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Black Hole multiball issues, can a Pascal board be buggy?

David_Vi

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In Black Hole, you lock/capture a ball on the upper playfield, and another on the lower playfield.
With both locked when you enter the lower playfield you start multiball in the lower playfield.

During the multiball if you drain one ball it'll hold it in the lower pf 'trough' until the second has also drained. If you drop one of the drop target banks the gate on the main playfield will open, so when the second ball drains the main playfield locked ball is released while the two lower balls enter the main playfield via the open gate.

If you don't complete the drop banks the gate remains closed and both balls will drain when they get to the upper playfield.

On Claires black hole, if you don't complete a drop bank the first ball will exit the lower playfield to upper playfield tube and drains. Then a second or two later the second ball follows but as it's fired up the gate opens allowing it onto the main playfield.
This isn't supposed to happen, and the game logic knows this as if you enter the lower playfield it won't activate until the second ball has drained, it's waiting for both balls to drain till it lets you start again with the third which you had locked on top.

This only happens with the Pascal board, if I put in the old Ni-wumpf mpu board the gate behaves correctly.

Here's a video of it happening with the pascal board. I start multiball but let both drain.

Here's the same scenario but with the old board
See both drain?


I cannot think of any reason this would happen that is mechanical or switch related, especially as it differs between boards.
Is it possible that Pascals coding has a bug? Surely it would have been noticed by now?

Another related issue is both balls exit the lower playfield fast, with both boards.
Watching videos of other black holes, the upper playfield ball is released just before the first lower playfield ball is sent up the tube, then there's an at least 2 second delay before the third ball. On Claires Black Hole those lower pf balls fire up in quick succession.

Any ideas?
 
Pascal is a legend, super helpful and incredibly friendly when assisting with any issues, speak with him and he will be able to point you in the right direction
 
I've emailed him a few times before we got the board and to help him with the high score initials input (the guide was only in french and BH has a different switch matrix). He's been great, so I did drop him a mail yesterday just keen to post too😄 Incase it's something obvious I can sort before work 😫

Feels like I'm working two jobs with the amount of hours I put into pinball 😑
 
Seems it's not just multiball.

If a ball doesn't exit the tube and goes back down, the gate opens for the second time it fires the upkicker.
So it's whenever the upkicker fires twice in a row, without any main playfield switches in-between.
 
Tried so many things, so frustrated!

No response from Pascal yet. But I do wonder If it's the board, in some ways that would be the best solution as I can't see what else would cause it. But I also can't see how noone else has noticed this issue since pascal wrote the black hole code for his board, which is at least 8 years?


I'll have to bring something else to Pinfest 😫
 
Tried so many things, so frustrated!

No response from Pascal yet. But I do wonder If it's the board, in some ways that would be the best solution as I can't see what else would cause it. But I also can't see how noone else has noticed this issue since pascal wrote the black hole code for his board, which is at least 8 years?


I'll have to bring something else to Pinfest 😫
Is it really that much of a dramatic issue to not take it to Pinfest? If it's a common fault that's consistent for all games and it doesn't give anyone an advantage/disadvantage then what's the issue?
 
Is it really that much of a dramatic issue to not take it to Pinfest? If it's a common fault that's consistent for all games and it doesn't give anyone an advantage/disadvantage then what's the issue?

No of course not,but it would be nice, we always had centaur as a backup as I didn't expect to get BH done in time but still is it wrong to be frustrated when a game isn't working correctly, especially when it's likely to be a brand new board that costs around £400? Plus a few people have spoken to me and we're excited to get to play it as there's not many about.

It's not a common fault, noone else I've asked experiences it and it does give advantages or disadvantages depending on how you play it.
If you fail to drop a bank in multiball you'll get one ball back but the lower pf won't work until you purposely drain one ball.

It doesn't happen on original hardware or the Ni-wumpf mpu
 
Not familiar with the pascal board but does it have multiple game roms on it and you select the right one via dips?

Does it have a switch test that shows the switch number just in case something is not quite wired corrwctly.
 
Not familiar with the pascal board but does it have multiple game roms on it and you select the right one via dips?

Does it have a switch test that shows the switch number just in case something is not quite wired corrwctly.

You select the ROM on boot, it's the correct ROM 668, you can be sure because all the options in the menus are relevant to BH.
I've double checked every switch, twice.
Tested it over and over with balls, without balls.

There's three options for the gate on the pascal board,
Normal: default BH behaviour, gate stays closed unless you hit the drop banks down below or light and trigger the right inlane switch.

7 secs : as above, but you the gate opens for 7 seconds when you're in the lower pf, then closes meaning you have to hit the drops. Imagine it like a ball save for the lower pf.

b-5000: the gate will open and remain open if you score at least 5000pts in the lower pf. If I set it to this, once you hit the lower pf the gate opens and stays open regardless if you've scored 5000pts, so that seems broken.

Tried all the above and it still opens on the second upkick. But the game breaks because it is expecting two balls in the trough rather than the one.

I've tried to find folks who have a BH and a Pascal to check theirs but no luck yet. Seems a niche title and even more niche to have a BH and the all in one pascal.
 
No of course not,but it would be nice, we always had centaur as a backup as I didn't expect to get BH done in time but still is it wrong to be frustrated when a game isn't working correctly, especially when it's likely to be a brand new board that costs around £400? Plus a few people have spoken to me and we're excited to get to play it as there's not many about.

It's not a common fault, noone else I've asked experiences it and it does give advantages or disadvantages depending on how you play it.
If you fail to drop a bank in multiball you'll get one ball back but the lower pf won't work until you purposely drain one ball.

It doesn't happen on original hardware or the Ni-wumpf mpu

No of course not,but it would be nice, we always had centaur as a backup as I didn't expect to get BH done in time but still is it wrong to be frustrated when a game isn't working correctly, especially when it's likely to be a brand new board that costs around £400? Plus a few people have spoken to me and we're excited to get to play it as there's not many about.

It's not a common fault, noone else I've asked experiences it and it does give advantages or disadvantages depending on how you play it.
If you fail to drop a bank in multiball you'll get one ball back but the lower pf won't work until you purposely drain one ball.

It doesn't happen on original hardware or the Ni-wumpf mpu
No I just meant as in still take it because at least the fault happens every time and not sporadically so its not like anybody would be at a disadvantage due to a random fault... If it happens every time it's mega annoying but at least it's still fair for all players? Don't let that stop you from taking it... Unless it's bricking the game when it happens?

Have you got a ni-wumpf board too or did it have original boards in it when you got it?
 
The ni wumpf came with it but it's so out of date it's missing most of the options, plus sometimes seems to lock up (earlier it said a message like "sector error" or "xector error", it looked like an x on the Gottlieb displays. (I spoke to the ni wumpf guyand he confirmed it was an old one without BH settings, and I could post it to the states for him to update but that seemed a lot of effort)

Also can't turn off extra balls and the player scores don't flash at the start of the ball which tied with extra balls could be a trap in competition play.

So we went with pascal as everyone praises it and it'll give us a lot more options.

If there's a sys80 mpu we could borrow just to use at Pinfest or to double check it is board related it would be nice.

It could always come with the Ni-wumpf and be in freeplay
 
The ni wumpf came with it but it's so out of date it's missing most of the options, plus sometimes seems to lock up (earlier it said a message like "sector error" or "xector error", it looked like an x on the Gottlieb displays. (I spoke to the ni wumpf guyand he confirmed it was an old one without BH settings, and I could post it to the states for him to update but that seemed a lot of effort)

Also can't turn off extra balls and the player scores don't flash at the start of the ball which tied with extra balls could be a trap in competition play.

So we went with pascal as everyone praises it and it'll give us a lot more options.

If there's a sys80 mpu we could borrow just to use at Pinfest or to double check it is board related it would be nice.

It could always come with the Ni-wumpf and be in freeplay

Can Jim @myPinballs take a look over anything mate to turn around in a month? I'll chip in cost wise and I'm sure others would too, absolutely gagging to play this in the flesh 😀
 
Can Jim @myPinballs take a look over anything mate to turn around in a month? I'll chip in cost wise and I'm sure others would too, absolutely gagging to play this in the flesh 😀

I doubt it (although Jim's genius knows no bounds😄) as I believe the CPU is programmed by pascal, he rewrites the games ROMs rather than use the original Gottlieb ROMs, so it's probably an issue in there.
Although why noone else has reported it doesn't make sense. Unless a board can be dodgy alone.

I'll see what happens in the coming weeks. The Ni-wumpf might be ok for just general Pinfest play and we'll put Centaur in the classics instead.
 
Sincerely, bring the Black Hole. There are so few around that I'd rather play one with a minor fault than not play it at all, and it's going to be several years before we can open up enough space to import one.
 
Sincerely, bring the Black Hole. There are so few around that I'd rather play one with a minor fault than not play it at all, and it's going to be several years before we can open up enough space to import one.

It's coming either way. Unless I have hassle getting it out. I'm sure you're aware it's much larger than any other pin (except Haunted house)😄
 
It's coming either way. Unless I have hassle getting it out. I'm sure you're aware it's much larger than any other pin (except Haunted house)😄
I've played Spirit :)

Does it go through standard-sized doors and does the backbox come off (I've just had a fear a BH will *never* fit into the house due to problems getting it through the doors)?
 
I've played Spirit :)

Does it go through standard-sized doors and does the backbox come off (I've just had a fear a BH will *never* fit into the house due to problems getting it through the doors)?

No, you have to remove Backbox, it has to come off anyway as it doesn't fold like most classic solid states it's designed to be removed and not folded.

Cab fits through the door, it isn't much wider than a Williams widebody.
 
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