I just joined the club this weekend! I got my example fairly cheap (at least I think so) and best of all local (9 miles from my house). She mostly works, just a few gremlins here and there. While it spent the last 22 years in the home of the family I bought it from, she's a little rough around the edges cabinet-wise from it's first few routed years. Some holes on the side here and there from a previous operator, a couple of dings, marked up decals on the head, and rusty legs. Inner cabinet a bit dingy but no water damage. The board set is nice and original - no hacks that I can see.

The playfield is really nice - no visible wear but very grimy and dirty. Rubbers on their last legs. A few chips in some plastic pieces but they're all there and no outright cracks. Once I have everything working correctly, it'll be a total topside tear-down and thorough cleaning (and tumbling of metal bits).

I've resolved the first couple of easy issues - no audio in right speaker (bad filter cap) and right gun not finding home (one of the wires to the opto was hanging loose....soldered it back on). I'm now onto the third issue on my laundry list and the last "major" one I hope - the left gun doesn't turn at all.

Problem is obvious from the underside - the plastic crank arm has broken off such that the spinning motor is no longer attached. The longer crank arm looks ok - it's the smaller crank arm that broke off near the roll pin. I ordered a replacement small crank arm on Pinball Life tonight - fingers crossed it arrives by the weekend.

Now my question (and apologies if this has been covered in this thread before....I'm only up to Page 12 of 82 reading thru it): can someone provide me general step by step instructions on how to pull the left cannon assembly out enough that I can reach the roll pin on the motor, remove the broken plastic piece, and install the new small crank arm? Do I have to disassemble the whole cannon assembly to do this repair? Not sure where to start....looks like a lot of topside and bottomside screws and parts....I don't want to remove the whole thing if I don't have to. Thank you!

Pin_Guy - thank you so much for taking the time to provide the instructions AND most of all the annotated photos! Much appreciated! I'll report back on my progress....hopefully this weekend if the Pinball Life care package comes by then.

Pin_Guy - Wow....you were not kidding. My Pinball Life order arrived today and I started the repair process. Got the cannon assembly out just fine and then spent 30+ minutes trying to get the roll pin out of the motor shaft. I broke my roll pin punch in the process, but I finally got it out. Naturally, the pin went flying across my workshop and after a needle-in-the-haystack search of another 30 minutes, I found it under our treadmill on the other side of the room.

Question for you before re-assembly - the gun shaft and drive plate are absolutely filthy and covered in gunk/grease. My hands got dirtier during the removal than rebuilding a carburetor in my car. My cleanliness OCD is going into overdrive - since it's already apart, can I put the metal bits thru my ultrasonic cleaner or does this assembly require some level of lubrication? I've already run the empty mounting bracket through my cleaner....is it ok to put the drive plate, gun shaft mount, and gun shaft itself (after I remove it from the topside cannon assembly) thru the ultrasonic cleaner as well?

Again - thank you for the clear instructions last week....very much a time saver and it allowed me to get into this with more confidence.

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Thanx, Pin_Guy - got the bits cleaned up and dried, a little grease on the shaft, and reassembled and reinstalled. While the Launcher test from the Test Menu has the left cannon moving now with the new plastic short crank, I'm getting switch issues in the Test Report:

Check Switch 32
Under LGUN SW.2

Check Switch 36
Under LGUN SW.1

Check Switch 38
Left Gun Shooter

In the Launcher test, I'm getting the expected beeps and OPEN and CLOSE status for LEFT HOME SW and LEFT MARK SW. I've double/triple checked the connections I messed with during uninstall/reinstall. The left gun is ignored during gameplay and never tries to "go home". Not sure what to check next????

Pin_Guy - Things have taken a turn for the strange with my STTNG. First the good news:

I didn't have the guns bypassed in the adjustments menu, but after retracing/tugging wires under the left gun things magically started working:

- No more credit dot
- No more Test Reports on LGUN switches
- Both guns "cycle" at power on and return to home
- Both guns are utilized and work with Launch Probe
- Both guns are utilized and work with Battle Simulation

Must be a loose wire somewhere...I will have to track that down. In the meantime, I've lifted the playfield several times, cycled game power several times, did 5 Launch Probe instances, did 5 Battle Simulations to completion, and played a few complete games and everything continues to work so far.

On to the bad/distressing news:
I got this STTNG at somewhat of a bargain price ($3K). Three things didn't work which I've managed to fix (right cannon did not move = bad solder joint on the motor wire, right speaker no audio = blown filter cap, left cannon occasionally stops moving = cracked plastic small crank that eventually severed under use after I got it home). As it sits now, it's all working. However, while chasing down wires under the LGUN, something jumped out at me...this surely shows my inexperience with STTNG when checking the system out before buying:

The left A-16922 Proximity Sensor II PCB is *completely missing*. As in totally removed. I found the J1 wire plug folded back up into a wire bundle, not attached to anything. There is a wire hack spliced into the J1 plug at J1-3 and J1-4 that leads up to the topside of the playfield and is attached to a (non-factory, I presume) opto switch secured to the left inlane bracket. WTF?

Some sort of field repair from back in the day to get around a non-functioning PCB perhaps? How is this hack even working? Should I try to put it back to original? All I've been able to find for a suitable replacement PCB is one in Australia ($54US plus $17US shipping).

Thanx again for any advice / direction.

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How is that switch (seemingly) replacing the entire functionality of the left A-16922 Proximity Sensor II PCB? I would love to put this back to factory if I can get my hands on a replacement PCB, but the pin seems 100% functional and I also don't want to screw that up.

My STTNG has firmware LA-7 installed and I see many references/posts with folks having LX-7 firmware. From what I've been able to gather, LA-7 is the "US" version of code while LX-7 is the "Exported" version of code that has additional languages available. Is this true? Are there any other code differences?

I'm going to buy a ColorDMD soon and the required game FW level posted on their site is LX-7. I'm thinking LA-7 would be the same.

I picked up my STTNG a little under two weeks ago and have been playing it exclusively while getting it to fully function - probably have played 50-60 games. Tonight I played a couple of my other pins for the first time since picking up STTNG (STPro and BKSOR)....they seem so "small" and I swear I'm playing them better and faster after spending so much time a widebody!

I've got enough time on my new-to-me STTNG now that I'm pretty confident in it working 100%. I ordered a Tangles Eddy board and cable assembly today to replace the workaround switch a previous owner did on the left inlane, and a new ColorDMD is slated to arrive Monday. An LED conversion (with OCD boards) is in the near future after I get the playfield cleaned up (topside tear-down, new posts, maybe new plastics, maybe new ramps, tumble metal bits, clean/wax, etc.).

I do have a bulb out under one of the yellow Neutral Zone inserts....looks like I need to remove the subway in order to access those bulbs for replacing? Does the whole thing have to come out or can it be partially moved to get access? If the whole subway has to be removed, I might save this particular job for the future when I do the LED conversion.

I've got a few other questions that I'll put in individual posts.....

Is there anything missing here (to the left of the Neutral Zone) besides a screw on the plastics? Somehow it doesn't look quite right to me. I'll be adding a Cliffy to the Neutral Zone hole during the cleanup.

IMG_7833 (resized).jpg

This is the post to the left of the Delta Quadrant entrance....I'm guessing a previous owner secured it with a nail? That should be a regular screw-post, right?

IMG_7834 (resized).jpg

Mylar is starting to bubble a bit over the JACKPOT and EXTRA BALL inserts. If the ball is rolling slow enough over them, it does affect the trajectory. Recommendations? Last year I tried removing mylar from the sling areas of another project (using freeze spray) but it didn't go well...still lifted paint. Wasn't too worried about that as I was installing a hardtop, just trying to make the surface smooth as possible before laying it down. I'm tempted to just live with this on my STTNG.

IMG_7835 (resized).jpg

Shield inserts are in pretty rough shape visually, at least when the insert lights are off. When they're on, it doesn't look that bad but it's still noticeable. Recommendations? Focused wet sanding?

IMG_7836 (resized).jpg

In for a penny, in for a pound. Like I knew I would, I just plopped down $700 on my bargain $3K STTNG. Just ordered new ramps (all three), steel ramp guards, Cliffy's for Neutral Zone, Mission Start, and Catapult, new posts, new rubber sleeves, new rubber kit, and a new plastics set plus plastic protectors. Add that to the $70 Eddy board and cable assembly I bought earlier today and the $400 ColorDMD that should be here Monday....hoo boy! But I *love* this game.

Going to need to recover a bit before pulling the trigger on a set of LEDs plus LED and GI OCD boards. The above will keep me busy for a while.

Put the new ColorDMD in tonight....wow. Even more impressive than when I put one in my STPro, probably because STPro is such a new machine and the ColorDMD breathes totally new life into a 27 year old pin.

IMG_7847 (resized).jpg

While putting the ColorDMD last night, I came across a new mystery in the backbox that I'm hoping someone can help me decipher. Keep in mind that since fixing the cannons a couple weeks ago, I've got about 60 games on the pin and everything is working (all switches, all solenoids, all lamps but one insert in the Neutral Zone, all modes behaving properly, including Final Frontier, no Credit Dot, no Test Report)

I found two clipped wires that are bundled together in the same wire-wrap by themselves: VIOLET-YELLOW AND VIOLET-BLACK. VIOLET-YELLOW can go to lots of places (50V for solenoids) but I can find reference in the wiring guide docs to only one place for VIOLET-BLACK and that's Solenoid 7 (KNOCKER). When I look at the Knocker, it has VIOLET-BLACK already attached. And it works. And there's a Molex connector for the wires going into the Knocker where one end opposite the Knocker has two VIOLET-YELLOW wires tied together.

Is that Molex connector to the Knocker factory or a hack?

Are there other places in the pin that has a VIOLET-BLACK wire besides the Knocker?

Thanx in advance for any insight....

IMG_7848 (resized).jpg

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OK, this is a little bizarre. I traced the cut VIOLET-YELLOW and VIOLET-BLACK two-wire bundle...it went down the gray (right side) tubing channel to the lower cabinet. There should be no VIOLET-BLACK wires in the lower cabinet. I inspected the wires coming out of the gray channel tube, no VIOLET-BLACK wires. Huh? Either the wires are spliced to different colored wires inside the gray channel tube or they're not attached to anything. I tugged on them, and they came up and out. So I've got this two-wire VIOLET-BLACK and VIOLET-YELLOW set about a foot long cut at both ends (no bare wires showing) connected to nothing.

My guess is if VIOLET-BLACK really is only for the Knocker, and the Knocker is wired up and working albeit with what looks like way longer wire than factory, that someone along the way rewired the Knocker (with the same color coded wires as factory) and for some reason left the clipped section of original wires still in the backbox wiring harness.

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Anyone seen a scoring "rollover"? I searched on the thread and forums a bit but didn't find any mention. Had a semi-epic game this afternoon- 17,984,238,880 after about an hour of play, 3-ball setting, 4 Extra Balls collected along the way, 2 complete Final Frontiers and one shot away from starting a 3rd Final Frontier. But during gameplay, the score rolled back to 0 after 9,999,999,990. When the game was over, the full correct score shows up in the high score list. I noticed this a couple of times before on previous games when I passed the 9,999,999,990 mark but this time I took some pictures. First picture shows the correct score on the High Score list while the second picture shows the score after the game ended, with the missing 10B digit (which is how it was displayed during gameplay after 9,999,999,990).

Known bug?

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Is there a Left/Right balance control for the speakers either in the adjustments menu software or a pot or something on the sound board (I can't find either)? While I'm getting sound out of both speakers, the left speaker is noticeably dominant with higher volume. I've reflowed the solder points on the speakers (the right speaker is daisychained off of the left speaker) and checked the connectors back to the sound board. I also tried replacing the daisychain wires from the left speaker to the right speaker. Note: I had a bad cap on the right speaker that I've replaced. With the bad cap, I got NO sound out of the right speaker. With the replacement cap (or the cap bypassed altogether), I get sound out of the right speaker but at about 70% of the volume of the left speaker.

At some point I'll upgrade the original speakers to something better, but I'm wondering if I might have an underlying sound board issue here if there are no Left/Right balance control adjustments that can be made.

New personal best tonight - x3 Final Frontiers / x24 Missions, x14 Artifacts, and collected x4 Extra Balls along the way. All the parts I was waiting on to do a topside teardown/clean/shop job/wax (including new ramps and plastics!) have come in but I can't stop playing this pin.

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Thanx! In the Final Frontier, you get 1B for every four artifacts you collect and you keep them all. In my first FF, I had 8, so I got 2B. My second FF, I got it up to 11 so I still got 2B. In my third FF, I got it up to 14 so I got 3B. No matter how many artifacts you get, the shot bonus during FF maxes out at 250M. That's where I get the bulk of my points - my goal during FF is to keep all 6 balls active for as long as possible, but ultimately get it down to 3 in the subway so that you're dealing with only 1 ball on the playfield at a time. When in that "zone", I can keep hitting the center hole as the left VUK keeps feeding the left inlane. My personable best there is somewhere around 20 shots in a row. I usually get 5 or 6 in a row, miss the hole, 2nd ball feeds to left flipper, and try to get both in and get back to one at a time method.

My scoring strategy is now heavily weighted to getting artifacts for the FF bonus points. Unless I'm a mission or two away from getting to FF, I'm pretty much targeting the holodeck at ball launch to do the shuttle maze video. I can get an artifact with that about 90% of the time now...I usually crash only if I let my mind wander. Sometimes, tho, on that very last cave where you pick up the artifact my finger will twitch as I'm changing "lanes" and I'll fly right by the artifact and miss picking it up! That is sooooo aggravating...

I finally started the topside teardown today to clean up my recent acquisition and put in some new plastics, ramps, posts, rubbers, and LEDs. Man, this thing is dirty. Kinda wondering what I got myself into - I have two 6-foot folding tables full of topside parts, 5 pages of notes, and about 100 pictures. Yikes. I hope Humpty Dumpty goes back together again.

This is the wrong L-shaped left lane guide, correct (solid red as opposed to the other three transparent red)? Anyone know where I can find a replacement? I browsed thru the lane guide plastics on Marco's and Pinball Life and didn't see it.

IMG_7937 (resized).jpg

Thanx...I think what threw me into the weeds when searching Marco's was that I was looking for a red transparent lane guide that was L-Shaped like the opaque one in my game, not double-sided like the other three lane guides. So you're saying that all 4 lane guides at the top are identical (that makes things easier)? I guess a previous owner stuck whatever lane guide he had laying around when the left-most one broke. During teardown, I've found several more interesting hacks as well.

Many thanx for the offer, @zitt. Apparently I was looking for the wrong thing on Marco's and PinGuy pointed me to the right one. I'm building up a Marco order now and will just add this to it. Thanx again...

I'm in the middle of my topside tear down, deep cleaning, and semi-shop job. So far, so good. I've got days and days of tumbling metal bits ahead, and while I'm waiting I'd like to go ahead and start the LED conversion. Question for the group here:

Is it ok to power on the machine with all this stuff unattached to check and make sure the replacement LEDs light up (to locate any duds or 555 lamps put in backwards)? Will I damage anything by powering up in this state? Can I just ignore the tons of test report errors to go to the lamp tests in the service menu? I don't care about LED ghosting at this point, I just want to see them light up. I'll be installing the OCD GI and LED boards after I start putting everything back together.

Thanx...

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Thanx, bobukcat . Pretty sure the 12VDC gets disabled with the door - the Flasher bulbs don't work with the door open and neither do the cannons (which are removed anyway).

Unless someone comes back with practical experience (@Pin_Guy? @Zitt?), I'll probably lean on the ultra conservative side and not power-on to check lamps until I have everything reassembled.

Ah...I was basing my thought that 12V gets disabled by the fact that the flashers don't flash with the door open. I guess the flashers are using 20V then and not 12V. Thanx for the advice.

The balls won't clear unless the coin door is closed so I'm assuming the HV disable switch on the coin door is working.

When it's repeatedly trying to fire, is the black firing mechanism (plunger) exposed the whole time? If it is, the plunger is triggering the attempt to fire by blocking the opto and the opto thinks there is a ball present and eventually the cannon "cannot find home" because the opto remains blocked by the plunger. See if the plunger is binding up and sticking - may need a new sleeve or just a good cleaning.

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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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.

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.

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.

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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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.

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

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

Agreed - it's probably just a burned out bulb. I'd like to switch mine from incan to LED (I converted to LED with OCD boards a couple weeks ago) but I left that button and the Engage button alone because I couldn't twist off the casing without fear of breaking the 40 year old plastic housing...it looks pretty delicate and I tried twisting it hard but it won't budge. Same kinda button is in my Sterns and they all twist off rather easily.

Is there a trick to getting the STTNG buttons out or are they just seized up from age? I might by a compare spares to have in case I get the notion again to get them out and I wind up breaking them.

Mine flashes after a game...maybe yours is disabled in the menu system (A2 10 "Buy Extra Ball")? It defaults to 1 Credit but can be turned off.

Following....this happens to me about once out of every 10-15 times as well. Same VUK, same symptom. I've had the game about 3 to 4 months now and this didn't happen in the first 100 games I played. Coincidentally perhaps, after a shop job and cleaning of the subway, VUKs, etc. last month I started seeing this behavior. During the shop job, I didn't change anything on this VUK assembly.

Thanx for that...nice idea! I'll give that a shot this weekend....

Pretty sure that's normal. At least that's what my ST:TNG does (with original DMD and after I put in a ColorDMD).

Thought I'd pass this along in case someone else ever runs into this oddity: for the last few days, an intermittent problem cropped up on my recently shopped ST:TNG:

Symptom #1: during multiballs, particularly Final Frontier, the game would "lose track" of the number of balls in play and end prematurely.
Symptom #2: when a ball drained, it sometimes took up to 4 or 5 seconds for the game to recognize the ball in the trough before ending the ball and proceeding to the next ball.

The symptoms got more persistent last night so I had a closer look. When I shopped out the game a month or so ago, I cleaned all the optos and subway so I was going to be surprised if that was it. I did a Switch Edge test and things checked out fine. Then....I noticed when I closed the coin door, I'd get the expected "beep" for the coin door switch closing but that was followed by three more unexpected beeps. I repeated the opening and closing of the coin door a few times and most of the time, I'd get the extra beeps. Watching the screen, I saw it was the optos for Trough Balls 5, 4, and 3! What the heck? I closed the door slowly, and those trough optos would sound off as I pressed the coin door in to turn the lock. Aha.

I looked at the cam lock and the damn thing is bent, i.e. in order to clear the cabinet frame to turn the key to lock the door, you had to press the door inward more. When you do that, the coin mechs PUSH AGAINST THE TROUGH OPTO PCB. And since it's bent, once locked, the door stays in that more-inward position and continually puts pressure on that trough PCB. I replaced the bent one with a new straight one, and now the coin door closes and locks with only the one beep for the coin door switch.

Time will tell, but three games so far, all with Final Frontier, and neither symptom encountered yet.
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It looks OEM, but I am cringing looking at the wiring hack a previous owner did on the J1 connector for the A-16927 trough PCB (a similar wiring hack is also made on the A-16926 PCB as well). I understand that quick on-site repairs are necessary to keep the revenue coming in on routed games, but it shouldn't take more than an hour to properly re-pin those wires into new connectors. On my to-do list.

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Another mystery solved. My right flipper bat has been moving downward ever so slightly these last few days if I let the ball just land on it or when I'm trying to drop catch or trap it. I thought maybe the flipper shaft was moving but I've got the lock down screw pretty tight. I took a closer look the bushing and dang....two of the three screw's heads are sheared right off of the screw and the bushing is moving around on the one good screw left. Found the two screw heads in the bottom of the cabinet.

Time to break out the Dremel, tap what's left of the headless screws, and get them out of there.

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I ordered a Smart Eddy board replacement for my STTNG in March from Tangles in Australia. He shipped it (great guy BTW - wouldn't hesitate to buy something from him again) within 4 days of my order and provided me a tracking number....within a few days of that it left Australia but then it was like watching paint dry checking on the tracking status every few days! Ultimately, 2 months later, it showed up at my door. Popped it in (took 5 minutes) and it's been working great since.

In the middle of an above-average game tonight, my left flipper died, no longer moved. Popped it open to see the plunger linkage broken in half. I rebuilt all three flippers several weeks ago using a rebuild kit from Marco's....this is the second flipper to break (same plunger linkage)!

I wound up putting the original plunger back in with the rest of the rebuild parts to get back up and running in 20 minutes. Normally I've been pretty happy with Marco's stuff but two breaks in as many months?
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For real. I did a double take when I first noticed that (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/83#post-5552487).

I'd like to find a set myself. This place sometimes has them, but their stock doesn't last long when it gets replenished:

https://www.pinball.center/en/shop/pinball-parts-by-game/star-trek-the-next-generation/7607/extended-exit-lane-ball-guides-star-trek-the-next-generation?number=62329

Most posts I've read on this subject seem to indicate that this is normal behavior. On my ST:TNG, both cannons cycle/test at power-on about 95% of the time. Every once in a while, the right cannon will stay put while the left tests, but then game play is perfectly normal. I haven't figured out a rhyme or reason yet and generally just let it go. I try not think about it unless something actually fails during actual game play and when that happens, it's usually something that doesn't have anything to do with cycling during power on (wire came off of coil, plunger stuck open, busted plastic crank arm, etc.).

I recently rebuilt the upper right flipper (new coil and sleeve, new springs, new prawl, new bat/rubber) and I find getting up the Delta ramp much, much easier now. I was getting up it and to the Borg ship fairly regularly before, but it would usually require hitting the ball as it's coming down the playfield to get the best speed to make it. Now I can make it up the ramp and to the Borg ship almost from a standstill where the ball is just hovering or moving very slowly near the upper right flipper bat.

The hit ball speed up the ramp is now way faster than before (which I initially thought was great). However, I've since noticed that about 2 times out of 10, the ball gets kicked back down the Delta ramp after hitting something when it turns the first right corner....and I think it's the divertor arm. I can't quite see it when it happens as it happens so fast and I'm usually still looking at the upper right flipper after just hitting the ball, and I've been unable to capture it clearly on video so far.

Could too fast of a ball speed up the Delta ramp mess up the timing of the divertor activation? I cleaned all of the optos a few months ago when I did a teardown/shop job, so I'm pretty sure the opto switch is ok. The new coil I put in is the same part number as the original OEM, i.e. not a bigger spec'd coil.

OK - I think I've got it figured out. I couldn't capture this issue very well on video, so I had my son stand there and watch until I could do it a couple of times. He noticed that the ball was flying up the Delta ramp fast enough that it's actually catching air and doing one of two things: 1) flying all the way to the backboard and bouncing back down the Delta ramp, or 2) flying up in the air and hitting the mounting bracket for the Romulan ship and bouncing back down the Delta ramp.

I decided to make a "cover" for that portion of the Delta ramp to keep the ball from getting airborne and going too far off of the playfield. I had some PETG plastic laying around from a previous project, so I whipped out a proof of concept cover in about 20 minutes thinking that if this works, I'll make something nicer/better looking. Well....it appears to work well. I've been playing ST:TNG for the last 4 days (around 50 games) and no more issue with the ball getting kicked back down the Delta ramp if I hit it up there really hard.

Pretty pleased with the PoC - maybe someday I'll design and make something a bit more professional-looking but for now, I'm very happy.

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Ya know, I had a feeling that was the case as it seemed to me that having that open space above the top of the ramp was just "wrong" and the little plastic piece that *was* there already halfway up the ramp was slightly thicker than the other clear plastic pieces around the playfield. Add that to the two dozen or so other hacks/missing things I've found since picking up this pin ~4 months ago!

Here's the kicker - I already have that 31-1803-28 plastic piece but didn't know what to do with it. I bought a set of plastic protectors from pinballdecals.com when I shopped the pin out back in April (and put in new ramps). I didn't know the lower plastic piece on that ramp was non-original and I couldn't line up 31-1803-28 to fit anywhere! Oy.....live and learn. Thanx!

Daaayum....31-1803-28 fits like a glove when the non-original plastic ramp cover is removed.

Thanx, @manny65!

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You went up the left orbit into a completed Delta ramp shot after achieving Warp 9 on the previous ball.

FWIW, I have LA-7 ROMs in mine and I've yet to see uncolorized screens on my ColorDMD (hundreds of games). I don't think there are any animation differences between LA-7 and LX-7...just additional language options on the exported LX-7.

And +1 for the Hi-Rez LCD mode on STTNG!

Marcos shows the ramps as in stock:

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/PR004
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/PR005
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/PR006

They came with labels. They're pricey but they work well...I bought a set when I shopped my STTNG a few months ago.

Indeed - I'm using Mantis ramp protectors and one of the Alpha ones won't go on due to the thickness of the repro ramp plastic:

https://mantispinball.com/product-category/star-trek-the-next-generation/

I'd like to get it on there, but I'm also thinking that with the thicker ramp plastic, they're likely to last a lot longer without cracking anyway.

Are yours really Cliffy's (I didn't know Cliffy did STTNG ramp protectors...don't see them on his website)? I keep thinking about the Big Bang Theory line "all Jacuzzi's are hot tubs but not all hot tubs are Jacuzzi's".

This is so cool - I got my STTNG mini this week. Being made and sold by a fellow pinsider on Etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/866488243/star-trek-next-generation-miniature

Perfect tchotchke for my desk....have an EBD coming too!

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I can also tell you from personal experience - after years and years of the cannon twisting and turning, that loom is under a lot of stress and can/will kink and bind up. It may not be noticeable from the outside plastic sheathing....it may look ok, it may even measure out ok end to end in a static position, but any actual internal wire breakage, fraying, or deterioration from years of rubbing will show up when the wire loom gets moved or kinked again as a result of the cannon turning.

Replace the loom.

These pieces?

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8619
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8620

You need a roll pin punch set and a lot of patience. I had to take the whole cannon assembly out, put it on my bench, and hammer away. Broke one of my roll pin punches in the process, but I got the pin out.

https://www.amazon.com/Pieces-Gunsmithing-Removing-Automotive-Jewelry/dp/B07JNS1ZF7

This would be a good place to start:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/15#post-3325767

My 17-year-old son and I went for it....taking our STTNG down to the basement with both the head on and the playfield in and letting gravity do its thing. Two really tight turns and more than once I thought it was stuck and mentally thinking of a backup plan to call for help. In the end, it came down unscathed and we both breathed a big sigh of relief. I did take the railings off the wall to get a couple extra inches of clearance.

Good thing I love this pin....no way in hell I'm taking it back upstairs.

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FYI - cannon harness looks to be available from Marco's....I think somebody in this thread was looking for it earlier:

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/H-17067

Here's mine.....

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I'm using both GI OCD and LED OCD boards in mine - works like a champ, set it and forget it. No flicker at all using regular LEDs from Comet.

I first added a ColorDMD and then the GI OCD and LED OCD boards after a thorough shop job (I picked up my mostly-working-but-needed-help STTNG last year for fairly cheap). I've recently been thinking about adding PinSound for a couple of reasons - 1) for the sound quality, of course and 2) to see if an audio issue I've had since Day 1 would be addressed.

The audio issue I'm having, at least I think it's an issue, is the amplitude in the right speaker. The audio is predominately coming out of the left speaker. If I had to guess (actually, an educated guess as I used my trusty old Radio Shack SPL meter to test), the volume out of the left speaker is just over twice than that of the right speaker.

There's no L/R balance control that I can find either in the pin's setup or via a pot on the audio board. I tried some simple stuff first (replacing the right speaker, replacing the filter cap to the right speaker, replacing speaker wires to the right speaker) to no avail.

The audio board is all original with no rework done it that I can tell. I'd rather not shotgun the audio board by replacing all the caps and perhaps introduce new problems as a result of my middling PCB solder reworking skills. Maybe I'll take a harder look at the schematic to see if I can hone in on one or two suspects.

In the meantime, is the disparity of the volume level between the L/R speakers normal? Do you think adding the PinSound hardware would "bypass" this issue?

Simply put, "budget".

In all seriousness, I will be putting in PinSound very soon. Tax time is upon us and part of our refund is earmarked for Pinsound.

Absolutely. And I decided after some back-of-the-napkin math on my impending tax return to go ahead and buy the PinSound now and pay myself back after the refund. Wow...after the PinSound Plus PCB, the Speaker Kit, and international shipping from France I'm in for just under $600.

I love my STTNG pin. I got it on the cheap last year as it wasn't fully working, it was extremely dirty inside and out, and it had some questionable looking hacks. With a desperate local seller and cash on the glass, I walked away with the pin and a lot more cash in my pocket than I thought I would.

Fortunately, the PCBs were all in good shape. I spent hours and hours (and hours) on a full topside tear down for a deep shop job which included cleaning all optos, getting the cannons working again, rebuilding the flippers, slings, and diverters, and the like. I've also corrected all but a few of the wiring hacks I encountered (the last 3 I'm taking my time with since the pin is mechanically sound now and has been behaving well during months of daily play). I would not have been able to do any of that if it weren't for this forum and its generous contributors....thank you!

I'm not usually one who is much on mods - my playfield looks pretty much stock after replacing all of the ramps and plastics with new. But I have added ColorDMD, LED OCD, GI OCD, Comet LEDs, and now PinSound. I probably have close to $2K in those add-ons and other new parts I've put in to get this pin back and working 100%. The good news even with that $2K, plus what I paid for the pin, I'm still right around market value for a typical bone stock STTNG.

Someday I'll tackle the cabinet. She still looks bright and vibrant with no decal color fade, but when you look closely there are many scratches and dings throughout the body and head. Holes need to be filled in, sanded, re-painted and re-decaled.

Then there's the playfield. Art still looks great, no major issues there. But I've got a couple spots where mylar is bubbling and the shield inserts are a bit cloudy.

If I had unlimited budget, I'd pack this thing up and send it off to HEP for the royal treatment!

Cary Hardy just posted a nice tutorial and review on a PinSound package install (PinSound Plus, Pinsound Speakers and Sub, conversion from 1.1 to 2.1, shaker, headphone station, and motion board). He put it in a Judge Dredd (WPC DCS system) which aligns nicely with our STTNGs.

After watching this, I'm now even more anxious to get PinSound in my STTNG. Just checked my PinSound tracking and it's cleared customs in France and on the way....hopefully arriving by the weekend!

I went ahead and purchased the PinSound Plus PCB, speakers, sub, and 2.1 stereo wiring kit. I was pleasantly surprised to receive all this gear, from France, a mere 5 days after placing the order.

Installation was straightforward and easy - took less than an hour, including updating the PCB FW which they recommend to do right off the bat. Took me a little longer to understand the nature of installing the orchestration packages, tho. I had several on a USB key but the conversion/installation process seemed to hang or be in the weeds in that after a few hours, it was still "in process" with no real progression. It was only after doing some research I found that folks have not been successful in installing or processing multiple orchestration package at once and that it was best to it do one at a time and build the USB with multiple soundtrack choices that way. Once I did one at a time, it was a breeze.

First impression - WOW. What was once thin and tinny monaural sound is now a much fuller, stereo sound, even with the original, non-remastered soundtrack. I'm enjoying going thru the other remastered sound packages available by other enthusiasts (6 or 7 so far) and have some ideas on my own customizations that I'd like to add.

One thing that made me laugh out loud when I hit it: on one of the remastered soundtracks ("STTNG_Ultimate_Alternate_by_PinballShark"), I started the "Q's Challenge" mission. The background music? Mariachi music from the Deja Q episode. So fitting.

Thanx for this, @jedimastermatt! Only played a few games so far, but I really like it. Ironically, I spent the better half of my weekend starting to make my own custom STTNG orchestration and last night I was working out the cut off/looping issue with the End of Game music (which does not happen with yours). I had already done all of my music, normalized and at the right lengths, and while they play and sound great I'm not as enamored with a few after testing with some practice games. Now I'm thinking I may use your orchestral package as new baseline and pop in a few music tracks of mine that I still like into some missions. Nicely done!

Hmmm...not sure what I did here. Tonight I was messing around with different orchestration packages for my PinSound board, and all of a sudden instead of "LIGHT LOCK" as a choice during ball launch I'm getting "MULTIPLIER" in its place. If I select it, the x2 multiplier indeed lights.

I've owned this pin for nearly a year - I've never seen anything but "LIGHT LOCK" in that second to last choice. Messing around with PinSound should have nothing to do with this, and I'm confused. I poked around in STTNG settings but didn't see anything related to altering these choices.

What the heck did I do?

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I had the same observations/experience with the loudness....many files are 5db, 10db, and as high as 17db from each other. I was planning on normalizing my "modified" orchestral package this weekend, perhaps tomorrow night if I get enough cycles. I'll be happy to share when I'm done.

Oy....I'm down a rat hole now. Was going to have a look around in Settings to check the LIGHT LOCK setting and I can't get into the settings now. None of the 4 service buttons on the coin door are acknowledged, including the two volume control buttons. Machine otherwise starts a game and plays normally, and properly cuts off solenoid power when the coin door is open. Doubtful that all 4 button/switches would fail at once, and wiring looks to be direct from the coin door interface board to the CPU board. Reseated J1 and J3 on the Coin Door Interface board and J205 on the CPU board - connectors look good, still no joy.

Any suggestions?

Yep, that's where I was going, too. During one of my breaks from work I set up some jumpers on J205 and I am indeed now able to get into Setup, navigate, and adjust volume from there. Need to get back to work....next step later tonight is to check continuity in the wire harness from J1 on the Coin Door Interface PCB to J205 on the CPU and keep working my way backwards.

Got it sorted. Yep, ground wire. I always remember but don't always seem to heed "all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one". So after confirming with jumpers on CPU J205 that setup/volume works, and confirming continuity in the wire harness from CPU J205 to CDI J1 (which all took about 40 minutes) I started looking at the ground wires going into the CDI. Tracing back to the coin door, yep...a couple of wires broke loose from a coin mech switch. A little too much play in those wires....it probably got caught on the cabinet when opening and closing the coin door a bazillion times.

So what have I learned?
1 - Keep trying to heed "all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one". When you lose the functionality of 4 switches at the same time, it's gotta be something common between the switches....like ground.

2 - In issues with the coin door, test everything and look for clues. While I tested Coin Chute #2 (and it worked), I did not test Coin Chute #1. Had I, I would've found it didn't work and I could troubleshoot that. Had I troubleshot that...I would've found the broken ground wire and further discovered that the Coin Chute #1 ground is daisy-chained to the 4-bank service buttons (something not terribly clear in the schematics). Doh!

No, the broken wires didn't look like that when I found them. They were covered by the plastic shroud that goes over the coin mech switch. At a glance, with the wires going into that plastic shroud, everything looked fine. Didn't find the issue until I took off the plastic shroud.

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Yep - it was set to NONE. And I found a few other changed values in setup that weren't my doing. My son fessed up....may be time to hide the coin door key.

100% trash? That's a little harsh - I still like this package very much and appreciate his effort. Replaced 7 or 8 music pieces I like better, put in the Ultramix end of ball bonus sounds (which I really like), and normalized all files so that they're all within 1db of each other tonight. Took about an hour. Will probably tweak a few more sounds (I kinda like the original SFX for asteroid explosions and Borg ship hits). Haven't noticed any "noise" yet.

I put the extenders in mine about 3 or 4 months ago (took several weeks to get here from Portugal as all the US vendors were sold out). Doesn't feel like cheating to me - it has cut down on the side drains but not dramatically so. IMO, it just now seems more fair.

New personal best for me this afternoon! No I did not take the glass off! It was just one of those games where most everything went right.

- Game took 52 minutes to complete
- 3-ball setting
- All factory default settings except for kickback....set to Easy
- Picked up x5 extra balls along the way
- Had 10B after the first ball (25 minutes!) with x3 extra balls stacked up
- Completed all missions on the first ball with x2 of each element for 2B extra points
- By the end of the game, I had x5 of the first three elements and x4 of the Singing Stone
- Completed all missions x3 times collecting 2B, 3B, and 4B
- Completed Warp 9 task on the first ball
- Completed Romulan and Cardassian missions x2 each but oddly I did not trigger the Ferengi mission the whole game
- I lost count of how many Picard Maneuver callouts I got
- Battled the Borg x4 times
- Out of x8 total balls, x3 were drains within 30 seconds of launching
- Previous best was 25B but that was on a 5-ball setting

Whew! That was fun!

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I think it's just one post, and the wireform screws into the top of it. I got my post from Marco's last year but it's no longer in stock:

https://www.marcospecialties.com/control/keywordsearch?SEARCH_STRING=02-4934

FWIW, I went with LCD. I prefer the "smoothness" of it vs. the "brightness" you get with LED. It's all subjective, just depends on what you like to see. There's no wrong answer with this particular debate.

I think he might mean the current sound quality of his STTNG is "meh", hence he might look into a Pinsound upgrade....

"I might look in to a Pinsound upgrade as well, the sound quality is kinda meh."

I'll add that upgrading to Pinsound was a game changer for me as well. With the stock sound system, the majority of the audio came out of the left speaker only....so much so that I thought there was something wrong until I found an STTNG onsite at a location and it did the same. With Pinsound, full 2.1 stereo and at a louder volume, it's quite immersive. I'm having fun making my own sound packages, too. Almost ready to post mine to the Pinsound community.

Each of these upcoming mods from Mick's is cool on its own, but I wouldn't want all three in my STTNG at the same time....it'd be too distracting. If I had to pick just one, I think I'd get the Engine Lighting Mod. The pulsing seems appropriate in bringing the engine "to life" while being nice and subtle.

This has to be a scam, but if any of you are in OK this may be worth checking out: STTNG for $1K.

https://offerup.com/item/detail/1202781468

I'd have to agree. In the industry, this is known as the "contact durability cycle". Modern-day molex connectors CDC is in the 100's last time I saw a data sheet on it. Older ones from the 70's/80's/90's I've got no idea, but I'd have to guess it's less given that the older games were more or less considered disposable after a certain amount of time. IDC connectors I'd imagine are even less durable.

For Williams WPC95/WPC89 games, you need both. http://ledocd.com/faq.html

Holy crap! That's the deal of the year so far, IMO. Congrats!!!

Proximity board = Eddy board? If that's what you're talking about, here's where I got mine: ebay.com link: itm It took forever to get here (nearly 5 weeks....Australia to Denver) but it works great in my STTNG, the guy who makes them has great service, and it's not that expensive. Listing shows he has 2 left but he's still making them so that number should go up.

SantaEatsCheese - if you need the cable harness too, that might be a harder find. The seller (eBay) I got mine from appears to no longer make them and Marco's is out of stock as well. https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-17064. You could ask the guy in Australia who makes the replacement Eddy PCB if he also does the cable harness, too.

I haven't priced them lately, but I picked up my Plus for $369.95 and the 2.1 Speaker Kit for $129.95 back in February direct from the Pinsound guys in France. Plus $80 shipping (yikes). But it arrived in less than a week and I've been a very happy camper since getting it installed and making my own custom STTNG mix.

Wow...I just checked Pinsound's website and indeed, the Plus jumped $74 since I bought it on their website in February!