Huh crazy. Seems like a weird choice for a movie tie in, but it was popular for a second. Wonder if there was any work done on it before it became STTNG.

Hey does anyone have a good used right sling plastic they’d sell me? Shoot me a PM please.

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Maybe. I have one, but I'm not sure which side it is. I'll look when I get home.

Much appreciated sir.

You and I have a very similar play style.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/archive/84487

Hahahah it’s a talent.

Picked up my STTNG today and it played perfectly for about 10 games.
But now the left cannon is constantly moving and the game is calling to launch a class 1 probe- even if another mode/mission is running.
Is this a cannon opto issue?

It's pretty much ALWAYS an opto issue, but not necessarily one on the cannon. I'd start in test mode and eliminate the Optos which do work and focus on the others

Go into settings and disable that cannon and see how the game behaves, it could be an opto issue or an issue with the wiring harness to that cannon.

I have joined the club! This is my first pin, and I'm really enjoying it.

I have a intermittent issue with the flippers, however. If a ball comes in a little hot and I have the right flipper(s) fully extended, the force of the ball impacting the flipper can sometimes force the flipper down a bit while I'm still holding the button in. Since the flipper had some give the ball basically sticks to it as opposed to bouncing off, and while the ball is resting there the flipper sits in a "drooped" state. The amount it droops after impact varies. Sometimes it just dips just a bit and holds there, and sometimes it slowly droops down quite a bit. If I still hold the flipper button in and the flipper is still close to horizontal (thus the ball doesn't move much), sometimes the flipper "re-engages" to normal which auto-hits the ball back up all while I'm just holding down the button.

I thought it might not be a flipper problem since I've had it happen on both left and right before. It almost never happens on the left, but that could be because the ball doesn't come in that fast to an extended flipper on the left nearly as often. Or maybe it's due to the right activating two flippers instead of one? I'm not sure. Or maybe I'm going nuts and it didn't really happen on the left. That is entirely possible.

I'm also not sure if there's an easy way to isolate to a flipper issue, power issue, or other. I could check the power levels when I get home. I believe I saw some previous posts in this or another thread about how to do that. Is it normal to have the lights behind the backglass dim momentarily ever time you activate a flipper, or would that indicate a potential power deficiency?

Outside of these somewhat rare occurrences, the flippers appear to operate at normal strength. I seem to be able to make all the necessary shots from a cradle if hit cleanly. Well, my neutral zone center target only fires some of the time on impact, which makes battle simulation a pain, I'm guessing that'll just be a switch adjustment. I tried to already tweak it once without fully removing it and the activation chance on hit went from ~5% to ~60%. Maybe I just need to pop it out for a proper adjustment.

I did add an LED Color DMD, although the flipper issue didn't appear to act any differently before and after.

If this is a common-ish problem, any insight would be appreciated! I tried to look around but didn't see posts detailing exactly this behavior.

Welcome to the club, it's a great game and you have all sorts of fantastic support help for it here!

What you describe sounds like a pretty standard flipper EOS (end of stroke) problem. The EOS's sole purpose in a modern game like STTNG (as opposed to old EM's and Solid State games) is to tell the computer that the flipper has been knocked down and needs to be re-energized. The EOS switches on STTNG are normally open so if you go into switch test mode and manually push the flipper bat up you should see the switch close at the end of stroke and re-open when you release it. My guess is you have dirty or, since the game is new to you, missing EOS switches. It could be something else so do this test and if they are not registering you'll need to examine the flipper assemblies and clean (just with some rough paper, never a file) / adjust those switches, assuming they are installed. If they are installed and clean but still not registering we can help you troubleshoot that too, could be a broken wire or something more difficult.

It's really hard to call his bluff when you can't see his left eye twitching Have you found/tried the Arkanoid/Breakout clone game? It's worth a look too, you have to enter a flipper combination during attract - the display will flicker to confirm entry if I remember correctly - and then access it the same way you get to the poker game.

This website has a neat listing of Easter eggs in a lot of pinball machines. The list is in alphabetical order so just scroll down to Star Trek Next Generation.

http://hem.bredband.net/b257182/Cows&Easter.htm

I play poker 100% of holodeck visits. Wish I could make it mandatory in the settings.

Can someone point me to a photo of the underside of the right cannon ? I can't seem to find the switch setup in the manual, and I am
Pretty sure I have the wrong switches installed in mine. It's always misaligned and I'm having trouble correcting it

I took these on mine. Hope they help. Let me know if you need a different shot though.

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If you are talking about the cannon aligning to the wireform when parked, this is not typically aligned by the switches underneath. This final alignment is made by loosing the four screws holding the cannon assembly to the Plate Nut and manually turning the cannon to where it needs to be positioned when parked.

Excellent. That photo was in the EXACT spot I needed. And thanks Pin_Guy for the clarification.

I did do the adjustment already, but perhaps I need to do it again. The leaf on the switch was bent quite a bit and once I straightened it the alignment was worse. I was concerned that maybe it wasn’t supposed to be straight, but the photo confirms it.

The cannon also seems to slip when rotating, maybe I need to check how tight the screws are.

One other question: what in the heck purpose does the screw to the top of the gearbox do? It seems like it would always be closed.

I have rebuilt all flippers and I think they are still a bit weak.
Am I supposed to make the left orbit shot all the way around with cradled ball?
How about delta quadrant ramp with ”slow ball”?
Playfield is cleaned/waxed and at 6,5”. Bottom coils are 11629. Upper is 11630 (Wrong?).

My game has these installed:
pasted_image (resized).png

The manual and parts list shows these as FL-11629, however when I performed my restoration, my game had two FL-11629 coils which I could tell were original, and a single FL-11630 for the right flipper which was obviously much newer and wrong. It's my understanding that the FL-17636 was an "experimental coil" and was changed mid-production to the FL-11629 which is a much stronger coil.
pasted_image (resized).png

As you can see in the diagram below the FL-11629 is much stronger than the FL-17636.

pasted_image (resized).png

It looks like that's it! My right EOS was activating closer to halfway through the travel instead of near the very end of the extended flipper. If a ball hit the flipper hard enough it would dislodge it slightly but not far enough to deactivate the switch yet. I adjusted the switch it a bit and it seems to be doing its job now.

Thanks!!

Anyone use the mantis protectors for this game? What about cliffy‘s? Which ones did you use and What was your experience with installation and fit ? Also Curious about the subway protectors. I want to get a new subway and The protectors seem like a good idea. Anybody?

I have used both on the neutral zone. I found that Cliffy’s affected game play too much. It came installed on my game when I got it. Fit wasn’t great. There was a small gap (0.5-0.7mm) between the protector and the playfield. Didn’t sit flush. What happened then is it made slow balls deflect instead of going in, and hard shots would jump the lip, slam into the top of the neutral zone target and come back out. Cliffy’s hides current hole damage.

I am now using the mantis protector. Real slow shots sometimes actually get stuck between the protector and the target but a little nudge makes the ball fall in the hole. I suppose I could bend the target back a bit but it doesn’t happen often. Mantis doesn’t hide wear.

Hope this helps.

Mike

I use cliffy exclusively.
I feel the neutral zone cliffy works fine. Play better

What registers the shot into the start mission scoop. It was working, but now when I shoot there, it doesn’t know that I made it. There is a set of Opto‘s right underneath of it. Is there anything else that would register that shot? How does it know?

just the opto.
If you replaced it and the photo-transistor; it's probably upstream. Like the Opamps/comparators.

This game is new to me. The original 16 Opto board was replaced with a great lakes Opto board. I don’t have any paperwork for this board but This board has LEDs for each set of optos. I believe the Opto‘s are working because when I block them, a LED on the board goes out. Not sure where to go next? Where are these op amps/ comparators?

I ordered the set of the 3 Cliffy's about 1-2 weeks ago straight from the source. They all seem to fit perfectly to me. I don't notice any gaps or have any lip-jumping effect on shots like was noted above. I don't notice a difference in gameplay at all. I'm not exactly a pin expert (this is my first), but I've been quite happy with them.

Does triggering the optos show up when in switch test mode?

I’ll have to get back to the opto problem. I’m chasing some other issues too. I swapped MPU boards and it booted right up with no changes. I then put the original MPU board back in and now it won’t boot up. . Trying to figure out what’s going on.

Is this metal piece installed? I didn't reinstall this when I finished my teardown and the ball would hop over the opto if this isn't there.

IMG_9959 (resized).jpg

Update. OK I am back and now working on the Opto problem. When I block the Opto‘s I can see a led go out and come on on the Great Lakes Opto board. When I go into the switch edges test, it does not register that Opto. When i block other optos, it does. I swapped the Opto’s out and no difference. Yes BriPin, that piece is there. I have the bracket with the Opto‘s mounted on it pulled off and I am working on it like that. There is also a pic of the Great Lakes opto board. The led that goes on and off when I block the optos is the bottom set of yellow LEDs and it the 4th on over from the right. Led 7.
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Anyone else have one of these boards in their machine? Great lakes 16 Opto board.

You are doing good troubleshooting so far. Keep going! Be logical.

You have confirmed that the opto works and the board detects it.

The 16 optos are setup in a 8 row/2 column. The switch causing problems is 47. Make sure 37 is working and detected in the switch test. If not then you just have a bad contact on row 7(white-violet wire) on that large IDC connector. In fact, in the pic you posted that wire looks broken at the plastic housing.

Cheers,

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Awesome! Thanks for the tips! 37 is working and detected in the switch test. That wire is not broken in the IDC connector. It just looks that way in the picture. Interesting that you would say that though because I did have that assembly off of the game yesterday. I pulled it when I pulled the subway out to replace it. All I did was unplug it and unbolt it. I have tried reseating all of the connectors that I disconnected yesterday also, along with all of the connectors on the Opto board but no difference. I keep going back over everything that I did but I can’t find anything.

Ok so if you can confirm that all other 15 optos work correctly in switch test, and that the board detects the opto for 47 but doesn’t send the switch closure, then it would seem that your opto board may be faulty. Since 37 is working it’s probably overkill but I would check all switches linked to row 7 for good measure. You have already checked column 4 as part of your 16 opto test.

Good luck.

Thanks. I checked a few but need to check the rest. I stepped away from it for now and went out and decided to work on my truck instead while it was daylight. I may get back to it this evening, if not later this week. I will definitely post updates. Drives me crazy because it was working before I messed with the machine.

Update: the 16 opto board is bad. I borrowed one from someone and tried it and everything worked. Put mine back in and same problem. Anyone got a 16 opto board that I can buy?

i have working boards somewhere i will try and find my Hardware and get back to you.

Awesome!

You could have yours repaired. Pin_Guy is a board repair guru. He was able to get my boards in tip top shape.

From his pictures it looks like the GLM board had a pic microcontroller. If there is an issue with the pic it might not be repairable I think. Though since everything else works but that one opto it is likely something else

Thanks for the complement Pinless and I'm happy to hear your boards are working well. If the problem was with an original board then it would be a fairly simple repair, but an aftermarket board with all SMD components is something I'm not setup to work on.

MikeSinMD I would try to reach out to GLM and see what they can do you.

Yeah, I tried to contact them and no response. I heard they are out of business. I have spoken to someone that is going to look at it. I will keep everyone updated.

I have made some decals for the cannons.
What do you think?

sttng_gun_001 (resized).jpg

sttng_gun_002 (resized).jpg

sebo Well done!

I really like them. Do you have a picture of them in the Machine? I'm curious to see how the yellow color fits with the machines general color scheme.

I'd have to see it IRL to be ok with those decals. May be a bit much.

That said; I had my Borg and cannons by Matt at Back Alleyand I'm pretty happy with the results.

For me a subset of these decals might be better.

The pin is not located at my house so it took my a while to provide some pictures of the installed cannons.

sttng_cannon_decals_002 (resized).jpg

sttng_cannon_decals_003 (resized).jpg