Black Knight
Williams, 1980Yay or Nay? I am pretty skilled at electronic troubleshooting and I'm sure most of these , like all other things, have common issues. I was thinking about buying this lot and trying to frankenstein a good one together from them. I might find I have a bad mpu afterwords though.
NAY.
If they're on Ebay, they're too far gone to be repairable.
ESPECIALLY if they say "untested".
Rule #1 of Ebay: untested = broken
Quoted from LTG:Link doesn't work.
LTG : )™
ebay.com link: Lot of Williams driver Boards Parts Untested Pinball Machine Boards
Quoted from LTG:Link doesn't work.
LTG : )™
I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and go with all new rottendog stuff. Game is missing power supply, driver board and displays. That's gonna run me 545.00 at big daddy. I paid 300 bucks for it and the back glass is very nice as is the cabinet and the playfield plastics. Playfield is pretty beat up but I am good at retouching easy to moderate stuff and have an artist for the harder stuff requiring that level of detail. The way I looked at it was I was already there to pick up the BK2K and If I can have an original black night for 1000 bucks it would be worth it.
Quoted from PghPinballRescue:NAY.
If they're on Ebay, they're too far gone to be repairable.
ESPECIALLY if they say "untested".
Rule #1 of Ebay: untested = broken
oops quoted the wrong guy. Thanks man I kinda suspected that. my lengthy response above was a response to your post.
Quoted from rcbrown316:I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and go with all new rottendog stuff.
That is what I'd do. Even if you have plenty or spare time and actually get a board or two going. It is very old and how long will it last.
Wouldn't you rather be playing the game ?
LTG : )™
Agreed. Never buy anything that says untested. That means it got hacked to shit by the seller and he was unable to repair it. The only time I buy stuff listed that way is when I need a specific cosmetic part. Someone is going to get screwed over on that auction.
Quoted from thedefog:Agreed. Never buy anything that says untested. That means it got hacked to shit by the seller and he was unable to repair it. The only time I buy stuff listed that way is when I need a specific cosmetic part. Someone is going to get screwed over on that auction.
thanks to you guys it ain't gonna be me. thanks again for the advice thedefog!
Quoted from LTG:That is what I'd do. Even if you have plenty or spare time and actually get a board or two going. It is very old and how long will it last.
Wouldn't you rather be playing the game ?
LTG : )™
excellent point and I did consider that also. I'd rather spend my time and energy on making it look good and play well, know the boards are all brand new and warrantied.
Unless you've got a trained eye - meaning you know the board set well enough to look for problem areas, and know you can fix them.. I'd avoid it.
There are some legit sellers on eBay, but they aren't selling as 'untested', and typically offer a warranty.
A properly rebuilt original is as good as a new aftermarket board, but a lot of sellers aren't properly testing their boards, and won't back their work up.
I agree with other's comments. I have got lucky buying lots of 10 non-working ("untested" that is) -17 or -35 Bally pcb's on ebay before for $100 or less... I am usually able to fix about half of them very quickly by replacing all sockets and installing new proc., ram, and roms. But yeah, unless you have some serious experience with non-booting boards/MPU's, you are going to want to stay away from "untested lots" in general.
From my experience, repairing early SS Williams boards are a little bit more difficult than repairing early Bally boards. Mainly because of the commonly failed interconnect issues.
Quoted from johnwartjr:Unless you've got a trained eye - meaning you know the board set well enough to look for problem areas, and know you can fix them.. I'd avoid it.
There are some legit sellers on eBay, but they aren't selling as 'untested', and typically offer a warranty.
A properly rebuilt original is as good as a new aftermarket board, but a lot of sellers aren't properly testing their boards, and won't back their work up.
I agree johnwartjr. I am still new at this. I think I will get some more real life experience before I start buying boards with unknown status.
For pricing reference I got a Williams driver board and a Williams MPU board in similar "untested" condition at the York show for $5 each. Less risky to buy what you can see and touch (I got the MPU to boot but haven't messed with the driver board yet and jeez, it's been almost a year!) The auction is at $62 right now with 20 hours left; even if you don't buy would you be willing to update the thread with the final price? Snipes may be lurking on this one as it had at least 7 active bidders place 21 bids so far...
-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets
Quoted from barakandl:Unless you are buying from me, it's a bum deal
I would buy from you in a heartbeat man. you have helped me countless times. i need power supply, driver board and all displays for a black knight. while you are at it I need a scoring display for my space invaders too
the one I bought of ebay was an absolute turd. It was so bad that when I filed the paypal claim on it, the guy didn't even bother to try and argue, he just refunded my money and didn't even ask for it to be shipped back. I'm talking like 50% of the board was acid damaged.
I held onto it and have been robbing it of 10-15 cent transistors when I can, but I'll never buy another board from an unknown seller.
Quoted from barakandl:Unless you are buying from me, it's a bum deal
I second this. Both on price and quality.
Th
Quoted from Frax:the one I bought of ebay was an absolute turd. It was so bad that when I filed the paypal claim on it, the guy didn't even bother to try and argue, he just refunded my money and didn't even ask for it to be shipped back. I'm talking like 50% of the board was acid damaged.
I held onto it and have been robbing it of 10-15 cent transistors when I can, but I'll never buy another board from an unknown seller.
this is exactly why I posted this question here. Experience and a small hope one of you may have what I need.
Quoted from Frax:Oh, I forgot the lulz...
When I bought the board it was listed as "would be a nice replacement for any data east game" LMAO!
did that sentence end with "if you want to file a fraudulent insurance claim on a house fire"
Quoted from thedefog:did that sentence end with "if you want to file a fraudulent insurance claim on a house fire"
Nah, it was a CPU board. No risk of ignition there. The current had nowhere to go since every trace line on the board was broken! 
Quoted from rcbrown316:i need power supply, driver board and all displays for a black knight. while you are at it I need a scoring display for my space invaders too
Hey! What happened to Big Daddy?!?! (Todd.... from Big Daddy) 
Quoted from toddsvec:Hey! What happened to Big Daddy?!?! (Todd.... from Big Daddy)
That's awesome. You'll be getting the order if/when I buy the rottendog boards.
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/buying-circuit-boards-off-ebay and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Webster, NY
