Williams Silver Coin Door Parts?

[chiLLbiLLy]

In a somewhat related note to my Black Knight lamp post, I've begun digging into the coin door on this Black Knight, trying to get it operational.  I guess I was high when I bought the machine, as I didn't even think to look for coin mechs & switches, so I'm glad that they're all present.  The only other coin door I've actually had to mess with is an Atari owl-eye door for my arcade machine, so this is quite a bit different, since it uses leaf switches and, what appears to me to be, a pretty flimsy wire trip mechanism. 

Anyway, in trying to "tweak" the wire trip and leaf switches to get them to register properly, I tweaked the wire trip too much and broke it off the little spool.  Looks like they've been tweaked quite a few times over the last 30 years.  Talk about a difficult adjustment...

So, assuming my adjusting continues to fail, does anyone know if there are any resources out there for specific parts for this particular coin door or am I going to have to get creative?  If all else fails, since this particular door still has all three mechs, trips and switches in place, I can always just move the broken one to the middle and use the other two on the ends.  Seems like I've seen some lighted Williams inserts that could go into the middle slot, in place of a coin insert.

For reference, here's the door I'm talking about, although mine has the middle slot available for dollar coins...

http://www.silverballwizard.com/contents/media/t_williams%20coin%20door.jpg

[andykmv]

i did a lot of searching for some spools and trip wires; found some in uk but they were the last ones.

try winding a replacement wire yourself using some stiff wire of the same diameter - maybe florists wire ? - on a drill bit of suitable size

[HHaase]

Lucky Bastard..... my dollar mech and associated parts are intact, but neither quarter mech is there and the interlock is hacked up to deactivate it.

I've got to dig up the same stuff for mine, I'll post here when I find anything.

-Hans

[chiLLbiLLy]

Well, after playing with them quite a bit, I think I've actually managed to get two out of the three trip switches working properly (at least mechanically to the naked eye, as I have yet to switch the game settings over from freeplay back to coin mode).  I may eventually revisit the third switch, which was the one I tweaked too much and broke, but for now, I have the two working ones placed on the ends accepting quarters, while the dollar mech in the middle is simply blocked by a replacement red Williams coin entry plate from Marco, which looks pretty nice actually.

Now, it's time to move onto two new problems I've discovered:

(1) The lamp inside the pop bumper that's not working, even after replacing it (didn't realize there was supposed to be one in there, until I went to replacing the broken cap).  To my novice eye, looking under the playfield, it looks like there should be two wires coming out for that particular lamp and one appears to be broken/disconnected.  Probably not the easiest fix and would require my questionable soldering skills.

(2) Didn't realize it, until I went back and played BK on visual pinball, but I think the speech is a bit messed up on my BK machine, as there appears to be some missing words and/or phrases.  I've read a little bit about it, but it seems like this could be a real ---smurfette--- to actually diagnose what the actual problem is...board, rom's, etc.  Wish there was a quick fix, along the lines of replacing the entire speech board, rom's and all, that was not that expensive, but then again, I must be living in a dream world...

[HHaase]

I did find the part number on this that you're looking for.  It's a "Trip Wire (Spring) #10-289"

Not that I have the slightest clue where to get one. 

-Hans

[chiLLbiLLy]

Thanks for that part #.  I don't know where to get one either, but it's nice to have the # for reference.

I'm more or less pretty happy that I got 2 out 3 working and maybe I'll revisit the dollar slot trip wire later down the road.  In fact, I'm pretty happy with myself, as I actually got my Black Knight pop bumper cap light repaired as well.  First time disassembling a pop bumper and actually soldering on a pinball machine (was a lot like the game Operation, actually, having to dodge so many wires and other things that go "melt" in the night).  And, after playing around with the sound board a little bit, it seems like the full speech is back.  Basically, I just pressed on some chips and ran the audio test a few times from the actual board itself and it seemed to like it.   

[chiLLbiLLy]

So, you can actually pop those sound chips out, eh?  Here I was, thinking they were permanently soldered in, because I had tried to see if they were removable before and they didn't seem to budge at all.  Guess I just didn't try hard enough.  Of course, that usually gets me in trouble, as my usual tendency is to overdo it, like with the trip wire.  Ah well, I'm still in the early learning phases, so thanks for the info and cleaning tip. 

I wonder if a pencil eraser would clean silver at all, sorta like cleaning the contacts on old video game cartridges or battery contacts...

[chiLLbiLLy]

Ok, the speech problem with my Black Knight is back...well, it's really been back for quite a while.  I just haven't had time to mess with it lately.  Anyway, pushing on the sound chips and running the audio test, works some of the time and brings the speech back to a full vocabulary.  It just doesn't last very long before the speech goes back to dropping words again.

Anyway, I'm finally going to try your suggestion and clean the sound chips with q-tips and jewelry cleaner.  I've already got a bottle of Tarn-X tarnish remover laying around the house...is this the same stuff you're talking about?  I don't have the bottle in front of me, but I think it references jewelry cleaning or perhaps silver cleaning on it.  Would hate to apply something too abrasive and wind up somehow frying the board, sockets or legs...