Help with a Skee Ball restoration.

[Eltis]

Hello,

I bought a Skee Ball machine off Ebay years ago.  It was in rough shape, but was mostly functional.  It's one of those classic ones, although it has the 100 point holes.  It looked like this:



After a bit of modification and paint, it looks more like this:



Anyway, the problem I'm having is that all the tickets have long been expended.  As a result, we get the "HELP" error very frequently.  I would like to know if there is a way to completely bypass the ticket dispenser in all functionality/checks to stop this error from happening.

Second, less important question:  Has anyone successfully modified an old-school switch Skee Ball into an optical sensor Skee Ball?  If so, what was the cost and what is involved?

Last question:  There is this siren that rings every time someone scores 50 points.  It makes this big fanfare and replaces the normal sound that would have been made otherwise (for example, you have 40 points and hit 10 and it will go nuts).  Is there an easy way to completely disable this functionality?  I have tried the dip switches to no avail.  

[Eltis]

Just in case I posted this in the wrong place or something... is there a better place I can go to look for these answers.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

This game gets the most use on Halloween when we do our annual Skee Ball for candy event.  I get away with some of the issues by covering the score with the skull and just manually counting score to determine the prize.  But ultimately, I'd like to get this thing as fully functional as possible.

[JasonSmith]

Unfortunately I'm of zero help to you, I'm a noob!

But I did notice there is actually a Misc section that has skeeball in the description, you might have more luck there!

[WindDrake]

I've never seen the inside of your particular unit, but the easy way to disable the fanfare would be to disconnect the siren.

Mechanical to Optical would just be a matter of changing over from a Switch to a circuit that trips a say FET/Transistor whenever an IR Beam is interrupted. I can think of how the circuit would go together, but you'd probably be better off googling that or checking over at KLOV's forums, as you start getting into things like sensor alignment and such with optical arrangements.

The HELP message comes up because the dispenser is coming up with zero tickets. Without a schematic, it'd be hard to say how to disable or bypass the ticket dispenser's empty check. It's most likely a roller-tipped switch somewhere in the dispenser itself. On atleast one machine I can think of, this rode on the tickets, which closed the circuit. When the tickets ran out, the switch arm fell forward, opening the circuit and setting off the Empty alarm. You could try looking for that on your dispenser mechanism.

Hope I'm of some help. Skee-ball is bad ass. 

[DaOld Man]

I know nothing about skeeball but I had to comment to say that is one fine job you did there.

[Eltis]

But I did notice there is actually a Misc section that has skeeball in the description, you might have more luck there!

Thanks, I might try that after I've given this a little more time.

I've never seen the inside of your particular unit, but the easy way to disable the fanfare would be to disconnect the siren.

You know, I always assumed that it was just using the normal sound board for the siren noise, but if it's separate that would definitely be an option.  I still wish there was a way to just flip a switch to tell it not to do that because with the siren disconnected, you would get no feedback at all for your roll (for example, say you hit a 50 - you don't get the little jingle).  It would be oddly silent.

The main reason I want this changed is because when we do our Halloween event for kids, they get 3 balls to play per person (we usually have lines of 15-30 people, so playing a full game takes too long).  That siren is basically guaranteed to go off every 3 games and kids freak out and think they've won something special even though they rolled a 10 to reach the 50 point mark.  And it does get irritating after the 100th time.

Mechanical to Optical would just be a matter of changing over from a Switch to a circuit that trips a say FET/Transistor whenever an IR Beam is interrupted. I can think of how the circuit would go together, but you'd probably be better off googling that or checking over at KLOV's forums, as you start getting into things like sensor alignment and such with optical arrangements.

I'll look around some more.  It's really hard to find articles about Skee Ball mods, it seems.  I wish someone just sold a kit, although I suppose Skee Ball (the company) would be none too pleased with that.

The HELP message comes up because the dispenser is coming up with zero tickets. Without a schematic, it'd be hard to say how to disable or bypass the ticket dispenser's empty check. It's most likely a roller-tipped switch somewhere in the dispenser itself. On atleast one machine I can think of, this rode on the tickets, which closed the circuit. When the tickets ran out, the switch arm fell forward, opening the circuit and setting off the Empty alarm. You could try looking for that on your dispenser mechanism.

Hm, I was thinking about this and I wonder if there is a way I could just rig a "permanent" ticket onto the mechanism where the sensor is at.  Essentially, tricking it into thinking all was kosher in the ticket department.  I'm going to have to pull it apart and watch it in action.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help!

I know nothing about skeeball but I had to comment to say that is one fine job you did there.

Thank you very much.  I should note that the skull and some of the accessories are only there during our annual Halloween event.  But I do think I chose some really nice colors for the machine itself.  Since then, I cut holes and attached clamps onto both sides of the ramp so that the rope lights permanently sit on the sides of the lane.  Also, we have black light mounted to the ceiling of our garage, which definitely gives the visuals a little extra oomph.

[clanggedin]

There should be some dip switches on the mainboard behind the scoreboard. If you switch the first one it will turn off the ticket dispenser. I cant remember if I have dip switch 4 turned on or off.

Here is a link to the dip switch page. http://unclet.arcadecontrols.com/SkeeBall/operInstall-pics1/operinstall-page03.jpg.