I can order them from the hardware store?

Replaced F112 earlier and all is well again. . Thanks all.

Thanks for all the advice and insights folks. I decided to pass on the STNG because higher resolution photos showed more playfield wear than I am comfortable with for the price they are asking.

Their techs seemed quite sharp and knowledgeable. I floated a bid by the owner for a playfield swap but he would rather not go that route. Playfield swap and color DMD would have pushed the price to at least $9,500.

Kinda bummed/exhausted from the exercise. I see several for sale here on pinside that seem to have nice playfields but I’d have to start over with asking about condition, service, etc.

I’m starting to think I just don’t have the chops to go into used pin purchases informed enough or skilled enough to avoid disasters and money pits of one form or another.

Maybe I should stick to new ones.