Are you SURE all 3 trough switches are registering with a ball in the trough? Your first problem sounds like the 3rd ball is not registering in the trough.

Try this, remove all balls from the game. Enter switch test. Verify no switches are registering. Roll one ball into the drain, switch 20 should register. Manually push the ball into the trough, switch 17 should repeatedly register. Push the second ball into the trough, 17 and 18 should repeatedly register. Push the 3rd ball in the trough and 17, 18, 19 should repeatedly register. One of these switches miss-adjusted or if they have a bad diode, could cause your problem.

For column 6, sounds like you have a wiring problem. Check that the wire is making connection at the IDC connector at the driver board at through the disconnect at the bottom of the backbox. There is also a connector that connects the lower playfield to the upper playfield but since the switches that are not working include some on the upper playfield, your issue is before that connector. I would trace continuity back from the driver board connector through the one in the bottom of the backbox. If that is good, trace the wire bundle as it enters the upper PF and measure continuity from the first switch back to the driver board connector.

Wow, I really have no idea on the first one. Does the game count up your bonus when you drain? Does it shoot the ball from the drain to the trough?

On the second issue, measure from the paperclip to one of the switches on the main PF (shooter lane 45 or PF tilt 46)

Next is to test the Diodes on the upper trough switches and make sure the contacts are clean.

The normal course of events is that when the ball drains, it shoots it into the trough, then counts bonus, then ejects the next ball. It needs to detect all 3 balls in a trough to start a game and to "end the ball". Since you tested it over and over and it starts a game, I think we know all 3 switches are working. I think it might be time to ask Rottondog for help. It sounds like a bug in their board/game. Maybe you can post a question in the Black Knight club thread to see if anyone else had this problem with a RD board in a BK.

Hey... so this is happening to me as well.

I have 2 new Rottendog MPU327-3 boards. One is having issue playing the right speeches, but otherwise plays perfectly with no glitches.

I dropped in a new board just to rule out my speech board issue, and I am now getting the exact same issue as you. Plays one ball fine and pushes the ball over to the trough, but does not advance the play to 2nd ball.

I think it may be something in the settings and im going to pull the battery and retry.

It's like it believes a ball is still in play. It does the same thing if you load up the lock with balls, it will eject one, but if you put it back in... it is fine.

All switches and solenoids register perfectly without any row or column grounding. This may be a flaky board. I'm going to repair my other one and swap it back.

Crap... so now both boards are doing it. They act identical. Let me know if you figure it out. Ill debug as well

Well, good news and bad! At least you found the culprit!

CRAP.

I feared this would happen. Been waiting nearly a year for the rev 3 board, and it still is flaky

So, please reach out to Jim and possibly Keith (K's arcade) to confirm you are having this issue, exactly this issue because I am having a hard time convincing them that the board is still not working right or that I blew it somehow.

1) Game passes all test modes, switch tests, display and sound tests
2) Game starts with BK speech, kicks out first ball, then no more sound
3) Game plays and scores fine until the ball is drained.
4) Ball is kicked over from the outhole into the trough but then just sits and does nothing.
5) You can still score points and game still in "working mode" but nothing will ever advance to the next ball.

ok good. I've gone the route of K's arcade and also have a email out.

I did find that someone had this issue 7 months ago with the MPU327-2 ... same issue and that new ROM fixed the issue. Apparently the ROM got damaged somehow but still plays? I wouldn't mind having the code so that I can burn my own in the event this happens again.

I've mentioned to Jim about the ROM to see if he would send new ones just in case. No word yet

Not sure if that board uses the same ROMs as the original board set, but if it does, the ROM code is available for for download at Ipdb.org: http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=310

Original ROMS will not work as this board uses a Combo ROM and possible boot loader in a different format... so it would have to come from Jim. Or it would be sweet if he could send the code to be programmed.

Not one reply from Rottendog. So far crickets.

I actually have 3 BKs waiting on boards. I purchased 2 MPU327-3s ... they both act the same. So this is a design issue, not a bad board.

I'll be calling today as well to help support / add need for this

--> from my embedded software experience, this appears to be a ROM issue. It feels like some subroutines are not running (like background sound, end of ball etc). Seems like the vector addresses are incorrect for some reason

I talked to him and he said they used a faster RAM chip. I just received my replacement RAM part... and ... UH.. no change for me.

I'm waiting to see how your tests come up. Exact same results. The board did need to reboot once in order to detect and use the part and all settings went back to default.

Let me know how yours goes

That stinks, sorry...

You could try and reset the board just for grins...

Either follow the factory reset instructions or pull the batteries for 5-10 minutes.

I will do that. This is likely a flash part (and not RAM) and the code detected no files... so it did the reset and reformat.

StratDoc: eager to hear about your findings before I contact Rottendog again about my test results

bumpy

I got a version 3 Rottendog recently for my Black Knight - and it does the EXACT same thing you describe above. I also posted in this thread: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/black-knight-and-rottendog-mpu327-issues

yes, I see. Please keep this thread running. I think we have 4 now with this issue and with the replacement flash part, does not appear to solve the problem yet.

StratDoc, did you get your flash part yet from RD?

OK, well... the only good news is that we are both consistent and it should help in swaying RD to continue to debug this issue.

And it sucks because ... well BK is still dead after a year of waiting for this board to come out. I had much better success using the MPU327-2 board. At least it worked.

Hello everyone! First post here. Just got my rottendog combo board for my recently acquired black knight and my game is doing the exact same stuff. Game boots, sound board works when hitting the test switch, all solenoids work and test good , and all switches work in the test mode. However when starting a game , the speech works for only a few seconds then gets no sound, won't kick out a 2nd ball after losing one or getting in the upper trough for multiball, and it just sits there in gameplay mode after you lose a ball . This is the new revision rottendog board that is supposed to work with black knight. I'm gonna email arcadeshop where I got it from and see what they can do.

I think it's safe to say at this point that ALL new Rottendog boards will have this problem with Black Knight. ...I'm not sure what to do with mine. I bought it to 'bullet proof' my Black Knight, but ended up putting the original boards back in when the Rottendog would not work. Thankfully, it's been running great on the original boards.

Awesome, yeah for sure post up how it goes with the replacement board. I sent Steve an email yesterday and he said he will look into it. I just know I'm ready to play some black knight haha!

Do they test these boards before they start shipping them out? Just seems like a tremendous oversight for them to be selling these boards and none of them are working correctly brand-new. I feel bad for you guys. If you still have your old boards, you may want to send them out to a reputable tech and have them repair/bullet-proof them if possible. I've been using original boards in my BK for nearly ten years since having the Coin-Op Cauldron fix them up for me.

Best of luck, guys!

They work in the other dozens of possible games just not Black Knight. I have a rotten dog in my black knight and it works fine. Must be a earlier version.

Has anyone heard back from RD about the latest fixes? Or have they acknowledged that their latest fix still didn't solve the issue?

Well that's a bummer. Hope they get something figured out. I emailed Steven at arcadeshop a few days ago and he said he's working on it.