I picked up two Black Holes kind of sight unseen. I did get a photo of them sitting on a pallet without legs. Anyway, I bought them because the price was reasonable. My goal was to restore one as a Black Hole and the second was going to become a donor pin for an Eclipse project I have been working on. Anyway, when they arrive I found them in decent shape. One playfield was pretty good as was one of the backglasses. This is perfect for my plans. My only problem is both cabinets need the press board bottoms replaced. They swelled up from water exposure. My question is how do I do that? I am thinking I just slice off the rear lower inch of back of the cabinet. That way I can just slide out the bad board and replace with a new one. Any thoughts? Is the old one glued in? Thanks in advance.

This post isn't going to be popular with a lot of you but it is the absolute truth. The Gottlieb designers didn't provide enough wiggle room on some of the fused devices. This is most apparent on coils. Try using a 2 1/2 amp sb fuse. I had the same problem. If fuse holds you are good to go. If it doesn't you have a different problem.

Is this a pop bumper fuse?

Sorry if I missed it above. Do we know what that fuse does? I have a Roller Disco which is about as close as you can get.

I had some time to read some older posts on the subject. It seems like it is your drop target bank. Checking the diode is good advice. My guess it is that or a fuse on the jagged edge.

That fuse should not have anything to do with turning the game on. I would check the voltages on your power supply. Also, how do the pins look on the cable going from the power supply to the MPU? If it they look iffy replace them or just buy a new cable.

Hello,

Is this for your System 1? As a rule, transformers are seldom the problem. They just normally work. Testing voltage on them is a little challenging. without knowing the details I would say you are well within specs.

Lots of things can break on a System 1 power supply. They are not that hard to fix but a new replacement is cheap these days. I thinking you still have a power supply problem. I would recommend just replacing it.

Is the signal getting past the connector? It could just be a dirty or bad pin. It is a Gottlieb after all.

Just curious, did this game ever work since you have had it? I see you have several pins in your collection but systems 80s are very unique. These things are not all that hard to work on once you can establish a baseline. First thing I do is replace the filter caps if they haven’t been before. Then I look at every pin in every edge connector. The ground mods aren’t needed if your pins are all good. If fact, doing grounds mods before checking the pins might just complicate things. People might disagree with me but it is the truth. These games were designed to gound through the wire harness and they will if the pins are in good shape. You can always do the ground mods after you get it sorted out but I would not recommend that as a first step. I assume your power supply checks out so now that just leaves 3 possible problems (the slam switches, MPU and Driver board). The slam switches are easy to short out and test. Now that leaves you with just 2 possibilities. At this point I would just buy another set of boards for testing. You can always resell them after you isolate your problem or just keep them as spares. If you are like me, you are going nuts about now. Just buy the replacement boards and save yourself any further aggravation.

So has the game been moved from your friends house to yours? If so, was the head removed? I just want to make sure your pins are ok before you do any other troubleshooting? Edge connector pins are awful. If your pins are all shinny and unbroken you should be ok there. If they have issues they need to be addressed before moving foward. You may have already fixed your problem but can't see the result because a bad pin. Are you willing to buy a replacement board set? That will make things much easier for you. If your pins are good the new board set will get Circus up and running again. Most of us system 80 guys have an extra set sitting around for just that reason.

If the pins are original they are likely shot. You don't have to replace everything but everything south of where the battery is / was needs addressed. To make things more fun the pins very obsolete. Do you have a source for these?

Please see photo. These are the connectors you should be checking. These need to be a 100% good before you can proceed with any troubleshooting.

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Hi Guys, I’m 300 miles away from my Black Hole and I need to remake the bottom of Black Hole cabinet for a friend. Can somebody please tell me the diameter of the speaker hole. The machine in question is missing the bottom board altogether. Thanks in advance.

That is very true but the goal is to make it look like nothing was done. That being said, I "phoned a friend". The speaker holes are 5" and there are two of them.

I agree. It is a great tool but not really a long term solution. Those little test leads don’t have a lot of bite. I use something similar now for testing but my connecting components are insulated alligator clips. I think it is a fine piece of test equipment.

Check all the pins on J4 of the mpu, J1 and J5 of the driver board and J1 on the sound board. Tired worn out pins can cause all sorts of problems.

Contact Clive at the Coin Op Caldron. He does great work.

Finally got around to converting my Roller Disco over to black light LEDs in an attempt to recreate the original black light prototype. If memory serves, the prototype had a full leagth black light fixture on either side of the playfield. These were removed before final production but the the black light inked playfields were already finished. I used the more expensive 5 led black light LEDs from Titan to achieve the look as well as glow bands and a glow ball. The camera has trouble showing the look correctly but you get the idea.

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Did you put LEDs in these locations? A lot or pins don’t like them in the roll overs areas. If so, switch it back to old school bulbs and see it the problem goes away.

That is strange. Gottlieb did some weird things wiring wise and Night Moves is an obscure game. Maybe another Night Moves owner can chime in. This might be normal operation.

Just curious. Does this problem exist if all the bulbs in question are incondecent bulbs?

Ok - This is what I would do. Transistors can be bad and test fine on the multimeter. They are cheap so I would just replace any in the circuits that you are having issues with. If you tested your old school bulbs in all the sockets in question at once your problem is most likely in the transistors. If you tested the sockets one at a time and then returned the LEDs after it passed you might still have an LED issue. Gottliebs hate having LEDs in certain sockets. It causes all sorts of strange lighting problems. These problems are most prevalent in the OEM driver board. After market boards are less problematic.

Check the dip switch with your meter from the rear of the board. They break all the time. Yours might be broken in the on position.

If you're looking at your driver board the lower left connector goes to the sound card if I remember correctly. Try reseating that. Bad pins can cause all sorts of problems. I would re-pin any connector associated with the sound card. If the connector is solid your sound card likely died. It might not be worth fixing depending on what failed. No worries, the aftermarket card is cheap enough these days and can be found at this website. https://www.flippp.fr/pifx1.php

Keep in mind that the all in one board's built in sound card doesn't work for your game. You would still need to purchase the stand alone sound card.

Your batteries are probably getting weak. The after market boards seem to eat them up quick.

My bad, didn’t realize it was NI-Wumpf. Rotten Dog still uses the battery packs.

I don’t but that is an easy fix. Just pull off the glass and start up a game. Hit all the switches manually until you find the problem child.

That is odd. Were the power supplies that failed ever rebuilt? I can see original untouched power supplies both failing but rebuilt ones should be good for another 20 years or so.

Night Moves has an optical sensor? That surprises me but I never had one. My guess is you have a mechanical switch that needs adjusting where ball 2 sits in the ball trough. Just to be safe check all the switches in the trough area. One of them is likely your problem.

What game do you have?

Which cap do you think is bad? The big one or the smaller one at C2? I think C2 is the problem and the smoke stuck to the larger one. Do you have a meter with a cap tester? Just to be safe, replace both.

Check the little diode boards on the bottom of the playfield. My guess one of them is bad. Common problem on the old Gottliebs.

OEM board? Those dip banks fail all the time. Check to see if it is actually working with your meter. My guess is you just have a failed dip switch bank.

The idea is very sound but they are cheap foreign made boards with a high failure rate. I would recommend replacing your power supply or fixing the OEM one. I don't think you'll be happy in the long term with this repair. It will unlikely hurt anything but my luck with these hasn't been good. One day it will just stop working. Not trying to be negative, just trying to save you some pain later on down the road.

The System 80 power supplies are easy to rebuild and rock solid after doing so.

Skip the battery and just install a memory capacitor. Simply remove the battery and solder in the capacitor.

ebay.com link: Electric Double Layer Memory Back up Capacitor 1F 5 5VDC 2 pcs

I have a HH in my vacation house That I play once or twice every couple months. It has a memory capacitor installed and has kept my high score for 5 years now.

I'm not sure without looking it up (not at home now). If you're looking to buy a kit just get one from Big Daddy. Works great and has all the parts you need.

Does anybody want this? A woodworker friend of mine made me a couple replacement doors for a Caveman project I did. I only used one. It is a great fit, just needs painted. I hate to throw it away. I'll send it to anyone who is willing to cover shipping (probably $20 UPS). Hit me up with a PM.

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Hello all - I am thinking about selling my project Black Hole. I have had this for years hoping to turn it into an Eclipse. I don't think that is going to happen so I am going to let it go in a couple of weeks. I have never tried to power it on because several of the mechanisms are gummed up. A few parts are at my vacation house - that is why it won't be able for a couple weeks. I know mpu is good because I bought it a replacement. It was the only board missing when I aquired it. I also think the power supply is good because I rebuilt that to troubleshoot another Sys 80 in my collection. I have everything including the spinning disc and backglasses. The outer glass is great while the mirrored one is pretty bad. The lower playfield looks great while the upper has typical ware. $1000 seems like a good price. Please let me know if your interested and in the SoCal area.

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The dip switch. You can run a little jumper on the back of the board or just replace the dip switch bank.

It will still work if you do it wrong but the polarity will be reversed. If you have a tester you can plug it into the service outlet to see if you are right or not. It is a good tool to have in your toolbox. You would be surprised how man outlets are wired wrong. People flip wires all the time without realizing it.
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Yes, it will work but isn't correct. You can also tone out the power cord with a multimeter. Plug in one lead into the service port power plug and the other on the line filter lug. That will tell you what blade of the plug should go to that lug of the line filter. Do the same test to the new power cord and then match them up accordingly.

Repin the mpu to driver board cable (the double sided one) That one is a must. Do your displays work but just show 1s and or 0s? If so, it is likely the kill switch in the door. That needs to be closed or the game won't start.

These guys have them already on the wires. I'm not sure if they are real or knockoffs.

https://www.docentelectronics.com/httpdocs/AmusementGames/Pinball/Gottlieb/system%2080.htm

I have personally been making the MPU to Driver cables for years with all NOS parts but my supply is beginning to run dry also. I only have enough parts to make another dozen.

Hello Everyone - Just put my Black Light Roller Disco up for sale. 3 owners in 41 years. Super clean!!! PM if interested.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/121935

What are you using for a ground? The meter is set to DC - correct?

I am considering selling some Holy Grail Gottlieb parts. I planned on building an Eclipse but I don’t see this ever happening for me. This is what I have:

The archival proof NOS Eclipse playfield
The archival proof NOS Eclipse backglass
NOS plastic set
NOS pop bumper bodies
The PBR reproduction manual
There is some other stuff that I purchased like an after market sound card and and NOS Pop caps in the wrong color that I will also include.

I’m not interested in breaking up the set.

The price would be 3k and I am firm on that. I have never seen another playfield available in all the years I have been collecting. PM me if you are interested.

It is official - I listed my Gottlieb Eclipse archival proof set.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/137607

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Hey Gottlieb fans. I have a "grail" playfield for sale in the market. Check it out if you are interested in a NOS Eclipse playfield.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/161186

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