Here is a repair of a Star Trek Next Generation pinball by Williams made in 1993. This is one of our dreaded European models that probably got shipped back to the U.S. for resale. Most of the pinballs that come from Europe are in very poor condition when we get them in for repair. We think the lack of parts, distributors and training force European operators to forgo much of the maintenance and cleaning that these game require. We charge extra for these games, they can be 2 or 3 times the labor hours to shop out. This game was extremely dirty and may also have been stored in a damp environment. All the metal parts were rusted. Here are the workorder notes:
12/27/15 - Found all switches ground shorted, cannons need grease, no coin mech, wrong coin door(Europe Model), start button causes service menu to come up, playfield very dirty/rubbers bad, GI lamp fuse blown, etc... Too many things to fix on a service call. Will schedule shop-out. Will pick up.
04/21/2016 - Cleaned and re-rubber/bulb the playfield. This playfield had a mylar protective cover removed prior to our involvement. The glue from the mylar was still all over the surface, it had to be removed with solvents and a lot of rubbing. Some new stick-on decals were installed before us and look good, when the mylar was removed the lettering ripped up also, so the decals were required. The game was stored in a damp environment, everything made of metal was rusted to some extent. The ramps were beyond dirty, topside and bottom ramps had a thick black powder/dirt buildup that usually means the original operator used something like spray on wax like lemon pledge. This black powder was everywhere.
Metal post on left ramp had to be constructed of black pipe stand-off/all rod and large t-nut into playfield wood, this holds up one of the wire ramps. The ribbon cables were dirty causing issues, cleaned. Wire broke off the "+ Advance" switch on coin door. IC U3 (LM339) was bad on the 16 Optor Board, this shut down the "under borg opto" on the bottom side ramp. IC U5 (74LS374) replaced on the power driver board, was causing all the 50 volt coils to fail. The single drop target assembly had a wire off, the up coil was hitting a mount screw causing not to drop all the time, the micro switch not adjusted correctly, cleaned and replaced the sleeve, rigged the coil frame to miss the screw. Left cannon rusted badly, disassembled and wire-wheeled the rust, same on right cannon. Left cannon had broken wire in harness. Right cannon had broken wire in harness and switches way out of sync. Sleeves replaced on both cannons and shafts lubed. All 3 pop bumpers had broken yokes and very rusted rings, replaced and new sleeves on coils. Several exposed wire splices under playfield addressed. Still testing the game, almost done.
Made new instruction cards. Re-keyed backglass lock. Installed missing backbox safety bolts. Vacuum cabinet. Install front door lock. Install used cash box and coin mechanism. Ready to go.
