No setting for that that I know of. Maybe a switch matrix issue?

Its too odd to be unintentional I think. I dont know where to start lol. Is there any chance having the wrong roms or something could cause these results? I was up all night and got all switched etc to work most of the time right now. All drops are working now but still, blue and red banks work in almost in unison.

What rom version do you have?

Put the game in switch test (reset drop targets and remove the balls first), test each drop target manually and see which number gets displayed for each one. The manual shows the number for each switch on the switch matrix diagram.

Board work is not my forte. I have a flash board with a black knight add on thing stamped 1982. I was told the flash board is fine but clearly not. I see some wire jumping to the tiny Black knight 82 "board". I have completely disconnected this board out of curiosity and it doesnt seem to do a damned thing. As far as I can tell, the game plays the same. I've included lots of pics of the boards and the add on board. Maybe someone with lots of experience will spot my flaw no problem. I'm mechanical inclined so I like tinkering with playfield mechs but computers are totally alien to me. I dont even own one.

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Huh, there's definitely some custom stuff going on there in the backbox. Drop-target banks should definitely be acting independently. Have you tried taking the batteries out to reset all the settings back to default? Might be worth seeing what happens, unless you all ready did that. Also, that wear around the bumper is a little strange, I would have thought the mylar-ring would have prevented that. Unless of course your bumper doesn't have one.

Pretty sure my Black Knight's back legs were longer than the front ones. Don't have it anymore to check, but I'm 99% sure that they were.

Tried removing batteries and found an online manual to check settings. Idk?

The driver board with the "Flash" label on it is no problem. The driver board is interchangeable with many games as long as the jumpers are added to the switch matrix, which your board has.

That "Black Knight 82" board is certainly not stock and I bet it has something to do with why your drop banks are working together.

Where do the wires lead on the A and B connectors?

Where do the white and orange wire lead that go behind the board that are in the wire nut?

You may want to start a new thread to track the investigation of this mod. There may be people on Pinside that have seen it before that are not in this club thread. I would love to know what that mod is all about!

...... there’s something unique on that machine. Please done change anything until we can figure out what is going on.

I’m going to send you a direct message, I have a few suspicions that I’d like to ask about.

Here are those pics. Disconnecting the jumper board oesnt seem to affect the game at all though.....? Curioser and curioser.

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So, I dug up an old pinside thread that had another little perfboard almost idential to that one, but in a firepower. I'm very confused as to the purpose.

Both have "Copywrite F.M.T." on them. I wonder who that was. Much less random at this point since the Firepower board looks identical.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/firepower-what-is-this-little-board

-Hans

Posted a video. Cheers all.

In the words of Mr. Spock...Fascinating.

I have a guess what that add-on board is for. I'm betting it eliminates the 2nd switches on the special solenoid controlled coils..... meaning the pop bumper and slingshots.

Two way to tell. One is to check if those spots still have the dual switches in place. Another would be to disconnect the board and see if those mechanisms still score points with it disconnected. Interesting concept for sure.

-Hans

Seems like a lot of trouble to go thru just for relatively measly pop and sling scoring that don't have any other major scoring purposes. Even for switch test you can test those without lifting the pf by actuating the mechs manually right? I've never had any problem with the scoring of those on my Wms machine from that era. And why would they bother noting the name of the game on the board, i.e. BK and Firepower so far. Still very weird.

That is what I was thinking...
I think it might have to do with the
coil stuck switch type stuff.

Just a little info based on the recommendation. Whether connected or not, the slings score 10 and the pop scores 510. No change.

I'll get more into it this week

See what it does if you block the scoring switches with that board plugged in.

<<Collecting all three arrows again (while still acting in a paired manner) gets the "I cannot defeat thee">>

It says exactly that? It's supposed to say 'I cannot slay you, you win' when a credit is won, 'I cannot defeat thee' isn't listed in the phrases list in the manual and 99% mine never says that. If it does say that and it never should especially for just a target completion would be SUPER weird. When that happens does anything else happen like an odd amount of extra points or a credit or anything?

I'm sure its just the slay phrase and I mis spoke. I was just trying to say that is when I get the knight defeated sounds.

KnockerPTSD
Left wire are the flipper return ground.
2J12---2P12
pin 2 ORN-GRY
pin 1 ORN-VIO
Mounted to the back of the flipper relay
on the IO board.

That board is a switch doubler.
The drop targets are to be independent of each other.
They are now tied to each other.
There are no settings to make the drop targets extra easy.

If it is a switch doubler causing the goofy target bank behavior it wouldn't still do it when removed. I suppose the switches being doubled like that if somebody indeed did it on purpose as opposed to just a glitch would sort of bypass the problem of one or two targets switches getting real dirty or totally failing, then a player would be more likely to still be able to advance the completions for extra balls and not get all pissed off. That sounds too weird though. And so what does the board do in that Firepower... And the speech phrase that shouldn't happen at that point. Like you said in the vid - weird!

Finished up the ‘correct the faded blue & green inserts with modified warm white LEDs’ thing on my otherwise-#44-equipped BK so they look as close as I could discern from pics to the original hue and with 44-like brightness level. Used multiple layers of blue and/or purple (or only green) cello as necessary, laminated together with 2-sided tape. For the blues (the worst) I cut into disks big enough to block any white light leakage and applied them to 2X brite warm white no-lens LEDs. Green inserts not as faded, 1 layer of green + tape sealed around 1X clear-lensed LEDs brought ‘em back up to snuff. Already had the LEDs, maybe 5 bucks for the cello.

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For what it's worth, I played all last night with the board out and.didnt notice a difference. I'll be putting it back in incase it is to do with burning coils but it's an odd thing, that's for sure.

Just a bump of my inquiry about this plastic piece. If anyone has a spare they'd part with, please PM me. Cheers

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The LED on it, does it ever light up or blink to begin with? Like when game is on, during play, during diagnostics or when activating the coin switches, see if it ever comes on or blinks or flashes. The thread about the one in Firepower doesn't mention if the LED comes on or not either. Course it's always possible the board itself has failed and why you don't see any difference with it in or out, whatever the hell it's supposed to be for.

Is it possible it's related to how a game can't start if the cpu doesn't see all three balls sitting in the trough(s) so this thing somehow bypasses that in case of dirty switch(es)? Board age is only 2 years older than BK and Firepower and that switch thing would kill earnings, those are notorious for being glitchy even after they have been cleaned. Firepower, same thing where it has to see all three balls, and it was their first solid state multiball. Goofy idea, all I can think of.

Hey, I havent had a chance to check all.those suggestions but I know the game wont start with a ball in the shooter lane because Ill occasionally think I've broken something while working on it because ill push start and nothing happens....then I notice the ball and feel like a dummy lol

Probably just has the shooter lane switch not registering for some reason. That era of Williams games had a lot of incorrectly assembled leaf switches and they often need a good cleaning and sometimes replacement. They put the rivets in on the wrong side of the leaf pretty regularly which causes havoc with the gold plating.

Game should start as long as it registers three balls in any combination of the main trough, upper multiball trough, or shooter lane.

-Hans

I’m going to keep the ClassicArcades ones I got this week of the ‘prototype’ lane guides. Yeah these don’t have transparent edges but the green vs. the tiny bit of green there is on my original plastics looks the same to me, and honestly since I put them on I totally forgot they were even there during play especially since they aren’t backlit. Every version has something 'wrong' with it - they either look dumb upside down or the art is non-original because somebody flipped it. If Williams had printed them correctly but still not used them or they had used them on some first run games, even upside down, THEN I’d be obsessed with getting those exact ones even if I had to buy a whole set. And nobody seems to be sure exactly how these were planned to be mounted... like this, or stacked above the guides on posts, or without the steel guides altogether and lit. They are a nice touch though.

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Looks Good!! maybe I'll re-evaluate and put mine back on.

Anyone install the Cliffys ball guides? Significant improvement? Lots of ball hop on mine (stock) no matter how much finagling I do.

Got ‘em on my Firepower. Silk!

Cliffy's enhanced guides are amazing. I put them on every machine I can. Second best thing you can do on BK after rebuilding the flippers

Wish there was a way to prevent fly-thrus in the ball trough when a thru-the-flippers drained ball comes in so fast and at the right angle that it ends up in the shooter kicker or even all the way to the shooter, without triggering the outhole switch for a sort of free 'extra ball with bonus memory'. Doesn't happen very often at all though, gotta be same issue with other Williams games from around then depending on the layout. Oh well at least it's a freebie as opposed to gipping you.

I wrote Cliff an email about this upper guide piece. Anyone elses pretty mushroomed? Mine has alot of hop when hitting the rubber. A fast shot up the left ramp can hit the rubber and bounce straight down the centre ramp without touching the flipper. Curious if there are others that would be interested in replacing this piece.

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Mine doesn't any mushrooming there at all but not a lot of mileage on it. Is that just the result of balls shot towards the target bank and glancing off the rubber? Mine does a tiny bit of hop there especially if the ball's really moving, I bet they all do but not enough to prevent a flipper shot or hopping all the way over it and down the ramp. I've always used white rubbers, might be a little skinnier? Where your guide meets the rubber doesn't look dinged at all so maybe you can slightly adjust that end of the guide upwards a teeny bit via the screw holes or the red post or something like that. Maybe if the guides screws are loosened you can push upward while retightening and get a little higher positioning on it.

I only just swapped to black rubber this week. Same as white. Adjusting only helps so much. The piece has a curve in it from the mushrooming so it has a small scoop effect on the ball. It nothing major but it definitely change the gameplay

Did you verify exactly how much is the 'scoop' effect and how much is just it hitting the rubber by pulling that end of the rubber off and flinging a few balls down there real fast with your finger?

I'm looking at getting some.board work done. Maybe someone can help me.out here to see what might be more worth it? I'm not good with board knowledge thanks. What boards/parts would be needed if buying updated boards like rottendog or similar products? I want to price out the costs/benefits of installing new boards that will never be an issue in my lifetime vs an unknown amount of board repairs that may need to be worked on again down the road (oh, and the battery pack moved/eliminated)

(For anyone unfamiliar with my issues in the last page or 2, game is playable but has hacks and plays incorrectly/not as intended)
I'm doing the whole Hardtop project anyway so it may be worth it to get new boards and I can follow basic install instructions. I'm not a dummy, I just would be utterly lost trying to locate the source of my grief on the existing boards. Still leaning toward cheaper repair job but it all depends just how expensive these new parts cost. Like I implied, I dont even know what is necessary to get a Black Knight up and running in the first place.
Thanks again guys.

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If you do send them out for repair, maybe the repair person can check those roms, see if they're standard or not.

Or if you get new boards, I'll buy the old boards and roms

Not the best fix but it's better than it was.
Some clear scrap plastic, super glue poster paints lol.

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Yeah, your best bet is probably a good board-repair person. I'm pretty sure the Rottendog boards are know to have some issues. Mainly sound-related I believe, but others would be more familiar than me.

Correct, there's something off in the sounds with the Rottendog boards and Black Knight, or at least there was. A couple sounds don't play for some reason but I don't know which ones it is.

-Hans

Note: if you change the plunger to the top kickout to the medium size length,
( kickout that is used on Adams Family), it saves a lot of the wear and tear on the playfield.

Do you have a part number for that plunger? I was looking in the Addams
Family operators guide and there's a few different kicker/kickout assemblies on it. Is it the one for the electric chair?

Edit: would a higher resistance coil be an alternative solution?

Ball Shooter Lane Feeder
pg. 2-18
item #5.
A-8050-1 Coil Plunger Assy, 2-1/8"