slochar Thanks for the confirmation and the suggestion. I investigated today, and it turned out the holes for the two lower screws on that ramp metal were stripped, causing those screws to be loose and ultimately resulting in the guide having the wrong angle.

Found another thread on here suggesting the use of chopsticks to refill the stripped hole. Tried it out and it seemed to work like a charm. I was able to then securely screw in, and now the transition works nice and smooth. Yay!

Felt great when I finally beat mine. Gave up going for it after a while because the pressure made me play worse, then one day I just had one of those games where I passed 1 million on ball 1, and managed to earn an extra ball, and had a great ball 2, and boom I did it. Definitely memorable. Trouble was, after I did it, I lost a bit of interest in BK. That one goal had kept me coming back for a while.

Hmm, sounds to me kinda like maybe the batteries aren't keeping the memory powered? This could be the cause. I owned a BK for a while, but I never had to really fix anything on it. I did take apart the drop target assemblies to put on new target decals. But that was about it.

Congratulations! I know how good that feels: it took me 36 years! I was unable to beat the default score at the arcade back in the 80's, and it is only after I bought a well worn BK, restored it, that a year later, I finally got past the 2.5M default as well (on 3 balls of course). My next goal is to roll it over, but I am not even close. The good news is that I have been able to refine my strategy, which makes a difference in my consistency.

Another of my goals is to light up and win the "special", which so far, is proving to be an impossible task to do in 30 seconds.

My strategies (in order of priority) - some of which are obvious (sorry):

• Keep both magna-saves activated
• Once both magna-saves are lit, then prioritize multi-balls
• In multi-ball, maximize the 3x points by leveraging the high-value two inner lanes (lit spinner and lit mystery)
• Don't be shy or slow to use the magna-saves to capture a ball, get 5 bonus points, and to return the ball to the upper playfield
• Keep at least one ball locked in the upper-field when on my last ball (leverage the outer-lane "last chance" feature)

Any other tips?

I had (almost) the same problem, in that my settings would disappear after 1-2 days after installing fresh batteries. I found that the batteries were draining very quickly, and eventually I replaced two diodes that are designed to ensure the batteries only power the settings RAM when the power is off. The diodes I replaced are: D18 (1N5817) and D17 (1N4148), although it turns out in my case that only D17 was bad. Good luck!

Hi Folks
I am brand new on here and wanted to get some advice on a couple of little issues that I am having with my Black Knight LE. It's in good overall shape and I am just doing some stuff that seems to make sense...putting in LEDs, replacing worn parts etc. I have run into one specific issue that I wanted an opinion on...I have a dead pin (#4) on my 2J7 lead from the circuit board. I have checked and I can get the insert lights to work by supplying alternate power. I presume that there must be an issue somewhere on this specific circuit on the board, but wanted thoughts on how to proceed before I start desoldering transistor/resistors etc.
I appreciate any advice
Thanks!
Ken

What alternate power are you applying and to where exactly? That's lamp row 4, are lamps on that row the only ones affected, or all of them? Have you reflowed that connector's pins on the board? Do you measure/see good contact on that pin 4 between connector and board, and from the connector pin 4 and those lamps?

The "SPECIAL" light has always been mystery to me on how it works exactly. It is not mentioned in the instruction card, and the manual was not completely clear to me, but as it turns out, is accurate upon re-reading it.

Here is a bullet point summary:

• The "Special" light will never light up as part of a single player game. It is only a feature of a multi-player game.

• At the end of the multi-player game, the person with the highest score gets a timed "bonus ball"
• Timer is set to a default of 30 seconds.
• You get all three balls and magna-saves are available continuously (yay)
• You do not get triple-scoring, and the Mystery & spinner are disabled (boo)
• During those 30 seconds, hit all four drop target banks once, which lights the "Special"
• Once lit, activate the Special by sending a ball through the turnaround. The "extra ball" will be lit (which was confusing - I was hoping to get a regular extra ball, but... no)
• Continue playing until the timer reaches zero
• The Special will reward you with another "bonus ball" 30 second session

I'll say this: it's hard to activate while under the pressure of the countdown, but with practice, it does get easier. What I did to practice:

• Go into the settings (#34), and set the timer to 99 seconds (yup, it's cheating)
• Start a 2 player game
• Drain the balls as quickly to get to the end of the game
• Practice the "bonus ball" session
• Rinse and repeat until you get the hang of it
• Bring the timer down to 60 seconds, practice some more, and then back to the 30 second default
</lu>

Ultimately, a nice additional little challenge that I had not taken advantage of until now (and the extra points are a nice bonus)

You can set adj. #27 to '00' and then the special will award a credit instead. For me the special is already hard enough to light on the default bonus ball timer setting and only available on a multiplayer session to boot so if and when I hit it I want a whole free game. Besides, 'special' always means free game in pinball parlance. But I can see where if it is set to award more bonus balls and the bonus ball time is set liberally enough, it would be challenging to try keeping the bonus balls going and going.

Trying to rescue a Black Knight from the dead...

The machine I'm working with has an XPin power supply and Rottendog MPU / driver board. While re-attaching the head, I have this cable left over, with no obvious connection point. I'm wondering if this was once needed prior to the board conversion, and no longer required? The other end of the cable is coming from the transformer.

I've looked through all the forum photos, and can't find anything that looks like this going to the original "stock" boards.

Can anyone offer a clue as to it's purpose? (and yes, I know the connector is burnt, and it has a loose pin).

Thanks for any help!

connector (resized).jpg

Is it really long? Looks a lot like the power for the sound board

I have the 9 - pin to the sound board connected (with only 3 wires used of the 9 pins).

This is a 6 - pin. It's fairly long, but not quite long enough to get to the upper right portion of the head.

Any other ideas?

Again, thanks for any help.

Those gray wires are the correct color and quantity for the sound board power connection. That is a broken connector with only 6 positions left. It could have been a 9 pin connector before it broke.

I’m with zacaj in that it looks like the sound board power connector at J1. Trace the wires on the other 9 pin connector you currently have on J1 to see where they go. J1 should only have 3 wires on it.

Maybe turn the game on and measure the voltage on those wires to give another clue.

Do you think the transformer is original?

Do the wires from the mystery connector share the transformer terminals with any other wires? If so, where do they go?

Except looking at my BK and the circuit diagram, there are three connector pin positions - 1/2, 5/6, & 8/9. On mine it's 1, 5 and 9. So you would need a span of at least seven pins where it would still work. This one looks like the three wires span only five positions. Unless somebody screwed with the old board's pin wiring including the n/c pos. 4 so it could work with only five but that would be weird.

I'm fairly comfortable with the connector currently plugged into the sound board. First, it actually reaches the location and my "mystery connector" is about 6 inches to short. The one I have plugged in there is a 9 pin, with gray, gray/white, gray/green wires.

Could my "mystery connector" go to the playfiled? Or maybe the MPU prior to the Rottendog MPU/Driver combo board? Or maybe to the original power supply prior to the XPin conversion? What's really puzzling is that I don't have anything left on the boards that doesn't already have something plugged into it.

The "mystery connector" is not fused, coming straight from the transformer (circled in yellow)

IMG_6952 (resized).jpgIMG_6989 (resized).jpgIMG_6990 (resized).jpgIMG_6994 (resized).jpg

That is what the schematic says but in reality, the wires are rarely looped to both pins. They are typically only on one pin like in the picture above.

Williams specified they be on 2 pins to share the load between both pins. You really only need one pin to make it work and the sound board doesn't typically draw that much power.

Well, that looks like the right connector on your sound board.

The mystery connector would not go to the power supply as the same transformer winding is on P1 of the power board (wires circled in red).

According to the schematic the 18v center tap winding only goes to the Sound Board (J1) and the Power Supply (J1). There are no other locations where those wire colors go either.

Typically, wires to the playfield would not use that type connector, it is only used for board connections.

Can you take the transformer shield off and see if those wires lead to the same terminals as the other wires that lead to the power supply and the sound board? You probably should unplug the game from the wall before messing on the transformer board, there are bare terminals with 120V on them there.

Image002 (resized).jpg

Thanks for the reply Frenchmarky...

It has been a crazy busy (and cold ) week here in Calgary. I finally had a chance to take a closer look at my lamp row problem. It is for sure on pin 4, of 2J7. I bypassed the pin to ensure that the lamps are good, and I can get them all to light up.

I took the logic tester to this circuit and found that resistor #111 (1.5k) was dead on one side so I replaced it thinking this was all it was. (In the centre of the photo, different colour than the rest) No go...

Now when I logic test the circuit with just on/off power, the rest of that section of the board lights up the right side of those resistors with a square<200khz which seems normal. That one just reads a logic 0...no pulsing at all. In fact I checked the left side of the bigger Resistor #112 100 ohm and there was no pulse there as well.

lamp2J7 (resized).jpgAny suggestions on where to go now would be awesome. I know enough to be dangerous, but this is getting out of my zone a bit hahaha.

Thanks
Ken

2J7Schematic (resized).jpg

Hi,

I am restoring a BK and currently have the lower playfield in a rotisserie and the upper PF off on another bench. Question: Three of the four drop target bank frames seem to lean back about a degree or two. It is noticeable with the PF turned upside down. Did these get bent over the years or is that the design? Should the drop targets be perpendicular to the PF? Is it worth the time now to bend the frames?

Mines not leaning. Instead of trying to bend the frames maybe stick a washer under the front to level it out?

Does anyone have a list of inserts colors / sizes?

To me, it looks like the circular ones are 5/8", 3/4", 1" and 1-3/16". Does that sound correct?

Got fed up with my worn-out unreliable drop target switches (clean and adjust, switch begins failing again, rinse and repeat etc. etc. for 30 freaking years.) The blades and points are just shot. So now replacing with modern rollover microswitches with the plastic mounts that are used on new games. Don't need to modify anything on the drop banks besides dumping the old switches, they fit the existing screw holes and I’m reusing the stack screws too. Actuator wires will be angled as shown so they won’t interfere with the reset bar and tweaked for open/close positions etc.
Need to use right-sided switch mounts on the top two switches on each bank so as to avoid things like the reset bar nut, and each other. Left-sided mount for the remaining switch. A tiny corner of some of the switch mounts may need to be snipped off to clear bracket edges to ensure they will mount flush. Fit and operation checks out so now I’m in the process of converting them all.

154385984_797737991158680_4304662794961486941_n (resized).jpg154939718_439519520799158_4370789822499638607_n (resized).jpg

Correction - top two switches, left mount. Remaining switch can be left or right.

You could do it with the older, smaller much less common mounts where the microswitch is situated exactly where the old one was and with a flat actuator, but would need to use screw-on switches that fit them. And likely the actuator would still need to be tweaked for this particular application (BK's switches mounted at an angle) for length and throw, and making sure the switch has low enough pressure for these targets. I went with these rollover ones as they are very low pressure (more throw), I can tweak the wire actuator in any direction vs a flat one and the switch and mount are universal parts where if one does fail you can just swap the actuator onto a new switch and pop it in. I'm sure others have used various methods for doing this changeover.

Thank you for sharing. Much more elegant solution than what I had in mind!

The wireforms are actually messy looking the way I have to form and tweak each wire by hand, none of them turn out the same. Wish I had a machine that could do it precisely since it's only two different versions. But now with one bank finished I should get a little better at duplicating them. I think a right sided mount would work for the third switch too, but with a left mount it is sort of a mirror image of the others as far as the angle.
156175508_249717353551353_81995631749670438_n (resized).jpg

Correction - the two top switches in pic are left mounts. Remaining switch can be right or left.

Drop target conversion finished. Now I won't be cleaning them for the umpteenth time and then playing it with that aggravating thought in the back of my head, "When is one of those sons a' bitches going to go south on me again?!" It's a total drop target game so just one acting up can ruin the fun.

I was experimenting with the wireform angles as I went and got better at it but the one circled I think is a good version. Stays clear of reset bar up or down but at an angle so no fear of it ever falling off the edge of the target... maximum distance to work with as far as between target edge (corner) and the reset bar. So they are not consistent looking nor pretty but anyway they all stay well clear of the reset bar and are dialed in as far as opening/closing. For the switches on each end, wireform needs to avoid the screw heads. On the solder lugs I needed to replace a common wire or two on each bank that were now too short for the new switches' positioning. Also the corner I snipped off the switch mounts needed to be trimmed a little more to maximize the leeway in the exact positioning of the switch before you tighten it down.

If you only have one or two switches that are worn out and are always bugging you, this would be a relatively easy, reliable replacement. And anybody could do a nicer looking job than I did! XD

157060833_287377496074984_5995023765512101631_n (resized).jpg

BK Speech Available as Digital Sound Files?

I'm just wondering if anyone here knows where I could look for the speech of the original BK pinball.
Has anyone ever bothered to record the speech and post it to YouTube?
In BK:SOR, Stern includes just one piece of original BK speech: "I will fight you, my enemy."
I would like to find more. Any ideas?
Thanks.

Load the rom in pinmame and record the output

Hmm. Pinmame? I've never heard of it, but I will look into it now!
Thanks!

I'm having a hard time downloading this program. Do you know offhand where I can find it?
The website below was the most promising, but the download fails each time I try.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/pinmame/

This seems to be within the VPinball world. I've logged onto VPForums and I'm trying to find a download of PinMame there, but I'm only seeing VPinMame. Not sure where to go next. Can you help?

i just picked up a BK in a barn find, machines in real good condition but had flipper issues.
I added new Kohout power driver and a new high power board and all 4 new pinball life flipper assemblies.
hooked everything up same as it was and looking at the archive pics on this thread they are the same as shown.
so upper and lower left side flippers work correctly, right lower is dead, right upper machine guns then blows the fuse.
so any help appreciated. I didnt add the new kohout MPU board so thinking the problem is there?

Post pics of the wiring to the coils and eos for the problem flippers. My guess is a wiring issue.

Machine gunning flippers is typically either a bad hold coil, mis-wired coil, or an issue with an EOS switch. There's no CPU control other than the main power relay turning on and off, which affects all 4 flippers equally.

I got it, a 2 cent flipper diode was bad. the assemblies were all new so i guess i assumed was all good. the bad diode killed that side but good to go now! thanks to the quick input, always look for the easy stuff I guess

Awhile back my flippers were working fine except out of nowhere the MPU would sometimes go off the rails in the middle of a game and it blew the sol. fuse once. Then noticed one flipper diode looked like it had practically exploded but it was still hanging in there enough to allow the flipper to work, new diode fixed it.

Just picked up a Black Knight Limited and was wondering what the differences were between the 2 models. Ipdb does not really state anything. I know I've read it a longtime ago somewhere , but do not recall the information . Thanks

The sticker on the apron, and some or all of the troublesome lock/trough switches were replaced with more reliable microswitches.

Thank you.

Different magnet relays too...at least on my buddy's LE they're different from the relays on my non-LE. I can't explain why but the magnets on his game are notably stronger on his game than mine. I'm still trying to figure out why

Are they stronger or are they set to remain on longer than yours?

They're definitely stronger. I'll have to take videos to compare. We both have our games set to the factory settings for length of time the magnets activate. On my game, you might lose the ball 40-50% of the time from a magna save, especially if the ball is moving fast when the magnet catches it. On his, it successfully saves the ball like 95%+.

I've tried new connectors and headers from the magnets to the power supply board and I've got a solid ground connection on the end of the white/red ground wire. Nothing I've tried has improved or weakened their performance. Next up, I'm trying new magnet cores and relays. I don't expect to see any drastic change, but i want to try everything i can. I guess I'll try new magnets eventually, but i could swear i tried some years ago. It's just weird, i always thought the magnets' behavior on my game was normal until i saw how strong they are on his LE.

Rewire them to 50volts and stick a later system 7/system 9 flipper transformer/power supply in the game.

Have you tried filing the magnet relay contacts?

Yeah, tried filing the relays contacts too.

I have wondered about the possibility of doing something like you suggested, but i figured I'd cover all my bases and make sure there's nothing I'm overlooking. I'll have to get a closer look at the relays and coils and compare resistances on the magnet coils next time i get a chance to get a look at the LE again.

Can't imagine there'd be any noticeable difference in performance between the exposed EM relay or the enclosed one they used later. The older one has two high power switches in parallel (which are simple to clean/redress) and I imagine the newer one has that as well. But never saw inside one of those. Mine is an early one with the sys 6 power supply but never felt like the magnets are underpowered but have never played an LE. When I fail to catch a ball it's almost always one zooming fast right for the outlane (where I'll be slower getting to the button too) and not right over or near the magnet... not ones that seem 'catchable'.

....2 balls kicking out into the shooter lane..please help

Does it do it every time, consistently?

Check the operation of switches in the lower trough and shooter lane using the switch test in the diagnostics, if they show open and closed correctly in the test then check them for being gapped too close, or their actuated blade is adjusted too loose and switch is bouncing closed again after it opens. Game can get confused by the switches if they have an issue and think it still needs to serve a ball even though it did already.

Finishing up my BK restoration...

My BK has the transformer, line filter and a fuse block in the back of the cabinet. I'd like to label the fuse sizes, but I can't find any references to these in the manuals. The only fuses listed look to be located on the power supply itself.

Can someone give me a clue as to the sizes for these 4 fuses (the 3 together, and the separate one I THINK is supposed to be 7.5A )?

Thank you!

IMG_7623D orig copy (resized).JPG

I was contemplating converting my BK troughs/kick holes to use the same JJP wire rollover microswitches that I put on the drop targets. Checked things out and pretty sure it would work using the factory screw holes with some tweaks. But I decided to buy some brand new leaf switches and install new IN1004 diodes instead.

These are Williams type ‘slingshot score’ switches that are gold flashed, have the necessary diode lug and gapping blade for the short leaf, and are not heavy sprung. I'm proceeding this way:

— Snipped the end of long leaf to match the length of the old one.
— Snipped the old long blade in half, straightened it out, and inserted it into the stack right behind the new long blade for additional pressure on the wire actuator so it’s not so 'floppy’. You only need to remove one wafer from the end of the new stack to do this, but you’ll need to do this anyway to reuse the old fishpaper blade or install a new one. Not a big difference in pressure from the old switches, just beefs it up a little to reduce switch bounce. Or you can adjust the long blade tighter against the wire actuator but I wanted to avoid bending the new ones.
-- Reused the old fishpaper blade as mentioned above.
— Remove wafer on other end of the stack and flip the diode lug over, if the old switch’s placement requires it.

My originals' gold points were shot from 40 years of play and over-cleaning/over-adjusting (like the drop targets were). If they ever act up I’ll revisit the microswitch thing but I seriously doubt that will be needed in home use. On the saucer, trough kicker hole and shooter lane I'm thinking of simply inserting the old actuated blade (with the spacer on it) into the new stack on top of the new long blade. Additional pressure from it should be negligible with the weight of the ball on it.

187385493_824325934869219_6168551958479518982_n (resized).jpg188947215_920330488807341_9161311412487522454_n (resized).jpg

These switches might work for the drop targets as well. The contacts are positioned about 1/4" farther out on the blades than the originals. But if you reused the old blade with the plastic actuator and inserted it into the stack on top of the long blade anyway, that wouldn't matter. Not sure if the drop targets could still easily close the switches with that extra switch pressure, but probably. I got these at PinballLife. You would need to reuse the old fishpaper blades.

I use those PBL switches for the slings because they stick up through the PF and look "right" - for all other custom switch builds unless I have the exact blade from another switch I just use the generic ones from PBR and put the contacts on. I'm cheap

You probably already know this but you can grab microswitches from the later WMS games trough's and use use them with the plate on your BK (or any other earlier leaf switch unit).