Stellar Wars restore

[Mr Pinbologist]

Hi guys, thought id make a start on my Stellar Wars resto thread, as i brought it home today (it was being stored at Ian's (howzat here on AP) house in his games shed). I set it up in my garage just a while ago to see again what works and what doesnt. As i said before the main probs were no sound, and no solenoid action and a few segments intermittent on some of the displays. The first couple of pics show the reason for the display problems! some burnt resistors on the master diaplay board that will have to be replaced.

The solenoid problem ended up being a blown fuse on the power supply board in the backbox, so replacing this had all but one drop target coil working which had been fried at some stage and had been disconnected, so i'll have to find a replacement coil for this. The no sound ended up being nothing more than the volume turned down  
 
I'll have to rebuild the drop target assemblies as some of them don't score, also the credit button and coin switches some times dont work.. i discovered that by tapping on the MPU board or pushing lightly on the board that the coin and credit switches will then work.. so im guessing bad solder or dodgey connectors somewhere, possibly the large connector between the MPU and driver board?? Anyway will work out whats happening here when i get more time.

All of the schematics and manual were inside the cabinet when i opened it up too, as well as some other interesting paperwork! more on that soon

[Mr Pinbologist]

I had a feeling that this game might've been the very same one i once played in an amusement centre in Laurieton years ago... well here is the proof that it indeed is!! An auction listing of all the games that were for sale at an auction in Laurieton that i found inside, including none other than... Stellar Wars! Im positive that this is the very same game now, especially as nearly all of the pins listed here are from the same amusement centre ( i remember playing them). So i now own another of the same exact games i played all those years ago!

also found inside the game was a tax invoice showing how much was payed for the game..

[Mr Pinbologist]

The backglass copped a bit of damage on the way home unfortunately.. in the form of some scraping around the displays  at least i THINK this happened during the trip home, i never noticed this before.. only on the 2nd player display did i notice any damaged paint.

Nothing too major luckily, its not too bad and i should be hopefully able to touch up the damage ok. I also noticed a bit of flaking starting in the light blue, so i'll probably have to triple thick the glass. so at this stage the game mostly works, with a few issues to sort out.

Thats all for now.. i'll add some more pics tomorrow

[Strangeways]

Good to hear that a game you played in your youger years is the very same machine that you have bought. Every machine has a story.

Will be an interesting restore to follow (again)  But I don't think it will push you as hard as the Mr Universe and his spandex pants !

[ddstoys]

How good is that owning an actual machine you payed all them years ago. And as for the backglass you may have to get a new one there is no way you of all people could fix that 

 Looking forward to this one

[Mr Pinbologist]

I spent some time this afternoon fixing up a few non functioning items on this game, ie two of the drop target banks, and i had a look at the display problems as well. I replaced the burnt 10k resistors on the master display, hoping it might fix the missing segment problems on players 1 and 2... well no such luck  it turns out that the display glasses themselves are crook, as the resistors i had just replaced started to burn again!! Pulling out the 1st and 2nd player displays and swapping them with the 3rd and 4th player displays stopped the resistors frying.  plugging the bad displays into the 3rd and 4th positions, they still had the same segments missing and were causing the 3rd and 4th player 10k segment resistors to heat up. So it looks like i'm up for a couple of new display glasses.

They look to be the same as the Stern/Bally 6 digit glasses.. can anyone reading this confirm this for me before i buy new ones??

I also removed and cleaned up the switch PCBs on two of the drop target banks to get them going.. im only doing enough at this stage just to get the game up and running, so i havent completely dismantled and cleaned the mechs yet.. i'll do this when i start the playfield restore, which wont be for a while yet.. I'll get it going and play it for a while first

Forgot to mention.. before any of the above was done, i fixed the coin/credit button switch problem which turned out to be dry jointed pin headers in the driver board for the switch matrix. i decided to replace the pin headers with new ones, since i had the board out.

For the top right target bank, which had its burnt coil disconnected, i quickly fitted and old coil of similar resistance to the good drop target coils.. again ONLY to get it going, i'll replace it with the correct one later. I also found it neccessary to replace the driver transistor for this coil to get the target bank resetting. I'm still having a few issues with the 4 target bank, not scoring sometimes, despite cleaning and adjusting the contacts.. fun & games

[Mr Pinbologist]

1st pic here, inside the backbox, showing the boards.

And a few of the cabinet. It does have a few more marks on it that i thought it did... plus a few paint touchups so its likely that this cab and backbox will be resprayed after all.. yeah i know... you're all thinking im a fussy bastard.. you're RIGHT 

[Mr Pinbologist]

BACKBOX; a few scuff marks and cracked paint, that the more i look at, the more i want to respray this cab!! being that this is the very same game i played to death years ago, I think this game deserves to look the best that i can make it.. so yes this one WILL get the full treatment

But not for a while though.. as i said i'll get it running properly first, and set it up to play for a few months while i get on with other jobs.

[howzat]

hi Mitch   With all that padding I thought it would be safe    You where right about being the same machine  it now has sentimental   value    I know how good it will look after a paint job and all the treatment  cheers Howzat

[Mr Pinbologist]

hi Mitch   With all that padding I thought it would be safe    You where right about being the same machine  it now has sentimental   value    I know how good it will look after a paint job and all the treatment  cheers Howzat

Hi Ian, it was mainly the backglass.. because the backbox was laid on its back, the glass was able to move about because it couldn't be locked into position and caused a little bit of damage, it isnt too bad, i should be able to fix it.. it could almost be left as it is, as it isnt really that noticeable unless you are looking for it even when lit up. As for the cabinet, its more a case of me being picky, soon as i got it home i started looking it over with a more critical eye (same as i do with everything i do/fix/build or buy), and starting noticing more things that i didnt originally see when we looked at the game. it hardly moved in the car, the backbox moved a bit but it was well protected with the padding you gave me. like i said i can be a really fussy bastard at times 

[ddstoys]

Yes Mitch they are the same Glass as used in the bally dispalys     There may not be enough of the legs left on them if they have been in a bally display.   I remember they couldnt be transfered one way but not 100% sure which way

[Mr Pinbologist]

Yes Mitch they are the same Glass as used in the bally dispalys     There may not be enough of the legs left on them if they have been in a bally display.   I remember they couldnt be transfered one way but not 100% sure which way

Thanks for that info Daniel   I was going to order new ones but wasnt 100% sure if they really were the same. I checked on an old Stern display and it had the same legs cut off of it as the Wms display and looked identical so i guess its safe to try them

[ddstoys]

Ive purchased some from PBR and Big daddy and both have been fine

[Mr Pinbologist]

G'day guys.. just a little update;

The new display glasses i ordered arrived last thursday, so friday night i spent some time fitting them to the display PCBs. I completed one first just so i could check that the glasses would work ok, then i would complete the second one. In the 1st pic, the top one is with the new glass fitted and the bottom one is the original. After removing the old glass and cleaning up the pin holes ready, i cleaned off the old adhesive tape that held the old glass to the PCB, (which by the way had let go!) and stuck on some new double sided tape (2nd pic). feeding the pins thru the holes in the board is a bit of a pain in the arse, vey fiddly and being very careful not to drop the display glass.. now THAT would hurt!!

once the glass was carefully aligned and stuck down, before soldering i pushed the pins back thru slightly so as to take some of the tension off them in case they expand or shrink from heat, breaking the pins off (i've heard of this happening, dont know how true it is but i wasnt taking any chances with these expensive items!) las couple of pics show the finished displays, and with them back in the game, the top two displays are the new ones, 1st and 2nd player positions.

[ddstoys]

They look good with new displays im slowly replacing all of gorgars each time i do an PBR order i add one on doesnt hurt as much that way  $50 sound better than $250