I really need to get a new batch of photos on mine, it's come a long way since I first picked it up. CPR silver knight playfield, mayfair backglass, and I also went and had the coin door powder coated in black/yellow too. Currently waiting on a replacement power supply after the pinscore piece in there had died a couple months ago... blah.

I just love the artwork, where the theme is what you see coming through the most, instead of having a bunch of big text block inserts everywhere like most games these days have. The gameplay is also fantastic.... simple, fast, brutally unforgiving. Probably why I have a Firepower sitting next to it.

I will NEVER part with this machine.

-Hans

I used Cointaker 90 degree for he inserts and warm white frosted for the GI. Their super bright and such are just too bright for me. Shouldn't have any flicker issues with any of the bayonet base pieces on the market, I haven't found any that aren't rectified except cheap wedge based stuff.

Mayfair amusements has nos back glasses from an early 90's re-run, very very nice

Always possible to make your own pop bumper caps. I did this a couple years ago for mine.

http://www.siegecraft.us/popbumper.htm

Saw a bit of an info thing about the new movie Grown Ups 2 coming out in the next couple weeks. One of the scenes from the movie had a Black Knight in the background, next to a hyperball of all things.

-Hans

#1 - No screw present, but every one I've seen had a long finishing nail there. Doesn't hold it down, but does keep the steel from shifting laterally. It's a similar nail to the two that are next to the light bulb under your plastic covering the upper right drop targets.

#2 - NOT easy to get to. IIRC I used a screwdriver bit that you'd normally use in a drill, and turned it with a small box wrench. It is possible to do, as I did install it on my original playfield before swapping over, I just also remember it being difficult to access.

-Hans

Depends on the plastic. Some of them are too opaque, and you don't see the light shining through.

-Hans

10k bonus lights for a few seconds when the magnets are activated

Special only lights during the multiplayer bonus round after all games have ended. Need to finish wll 4 drop target banks before the 30 second timer finishes.

-Hans

Mirror balls with a high chromium content don't get as much pull from the magnets. I always use regular carbon steel for any game with magnets. That's the most common reason I see for low magnet pull.

Extra ball alternates locations. First one you earn is on the long left ramp, 2nd one on the lower playfield turnaround, 3rd on the left ramp, 4th on the turnaround. On default settings, first extra ball only needs you to finish either the top OR bottom set of drops 3 times each. Every subsequent extra ball you have to do all 4 sets of drops 3 times each.

Replay can only be earned by a high enough score, match, or special.

Go into test mode, see if you can replicate. Or even better, go into switch test mode and do the same, as your flippers are active in that mode. Could be slam tilting, which in system 7 does a complete CPU reboot, no warning and no excuses.

If that's the case, taping some cardboard between the switch leaves on your coin door would also rule it out.

-Hans

I made new ones out of white oak. Look fantastic, much better than the original soft crappy wood covered in wood grain vinyl wrap.

-Hans

How much you asking for those? Been fighting sound issues on my Firepower since I bought the thing.
Maybe a trade of some kind?

-Hans

1N4004's are the regular diodes on all the switches.

-Hans

Contact Mayfair Amusements, in Queens NY.
They may still have some left from the 1990's Williams re-run.
Fantastic looking.

-Hans

Now that's awesome to see. Even stamped in the middle, which means it'll look even better than original version.

Gets a thumbs up from me, and that's saying a lot considering the very very very very very very bad mood I'm in right now.

-Hans

Video on e-bay shows a hot stamping machine applying artwork. Doesn't look like the outer artwork is deeply melted into the pop bumper like the originals. To be honest, I prefer the newer look better. The originals looked kinda crappy.

-Hans

Bell should be on the left wall of the lower cabinet, just behind the tilt pendulum.

Solenoid 25 IIRC is the GI flasher. But I'm on the road right now, can't confirm.

Thats a nice Black Knight. New set of CPR plastics on there most likely since it has both the return lanes and left ramp plastic.

Zacaj; Run a switch test, and check all your trough switches both top and bottom. My guess is you'll find a stuck switch in there somewhere.

Look at the switches for the upper and/or lower ball trough. Pre-upgrade was leaf switches, post-upgrade was microswitches.
All the LE machines have the microswitches.

-Hans

Not surprised with Williams in that era. They had a lot of schematic and diagram issues to sort out.
All I did was scan and upload the instructions, never actually compared them to my machine.

-Hans

I had a local (at the time) cabinet shop make my rails in white oak. Ohhhh baby do they look nice, and they can take a beating too.

-Hans

Yep. Most common reason for the magnets not to work is the ground braid not connected. Though from memory, isn't it white with a red stripe? Either way, you need to have two ground braids connected to that lug in the head box, just in front of the wiring hole.

-Hans

The 'Special' for Black Knight is probably one of the hardest modes in pinball. Only lights up during the post-game 'bonus round' following a multi-player game, and only if you complete all 4 sets of drop targets during that round, which is only 30 seconds long. All while manually plunging a non-stop multiball.

The extra ball I get all the time during free play. Default settings are you have to finish all the upper OR lower target sets three times each during a single ball, that gets the first extra ball. Any subsequent ones you have to finish all 4 sets of drops three times each (which is also what the 'hard' setting needs for the first extra ball).

-Hans

Bell goes off in a few spots.

When you max the bonus sword and multipliers, it'll ring on everything after that which would have advanced the bonus. (Short rings)
When you're awarded an extra ball. (Looooong ring)
When you obtain the high score. (Looooong ring)
When you're awarded a free game via the match. (short ring)
When you're the highest scorer in a multiplayer game (# of rings is the player who wins)

Man, when you get that maxed bonus, it's sure as hell draws attention. Black Knight wants everybody to know when someone is having a kick-ass game.

Definitely should work in diagnostics, just like any other solenoid circuit. But it's commonly found with a cut wire, or something else to keep it from ringing. Some venues don't like how loud it gets.

Actually, unless you changed component values, they're supposed to be +/- 100v

-Hans

Metal side plate, similar to the ones that goes around the ramps and such.

In a situation like that, it may be easier to just pull the whole playfield from the cabinet. Once the wires are disconnected it just lifts out. Then you can flip it over and trace things out easier.

-Hans

If anybody is watching that new Kurt Russell movie on Netflix "The Christmas Chronicles".....

Keep a close eye on the background in the garage scene. Our favorite machine makes a guest appearance, and unlike movies of old, the pins don't get smashed.

-Hans

GI lighting. But impossible to tell in the photo where in the playfield or headbox that particular circuit goes to.
Extremely common to see the failed connectors on the power supply board, rare to see the mid-wiring connector fail.

Realistically, system 7 machines need to have a significant number of the GI lights converted to LED's or lower amperage bulbs to prevent the problems you are seeing. The machines, as designed, have excessive amperage going through the GI circuits and it results in near universal failure of those connectors.

Time for a bit of a long-term report on my own machine.

It's been 6-7 years since I've done my CPR playfield swap. Other than occasional light cleaning the game never really needed much. Took it to MGC last month and it got played almost non-stop for two days...... so things got a bit dirty finally and it's time for a good cleaning. I have to say, considering how much play this machine gets, the CPR playfield is holding up fantastic.

Needed a couple minor repairs after the show too. One of the drop-target tension springs broke. A couple of other leaf switches need replacement, due to the 1980 backwards rivets. Due for a new set of balls as well. 10 years on, the MOSFET swap on the driver board is still working flawlessly.

The rubber rings are starting to crack all over the place and time for a fresh set. Anybody done any colored silicone rings in a BK at all? I'm going to put a Titan set in the machine this time and I'm tempted to do some color combos. Might just stick with original white as well, haven't decided yet.

-Hans

Check your coin door switches. The wireforms get goofed around with a lot, and can cause oddball intermittent switch matrix issues.

I like the idea for the original 1980.... but it’s gotta blend with the original artwork. Totally different feel than the new Stern game.

I had to shim my ramps with a CPR playfield swap too.

-Hans

There’s another adjustment knob on the sound board, which adjusts the levels between sound and speech. A lot of time people think it’s a volume control. Try adjusting that first

Definitely not where they should be. I’d have to check mine to see if there is even supposed to be a light there or not. But I’m on the road right now so can’t even check.

The original stickers often fade very badly on the pop bumpers. Most often they’re pink by now, but seen a few that faded in the past.

Yours is a fairly early production game, upper playfield still has the notches for the stand up targets. Never seen a game in the wild with the stand ups fitted though.

Bell also plays when you hit any criteria that awards a free credit.

None of my System 3-7's had capacitors on the coin door lamps, just the GI wiring.

-Hans

Center coin slot was, at the time of Black Knight, usually a Susan B. Anthony dollar. The back side of it have a coin mechanism bracket and switch?

Most games though with that coin door had a flat plate with a Williams logo on it. Usually if this is how it was originally, there's not even a bracket and switch for a coin mech.

-Hans

Unless you've converted a LOT of your GI lights to LED, you don't want to replace the original connectors for the GI on the power supply with identical stuff. They're badly over-loaded already. There's a reason that EVERY system 7 game has that connector burned/bypassed/hacked, etc.... When I tried replacing it on mine, way back when, the new one failed in less than an hour.

Better choice would be to convert it over to the style of connector they used in the early System 11 machines, unfortunately I don't have any of the part numbers on that.

That and you really need to run LED's in as much of the GI lights as possible to reduce the power load on the connector.

Looks just like mine too.

-Hans

Just pull a few winds off the existing coils, and it'll give you more oomph.

But be careful. Too much strength makes the turnaround feed straight into the left outlane.

-Hans

I'd do like 10 at a time, never done it myself, so not sure how many to recommend. I did the WPC mech's with my original coils.
-Hans

None of them had system 6 cpu boards, The ROM won’t work, it only works on System 7 CPU boards due to the changes in memory space, and moving sound to a dedicated output header.

The only real difference is the very early games had the transformer in the head, a system 6 style power supply, and a separate GI relay similar to blackout.

Some other minor differences are that very early games had notches for standup switches behind three of the drop target banks, some games had different color inserts for the lock arrows. I used to have a list of changes but don’t know if I still do.

A LOT of variation due to quality control though. Particularly playfield art is usually missing some color around the outlanes. There were also two cabinet makers that assembled things different, most noticeable in the joint work on the head boxes.

I found no functional difference between the L3 and L4 ROM versions. Only change was a re-allocation of one memory address. From the player standpoint I'm not aware of any difference.

I've never found a copy of L1 or L2 ROM's anywhere.

-Hans

I have the same pair, and it just never looked right, so I took it off a long time back. Though the originals are all screwy too with the upside down lions.

I never did get the original CPR plastics sets because I was afraid of removing the riveted standoffs from my originals, and I don't have any broken ones. But I may rethink that now that I could make new 3D printed posts instead, and they also have the inlanes correct. Playfield is coming due for new rubbers and drop target stickers again, so maybe when I do those.

-Hans

...... 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.

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

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

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

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

For the magnet, usually that's a sign that the red/white ground wire was not attached to the threaded lug in the head box.

With the drop targets, I'd start with going into switch test mode and verify if each individual target is registering properly. May just need an adjustment or cleaning on one of the leaf switches.

-Hans

Glad it was an easy fix! We've all done it at least twice.

-Hans

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.

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

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

-Hans

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.

Here's the parts diagram for that whole assembly, with part numbers.
Can probably skip the right side post though in this case, since Black Knight uses one of the ribbed red posts in that location.
Was a somewhat generic assembly.

rollunder (resized).JPG

Lol only code change I ever did was to make the pop bumper flash when you hit it. My skills for code are not great

That what now?

One of these days I need to re-do that video. I've got a camera now that has good focus AND a good microphone available, which I didn't at the time.

-Hans

The BK glass is the proper colors, yes. I have one on mine and it's gorgeous. The only difference between the 1st and 2nd run from Williams (Mayfair has the Williams 2nd run glasses) is that they used inks with stronger adhesion and did a factory clearcoat inner layer, so the Mayfair will be more durable than the original production run.

Stamped steel piece, not a wireform or wood. Bridges the entire gap from one of the wood side rails to the other, so it's one of the lengthier pieces.

I replaced the small rubber ring post in front of that plastic with a full length sleeve post. Seems to have done the trick for me.

Possibly, but also the full length sleeve is just plain wider at the top of the post and does a better job of keeping a ball from catching the lip of the plastic.

Which reminds me, I need to order some of the thinner sleeves for my Rollergames (as a complete side topic).

-Hans

Every one I've seen has a trim nail in there to keep the metal piece from moving.

-Hans

I have an older CPR playfield, with the starbursts, and I honestly prefer them over the original jeweled inserts.

With the jeweled ones you can kinda see the bulb at times, and still get bright spots from the filaments. Particularly with the bigger inserts.

My playfield is from the original run, I don’t know about current production. I wasn’t aware there was an issue with that text, was there a difference in the font or something? Here’s a photo of mine.

image (resized).jpg

I tend to not be too harsh on repros. After all, most people tend to not notice the misprinted outlanes on almost every original Williams playfield on BK. Don’t even get me started on the leaf switches. That went on for years.