Trident
Stern Electronics, 1979Quoted from bigguybbr:Looking at the white rails next to the playfield, it really brings out how yellowed it has gotten over the years. I think I’m going to repaint the new rails another color. I lined up some samples with purple, navy, bright blue, and black to see if any of them jump out at me.
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My vote is for a royal blue the same color on the playfield.
Quoted from PinballAir:What about heirloom white?
Good suggestion. I looked at it some more. It sticks out with no plastics, the playfield unpolished and the apron not on. If I put those on and shine it up once the clear hardens some more, it’s not as bad.
I used tye following colors to restencil the head:
Blue: Duplicolor engine enamel ceramic 500
DE1606 Ford Dark Blue.
Purple: Krylon OSHA special purpose #1929 safety purple
Jade: Krylon Satin Jade #53509
Quoted from PinballAir:I used tye following colors to restencil the head:
Blue: Duplicolor engine enamel ceramic 500
DE1606 Ford Dark Blue.
Purple: Krylon OSHA special purpose #1929 safety purple
Jade: Krylon Satin Jade #53509
That OSHA safety purple looks perfect. I think grainger carries the rustoleum version of that
Quoted from PinballAir:That looks like a very good choice!
I needed something to brighten up my collection. All my others machines are mostly black.
6D8C228A-1DD9-4659-ADD5-0011E80F9649 (resized).jpegI have always loved the art on Trident.
I also owned a Gottlieb "Circus" that i thought had great art.
Loved the gameplay on trident and kept it for years.
Sadly circus was not as much fun and it stayed for a shorter period of time.
Family is still in town, so I haven’t been able to work on much. I did get a chance to retrobrite some of my old spare drop targets from Meteor. Really does a nice job getting them white again when you compare with one that has only been through the ultrasonic cleaner.
I had my wife cut some stencils on her cricut so that I could paint on some new “S” logos and then clear over the whole thing, but she has a vinyl blue that looks good so I might save some of the inside parts just to slap on as a sticker. I have enough to do 2 full sets of drop targets and then pick what I like better.
62811F5F-199E-4908-813C-7E427DECCF89 (resized).jpegimage (resized).jpgQuoted from bigguybbr:Repinned all the connectors from the back box and insert wiring harness.
Hopefully you didn't use trifurcons here - they're a real bear to get off a 20 pin connector once on!
Quoted from slochar:Hopefully you didn't use trifurcons here - they're a real bear to get off a 20 pin connector once on!
I don't think they are available for .100 connectors, at least I have not seen them for sale.
Quoted from slochar:Hopefully you didn't use trifurcons here - they're a real bear to get off a 20 pin connector once on!
Its a tradeoff between ease of getting it on and off and long term reliability. Those 20 pins are for the 6 digit displays, which are new low power LEDs, so they shouldn't need to be touched for another 40 years. It'll be a miracle if I'm still alive then to need to work on it 
*EDIT - They were a bear to get on and off when I was disconnecting and reconnecting J3 on the rectifier board when troubleshooting start up issues. It very much tested my finger strength*
Quoted from gdonovan:I don't think they are available for .100 connectors, at least I have not seen them for sale.
They aren't, I was referring to the .156 connectors pictured.
Quoted from bigguybbr:Its a tradeoff between ease of getting it on and off and long term reliability
If you're not pulling them on and off the reliability is the same between trifurcon's and the regular ones.... they're really supposed to be used for high vibration environments which certainly parts of a pinball are. They are a real bitch to get off though.
Added a credit button inside the coin door. On my Meteor, someone replaced the center coin indicator with a red panel that included a momentary button to add coins. I'm adding it inside the door to keep a clean look.
I think it works since I have a thumb lock on the coin door anyways, so it is easy to access.
IMG_2340 (resized).JPGIMG_2341 (resized).JPGFinally cut and polished the playfield so I can start putting everything back together. I’m going through each mechanism and replacing any broken parts, like this linkage for one of the slings, swapping out coil sleeves, giving anything I didn’t tumble a cleaning, and soldering any broken connections.
I even got around to doing a flipper rebuild with new sleeves, EOS, plungers, and pawls. I was surprised my rebuild kit didn’t even include new bushings. It’s odd that those would be left out of a kit, but it included the nylon spacer ring.
767C6DDE-A003-4F99-8ABC-77CEBBF89D1B (resized).jpegStarted to wire up the selector switch for the BSOS board. An old 2 wire CAT 1 phone cable works great if you have one hanging around. Next I have to wire the output to the speaker into the switch so I can toggle the cabinet speaker between the SB-100 when playing the original code, and the subwoofer channel when running the new code with the wave trigger.
29F9052D-6C72-47D9-A913-B8928976AAAC (resized).jpegQuoted from bigguybbr:Replaced the old caps on the SB-100 sound board. To help others, here are the locations and values:
U22 - Transistor 5v 100ma 3 pin TO-92 LM78L05
C47 - 220 uF 25v radial
C51 - 1000 uF 25v radial
C53 - 1000 uF 35v radial
C55 - 47 uF 50v radial
Am I missing it or is there no test point 8 on a SB-100? It see 1-7 and then 9.
Quoted from shall:Am I missing it or is there no test point 8 on a SB-100? It see 1-7 and then 9.
Test point TP8 only exists on revision A SB100 sound boards which had the chime simulation circuit (used on earlier Stern games).
Trident revision C-1 sound boards don't have it (chime simulation was removed hence the empty realestate on the board).
Installed the sound system and tested it out. I went in a different direction than I did with my Meteor. I used some exciters I had laying around and installed them in the bottom of the cabinet so that I didn’t have to add speakers in the head, make speaker mounts, and run a bunch of extra wire with disconnects. I also swapped out the existing speaker. The speaker is wired through the toggle switch so that the source changes when switching between old and new code. You can also see the small 2.1 channel amp mounted to the side that will get its input from the wave trigger.
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Quoted from bigguybbr:Installed the sound system and tested it out. I went in a different direction than I did with my Meteor. I used some exciters I had laying around and installed them in the bottom of the cabinet so that I didn’t have to add speakers in the head, make speaker mounts, and run a lot of extra wire with disconnects. I also swapped out the existing speaker. The speaker is wired through the toggle switch so that the source changes when switching between old and new code.
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Quoted from snyper2099:That has to officially be the best sound system in a Stern Trident on the planet!
It does sound good. I had my laptop playing Pandora connected last night while I was working in the garage and it was pretty great.
I worked on populating the playfield today. I must have been drinking when I ordered from titan because I missed a few rubbers. I’m also trying to figure out what color flipper rubbers to use. I put on the green but I’m not sure I like them.
I hope at some point someplace starts making replacement plastics. The mix of bright white and aged plastics clashed a bit. Not bad overall though.
The nice thing about these old stern shooter rods is that even when they are really beat up, you can put them in the chuck of your drill, grab some sand paper, and get them back to smooth very easily. Mine had deep gouges from where it must have been dragged across a floor at some point. Now it’s ready for the buffer.
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Quoted from PinballAir:Did you stencil the cabinet yet?
Just getting started. First color went on a few minutes ago. It’s definitely going to be brighter than the original, but I think it’ll look cool. If not, expect to see a Trident for sale in Florida in the coming weeks 
1B578DED-CACE-404A-9141-D5103FB9007E (resized).jpeg4E853DB2-97DE-4444-8D04-7194C2665C6D (resized).jpeg7C0B94BF-AB43-4FEB-9D7D-D5FD0B14DD4A (resized).jpegF4A73B03-EA14-4C1B-A46E-7C8D58CB58B9 (resized).jpegQuoted from bigguybbr:Using a belt sander with a scotch brite belt to regrain the side rails and make them pretty again. Cleaned them first with some Brasso to get any light surface rust off.
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Where did you get a scotch brite belt? Seems difficult to find online, except in multipacks at prices I can’t believe. Results look great though!
Quoted from play_pinball:Where did you get a scotch brite belt? Seems difficult to find online, except in multipacks at prices I can’t believe. Results look great though!
I should probably sell some of those. I bought a pack of 20 of them a year ago online when the price seemed to be mis-marked.
You can also find scotch brite balls that fit into the chuck of a drill like one of the Mother’s wheel polishing balls. They work well too, but for long pieces it’s faster and easier to use the belt sander and the grain stays all in the same direction. I use the balls a lot for knocking the oxidation off parts before they go in the tumbler or before I paint if it doesn’t need wire brushing.
Quoted from play_pinball:If your sander is a 3x21, I'm interested in nabbing one from you.
My sander is a bit smaller. Takes 3x18 belts.
Quoted from PinballAir:A piece from the stencil i cut about 13 years ago.
It has been on my desk under the plastic protector all these years
Your cabinet looks awesome!
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You have some skills cutting those stencils!
While I’m adding some semi gloss clear to toughen up the cabinet a bit, I’m trying to finish up all the remaining little projects. I swapped out a toasty coin lock out relay. I also zip tied the coin door harness as shown below. I couldn’t find the old plastic clip, or I would have reused it. Finally I repinned the playfield connectors on the playfield harness. I only need to repin the last couple connectors in the cabinet and I can put my crimper away for a while (unless I find another pin to work on 
)
1C166F42-7894-4F6A-AAEC-03B0325E2DA0 (resized).jpeg3949158B-B605-4C58-8BA5-85653715FBEA (resized).jpegB1672530-B435-46E3-B6CB-C818BFBC7453 (resized).jpegCabinet moved into the house to begin reassembly. My assistants are evaluating my work…
In the second picture the light captures the unevenness of the pink towards the back. I had an issue with that spray can where it for a short burst came out like textured paint. It felt like 100 grit sand paper to the touch when it dries. I was able to wet sand it smooth with 800 grit and a sanding block, but the color is a bit uneven. At least it is towards the back of the cabinet where it won’t draw a lot of attention. I’ve said it before that this will be a very nice Trident, but not perfect, and I’m ok with that.
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Happy to find that my DIY spreader bar worked. The back glass slides in nice and easy now as it should.
(I showed a picture of it in this post https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/trident-2020-restoration-#post-6359238)
I watched a YouTube video of tue bsos code today with added sounds. Amazing difference in game experience. I hadn’t realized how cool it is. Those who put that together did a very nice job. The speech itself was very neat. Will be excited to yours when you get it to the finish line.
Keep it coming
Starting to come together. Got the legs and head on. Wired up the sound system. Got the coin door installed. Wired up the brite mods flipper buttons.
118FE613-4654-45DC-8160-043E6DBE6B91 (resized).jpeg15F8E18C-0A5C-454D-B9A1-A8625ABF44C9 (resized).jpeg2497E861-EDE6-4BB0-BB56-B2744B44AFE6 (resized).jpegI was able to track down a short that was blowing the 43v fuse and the machine powered up for the first time!
I started running through tests and found all the coils were very weak. I remembered I had something similar with my Meteor.
I walked over to my Meteor to take a glance and found that I have now I made the same dumb mistake twice. The J1 connector on the replacement rectifier has an extra pin so my 3 voltage pins on the right were off by 1 pin and I was trying to drive coils with low voltage.
Here is what I did
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Here is what it should have been
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And it lives! I was able to get it up and flipping!
Surprisingly enough, there weren't many lamp issues. I did have to replace the 2 lamps sockets on the coin door to get those, and the bright mods flipper buttons working, but that was it. I need to test the voltage at the pop bumper lights, because those seem dim with the brite mods pop bumper discs in there. I might still play with the colors under the plastics. I'm also thinking about adding a white strip in the trough to help light up the middle of the playfield a little.
I spent some time with colored lights behind the back glass to help hide any imperfections and obvious signs of touch up. I think it is looking pretty good now.
I was really happy with how the displays look. I think mixing green blue and white displays looks really good over the old amber plasmas.
There are still some issues to clean up:
- I need to work on the drop target. The relays aren’t dropping so I need to troubleshoot why. My best guess is that they are daisy chained if I remember correctly. If that is how in fact they are wired, it would make sense that none of them would work with a bad common hot leg.
-The aprons on the pop bumpers need some attention. They get stuck from time to time so the spoons need adjustment.
-The upper switch next to the kick out hole needs some adjustment. I forgot all about it when I was going through switches earlier.
-I need to track down why I have no sound in regular operation (The sound is AWESOME when running the BSOS Trident 2020 code)
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Quoted from bigguybbr:And it lives! I was able to get it up and flipping.
Surprisingly enough, there weren't many lamp issues. I did have to replace the 2 lamps sockets on the coin door to get those, and the bright mods flipper buttons working, but that was it. I need to test the voltage at the pop bumper lights, because those seem dim with the brite mods pop bumper discs in there. I might still play with the colors under the plastics. I'm also thinking about adding a white strip in the trough to help light up the middle of the playfield a little.
I spent some time with colored lights behind the back glass to help hide any imperfections and obvious signs of touch up. I think it is looking pretty good now.
I was really happy with how the displays look. I think mixing green blue and white displays looks really good over the old amber plasmas.
There are still some issues to clean up:
- I need to work on the drop target. The relays aren’t dropping so I need to troubleshoot why. My best guess is that they share a common ground wire if I remember correctly. If that is how in fact they are wired, it would make sense that none of them would work with a bad ground.
-The aprons on the pop bumpers need some attention. They get stuck from time to time so the spoons need adjustment.
-The upper switch next to the kick out hole needs some adjustment. I forgot all about it when I was going through switches earlier.
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Euless, TX