Quick question. Tonight I managed to smash the glass for my translite. Grrrrr.... The translite came away relatively undamaged, although it already had a few blemishes.

Has anyone bought the CPR mirrored backglass? I’m considering it but wanted some feedback.

This game will be the death of me. I’m just starting to bring it back to life. One cannon loom replaced today, I’m sure I’ll find more stuff wrong tomorrow. Just now starting the restore process. Trying to decide if this game is worthy of a full restore. It needs virtually everything. Playfield has wear, cabinet needs redone, etc...

Thanks for the feedback. I guess I'll just stick to finding regular glass. Honestly, I think I'll fix my STTNG and flip it for a better one. Mine simply needs too much to consider restoring it. Anyone want a players condition STTNG in the Louisville, KY area? =)

Does anyone else ever get to this point and think "what the @#^& did I get myself into"? =)

IMG_6698 (resized).JPG

Oh I did. Still a daunting task!

I’m in the process or reassembling my sttng and have a question. I bought all new posts (star and straight). I was assembling the slingshot area today and noticed that the straight posts are taller than the star posts. So the slingshot plastic would be bent if I attach all 3 of the acorn nuts. Bowed in the center when it connects to the center star post. Is that normal? Seems odd, but I think I have the right posts...

6BC06D3E-9F5B-46F2-A6F3-55696229E662 (resized).jpeg

FEC45DFB-FD2B-4781-A71F-8514B23F9FA8 (resized).jpeg

I suppose I could. I guess my bigger question is, how did it ship from the factory?

Prior to tear down, I took the attached picture. You'll note that there's a large washer on the bottom star post. Perhaps it served two purposes: to protect the sling plastic, and to increase the height of the star post so it's the same as the straight post. Maybe. Still though, the middle star post would be at a lower height, and I suppose I could not fully tighten the nut on that one.

Surely others have seen this and can chime in on how theirs are set up?

pasted_image (resized).png

Thanks, yours looks nice and level. I guess I'll have to ditch the full-under plastic guard and revert back to some sort of washer setup. Rather have that than bent plastics...

That’s what I ended up doing. Only downside is there’s not much thread for the nylon nut to screw onto. But it looks like it’ll hold....

Not to mention damaged ramps, damaged subway, etc. I paid $3,950 for my STTNG last year and honestly it was too much. Needed all new ramps and plastics. Connector issues. I could go on. Oh well...

Has anyone overcome the issue shown below? I have the exact same issue and am not excited about modifiying my brand new ramp....

31BA2572-5C6E-407C-8A32-184B4AC44345 (resized).jpeg

625DEC82-DE1E-406A-8BF7-2332C41184A7 (resized).jpeg

I’m finally getting back to my STTNG rebuild. This mornings fun was the “missing” pop bumper cap. I used the template from this website (thanks!!):
https://www.planetimming.com/Pinball/sttng_pop_bumper/sttng_pop_bumper.html

I couldn’t find my hack saw so I used a coping saw. It worked out fine. Then I used some fine sandpaper to clean up the edges. Next I used a dremel to put the bevel on it, and once again cleaned things up with fine sandpaper. Finally some Nouvs #2 to polish it up.

I’m happy with how it turned. Hopefully it doesn’t interfere with the ramp.

4A23AC26-D78F-43D2-A00D-8AE5A5B08115 (resized).jpeg

8235D82D-87F8-4DEC-B62D-C74E8FDB683B (resized).jpeg

799BB628-6B51-47F6-8B9D-589DE977FF22 (resized).jpeg

3D684FBE-4751-46C6-8F33-0C0C5271B6F9 (resized).jpeg

8AC8C5C3-5A15-4196-A55A-464B4D332EAD (resized).jpeg

What, you can’t make them yourself?

I just finished stapling the pop bumper lamp leads into place and soldering the wires back onto them. What a pain. Glad it’s done. Thanks Pin_Guy for the detailed post with pics, it came in very handy.

I’ve been steadily reassembling my game today. Can’t wait to get it done!
1E951703-34C7-4AB7-927B-0CE7ECFECE6B (resized).jpeg7D65F301-8C69-4ADB-A636-00E9CE798CEA (resized).jpeg

I’m closing in on my STTNG refurb. Topside is nearly complete. Today I focused on rebuilding all of the VUK and subway opto boards. I’m trying to replace every opto on the game, and do it as cheaply as possible. I also replaced all of the topside cherry switches. Hoping this machine runs without problems for 5 or 10 years...

95AA2ABC-C078-460A-98E0-CB4B8C45BBB5 (resized).jpeg

E3B57C29-CC50-4376-B14B-B3019E8560AF (resized).jpeg

D2C9DB18-36EC-4E9A-BFCC-C33F27A319BF (resized).jpeg

C6CFCC3A-C5D9-4B15-B4A9-0DDB18860D3B (resized).jpeg

They were on the game when I got it. So not sure. I was going to swap them out for originals, ha.

Looks like I have one GI circuit out. Not surprised, I’ve really tore this machine apart. It was well used. I’m sure I’ll have my share of board and connector issues to fix too. One thing at a time...

Thanks for that. I suspect my spring is broken too as my trigger is sloppy. I have the spring, just need to make time...

Found the short on my GI circuit this morning. What a PIA that was. My method: disconnect J120/J121 on the driver board. Then connect my meter across the leads of a socket on the shorted circuit. With the meter set to “continuity”, it beeps constantly due to the short. Then, I started finding the sockets on the circuit and usoldered a lead from each of them until I disconnectd one and the beeping stopped - problem socket found. Of course, if the beeping didn’t stop when I disconnected one, I immediately reconnected it. Anyhow, a solder splash has got on the bad socket, and unfortunately got up inside it. For now, I bypassed it. Problem solved, yeah!!

Also, I replaced every opto transmitter/receiver on the subway and VUK units, so I wanted to test them. I cut a strip of white paper to slip between them. It didn’t work. Apparently they are strong enough to shine through white paper. I had to add a piece of black electrical tape to the paper before it’d actually register a switch closure. Guess they are working really, really good!

21999718-1CBC-4883-9D47-AEB0C6B4B022 (resized).jpeg

F74A3C59-FBC6-4FDD-A6DB-CC84C1D62863 (resized).jpeg

Top side is done, well, for the most part. My left flipper flips but doesn’t work in video mode, need to fix that. My gun spring is broke, add it to the list. I have some random problem with balls not being detected in the trough despite new boards. My display sometimes randomly gets fuzzy. My back box flashers aren’t working. Lol, don’t ya love pinball? I’ll tackle this issues one at a time, as STTNG is worth the effort.

861811A6-FAF8-4BC5-8964-ACC1C3A73C4A (resized).jpeg

0B3863A7-D321-4E36-9275-A57B787894C7 (resized).jpeg

Just curious, does anyone know the correct lamp socket part number to replace the one shown in my post from a few days ago? It’s GI, under playfield mount, 44 bulb. Just don’t want to hunt and peck on Marco and hope I have it right...

One would think that there would be an adjustment for the ball save timer (Return to Duty), yet, I see none. I assume it’s not there, or am I somehow overlooking it?

Technically I think they were Cherry DA3C-B1AA, which are NLA.

I have been using DB3C-B1AA switches, which require more force to actuate. I have them on all of my STTNG ramps and so far they've been fine. More details are in the post below.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cherry-microswitches-in-wms-games#post-4941787

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/zf-electronics/db3c-b1aa/?qs=Z9t1pRjfOcyNm7XI%2Fy9Iqw%3D%3D&countrycode=US&currencycode=USD

Edited post since my pic wasn't working...

I can’t claim that my above pic is totally stock, but the spacer most likely is. It was taken pre-restore, it’s much shinier now with new screws, washers and a lot of elbow grease.

Has anyone seen an issue where a shot to the Neutral Zone will register as if you shot the holodeck/lock hole? It happens on occasion on my machine. Worth noting is that I recently replaced all of the subway optos. Also worth nothing is that I also replaced the center (large) Neutral Zone target, and it's not dialed in. So sometimes a ball will go into the Neutral Zone hole without registering a hit on any of the Neutral Zone targets.

I *think* there's an opto between the holodeck hole and the Neutral Zone hole - I suppose a shot to the Neutral Zone could be rolling backwards up the subway and triggering that opto. It's my only explanation, just wondered if anyone has this issue.

Damn game. I finished dialing mine in tonight and it’s an #@;$,! kicker. I think the wife and I both prefer it over WOZ. Perhaps it’s the relative simplicity. Dunno, but STTNG holds its own against most any game out there, including TZ which is my favorite.

Is it just me, or do modern games consistently fall short of STTNG? Maybe I just need to spend more time on one, but I’ve yet to find anything modern that felt comparable...

I replaced my stock sub with this today:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EFMPCW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00

In short, it was an easy add. The mounting holes lined up and the spade connectors matched the original. But, it added virtually nothing in terms of bass, which I guess is to be expected. I supposed one needs to alter the back box to cabinet volume, which isn’t the clearest thing to do on DCS with stock backbox speakers.

Given that, I hooked my 10” Polk sub up to the game. Man, it really adds some bass. But even it that, it seems like mids are missing.

I may modify the sound board to alter the back box to cabinet volume, to see if I pick up mids.

I understand it’s not a high end sound system, but I think i can make it better...

I like the idea of amplified, is it pulling 12vdc from the game or does it have its own power supply?

My game rebooted mid game tonight. I guess I’ll should have expected it, as it did it fairly often when I bought it. I’ve already replaced the caps and bridges on the driver board. On to headers and connectors I suppose. And maybe some jumpers for the caps and bridges, just to be sure.

Older WPC takes some patience and skill....

Welcome aboard.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned testing the optos, as this seems to the one of the major pain points for this game. Possibly nobody has mentioned it because flaky optos would be tough to identify in a 30 minute look over? You could use the switch test to make sure they are all working, then do the old "pound my fist on the playfield" to see if any switches flake out. But really, from my experience anyhow, the only way to know if there are flaky optos is to play the game and see if it randomly spits out extra balls.

Replacing all of the optos is no small feat, and in my opinion, is part of the required steps to make this game stable.Then there are the 16 opto board connectors, 12V feeds, etc. What could possibly go wrong? =)

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...

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...

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.
D042BEC9-1AC4-4EAA-9AA5-69C2C326D505 (resized).jpeg

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.

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.

0751C6B4-C19E-4E16-9272-26C741120BA5 (resized).png

Where do you live? Maybe there’d be some local pinhead willing to help. STTNG is a really great game, but you made the right choice. For that price you could have a NIB machine, and a high end one at that. Still though, my STTNG gets way more play than my WOZ. More than my TZ, although it’s always my first love. STTNG is one of the top games I’ve ever owned.

This is the second STTNG I’ve owned. The first one I painstakingly refurbished for my brother in-law and gave it to him as a present (when pinball was still affordable). He kept it for years, but then got mixed up with drugs. As best I know, he sold it and a Roadshow that I let him borrow. Never saw the machines again or him and my sister. I’m not bitter, as his machine gave me the opportunity to learn how awesome a machine it is. Still to this day it’s my wife’s favorite.

Don’t do heroin. Stick to the lesser evils, ha ha. Funny, kinda.

Well this thread is a bit of an open forum, unless someone complains, ha ha. If you were closer I’d offer up help, but I’m in KY. Still though, this group is always willing to help when we can. I’ve done so much work to my STTNG, I think I have all of the bugs worked out. Maybe.

Family. They were just that, so I let it go. Hard to watch people so close to you degrade. They were making well over $250k a year, business owners, one was a lawyer. The higher they rise, the harder they fall. Sad stuff. Heroin is no joke. Makes me scared for my own kids...

Did some sound board work tonight. I replaced the two large caps (C20 and C21), and because it was already out of the machine, I also replace C32 and C41.

Now for the fun part. I have an external sub hooked up to my machine but found the bass to still be a bit lacking. So, I removed R39 from the board and made a small rig to let me adjust the bass. I put a 4.7K resistor inline with a 10K potentiometer, in a small wire harness, covering all exposed stuff with heat shrink tubing. Even if the pot gets set to 0 ohms, there’s at least 4.7K inline in the circuit. Admittedly I’ll never set the pot to 0 ohms, but I do have more bass control now. Yeah, it’s a bit of a hack. But I never intend to sell this machine, so I don’t care. Things rattle in the room now when I play the machine. I’m loving it!

And everyone was right about the Hakko 808. I got my parts for it today and used it. OMG I didn’t know what I was missing. The smaller caps and resistor literally fell out of the board. The snap caps were a different story, of course...

9AEC3880-46C3-4AF5-BC8F-5B8315346B0B (resized).jpeg

Has anyone 100% solved the random multi ball problem?

Mine spits out an extra ball on the playfield every 50 games or so. I got to thinking, maybe it’s because a ball rolled backward in the ball trough, past an opto, the reversed course and flagged the opto again.

Just wondering if the above is possible, or maybe there’s still something elusive wrong with my machine.

Over the past few days I’ve been rebuilding the 16 opto board, replaced all headers and removed / replaced the solder on the large resistors.

Today I put the board back in, reconnected everything and powered up the machine. All seemed good until I closed the coin door. The machine rebooted. I wasn’t the slam tilt switch, as it doesn’t work. Then I noticed that F105 was blown - no high power to the solenoids. So, I replaced F105 and it blows the instant I close the coin door.

I looked around the opto board to see if I shorted something and there’s nothing obvious. The driver board tie-back is still in place.

I’m venting as much as anything. The rebooting thing is odd. It seems like it has to be a dead short?

Thanks for the help. I’m confident in my soldering skills. I’ve been fixing machines for over 20 years, and it took a good few of them to learn. I ruined a handful of boards in the beginning and since then have figured out how to do things correctly. Unfortunately, whoever had the game before me did their share of damage. There were a few questionable repairs on the opto board, but I toned them out and everything seems ok. I actually had the board in the machine yesterday with the new headers and everything was working fine. But I saw how bad the solder joints were on the resistors and it was bothering me so I pulled the board again today to clean it up.

The reset was definitely a hard reset. There were no diagonal lines on the dmd nor the annoying buzz sound. It seems like it has to be unrelated to F105, but it’s an odd coincidence. And I recently replaced the bridge, caps, 5V regulator (with an EZSBC) and the 5V headers. Needless to say I’m on a mission to stabilize the game.

I’ll check for a short tonight. I’m down the (1) 3 amp sb fuse. Seems like they are hard to source locally. On that note, even the ones I have seem shorter than the originals and fit looser than I want. What is the right size fuse and who carries them?

Hopefully I can find the short after the kids go to bed. They suck up most of my free time, leaving little for pinball anymore.

2D51E758-7106-4253-9472-E53433B573DE (resized).jpeg

AD9CFAA9-28B8-4044-B129-3E34C6DE2351 (resized).jpeg

And yeah, I see that the 8 driver board is unrelated to this. I should do my research before posting.

The oddities continue. I pulled J130 and stole the fuse from F101 since it’s not used, made sure it was 3asb and fired up the machine. The fuse didn’t blow. So I plugged in J130 and it still didn’t blow. And everything works. Lovely, I may have an intermittent issue.

When I bought the game it did odd stuff, resetting mid game, scrambled dmd, etc. I still haven’t pulled the CPU as I’m waiting on nvram to arrive on a slow boat from China. Once it gets here I’ll pull that board, replace the critical headers and fix any questionable solder joints.

Next will be to replace a bazillion connectors.

The machine truly is a labor of love. One can only hope I’ll get 5 or 10 good years of stability from mine once done. All optos replaced, mechanically rebuilt, driver board rebuilt, sound board caps replaced and a bass adjuster mod added. But it is a STTNG, so who knows. But mine plays like one mean machine. I’m loving it!

Worth noting - the other 3 amp sb fuses I had were the cheap ones, a single wire with a blob of metal in the middle. Maybe they are just inferior?

Thanks, I really appreciate the offer! I bought 10 cheap ones from China, I assume they’ll be pulls. They should be here hopefully in the next few days. I ordered them a few weeks ago. I bought 10 sockets too, so I’m set up to do 10 games if all of the pulls work. But thanks for the gracious offer.

I redid half of the opto board connectors tonight. I guess 18 pins is enough for an evening. I’ll try and knock out the other two connectors tomorrow. I think I’ll leave the .156” connector alone since Williams opted to put 2 wires in a few of the pins. I hate it when they do that, seems like there’s no easy solution for repinning. I usually crimp one wire, solder the other two to it and heat shrink the connection. It’s a PITA...

Thanks, I may give that a try. It'll bother me that it's the only connector related to the board that hasn't been replaced.

Good to know. Of course, that’s where a lot of the questionable old rework is on my board. How do you remove the old rosin? Fresh stuff comes up easily with alcohol and a toothbrush. That old stuff is stubborn!

I have an ultrasonic cleaner but am reluctant to put boards in it, especially one that’s already had questionable repairs. What cleaning solution do you use in one with boards?

Pin_Guy you are a wealth of knowledge. Thanks!

Replaced all of the .100” connectors tonight. I was going to do the .156” but the biggest Molex connector I have is 12 pin. Another night I suppose. The new connectors pass the wiggle test and a handful of games, of course. Hoping all of my work to this board kills any random mulitball problems, but we shall see!

3335C0AE-7A87-4832-8CE2-590193B76DE4 (resized).jpeg

I enjoy the board work. Have for years. So it’s a win-win. I get to have fun and the boards hopefully will live on a lot longer.

I’d love to learn a better way to repair bad traces, outside of using jumpers. Jumpers work, but it’s not the prettiest solution....

Scrubbing bubbles?

Some days you get lucky. Was going to remove my ram today and install nvram. Pulled the cpu and the ram was already in a socket. As best I know they never did that from the factory, but whomever installed the socket did an excellent job, looks original. Popped in an nvram, removed the battery holder and replaced J210. Up and running again, wish all board work was that easy!

The decals look great! For what it’s worth, I used the hydrogen peroxide trick on my shuttle and borg ship, and it worked great. It took years of yellowing off of them.

What’d you do with the old translite? I’d love to find a mint original, as mine has a few decent scratches.

The mylar on my right orbit was in rough shape so I removed it while shopping the machine. Mistake. I didn’t notice the damage until a few days ago. New Mylar in place, but the damage is done. Oh well, it’s a player machine and I still love it dearly. Lol

62452273-A20B-4C46-8AD5-76FDB925B073 (resized).jpeg

6E6128DF-21A1-42ED-99EA-03BCA1CD6579 (resized).jpeg

Thanks, I’ll have to search for them.

I probably wasn’t 100% clear in my original post. I had zero damage there when I bought the machine, and the artwork didn’t come off when I removed the old mylar. The damage was a product of having no mylar there and playing a few hundred games. It was an error on my part. I assumed the diamond plate could handle the ball drop. Apparently not.

I have a used one that most likely has some damage at the entrance. I’m away from home now but can take pics when I get home. If you want it, you can have it for the price of shipping.

I'd love to do it too. I lubed the shafts of my cannons, but the gear boxes are still noisy. I know I've seen the post *somewhere*, and I believe the boxes are riveted together. No small feat to pull apart just to clean and lube...

That’s 2/3 of my lineup (the other 1/3 being surf champ). Pinnacle of W/B IMO.

Did someone say NVRAM? Bwaaaa haa, couldn’t help myself.

I personally do NVRAM simply because it’s cheap, but more importantly, I love doing board work. I wish I had a dead game right now that needed board work...

I’ve always suspected this is due to poorly written software. I assume it scans the switches on boot and doesn’t find something like the home switch being closed. The switch is in fact closed, but the switch matrix hasn’t fully settled due to a voltage not being present. For instance, the 5V for the CPU is present 100 ms after boot, but the 12V for the switch matrix (or whatever it is) doesn’t fully power up for 500 ms. We used to see this on some PC based control systems I programmed, so I’d delay scanning inputs for a few seconds to let things settle.

If my theory is right, it’d explain the crapshoot nature of the cannons cycling upon boot.

I’d still call that crappy software. It should monitor the failure of a switch when moving a cannon during gameplay. Why test for a potential failure at startup unless there is already a known issue? If you are going to test the cannons, why not test other stuff too? I guess TZ does test the clock at boot, but not the gumball machine.

One of the unique things I learned as a programmer is that there are many ways to skin a cat. The way I wrote software was different from the next guy. I always had initialization routines that tried to determine the initial state of the machine, but never cycled anything. I’d figure out if something was broken at run time. To be fair, I was programming very large scan conveyor systems, so life and limb could be lost if I randomly turned things on.

Man do I miss they days of written machine control code. It was a lot more fun than management.

Why verify if it’s working if the code hasn’t detected a failure? Does your garage door open and close after a power loss to make sure it’s still working? Does you car kick on the AC after some many drives without using it, just to make sure the pressure switches are working?

I’m not trying to start an argument. In fact, your point about cycling to test column 9 makes the most sense.

And yes, I am a professional, ha ha. I took great pride in my software. A good handful of it became the standard for my company and I bet they are still using it today.

Like I said, to each their own. My diagnostic software would monitor for failures when movement was expected, not force movement to see if something would fail.

I wrote some awesome diagnostic software over the years. I never said there isn’t a need for such software. I fact, I wrote a lot of custom screens to help diagnose and troubleshoot equipment. It saved me from getting phone calls at 3:00 am. Did I mention that my software runs at just about every major retailer you can think up? But I probably don’t know what I’ve talking about...

Awwww.....did someone get upset? Need some Kleenex?

I’m not replying to your question. Don’t have to. In fact, I’m not replying to any more of your posts. You obviously have some anger to deal with. I think I’ll take the elevator down to the beach....hope it’s not delayed due to self testing, just in case something could be wrong. Lol

Agreed, my original "poorly written software" comment was all due to suspicions about why the cannon moves at startup. The code seems to be bug-free and solid on STTNG and most other W/B games of that vintage. Now if only a few of the remaining TZ bugs could be been resolved....ah well, they both are great games and permanent parts of my collection.

I bought all new ramps from Marco. They are nice, but thicker than stock. One of my cliffys wouldn’t work with the new ramps.

You’re correct, they aren’t cliffys. My bad, they were whatever brand Marco sells. Any yeah, it’s the alpha ramp. I also hope the thicker plastic is more resilient.

I also bought one of the subway protectors but suspect that maybe balls are getting hung up on it.

Header replacement isn’t that bad...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/board-header-replacement-my-method

I’m willing to bet you did some work to make it that stable? My TZ is the much the same. I did a mass rebuild 20 years ago and it was perfect for all those years. Maybe a bulb here and there. I just finished a in depth shop job on it, hope it runs another 20 years...

I’ve never understood this. Isn’t the circuit digital? I assume the optos are driving a transistor that powers the flipper coil? Seems like it should be an on/off situation, without some mid state? To be fair, I haven’t looked at the schematics...

I suppose that makes sense. Really a transistor is a current amplifier, right? So lower voltage means less current - ohms law. It’s been 20 years since I took classes on electronics...

I’ve never had a problem with the optos so I didn’t even know it was tied into the switch matrix. Knowing that makes it even more odd. Your theory would seem to be the only logical theory, but I would think that the programmers would have denounced the inputs? Something still doesn’t smell right about it. I’ve always been a bit skeptical of the “clean the optos” theory though...

Pin_Guy you are the recognized authority here. What’s your take on this?

I’m not sure why but my CFTBL, STTNG and TZ have been experiencing a lot of cold solder joints on lamp boards. I bet I’ve fixed one a month for the past six months. Maybe just the games getting older?

That’s what I did and still have a bag of them left over. Even with basic soldering skills, it’s an easy project...

Good call on the tie-back mod. I’d do the cannon looms too if they are older. And have a bunch of optos on hand...

What kind of demagnetizer do you have?

I’ve never believed this theory. The opto feeds a signal to the CPU (via comparators, etc), and the CPU activates the flipper coil. Maybe someone can change my mind, but I doubt it. =)

I’ve owned WPC games for over 20 years and never have run into this. The only logical theory is what Pin_Guy said. However, I would expect that the software would compensate for “blips” in the opto signal (debouncing the input).

If I intend to keep a game, I usually overhaul much of the electronics and electrical systems. Maybe that’s why I’ve never seen this...

100% agree. And if you only replace the transmitter/receiver LEDs, it’s cheap too. I replaced almost every opto pair on my machine. Doing the same on a Stern Nascar in the sake of reliability.

Yeah, but there’s a logical explanation as to why transmissions fail. It’s largely mechanical.

The flipper optos are either on or off. It’s digital. So at best, when the flipper activates, the opto power has a very momentary drop. But even that seems odd as the flipper voltage isn’t the same as the opto voltage. And I’m sure there’s a capacitor involved with the opto voltage rectifier circuit. And one would think that the software would compensate for the momentary drop?

I guess something happens. Just glad it doesn’t happen on my games!

Understood on the optos being analog. It's interesting that in Whitestar, the sender/receivers are the same LED. I'm not sure if they are special LEDs, or an "normal" LED will produce voltage when flooded with light.

But yeah, after the comparator, it's all digital.

Pin_Guy does make a good point about the 5V drop from the flippers. I guess the same could happen with the LED DC power supply. Although, I'd think you'd see random opto closures when solenoids are activated if the opto DC voltage was dropping.

It's all kinda irrelevant to me, I suppose. I usually rebuild my WPC games electronically. I kinda wish I had an old WPC basket case to work on. Right now my basket case is Nascar, although I'm through 90% of the electrical gremlins on that game.

STTNG has been a true bargain of a machine. You could get them sub-$4k a year or two ago. The damn machine is packed full of goodness at that price. I figure it’ll just keep going up. It’s simply a bad a$$ game.

My dmd died last night. Some poking around and I found the obvious, missing high voltages.

I pulled the board and can see some shitty previous work, grrrrr. I tried to clean it up but I think this board is beyond salvageable.

I’m not about to pay for a colordmd. Guess I’ll try and find a reasonably priced replacement board. Any suggestions? I’d love to find an original board, but guess most aren’t much better than mine….

1369615D-352F-4514-AFAC-0278EE9518E5 (resized).jpeg

6C437FD2-9100-464E-A162-964319FC033A (resized).jpeg

CBAC2849-B733-4879-B9E2-B89411CE02D9 (resized).jpeg

The old flux won’t come off. I’ve scrubbed it with alcohol over, and over, and over.

I’ll try to save the board, but for sure there are some missing traces.

I cleaned the board up a bit more with a magic eraser last night. A lot of the damage appears to be from the flux. It stripped the green right off the board around the through holes.

I do think I can fix it. One trace is missing, maybe more. But the pics on pinwiki show a decent layout of the board traces, so I’ll tone things out to make sure it’s good after repopulating it.

Board work is frustrating and fun all at the same time.

Got most of the board re-stuffed. Then I noticed that the 4.7k 5W resistor in my kit is a 1/4W resistor. Grrrr, thanks Marco. The kit is at least 5 years old, so no real recourse. I ordered a 5W, so hopefully it’ll come this week and I can finish up the board.

CCC042E9-9F7B-43B2-B21C-51443F798483 (resized).jpeg

Finally finished off the board. Not my prettiest work, but the board isn’t in the best shape. Super happy though, threw it back into the game and it works. Success!

BFBDA242-7AB5-4345-AF90-CCD88BA21D18 (resized).jpeg

D48E0B12-72BC-4354-9511-EA0EAD2CB0ED (resized).jpeg

F860BAE4-CD71-4F82-862C-3699C71E90BA (resized).jpeg

I do the same thing but I’m switch test mode. Put it in switch test and bang hard around the playfield. Wiggle harnesses. Tap on boards. I’ve solved a lot of problems over the years with this method…

Here’s mine after it finished booting.

IMG_0331 (resized).jpeg

I’ve seen mention of an LX9 rom. Does it exists, and if so, what are the updates?

For that matter, how do I find out what was updated in LX8?

I can't wait to get the updated ROM. Love my STTNG.

Yup. Welcome to the hobby.

Same for me. I love fixing things. Stripping a pinball down to nuts and bolts, cleaning, repair and rebuilding back to factory fresh is greatly satisfying. Same with board work.

I enjoy playing them too, just not as much.