Yeah but for the JJP switches idea for the troughs I just felt like trying something different and which employed brand new commonplace switches instead of hunting for parted-out switches which might already be getting worn/glitchy, or harder to find switches. But decided to just put in new regular switches anyway. I might try one of these microswitches in one of the troughs just to find out if it will actually work out.

So where do you get new gold points to put in your generic switches?

pinball resource

Oh okay, thanks. I could have tried that for the drop targets but the leaves themselves were all bent up and trashed too so I started from scratch.

PBR sells the leaves too

The center saucer took a little more fiddling because the blades needs to sit a bit higher to clear the plastic saucer surround. Changed the top wafer to a skinnier one and added a fat one on the bottom to raise it, and added the old actuated blade (with the plastic tip thing) under the new blade in the stack and it works perfect. But the ideal way would be to reuse the old stack the way it is set up, take it apart and swap in the two new blades.

The new 4004 diodes should be an improvement too over the old 4001s. 4004s are rated at much higher voltage and much better tolerance.

If you have 50v going through your switch matrix I'd be worried. (actually.... it would be better all around if the switch matrix were higher voltage as the dirty switches wouldn't matter as much I'd guess that's why they went to 12v on later games.)

I don't remember if I changed that many switch on mine when I did the PF swap around 2006 or so. I know I had a devil of a top with the top lock and I added an upside down ball gate underneath to kill the momentum.

Still need to fix the bottom right flipper I've been lazy.

Hello everyone… I might be joining the club tomorrow. Hopefully! It will be my first 80s pin.

The machine I might buy, it’s not starting up (I believe it just doesn’t power on).

If there’s batteries on the main board I’m sure I’ll be looking at that to make sure there’s not just acid damage other then that I’m sure I’ll just be looking at fuses and for any burned out wire connectors.

Are there any common things to look for or that fail that I should keep my eye out for?
Also our parts readily available if I need to replace any of the boards?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Black Knight is very well supported, I'm not sure if there's anything critical that's not available. Particularly with electronics, everything is out there from one source or another.

First step I'd give you is to go to the pinwiki page and read up on the system 3-7 page, will cover most things you need to know. System 7 Williams used to be feared, but not so much these days. Tedious at times but not impossible. LED's are nearly mandatory though on the GI circuit, and the GI connector into the power supply is one of the critical things to inspect and deal with. Don't be surprised if you need to send the boards out for repair and bulletproofing. If you send it to a reputable repair guy they'll be solid for years to come.

-Hans

Yeah I figured mainly the better tolerance and being brand new would be an improvement. Seems like everybody uses either 4004s or 4007s now, 4001s were the 'cheapies'.

Mostly I bet it's over-cleaning of the switches that's the problem with BK's locks, troughs and saucer hole. Never had a problem with any of my rollover switches *except* those, any of which when they fail will likely hang the game up and bingo, it's gonna get cleaned by somebody (including me!), perhaps too harshly and adjusted tighter sometimes too. The others probably lived a mostly untouched life and were rarely cleaned.

For balls flying thru the upper lock and coming out the bottom, I attached a little piece of rubber tubing with mylar tape under the metal plate that is mounted under the plastic. The balls entering super fast glance off the bottom of it and are slowed down so they can't shoot out the bottom, works flawlessly.

Thanks!!!

Found out this worked okay for the lower trough. But when I got to the upper trough, found that the slant is much lower and the extra pressure from the doubled up blades totally hangs the balls up, no good. So I put the upper trough's top two switches on as is and adjusted the long blade a little to tighten up the pressure on the wire actuator. Same with the lowest switch and inserting the old blade with the plastic actuator on it next to the new long blade. Too much pressure on the ball, hangs it up, ball doesn't want to sit at the bottom of the trough and stick there. So will figure out how to put a plastic actuator on the new blade.

In the lower trough I put in two new leaf switches but went with one of those modern rollover microswitches on the trough kicker hole. Using same screw holes as original switch. You have to keep trial fitting it and tweaking/trimming the actuator wire to get it dialed in but once you do it works beautifully.

The switches Williams used here and on the saucer where the ball just sits on a leaf switch with the plastic spacer on the end, I just don’t like 'em. A little too much pressure and the ball floats around on top of it, causing no closure, multiple closures, ball might not sit all the way down where it's supposed to etc. These microswitches are light as a feather and won't get dirty.

Also replaced the shooter switch with one. Removed the old switch and wire actuator, tapped two holes for the new switch. That way I could use the rollover wire as is with only a slight downward tweak to take into account the ball rests a little lower, in the shooter channel and not at playfield level. This is another switch involved in the game locating of balls and if isn't working right it can cause an extra ball to shoot out or won't allow a game to start.
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Anyone replace any of the rollover switches and have a link to the correct part?

There are 2 issues left on my Black Knight.

No matter how many times I adjust it I cannot get the Extra Ball in the top left corner to consistently trigger when hit with a ball. Works fine in test, but only registers the ball about 1/2 the time in gameplay. I have adjusted it atleast 5 times, but the wire is not long enough to consistently trigger without the possibility of the ball catching if raised higher.

Anyone have the part number for that?

Also, my lane return guides suffer from flipper hop. I have adjusted several times, but I am at the limit and still getting flipper hop. Has anyone tried the Cliffy adjustable return guides?

Thanks!

Cliffy enhanced work great. I put them right on top of my old guides and the adjusted them for zero hop

If you tried cleaning the points with a snip of business card or clean paper and it didn't help and/or they actually look worn, I just replaced several of mine with these. You only need to snip a bit off the end of the longer blade. They are nice and light and work well for these rollovers.

But first make sure the points are clean and that the long blade is not adjusted too tight against the actuator, which could be contributing to the ball getting hung on the wire, and not allowing you to adjust the shorter blade enough for adequate closure motion. You should be adjusting the switch blades themselves if they need it, not the rollover wire.

https://www.pinballlife.com/williamsbally-slingshot-score-switch.html

You don't need it higher, you need the activating hump longer. Instead of ----^---- for the wire you need ----/¯\---- the larger flat part will help here.

Or you need to slow the ball down when it comes off the ramp with some fatter rubber. Either method works but the switch actuator bend works better.

Bottom line is the ball should not be even *close* to getting hung up on that or any of the other rollover wires if the switch is adjusted correctly. If it's getting hung up, the switch blades have been overadjusted or the actuator wire has been futzed around with. Or the wire is bent and catching on the edge of the pf slot.

That ramp switch has never failed to register once on my BK in 30 years and I don't think I've ever even cleaned it because it's so darn hidden under the wires up there, so if you're only getting 50% I'd bet that your switch is simply dirty, or worn and needs replacement. Of course it could be a weak connection somewhere as well or a cold solder joint on the switch or diode.

Trick Black Knight trivia question:

There is one particular circumstance where you can legitimately start a game in attract mode and play it *without* having to plunge the first ball. What is it?

Player tilts with 3 balls locked before multiball can start.

I added "in attract mode" late so I'll count that as right. From attract - turn game off with three balls locked, turn on, then press credit button. One ball will kick out with no sounds like it going to drain but game will start in a couple of seconds.

The start of multiball version works even if you don't tilt but sometimes it kicks a second ball out of the lock. Free 2-ball multiball!

Finally in the club

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That is a really nice playfield!

Yep, that's a CPR playfield on there. Can tell by the starburst inserts and the correctly printed outlanes.

-Hans

How's come the slingshot GI lamps don't appear to be on? Or maybe it's just my eyes.

When I found out about the teeny plastic that Williams nixed from the prod game I said ohh, I gotta get one of THOSE since I'd already put in the proto flipper rail plastics. So I did but it has to be the least dramatic plastic ever, proto or not. Tucked in a black dark corner and behind a rail, size of a skinny postage stamp, unlit, angled away from the player. Makes sense that they dumped it. You could make one by printing the art on paper and mount it on clear plastic and nobody would ever notice the difference. But meh, I'll keep it.

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That piece in included in the CPR plastic set. I think there might actually be more than one in the bag, I have to take another look. It might be something minor but it's still nice to have.

If they hadn't painted the end of that rail black, yeah, for the last 40 years everybody would have been asking, "Isn't something supposed to GO here?" Actually the side of that rail (or the two pieces of rail) would look better painted black as well IMO, just looks a bit unfinished. All of the rest of the upper pf rails are bare too but are covered by plastics.

Just picked up this Black Knight, came with the lit ramps and the originals. Needs new rubber, some bulbs, remote battery holder and a Mayfair backglass. Everything else is working great! The Magna-Save areas are beautiful and I’m going to protect them with some clear film I got many years ago from Mark at Pinballpal. It’s easily removable, static cling like film.

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Hi SantaEatsCheese . I am curious how you fixed your "2500 4" error. I have just started working on my machine and have this error. The manual shows it should boot into 2500 2 when in test mode. What components did you replace or fix to get your machine working 100%?

I bought a new Kohout MPU board.

Works like a charm! Or atleast it did until the Power Driver board broke... now waiting on a refurbished replacement.

Thanks for the lightning fast reply. It seems like when just diving into the machine it is a game of whack-a-mole. I was stuck in test mode and replaced the original battery holder with a remote mount. Now working through the 2500 4 error. By any chance would you have a link or know which board you got. I found PinballPCB.com which looks to be the components you are talking about.

I bought a Kouhout board from Pinball PCB.com. It has been rock solid since I got it. It did however take about a month to come in. I wish I had bought the Power Driver Board with it.

I miss my Black Knight. I need to get one again soon.

Have you tried turning the game on/off/on again? When the batteries get replaced or ever get removed from the MPU, the game will go into "audit mode" which displays the stuff you're seeing. By doing the aforementioned suggestion, that might get you past audit mode and into attract mode. (Though if the batteries and RAM are good, you shouldn't have to do it again until you change the batteries)

Edit: you may have to do that on/off/on with the coin door open

2500 2 would be decoded as: "2"500=blue OS, 500=game number, standalone 2 is the revision. They never updated the manual AFAIK the released version was 3 and then an update to 4. So a 2500 4 "error" is telling you that the audit/adjustments aren't saving. (it's not really an error... it's just the OS revision+game number, then the software revision) If you scroll through the entire list until you get to 50 and then hit advance one more time it should go into attract mode. If it doesn't, your battery backed up ram is likely bad, or the memory protect circuit (usually the ram though)

I replace these with nvram from weebly.com. If you want to buy a new board pinball pcb is the kahout boardset, definitely the best one IMO.

I was getting "2500 4" (indicating some sort of memory error) on my BK last year myself. Changing batteries did not help. The machine was new to me and I wanted to convert to NVRAM anyway, so I did and that made the "2500 4" error go away. Since changing the batteries didn't help initially and now it works with an aftermarket NVRAM solution, I can only assume that one of the CMOS RAM chips on my MPU is bad.

Are there any known benefits from upgrading from rom version 3 to version 4? Or does it just change the order of adjustments in the menu, stuff like that? Mine is 3.

Only difference I found between Rev 3 and Rev 4 were two temporary memory address locations were changed.
There were no functional changes between versions.

I'd still love to find a Rev 1 or Rev 2 ROM set, but I don't know if they've every actually been seen in the wild.

Hello Everyone, lots of good information to digest here. I am still learning the terminology but have been a lurker here for a while.

Wanted to give a little more background on the work I completed and where I am left now. I originally asked how to fix booting up into the "2500 4" error, which may not actually be an error.
I started with sorting out the battery installation. The original 3X battery holder was still on the board and not working even with fresh batteries. The machine would boot up into test/audit mode every time it turned on. I could cycle through that mode to eventually get it to game over,/attract then I could credit up and play. From there everything worked, speech, music, multiball, switches/drop targets sticky but working.
I removed the old battery holders. Installed a new remote battery pack. Then everything seemed to work. The first time it booted into test/audit mode I reset to factory settings following the guide in the instruction manual. From there it boots up correctly every time into attract/game over mode (If I chose to go into test/audit mode it still shows 2500 4). The machine remembers how many credits have been loaded even after power cycling. But, I am not even close to beat 2,500,000 so I can't be sure it is saving the high score. After playing for a few rounds (about 4 or 5) the drop targets stop popping back up after you knock all 3 down, and the game seems to not realize when a ball is lost or locked for multiball. I have done several power cycles both coin door open and closed.
Before looking to buy replacement boards, any hotspots to look into with the above described? Am I understanding it correctly that "2500 4" is just my game version? Could I still have a memory issue like Mathazar mentioned?
Appreciate all the knowledge in this group.

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Like I said the 2500 4 is NOT an error message. It's supposed to show that as the 'first audit'. It comes up when the ram is corrupted or not working because the game is entering audit mode. The error messages are on the 7 segment display on the mpu when you press the test button on the mpu board.

Set your backup hstd to a really low number and reset it, it will take a while to get the 2.5m. I'd only ever beaten mine once and since I replaced the regular ram with NVram, haven't beaten it yet. I need to do the advice I just gave you myself!

When the three targets are knocked down, do their lights and the sound effect indicate that they were all indeed hit? Do they reset after their timers have run out, or do they totally stop resetting, period?
BK is known for having problems when the switches being dirty or simply worn out switch points, on the drop targets and the upper lock trough & lower trough switches which *could* be causing these two problems. I.e. lock shots or drains not being recognized, ball not being served, game not starting, and drop targets not registering. If you haven't cleaned/adjusted all these switches I would try that first and see if anything changes.

Picked up our first project a couple weeks ago, a battered and bruised BK LE. Lots of stuff to do!

Hubby is good with the playfield stuff, but circuit boards and wiring are an area where he lacks a bit of confidence. As you can see by the pictures, there's some fairly janky wiring going on where the backlighting comes into what we assume is the power supply board.. janky enough that we don't want to even plug it in. Without knowing what it's supposed to look like, he's a bit unsure of how to proceed.

We do have a "guy" we can call to come do his magic, but hubby would rather give it a go himself first as long as screwing it up isnt going to be painfully expensive. Any help would be much appreciated.

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Correct: it is not an error code. It simply means you automatically entered "diagnostics mode", straight to "game status (2500) which is the ID of the game (#Black Knight) and Test No.4

There are a lot of 3rd party manuals out there that provide troubleshooting instructions for the Williams System 6 & 7 pinballs out there, but one of my favorite ones is the official Williams manual which you can download from here: http://blackknightpinball.co.uk/wp/manuals-instructions/flipper-manual

In this manual, you might find this Diagnostic Flow Chart useful that clearly shows a battery problem to be the reason why your machine would enter diagnostic mode from power on.

I had the same problem as you. I would install new batteries, and it would work for a while, but then it would start in 2500/4 again, and the batteries were dead. The problem was that two blocking diodes that ensure that the batteries only power the RAM has failed, which was causing the batteries to try to power the entire board, and they would drain very quickly.

I replaced diodes D18 (1N5817) and D17 (1N4148), and this particular problem went away (it's been a year now).

In your case:
1. Turn your BK off
2. Check that you have good battery voltage (as close to the RAM as you can, or from the pins on the chip itself)
3. temporarily remove the batteries
4. use a multimeter to test the diodes.
5. If the diodes are good then the RAM itself is suspect.

In regard to the drop targets and the machine seemingly confused about multiball, I agree with frenchmarky: start with cleaning all of your leaf switches. DO NOT USE SANDPAPER Use a business card, and drag it in between the contacts with light pressure from your finger. You can also use alcohol.

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Looking at your pics, your power supply connector 3J8 for the general illumination is messed up. It looks like a previous owner solved a bad connection/overheat issue by soldering the wires straight to the board, which is definitely not a good practice.

First step is to determine if you get good/correct power from the power supply board. Hopefully you have the schematics diagrams for your machine.

1. Make sure that all fuses have correct values (sometimes, previous owners make mistakes)
2. Disconnect all output connectors (3J3, 3J4, 3J5, 3J6, 3J7) and only keep 3J1, 3J2 and 3J9 connected
3. Remove Fuse F7 (since you cannot disconnect 3J8 which is hard wired)
4. Power on the machine
5. Measure your output DC voltages (be careful: the voltages for the displays are 100 volts)
6. Make sure that the +5V is not less than +5V
7. Power OFF
8. If all the DC voltages checked out, then continue with Option No. 1 below

Option No.1 - bare minimum - requires some soldering skills

1. Remove the power supply board (desolder the two wires from the 3J8 hack)
2. Reflow every connector pin to ensure good continuity
3. Replace header 3J8 with a new header
4. Buy the connector for 3J8 and rebuild it (i.e. repin the wires)
5. Re-install the power supply board (with the fuses) and connect 3J1, 3J2 and 3J9
6. Power ON
7. Recheck the output voltages and now you can also check the 6.3VAC Gen Illumination circuit
8. Power OFF
9. Plug in all the output connectors (3J3, 3J4, 3J5, 3J6, 3J7)
10. Power ON**

Option No.2 - Cadillac option - takes a lot more time, is more thorough, but a lot safer

1. Remove the power supply board (desolder the two wires from the 3J8 hack)
2. *Replace all capacitors (there are kits you can buy ready-made)
3. *Upgrade all the connectors to the four-sided pins, and replace all mating connectors by re-pinning them with the 3-sided trifurcon pins
4. *Perform the 91V mod for the display power output (91V instead of 100V will extend the life of your plasma display)
5. *Separately from the power supply, add two additional rectifier fuses that Williams should have included in the first place for the +18VDC and +28VDC circuits
6. Re-install the power supply board (with the fuses) and connect 3J1 and 3J2
7. Power ON
8. Recheck the output voltages, and now you can also check the 6.3VAC Gen Illumination circuit
9. Power OFF
10. Plug in all the connectors (3J3, 3J4, 3J5, 3J6, 3J7)
11. Power ON**

Notes:
* Vid has created a "bulletproofing" post on pinside which is a great resource for what you are asking (and a lot more) that covers these topics.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-bulletproofing-williams-system-6

**In regard to powering the whole machine on for the first time, I would check all other aspect of your machines for evidence of problems first.

If this sounds like a bit much for you in terms of complexity and work, I would rely on your hubby's "guy" if he is capable/knowledgeable. The alternative is what I did: hours of research on pinside, reviewing the diagrams, purchasing the needed parts, getting good at soldering (lots of youtube videos out there)

Good luck, and congrats on your BK! One of the best pins out there.

Wow, thank you SO much! I certainly didn't expect this level of detail in a response. He's pretty confident now that you've given him a road map and really looking forward to getting into it.

We've wanted one for awhile. So fun and frustrating!

Thanks for the crazy detailed response! All helpful things to try first before replacing any components with expensive modern counterparts. Which is where my mind was heading originally.
Where is the diagnostic start button you have detailed on your flow chart?

IGNORE THIS >> It is the "Advance" button inside the coin door.

Correction: it is the side button on the MPU board, close to the LEDs. There are two switches. It will be the lower one

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Just joined the club. I have my work cut out for me.

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Welcome to the club! Lots of dirt, but that playfield doesn't look too bad! Very little wear, and hardly any at the Magna Saves (which usually have white marks or bare wood showing at the center of the green).

If you start a resto thread, please be sure to post here so we can follow along with your progress!