I’ve been having a lot of fun playing my Black Knight since it arrived. Normally I’m doing repairs and servicing posts, but this one will be different as I’m focusing on mods and upgrades I’ve made to my Black Knight Pro. I’ve had some fun adding extra bling that the PRO version was lacking 🙂 It already has a shaker motor, which I had installed when purchasing it. But I wanted to do more. I’ve since continued to add to my PRO with some mods from Mezel Mods, Tilt Graphics, Retro Refurbs and Titan Pinball. First up, I ordered a flail cover and ramp LED kit from Mezel Mods.
The flail cover was installed first since it was the quickest. It’s a nice little addition and looks right at home on the flail.
Next up are LED strips for the main ramp. The LED strips install under the playfield to the rear side of the metal ramp. It doesn’t hook up to the SPIKE system so won’t respond to in game programming. But you can set it to stick with a certain colour, glow or even fade between different colours. I never liked how the cut outs were just black on the PRO, so I was glad to get this installed. Ideally I’d love an upgrade that strobes the LED’s up the ramp, but none seem to be available at this time. Perhaps something for me to look at making on me own as it would be a neat little project!
I purchased a series of red anodized lock nuts (around 30 in total) from Pinball Haus and also replaced the ugly metal washers with nice clear ones.
One upgrade I’ve had planned since before ordering the game was some art blades. These aren’t present on the PRO version, but a number of suppliers have Black Knight themed art blades you can purchase and install yourself. These came from Retro Refurbs. I also ordered a set of orange Titan rubbers so I can replace the black rubber.
The art blades were incredibly simple to install and you don’t even have to remove the playfield to do it. The process took me around 20 – 30 minutes to get both sides done.
Next up was getting the Titan rubbers intalled. I found that I was short a couple of post rings and 1 inch ring for the right war lane, so had to place a second order. Thankfully we have a local distributor here in Australia now that stocks them, so making small orders doesn’t become expensive with overseas shipping. I’m happy with how the orange turned out. Red probably would have worked well too.
One of the mandatory mods I wanted to add to my Black Knight was a PinSub adapter so I could hook up an external sub woofer.
It plugs directly into the board and the original cable attaches to the other end of the PCB. You then run a cable from the jack on the left side down to the external sub woofer. I LOVE how it sounds and really adds to the audio experience of the game 🙂
Next up are a couple of small mods from Tilt graphics. A lockdown bar accent and rail decals. They also sent me a free set of decal for the flippers, but I don’t plan to install them. The artwork on them isn’t mirrored, so you would end up with the art on one side upside down.
The rail decals get applied to the two side rails and smaller shooter lane rail. It just gives a little more character to the otherwise flat black rail.
There are two wood grain gate decals included in the set too, which were installed at the top of the playfield.
The lockdown bar accent was installed next.
Now for a couple of small home made upgrades that I put together to lift the presentation of the coin door. First up is replacing the generic coin return button insert. A new Black Knight insert was made up and installed.
There’s an empty rectangle along the coin door that is begging for a decal of some kind. I made up a few variations to try.
These were printed out on to peel and stick gloss paper and then covered in clear contact. The corners were trimmed round and then installed. The new decal and coin inserts add a nice little presentation lift to the front of the machine. Tilt Graphics have a really nice shooter rod face plate I’d love to get at some point too which will add just that little bit extra bling to the front of the machine.
There are still a couple more things I’d like to get – back lit flipper buttons and a face plate for the shooter rod housing. But I’ll hold off on those for now. I’m still loving this game. It kicks my butt on a regular basis, but keeps me going back for more. The 1.0 code update is excellent, although I hope they give you a setting in a future release that lets you tone down the soft call outs. They occur way too early on your journey and too frequently, which kills the bad ass image the Black Knight has.