Mine has been very solid once i got the kinks ironed out. Took a while to get it there from a non working project state but. Depends how fully working 'fully working' is

Just buy the french boards (Pascal boards?) and you'll be good to go. Personally, one of my favorite games I've owned (had it >3yrs)

I was always intimidated at the prospect of system 80 games, but I've found them no more difficult to maintain than any other brands or generations of pins. Just make sure the ground mods have been done (and obviously do them if they weren't). With all the info available for repairing and bulletproofing these games, i found getting mine running properly really wasn't that bad. Get ready to change out a ton of edge connectors too, they were used extensively on the boards and the displays (and will likely need to be replaced if they haven't already been). There's a few other upgrades that may need to be done as well, as instructed in service bulletins Gottlieb released years ago.

Also check for playfield wear around the pop bumpers, and around the edges of the big blue window on the upper playfield. Very common in these games.

As far as price, I'm guessing somewhere between $1500-2500 depending on overall condition and how much bulletproofing you'll need to do with the electronics. (Ground mods, connectors, under playfield transistor upgrades, pop bumper driver board upgrades, etc)...

Good luck! Black Hole really is an awesome, unique game. Not planning on selling mine anytime soon.

HA! I was going to say the same. If the game was fixed and updated, the maintenance is "easy". But if it did not have the updates to ground and any of the fixes for the pop bumper boards etc...you could have some fixes in the future. Luckily the sys80's are well documented here and on pinwiki so you'll always be able to find help!

Thanks guys. It looks like a great game. I do lots of repairs, I just don't want to have a machine i constantly need to fix something on. I don't mind doing the mods you are describing if it means the game won't have constant issues.

thanks,

Do it. It’s a game that has serious soul.... and if you keep it waxed, it’s fast. Total ass kicker trying to increase gravity and get 5x multiplier before starting multiball.

The Black Hole I'm working on seems to be playing some sounds at inappropriate times. The most common seem to be the speech related to re-entry, which happens when I'm not doing anything related to that gate, or the background sound for the lower playfield starts while I'm still on the upper playfield.

I ran through the sound/speech board test in the manual, and all 5 inputs tested fine. The input on pin 2 though, for sound 16, would occasionally play on its own without me grounding it. Looking at the diagram in the manual (below) it's not clear where that sound 16 input comes from, and I haven't been able to find it yet in the other schematics. Where does this sound input come from? I'm guessing this is the source of at least my first sound issue but I'm not sure where to look next.

P_20180307_171008 (resized).jpg

bump

After at least 5 years of my Black Hole not working I finally got off my lazy ass and repinned the connectors in the back box and she lives once more! I bought 200 pins from GPE and after I was done I had 59 left. Felt super good. I'm finally getting around to not hating repinning connectors. I don't necessarily love doing it, but I don't hate it as much as I used to.

bh1 (resized).jpg

bh2 (resized).jpg

It comes from one of the light transistors. Think if you look at the lamp driver schematic it'll be labeled sound 16

Thanks, I see it there at Q10 now.

Hello Black hole fans
i have the last outer backglass from the pinball resource ant it came in a 100000pieces yesterday
ho now's where a can buy 1

FWSB4887 (resized).jpg

the custom clearens opent the box for inspection ant they di-dent spent time on it to pack it right again
sorry for my english

Ugh. That STINKS!

You’re going to have to find someone that’s parting one out... where/how, I don’t know.

Sorry about your backglass

I’m going to scan mine, however I need to get it out. Should have time tomorrow, but since the glass is mirrored I’m worried it will pick up the scanner in the reflection.

You could try Mayfair.

So this is odd, putting the game back together and the upper pf coil is resting/hitting this “wall” on the lower pf.

Is one of these walls shorter or is this flipped?

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F5D082A7-C452-4651-A3F2-6E585212AA1A (resized).jpeg

I would check and make sure the lower pf is pushed all the way back into it's proper position. You may need to lift back of lower pf s tiny bit while pushing it toward the rear.

I am guessing your gravity tunnel feed spring is hitting .

Mmm it’s so weird. I flipped the metal wall and still hits it. I’ll check but the pf looks all the way back :/

Finally got the game working though! Switches need to be adjusted and cleaned. Deoxit good to clean them?

are you sure it's not the spring-shaped feeder to the lower playfield that is hitting?

I had the same exact issue not less than a month ago. ((I didn't reference my teardown pictures prior. attached.)) The lower playfield metal at the side should be flipped the other way. 3 screws to the inside. I believe the metal side walls to be the same part number. (QTY 3)

IMG_3480 (resized).JPG

Oh I can't remember those metal rails. Good call, and as Per mentioned it's like that gravity spring feed tube.

Deoxit is wonderful stuff but it is so expensive I usually don't use on switches. I do use on the Williams horseshoe drops however.
But it leaves an oily flim that doesn't evaporate so I my mind it's just going to attract more solenoid dust and get crappy quicker.

I just use qtips, strips of business card and IPA.

Soak a 1/4 " piece of card in IPA for a couple seconds insert between contacts press together lightly and pull the card out. Qtips dry after to buff the contact and or wet to clean the whole length of the blade.

Deoxit is really good for things like the mating connectors with the round molex pins. And I actually ran a test on a couple funky lamp sockets. Ohm meter hooked up and reading high K ohms sprayed some D5 and actually watch ohm reading fall fairly quickly down to a low ohms reading of single digits. So yeah good stuff.

Glad to here another BH back in action.

It's so weird it's been so long ago that I picked my 100% dead BH project up and it is still my favorite game, and having very few issues.

The day I joined this club....I swear it has been almost 4 years...Last night when i put the balls in and fired it up....and it "played" a game. I was pretty damn excited. Lots of adjustments, lower cab power replacement parts still to do, but the playfields are done I can finally play the game soon, thanks to everyones help!

Next is to get that BG out and try scanning it....

rock on! thanks! I swapped it last night, it still felt like it caught, but I'll check and make sure the spiral drop isn't hitting as well.

OH quick question. The posts rubbers. A-10217 should I get 3/16 or 5/16? Not sure what came stock as PBR lists both sizes under that p/n.

Get the smaller ones. With the larger ones, you will get balls lodged underneath them.

edit: duh you are talking about post rubbers, not sling rubbers. my bad.

If in doubt just order both, I ordered from PBR and the kit seemed perfect. I also ordered from titan and that kit was fine from what I remember.

I scavenged my PBR kit and now have no idea what is where. Before that picture was posted of the manual (duh forgot to find it in my manual) I put what fit on where I could. May get another kit, or get translucent? I ordered the CT led kit when I first got the game, so I threw that in since I had it...so translucent rubber may look ok. But I wishy wash between old school and new...

Oh I see, I'll pm you.

I asked Jimmy over at PBResourse specifically for the 3/8” post rings. Just a bit more expensive, but I believe they are closer to original. (I forgot to get them for the Touchdown, but the other 4 pins have them)

I also want to say I needed to use an old one on the post under the flipper on the lower playfield.

I don't have schematic for my Black Hole and I wondering if I could get a little information about which chip the Display Decoder IC is ( Position on the board/chip number/trusted replacement chips etc...)

After replacing both IC on two display boards themselves, they still have missing segements/act funny. When I plugged them into my Mars I found out that they are fine and all segments are working on them.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Do different displays have the problem if you swap them around on your black hole? It could be a lot of chips depending on which specific positions have the issue

It's the Lower Playfield display and the credit display. I tried the lower playfeild display in every spot on my MGOW, figuring if the issue followed it was the chips, but it works perfectly fine. So did the credit display when hooked up to MGOW.

The displays in players 1-4 on my BH work perfectly fine. No locked on digits or missing segments.

Edit: Just reread your post, I haven't tried any other displays in those two places yet, will try when I get home from work.

My Black Hole had a shorted power cord when I bought it. ( I didn't know this at the time) By the time I found the problem it had already done damage to the sound. I replaced a few caps and Zeners on the sound board and got the sound effects back but I have not got the speech back. What to check or replace?

Following. The score display for my lower playfield doesn't work at all, and the player 3 and 4 are each missing segments, making them read GGGGGG rather than 000000....

For the display issues check and clean j2 j3 on mpu. Burnish pcb pads and inspection of connector leafs.

Check pinwiki for the correct ic for segment issue on mpu.

Ok. I thought I read bout this before... Why are my lights rotating CCW. Drop some science please.

You can just plug them in backwards if you want it to go the other way

Ok...need help here. I picked up a Black Hole as part of a package deal. The guy pulled the head off very fast and I didn’t see how the wires connect to each other. I want to get it set up...but how do I know which connectors go with which ones? Lol!

Do any of them have labels? Most should be unique anyway but originally they did all have labels

I think there are labels. I need to unpack it.

The connectors on the boards are numbered clockwise, the hard part is just knowing what number some of the boards are...

BH is the only game in my basement and is apart w/ head open, so if you need pics I can get them easily tonight.

If one wanted to re-pin the connectors, or find new edge card connectors,

Who has them in stock? Who do you guys recommend?

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/

http://www.docentelectronics.com/httpdocs/AmusementGames/Pinball/Gott_PrePinball.htm

http://www.pbresource.com/molex.html

Those are the 3 places I found that have parts in stock and ready.

Here's the edge connectors i used for most of the connectors on my BH:

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=08-52-0072&cat=77

Note: the double-sided edge connectors use a different type of connector pin, which is no longer available. For reference, here's the listing at GPE's website (again, this is just for reference, they not longer have them in stock):

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=08-03-0304

Good news is that the double sided connector between the mpu and driver boards can still be rebuilt, and you can get the kit at docent electronics. Northvibe linked to their site above. If I'm not mistaken, i think the kit includes a pin extractor, making the job of removing the old pins/wires much easier (the kit i bought from them was just pre-pinned wires, i had use the old housings)... Also, the kit includes extra 5v and ground wires for a recommended upgrade.

Also, you may find it easier to replace the connector housings as you go along. While i kinda got the knack for reusing the original housings, i found it to be a tremendous pain in the ass removing the old wiring and pins. Especially if you're planning on doing the connectors to the displays!

You've got a lot of crimping ahead of you! Don't forget there's also a few "regular" style connectors on the power supply board, so order up pins/headers/etc for those too if you're planning on doing them as well. Good luck!

he was probably saying "you should upgrade it to 7 digit scoring..."

I have an idea for people who are looking for back glass repair on the black hole game as I have 6 of these units all with the same problem BG is toast. Pm me for the idea. I would love to collaborate ideas and get this issue resolved as I feel due to age and the limited resources to attain these items is hindering the repair of the most beautiful game. I would rather fix them than destroy them.

In case anyone is looking for a backglass, looks like they will soon be available! They are in the coming soon area: http://shayarcadegroup.com/