Alright, last one for tonight... This one was a little interesting because there is history between this particular game and myself.
At some point last year I had the pleasure of meeting Warlock (one of the nicest, most sincere people you could ever meet I might add) at one of the many pinball gatherings, and during conversation we got to talking about grail games, one of which for him was STTNG. I immediately gave him my thoughts on the game, and how much of a freakin' nightmare it can be to get / keep running, given all of the opto's and various other doo-dads "The King" crammed into this game. He made a mental note, and carried on. Fast forward a few months, and I get a message from Scott about a STTNG that popped up for sale and asked me to look it over and give him my thoughts as he was very interested (as it had some technical issues the current owner couldn't solve). It just so happens the game in question had already been through my hands a couple of years prior and I completely (and when I say completely I mean COMPLETELY) re-worked this game from top to bottom for the owner at the time, so I knew all of the work I had done to it but couldn't vouch for anything that might have been done by subsequent owners. At least I was confident the game would still be an excellent example to work from, and gave Scott my seal of approval to purchase.
Off the top of my head, I had completely shopped the game out, fixed all of the operator hacks to all of the trough and subway opto's (most of the connectors had been bypassed) replaced the subway divertor assembly as the op had busted the original, fixed a bad coil on the divertor, replaced both cannon loom harnesses, replaced the cannon position switches with the ones WMS released a TSB for, replaced a busted and poorly repaired cannon motor arm, modded the cannon lamp domes, had the Borg ship custom painted, installed LED Flashers in the Borg ship, Cliffy's, lane extenders, new sling plastics and I'm sure I'm missing stuff... The game was a disaster when I got it, but it cleaned up REALLY nice.
So after changing hands about 3 times since I worked on it, the current owner was stumped with the latest issue and was done with the game. From what I was told the game wouldn't load the balls into the correct troughs on start-up, and it would just keep cycling the balls. Before I arrive at Scott's I'm already worried this is going to be one of those repairs that has me going in circles... So once I get there the first thing to do is check the subway and divertors. Lift the PF, and actuate the divertors by hand only to find one of the two is stuck. That might do it. Disassemble the stuck divertor to find this...
BAZINGA!! The coil and sleeve is completely melted inside! So I immediately open the head and go straight to the Aux-8 PCB (found on games like STTNG and IJ, and maybe a couple others) and I notice it's not the original PCB, but a Rottendog replacement. I thought that was a little odd as the game was all original when I last worked on it. Pull the Rottendog PCB out, and as I suspected the driver transistor for that coil is toast. While this is going on, Scott was looking in the game and found the original Aux-8 PCB in the coin box. Now at some point someone else had repaired this PCB, but after testing all the transistors and diodes on it everything checked out ok. I re-worked a couple of the previous repairs to my liking, and installed the original Aux-8 PCB back into the game. (again, this is something I unfortunately didn't think to take a pic of at the time)
Now at this point we didn't have any spare coils laying around to replace the melted one, and it was after midnight on a Friday so I couldn't just get something from SB, but I didn't want to leave Scott's place without testing the repair. This way Scott could order up a replacement coil, and install it himself and know that once completed his game would be back up and running again. So what I did was disconnect the second subway divertor coil and swap it in to the suspect location and connect everything up. Fired up the game, put it into test mode and tested that coil, and worked like a charm.
There was another issue with the left cannon never finding "home". The previous owner was convinced it was an issue with the cannon loom, but it was still in as new condition from when I replaced it years earlier. Knowing the theory of operation really helps in these types of situations, and after inspection I found that the plunger was actuating and not retracting, and when this happens it blocks the opto's and the game thinks there is a ball stuck in the cannon. When this happens the cannon will constantly cycle back and forth until the optos are clear. The plunger wasn't binding on anything, but it turned out it had become magnetized and the bell end of the plunger was sticking to the metal coil bracket. Made some minor adjustments to try and minimize contact, and it seems to have done the trick as Scott hasn't mentioned it being a problem anymore.
Scott was able to get his hands on a new coil not long after that, install it in the missing location and hook up the wires as I instructed, and the game has been playing flawless since.
Grail pin aquired, repaired, and a happy new owner.
D
At some point last year I had the pleasure of meeting Warlock (one of the nicest, most sincere people you could ever meet I might add) at one of the many pinball gatherings, and during conversation we got to talking about grail games, one of which for him was STTNG. I immediately gave him my thoughts on the game, and how much of a freakin' nightmare it can be to get / keep running, given all of the opto's and various other doo-dads "The King" crammed into this game. He made a mental note, and carried on. Fast forward a few months, and I get a message from Scott about a STTNG that popped up for sale and asked me to look it over and give him my thoughts as he was very interested (as it had some technical issues the current owner couldn't solve). It just so happens the game in question had already been through my hands a couple of years prior and I completely (and when I say completely I mean COMPLETELY) re-worked this game from top to bottom for the owner at the time, so I knew all of the work I had done to it but couldn't vouch for anything that might have been done by subsequent owners. At least I was confident the game would still be an excellent example to work from, and gave Scott my seal of approval to purchase.
Off the top of my head, I had completely shopped the game out, fixed all of the operator hacks to all of the trough and subway opto's (most of the connectors had been bypassed) replaced the subway divertor assembly as the op had busted the original, fixed a bad coil on the divertor, replaced both cannon loom harnesses, replaced the cannon position switches with the ones WMS released a TSB for, replaced a busted and poorly repaired cannon motor arm, modded the cannon lamp domes, had the Borg ship custom painted, installed LED Flashers in the Borg ship, Cliffy's, lane extenders, new sling plastics and I'm sure I'm missing stuff... The game was a disaster when I got it, but it cleaned up REALLY nice.
So after changing hands about 3 times since I worked on it, the current owner was stumped with the latest issue and was done with the game. From what I was told the game wouldn't load the balls into the correct troughs on start-up, and it would just keep cycling the balls. Before I arrive at Scott's I'm already worried this is going to be one of those repairs that has me going in circles... So once I get there the first thing to do is check the subway and divertors. Lift the PF, and actuate the divertors by hand only to find one of the two is stuck. That might do it. Disassemble the stuck divertor to find this...
BAZINGA!! The coil and sleeve is completely melted inside! So I immediately open the head and go straight to the Aux-8 PCB (found on games like STTNG and IJ, and maybe a couple others) and I notice it's not the original PCB, but a Rottendog replacement. I thought that was a little odd as the game was all original when I last worked on it. Pull the Rottendog PCB out, and as I suspected the driver transistor for that coil is toast. While this is going on, Scott was looking in the game and found the original Aux-8 PCB in the coin box. Now at some point someone else had repaired this PCB, but after testing all the transistors and diodes on it everything checked out ok. I re-worked a couple of the previous repairs to my liking, and installed the original Aux-8 PCB back into the game. (again, this is something I unfortunately didn't think to take a pic of at the time)
Now at this point we didn't have any spare coils laying around to replace the melted one, and it was after midnight on a Friday so I couldn't just get something from SB, but I didn't want to leave Scott's place without testing the repair. This way Scott could order up a replacement coil, and install it himself and know that once completed his game would be back up and running again. So what I did was disconnect the second subway divertor coil and swap it in to the suspect location and connect everything up. Fired up the game, put it into test mode and tested that coil, and worked like a charm.
There was another issue with the left cannon never finding "home". The previous owner was convinced it was an issue with the cannon loom, but it was still in as new condition from when I replaced it years earlier. Knowing the theory of operation really helps in these types of situations, and after inspection I found that the plunger was actuating and not retracting, and when this happens it blocks the opto's and the game thinks there is a ball stuck in the cannon. When this happens the cannon will constantly cycle back and forth until the optos are clear. The plunger wasn't binding on anything, but it turned out it had become magnetized and the bell end of the plunger was sticking to the metal coil bracket. Made some minor adjustments to try and minimize contact, and it seems to have done the trick as Scott hasn't mentioned it being a problem anymore.
Scott was able to get his hands on a new coil not long after that, install it in the missing location and hook up the wires as I instructed, and the game has been playing flawless since.
Grail pin aquired, repaired, and a happy new owner.
D
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