Star Explorer

AAirhart

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Donor 2011-2012
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Picked up one of the Star Explorer home pinball games.... Everything works fine..but it is the most mindnumbingly boring pinball game I have played aside from a few EMs. What mods have people done to these to make them a little more interesting? If anything, I'd assume a mod would increase the value rather than detract from it, since if I'm assuming correctly they're not worth much of anything. First order of business is going to be giving this thing some real artwork instead of the ugly wood contact paper look.
 
Picked up one of the Star Explorer home pinball games.... Everything works fine..but it is the most mindnumbingly boring pinball game I have played aside from a few EMs. What mods have people done to these to make them a little more interesting? If anything, I'd assume a mod would increase the value rather than detract from it, since if I'm assuming correctly they're not worth much of anything. First order of business is going to be giving this thing some real artwork instead of the ugly wood contact paper look.

I don't think many folks in the collecting community fool with those littlenguys much at all. I don't think it will have any more market value after you mod it than it does right now.

Sounds like a nice project, and when you're done, you might well have something neat. And if it all goes wrong, you'll not be out anything!

I haven't played that one, but the big problem I've seen with the toy pins is that the flippers are crappy and slow. That leads to really shoddy ball movementp and a distinct lack of fun. If it were me, I'd try to figure out some way to make the flippers respond well as a first step.
 
The flippers are pretty responsive, just weak. I want to find a way to separate them

They both fire on both buttons? Wow. Yea, you'll want to fix THAT if you want the game to be fun.

Honestly, I think the approach I'd take is to build a small transistor board, and wire all the switches and solenoids and whatnot to a small micro-controller. I'm fond of the Teensy units (http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/) lately, but there's lots out there. Wire everything independently, then you can fool with the gameplay in code.
 
I posted flipper suggestions on the pinwiki:

http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sentinel_/_Wonder_Wizard

Mods I would do to Sentinel/Wonder Wizard machines are:

Remove those springs around the slingshots and install real slingshot switches and rubbers.

Remove the metal contact rings around the pop bumpers and install normal pop bumper skirts and spoon switches.

Beef up the bridge rectifiers on the motherboard from the stock 2 amp units to either 8 amp or 10 amp units.

Split the ganged slingshot fired by one coil into the usual two slingshots. One could still be operated by the game board while the second one could be operated by a Gottlieb System 80 pop bumper driver board.

Split the ganged pop bumpers into individually fired normal ones by operating a couple of them from Gottlieb System 80 pop bumper driver boards.

Install a normal Williams or Data East ball shooter assembly.

Add white LED's to the backbox lighting circuit.

Add more lights to the playfield. Remember, the power transformer does not have much headroom electrically to add very many incandescent light bulbs, but LED's on the playfield should be ok.

Get rid of that phony "ball-and-chain" tilt assembly and replace it with the usual plumb bob tilt assembly.

Add a playfield prop stick to the cabinet.
 
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Updating this thread. I have obtained an original Sentinel/Wonder Wizard owner's manual and scanned it.

I have now uploaded a tremendously improved version of this manual to pinwiki in the Sentinel/Wonder Wizard section of the home model pinballs part.
 
Ken should have his own show: "Pimp my home pinball machine". :)

You continue to raise the bar for what it means to be a contributor to the collecting community.

Bill
 
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