I used the drill method the first time I tried removing a rivet from a ramp flap, it immediately spun the rivet which heated up the plastic around the rivet and ruined the ramp. Much better to use a Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel and just grind off the back end (not the "face" end) slowly, little by little. Slower but safer.

As mentioned by @sfspanky, Pintonka is a good tool, especially now that it's been redesigned thicker and sturdier.

I need to paint my borg ship, a previous owner must have sprayed WD-40 or something similar around the playfield and the tan plastic is stained with permanent brown blemishes. I'm thinking a darker metallic silver spray paint job followed by a black wash and then drybrushing with some lighter silver hobby paints, lastly a clear satin finish. I'm sure there are STTNG owners here who have repainted their borg ships similarly (or even not too similarly), if you have please post photos and describe the process and materials you used, I'd love to see the results.

Yeah, I place the oval head of the rivet down on a silicone mat when drilling out from the flanged side. The silicone mat grabs the heat and keeps movement to a minimum and a really good metal drill bit does the work super quick. Double sided tape works wonders for this as well.

I use a Dremel with a cutoff wheel if I cannot lay the rivet head down on the silicone mat, etc. So, thanks for pointing out another option for removal

I painted mine several years ago. I was not a big fan of the original beige. I primed it gray then airbrushed dark grey over the entire ship then used a transparent black to create shadowing where two planes meet then washed everything with a thin black and wiped it off so it only remained in the cracks. Then I took sand paper and removed some of the surface paint to make it looked weathered. Finally sprayed it with a clear coat.
It's not perfect but looks pretty cool lurking in the back of the play field.

IMG_20240414_092918 (resized).jpg

IMG_20240414_092939 (resized).jpg

IMG_20240414_093008 (resized).jpg

Where can I buy new STTNG speaker grills? The only place I have been able to find any is from Modfather, but they are not quite the original design.- Thx!

you mean the painted front grills?

Yes.

I haven't seen any reproductions of those. perhaps someone else has more information.

Hmm, this is a bit trickier than I was expecting and I don't have the tools mentioned earlier for replacing the rivets.

Maybe someone you know does have a Dremel tool? You can also buy a simpler rivet cinching tool , but it’s still gonna set you back $40.

If you shipped the flap and ramp to me, I’d gladly do it and send it back if you feel this is a one time event and don’t want to invest in the tools. It would just cost you shipping

Nicely painted I must say. Is that Prof. Pinball mod I see on the ramps too?

Check out my post 8982. I rattle can sprayed it, did a black acrylic paint wash and wet sanded it with 1500 grit paper to remove the black, except for in all the cervices.

I have a dremel. I’m just not sure I’m brave enough to attempt this!

Eric yes you are correct. Professor Pinballs creation! I see the borg ship in his shop but i believe at one point he also sold a kit for ramp lighting. I have both. here is a link for the borg ship piduino.

https://pinside.com/pinball/shops/shop/1025-professor-pinball/02169-pinduino-sttng-borg-ship-lightin

I already have Eric's mod in my machine. It's great! Thanks for sharing the link though

Wanted to share my install of Victors 8-Driver PCB board and how easy it made completing the tie back mod that's super needed for this game. If you didn't know, the "diode tieback" connection to the 8-Driver Board is critical for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Without this "diode tieback", transistors on the 8-Driver board WILL be damaged eventually and the associated coil is likely to become locked on and melt.

more here: https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation#Diode_.22Tie_Back.22_missing_causes_8-Driver_Board_transistor_to_fail

Victor's board is referenced earlier in this thread but the basics are it's a super nice board that makes this tie back seamless and implements the pull down resistor.

Parts needed
1 - 8-Driver PCB board - https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/188#post-7663782
2 IDC 3 pin connectors - https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/5792-10847-03
2 feet of 22 awg wire, violet - https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/CW-30022-7

Here is a shot of the two boards next to each other:
Williams vs Victors board

Removal of the original board is super easy, it's located on the upper right side of the head box, a few plugs that pop off, a ribbon cable, and 4 screws
Original 8-Driver board

The board is mounted to the back panel via 4 standoffs:
IMG_2002 (resized).jpeg

One nice thing about the new board is that it's key'd vs straight holes on the Williams board, makes it so you don't have to take the screws all the way out if you need to pull the board, I much prefer this design. Photo installed:
installed

Next I made a cable using the parts I ordered from Marcos, you're going to want to use the header at the top of Victors board to connect pin 3 (J4 is labeled next to it) to J108-1 on the driver board. On the harness this means if you ar key'd the same way, the wires will be the inverse of each other. I used IDC connectors though you could also use molex, I just prefer the ease and matching look to the original harnesses in the game.

Push the wires in...
inserting wire to IDC connector
pigtale harness made

Route the wire using the original wire retention loops
wire routing

and plug into J108
IMG_2008 (resized).jpeg

And you're done! If you may notice, half way through I swapped out the rotten dog DMD board with the pin sound unit I had in another machine to match the other pin sound components I had in TNG. I do like the pin sound unit and it has a dedicated power supply for the color DMD screen vs using the driver board.

Hi, i am finally finishing restoring my sttng and just wanted to ask if you knew what kind of connector i needed for the flipper board

20240418_140558 (resized).jpg

Pinball life has these, you need the 7 pin version:

https://www.pinballlife.com/100-254mm-crimp-stuff-7-position-housing-with-locking-ramp.html

Make sure to grab the pins and key if you don't already have them on your harness.

pasted_image (resized).png

I dont have them, so thank you very much for the information.. i need to order these to iceland so i need crimping tool. I think i own it..

Still looking for the speaker grills. Can anyone else chime in on where I can find some? Thx!

Nope. That’s your only option known

I actually think i own a spare but i am in Iceland

Thanks, probably not too expensive to ship.

Quick question about a weird fault that my machine has developed with the ball launcher (shooter lane). It has recently started adding an additional delay of a second or two before it automatically launches the ball. This is only a problem in multi-ball modes (borg, final frontier) when multiple balls are being launched from the shooter lane in quick succession; because of the delay, one ball isn't launched before the next one is loaded, so they stack up in the shooter lane and then don't launch properly. Two or three balls get stuck there and make it impossible to continue playing.

It's strange because the ball will launch without delay when I pull the trigger at the start of a ball. It's only when the machine is launching the ball itself that there's a delay. I've read through this whole thread about 18 months ago when I got the machine, so apologies if I've missed a solution since then. I'm using the LX-8 ROM (but it was fine for months using that version before the fault developed). Thanks for any advice!

Go in switch test and ensure the shooter lane switch is operating as intended.

Yeah, if there's a ball in the launcher (and it detects this as such), it should never pop another ball out of the trough.

I will be joining yall's awesome club tomorrow... Can't wait! This will be my first Wide Body. Its coming from the Original Owner (dude lives in a 3 Million Dollar home in rural Georgia...the padding behind all the targets still look new, this thing is pristine.) Ready to spend some dough on all the cool mods available for this game! Suggestions are welcome. (I AM going to read through all 208 pages pf this thread... it just may take me a few days...)

(I have already ordered a PIN2DMD screen and the LX-8 ROM.)

Takes some up close pics and post them! Congrats and welcome to the club.

Late last year; I bought a Fiber laser to expand my knowledge on the topic.
I finally got it set up and started playing around with it. I thought I wanted to do something with my extended lane guides... but for the most part they are covered by the plastic above it. The only thing I could come up with was to put a Delta on the only visible part of the guides:

delta Extended Lane Guides

What do ya'll think? Any other ideas?

The lockdown bar is a giant canvas for creativity. Let’s see what you come up with.

My artistic skills don't match up with my creativity or engineering skills...

At least put a trekkie quote on the lockdown bar.
Quote, font, laser away…

Even if is screws up, lockdown bar are easy to replace.

Curious what you think of your fiber laser. I looked into it briefly but need something that could handle a 20" part. Is that on stainless?

Yes on stainless. I haven't gotten enough time o.n the laser to have an opinion yet.

I want to try color etches on stainless or Ti with this mopa but there just aren't enough hours in a day.

Thanks to you and MrMikeman I've managed to fix this fault. The switch itself was working, but the arm wasn't being pressed down far enough by the ball to activate the switch. So I just bent the arm upwards a little and everything's fine now.

Reassembling my backbox and a previous owner really butchered a couple ends of the light panel wire harness. I could use the help of some photos of what exactly these are supposed to look like at the connector end, and where they should plug into the driver board. First photo is a 4-position 0.156 connector that looks like it's been cut from a larger connector (so no idea if that's the right size), with white/orange and white/yellow wires, and also white/green and white/violet wires that have been soldered into the connector (ugh), and cut. Also in that photo you can see a solid orange and solid yellow wire that have been cut from their connector.

In photo two is a long red/white wire with no connector. I'm assuming this single wire gets its own connector? I'll keep scouring photos, meanwhile if anyone can help, most appreciated.

100_5250 (resized).JPG100_5251 (resized).JPG

white-red looks like the one in j106 (flasher power to insert board)

j120/j121 are the GI connectors, they are interchangable (parallel) so someone probably put them all on one connector. Your GI connectors on your driver board might be bad (common). You can see how mine are separated out.

Double check the wire colors in the manual referenced against the connector number.
PXL_20240427_165320875 (resized).jpgPXL_20240427_165336951 (resized).jpg

pasted_image (resized).png

pasted_image (resized).png

Thanks slochar, that's a huge help. I also just found a photo I must have taken at the seller's house before I bought the game, shows where that chopped-up connector was, and the solid yellow and orange wires soldered directly to the pins. I must have cut them myself when removing the driver board. What a mess. Time for some crimping!

IMG_2056 (resized).jpg

That photo triggers me. I'd be going through that machine with a microscope to see if anything else is Mickey Moused like that. Yikes.

Looks like headers and crimps are on his docket.

Not even bothering with new headers, the driver board had too many other potential issues and was tanked.

There were so, so many more things that were poorly rigged. A second power supply out of a computer was in the cabinet and wired to the MPU and driver board at test points with telephone cord wire. Numerous jumpers on several boards for whatever reasons, and several fuses that had solid wire jumpers soldered across them. I've replaced the driver board (dumbass), MPU and flipper boards (barakandl), and DMD driver (Pinsound) entirely just to be on the safe side. Under the pf, the entire drop mech mess was replaced, and I'll have to rewire most of one cannon motor assembly. Luckily the pin only ran me 100 bucks so I have plenty of wiggle room for new parts.

Edit: found a photo of the second power supply wiring before I cut it all off.

IMG_2101 (resized).jpg

That is an absolutely awesome price! Nice find!

Here's another (and I hope the last) bit of backbox lamp panel wiring strangeness. I'm certain this blue/white and green/white connector goes to J3 on the 8-driver board, but there's a second connector hooked up to those wires, and unfortunately this time I don't have a reference photo. Is the second one correct, perhaps hooked up via a Z-connector to the playfield wire harness? Or is this just more previous owner fuckery for who knows what reason?

Edit: I see Z-connectors from J3 in several photos in this thread, guess that answers my question.

100_5254 (resized).JPG

Another one pops up. So this is J125 on the power driver board, to flashers on the lamp board. Only two wires, the manual's chart lists J125-6 as the blue/green wire, and J125-8 as the blue/violet wire, and every other machine I've seen has them in these positions. My connector, and pretty sure this is the factory original IDC, has the blue/green wire in J125-7. Is it possible this was intentional and would work, or should I pull the wire and move to J125-6? Not good enough yet at reading schematics to tell if this should work.

<facetious>Sometimes, I wish I were able to have special vision powers that allow me to see what is going over my WiFi network, the fiber-optic network from my house to the backbone of the network connection across the country, the fiber-optic or copper to your house, to some magic connection to your retina so I could see what you're seeing with respect to the connector. Alas, I have to sit here and think about how I could help you by imaging what the connector looks like.</facetious>

I am noticing a flicker in my lights when playing - GI, backbox, basically all lights. Whenever I hit the flippers I see a slight dim in the lights in the game. More pronounced with the right flipper than the left. Game seems to play fine though.

I have a few mods in the game but all mods (colorDMD, pinlights, LED flipper buttons, Borg ship mod, LED cup holder, etc) are all run off a completely separate PSU installed in the game.

Power driver board was rehabbed by Chris Hibler a few months ago and my AUX board is brand new (one of DA's boards).

What should I start checking?

I thought the pics would be redundant to description, thus the lack of them. Generic pic of all other correct J125 connectors on power driver board on top, pic of my J125 connector on bottom. Note change in position of blue/green wire. I would assume, if mine didn't work, that previous owners would have noticed half of the backbox flashers not working. BTW, using your new power driver in this Trek.
else (resized).jpgmine (resized).jpg

Inspection (visual or palpation) is often superior to text description. It's probably just me but I have seen plenty of instances where a text description was not adequate. So much so that I really just don't trust them much nowadays. Particularly when pin numbers are specified since there are also instances where they are specified incorrectly.

That does look factory from your image. It's rare (not unheard of) for the factory to make a mistake. Usually something like this is when the wire comes out and somebody re-inserts it into the incorrect pin.

It is likely that nobody noticed it because "it's just flashers". If this were a solenoid, you would notice it. Most machine owners do NOT run any tests on their machines. They just play them. When something goes wrong, they reference game features instead of failed solenoid, switch or lamp numbers.

The BLU-GRN wire definitely belongs in J125-6. As it is now, the backbox flasher will fire when solenoid #22 (Middle Ramp Flasher) fires instead of firing when solenoid #21 (Right Popper Flasher) fires. No discernable difference in game play.