Since we're on the topic... does anyone know where you can get a coin door? Mine is smashed in pretty good. I've looked multiple times (although not recently) and was never able to find one.

Or you can buy some hobby oak from Home Depot, cut it to size and paint them whatever colour you like. My choice was blue to match everything else...

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I wish I hadn't seen this:
https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1385-bob-s-pinball-stuff/05841-williams-reproduction-stainless-door-kit

Thanks. I think I’ve seen that before but was confused as it said it was a “skin”. Now I’m taking it as a replacement door and you install the rest of the parts on it. Pretty cool! Will check it out.

The translucent red, white and blue pops above look fantastic! I had considered all three colors, but one of each hadn’t occurred to me. I went with red/white on mine, which looks good. I’d love to do the 3 translucent colors.

Picked up my SS today and the new playfield is so nice! Super fast, with all metal components cleaned and re-plated. The spinner spins forever when you rip it. The cab is original and pretty nice overall. It just has a few small dings, so I’m going to fill, sand, polish and touch up. I’ll replace the 2 speakers with new also. I had leds installed under the two lock scoops. I will post pics of that. I highly recommend it.

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Looks great!! I am slowly going through mine now. I am doing a similar look, clear posts and white target faces. I assume that red padded tape is to protect the ramp edge a bit? I wish I would have ordered a set of cliffys six months ago. Anyone have a set they're not using?

Yep, just a temp protector for that exposed edge. I bought some super thin aluminum metal I plan to cut and bend around that edge, with a little foam to absorb the force.

Nice job! I do miss the machine sometimes but I'm glad you were the one to get it to that condition! That machine will be running for a long time with all the work you did and what I did previous to it. Beautiful!

It’s a nice one! I can’t take credit for the playfield swap. My friend did that for me. He’s great at it. He’s doing a full high-end restoration of a White Water for another friend and I saw it yesterday. It’s awesome. Chrome rails, new cabinet decals, Ron Kruzman playfield. Wow.
I have upgraded several things on SS and I’ll lightly restore the cab. The new light board was installed also. It’s coming along, and was a nice SS to begin with.

I am still looking for a complete ball gate assembly and switch for the ramp exit. Anyone have a spare that they're willing to part with?

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Quoted from Sonic:
Yep - our ramp MRS has been quite popular with Shuttle owners....it's a simple solution and easy to install....let me know if interested!
Matt
M&M Creations

Where are people placing the MRS mostly?

There are 2 on the ramp - one under the shuttle (the most popular) and the one I believe you need further up the ramp...it's plug/stick & play - simply adheres underneath the ramp anywhere you prefer....

Matt

Oh I know! I was almost a beta tester a few years back. I installed 3 on my Who Dunnit center ramp and you included a photo of it with your switches! I’m a big fan of the MRS. I’ve installed them on EATPM, White Water and Ripleys too. I have one for the Shadow too. They work great.

Having some issues with rebuilding after replacing plastics. The screws to hold the plastics/shuttle no longer hold. They are either too short to reach the ramp plastic due to the new thickness, or too narrow to actually bite into the hole of the ramp plastic. Also having this issue with the new pop caps. The recess on the top to allow the head of the screw to sink a bit to make it more even with the top is a little too narrow for the screw head so it is unable to get in far enough to bite(also causes the plastic on top of them to warp a bit when installed because it cannot sit flush. What have you all found to remedy this, if anything.

Longer screws.

Does anyone know how I can install a 12v strip of LED’s on a Space Shuttle?
I have a bunch of strips and I’m hoping to use one to illuminate a topper I just bought from CPR.
Thanks!

Hi Everyone,
I purchased a new to me space shuttle that was in process of doing a playfield swap. It came with a new cpr playfield. Since I didn’t start this swap it’s taken me a month to finish it up but I have some experience with pins so I finally figured it out. The game hadn’t been powered up for over 5 years and there is no battery damage. I rebuilt the power supply before I booted up and checked power and the readings and ac ripple are in tolerance.

The bad news is that when I power up I don’t get a zero on the mpu board. The segments on the board are all out.

The good news is that the game displays all work, controlled lights all work and the game is in attract mode and toggles the displays and lights as it should. I can toggle the test switches and it goes into test mode and the display tests, switch tests and solenoid tests all work. No sound in sound test but I have a hum and the sound amp seems to work because I can adjust the volume control and raise and lower the sound output. Also various solenoids fire on power up and blow the 2.5 amp fuse. I disconnected the solenoids that fire at the solenoids by removing ground input and all of the other solenoids mostly driven by u4 solenoid drive work when I replaced the fuse.

When I go into test mode I can attach the solenoids that fire on startup and they function normally in test mode. I have good blanking signals to the solenoid drive circuits. And reset is working.

So, on the mpu I have checked the address and data buses and they toggle. I have checked the chip select circuits and they are working. Blanking and interrupt are all working.

I have it on a bench and using a pc power supply have the same symptoms. . I found a bad pin on the game rom and installed a new chip holder and replaced the game and sound rom.
I have swapped the cpus and no change.

One anomaly I can’t figure out is on u4 pin 40. It says it is the sound busy signal and says it is an output to u13. The pia description calls this pin a input but on the schematic it shows as an output to U13 pin 40. With a meter I have no connection from U4 pin 40 to pin 40 of u13 which is listed as CA1. I also have no signal either high or low on pin 40 of U4 testing with a logic probe. Is the schematic correct for this connection?

I have checked the inputs to U8 from U5 and they never toggle so I jumpered u62 pins to ground and the seven segment mpu display segment do light up so I know it works.

So I am a bit stuck. I ordered a rom burner from eBay to make Leon’s test EPROMs but the sp200 I bought won’t load the chip library so I am trying to figure that out too.

Should I replace U4? Should pin 40 be tied to pin 40 of u13? Btw pin 40 of u13 is low as tested on the logic probe.

Sorry for such a long rambling but this system 9 board is running me in circles. I worked on earlier machines while I was in the navy back in the early 80’s in VA beach and I’m pretty decent though I am getting older and it’s not as easy to work through schematics now as it once was.
Thanks for help or advice in advance.

You may want to consider sending the board to an expert, like ChrisHibler who has the test fixtures and deep knowledge to really diagnose it. Just a thought. If you want to continue to work on it yourself, I can burn you a copy of Leon's Test Rom; just send me a PM.

I need one segment display (player 4). I want to keep it original. Does anyone have one that could sell, or know of where I can locate an original working display?

thanks.

I have one I could spare, send me a PM.

Pics

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Ebay tnt

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Got my Shuttle set up at home and nearly put up 5 mil. Having fun with this one. The code, rules and balanced scoring is great. Newly restored playfield playing like butter!

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Added some green LEDs to light up those lock saucers.

I improved my best score to 4.9 mil. Sooo close to getting 5m. My goal is 10m. Any strategies from you big scorers? I usually try to max out the jackpot multiplier at 7x. I’m not great at clearing the drops to boost the spinner, but that’s the most fun approach for me. They aren’t easy to clear, which makes it more fun. If I can get the spinner to 3000-4000+, I really focus on ripping that spinner.

Is Multiball a big points approach? It doesn’t seem like it to me, other than having 2-3 balls going and hitting targets. I seldom hit the center ramp during mb. It’s a very tough shot on my machine for some reason and the jackpot doesn’t seem huge.

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That looks cool; I like the lit eject holes! So you just changed the LEDs in there to a different color?

Space Shuttle is all about the spinner; that's where all the points are. Get that spinner light up to 4,000 and beyond and you can really rack up the points. I don't focus on getting the bonus up because you don't get very many points from it. You typically only get 100,000 - 200,000 points from it on a ball, but you can get millions of points on a ball from the spinner. To me, getting the extra ball from getting the bonus or spinner up to 7X or 7,000 is what's really valuable. Get good at hitting that spinner and sweeping the drops; you will then kill it on points. Multi-ball is is definitely a way to get a lot of points, but to me, is second to hitting the spinner. In other words, it's not a must for me. Also, I almost never intentionally aim for SHUTTLE letters, unless there's one or two left and it's on something valuable like Extra Ball or Special. I almost never intentionally aim for the locks either. Both of those things will happen on their own during normal play and if you miss, usually leads to drains and/or bad situations.

Yep, changed to a 2-headed green flex led. They really illuminate the saucers. I might try blue, but green I associate with ball locks.

I agree about the spinner, plus it’s the most fun to rip. I’m only so-so at clearing the 3 drops, so I rarely get past 3000-4000/spin. But anytime I’m at 3000+ I focus on the spinner. I’m pretty good at hitting the 2 lock shots, plus they award 3x jackpot for each. Quick way to max out the jackpot multiplier. The left outlane is thirsty and deadly on mine. It’s the “dead zone,” on my example. If the ball is headed that way, it’s trouble. I would love a kickback in that left outlane that could be qualified. That’s the one feature I wish was there.

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I believe you advance the end of ball bonus by 3,000 points when locking a ball (3ADV); it doesn’t give you 3X jackpot. There is no jackpot in the game. Locking a ball doesn’t do much in terms of points, it’s just good you’ve got a ball locked and ready for multiball at that point.

Regarding the left outlane… after much debate, we added a post with small rubber on it to the left outlane. It actually works out perfect now; it sometimes saves you and sometimes it’ll still drain. We honestly see that left outlane as so egregious that it had to be a design flaw. The post really makes it perfect and is consistent with what Williams was doing at the time in other games. When I do my playfield swap, we’re planning on putting the post back in as well.

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Ah, I see. So ADV3 doesn’t advance your jackpot multiplier by 3x? I’ll have to look for that. That’s confusing. The extra post makes sense, and I agree the left outlane is too thirsty. I’m not sure I can bring myself to add a post in my new pf, but it would make that area more reasonable.

It advances your end of ball bonus by 3,000; there is no jackpot.

Yeah I totally understand with not wanting to drill holes in a new playfield.

End of ball bonus multiplier, I meant. Didn’t mean jackpot. I thought it advanced the multiplier by 3.

Or blue…

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There was no design flaw.

Well, that’s just your opinion. My opinion is that it’s a design flaw because it’s just so bad that it just had to be a mistake.

You are incorrect.

To play devils advocate here, wouldn’t it be you with the “know-it-all” attitude?

If Barry wanted a post there, he’d have one. Now, if you want your own game to be easier, all the power to you, but calling it a design flaw is a bit much…

How is what I said having a know-it-all attitude? It’s just a matter of opinion; I never said it as if I was proclaiming it was the only, righteous way. I would also beg to differ. Simply just saying “you’re wrong” is ridiculous when talking about an opinion, especially when giving no reason.

Also, for us, it wasn’t about making the game easier. Out of all the games we’ve ever played, there’s no game that has a shot like the one off the left flipper in Space Shuttle that hits a drop target for an exact line insta-drain outlet outlane that’s so repeatable. I’m not the only person that believes this.

Houston, we have a hoarding problem.
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Ran a vendor table at a local pop culture convention and brought four games for the show. Got a lot of smiles and attention even despite my poor location planning. Most notably, got approached by a local game room enthusiast who asked if I'm looking to buy anything. Cue the quick verbal tour of his project Space Shuttle with some small issues. I asked him what he valued it at, he said he'd give it up for $400.

I took the deal at a professional pace and looked over the game in person, but you better believe I had my mind made up the moment he quoted me the price! Compared with some of the projects I have sitting around, it's pretty decent. A couple switches not working. Game boots in bookkeeping mode - which, with my zero familiarity with System 9, makes me assume the already-off-board batteries are dead. Sound cuts out when lock gets lit, I assume it could be a bad sound ROM. Low-quality printed translite because original backglass was toast; we got CPR for that (and BK2K at the same time to save on shipping).

This game is very friendly. I can't imagine adding that post to make it even easier...

I can’t imagine not having it.

It’s a dangerous area on my example. I had to designate it as such. I have a Do Not Enter sticker for it too. So far, the warnings don’t help. I lose balls over there. Maybe because my house leans to the left.

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Had a work meeting with 5-time shuttle flyer Ken Bowersox, who was more than happy to add to my autograph collection. He reminisced about playing pinball in the 80s, pushing and nudging the machines around ("you were playing them properly!" I told him). He thanked me for preserving a piece of history, with all the autographs I've collected on the game. I also commented on his flying five times -- "it wasn't enough," he said. He mentioned that Jerry Ross -- whose autograph is juat across the lock lane window from his -- flew seven times!

I believe this brings my total shuttle astronaut autographs up to 31!

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