Any pinball engineers in Birmingham

[mac49uk]

Hi there

Looking for someone to help with a problem on a 1980 Williams blackout.

The back target bank, two of the three targets don't work.

Probably be worthwhile to have a general kind of service as well as just purchased it.

Many thanks

Marcus

 

[ChrisH]

@Pick Holder ?

 

[Jay Walker]

Hello, Marcus,

The drop target arrangement on Blackout is Williams' long-running (and notably troublesome) method. Each target has a copper 'horse-shoe' attached, with two contact points touching a small circuit board. Even for a bank of multiple targets, each has its own circuit board, with the switch wiring attached. The contacts are notorious for falling off, thus losing continuity. If there aren't any broken wires at the target bank. it's likely that at least one contact is missing.

A further complication is that each circuit board has two elements - the horseshoe makes contact with one element as the target drops, and then makes contact with the other with the target down. A target bank is seen as completed when a series connection is made through all the circuit boards. It's a leftover from the days of electro-mechanical games, but Williams kept using it for quite a while. For solid-state games, this means that each target bank has an extra switch, one for each target and a 'series' switch, in this case a 3-target bank has four switches.

 

[mac49uk]

Yeah, I did a bit of reading and came across the horse-shoe thing. Bit out of my depth tbh!

 

[Widnesbernie]

Mine were all over the show when I got mine last October. Not registering, not fully dropping and not resetting.
I bought the NMP replacement boards from Troxel repair. Just over 65 quid including shipping (81.50 dollars).
I added plugs so that I can take out the target banks if need be in the future.
Some people have had trouble keeping the targets up after install due to the reduced friction on the targets. I had one dropping, I just added some tension to the spring, I have now got new springs, just not felt the need to fit them. The targets haven't missed a beat since the boards went in.
Apparently you will be forever adjusting and cleaning the original setup.
These are fit and forget. I really can't praise them highly enough.
There are some YouTube videos on installing them.

 

[mac49uk]

Mine were all over the show when I got mine last October. Not registering, not fully dropping and not resetting.
I bought the NMP replacement boards from Troxel repair. Just over 65 quid including shipping (81.50 dollars).
I added plugs so that I can take out the target banks if need be in the future.
Some people have had trouble keeping the targets up after install due to the reduced friction on the targets. I had one dropping, I just added some tension to the spring, I have now got new springs, just not felt the need to fit them. The targets haven't missed a beat since the boards went in.
Apparently you will be forever adjusting and cleaning the original setup.
These are fit and forget. I really can't praise them highly enough.
There are some YouTube videos on installing them.

Ha, interesting. Thanks for this, appreciated.

Will take a look at this!

 

[mac49uk]

Mine were all over the show when I got mine last October. Not registering, not fully dropping and not resetting.
I bought the NMP replacement boards from Troxel repair. Just over 65 quid including shipping (81.50 dollars).
I added plugs so that I can take out the target banks if need be in the future.
Some people have had trouble keeping the targets up after install due to the reduced friction on the targets. I had one dropping, I just added some tension to the spring, I have now got new springs, just not felt the need to fit them. The targets haven't missed a beat since the boards went in.
Apparently you will be forever adjusting and cleaning the original setup.
These are fit and forget. I really can't praise them highly enough.
There are some YouTube videos on installing them.

Sorry, did you order these from Troxel Repair themselves? They are in Nebraska it seems?

 

[Widnesbernie]

Yes.
Emailed him asking if he shipped to UK and that I wanted 2 x 3 target boards for a Blackout.
He sent me an invoice asking for shipping address.
Paid via PayPal.
Took a couple of weeks to arrive.

 

[mac49uk]

Awesome. I'll do the same. Cheers! Would likely never have stumbled across this.

 

[Widnesbernie]

Once you have rebuilt the target bank with the boards in place, tip the target bank backwards. If any targets drop backwards you will need to tension the spring. I just used bit of tubing on the finger that the spring goes onto ( it will make sense when you see it).
I had one target that was struggling to stay up. When I did the above it fell all the way back. The one next to also fell back, but not as far. Once I added some tension to the spring it worked perfectly. The other target bank was fine.
Like I said, I now have the springs but have not felt the need to try them, if its not broke, etc.
I got them from Retro,arcadespecialists, Flipper extension spring x 6, 10-364, 39p each.
You will need some glue to fix the supplied magnets to the drop targets.

 

[mac49uk]

Once you have rebuilt the target bank with the boards in place, tip the target bank backwards. If any targets drop backwards you will need to tension the spring. I just used bit of tubing on the finger that the spring goes onto ( it will make sense when you see it).
I had one target that was struggling to stay up. When I did the above it fell all the way back. The one next to also fell back, but not as far. Once I added some tension to the spring it worked perfectly. The other target bank was fine.
Like I said, I now have the springs but have not felt the need to try them, if its not broke, etc.
I got them from Retro,arcadespecialists, Flipper extension spring x 6, 10-364, 39p each.
You will need some glue to fix the supplied magnets to the drop targets.

That's great, sincerely so grateful for this.