I recently noticed that my knocker doesn't seem to knock any more. My machine would knock when I completed the saucer after hitting all of the other targets (sinking the Eight Ball), and also when I hit the replay score.

When I do the solenoid test, it knocks every time in proper sequence with the other solenoids. I can't find a corrupt register value to explain why it doesn't work. Not a huge deal, but the knocker is a little bit like a party popper on New Year's Day and not having it takes a little bit of fun out of the game.

One register in particular is giving me fits. #32 is "# of Specials Awarded From Thresh #1" It is set to 45 and when I try to set it to 1 it gives me a nasty buzz and takes me out of that register.

I would take out my RAM chip to make the game go back to defaults, but I have the NVRAM from Pinitiech installed and I know of no way to "reboot" the registers with that chip.

Got it! I wasn't thinking those registers were counters. I think I found the issue; I just haven't taken the time to win a free game yet to check. I didn't intentionally change any pertinent registers, but I very well could have made a mistake.

Just posted before me. Those registers are what I started playing around with to hopefully fix it. A couple of them have ranges from 0-3 with no apparent mention of what those numbers mean in the manual. I will assume that there is some convention and "3" = extra game (and hopefully a knock).

I don't even have number of credits on display since I am in freeplay mode. I kinda wonder if the max credits allowed value gets in the way when I hit 40 (highest number available). I might turn that on the "display credits" for a bit to see if that matters or not. During my last audit of registers, the number of credits was currently 39. It probably doesn't explain my problem because I should at least get one knock per game when I hit the extra game threshold or complete the saucer after hitting the 7 targets.

You were right. I must have accidentally changed stuff to "0" accidentally. I put in a bunch of "3's" and we are back to party popper city!

I know that most people will file this is the "stuff nobody cares about but you" category.

I figured out that once my EBC hits 40 credits (max allowed per registers), the knocker no longer activates. OK, no free game = no sound. Problem I have with it is that when in Free Play mode, new games do not eat up credits. Therefore, once I accumulate 40 specials the knocker stops popping forever unless I manually reset the number of credits. The knocking sound brings me joy.

So, I turned off the free play and instead use a business card to allow the coin return buttons to coin up the game. I thought it was a genius (non-destructive and easily reversible) solution. I attached a photo of my creation. There is no tape or adhesive used in the mod; just a business card cut and folded so that it wedges into the coin return button mechanism and the slot that contains the coin up switch.

Honestly, if I had a coin box, I would install it and keep several rolls of quarters handy instead.

20190222_114315 (resized).jpg