That is odd as it's usually one of the end targets that won't reset (usually the one that's farthest from the coil).

Targets worn? Spring bad? Reset stroke smooth? (I replace the aluminum sleeve on the big coils with the nylon equivalent for less drag).

The ball not shooting out consistently might point to a low coil power situation.... under playfield fuse holder tarnished/not so springy?

It sounds like this is something that just started for you. Maybe remove the assembly and give it a good cleaning.

Targets are new, spring is new: coil stop is loose at the head where it is "riveted" into the stop, but the large bore part (A-378) is unavailable from most vendors - waiting on Action Pinball to return from vacation to see if he has one. It is an aluminum sleeve and I'll get some nylon replacements but I don't have the larger bore size on hand. Will let everyone know when those parts are replaced and if any difference is noted. Thanks.

Does the middle target look like it may be bent a tad? That could cause it to miss the catch point or not grab enough at times. On a couple of occasions, I have applied a bit of heat to a target to bend it back to shape to help it grab the catch.

Do the targets work properly if/when you hand manipulate them to raise up?

Two simple things to try:

1. Add a small shim (like a small piece of cardboard) under that drop so it goes up slightly higher each time and is more likely to catch. If that works, you can shim the others for appearance.

2. Stretch the holding loops on the spring out to reduce tension and weaken the spring. If the spring is too tight, sometimes it'll pull back too fast to catch the lip. If that doesn't work you can also try clipping 20% off the spring to make it stronger, just in case it's not pulling forward hard enough. Less likely though.

As others mentioned, it's more commonly an end one that does that, and that's usually because the raise-rod thing is loose or tightened in a lower position on one end. With a three bank I could *maybe* see that being an issue with the middle one, but again, less likely. You can try loosening the Allen screws that lock that bar on both ends, then tighten while pushing all the way up (reset position for drops) on both ends to get the position right. Doubt that's it with a middle drop though

G'luck. Those damn things can be fussy.

Another thing that might be worth trying is flipping the back plate of the drop target bank. Sometimes if it's put on the opposite way it originally was installed, you can get weird behavior (it has symmetrical slots and holes, so it's possible to be installed 2 ways)...

Part 1B-481-3:

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Are there any apron decals or stencils available for a Catacomb apron?

https://www.pinballrebel.com/pinball/cards/Stern/Stern_Catacomb_instruction_cards.zip

Whoops, you said decal… maybe gdonovan

I wish there was.

I need to talk to gdonavon. I have an idea that might work.

I met a guy yesterday who said he used screen printed paint and made his own stencil for and EK. Came out really well, not sure that process. I think pinball pimp could be talked into doing stern decals as well if someone wants to give him a shout.

You mention Pinball Pimp. I had thought about PP, too. But what donavon makes is pretty much the same the PP would make.

Follow me and see what you think.

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1) First thing you do is paint this Meteor apron white. Then you lay down donavon's decals/stencils for the circles in the rams horns. And you also lay down the decals/stencils for the white text. And you also lay down the decals for the border lines around the apron card areas. Do not remove these decals.

2) Paint the apron orange. I would say paint the orange color all over but really all you need to do is paint orange in the areas where the ram's horn lie. Now put down the ram's horns decals. Do not remove these decals.

3) Now, paint the black color. When it dries, remove all decals. Now you have a painted apron.

Doing something like this would be similar with PP stencils.

You could actually make the rams horns any color you wanted.

So, what could possible go wrong with trying to do an apron like this? Thoughts?

That’s a lot of really precise cutting, I’d have no chance. Maybe if you’re extremely patient and skilled with a razor blade it would work. I’ve read about people using the silhouette cameo to do make stencils in sections and then airbrushing, I think gdonovan actually did his FG pf using this method.

Yes, I did one section of my FB this way plus all the insert keylines.

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To answer your question.. maybe

The two biggest differences is the text under the "rams horns" I'd have to isolate and identify the font and then modify my cut files.

The other issue is it has the newer STERN logo which is made up of a series of dots.

I'd have to experiment and see how it comes out.

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I'd appreciate it very much! Even if the Stern text was the old logo, it would be a drastic improvement over what I currently have. Thank you!

So I got a bunch of the 6/32 carriage bolts used on all these old sterns. probably end up making kits or something to sell for games. any idea on prices for something like that?

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I did a small run of vinyl cut apron decals if anyone is looking for Seawitch, Dragonfist, Meteor, Magic or Quicksilver for $35 shipped.

Gary

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Those look great. How do you spray your aprons?

Did you ever do stencils? I'd rather stencil and airbrush paint if possible. Keep meaning to make scans.

The first two are mine, just done with rattle can.

I could do cuts with frisket.

Nice job, talent trumps equipment. I’m battling my dolly apron at the moment

I’m going to be annoying and cross post this in the Cheetah club thread but does anyone have (or can take) some nice underside pics of their playfield? I’m trying to scratch build my Cheetah with an original (but semi-hacked up and tangled) harness and just trying to figure out the paths the harness should take. Can’t find any pics of an original harness mounted. Had this playfield sitting up in work-mode for WAY too long. Actually finished two other swaps in the time I’ve had it up.

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Here's an under pf pic I grabbed from somewhere to help with my build.

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got my box of abundance, if anyone needs any for playfield swaps or new builds just hit me up and we can work out something.

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Wait, are you hand-cutting these? I assumed you were running them through a silhouette or something. Figured if you had files it'd be simple to run on orcal 813, reverse the weed and get stencils. Or did you mean you could cut it into frisket with a cricut or the like? If so, I'd recommend orcal 813, works really well for airbrush stencils. And I'd def take a few sets. Or for that matter, if interested, would work out something to pay ya for an .svg to make my own as I do have a cutter...just too many projects.

If not, I'll get to that eventually. Will need to redo the apron for my stargazer build when I finally finish this damn lighting I've been mucking with forever.

I'm interested. How long are they?

Personally I would never try to recreate the frugal shortsightedness of those carriage bolts through the playfield originally done at the factory. I use a t-nut with a long phillips head machine screw through the bottom to recreate the same principle idea. Much less possibility of a headache later.

That has the advantage of being tunable with washers/more nuts.

I hate those carriage bolts anyone who ever had one just spinning in the PF when trying to remove a post knows the frustration.

I use a Cameo 4 for cutting.

I still like these for tight spaces where a t-nut won't work. This is typical a post hole super close to a drop target assembly. That being said, I normally ditch them where I can because they are problematic. T-nuts and threaded metal posts are my goto solution on classic Sterns.

If it’s just a mech and not a screw/bolt that gets in the way of using a t-nut, then you can always bury it below the surface.
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Encountering these in a seawitch, are you supposed to use a tiny nut to tighten the post? All the carriage bolty ones are just loose on this machine

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That was discussed recently if you scroll back. Some folks are switching to a T-Nut on the underside.

Lol I had read that before I started working on seawitch and did not connect the dots that it was talking about the same thing whoops

Those look great! PM Sent for a Quicksilver

If you want to remain with the carriage bolts, you can do a hole repair with dowel rod and redrill the hole.

For carriage bolt stabilization:
1) Screw a #6 sm screw into the side of the bolt head so as to clinch head into the bottom playfield.
For plastic posts, top playfield:
1) Slip plastic post onto 6-32 carriage bolt.
1a) Add #6 split lock washer.
1b) Fasten 6-32 nut onto carriage bolt thread.
1c) Carefully tighten nut down to secure split washer and plastic post to playfield.

I picked up enough parts to mostly build another stargazer and Im having trouble convincing myself to build another one. What would you all think this stuff is worth to sell the lot as-is? I'm not interested in splitting up the lot.

- great witch playfield and backglass
- new plastics
- new harness
- new metal ball guides
- enough drop mechs, outhole kicker, pop bumper parts for stargazer
- new drop targets
- 16b-6 transformer,
- two new flipper mechs
- donor meteor cabinet with coin door and metal trim
- donor trident playfield missing the 5 bank.

any ball park ideas? You wont offend me, just might push me to put it together instead

Powdercoat perfection! That gdonovan vinyl apron decal looks pretty darn good, too. My Dragonfist build is going nicely.

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Had an issue pop up on my Quicksilver, looking for some guidance as to where I should start looking. Machine has been completely rebuilt, boards were looked over with the MPU having repairs, but assume it may be the cause of my current issue, possibly the cables.

Turning on the pin, it sometimes boots correctly with 7 beeps, sometimes doesn't boot at all giving 0 beeps. However, if you turn off and turn on again it will often boot fine. Upon booting, it may play for maybe a game or 3 or 5, then it crashes. Sometimes it boots, you start a game, it makes an audible noise, then the pin crashes.

Any clues as to where I should start?

Sounds like you’re not getting proper voltages to the boards or it’s a connector issue from the sdb to mpu.

Could also be flakey chip sockets on the MPU board. Try a known good MPU.

Remove and replace your circuit board connectors. You might get lucky and just have a bad connection. Try this first.

I got lucky several months ago. A pinsider contacted me and asked if I could help his relative who lives a few miles from me. Long story short, I got there and they had a Flash Gordon that was dead. It had been working and then is was not. I pulled the connectors to reseat them. The pin fired right upand they are still playing today.

This sounds like a problem with the MPU J5 to sound board ribbon connectors in particular, any problem with these cables can do all of those things. Try unplugging both of those connectors & first try booting up several times & see if it behaves, then keep unplugged & play several games (without sound) to see if it crashes.

New rectifier board, voltage within spec.

Yeah worth a thought, sadly only have an MPU 100 spare, will keep this in ming if other fixes don't work.

This initially was my thinking too. Will pop out there tonight and give the cables a going over. Cables are mostly original, I've re-pinned only 2 connectors from memory. Possibly time to look at the others.

Ok...I'll try this first haha. Thanks Richard. Sounds like a possibility

So I removed the audio cable from the MPU.
Pin didn’t boot, heard what I assume is the relay clicking from solenoid driver board
Turned it off
Then it booted
Game started and played
Played a ball then all coils stopped working other than flippers
A few seconds later, smoke started seeping out from below the playfield. Yikes!!!

Opened the coin door and smoke flowed out, shone the torch in but couldn’t see anything. Quicksilver is kinda jammed in the corner of my shed, so I was unable to open her up. I pulled the cables out of the Rectifier Board for safety. Quickly moved a few pins out the way and was finally able to pull the glass and lift the platform. Nothing obviously burnt in the cab or playfield. Rectifier fuses all buzz out, under playfield fuse buzzes out. Flipper coils measure at 4ohm. All other coils measure from 13-30ohm. Couldn't fins anything... Was almost going to turn it back on to see if I could track down the burning/short/etc... but thought better of it.

Does anyone have a wiring diagram for 16b-3 to rectifier? I'm trying to play this Trident I rebuilt from the ground up and I'm getting 6 flashes on the MPU so I'm thinking it's possible the solenoids aren't getting the proper voltage. I think I might have followed the 16B-6 diagram on Pinwiki and I don't have another 16B-3 to compare to

Try this.

https://www.maaca.org/viewtopic.php?t=8434

-Mike