Star Trek Next Generation is my favorite pinball. Over the years I have restored and repaired countless STTNGs. Every time I sold it, I regretted it. The game I have now is hopefully staying a long time.

I restore, repair and sell pinballs as a hobby. Here is a link to many of my repairs over the years. Hopefully some of them can be useful.

http://purcellvillepinball.com/BallyWilliamsRepairs.html#StarTrek

Here is a photo of the switch matrix with the balls out of the game and the balls in the game. (This has the top drop target down - which it usually is.) I think of this as a backwards "4".

http://purcellvillepinball.com/SwitchMatrix.html

I also document my restorations (when I don't simply flip one). I recently have been taking 300 or more photos during a restoration.

Here is my current baby:
http://purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2015.html

Here is one I did for a friend while I was concurrently restoring my game above:
http://purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2015-JV.html

Here is a restoration and photos from 2013:
http://purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2013-03.html

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I restored my STTNG about a year ago. I lined up the flippers with the holes as shown in the first photo. I was never happy with game play or the difficulty in making the shots (this is about the 20th time I've owned one since I love to restore this game). It finally dawned on me that I needed to change the angle to get the shots. I adjusted the flippers as shown in the second photo. The game now works great like all my others have. The game looks better with the flippers in the first position. The lines are straight. But works much better in the second. I am finally fully enjoying the game again.

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I bought the Ultimate LED set from pinballbulbs.com

http://www.pinballbulbs.com/products/star-trek-next-generation-ultimate-led-kit

If you look at the listing, he lists the spotlights. There is also an LED strip in the trough and under the back wood.

I cleaned the play field with 91% alcohol and then novus 2.

When I restored (or shopped - I say restore because it looks beautiful to me now ), I posted over 280 photos here.

http://purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2015.html

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It did play well. I will continue to test it. The sweet spot may lie somewhere in between. But I can state that it is definitely not what I thought was the perfect straight angle lines up with the holes. I will continue to play and possibly adjust. So far, so good.

With the first picture setup,my flippers felt wimpy and just was not making shots at all.

With the second picture setup, my flippers feel crisp and strong. All shots can be made. It feels a bit harder to get it up the left lane than the right.

I will adjust them slightly down to see if the outside shots are more solid while still making all other shots.

The picture with the game off (top picture) is the original way I set the flippers about a year ago. As I said, it was wimpy. In hindsight, I can see I probably over extended the angle and covered the holes. The bottom picture (new) seems to have a more straight line between the inlane and the flippers.

I readjusted this evening and you can see the hole below the flipper bat about 1/8" above the hole. The flippers worked crisply. I was able to get all shots.

What is interesting and I have not noticed before is that (at least on this game) the artwork is not centered with the flippers. I was originally trying to line up the flippers with respect to the cyan box beneath it. But you can see in both pictures that the left flipper extends past the cyan box and the right flipper does not extend.

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Thanks. I was hoping to ignore it. But it is there and I will adjust.

Those are the opto switches under the left VUK and right VUK where the ball comes out to the cannon. You will need to test if these and the other optos are working around the game, such as the entry to the borg ship.

In test mode. with all the balls out and the back drop target down, your switch matrix should look like below.

Also, the limit switches to the cannon do not get tested in switch edges. They get tested in the left and right cannot test as you were doing.

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Are the balls being diverted to all three vuks when you first turn on the game and all 6 balls are in the trough? (The 3 vuks are the left and right cannon and the left most vuk to feed to the left in lane.)

If not, getting those errors could mean that the diverters under the playfield that are controlled by coils may not be working correctly to get the balls staged to the right places.

Here are some I bought a few years ago. I have three that plug into to USB for lights. Xmen also has recordings that I provided.

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I’m restoring one right now. Sent out wire ramps and phaser to Pinball plating for black nickel

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I was catching up on my forum reading and saw you used my photos. That was vey nice. I didn't have the photo scrolled down all the way and I thought it looked like my finger.

STTNG is my favorite game and I have refurbished it at least 10 times. The last few times I have taken hundreds of photos. So if you need any photos to find stuff, look at the following refurbishments I did:

http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2015.html
(This is the one I currently own and need to update with more bling added.)

http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2016.html
This one is not a lot of photos but concentrates on fixing the trigger for the phaser gun.

http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2015-JV.html
This has a lot of photos as well.

http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/STTNG2013-03.html

I also used STTNG to show people how to pack and unpack a pinball to move:
http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/TakeDownAPinball.html

and finally, although there is a great amount of repair info on pinside, I have been documenting my STTNG repairs and the latest ones with some photos:
http://www.purcellvillepinball.com/BallyWilliamsRepairs.html#StarTrek

There are many posts about F 116 (12 volt secondary) blowing. I was playing my game earlier today and the screen turned off and the trough started kicking out balls.

I immediately knew it was the 12 volt circuit. I turned off the game and confirmed that f116 blew

I put another fuse in and played the game a while and it was fine. Someone came over to play so I turned my games and and about 25-30 minutes later while in attract mode the colordmd display was off.

I replaced the fuse again and watched it. It was getting very hot.

When I added a tilt topper topper as well as the color display 5 years ago, the same fuse was blowing. So I moved the topper to external power directly from the wall outlet.

So I have done nothing to this game in the past 5 years electrically. My only recent mods were adding painted ships.

I did modify the tie back to go from j107-1 to J4-1 for the aux driver.

Would it make sense to try to power the color display externally or is there another way to connect it?

I also have led strips in the trough and back area that connect to 12 volts.

So the only items using the 12 volt circuit are the color dmd, and the two led strips.

I did get the klingon mod that plugs into the same place as the original 47 bulbs so I assume this is just the GI circuit.

Would trying a different driver board put less stress on the 12 volt circuit?

Thanks
Michael

Randy, at ColorDMD, told me that the LED strip uses quite a bit of current. It was connected to the unregulated 12 volt through the AUX connector on the Colordmd board.

I disconnected it to jus have the ColorDMD connected. It has only been on a few minutes in attract mode but the fuse does not feel hot now.

Randy suggested I contact Rock Custom Pinball to buy an adapter to plug into the service outlet that turns on with the GI lights. I sent an email to him (plus I have to look at the adapter not on my phone) and see if I can buy something to change the 4 pin molex to connect to his adapter.

I sent an email to Pin_Guy separately, but not sure how to test current. But ih he'd like the info, I can reconnect the LD strip and measure. (Assuming I get the connector back onto the aux connector correctly

Thanks. This is the only game that I seem to have a 12 volt power issue with. I could swap out the lcd color dmd with an led display from Flintstones. This will reduce the current. I will still buy a separate light sensor e adapter to connect up 12 volt led strips to reduce the current more.

When I added my TiltTopper topper 6 years ago, after installing the LCD color display and 12 volt LED strips in the trough and back area, the F116 fuse blew. I ended up getting an adapter and plugging it into the wall. I use Alexa to turn on my games so simply created a group called "Star Trek Next Gen" which was a group with "STTNG" (pinball) and "STTNG Topper".

The strange thing is the fuse blew several times this weekend. This is after using the game with the LCD color display and LEDs connected for the past 6 years with no issue. The only change I made to the game was finally performing the tie back mod to connect J107-1 to J4-1 on the auxiliary. Maybe the driver board is getting weaker or something?

I prefer LED. But STTNG and Spider Man got color displays before they made the LEDs. I have STTNG set to scan and SM set to large dots

A few weeks ago we had a discussion about my 12 volts blowing with the Color DMD LCD and 12 volt LED strips in the trough and in the back area. I removed the connector for the LED strips so they are no longer on and not drawing power. The game has been working but I usually do not leave it on for hours and hours.

My right lower flipper spring broke so I replaced it and played a test game to ensure working. During the last ball, the F116 fuse blew again as the right cannon was coming back to home.

I replaced the F116 fuse and the game worked. However, two interesting things I noticed:
1. When the cannon is moving and when I shoot the ball, I hear a popping like a coil near the trough, but the balls are not coming up and the plunger is not kicking.
2. When I turn the game off, the flippers go up a little and back down. I have never seen that or noticed that before.

The last time I was in Battle Simulation, I heard what I thought was a coil pop (like noted in #1 above) and the game acted like the ball went into the trough (optos - which I went into test mode and they look good), the game ended the ball but the game kept playing allowing me to use the flippers. So I just let it drain.

I have extra power driver boards, so I was thinking of changing out the power driver board to see if anything is wrong with it. (It was refurbished about 7 years ago.)

I replaced the driver board. The flippers do not flutter when I turn off the game. I do not hear any sounds in the trough/plunger area. The game has played well for a while with no issues. I will keep playing and see if this is the issue.

I may even try to re-attach the LED strips back (or find an external plug and a light sensor on/off) to use the service plug in the game.

I just purchased and installed these smart Eddy boards from Tangles' Pin Parts in Australia. They work nicely and install easily. They also work on TOM, Scared Stiff, and Road Show with a jumper set correctly. The price was a little better when I bought 4 of them (2 for me, 2 for a friend). They arrived in less than 2 weeks.

https://www.tanglestech.com/TPP-1023

(The first two pictures are the new boards installed. The third picture shows the original boards. The 4th picture just shows the printed instructions and a board.)

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