You're welcome. Sounds like it would be a good idea to re-pin these connections.

I just finished up repairs on this Black Hole I recently picked up. The previous owner was struggling with the bottom playfield up kicker not firing. They replaced the CPU and almost completely rewired the remote transistor circuits on the bottom playfield. Unfortunately they did it in a way that burned up the transistors and the coils. The wiring was removed, new coils and transistors were put in, along with the original cpu board that didn't need replacing. It lives again! It looks awfully sharp next to my other Gottliebs.

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Anybody have any working backbox displays they want to get rid of? Need one for my BH that took a dump. Tried repairing but made it worse I believe. I only need one

All Gottlieb System 1 and System 80 games use the same 6-digit displays for score and 4-digit for credit. They are very repairable and readily available on eBay... both working and non-working for parts.

ebay.com link: itm

__________

What was wrong with it? The glass or the chips? Aside from breaking the glass or the filaments in the glass, it's almost impossible to mess these up. Depending on overall condition, I might be interested in buying your broken display. PM me.

Pm sent

wow - I just made it through 9 years and 60 pages of this thread. I haven't been active for years (since rec.games.pinball) but I've owned my Black Hole since 86 here in Australia and recently dragged it out of storage to get it going again. Its been so long since I re-pinned it- I need to do it again. Probably just MPU to driver connector and the displays.

This machine is on its third refurbed sound card done by John Roberston, a PWS from Ed at Great Plains, second MPU as the original was a corroded mess, new plastics from PBF some years ago. I kept all the original boards except the original sound card- as it was mess and the sc-01 was dead.
This time around using warm white leds as I want it to look as original as possible and I'm trying to take the load off the GI circuit which has some ugly wiring hacks I'll now address. I have finally done the slam switch mod as one of the switches was driving me nuts. I think this must be the sixth set of balls I've put in it

reliable? Well not so much this time but I think its upset I left it so long. Its playing fine for now but still shaking it down. Its being a black Hole for parts.

I met Steve Charland and Cliffy years ago at Bob Ellingson place inCalifornia. Bob also has played my Black Hole when he was over here. Great to see this group and a much better replacement for rec.games.pinball. Might get a little more active again now

I as well have spent the last 30 years gradually upgrading my BH here and there... 2X brightness LEDs on the GI only (I'm not a GI fanatic but this dark game needs them!), new disc motor, new ps board, the ground mods, and recapping the speech board and power supply and cleaning the boards' male connector pads. The ps board is the only non-original board in it. First thing I did way way back was the ground mods and that basically made it bulletproof. I didn't even add the pull-up resistors to the remote transistors until last year, I just didn't know about that fix before then. Someday I'll get around to adding the two extra ground and 5v wires to the unused MPU/driver connector slots.

In case you haven’t seen it this document has some good tips for the Black Hole.

http://arcarc.xmission.com/Pinball/PDF%20Pinball%20Misc/Black-Hole%20and%20Haunted-House%20Repair%20Guide.pdf

OK I've realised my upper playfield 10 point scoring is not working. If I meter the physical switches they are showing closed- even though none of them are. Its Switch 34 on the matrix and I would be surpised if its the RIOT but I guess it could be? (I have spares but hate touching these). I'm thinking possibly the associated diode but my copy of the manual is not good enough to work out the location of said diode. And testing the diodes with a meter gives me nada. Whats the best way to approach this?
EDIT- all the other switches are working on the strobe and return which does suggest a physical issue?
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How can it be the RIOT or anything else on the MPU if you "metered the physical switches" and "they are showing closed"?

Where are you taking this reading? Unplug in the MPU and meter the switches again. You can also read A1-J6 from pin 4 to 14 to see if it's open or closed (pay attention to your meter polarity as you're reading through a diode).

I would disconnect the wires to the switches in question and read the switches and wires separately. It sounds like a short in this circuit someplace. You may have a short in the switch stack so it's electrically closed when it appears visually open.

Also SW34 represents five switches in parallel. Did you locate and test all five of them?

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ahh - my stupid. The switch that appeared open was indeed bent and closed. Now sorted

So I just joined another club and picked up a nice Black Hole project that is missing 4 pop bumper driver boards. Was hoping to find some used instead of buying repos at $45 a board. Anyone have some lying around collecting dust?
Thanks,
Al

I think I have some extra of the LISY version of that board. It's nice since it has a test button right on the board.

Get some new ones. These work well and get 4 of them for less than $70 or so shipped.
https://nvram.weebly.com

Go to the Gottlieb page.

If I may ask... what did the machine cost you?

What's the trick to get LED's to work in Pop bumpers? Every time I replace them with Leds they seem to loose and eventually go out doing game play. You guys got any tips for this? It happens on a lot of older games as well.

Squeeze the outer portion of the socket a little bit with pliers to make a tighter fit around the outside of the bulb.
Always works for me.

Well bought from a friend and its a project all the boards were taken out and put in a box then stored for a decade. The cab is in good to fair state, playfields are nice with small chipping around window on upper, backglass is nice. Got it for less than 1500 will be a fun project once we get it up and running. Have worked on WPC, Stern and Williams SS plus EMs for the past 20 years but not too experienced with SS Gotliebs although I have owned two 1812s (never had any major issues with both they were tanks) and hot shots so this should be a fun learning experience. Lots of great info on the web looks like I have a lot of mods, repining and shopping to do to bulletproof this Black Hole but I'm excited to finally get one home. Many thanks to all who helped with the driver boards have secured some used boards and ordered the replacement parts from Mouser to rebuild them. I'm sure I'll be asking some n00b questions along the way.
Regards,
Al

Would anyone have a link on how to do the light up tube mod? Saw it awhile ago and cant find it anymore

There were a few posts about this but I came across this one that may be helpful:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/black-hole-club-members-only/page/33#post-4691834

Anyone know of a nice BH machine for sale? Please PM me…Thanks guys!

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1161051931962579/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3A61a18dc7-ed8b-4383-9714-3a4652358050

Any experience with that seller?

I have no idea about the seller or the machine. Buyer beware, as always.

Nice Gottliebs
Gottlieb addicted too

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That is a great collection and all great playing games! I have a Haunted House and Volcano. Fixing up a Black Hole to bring home with the other two,

Volcano is great, I would like to get one, but no more space available in the game room.
Just got an arcade last week, it fits in the last spot available.
Old one in Jamma , refurbished with 2 boards, 60 in 1 for vertical games , and Pandora 5000 for horizontal games.
And my wife doesn't want to have pinball everywhere at home.

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Looks like Mike Cavalieri of Pinball Past here in Omaha.
I've been to his shop a couple of times and have met him.

A very, very, delayed thanks to you and sysprog, you were both dead on about the soundboard connector. I had probably re-seated all the connectors except on the soundboard side, they felt pretty loose and a move from Chicago to Charlotte probably did not help too much! It's been 3 years and I still haven't gotten my gameroom set up other than just plugging in the pins.

Can anyone refresh me on which switch cuts over the lower level relay? Is it in the loop or in the trough before the cork screw? I've had this happen before on a rare occasion, but now it's probably 10% of the time the lower level doesn't cut over and stays dead and drains. Probably needs an adjustment.

Thanks again!!

Where can I find a replacement motor for the backglass?

Servo city.

Thanks for the responses…no longer looking for a BH machine.

My other half just bought a Black Hole (we haven't got it yet). But it's an odd one, although we're in the UK it has the spinning backglass, although it spins really fast. The sound effects seem to be the EU ones.

So is it a mongrel black hole? Has someone taken an EU Black Hole and added the spinning parts?
Is there anything else to note? Could I slow down the spinning part?
I'm aware one of the score displays is a bit dodgy, what can I do to resolve this?

It'll be our first Gottlieb other than borrowing sys80bs but I've never had to fiddle with them as they've been bulletproof

That must be the wrong motor. Also the ground mods are pretty much mandatory for these Gottlieb system 80's.

Pinwiki has information about replacing the spinning disk motor and the ground modifications.

wow, the spinning is hypnotic .
Not bad if not too noisy.

So Black Hole has been throwing all things at me. The latest is the credit/ball in play display is dead- and it was working until today. all other displays are fine. I should note that I had issues with A12J4/p4 plug where it burnt out and I've bypassed it with a new plug. On the credit display I have ground ,42vdc and 5vdc. I can't work out how to measure if I have the 3vac for the filament. I've buzzed out the wires to my replacement plug and they "seem" ok. scratching my head on this one- still suspect my plug repair though. any clues where else to look?

Could I have more info on this mod?
As far as I know this pin was owned by the seller for quite a while and regularly maintained by a well known Pinball tech here in the UK. So fingers crossed it has already had the mod.

I'm wondering if the spinning mech and motor are installed the same way the original US version is or someone's tried to replicate it using different parts.

If I can just swap the motor it would be great but it's finding one the correct size and spec which I'll struggle with.
I know there's a common one reccomended from A US site but the shipping for that is over $100 to the UK! So I'll need to find a different one that's available here or Europe.

I look forward to seeing it for real !

all sorted- onother plug in the backbox harness with a snapped wire

all fixed- it was yet another harness plug in the back- A9 something with a broken wire and yet another broken point on one of the A12 plugs in the cabinet.

Fine

Hi mate, the ground/earth mod might have been done already. When I was looking at the pics I noticed what looked like a green cable on the top left board going to the bolt area. So it might have been done all over. It’s making sure ground/earth goes to every board solidly.

As for the motor speed you might be able to get a motor speed controller so you can adjust the speed to whatever you want, I don’t know the specs of that motor but look into it. Cheap to do, something like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134399581719?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Vdlc7HVHTQ-&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=Zau8ver3Re6&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Very trippy at the speed yours is going

I've been told (don't know if it's true) that Black Holes exported to Germany, had the spinning disk but no speech. I bought my BH in Germany and it has the spinning disk. I put in the sound/speech board and US roms and now it speaks.

Yes, I believe this to be true. The System 80 Gottliebs with speech that were manufactured for overseas customers, were shipped with plain sound cards, no speech.

Picking our Black Hole up later today.

Had a pinball meet yesterday and someone said Black Hole might be bigger than most other pins. I know it's a wide body, but is it longer too?

If anyone could measure their Black Hole length and backbox width it would help as I need to decide if we take out front door off or remove the head

Just measured all of these dimensions twice for accuracy:

Backbox width (side to side): 30+1/4 inches

Cabinet length (front to back): 55+1/4 inches - add 2-3 inches for plunger too

Cab width, in case it helps: 25+1/2 inches

Also: heavy as f

Just measured all of these dimensions twice for accuracy:
Backbox width (side to side): 30+1/4 inches
Cabinet length (front to back): 55+1/4 inches - add 2-3 inches for plunger too
Cab width, in case it helps: 25+1/2 inches
Also: heavy as f

Yeah, it big. Haha

So here it is!

It's not too bad, perished rubbers, broken plastics, dirty and two incorrect drop targets. But it's playable, everything seems to be working.

Except, no background sfx and the top left score display has a feint flicker.
There's no speech, and from what I can tell there's no speech board.
The spinning disc spins fast, can someone confirm the fittings are the same as the US version and if I can just replace the motor?

How would it behave with LEDs? I'm thinking comet sunlight or cool white (might work with the blues) but noticed there's a few different bulbs I've never encountered before.

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It looks like it has the sound only board for export. In the US we had the sound and speech board in most of these. If you wanted speech them you need to replace that sound board with the larger one and make sure it has an SC-01A chip installed.

New to Gottliebs, is that board easily available? Part number or link please

These three insert lamps aren't working in test or game. Bulbs are good.
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How does one diagnose non working feature lamps on a Gottlieb? Is it similar to 80s Bally's?

By looking at the schematics.

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I am guessing it's L19, since L37 is the Captive Hole itself.

Assuming the MPU is outputting the signal, I would check every connection pin between the socket and MPU.

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