Greetings!

Just acquired my first pinball machine - a Williams Black Knight. It seems to be in pretty decent shape but isn't playable really due to a weak lower left flipper. Has a few lights out too, including the 2-9 multiplier string that has a problem, as placing a known-good bulb in there doesn't work. This machine has the 4 fuse GI mod, so might just be a fuse. I'm not too worried about that.

I haven't tested all of it yet but the multi-ball works as do the drop-target timers and Magna-Saves. I'll be manually testing each of the gameplay rules later.

One question I had which I was hoping someone might be able to answer is what happens to balls locked in the upper playfield at game's end? I was expecting the game to kick them out and drain them into the ball trough but that doesn't happen, even though the kicker is known to work fine when multi-ball is triggered.

Anyway, the big issue to fix is the weak flipper. The EOS switches look OK but I need to meter them. The left flipper coil looks different than the right, so that might be the issue too. The wiring to the left flipper looks a little odd too. The right flipper has basically 4 wires going to the 3 coil lugs, where the left flipper has 5. I need to trace the schematic and see what's up with that. If anyone has a machine they could look at, I'd be interested in knowing if other machines are wired that way.

Anyway, thanks for any advice and I am sure I'll be posting more as I get to work cleaning it up and fixing the few small glitches. I'll try and get some pictures up shortly.

Thanks guys. Made some progress. Digging through the schematics, it's quite apparent that Switch Column 7 is not working. I traced the wiring down from the Driver Board connector to the playfield light string and the continuity is good, so that rules out a harness problem and pretty much points the finger at the Driver Board. The column circuit is basically a couple transistors and IC14, so I'll probably start there.

After some light cleaning, I could see that both lower flippers do, indeed, have the same coil. I checked and cleaned the EOS switches but still no luck there. The flipper does not drag the playfield at all. Left flipper is still very anemic. I will be rebuilding them all anyway but I just have the nagging suspicion that something else is at play here. The fact that the wiring isn't quite the same on both flippers is making me antsy. I'm going to try Googling around for an under-playfield photo of the flippers so I can see if they are all like mine.

I also identified a couple other minor issues. When the ball gets launched, the horse gallop sound does not play. I think it's related to the switch under the ball while it sits in front of the shooter. That sound does play at other times, so the sound board is OK. Also, the TILT light doesn't work, although the functions do. I tested the slam tilt and the plumb bob. Both worked but never turned on the light even with a new bulb. I'll have to replace that socket next and see if that does it.

All the gameplay functions seem to work fine though, so that's a plus. Once the flipper is repaired it will be perfectly playable even with the lighting issues.

Thanks! Any and all advice is always welcome...

Dave

Ooops, should really move this to the Tech Forum so I'll post anything new over there