Been enjoying my hardtop. Frankly: you can't go wrong: smooth, fast, long life and gorgeous vibrant graphics quality. Graphics quality wise, here are the three items that "bug" me:

- The strip in front of the targets on the lower playfield are transparent to show the wood, which is correct, but the same strips are white in the upper playfield (argh)
- The white "errors" in both outer lanes were not fixed. I was upset at first, but they matched my original PF
- The triangular lights are slightly smaller than original (to allow for variation from PF to PF), but frankly that bothers me the least.

In retrospect, and in the big scheme of things, those are minor distractions to a superior product.

_Capture1 (resized).JPG

_Capture2 (resized).JPG

Can someone walk me through removing or folding down the head on one of these? I've had many pins but oldest was 1985 high speed. Does the head hinge down on these or do you completely remove the head? Looking at possibly picking one up this weekend and want to do things right.
Looking real hard at joining this club soon. Thanks!

No hinge. Four bolts in the bottom of the head and remove.

There are about 6 wiring harness connectors and a ground wire to the head you need to disconnect. No need to disconnect at the boards.

Mark the connectors with a sharpie or something as there are a couple that are the same and you will blow the board if connected wrong.

In particular it's the 2 large wiring connectors between the head and cabinet that are the same size and keyed-alike. They're 36-pin connectors or something, you'll know when you find them. Don't mix those 2 up!

Also do NOT go by the colors of the connectors - normally one is white/natural, and the other is all black, but they did mess them up at the factory on some games and they ended up mismatched (or there was a head with one and body with another, etc)

I'll add, that once you remove the head bolts, you can just fold the head down like on a modern game. You just need a way to keep the head from sliding. When I bought my BK, I folded the head down and kept it in place with plastic wrap. Which is what I normally do anyway, so I basically moved it like a modern game. Just another option.

Are reproduction "Kohout MPU and driver boards" a good thing?

Help me decide between a few Black Knights. I've had 4 responses on Facebook.

Option 1: $2350 New Repro backglass, may or may not come with a hard top uninstalled (just finished a playfield swap, don't want another major project). Fresh boards and NVRAM from Eugene Mosh. Full LEDs. Playfield has some keylining around inserts and wear around lane switches.
Option 2: $2500 Nice original Backglass, Nice original playfield. Some slight keylining around inserts, mostly incandecent, repainted cabinet that looks nice. Reproduction Kohout MPU and Driver board that needs a new lithium battery to save settings (how hard could that be to replace)?
(out... too much) Option 3: Hardtop, some redone electronics, waiting a month for parts to finish $2900
(out... too much) Option 4 Completely restored, $3800. Too expensive but perfect.

I am leaning towards option 2 at the moment but open to suggestions.

I like #2 as well, depending on the PF. Kohout has great boards.

I've got a nice machine with CPR pf, plastics, mayfair BG, LEDs, bulletproofed original boards, and a nice cab. I wouldn't sell it for anything close to 2,500.

GL.

Null

Just joined the club with option 1. Loving the game so far and by far the oldest game I've ever had (older than me!). Is there a trick to accessing the menu on this 40 year old machine? I can play just fine but want to set it on freeplay.

20201018_125648 (resized).jpg

20201018_125657 (resized).jpg

One of my favorite shots in pinball is to hit the spinner when it’s lit from the ball coming thru the right flipper return lane. I love the sound when you nail it good!

Hope to get a BK and BK2K one day. I love those games but dont want to drive far for one.

Press advance until you get to option 18 max credits and set it to 00 for freplay. Make sure you have as many credits already on the machine as you want to show because they neither advance nor decrement once you set the credits to 00.

The colored LED's don't look too hot in the BG you plan on changing those?

Thanks! Green is coming out for sure. May keep red and blue. Looking through the image gallery here for ideas

I'm not too far from you. I put up a want add on Facebook and got 4 localish offers within a day. They are out there.

Is there. Trick to working the menu system on these?

See 30 second video.

Best advice is to read the manual. It’s not really intuitive like later models but it works fine if you go slow and step through it.

https://www.ipdb.org/files/310/Williams_1980_Black_Knight_English_Manual_with_paginated_schematics.pdf

Pushing the button on the right should take you into either audit mode or diagnostics/test mode depending whether the middle button is up or down (first click pushes it down, 2nd pops it back up). It doesn't appear to be responding to any button on the coin door.

I'd check the wiring and diode each switch on column 1 of the switch matrix. I usually give the a light tug at each wire and diode leg to make sure they're all connected firmly. Also make sure none of those switches are stuck closed, and that the solder lugs aren't touching anything adjacent or mashed together.

IMG_20201018_190142(1).jpg

Hmm. Buttons don't seem to work at all. Will troubleshoot. Fixed the backglass lighting though. Much better!

20201018_195908 (resized).jpg

Got the buttons working (reseated connectors) and finally got the attract sounds turned off so my kids aren't scared to go in the basement anymore.

What kind of LEDs do you guys use in these? Normally I am a fan of ultrabright white COMET 2SMD LEDs everywhere, but like the natural look of the incandescent on this machine and realize those would look awful here. Any recommendations? I would leave them but don't want the strain on the power supply on a 40 year old game.

Also thinking about adding these lights near the bottom. The guy I bough my machine from had an ultra sweet rebuilt game with sparkle playfield and had this by the drain. Thoughts?

Anyways... here is a neat BK lighting mod (not mine).

20201018_082523 (resized).jpg

I have mine upstairs and my 2yo runs away every time it plays the attract laugh. I love it!

Oh interesting, he has that Mirco playfield. How did the sparkle look, because it looks like crap on their website.

Looked nice in person. Just ordered some LEDs and rubbers to match the look. Guy I bought mine from said he had about 6k in his new build with the red strip lights. I don't know how it could have looked nicer.

Null

Help from the early SS experts please.

2500 – 4 code. Can play, but weird electronic sounds when game is on… not “attract speech”. 45 second video at end.

I can play my machine, but it even with the attract mode set to off, the machine makes electronic noises in a slowly rising pitch upon startup. I seem to have a 2500 – 4 code but cannot figure out how I got it or who to get rid of it. I can still play a game just fine and there are no strange symptoms during game play. I’d like to be able to leave my machine on when I’m not playing and in the room. Any ideas on how to dismiss this? Reading through old posts the standard clear methodology seems to be a power cycle with the door open. I have NVRAM… do I need to pull the chip and do this or would that screw up my game?

All help appreciated. 45 second symptoms video below. Thanks all and loving the game! Just left my official review/rating.

You should be able to clear this by cycling through the settings (just cycle them 1-50) and it should recover. I usually found that when I was in that state that I had lost my settings (like free play). I think I ultimately had power issues. I eventually changed out to a Rotten Dog power supply board and a Rotten Dog MPU/Driver board. It's no longer supported BUT I found a solid work around which I posted in this forum. My machine has been flawless for several years now. There are other replacement boardsets available out there also.

Got everything working 100% and got my LEDs in. New Titan rubbers coming next week to top it off.

When I was debating which early Solid State to buy I could only find 5 videos and no rules videos... so here is my humble contribution to the pinball video community with game overview, rules explanation, and gameplay.

Do they still sell these plates? Copper or brass but not sure.

20201025_123903 (resized).jpg

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/01-7037

Thanks!

Would anyone happen to have a set of Black Knight playfields in poor condition that would be a good candidate for a hardtop. My existing BK playfields are pretty decent and I might restore and clear coat them one day. Mostly looking for a winter project..

I have one that I was going to see about doing the same as I have another one currently in Hardtop mode. I can send you some pics and you can decide and if the price is right, I could let it go.
Mike

Dropped in Yellow Titan Rubbers. Love the results, but think I will order red flipper rubbers next time and switch those out.

I have done as much playfield touchup as I can outside of mylared areas. Every single insert on this is protected by mylar by someone in the past. Debating doing some test touchup over the mylar, but not brave enough to rip it off. Don't want to do a hardtop or a playfield swap as playfield is still pretty nice.

Only thing "wrong" with the machine is the upper multiball popout. I understand it needs a piece of metal in there to keep the plastic from cracking and can't find it anywhere.

Loving the game!

20201029_145644 (resized).jpg

20201029_154818 (resized).jpg

There's nothing really wrong with it. Unless your plastic is already cracked, it is probably not going to happen under home use.

But if you are worried about it Cliffy sells them as well as a kit for the whole machine.

It was all so good but now it's dead. I’m lost and requesting help.

Did an LED job and replaced rubbers on new to me (2 weeks ago) 1980 Black Knight. Everything worked fine. Left pins on next to me in work office for 6 hours the next day and stepped out to see not an error code, but a completely dead machine. Power cycled it… nothing. Went to bed and tried the next day. Machine boots up fine… stays on 10 seconds… then goes off… Coin door coin reject keeps pulsing. No lights in inserts, then none on playfield. Code 9 on MPU board in backbox, then code 0. The longer I wait between trying to power it on, the longer it will stay on (up to 10 seconds). However, if I try to turn it back on it will last about 5 seconds before going out, then 3 seconds the next time… then nothing. It feels to me like a component is overheating and my intuition brings be to the power supply. Looking into the logic fuses… one looks kind of toasty, but replacing it with a new 7 Amp Fast blow fuse has no effect. I just ordered some slow blow fuses but it will be a few days and wanted to know if you had any other ideas. Interestingly, a continuity test does not work on the old 7 amp fuses, but does work on the new 7 amp fuses. However, there is absolutely no life in the machine using the new fuses. Cross posting in Black Knight club and main page. Thanks all!

20201031_174940 (resized).jpg

20201031_181118 (resized).jpg

20201031_181335 (resized).jpg

0 left on the CPU board indicates a locked up CPU.

When in this state, try pressing the reset button on the cpu board (probably will result in the same thing).

What is the numeric display doing while it is running? Is it on 9 the entire time, then goes to 0?

Tried the reset button... no effect (assuming its the two white buttons to the left of the indicator number).

Okay... if I unplug the connection to the coin door, it goes to 0. If I plug it in it goes to 9. When I got the machine I had to plug that back in to get the coin door buttons to work so that was likely a previous issue... Thanks!

All original

3765 (resized).jpeg

3766 (resized).jpeg

3768 (resized).jpeg

3769 (resized).jpeg

After much work, I finally have ALMOST everything on my BK working. But the sound still eludes me.

Randomly, the sound will work. Most of the time, it will make no sound. Sometimes when you turn it on, the sound will work, but it will be the wrong sounds... Like the launch ball beat... all the time.
Other times, the sound will just start working out of nowhere and be perfect. I sent all the board off to be repaired and they supposedly work... But clearly, something is not right.

When i have no sound, if I crank up the volume I hear that hum, so I know the speaker is working. Any suggestions?

After more than 5 weeks down, I "Fixed" my Black Knight Machine and can play again!

Games a blast!

(When I say Fixed, I mean I bought a new KOHOUT MPU Board from Pin PCB. Took a while to get here, but a plug and play replacement. I can now troubleshoot the original board a bit more and see if I can get it working again).

Thanks All!

20201207_205253 (resized).jpg

20201207_210007 (resized).jpg

I've started a restoration thread in the Restoriations section of Pinside. I've begun refinishing my cabinet and have just finished the paint on the back box. Used Pinball Pimp stencils.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/black-knight-gets-some-new-paint-and-pinball-pimp-stencil-work-#post-6005920

My BK displays have decided to stop working. I tried a newly repaired CPU in the pin that has new ROMs and ROM sockets and passes all the tests with Marcos test ROM. (including ROM socket test)
I left the pin on for several hours with no problems initially.
The following day no displays. I have good 100V, -100V, 5V and 3.8V blanking to the master display board and have the orange glow in all the displays.
Although the machine boots into attract mode and I can add credits and start a game, I have an error code 4 on the CPU LED. This has changed from a 6 earlier today. These both relate to ROM issues. I am thinking this is unrelated to displays but can't understand how the pin is booting and playing.

That seems super odd however, consider this: The same PIA that runs the displays, sends the number to the 7 segment LED status display on the CPU board. I would suspect the PIA at IC18 on the CPU board.

Hi! New guy here, just revived my long-dormant Black Knight and am having a problem where it always powers up in diagnostic/setting mode and with setting values at default. I go through the setting procedure to put it into freeplay & 5-ball and all's good; game play works fine. Until I turn the power off and back on again, at which point I'm back into diagnostic/setting mode and have lost those setting changes. So I change them again and all's good again.

Have any of you run into this issue and/or have any suggestions what to check beyond that the three AA batteries are good (they are).

And now for a little introduction: I bought my Black Knight back in 1993 or 4, played it for about 5 years or so, and then it stopped working. It has sat collecting dust for the last 20 years until last month when I decided it was time to get it back in action. The CPU self-test was returning a different number every time, and sometimes displaying random led segments that didn't even make a digit, so I figured I had a circuit board problem of some sort. Sent the main & driver board to Tim Nabours for repair and when I got them back yesterday the game was up and running in short order. While I was waiting for the board repair I replaced the o-rings which had deterioriated badly, and when I got it back up and running I replace a handful of burnt bulbs, but otherwise it's unrestored and original. I have a couple minor issues with lights that aren't as simple as dead bulbs, but I'll ask about those in a different post if I can't figure it out myself.

After looking at the playfield pics here I have concluded that mine is what would be called a "high mileage example" in the motorcycle restoration/collecting field (my main hobby). I didn't even know the drop targets were supposed to have art on them -- mine are just bare pink -- and the "When Lit" part in the center of the Magna-Save is completely worn off.

Anyway, that ran on longer than I planned -- excited to find this community and super happy to be playing my Black Knight again, and thanks in advance for any help that you all might be able to provide.

timk_black_knight (resized).jpg

Following up... Got the playfield lights working (should've waited a bit before taking and uploading that pic I guess) and found some info in one of my manuals that seemed relevant to my main problem described above, but it didn't solve it.

I have a booklet of schematics which includes a couple introductory pages of assembly & setup. In the Power Turn-On and Game Setup section, paragraph 2 part b says:

If the game still comes on in the diagnostic mode, open the coin door and turn the game OFF, and ON twice. This is an indication of the batteries being removed with the power OFF or coming loose during shipment. [note -- I did remove the batteries with the power off to check their voltage and so this seemed relevant] This has also resulted in features reverting to factory settings. Any changes from factory settings must be reentered using procedures provided in the instruction booklet. [again, right in line with what I'm experiencing]

So I thought, eureka! But no. If I leave the game powered off for more than a few minutes it comes back on in diagnostics mode. Argh.

The next paragraph (3) says:

If the game still comes on in the diagnostic mode, refer to troubleshooting procedures in the maintenance manual.

I don't have the maintenance manual, just the instruction booklet and the schematic booklet with these setup instructions.

So still stuck and hoping one of you more experienced Black Knight owners will have a clue or two for me. Thanks.

Is the transition here from metal rail to rubber supposed to be smooth? Watching some Youtube videos, the ball seamlessly transitions onto the rubber and continues down to nicely feed the upper left flipper. On my machine, after whipping the ball up the left ramp or when a ball pops out of the ball lock, instead of rolling nicely to the flipper, this transition bumps the ball quite a bit, causing it to hop along the rubber, obscuring that feed... or with a lot of velocity from the ramp shot, the bump may cause the ball to completely bypass the flipper and immediately shoot down the rightmost ramp. That's the most frustrating.

It's not the end of the world, as it makes it more challenging, but it seems way more satisfying and flowy to have that be a smooth feed. Is it possible the rubber there is too thick? Or could the posts be slightly positioned incorrectly?

Thanks!

Screen Shot 2021-01-11 at 11.25.54 PM (resized).png

I swapped the CPU out before I could fix this, due to the multiple issues, but I was leaning towards the 74154 chip which was receiving pulsing input signals (logic probe) but output was fixed (can't remember if high or low).

Yes.

The rubber feed is there not only to absorb the abuse from the pop bumper, but also as you noted to encourage some bounciness to toss the ball towards the upper PF exits. (If you couldn't lose the ball from the upper PF the game would never end. See black knight 2000!)

But to adjust it you need to either get the ramp metal up, the posts down, or the rubber thinner. Some filling and redrilling of holes may be required, I forget if those posts are machine threaded screws into Tnuts or not. It's been however long CPR make black knight playfields that I've had mine apart, but I know that I made sure of this transistional area (I always do this on PF swaps regardless of title) being spot on.

Yours looks pretty extreme, you might be able to change the posts to the thinner style to shave the clearance you need..... but the other end has to feed that left flipper, too, so looks like some experimentation is needed to get this right.

It only took me 3 months but I finally beat the default high score!

16114026060275430898814718599302 (resized).jpg