Black Knight

[ChadTower]

Got a bit tired of fighting the Berzerk monitor so I was finally motivated to get this one up and going... this one is getting the full screws up restoration.  First, pics.









I don't have any of the backglass yet but I'll get some soon.  Let's just say that needs attention too.

[akoz]

nice hope it goes well. how are you going to fix the pealing paint on the playing field ?

[ChadTower]

With one of these:



 

nice hope it goes well. how are you going to fix the pealing paint on the playing field ?

We don't stand for no Pealin' round these parts.

[akoz]

sorry to change topics in your post. but is there any other companies that make playing fields since that company only had a few products

[Zero_Hour]

Looking forward to seeing the progress.

Touchup on the cab or full repaint?

[ChadTower]

Looking forward to seeing the progress.

Touchup on the cab or full repaint?

I was planning on a full repaint but when I set it up it's better than I remembered.  I'm undecided now.  I have been working on the boardset so far and will fill in those details later today.

[ChadTower]

Okay, here's the board work so far:

1)  checked all fuses to make sure they're proper values

2)  Game boots into audit mode.  Common issue with the sys3-7 games when there is an issue with the memory (game settings) circuit.  Put in fresh batteries, no change.  Check the diode to the batteries that stops the circuit from trying to charge batteries while powered and stops the batteries from trying to power the board while off.  Diode is good.  Pull batteries and put them in a flashlight to be sure - good.  Put batteries back in, now it boots to attract mode.  Conclusion:  battery holder probably needs to be resoldered as it looks good.  I'm going to remove it and run a two pin connector to a remote holder anyway to avoid leaky batteries ever killing the game again.

3)  Game credits but won't start.  Check the leaf on the start button - good.  Check the diode on the start switch - good.  Check the wires on the switch back to the connector - good.  Shrug and put 3 balls in the trough.  Now it starts.  Guess the Williams games need balls in the trough or the start switch does nothing.  Didn't know that.

4)  Lots of sounds missing including all speech.  Sound test switch only plays one sound.  Pull sound board and replace all header pins with new square pins.  Don't expect this to fix the issue but I'm going to do it all around for reliability reasons.  Doesn't fix the problem.  Pull the sound select connector and ground each pin manually.  All that should play a sound work so the nonspeech game sound problem at least is not the sound board.  Waiting on a supplies order so I can recap the sound board - it's also possible the pot on the speech board is bad as I couldn't get any range out of it on the DMM.  Clay's guide says that the sound select on Sys7 is done by a PIA on the driver board - I'm going to redo the driver/mpu interboard connector anyway so maybe that will clear it up.  If not I check the PIA.

5)  Game won't advance to ball 2 when ball one drains. 


Supplies in the mail right now:  header pins for all boards including interconnect, terminal pins, connector housings, female interconnect terminals, polarity pins for new connectors, cap kit for sound board.

[Ginsu Victim]

Man.....they'll make a pinball machine out of anything. 



Glad to see all the times I told you to get to work on it weren't just a waste of my time.

 

[ChadTower]

The backglass is not very good... I'm half tempted to have a translited printed with something like this until I find a replacement for a decent price:





EDIT:  I just reread that... I should clarify:  my backglass is in poor condition.  I wasn't suggesting the original backglass art is so bad it needs to be replaced with a translite.   

[shardian]

Black Knight would be 10x better if the audio and BG was rethemed to the Holy Grail black knight.

[Jeff AMN]

Fun game, Steve Ritchie's only truly great one.  A touch easy, though.

Only? Really?

[ChadTower]

He has a few good ones but the only other one I would call truly great is High Speed.

[ChadTower]

Recapped the sound board... ran into a little confusion as recapped here... then put that main filter cap in backwards and blew my only two 4A fuses... possibly toasted the cap...

 

That's what I get for working barely awake.

[ChadTower]

Replaced the 40 pin female connector on the driver board.  There was some corrosion underneath it, and a little bit in the row of resistors below, so I gave that the usual light sanding/vinegar wash and it's all better now.

Pics will be coming, just haven't had time to get them cropped and shrunken yet.

[ChadTower]

Replaced the solder on all connector pins on the driver board... replaced both sockets on the sound board... popped them back in, no change, which is good in this case since I didn't expect any.  Still plays mostly but most sound and all speech is gone.  At least I know I probably didn't make anything worse.

Next is to pull the CPU, replace the critical headers and any others that look crappy, and all sockets.  Maybe the 5101 ram since it boots into audit mode half the time.  Pull the speech board, replace those sockets and maybe the volume pot, and then the power board to cap it and replace all connectors on that one.  Then I start shopping out the switches under the playfield - hoping those things will clear up all the oddities in play.

[ChadTower]

Every .156 header on the power board replaced, all of marvin3m's recommended power board upgrades done, board recapped.  Came up one 100uf 150v cap short so that's still there.  Also found a disc cap that had one leg broken off, wonder which issue that has been causing.  Don't have a replacement on that either so it goes on the list of things I still need to pick up.

[ChadTower]

Popped the power board back in minus that missing disc cap... figured it was broken before, can't hurt anything now.  Everything seems about the same, which again is good, since I wasn't fixing something I was upgrading/refreshing it.

The playfield lights DO look brighter but that could easily be my imagination.     It's still really dirty under the playfield as I haven't gone under there at all yet.

[ChadTower]

Four new sockets on the speech board - still no speech.

[ChadTower]

You did check the pot on that board, didn't you?   

Yep, but those sockets had to go anyway.  I haven't found yet what the actual resistance range should be on that pot so I'm not 100% sure it's good but I do know it's not open.

EDIT:  I should note I'm also only getting one sound from the sound test too so I'm not even 100% sure the problem is the speech board yet.  Individually grounding the select pins do get all sounds but the sound test only plays one of them.

Steve Ritchie is currently autographing anything that will take ink and selling it on RGP, someone told me his house was in or close to foreclosure, too.  Kinda sad, he was a rich man in the 90s (though I've heard it was primarily from MK2 of all things)

Yeah, been listening to the old topcasts in my car while commuting, and apparently a number of those Williams guys ended up at Midway across the street.

[ChadTower]

With some guidance I have traced the sound problem to the CPU board.  Haven't tracked it down to the direct cause yet but I'm getting closer.

Synopsis:

Grounding sound select pins individually on the sound board, with the CPU connector removed, generates sounds.  Doing the same with the CPU connector on generates nothing.  Should be 5v on each of the sound select pins (with CPU connected) but two of them are almost at ground, likely meaning they are shorted somewhere.  Since it is only a problem with the CPU connected it's likely on the CPU.  The harness from the CPU to the sound board tests good.  Next step is to pull the CPU, replace all sockets and critical headers anyway, plus the male side of the 40 pin interconnect.  In the process I'll socket the sound PIA so I can swap it.

[ChadTower]

CPU board with all new sockets except the ram which already had replacement sockets, a new male 40 pin interconnect, new sound header since I'm having issues there, and the battery holder moved off board.

I tried to pull the sound PIA to socket it but couldn't get it out without damaging it so I just resoldered the whole thing.  It's worth a shot as I don't have any spares.

[ChadTower]

Popped the power board back in minus that missing disc cap... figured it was broken before, can't hurt anything now. 

Put a new disc cap in and the one electrolytic that I didn't have at the time... one of the 100uf 150v caps.

I'm holding out mild hope that when I put all these back in the sound will work properly.  Mild hope.

[Jeff AMN]

Good to see that you're keeping on track with this, Chad. Keep the pics and info coming.

[ChadTower]

Put the boards all back in... nothing fried.  That's good.  Now it only boots into audit mode.  It did that intermittently before.  This is probably either an error in the battery holder hack I did or the 5101 RAM crapped out.  I think that's one of the socketed chips so I'll just have to order a couple and see if that works. 

Sound test still fails exactly the same way.

[ChadTower]

Booting to attract now... had to go into audit mode and cycle through the settings and force it to write to memory.  I couldn't do that earlier because my son took the key out of the coin door and put it someplace random.  Had to wait for him to get home.

For a change of pace I'm going to start on the top of the playfield now.  I'm a bit burned out on these boards.

[ChadTower]

The topside of the flipper area is now stripped... metal parts are all in a parts tumbler with corn cob and some polish.  This is my first time trying that so I'm interested to see how it turns out.  I recently saw a Fathom that was done this way and every flippin' part was gorgeous.  Had to try it myself.

Pics coming.

[shardian]

I wasn't all that impressed with the tumbler results I got. I ended up hand polishing everything with Eagle One wadding. Now THAT worked great.

[ChadTower]

How long did you tumble it for, media, polish?  Just curious.  I have 4 caps of Berry Brash Polish in there right now.

[shardian]

I'm pretty sure it was corn media, with some 'media reactivator' crap added in. It cleaned the parts, and made slight dull areas shiny. Everything was nice and smooth too. For the effort though, it really wasn't worth it. I got 10x the results with Novus and wadding. I just grabbed a handful of parts and polished them while watching a show or movie with the wife.

Oh, and I ran the machine overnight usually for near 24 hours.

[ChadTower]

Cool, thanks for the info.  I'm not quite done yet with mine but it's been 23 hours and the stuff looks pretty damn good.  A couple really bad pieces need to stay in but I'm quite happy with the ball trough and the metal "plastics".  I'll get some pics up to show.

[shardian]

Cool, thanks for the info.  I'm not quite done yet with mine but it's been 23 hours and the stuff looks pretty damn good.  A couple really bad pieces need to stay in but I'm quite happy with the ball trough and the metal "plastics".  I'll get some pics up to show.

Ball trough in tumbler: smooth and glinty in light, but a mostly hammered style finish.
Ball trough after polishing by hand: Mirror finish so good my wife could do her makeup using it.

Just sayin'...

[ChadTower]

Ball trough in tumbler: smooth and glinty in light, but a mostly hammered style finish.
Ball trough after polishing by hand: Mirror finish so good my wife could do her makeup using it.

Just sayin'...

Yeah, but it's not going to stay that way.  It's going to get hammered.  Plus from what I've read the shiny finish is just going to oxidize itself away anyway.

EDIT:  maybe the best path is tumble the parts that really need abrasion, hand polish the parts after? 

[ChadTower]

On the way home I picked up some Nevr-Dull as shardian suggested.  Gave it a shot on one of the trough pieces I just took out of the tumbler - I have some pics of all three stages but not sure they will show the real difference.  The polish did improve it after the tumbling was done.  It took a lot of buffing to get the oil off of it.  No mirror shine but it looks nicer.  It concerns me a bit that the can says "do not use on lacquered surfaces" as I don't know how that would react with a playfield automotive cleared. 

Still, it's good, and I might use it on some parts later.

[shardian]

On the way home I picked up some Nevr-Dull as shardian suggested.  Gave it a shot on one of the trough pieces I just took out of the tumbler - I have some pics of all three stages but not sure they will show the real difference.  The polish did improve it after the tumbling was done.  It took a lot of buffing to get the oil off of it.  No mirror shine but it looks nicer.  It concerns me a bit that the can says "do not use on lacquered surfaces" as I don't know how that would react with a playfield automotive cleared. 

Still, it's good, and I might use it on some parts later.

I washed the parts in the sink - no soap, just water. Rubbed it with my hands and all the residue came off. Then I just buffed it lightly with a clean microfiber rag. Zero oilly residue and a perfect shine.

[ChadTower]

I thought I had all the residue off too.  Then I picked it up an hour later and could see I was wrong so I buffed it again.  Washed my hands, picked it up again... oily.  Mostly, though, it's the warning about lacquered surfaces that concerns me.

And Jim, no I'm not going to nevr-dull flipper brackets.  Duh.  I'm testing out methods for when I get to the stainless ramps.  I used the trough piece as a test because I already had it off the game.

[Pinball Wizard]

Fun game, Steve Ritchie's only truly great one.  A touch easy, though.

I beg to differ. High Speed was a true great one from Steve Ritchie. The amount of money that used to pull in for me when it used to be on location. Now it sits in my collection and people still love it. Black Knight was always second for me.

[StephenH]

Here is some techincal info for your pinball system.  Maybe this could help with some of your issues:


http://www.pinrepair.com/sys37/index.htm

[ChadTower]

Heh, thanks StephenH.  If you read through Clay's guide you'll recognize that this thread is nearly a step by step demonstration of what is there.   

[spriggy]

Recapped the sound board... ran into a little confusion as recapped here... then put that main filter cap in backwards and blew my only two 4A fuses... possibly toasted the cap...

 

That's what I get for working barely awake.

Was a bit pissed when perusing the thread.  Thought you said 'barely naked'    Bad pictures in head.  Must get out!!!   

[akoz]

ChadTower if you dont mind me asking how much did you pay for the machine?

[ChadTower]

ChadTower if you dont mind me asking how much did you pay for the machine?

Wasn't a pure cash transaction, I paid $150 + I did some pin work for the guy.

[akoz]

Oh i see. "pin work" if that's what you want to call it.

I have a chance to pick myself up one. he says its in really good condition. I will take pictures when i view it and post them. With a black Knight is there anything with the machine i should look for when i go and view it? and Chad what would you consider top dollar for the black knight?

Thanks and sorry for changing the topic in your post

[ChadTower]

My experience is that BK is one of those games with a different condition scale than most.  They got SO MUCH PLAY that "really good" is often "a player" if it were a different title.  Keep that in mind when going by a verbal assessment.

Best guess is anywhere from $500 to $800 for a fully working game depending on the actual condition.  Really nice ones will go higher but despite the production numbers I just don't run into very many nice BKs in person.

What to look for... erm, jim's idea is decent.  You may be able to tell if the 40 pin interboard connector is still original and crappy by giving it a hard shake.  I can't think of much on the playfield to look for beyond art wear, it's a pretty basic set of hardware despite the two level design.  Look for the larger plastics to see if they are intact if that matters.

[Jeff AMN]

Shake it around while you play it and see if you can't get it to lock up or have features conk out.  Then cut your offer by $200.

If you did that to my machine I'd grab you by the shoulders, turn you around 180 degrees, and boot you a good one right in the behind as I sent you out the door.

[akoz]

lol so 2 for shaking the machine 1 for not shaking the machine. 

You may be able to tell if the 40 pin interboard connector is still original and crappy by giving it a hard shake.  I can't think of much on the playfield to look for beyond art wear, it's a pretty basic set of hardware despite the two level design.  Look for the larger plastics to see if they are intact if that matters.

so nothing really out of the ordinary with a black knight. no defects that are commin with the machine?

[ChadTower]

so nothing really out of the ordinary with a black knight. no defects that are commin with the machine?

There are a ton of common defects but they're not the type you can identify by eyeballing the playfield.

Easiest one is look at the battery holder on the CPU board.  If it's still there odds are you're going to have corrosion issues all over the 40 pin connector, the memory circuit, and the top corner of the driver board.

If you did that to my machine I'd grab you by the shoulders, turn you around 180 degrees, and boot you a good one right in the behind as I sent you out the door.

...without selling the machine.

[Jeff AMN]

...without selling the machine.

So basically he should walk in, shake it around, and say, "well, I broke it, so now I am going to want to offer a bit less for it."

While he's at it why doesn't he just shatter the backglass and drop the price by another $100? I'm sure if he spends 10 minutes rapidly flipping the flippers he could burn them up and drop the price another $50 too. To me it would just be horrible etiquette to play the machine in an abnormal manner while you're checking it out.

[ChadTower]

The point is that he didn't break it.  Exposing intermittent problems, and the sys3-7 games all have the same design flaws that cause them, isn't breaking the machine.  It is discovering how much post-sale remediation he will have to do before he has a reliable game.

A more experienced pinball person wouldn't have to do that and would go right to the boards.  The fixes/upgrades are easy to spot if you recognize them.  You're not going to find a reliable Black Knight without at least some of those fixes.

[Jeff AMN]

I only half agree with you there though. Part of being a responsible owner of anything is knowing how to care for it. If I was looking to buy an older Williams games I'd learn up on them so I'd know what to look for without resorting to buffoonery in another man's basement.

I only know WPC games and Data East games well, so I've never looked into buying anything older. If I was to pick up, say a Black Knight, I'd probably take it as-is and learn the ropes on that machine or research what to look for deeply enough that I can do some reasonable spot checking.

[ChadTower]

That's a noble sentiment but everyone has to start somewhere.  There are more than enough flippers (no pun intended) who do ---smurfy--- jury rigs to get something out the door that I don't consider it much of a stretch to give the machine a rough game or two during evaluation.  I'm not saying he should tip it over but a bunch of hard nudging should have no effect on a reliable game and causes no damage.  He's not buying a set of dishes - it's a piece of commercial equipment.  It all depends on how the seller is presenting the thing.

[ChadTower]

Granted, you see a lot of minty Time Zones, so maybe Chad's right.

I'm not saying they are wear prone.  I'm saying they received tens of thousands more plays and years longer on location than other titles.

[akoz]

I don't think Black Knights are particularly more wear prone than other Williams games of that vintage, it's just that most of the Williams games from then are crap and nobody keeps them around.  The cabinets, playfields, and backglasses were so poorly made that they all get art damage.

i am just 3 months into pinball so i am still learning alot. So when you tell me Williams are poorly built makes me turn away from this machine.

[shardian]

Roughly playing anyone's game is a major 'party foul'. If it works and the game looks as good or better than the pics, that is all that matters. Any trivial problems after that just come with the territory of pins. Stuff can break or malfunction at any time, any place.

If someone played my pin and violently shook it past the normal amount of nudging, I would tell them to chill out.

[ChadTower]

Roughly playing anyone's game is a major 'party foul'. If it works and the game looks as good or better than the pics, that is all that matters. Any trivial problems after that just come with the territory of pins. Stuff can break or malfunction at any time, any place.

If someone played my pin and violently shook it past the normal amount of nudging, I would tell them to chill out.

Yeah, but an attempt to sell the game is not a party guest.  Would you buy a truck without dropping it into 4wd while testing it?  We're not saying he should drive it into the river.  A sys7 game with no rehab work is easy to lock up with some good nudges.

[shardian]

A sys7 game with no rehab work is easy to lock up with some good nudges.

Well that would matter...if I told you I had went through and bulletproofed the game. I don't beat on my games, and noone else is gonna beat on my games. Moderate nudging and pounding the buttons during T&F don't count as pounding on games.

Lifting and/or scooting a pinball in increments measurable in inches is what I consider abusing a game. Maybe pinheads disagree with me - I don't care.

If you come in to buy my game and violently shake it until the game screws up, I would not lower my price. I would say "I'll call you when I fix it...then never call you back". This wouldn't work on an unknowing person either. They wouldn't have a clue what you did and would be pretty pissed you broke their game.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, don't pick it up and drop it or anything.  Before the interboard connector is replaced you can lock up this era Williams game with what could be considered a rough but acceptable game.

A knowledgeable person wouldn't have to bother.  I'd just open up the backbox and look at what parts have been upgraded.  If a person told me they had bulletproofed a sys7 that still had the original 40 pin in there I'd know they are either lying or their work isn't to be trusted.  Most of the other things are recommended/optional but that connector is mandatory.  Maybe one other mandatory thing to check is the GI connectors since that is toasted on every sys3-7 game.  How they address that is a decent indicator of how much effort they put in.

[akoz]

I guess i will just ask him if he replaced the 40 pin connector. instead of tossing it off a cliff

[shardian]

I guess i will just ask him if he replaced the 40 pin connector. instead of tossing it off a cliff

Good idea.

[ChadTower]

Eyeball it too.  Maybe you won't be able to tell but it will at least make him think you can.   

Once you know what you're doing you can pretty much buy every machine as-is.  I rarely ever buy a machine "working" anymore unless I already know and trust the seller.  Even then it's "100% working but unshopped" which usually means 90-95% working in my eyes.  I'm not a condition whore but I am strict on the functionality of my machines.  They play well or I make them play well.


EDIT:  that reminds me, the left orbit switch is intermittent on both RFM and the Shadow, and it bugs the crap out of me.  Must... fix...   

[Jeff AMN]

True story, I was did a full payfield teardown, clean, and rebuild on my Jackbot. When I put it together it played like a dream, but I left one switch in the ramp shot that leads to the mini playfield adjusted incorrectly and it only intermittently triggered. I had to leave it as is for the evening because the wife and I had planned an outing with some friends. That switch bothered me all night. We didn't get back until late, so I left it and went to bed. I tossed and turned like a dad who didn't know what his child was up to and I finally jumped out of bed at 4:00am and spent 5 minutes fixing the stupid thing. I did spend the next 30 minutes playing, but after that I slept like a baby until the alarm went off.

I might have issues.

[ChadTower]

Not too long after I got RFM I tried to fix that switch.  It does work, but it's worn down, so I bent the lever so the ball would push it down further.  I dropped one of the screws.  It bounced through the playfield, hit the side of the cabinet, and rolled through a tiny opening under the driver board.  Pin2k's driver board is in the bottom of the main cabinet with a big plastic cover to protect it.  You can't get that cover off without pulling the playfield.  You can't get under the driver board without pulling the cover and the driver board.  So adjusting an accessible intermittent switch caused me to have to pull the playfield and driver board completely to find that one screw that had rolled away. 

And after all that the stupid switch is still intermittent.   Needs to be replaced.   

[shardian]

True story, I was did a full payfield teardown, clean, and rebuild on my Jackbot. When I put it together it played like a dream, but I left one switch in the ramp shot that leads to the mini playfield adjusted incorrectly and it only intermittently triggered. I had to leave it as is for the evening because the wife and I had planned an outing with some friends. That switch bothered me all night. We didn't get back until late, so I left it and went to bed. I tossed and turned like a dad who didn't know what his child was up to and I finally jumped out of bed at 4:00am and spent 5 minutes fixing the stupid thing. I did spend the next 30 minutes playing, but after that I slept like a baby until the alarm went off.

I might have issues.

Been there, done that. I tend to get irritable if I don't finish a task occasionally. I've actually had dreams where I have successfully and thoroughly done troubleshooting on a game or pin. Those dreams kick ass - multi-tasking while sleeping rules.

[ChadTower]

Finally got the chance to swap that sound PIA on the CPU last night.  Had to cut the original one out with a Dremel since I had previous tried to get it out cleanly and gave up since it's just too many tiny holes and pins with fragile pads.  Pic of the new socketed 6821 coming. 

Did not get the chance to put it back in the game.

[pinballwizard79]

Did you touch the coils first?

I am just kidding Chad.

 

[ChadTower]

Sigh.  Putting the new CPU sound PIA in didn't change a thing.  Sounds still act the same, still sound select pins 2-3 on the sound card are near zero voltage when they should be high.  Since I ordered a few PIAs I swapped the PIA on the sound card next (both are socketed now).  With both PIAs new I got 4.96v on all sound select pins but now there is no sound at all via either manually grounding pins or via the sound test.

So last night I put the original sound card PIA back in.  It returns to select pins 2-3 pulled low and only the first sound in the sound test.  I disconnect the CPU from the sound card.  Now I have 4.96v on all sound select pins.  I can manually trigger (sound select pin jumped to the ground test point) each sound but the sound test only plays one sound and then gaps.  Back to where I was before.

Here I decide to take speech out of the equation.  I add the speech select jumper back in (W1 on the sound card) and set dips to "no speech" config.  Disconnect the CPU.  I get 4.96v on all sound select pins.  The sound test is continuous now but it's only playing one sound!

I can't be sure the ROMs are 100% good so I just ordered a new set.  One of these days I'm going to get around to finding an eprom programmer.

New goal:  100% sound functionality though the sound test without speech and without the CPU connected.

[ChadTower]

Poked at it some more.  It used to boot into attract, then it did most of the time, now it never does.  I think the 5101 died.  I didn't throw some in with any of my other orders because it was working when I wrote them up.  Gotta get some in the next one.

[ChadTower]

Still waiting on the replacement ROMs to come in the mail.  Guess this vendor isn't as speedy as all of the RGP references made him out to be.

[ChadTower]

Lost patience.  Pulled Laser Cue from storage, grabbed its sound card, put it in BK.  I notice the Laser Cue sound card has a higher rev number than BK.  I also notice that I had totally forgotten how spotless the boards are in this Laser Cue.  Damn.

Now I have sounds!  Laser Cue sounds!  The sound test cycles without gaps as it should.  Now to swap the BK sound rom in and see if that works.  The sound may not be all that much different, though, even if it does.  Laser Cue isn't a speech game so this is all jumpered for no speech + it has no ribbon cable connector.

EDIT:  and, because that's the sort of project this is, I snapped a leg off the BK sound rom.  So I have to wait for the replacements to come in the mail anyway.   

[ChadTower]

Snapped a leg off a scrap IC on my bench and soldered that onto the stub.  Works!  I popped that into the Laser Cue sound board and now it's back to playing only one sound.  That probably means it's the rom that is bad.  Hopefully that's the case and when I pop the new rom in it will work... it will mean I chased a goose here for a bit but I'll just be glad to have it fully working.

[Q*Bert_OP]

Ball trough in tumbler: smooth and glinty in light, but a mostly hammered style finish.
Ball trough after polishing by hand: Mirror finish so good my wife could do her makeup using it.

Just sayin'...

Yeah, but it's not going to stay that way.  It's going to get hammered.  Plus from what I've read the shiny finish is just going to oxidize itself away anyway.

If you have the large parts plated, they'll stay looking nice for a long time...but that can get pretty expensive...

[ChadTower]

Gotta agree with jim on this one as far as the trough goes.

For future reference, That Pinball Place is a thumbs down from me as a vendor despite all of the great reviews on RGP.  Had to email him after a week for order confirmation and then after two weeks because he never mailed the chips.  At least he did respond to emails but I hate chasing vendors to actually vend once they have my money.

[shardian]

Stick with the known good vendors - pinballlife, Pbresource, Marco, Bay area. I have had nothing but excellent transactions and communication with all 4.

Matter of fact, pinballlife gets a special commendation. I recently placed and order and included 2 #44 LED's based on what my manual called for. I got them in and the actual machine uses 555's. I called pinballlife to check on a back ordered item, hoping to piggyback the correct LED's onto the backorder shipment. The backordered stuff had already shipped, and this was same day I got the original items in. I asked if there was a cheaper shipping option since all I needed was the 2 bulbs. They said they would send me a paypal request that evening for the bulbs and mail them in a cheap bubble mailer @ like $2 shipping. Instead, I get an email that says  they are sending me the bulbs at no charge. Now THAT is service.

[ChadTower]

Terry did the same thing with me for some bumper skirts.  I forgot to include them - emailed him to see if I could add them to my order - order had already shipped.  I said thanks, I'll gather some stuff up for a second order, and a couple days later I got the bumper skirts without even being told (or having ordered them).  I ended up sending him payment + a thank you beer cost.

This ROM vendor is supposed to be a known good vendor.  That's what the references on RGP say.  Not too big a deal, though, as I'll just paypal dispute it if they don't arrive after three full weeks.  If anything this makes me aware that I need my own ROM burner. 

[ChadTower]

ROMs came today.  Delayed but well packed and shipped.  I popped the sound rom into the original sound board (not the one from the Laser Cue) and BAM!  Now it cycles through 4-5 sounds with no gaps.  Hard to say if it's 4 or 5 since it's all buzzes and tones.  I cut the "no speech" jumper, reconnected the sound card, and BAM!  Now it talks!  Full sound cycle with the 4-5 sounds and a whole lot of words with no gaps.  All that troubleshooting and it turns out the rom was bad.  

Lesson:  get an eeprom writer so I can take checksums on project games and replace if necessary.  Bad roms cause phantom problems.

 

[ChadTower]

 

Just had a detailed post written up with results of the individual tests but the browser whacked it.

 

Synopsis:  sound, display, lamp tests good.  One coil issue and two coils (23 and 24) not responding but not mentioned in the op handbook.  Need to figure out if they are in the game or not.  Tons of switch issues according to the tests but they are nearly all the drop banks so it could be a single issue causing problems down the string.

[shardian]

I'm rooting for you to finally get a project done Chad! Go! Go! Go!

[ChadTower]

I'm rooting for you to finally get a project done Chad! Go! Go! Go!

    Looong way still to go on this one... this is just the setup. 

[ChadTower]

One coil issue and two coils (23 and 24) not responding but not mentioned in the op handbook.  Need to figure out if they are in the game or not. 

System7 games will also test coil numbers 23,24,25 (25 is the flipper relay, but 23/24 are unused in all system7 games).

23 and 24 resolved.

[ChadTower]

Manually reset the drop targets and ALL of the switch errors went away - I guess the switch test assumes they are going to be up.  Apparently also two (but not all four) of the trough switches and one other are on the same string.

Next see if the bank coils are actually resetting them because I would swear I ran the coil test first and the bank coils did fire.

[ChadTower]

(this would all be a more logical sequence if I hadn't lost that long post)

Closer inspection of the drop target coils shows that coil 2 fires in test but does not fire with enough force to reset the bank.  It does not appear to be mechanically restricted and is firing with a lot less force than the two good ones.  This is the lower left bank.

The lower right bank coil 3 does not fire at all.  That is the one failure I'm getting in individual coil tests.

The other two banks are firing strong and resetting, at least with the playfield up.

[ChadTower]

Closer inspection of the drop target coils shows that coil 2 fires in test but does not fire with enough force to reset the bank.  It does not appear to be mechanically restricted and is firing with a lot less force than the two good ones.  This is the lower left bank.

The length of time a coil is "pulsed" in diagnostics may not be long enough to make the device "dance". That is for example, in game mode, it takes a fairly long pulse to reset a drop target bank. But in diagnostics, usually shorter pulses are used. So if that drop target bank does not reset in diagnostic mode, don't worry about! Wait until game play and test the coil there before working on something that isn't really broken.

Remind me to buy more TOP videos in the near future to support this guy a little more.

The lower right bank coil 3 does not fire at all.  That is the one failure I'm getting in individual coil tests.

Still need to track this one down.

[ChadTower]

Note:  coil 2 has a different third party looking label with a different part number.  Probably why it is weaker.

The good bank coils measure 3.7 and 4.1 ohms.  Coil 2 and coil 3 are both 4-5 ohms.  The coils are okay. 

[ChadTower]

All four bank coils have ~31v DC on both legs.  

My son just asked me if I put in the rest of the new ROMs yet.     I haven't. 

[ChadTower]

Game and flipper roms replaced, no change.

Coil ground shorted to siderail, it fires just fine.


EDIT:  Calling it a night.  Wiring checks out okay on it.  Next to check is transistor and header.  I'm betting on cracked header...

[shardian]

Short the driver transistor tab to ground and see if the coil resets.

[ChadTower]

Definitely.  Manual says the two drivers are Q9 and Q19.  Could be either, I guess, since Q19 is matrixed to one of the unused coils so there isn't a second dead coil to point it out.

[ChadTower]

Q19, definitely bad.  So are two of the three resistors right above it.  Interestingly, I found a broken off resistor a few spaces away, and didn't get anything in test that would indicate a problem on that coil...

...anyway, I have a TIP120 on hand but not the right resistors.  So I'll have to see if Rat Shack has them otherwise it's a weekend trip to You Do It.

[ChadTower]

Heh.  On boards I don't want as keepers I'd do that.  I'd rather just hold off a bit and use the right parts on a full project, though.  Looking back I would have been better off swapping boardsets with the Laser Cue and doing the upgrades on that one.  I had totally forgotten how clean that boardset is until I pulled the sound board the other day.

I cut out the 2N440 above that transistor too.  There is some burn damage to the PCB under the TIP20 that you couldn't see with it folded down.  I had rebuilt an iffy trace repair on the backside of this transistor already and forgotten.  I think I'm going to run a couple short wire jumpers here for the other traces off this transistor just to be sure they aren't going to fry when I run current through it again.  They are beeping out but are burned right off the board.  I might have to use a dab of glue on the topside to secure the TIP20 in place, too.  

BTW, I know I go way too far into the details in these threads.  I do that because these are my project notes.  I work on these things in 20-30 minute intervals that aren't always close together.  If I don't keep notes like this I spend too much time trying to remember exactly what needed to be done next.

[shardian]

BTW, I know I go way too far into the details in these threads.  I do that because these are my project notes.  I work on these things in 20-30 minute intervals that aren't always close together.  If I don't keep notes like this I spend too much time trying to remember exactly what needed to be done next.

I do the same thing. It is nice to have a time-stamped log of what all you have done. My wife thinks I'm silly that I'll do troubleshooting for a bit then immediately get on the pc to type out my results and thoughts.

[ChadTower]

It was really helpful in the Tank II thread.  I got a lot of great feedback and probably wouldn't have figured out the monitor brightness issue otherwise.

[ChadTower]

Replaced Q19, the predriver right above it, and the two resistors above that.  They all looked questionable.  The traces on the backside were intact but toasted off the board so I used a cut resistor leg to jump a really short one and some wire to jump the long one.  They beep out much stronger now...

...but more importantly coil 3 fires nicely now.     All coils pass, all sounds pass, lights look as good as old bulbs will, and when I manually reset the drop banks all switches pass.  Looks like I'm ready to tackle the upper playfield soon. 

I also got the 5101 issue fixed.  Turns out it wasn't the 5101 at all.  The new batteries leaked.  Let's hear it for the off board battery holder mod!  That just saved me a bunch of hassle.   

[ChadTower]

That thought did occur to me.  What's weird is it was the middle battery only.  I'm sure I'll have to pull the CPU again sooner than later for some reason.  When I do I'll just swap that out even if it tests good.  It's a 60 second job.

[Q*Bert_OP]

If anyone in here gets their ball trough plated they deserve to be kicked in the nuts.

 

Warn me before you come to Corpus...I'll have to protect my ball trough

I even sent the prop stick off to be plated on my Xenon restoration...

[ChadTower]

Put the top of the playfield back together, mostly shopped on top, so we could put some test games on it.  Plus we want to play it.

Won't register end of ball -> none of the trough switches are working -> trace the line to the scoring switches on the kickers -> lower playfield turnaround -> lower playfield eject.  That's the whole green-orange line in the switch matrix.


EDIT:  traced it back to the driver board connector, if I hold down one of the switches and wiggle the connector, the switch starts working.  It's either a cold joint on the header or a bad pin on the connector or both.  Headers were all reflowed when I did the driver board so I'm betting on the connector.  IDC sucks anyway - I have the parts to replace.

[ChadTower]

I have pulled it a lot of times lately while working on the boards.  Guess that got this pin... may as well do the whole connector to be sure.

[ChadTower]

Replaced offending header and connector.  Now all of the switches in that string work except 18 - center trough switch.

The other wire on that one is white-red on a different connector...    Hopefully it just needs a cleaning.

Gah...

Incorrectly Assembled Factory Switches.
Part of the problem Williams was having with switches was due to an assembly mistake, which started in the mid-1970s (pre-solidstate). It turns out Williams was assembling one of the pair of leaf blades backwards. This was not a huge deal with Electro-Mechanical (EM) games, but with solidstate games, it was a BIG problem. Because solidstate games use low voltage (5 volt) switches (unlike EM games in which all switches were high voltage 28 volts), the contact rivets are gold plated to help keep them clean (gold is a non-corrosive metal). But because one of the switch blades was reversed, a gold plated switch rivet made contact with a gnarley rough non-gold plated switch rivt.

Problems occurred mainly with any switch where a ball "sat", like the ball trough, lock or kickout holes. This mistake was not realized until the Firepower era, and Williams offered retrofit kits for Firepower and Black Knight ball troughs using microswitches to fix the problem. Note an improperly assembled leaf switch can be taken apart, spliting the bakelit "switch stack", and turning around the incorrectly assembled leaf blade.

This game seems to be riddled with switches where the gold pad is on the outside of the switch... I might have to address that during the swap.  I'll think about it.

[ChadTower]

Getting closer... cleaned switch 18 and it registers in switch test now.  Unfortunately when I play a ball it still doesn't register drains.  All trough switches work in test so I guess next is to play around with them in play mode and see if they are all working in actual use.

EDIT: meh, apparently there are more problems than this in play.  It's talking but no game sounds.  Balls not ending.  Two captured balls doesn't kick a third... etc etc.

[ChadTower]

Sound Board Test Works, but Missing Sound in Game.
Sometimes there will be a problem where the game is powered on, sound test button pressed, and all the sounds (and speech) work. But in game mode the sounds don't work. Usually this is a 6821 sound board PIA problem, or maybe a 6810 problem. But here's some things to try:

    * Verify with a logic probe that the 5 signal lines to the sound board are all pulsing low when cycling through solenoid tests 9-13.
    * Grounded each signal pin at the sound board and see if sounds are produced.
    * Measure the associated pins on the 6821 when you're grounding pins on the sound board connector pins.
    * Check sound board IC6 pin 13 (4068). It should pulse high whenever you ground a pins on the input connector.
    * Check sound board chip 6821 pins 37/38. If it's working, the /IRQ will go low when you ground input pins.

So at least that's the next steps.  Haven't used a logic probe yet but I'm about at that level of troubleshooting now, I think.