F the haters, I got a Star Explorer and love it

beerorkid

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I saw this Star Explorer pin on CL last night after work and ran out to pick it up for $50. This was the first pinball machine I ever played because it was in my basement growing up. My dad bought it from Sears or Wards way back in the day. I bet I have played over it 1000 times. The foil plating on the side rail was peeling on the one my parents had. My brother had some friends over because we were going to see a star wars movie that night. To show off how cool I was to his friends I tried to rip the foil off and ended up getting my first stitches from the cut. I rocked to Guns and Roses, Justice for all, and Pantera on my walkman playing this thing growing up.

We had a full size air hockey table, darts, and ping pong table in the basement growing up. My dad bought all the gaming systems and would tape a $20 to our TV when we got a new game so me and my brother would have to battle to be the first to beat a game to win the money. he also worked at the place that printed Nintendo Power so we got the mags before they shipped out. He thinks I am crazy for having games in my basement, but he does know he is the reason I am so obsessed.

It is about 1/2 the size of a real pin. It has some Bally parts in it, but uses electrical contact between metal contacts that are glued to the playfield instead of switches for the pop bumpers and slingshots. Both flippers are controlled by one solenoid, so they both flip when either button is pressed. The flippers are full size, but set back so they act like smaller flippers. I disabled the tilt. It plays a lot like an older pin and is actually kind of fun. I am going to clean it up a bit and put new rubbers on it last night. They ball that came with it was very magnetized, so I swapped it out. It was the first time the wife helped me get a pin into the basement.

It is in pretty good condition. They guy selling it to me was a hoot. I mentioned multiple times that I have games and work on pins all the time. He did not pick up on that well and kept talking up the game as being insanely awesome. He even had called Steve Young to get replacement parts for it and thought Steve was a huge dick for telling him how it really is. Could you imagine calling Steve Young for parts for one of these? lol

Maybe a full tear down, clean, and clear coat? :) The thing is just funny as hell, but was a huge part of my childhood, so it is special to me.
 
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Nothing wrong with collecting a machine for memories.

If I had the space and saw one for $50 I'd pick it up too, just for fun.

I can imagine the look on Steves face when he talked to this guy!
 
Hey - it clearly works, it looks very clean, and it's got sentimental value - who cares? It was cheap!

Our local Radio Shack used to sell these, and we made many trips over to "test it out" - my main complaint was that there was not individual flipper control, and I believe the flippers post wasn't really on the end - it was moved inwards towards the middle slightly - but it played well enough and we enjoyed it at the time.

Which leads into my next suggestion - mod it! Set it up for individual flipper control! LED that baby up! Put some smaller flippers on it so you can have the shaft come out in the right position! Get some lighting behind that backglass!

And of course, you'll need a Pinball Pro speaker and subwoofer combo - YES!

Haters gonna hate, but you'll have the most pimped Star Explorer out there ;)

Honestly, if was between Star Explorer, and that Baby Pac, I'd still take the Baby Pac, but I'd definitely have to think about it a bit...
 
Honestly, if was between Star Explorer, and that Baby Pac, I'd still take the Baby Pac, but I'd definitely have to think about it a bit...

heh :)

I have an insane connection through my misic / artist message board to a bunch of amazing artists that can totally do something cool with it. I have a nice collection of great art hanging down in my arcade from friends that think they need to give me a gift just for coming over and playing. My fave pin themed one is by Ben Swift. He just drew it up on his way over one day.

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A friend Heathersyren, does these beautiful elmers glue paintings on glass and plexi meant to be hung in windows. I got this one from her and she could rock some backglass hard. Put some LED light strips behind it and it would rule.

I bought this one off her. She comes over every Sunday to battle against BOP. She has her name in there a couple times and has bruised her forehead by smacking it on the glass. She says she likes to give the ball and evil stare when it goes into the trough :)

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If I am lucky maybe they can help me turn it into a functional art piece. I would never do that to a real pin, but this thing......
 
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I saw this Star Explorer pin on CL last night after work and ran out to pick it up for $50.

Man, I am EXTREMELY jealous of you right now :) I also grew up with one of these in my house and I played it all the time. My dad let a friend borrow it back in the day and he never gave it back, I was so sad. I remember asking my dad to try and get it back but he just wrote it off.

I would love to find one of these for my son.
 
There are a couple of these that keep popping up on CL in St. Louis.
 
Hey, I had a Star Galaxy Zizzle type minipin.. About the same size.. I got it for 50.00 bucks as well. However, the game turned out to be a turd and eventually the pcb board started acting up and doing some very strange things. What could I do with a faulty minipin? I turned it into a Virtual Minipin!! 27" playfield, 19" backglass and much more fun. I wouldn't suggest doing that to your SE though..


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The owner's manual has been 'photographed' and posted here:

http://imgur.com/a/SL7Lx#0

That manual applies to all four models made by Wonder Wizard/Sentinel/Philips Electronics: CB Charlie, Demolition Derby, Flying Aces, and Star Explorer. The solenoid assemblies under the playfield are classic Stern units, especially the flipper assembly and operate on 24VDC.

You're right about these machines needing more lights! The whole playfield is only lit up with just 4 general illumination bulbs and four lights in the pop bumpers. The backbox only has two #455 blinker bulbs to light up the backglass.

The game is ripe for mods. I'd like to see a lighted start button such as the late model Williams machines have. Here is a link to a picture of the switch I'm thinking about would be good on this machine:

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=956&parent=115

A guy could cut up a section of pegboard to use as an insert panel in the backbox for mounting LED's behind certain parts of the backglass to light it up. Use a 7/16" or a 1/2" Forstner drill bit on the playfield to drill holes for light sockets under the plastics.

I think this game could use a Williams ball shooter assembly too instead of that cheesy original:

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=128&parent=5

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=127&parent=5

I would put on a blank coin door to use as an access door just like this one as it is small enough for this size cabinet:

http://na.suzohapp.com/coindoors/42115000.htm
 

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I've found out a few more interesting things. It appears the solenoid driver board has holes and traces for a sixth driver transistor (would have been Q311) and a sixth pre-driver (would have been Q312). So they must have been thinking of having six coils driven from the board.

On the front display board it appears there are two additional LED places for ball in play. Must have thought about having 5 balls per game instead of 3.
 
Thanks for the updates on this. I am excited to see what I can do with mine.

Thanks for keeping the thread alive. I wish I could change the title.
 
An interesting modification would be to spilt the pop bumpers and slingshots back to normal individual coils again instead of one coil mechanically operating two devices. Since the solenoid driver board is already using it's maximum number of coils, this could be accomplished by using Gottlieb System 80 pop bumper driver boards to operate the new individual coils. You could also do away with those horrid metal strips/rings on the playfield in front of each device and replace them with conventional pinball switch assemblies like spoon switches and slingshot standup switches.

Steve Kulpa has a nice writeup on how he converted his System 1 Gottlieb machine to use System 80 pop bumper driver boards to improve the function of the pop bumpers.

http://stevekulpa.net/pinball/jppbdb.htm
 
I saw on another forum that someone posted this problem with his "Flying Aces" machine:

I have a late 1970's home version pinball machine that I would love to get working again for my grandchildren. It is a "Flying Aces" by Sentinel. Not your average big time coin op game but was fun to play. I can't find any info on it. I need the schematics to figure out a short it has.

The top 2, 100 point bumpers activate when powering up and then blows the circuit breaker. This breaker also controls the flipper and ball ejector. Everything else seems to still function.

HELP please.


The problem is a shorted solenoid driver transistor and/or it's associated pre-driver transistor.
 
Found some information on the pre-driver transistor. The original transistor is marked 1482 AH7F and you can drop the AH7F from the part number. This leaves 1482 (the real part number) which cross references to an NTE 123AP which is also a 2N4401.
 
The Sentinel Wonder Wizard 702603 Solenoid Driver board picture (not mine) I found. It shows the main driver transistors (type 2N6099 which might be house marked as RCA 393) and the pre-driver (smaller) transistors (type 2N4401 which might be marked 1482).
 

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