My second pin restoration is finally underway! Earlier this year I drove from Chicago up to Appleton, WI to pick up this Black Knight project machine from an awesome Pinsider for less than $200. I'm only just now starting to work on it as I was trying to finish up my other pin (Bally Star Trek) first. It certainly is a mess, but not for long!
Here she is all loaded up in Wisconsin along with a little something for later.
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It certainly is a mess, but not for long! I knew I'd be buying a new playfield, with this kind of wood wear.
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I couldn't get the board to boot either. I plan to send it out for repair, but to get things moving along I went ahead and grabbed a Rottendog replacement board. I also of course replaced all caps on the power supply.
She's alive! After lots of switch cleaning and adjusting, I got everything to pass the diagnostic tests. Only a few bulbs are out. I also had to chase down a CPU driven solenoid issue (none of the CPU solenoids were firing) which ended up just being a connector issue at the PSU. I have a re-pin kit coming in the mail for good measure, but at this point the game was fully playable! It did however take me a while to realize that the game won't start without all 3 balls in the trough!
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There are some display issues though. P1 and P2 work perfectly, but only the commas are visible on P3 and there's a giant crack in P4 so it's definitely shot. The ball count works fine but the credit display only works when the machine is first powered on, then fades out. The display driver board doesn't appear to be in great shape either - there's a ton of oxidation (or corrosion? or what? It's a white/green powder) on all of the chip pins, sockets, and connectors. I actually just went ahead and picked up a set of Pinscore Displays, which are currently in the mail.
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I'm looking forward to getting rid of this rust.
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