I picked up a Bally Transporter the Rescue that was missing a plastic piece.
Star Trek the Next Generation – upper diverter
Edit 12/9/2018
If you are having issues with the diverters on STTNG, I recommend reading through the writeup at Pinwiki found here. I especially recommend doing the modification to move the tieback wire and run it directly from the driver board to the auxiliary driver board.
As an update to the game that is discussed below, the problem with this game continued for years. The upper diverter would lock on, cook the coil, and blow the fuse. I had done everything in the Pinwiki article to no avail. The game would work for quite a while after repairs, but eventually it would lock on the diverter again. It seemed the game was possessed. It was finally determined that the issue was the ribbon cable that runs from the MPU board to the little auxiliary driver board. The game has been running trouble free for over a year after the ribbon cable issue was diagnosed. New ribbon cables can be ordered from Great Plains Electronics. Also realize that the problem can be the connectors on the MPU board and the auxiliary driver board. So keep this in mind while trying to diagnose and troubleshoot issues with the diverters on STTNG and other games that use an auxiliary driver board.
Below continues the original post regarding this issue:
I had the opportunity to work on a beautiful Williams Star Trek the Next Generation (STTNG). The game was not loading the under playfield balls correctly and was cycling the loading sequence.
Flipper coils
Sorry for the lack of updates lately. It has been busy around here. This is a quick one, I’ve seen this quite a few times lately: flipper coils installed incorrectly.
Bally Strange Science
This Bally Strange Science had problems with its displays. They were displaying garbage, making playing the game not much fun.
Comet System 9 High Voltage Repair
Note: This repair was initially published on Sept. 19, 2011. I republished it with updated photos and information.
I received a call for a Comet with non-working displays. I was told that there were no blown fuses, but the displays just stopped working. No blown fuses indicates a problem with the power supply. I was hoping this was the case as troubleshooting alphanumeric display problems is not a lot of fun in my book.
Data East Sound Amp Repair
I was working on a Data East 520-5002-03 sound board that had no output to the cabinet speaker. The cabinet speaker was blown, but there was still no sound output when using a known good speaker. I now suspected that the MB3730A amplifier on the sound board had blown out. When it goes out, it can take the speaker with it.
The Machine: Bride of Pinbot
The Machine: Bride of Pinbot is a pretty neat early WPC title from Williams. It was the last alphanumeric machine produced by Williams. This one was overall in nice shape and had a lot of potential. The main problem was dirt and the typical cracked ramps.
Batteries…change them!
Pinball machines have batteries. A lot of people don’t know this. The batteries maintain your settings and high scores in the game’s RAM. These batteries must be periodically changed so that they don’t leak. Here’s the consequences of not changing those batteries:
Guns N’ Roses Lighting Install
I was asked to install additional lighting on a 1994 Data East Guns N’ Roses machine. The customer wanted the topper illuminated and wanted under-cabinet lighting. Pinball Life sells an under cabinet lighting kit for Stern machines. The question is, can I easily get this kit to work in a Data East machine? Time for some research.
Terminator 2
Terminator 2 is a rather simple but fun game. This one was in pretty good condition but had a few issues that needed to be addressed.
