Count me in as member or did i miss open enrollment? Hi Steve, blownfuse one of the good ones!

I had upper flippers aligned with ball guides for a long time, one day after cleaning and maintenance I set lower and wow much better. Better shots for capture hole for the lower playfield and well just overall better.

Lower playfield is different I go out of my way just to keep em like they were, and are.

I vote 3 ball.
Well back in the day almost every machine was set to 3 ball anyhow. So just what I am used to.
3 ball on black hole( i think ) is better. The yellow targets stay off from ball to ball. pops score higher. I think that is the only difference.
Also I have noticed that whenever kids play if set to 3 ball they usually finish the game. If set to 5 a lot of times they finish the 3rd ball and move on to another machine. I don't know why just something I noticed.

Oh i see your point, yes 5 ball is harder for sure but most games with multiball you get at least once a game unless you suck. On BH it seems like I get multiball 1 out of 4 with 3 and 1 out of 25 with 5. It is a bit to hard. At least for me.

Yes WOZ that is so true. It is also disappointing when you get up to x3 or x4 and never go to the lower pf. NO Bonus, no nothing. Black Hole really makes you earn every point.

I had a game going yesterday and on the second ball "Hit me with your best shot" came on the radio and my BH seemed to like it. allowing me to start multiball, get 2G and score the special. Well extra ball. Then some other lame o song came on and SDTM, off the Pop and SDTM. Extra ball lasting about 20secs.

I ended up with about 640,000 previous 4 games all in the under 200K range.

That is neat an easy way to do a divide by 10 scoring scheme so that you never have to worry about roll over.

or set like everything to real low old em scoring and see if you can break 1000.

isn't 1 a segment issue?? Never mind someone way ahead of me.

Oh shit i didn't measure it. PM me your mail address and i'll send ya a pc.

It maybe thicker - thinner i don't know.

Oh so that is what you call em, learn something everyday. sounds much nicer than anti death save bars for sure.

OK cool, mr pez I guess you are ready for tourney play. Did you dethunk yours as well,seemed pretty quite.

sounds like the dr has got mof. but maybe lower pf not all connectors plugged in or you bumped relay on upper pf out of adjustment?

Had to add something.

hope mof get his chit together soon we don't want to start without him.

check Gerry is in. what do you think 3 or 5 ball?

OK we will have to do 5 first.

Now lets pick a time how is Sat 22 at say 8:30 pm est. / 5:30pm pt

Black Hole Tournament

So taking" roll call " who is all here?

Ok that one at 9:30.

Practice till then and put switch 17 off. 5ball play.

Oh i see how ya are. Time to help people and no time to try kicking ass. I just finished a practice 5 ball and 298510. I always seem to get the four yellow on ball 5 and although i did get multiball and an extra ball i did not fair so well.

Hope you change your mind. I have this Tournament Maker 2.1 program and it just looks like you put in everyones name and such. and it forms brackets with x2 elimination and whatnot. I have yet to really try it.

OK well I guess it is not happening tonight. Should have done it yesterday while more guys on.

Glass off.

Oh thank God i wasn't playing against you. We were in a different bracket.

Dang if you do that on a regular basis you better just be in charge of running it so i can play.

Like I said before, or in one of the threads. I like three ball much better. Try it out. At least you will be able to enjoy multiball a little bit more. As the only difference is pop score change from 100 to 1000 and if you get 3 yellow spot targets down and lose ball you only need to get one more down to light the upper capture as completed spots are remembered. I find usually one out of four games you can achieve multiball. Even a little more often if you play 4 players at once.

When I was very young 5 ball on EM was more standard, but almost all electronic I had ever played were always set to 3 ball. So I just stick with what I am used to.

Waiting to here you rant about getting bonus multiplier up to x5 and never going into the hole. Or getting multiball started and not getting re entry gate opened. One of the worst is getting the both gforce lit and losing ball before going into the hole. Or the live catch attempt that throws your ball through the return gate and gone. Then there are multiple SDTM angles that really suck as you see it coming from a great distance away and usually no hope to save.

The list is really longer. Can't wait for the rant!

Make sure to use big towel at least on glass. I just recently put large scratch on new glass as I placed my portable soldering station "setup" made from magazine rack on the machine and it slid down the glass. Made large 8" or so scratch that is pretty deep. I will go out of my way now not to use as workbench.

Yeah I can remember a long time ago that once or twice the ball draining from right tube shot would swing all the way around and get back in play from the left side. Has not happened in a long time but was a pretty good wow moment when it happened. Also the rare ball screaming around and jumping over your flipper will get ya mad as hell.

Nice score, now i know another guy whom cheats or has loose legs and loose tilt.

From my memory F14 was a super fast machine. I have not played in forever but remember tuff even when younger.

I just mentioned it in last order. Funny about a week ago he had em and i just dragged feet a little bit. Send me the parts Ed I'll put it together myself.

I would love to! I may not get much work done though as it seems you have a bunch of games that I have never played.

No, Ed saw the need, spent the time and had the boards made. I would just rather support him a little than making something on proto board. Yeah, fairly easy to do but would likely take a few hours or more to solder and look well still like Sh$T in the end. I can wait.

To answer your question I am sure ED has.

I knew what you meant. Fun, nope don't see it. Maybe goofing with blinky leds or adding sound calls but an adapter board for an IC. That would be self inflicted pain in the arse. I would not even want to do for solder practice. But maybe wire wrap practice? I take all that back, I am going to make one.

Well I know that it is much easier to level and stay leveled if the Tnuts are installed very tight, maybe even anchored with another screw. I tiny amount of loc tight for the window screws wouldn't hurt either.

I always though it would have been better if they did not use mounting holes from top at all and just had a thicker piece lying atop of adjustment bolts. Maybe a locking slot from underside.

Well maybe your back short heavy barrel spring is a bit collapsed from age, all manufactures used same size but new may give you a little more space.
No pin has a washer by the shooter rod in your picture.

I bet if everyone posted a picture of the shooter tip placement they would all be the same. I don't know what your issue is?

nice steve

Now turn score card over inquiring minds want to know.

Yeah back in the mega arcade days it seems like most places gave just one extra ball chance. Usually close to factory recommended. I used to love when you would walk up to a machine like Flash that had 100K 300K 500K.

Oh I guess that is not the score card to turn over. Did not read it careful enough. LOL

Please Explain the Note on bottom of card.

Oh right, got it. thank you

i was testing my displays today. DSC00143.JPG
I know the arcade guys shoot for it.
Does this count in pinball too?

Awe Steve ya gave it away to fast.

Yeah thanks Steve it is way to cool!! now to find a display or two. Someday.

Here is my new highscore since the change.
DSC00144.JPG

and it only took me this many balls.
DSC00145.JPG

Hey Steve ! just thought of this.

That is really good, especially if you have the 5ball setting. But 5 plus 2 for replay scores and maybe you earn one playing now your up to 8 balls or more. Playing at a party with 4 people that game would take over an hour and a half. *figure a 3min ball time and 4 descent players*

I still think you should be giving 3 ball a try. LOL

So ya closed the 80hour shop job. Good thread Btw. now it is "Bally" never had an electronic Bally. Good luck

Steve if I keep my eye out for one or two displays what would i expect to pay for each one? There was an ebay with NOS just glass 20 a piece the guy had 4.

So after Mof asked about replay score adjusting, i got to thinking, i had never had a extra ball due to score ever. ??
i decided to look into and try it out. I tried everything nothing seemed to work.
Well guess what. switch 21 was dead all other switches fine. So yes i could win a free game setting 300K or whatever but had never one free ball from score in over 10years. Replaced switch bank and now this machine owes me a freebie once in a while. so my machine was 99.9% working all these years.

yes 313 bulbs for the lower lighting they run at 24V. Easy way to change look for it in pinwiki. pretty sure it shows exactly what you need to do to change to the 6V circuit.

Well that is even easier. Have to give it a try.

Steve, not sure I would used 1/4watt resistors.
24V supply minus say 2.2Vdiode voltage would be 21.8 across the resistor. P=VI 21.8(.020)=.436 W or 1000 x .020sq=.400 W
you may have meant 1/2 watt. Typo?

Yeah i saw that did not care for i don't think, hard to tell from video i guess. If they all changed color at the same time maybe but even then i don't know if i would care for that look. it would seem to me that the tinted window would muddy the effect also.

Steve, I thought about your mod and unless you put in something like 12V leds or something else. wouldn't it be much more work/cost/parts/time than the other way?? I don't know, but isn't the other way real easy? change to 6V and buy the led(s).

Anyone, What LED do you guys put in for pop bumpers? I have seen some that have 5 surface mount led or more.

Which may be to bright for pops but a good option for the 313 replacements.

doing a little ebay browsing WTF is this?
ebay.com link: DELUXE BLACK HOLE High Quality Cushioned 3M Target Protectors Pinball Machine

As far a the dip switches. Yeah they do go bad. you will need to remove the board as the easiest way to test is with a meter on back side. I would mark all switch setting on paper first then move all switches off and test make sure all open, then turn all switches on and make sure all working. I just had switch dead and on would not work (the more likely fail mode) but because i could never earn an extra ball by reaching replay score level only extra credit had it like that for 10years and never knew it.

Do you know what Rom version you are running? I had version 2 never had a problem i recently put in 4 still no problem but that capture ball thing may have been an issue fixed with a different version.
You are saying that due to un reliable kick out that if you drain with ball in capture that if not kicked out on the first attempt that it just sits there and makes you open up or power cycle the game. I will check with my game never seen that issue.

Good luck with sound/speach board. The audio stuff is a bit harder than other boards. I could offer you info on a guy that sells newly made board for that .

yeah the blue are nice. i see you like cw rotation as well ; )

Wow, please take your shoes off before entering the club. Oh pic 4 looks much better. Welcome.

Still a work in progress? Game booting? pic 4 showing only GI.

Oh my that is one of the saddest pins(in general) I have ever seen. I have seen BH on ebay parted out in much better shape. But one guy posted pictures of an F14 with like an inch of mold under PF and it cleaned up ok so it can be done.
Really the game looks to have been in a flood. Boards I could rework maybe if edge connectors are not rust. But it looks like all lamp sockets are going to be problems, you will probably have major connector problems and well dang that is going to be one huge project.

How are the backglasses?

Yeah I have been told those replacement boards from Pascal are real nice.

No doubt I give kudos to anyone willing to try and save a game like BH. Yes my Panthera board had way to much acid damage and has been running strong for a few years now. Those boards can be reworked for sure. But if all the lamp sockets and other things need to be replaced due to rust and water damage i am seeing some big money being spent. To me it would not make financial sense.

Not sure what you mean here.

he may just send you idc type. Ed at GPE has the ones you need i believe. You need crimpers no soldering.
I would order say 20x6 and you'll have some extras you are bound to mess up a couple or dump em and lose a couple.

try 20 off 21 on 22 off 23 off 24 on.

then go to test mode adjust 11 to 300,000 12 to 600,000 and 13 to 000,000.

you should get extra ball if you light extra ball or hit 300K and or 600K.

I just fixed my switch 21 was dead would not go on so never got an extra ball for score ever.

Yes the inside of the dip switch is neat i should have took a picture. Easy to see after so many years that they do go bad. It is just a little piece of bent metal, almost like a ultra tiny edge connector and moving the switch to on presses it down. Yours just had maybe a tiny spec of oxidation and then after turning on a playing some games finally cleaned itself from vibrations. My switch I saw nothing real obvious but to open and look was destructive so just replaced.

Steve thought me all about this. For 10years I did not even realize that it was an option. LOL my switch was broke.

Oh and the switch that failed was i believe a slider like lower picture.

the LS is fine for that.

Sounds like you are making great progress.

Next time i am in my machine i will look and see if i can think of anything. Where did you get this trick from? Never heard of it. Do you have an aftermarket driver board? If you do, contact him if it has never worked correctly, there may be a problem with board.

Oh yeah the diagnostics are pretty sucky.

very sweet, yes it is for that one really good game you have every once it a while that makes it so worth it. i still need to stumble upon a couple 7 digit displays. someday, the deal will come along, no hurry.

well that almost 1mil more than my high nice game.

if you don't have the spinning disk it is an export version. Good call pez! if it has the spinning disk SC01.

Nice find that is a pretty rare piece i would think. oh Steve was this the purpose of this display item?
He would know.

DSC00187.JPGthis is one of the thicknesses i use. the thicker you can fit the better.
DSC00188.JPGbolt is to represent the coil stop, you get the idea. just cut a strip form around and trim as needed.

i had tried do demagnetize with no lasting luck, and if the stop is not really beat then no need to purchase a whole new bracket. it does work well.

There is only one rubber on Siamese post it is "I" ring gottlieb number A17493 pages 41 and 42 in manual.
Gottlieb numbers chart to inches may be on pinwiki. If you order from Steve Young he likes his part numbers.

If you mean losing your ball 10 secs after shooting into play. NOPE Black Hole has no "awe poor baby" ball save timer, your tough luck.

????? timer ????? pascal board set???? or other?

Well give your self a good 2hr block of time and take it apart, remove the sandpaper "floating mylar" ring if there and install a new lamp socket and spring while you are into it. Spring may be broken, binding, or spoon switch just gummed up.

The machine gunning sound like a pop bumper driver board issue. You could swap with another pop board and see if problem follows. That is only a five minute deal.

Figured it was on wiki thanks for the link. So 7/16" for the double post.

Yeah what is the cure Dr?

Hootowls i was kinda thinking Blownfuse would reply with some like:

BH it makes a very distinct sound when servicing sir!

thinking of Heartbreak Ridge, the AK47 line.

Sure looks like a couple of fixes ? done on mpu. I don't see the CPU to Driver A1-J4 to A3-J1. As having the doubled up ground and power wires. That is a must! You will definitely want to do all the ground mods. First then start working out other issues. Pinwiki read and do.

well here is your pictures ? i really think you just need to clean your switch with some IPA and adjust. must be making very little contact.

DSC00218.JPGDSC00217.JPG

oh yeah the loose switch is even more likely than dirty. happy hunting.

If you start to raise pf, you will see two large metal brackets those can rest on the coin door / lock bar area, and you can still open the backbox to get to the boards. I really can't tell you the last time i opened up my machine to fix anything it has been so good to me for several years. I kinda have to look for trouble. oh and change a bulb now and then. As far as the rubber not sure i can picture which one you are having trouble with the one with the white lane guide and the 10pt switch?

Yeah that is the one i thought you meant. Are you sure it is 1". You can semi pre stretch the ring that helps. You gotta eat your Wheaties.

yeah like Dr. blownfuse suggested get used to using your test button 18 for the switches, but before that let the solenoids go through there thing a few times to get all the ball out easily. the more you play with the diagnostics the easier it is to solve a problem when you really need it. just make sure you turn the power off before doing any under playfield work *trust me* i did a no no many years ago.

Oh and while you are over in that area anyhow if you have extra switch i can show you a somewhat easy way to add a 10pt switch to the left kicker the one that makes no sound when hit.

Well sounds like a lot of errors. I know that B L A C K has to be done in sequence. It lights the lower accelerator. left side for black and right for hole and when both lower accelerators lit then special will light.

number 1 i would need to check but it just sounds like the right rollover is lighting when it shouldn't but is scoring ok. Not sure.

yes it does. it is correct. out of order black lights the 1k and hole out of order does the 10K rollover.

TNT states many times that only mod needed is to add one ground wire on the inter connect cable.
What do you think Steve ?

I still have original coil for kick up never a problem. And TNT also claims there was a service bulletin to put something different in ???? Stronger coil . I have never needed. I have never seen it not shoot a ball up the tube.

Yes that sounds all to familiar. I always seem to have many games under 300k till you get a good game that is why the title is so good!

There was one pascal video of game play I saw which was nice but.i would be more interested in the diagnostic features and anything not the same as original boards

Ok BH owners here is something you can try.

Start up a game with glass off. Now take the ball in the shooter lane and drain it making sure you score no points. Now do this repeatedly and keep count. The fifth or sixth time something interesting happens. We can keep it our little secret.

how old is the large filter cap by the 12V rectifier? Check wires going to that cap from the bridge.

if they are orange change it.

You guys may find this interesting.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/oh-man-the-rabbit-hole-goes-way-deep

Sounds like you know where all the serial numbers are.
Don't think you missed a spot. Paper pencil transfer should work just fine.
I registered my serial number with maybe Peter Hall 's site which I think is now gone.
He had a real nice site. I often wonder how many BH units are left.

Spinning disc? Well when I first got game I thought it looked like the cosmonauts where coming out not going in so I switched it. I believe I have mine going opposite the chase lights so anticlockwise.

If your disc is spinning all the time I would suggest going to flippers.com website and doing john's mod.
So that the disc only spins during game play. I still have original motor thanks to Peter and John.

I think blownfuse will give me crap. But here goes.
I suggest setting up to three ball play. It is what all electronic games were set for back in the day.
And the upside and only real difference is that the yellow spot targets stay accomplished from ball to ball so you do not have to get them all down in one ball to activate the capture.

Enjoy it, a great game!

Not looking At the schematic but I think 12v bridge goes to the power board then gets converted to the 5v for logic and controlled lamps.

I am guessing you have checked the bridges with a meter in diode check mode with power off?

I would be Almost tempted to disconnect that extra circuit and see if things change.
I have a millionaire machine with the large filter cap wire broke off so all controlled lamps were flickering a bit but the game played perfect otherwise.

Yes your cAps are not the original have been changed and look fine.

Those pull ups may already be on your machine. What were they 4.7k?? Don't remember.
But they were factory installed on my machine.

Never had a problem with my uptube kicker. I would just go with stock.

The mini post rubbers are a great idea. Another problem I noticed besides the spongy washers losing spring is tha the t nuts on the underside are often loose this makes adjusting more tricky.
The window wear is almost unavoidable I had some wear I touch up a little no extra protection. It has been lasting much longer than I tought it would. I put the sticky Mylar rings around the pops the loose ones were just a plain stupid idea.

Good question. No it doesn't Mine does. I added it as it should missing the sound on there is so wrong. Pm me if interested and I ll try to post a video on what I did. It has been working great for a long time.

This short video shows the way i added the switch, the easy way as that area is a mess. Enjoy!

I added the rear view mirror mod too as a bonus!
just attached with three pieces of 3M double sided sticky pads.

Nothing a higher wattage is fine. the wattage rating is for the amount of current it can comfortably handle. 1/2 being more robust but also more expensive.

What happened to the rating?? I saw on the top 100 list that BH was always very even with HH yet HH was always rated higher. I never could understand ghat one. But as of a look yesterday it wasn't ever close. It isn't even in the top 100 anymore. I realize that with a lot of newer titles and LE/ pro also now taking up multiple slots. But really for years it has been in the 80ish range and HH still is but BH isn't.
Something seems wrong. Thoughts??

As with that extra 10pt switch added to the left some 10 years ago. I have seen that extra switch as well on some of the sims. I am pretty sure the Xbox pinball hall of fame has it with that switch by the left captive. Which is NOT original. A lot of the sims also have the flippers flipping all the time on lower play field which is wrong and of the lower play field lights blinking on and off during attract. Not on the original. The sims are fun and some of the physics pretty good but they just are not the real deal.
I will say though that I had never played Totan live but knew the game halfway ok by playing sim. Well I got 2nd high or 2nd grand champion the first game I ever played on a real machine. I thought that was a grail machine but now realize it is to easy. But I still love the bonus count down.

Sys 2.5 ? Factory 7 digit wow , lucky you.
I have had a couple games that rolled the score but not many. I haven't gotten a million in a while now.

Yeah set it up correct jacking up back high is not how game was designed. Fast does not equal better.

Yes the gate opens and closes during attract.
If you have a lot of buzzing noise you can take apart clean and deburr it. It should be very quiet.

I would give you a pat Steve you don't have to give em to yourself.

I have the original set up for lower kick upI never had a problem
I never did the fancy mod.
Sometimes if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Did you go into switch test?

Q15 on driver board thru Q5 2n5879 on lower pf

Check switch es first then q15 then q5

Ball release is q16. Mpsu45 same as q15. You may just have a few driver board transistors out. That drives q2 on upper pf.

Did you check for proper 4.7k pull up resistors? I think some machine had 10k put in ( an error).

Honestly three system 80 machines and only one self inflicted problem in like 10 years. Once the bugs are worked out I think they are tanks. I like the gottlieb flipper feel too.

It is still bugging me that HH is ahead in the rankings. You got to be kidding me. Come on guys start entering some ratings. My theory is that HH just changes hands more often.

So I had to look as I couldn't remember solenoid test does not test the up kicker. But test 16 lamps test does. Ya got to give it a few seconds as it tests the under playfield relays and coin lockout it then goes and fires the both lower to upper pf and the ball serve.

Solenoid tests only do a few which are wrong in manual and I think a lot where coin counters???

The Gottlieb test modes pretty much suck.

One reason I would love to one of you guys with the Pascal boards show off the goodness!!!

If coil burns up it had nothing to do with diode on coil. Don't know what you thought you read. If the diode on coil had failed open the back emf could cause upstream damage. If coil diode fails shorted your fuse for that coil should immediately pop as it is a dead short and coil will not even be harmed.

1N4004-1N4007 any of those will work fine for coils.

A coil burning up is almost always due to an upstream driver that failed causing coil to be on forever. Or circuit over fused or a switch stuck closed telling coil to keep on firing.

Very nice button. I just recently saw bally translucent buttons not sure if the same as Gottlieb but a bunch of colors.

Sounds like ball search. You need to have three balls in machine.

Oh yeah. well I feel dum! At least I got the three balls correct.

http://www.niftyled.com/pinball-machine-blinker-led/

With code niftyfifty if you order today.

Man the Pascal board sounds freaking fantastic reporting errors like that. He should really make a YouTube video showing off all the wild features he has built in them. Did you get a manual ?? Or any documents with boards? Schematic??

There are a few large pf mounted transistors. I would test those. 2N5879 which are PNP transistors. Start by checking them with meter. Not sure about the 13 or 43 the numbers do not seem correct to me.

There are two coils of importance on lower level. A ball gate that keeps only one ball in the tube area and the tube kicker itself.

But all of mounted transistors are 2n5879 PNP.

Yeah those are a fine substitute. Beefier.

I remember there being a service bulletin about pull up resistor value. Make sure to check. If memory correct 4.7k is what you want not 10k. When I checked mine you follow wire from transistor to diode/resistor boards. And mine was already factory correct. But definitely something to check. Measure with meter to make sure its value is good. Within 10-20% your fine.

Have fun working on the bottom pf kind of sucks. Definitely lean upper pf against head and watch where the tube rests so you don't scratch it all up.

But the resistor is on the board right so it is already done. Don't follow the picture if the resistor is on the nearby component board.

Sounds like your all good there.

I don't remember but are there any fuses mounted on lower pf. Did you check them??

Non working switches just check wire solder connection at switch and make sure switch stack is tight. Clean with strip of 1/4" business card soaked in ipa. Just pinch and pull.

I edited above post is there lower pf mounted fuses?? Check them make sure the are good with meter.

Yes good ole black hole HH club of America. I think most is all good stuff the star tech journal info i would not trust. ? Memory.

So if pf trans OK and pull up checked new coil and diode. Diode by the way is just a back emf voltage spike preventer. If you put on wrong as a lot of guys do it will instantly cause your fuse to blow. Banded side should always go toward the power + side so current has to travel through the coil.

So last thing just check with meter collector to ground is good. Ohm meter power off. Then power on and measure voltage across collector and coil you should have 24v.

Pascal board you still have the gottlieb driver? As that is what Q13 lamp driver board transistor drives (turns on) the lower pf transistor that you just checked. So that Q13 mpsu45 on driver board is the next part to test. Which makes sense that it is reporting that number.

Okay I am confused I thought you still had a problem with up kicker. ?? Then you start talking making headway and lower flippers.

Try to ask for help one issue at a time. And work out only one issue at a time. Better to find problem part and replace rather than throwing all sorts of new parts at several areas. Plus you are confusing an old guy.

Ball hits switch on upper pf right before going down the metal spiral form this triggers lower pf lights and flipper power to be active. Relay L. I think??
Did that happen?
If you replaced a coil (any coil ) with diode across spade terminals. It is important which wires go where. ???

On schematics, it shows unbanded side goes to 233 (which is a white wire w/ red,orange,orange striping) to emitter.
Banded side 344 goes to fuse F17. White wire w/orange, yellow, yellow stripping.

It sounds like your good there.

God I hate seeing this. fuse should always be measured with ohm meter (power off) or volt meter power with power on. Very low ohms ic good or no volts. Very high ohm or high viltage if bad.
Fuses are either good or bad they don't (look,seem) OK. Thinking of Yoda now.

You have voltage from coil to ground?