All four star posts are 1”
BTW-Welcome to the club!

Awesome! So I guess my next question is, what is the correct size screw and washer? I'm about to place an order for a few parts from Pinball Resource. Does he sell them?

It’s the same size as this one. If that helps. Oh I’m sure he has it!

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What would cause 10,000, extra ball to always be lite up. Special never comes on. Also shoot again when lit never lights up.

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Bad transistor or interconnect issue

Just joined the club, and love this challenging machine. I am having an issue where it is intermittently splitting out 2 balls and adding extra players. Details here and would appreciate any guidance! https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/black-hole-ejecting-multiple-balls-occasionally#post-4752552

Got a sc-01 for Christmas, so my black hole is finally talking! It's quiet though. Has anyone adjusted the volume of the speech compared to the sounds?

Pretty sure there is a dedicated Pot on the soundboard to do just that.

There are two pots on upper right area of sound board. One is for the speech volume.

Turn up your main volume pot near coin door first (fairly loud) then adjust the sound and speech to your liking and no distortion.

The two 10 turn sealed pots on lower right area are for voice frequency and ?? Don't remember. You may have to adjust if it sounds drunk and slow or like Mickey mouse.

An oscilloscope on adjustments does help. But your ear can do the basic ones just fine.

New member here as I just brought home a sweet machine over the weekend. I'm only slightly above a dunce when it comes to troubleshooting and reading schematics, so figured I'd throw this out there. Voice is not working for reentry, but does work for attract mode. Not an expert on BH by any means, so I'm not sure if there are other voice call outs that I'm missing, but any thoughts as to why it wouldn't work for reentry would be appreciated. I don't want to buy a new voice chip if I don't have to. Thanks in advance.

Does it make the whistling sound on lower playfield? It should also say 'captured' when you capture a ball, stuff like that

It makes the whistling sound, but not “captured” or from what I can tell anything other than speech during attract mode.

Do you have the voice dip switch enabled?

Could also be a missing sound data line but it seems like there'd be more than just these messed up

Tried the dip switch, it’s not that. If I can’t figure it out, I’ll have to rely on my local expert repairman next time I need him for something bigger. Thanks for the help.

Hello all,
My name is Dale and about to (maybe) take the plunge into owning a pinball machine. I am in my 50's and looking for some fun around the house here. Always loved pinball. Spent many hours playing in my youth.
I am currently looking at possibly buying a Black Hole pin. Done a lot of reading through here to have an idea of what i would be getting into, should this be my first pin purchase.

Of course, being new i need to learn some terminology ect. to find my way through

On to the questions i have at this point.

I really need all the dimensions of this machine. I have difficult stairs to deal with and need to be sure it will make it to where it needs to go.

Does anyone have all these? Including, with the head folded for transport?
Will the head come off reasonably? No cutting wires ect?
Any info i need to know before purchase??

Many thanks in advance and will let you all know if the purchase is successful

Dale

The head is designed to be removed, there are no hinges. Just make sure all the connectors are labelled before you unplug them

It would appear at this point that i will not be able to see the .machine until Sat morning.
Suppose i will know then.

All thoughts are welcome.

Thanks for the input thusfar

Dale

Here's the dimensions I just measured on mine:

Top of siderails to bottom of cabinet, at it's widest in the back: 21" (orange in pic)
Front to back of cab: 55" (+2" extra for plunger) (yellow in pic)
Width: 25.5" (red in pic)

I included a pic with the measurements:

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Awesome, thank you very much!

Only other (so i KNOW not think i know) is the head to the ground.

Sooooooo much appreciate your efforts

Dale

No prob! Measured from top of head to ground: 70". That can vary slightly depending on the height the leg levelers are set to, but in my game room it's just a tad over 70" tall.

As everyone has mentioned, you'll definitely want to remove the head--which in itself is heavy--the cab without the head is still very heavy compared to my other games. Take lots of pics, bring tools, including a 5/8 and 9/16 socket with ratchet or drill. You may also need a Phillips driver to remove the screw holding the ground strap in the backbox too. Take lots of pics before you take it apart. If i recall correctly, once all connectors are unplugged and head bolts are removed, you have to push the head slightly forward or backward to unhook it from the cabinet. Just take your time, and bring some muscle/eat your Wheaties/etc. Most games are heavy, but not quite as heavy as our beloved Black Hole. Definitely follow up if you need any other measurements or any further questions etc... Good luck!

Can someone kindly take pictures of the backbox wiring harness
that is located on the hinge side of the backbox.
I need the part of were the restraining rubber ring is attached.
Also, the back board hinges top and bottom.
A kind and warm thank you.

Harness, upper and lower hinges. Looks like one of the harness clamps is loose on mine I only got one shot of the other side of the hinges, you can see it above the power supply board. Hope these suffice, but let me know if there's anything else you need.

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frunch Thank you so kindly. You are awesome!.

You're welcome!

I just noticed the 3 out of the 4 rod & ring assemblies on the pop bumpers on my BH seem to sit a little lower than i think they should. The 3 in question were rebuilt over a year ago, and i replaced the rod & ring for each with new ones from pinball resource. The ones i got from pbr are part number A-4754, a standard Williams replacement rod & ring. Pbr's site says they're a suitable replacement, since the original Gottlieb replacement GTB-16634 are no longer available.

However, checking GTB-A16634 at Marco reveals that part apparently has longer shafts to accommodate bumper pad part # B-16632 (the metal base that rests on the bottom side of the playfield that the pop bumper assembly screws into)...

Was Black Hole built with bumper pad B-16632? If so, do i need a different bumper pad to accommodate the shorter Williams rod & rings? Or do i need to add shims or spacers somewhere to raise the height of the rod & rings? Does anyone know the length of the shafts for the original rod & ring assemblies? I have the Instruction manual for the game, but it doesn't have the playfield part diagrams etc.

The pics show the difference pretty well. The pop bumper next to the flipper has the original rod & ring, and the pop bumper in the other pic has the Williams rod & ring (and sits noticeably lower).

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Gottlieb
Rod length = approximately 2-3/4" long + 6/32 screw threads.
Williams
Rod length = approximately 2-5/8" long + 6/32 screw threads.

All Gottlieb 1980's pins pop bumpers were made with the metal base/pad.
Gottlieb's EM pins did not have a base. So... a Williams ring & rod would work
for Gottlieb's em games but not that well for Gottlieb's solid state games.
You would need to add two or more #6 washers to "shim up" each rod ( x 2) that are the Williams
ring & rod assembly.
You need to add a 1/8" missing gap to each of the ring & rods in your Black Hole game.
Or, find a machine shop and have them cut new rods...

Awesome, thanks for the detailed response!!! I'll try adding the washers, it would be fantastic if that's all it takes

Thanks!

Selling my long loved BH after 20 years

Machine - For Sale

Black Hole w/ Extras Featured Archived

Fully shopped/refurbished - “Excellent BH purchased by me about 20 years ago. Everything works perfectly. Pop bumpers, flippers and everything else are all functioning flawlessly with excellent action. Game is...”

2019-01-19

Sacramento, CA

zahner

2,900 (OBO)

Archived after: 2 days

Viewed: 241 times

Status: Didn't sell to Pinsider

Thank you vec-tor! I took your advice this weekend and added 3 washers on each rod for the 3 pop bumpers that had the rod & ring sitting too low, and it worked great! Bumpers are definitely more active now! I'm relieved to finally be able to put this issue to rest. I'm attaching a few pics showing the before and after (see the difference in gap), plus a pic of the washers installed on the rod and ring under the playfield:

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frunch Fantastic.

Well, pulled the trigger. A Black Hole pin is coming home tomorrow

Nice machine, plays well, condition is nice with all the standard wear of a machine of this age.

Dale

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Congrats!!! Welcome to the club! There's tons of very good info about the game in this thread. Take some time to read up, and start measuring space for the next machine--this hobby is crazy addictive!

Be sure to post some more pics when you get it set up in it's new home.

welcome to the club of us who have been sucked in to the black hole. Saw this game broken in a basement around 1992 asked about it i was told game is cursed and anyone who touches gets destroyed. Guy had a real nasty project game on his hands and clearly was in the beginning stage. Any time i saw another one it to was broken. Was lucky one time i got to play a working one and knew is was now sucked in also. Anytime i think ghostbusters is being mean i go play black hole and then realize i was mistaken.

I kept having an issue where the flippers would suddenly go dead in the middle of a game and it would reset back to ball one. I was all prepared to begin the painstaking process of tracking down the problem. Fortunately, the first thing I checked was the start button. It turned out that the switch was gapped too close and it was being triggered while I was playing. Moral of the story, always check the obvious things first.

Thank you ! So far so good with the BH. She's a tough unforgiving nut, no doubt.

A few touch ups thusfar and had to clean/file the contacts on the 2 bumper/accelerators. They were sticky at times, now nice.

Will add some of my own lighting touches, mostly adding LED's in certain places. Maybe some minor colour adjustments. Will probably order a plastics kit to have around and the window if i can find one along with a few other things.

Dale

I ran a socket to the back right corner, which is normally dark. It was easy to do since there is a big hole in the playfield back there. I don't understand why there wasn't already GI there from the factory. It looks so much better, and it nicely illuminates the plastic with the planet on it.

I have a mostly complete pretty nice set of used plastics for the upper playfield. Let me know if you are interested in them.
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I saw a guy streaming the other day with a powerball type ball he called a speed ball. He was playing a joker poker. After playing a few games I asked him to swap it out and use a normal steel ball, he definitely said steel ball was slower or not as much fun as his speed ball. Which got me thinkin... From our chat it seemed like he ordered from mezel mods flouresent glo balls?? He wasn't sure but he said it sounded right. So I would like to know if anyone has tried in Black Hole or any other multiball game. I may try one out in my panthera single widebody is a tad slow. I know my BH isn't slow but faster maybe even better. Thoughts?

Joined the club last week and finally had some time today to start getting things set up.
This wire to A1-J5 is cleanly cut. Is it supposed to be cut?

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Answer: NO!

Thanks, that's what I thought. I couldn't figure out why it would be.

Am getting my playfield cleared, so will look at doing some other upgrades along the way. May do an order from Titan for rubbers - what colours have people used that works well?

I used clear rubbers and they look great.

Black Hole arrived last week. When I lifted the playfield for the first time I noticed blue painters tape around the flipper switches. I removed the tape, and behold what’s underneath! Anyone seen this level of craftsmanship before? (Should I give them some credit for color matching the tape to the cabinet) .

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Yikes! Did the seller mention this?

Nope, not a word. It was sold as Restored. Which is somewhat true. The cabinet graphics were re stenciled and playfields restored and clear coated. So, externally it looks almost new. However, I would have appreciated a heads up that some areas inside the cabinet look like they had been attacked by an angry beaver!

and a single toothed beaver at that

Anyone here considering that deal for the 6 BH parts machines TnT amusements is selling for $2500? They have an ad on the Facebook pinball buy, sell, trade group.

Link: https://m.facebook.com/groups/958426214184968?view=permalink&id=2501426673218240&anchor_composer=false

Anyone installed a set of Mirco BH playfields yet? I've got mine ready, just trying to find the time as I have a few other projects to finish first.

Let us know how it goes woz. I am dying to buy a set, just haven't gotten around to it yet. I saw them at Expo, but his "discount" wasn't really much of a discount, so I didn't worry about picking them up at that time. They look amazing (and they better for the price!).