Just had this issue....one of my optos the wire was off and it would just search and fire...eventually it would give up and stop somewhere....lift the cover and check optos. Maybe do opto test as well. On mine the cannon thought there was a ball in there so it was just doing its job

Agreed. The plunger looks like it may be sticking "out".
if so; that would block the opto/receiver pair... causing the system to continually try to eject the ball it thinks in cannon.
it will stop if you can tap the plunger to cause it to retract at the right time in the cycle.

I'm in the ramp reassembly phase of my shop job. Got a set of nice, shiny new ramps - first one I'm rebuilding is the Beta ramp. All of the mounting holes on the new ramp line up exactly with the old ramp, but I've noticed that the smaller gate at the top only fully goes one way ("up" the ramp). When the gate swings in the other direction ("down" the ramp), it hits the side of the ramp and doesn't go high enough for the ball to come down. If a ball goes up the ramp and thru but is too slow and tries to came back down, the ball will get stuck.

Is this the correct behavior of the gate? I took lots of pictures before teardown and it looks just fine and like I said, the holes line up perfectly between old and new ramps so I'm certain the gate is in the right location. For grins, I put the gate back in the old ramp and the same thing occurs. I didn't check the gate movement/clearance before taking the old one apart.

It sure doesn't seem right, but I haven't figured it out yet. Thoughts? Hopefully I'm doing something stupid here....

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Almost makes me want to go out and buy a Pinsound for mine

Sorry. No.
In doubt? Did you go on a Star Trek: Cruise recently?
Do you have autographs of all the major cast on your backglass?
Did you travel to many conventions to get those autographs?
Do you personally know one of the actors...and have worked on his personal STNG machine to drill a lock, pull the batteries, and replace the degrated rubber litterly falling off his machine?

If you answer no to any of those questions? If so; see statement #1.

That said; I do need to look into Pinsound... just haven't because... see above.

Thanks guys. Cleaned the Opto and the coil sleeve to the best of my abilities without disassembly and everything is working (at the moment).

Thanks!

Once the ball reaches this gate it's already passed the point of no return and the play field angle will not allow it go back.

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Ramp looks great, but I want to take a moment to let you know you are mounting your switches incorrectly, There is a metal plate that the screws screw into, this plate should be on the plastic side of the switch to spread out the mounting force across the switch; having the screws directly on the switch plastic can actually damage the internal parts of switch by putting all the force in a tiny area. This is the reason why the metal plates on the other side of the switches are not tapped holes but instead make you install this tiny tapped plate to screw into.

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Thanx, Pin_Guy - I guess a previous owner has them all mucked up. I'm putting the switches back on in the same orientation as I found them originally - I didn't know! And they're all like that....at least the previous owner was consistent. Appreciate the pointer....much easier to do now with the ramps on my bench vs. when installed on the playfield.

Understand, having them all the same direction would make me second guess myself, mine were not as consistent and most had the plate against the switch but not all, as I recall 1 or two switches looked like they had never been replaced, and they had the plate against the switch.

Hey Pin_Guy - I just disassembled the cannons, cleaned, and reassembled. I've got a tube of that Super Lube Synthetic grease....how much is a "tiny bit"? A couple of pea-sized blobs somewhere on the shaft, or a very thin bead along the entire shaft? Thanx...

I very lightly coated the top of the turret shaft and the top 1/4 of the shaft itself with a cue-tip. Both cannons working great and actually quieter than before.

Everything is back together after a topside tear down and I played a couple of quick games - no errors. Slings need a bit of adjustment on the sensitivity and that's about it. All of the LEDs are in....next activity is to put in the new OCD GI and LED boards so the GI can be dimmed properly and the control lamps don't flicker. After that...flipper rebuilds and figuring out how to get the Alpha Ramp Protectors on (the Delta and Beta protectors went on ok). Alpha is not lining up right....may need to bend/make adjustments.

New ramps are like butter. I was making Delta ramp shots fairly regularly before but they're even easier now.

Nice having all the lights work - I had a couple lamps that were out but I waited until this cleaning as the only way to access was to remove the subway. Also...the previous owner had a red dome under the Romulan ship and that flash bulb was burned out anyway....got a new green LED flasher and a green dome there now....huge difference having that work and with the right color.

The TNG I bought should be here MAYBE at the end of week, but certainly no later than next week week. Adding a Pinsound and ColorDMD is #1 and #2. Is the mix you’re referring to on pinsound’s website?

Ok, I spoke too soon. Played another test game just now and got to the Final Frontier multiball. Played with all 6 balls in play, lost a couple, and with 3 balls still left in play the game thought all balls had drained and it ended and started the next ball. Damn. Did it twice more (Final Frontier) and it did the same thing....ended the Final Frontier prematurely.

It's never done that before in the 100+ games I played from when I got it to before I did the teardown/cleanup. I cleaned the optos while I was at it, maybe I bumped something askew? Pretty sure I read something like this behavior in this thread....time to search and data mine. If anyone knows what this is and can save me some time, I'd appreciate it.

When that’s happened to me it was an issue with the trough transmitter optos. Might be worth checking that. Check the switch matrix to see if they’re registering correctly with all balls in and all balls out. Here’s a post showing what the matrix should look like.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/41#post-4146886

You can also look at each opto through a camera phone to check that they’re lit.

I think I got it. Switch Edge tests ran fine on all switches except one....Borg Entry opto. Acting dead, did not register. When I replaced the Alpha ramp, I took the harness all apart, desoldering the switches, to clean and then put on the new Alpha ramp. I reflowed the solder on the optos, retested, switch now registers in the Switch Edge test. Played a game to Final Frontier and it seems to work now. Will play some more games later after the family goes to bed to confirm, but it's looking good.

Two more Final Frontiers, Borg multiball, and Romulan multiball....all behaved. Feel confident the issue was my bad solder job on the Borg Entry opto when rebuilding everything onto the new Alpha ramp.

While troubleshooting that multiball-ending-early issue, I gave the trough board and optos a look-see as EaglePin recommended. I found this mess at J1 that I now cannot unsee. Everything appears to be working so I'm not in a great hurry, but I've got to clean this up or it'll drive me nuts. There were a few other hacks I found during the shop job, but none as egregious as this!

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Yeap; common problem, common hack.
Mine didn't have that; but the IDC connectors were toast.
As a "hack" I cut off black and yellow wires (12VDC); and crimped a new 3pin connector on it... because; well; I didn't want to recrimp all the connections... telling myself; I'd do it right later. That was several years ago.

The right way to do this; (Pin_Guy will disagree) is to recrimp the entire connector. PinGuy would say replace with a new IDC connector as they work good; but I personally HATE IDC connectors.

While there; replace the header on the opto board to. IE replace the connector and the pins at the same time.

Well if you have any issues in the future, this is the first place I'd look! You can pick you replacement trough boards but you might need to look at the wiring loom and whether those wires are being used due to some dodgy wires in the original loom

One benefit from all this working from home is being able to occasionally sneak away in-between meetings and work on pins.

So during a long lunch today, I rebuilt the flippers with new bats, prawls, coil stops, coil sleeves, and springs. And new rubber. Wow....my STTNG plays totally different now! Things I couldn't do before the rebuild that I'm now able to do:

- dead flip from right flipper to left
- hit the Alpha ramp and Start Mission from both a held ball and a ball moving down the inlane with the right flipper
- more consistently hit the Warp orbit with the right flipper

And though I wasn't actually trying (it was just a gut reaction flip to save a ball), I backhanded the ball up the Beta ramp with the right flipper. Never did that before, but now that I've see it happen and I need to figure out how to do it on purpose.

If you couldn't tell, my right flipper had some issues before being rebuilt (a little slop and occasional binding).

With all the new rubber, fresh wax, and rebuilt left flipper I've now got to re-calibrate my hits to targets....ball reaction is much crisper now.

My shop job is finally done! About 60 hours of work and a few hundred dollars in parts:
- Complete topside teardown
- Playfield stripped clean with Naphtha, scrubbed, and waxed
- All plastic posts replaced
- All metal posts ultrasonic cleaned and tumbled
- VUKs and hoods ultrasonic cleaned and hand polished
- Habitrails hand cleaned and polished
- Borg, Shuttlecraft, Romulan, and Klingon plastic ships cleaned
- All opto switches cleaned
- Flippers disassembled, ultrasonic cleaned, and rebuilt with new coil sleeves, springs, coil stops, and prawls.
- Cliffys protectors added for Neutral Zone, Mission Hole, and Ball Shooter Lane
- Brand new Alpha, Beta, and Delta ramps
- Brand new rubbers, plastics, plastic protectors, bumper caps, and lane guides
- Cannons disassembled, ultrasonic cleaned, rebuilt with replaced cranks
- New cannon covers with domed lights
- New green flasher dome for Romulan ship
- ColorDMD added
- LED conversion with OCD LED and OCD GI boards
- New Tangles EDDY PCB and sensor cable to replace missing original EDDY assembly. Previous owner had rigged up an MR switch attached to the inlane guide.
- New pinballs

Prior to this work, my only shop job experience had been on older SS Bally pins (Mata Hari, Black Jack, EBD). Tho frustrating at times, I picked up so much additional knowledge working thru the issues I encountered doing this. And a big thanx to everyone on this forum thread for their help and support, especially Pin_Guy and @zitt.

Time to play and enjoy for a few months and consider adding a Pinsound upgrade. Next project...putting a hardtop on my tired Eight Ball Deluxe playfield.

Looks great ! Few hundred dollars in parts LOL.

That's in case my wife comes across this thread.

Just hope your wife never sells the STTNG for what she thinks you've spent on it

I would check all the wires for continuity from the connector to the end points.
I have come across many hair line cuts to the wires inside the plastic insulation.
Sometimes the wires will make continuity then break continuity while the assembly
is moving.

I have one complete set of alternate decals for a STTNG machine if anyone would like to get them off of me. PM me if anyone would be interested in these.

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Does anyone know what LED2 and LED3 on the Power driver board indicate? The manual indicates only LED2 should be on. But in my box, both are...

The info in this post might help: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/game-wont-bootparty-tonighthelp#post-2106917

Sounds like a low AC line voltage problem?

Just ignore them; if they bug you turn on SW1 (W11) and SW2 (W12) on your CPU board.

Thanks. TNG is in the house. Haven't had any resets yet, but was having a problem with the right flipper. I reseated a bunch of connections and it seems to be working now. Time will tell. I did get the speaker it and harness, so I'm good there.

My pinsound has the following mixes installed. I'm guessing "Ultimate" is Pinballshark's. Now to go read how to change the active package....

EDIT: "If you put multiple sound packages on the same flash drive, you can change mixes during the game at any time by using the volume control.

WPC89, WPC-DCS, WPC95: set the volume to 0 two consecutive times using the door volume control."

SOUND PACKAGES
------------------
Star_Trek_The_Next_Generation_Original (active)
Star_Trek_The_Next_Generation_OST_By_PinHead
Star_Trek_The_Next_Gen_Ultimate

Hey folks, I did replace the 7 pin connector with a trifurcon (I've not had good luck with IDC previously) to the CPU board. I've not replaced anything else. It's gotten much better, but I'm occasionally still running into resets. I read that some folks take the Z connector out of the equation and straight wire it, as it was something they used in factory but doesn't really have an operating need. Thoughts on what I should try next?

This connector is the separation point between the cabinet wiring harness and the board interconnection harness in the head, there is technically no operational need for it; but technically speaking there is also no operational need for any connectors in a pinball machine. Of course I wouldnt want to work on one that was 100% hardwired.

"Leave it alone!"

Ok, so where else should I debug this intermittent reset issue.

ok then, done.
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Hello I am new in this club. I am from Belgium and since a few weeks owner ( finally o) of a STTNG. Man what am i happy.

I have a question on the behavior of the pinball.

When i shoot left lane I hit the locker and it goes down what is supposed to be. But the the green flesh with Lock Ball is not illuminated.
When i shoot for the second time left lane, the ball goes in the hole and now the lock ball is illuminated. Si i can lock the ball via the left lane only after 3 left lane shots. If I read the rule sheet it should lite after the first hit. Correct?

Anyone an idea what this van be and how i can solve this?.

Does the drop target switch register properly? Make sure the drop target is up, put game in switch test mode and make sure that switch is not showing closed then knock the target down and make sure the switch shows closed and stays closed when you gently bang on the playfield.

Those are awesome! Who made them?

PinGuy my apologies, I didn't mean to imply anything negative with the 'leave it alone' - it sounds like you don't recommend removing the z-connect and wiring those directly as a 'fix' for random resets - leave it factory is what I read.

I'm willing to try anything on your guidance. My next step would probably be to remove and inspect the CPU board if those pins have a cold solder or something.

Wow....this is nice: https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/96147

It's a good looking machine! I would be interested in why every serial number sticker in the machine was removed by the owner.

Tossing this out to the forum...can anyone tell me what looks off here?

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How about this one, anyone see any abnormalities in this picture?
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I actually find it to be very deceptive.

Whats wrong with this image?
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My guess is your machine probably looks similar to the image below, please let me know if I'm wrong.
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Yes on the shield although this one here has the single unused wire clip. A lot of machines have that unused.

Edit: maybe just early production so things were robbed? But it is odd on all.