I got this Black Knight 2000 and the pop bumpers rarely popped, and when they did they were very weak. I saw they had a diode installed on one of the caps, but it was cut. The other two had none. I looked at my PinBot, and I swear I saw diodes on those, I think the band pointed toward the common wire. Anyway, I put Diodes on them, and they pop consistently but are very weak.

I was searching the 'net to find different reasons why the pop bumpers might be weak, but even after reading several posts and glancing through the manual I can't seem to get a straight answer.

Do BK2K pop bumpers require a Cap somehow instead of a Diode? Aren't these controlled Solenoids?

Thanks.

-Brian

So that post I read about the capacitors was not correct? I know they have capacitors on flippers sometimes to - well, I was under the impression it was for the reason you stated, to protect the rest of the game from higer voltage.

Thanks for the direction to look- Oh, after I installed the diodes (I really thought that was the right thing to do!) I noticed the were still sometimes intermittent. I was watching the bottom side of the upper playfield (which has it's own issues with it's hinges) I was watching and as I activated the pop bumpers I saw small sparks from one of the lugs on the fuse holder! Seems the spade connector had come loose - as these connections will do over time, so I squished the little spade connector slightly to tighten it up, so they at least had continuity there. With the way this game has been "Rode hard and put away wet," I wouldn't be suprised if that connection was flaky further up the line.

When I was doing some work on the drop target opto boards, I noticed they had used tie wraps to hold the molex connector together because the connector was so warn out that it would just fall off the pins. The grommets had also disintegrated so the tie wraps served a dual purpose - Holding the board in place AND holding the molex connector on. Hey, this is fixable! I've seen SO many instances in EM games where they just chop out the entire device to fix problems like that! Maybe I should start a topic "Worst Hack / Fix to a game" Maybe the bolt in place of a fuse was my favorite.

Thanks for your help!

-Brian

Thought I would close this topic out - as some have suggested in the past that I should do-

It turned out to be poor solder connections to the pop bumpers. I had an idea that it wasn't the board, because two of the three pop bumpers seem to act okay- Not GREAT* but okay. At least they have the power to pop the ball back and forth. This game seems to have a lot of solder issues like that. After I got done with the pop bumpers, I realized that the upper right flipper had a sort of intermittent weakish sort of feel to it, and upon examination, the glob of solder seems never to have properly adhereed to the lug. The wire was through the hole, and there was a glob on the end of the wire, but the wire was loose in the hole - if you get my meaning. I can see for sure how this could cause a weak-intermittent contact.

I noticed the pop bumpers on my Mousin Around seem to be sort of weak as well- That is not as strong as say on my Future Spa, which the pop bumpers are so strong it seems like they're going to sheer each other off!! or even my Black Knight I which are significantly stronger than the BK2k and MA..- Are these games of this era just made with a little less powerful pop bumpers - maybe to limit playfield plastic damage?

Thanks!

-Brian