Skee-Ball Ball Counter Switch Advice

[skeeNH]

Hi, everybody.

I picked up a couple of Skee-Ball machines last fall and in some spare time this winter have been slowly replacing dead bulbs and fuses, fixing some wiring and crushed sockets, and generally cleaning the machines up.

The ball counter switches in the old machines were very worn and kept getting stuck out of position almost every time a ball went through.  When I popped them out I discovered they were so worn that the posts that keep the wire in the normal range of motion were almost entirely gone.

I picked up new Cherry switches (still mechanical, not optical) for the ball counters, but we are having a lot of trouble figuring out the right shape and angle to bend the switch wire so that it will work dependably.  Because we don't have an example of one that's working and the manuals I've seen usually just say to adjust as needed, it's been trial and error and we're not getting great results.

If anybody with Skeeball experience can give me some general advice, a photo of a working switch, a drawing, or just about anything, I would really appreciate it.  I'd be happy to provide more information.

Thanks so much for reading and for any knowledge you might share. 

And good luck with your projects, everybody!

SkeeNH