Help with vintage Super Scooper crane

[the13bats]

I am hoping someone can help me shine some light on the issue my new old vintage Super Scooper is having,
It's pretty cool to me in that it appears to have no "brain", no IC chips or anything other than switches and relays which I am hoping will allow fixing it to be even easier.

I admit I do not know for sure how it did work, I assume it ran a direction ( back/right ) until the player let off the button and then after both movement buttons were worked it just ran down tried to grab a prize returned to the rest location dumping prize or nothing in the prize hole,

The power comes on when plugged in, when I flip the wire on the coin switch it fires the end relay and racks a digit on the electric counter inside and blinks the light on the "move back" button.....

Pressing either button to move the scoop does nothing to the scoop but pressing the "right" button does fire the right relay with each push.
pushing the fore / aft button doesn't do anything and doesn't fire the last relay.

What I have tried/learned,

If I by hand move the scoop and it's assembly side to side or  fore / aft  it will return to the "rest" location over the hole for prize dumping.
both micro switches for stopping the scoop in "rest" position work.

The motor that winds the cord that brings the scoop all the way up is way too tight in fact if you look at the picture and know these machines you will see where it popped the pulley right off the little bracket. ( I can fix that )
I can not figure out how to take the tension off the cord, I can't turn the motor by hand, but the micro switch which make it wind up works, I can not tell if that other switch triggered by the bracket works.

I also do not know what the large rheostat does perhaps claw strength?

So any ideas which way to go with trouble shooting and fixing it,

Many thanks!
Cheers,
P.

[jasonl2972]

Do you have or can you take more pics of the whole track assembly.I think i have the same exact claw machine and had many problems when i first got it but have it all working and figured out now.Mine had similiar issues and after alot of tinkering it works great and i figured out the little tricks.One thing that made it hard was that mine has no name or brand anywhere on it and i never could find one just like it til i saw your boards in the pics.
 The claw being to tight on mine was because the little rectangle metal piece that senses the claw hitting bottom and slack in the line was stuck and not springing back so it would return up but not shut the retrieve off til it was wrenched tight up at top.Also at one point my line had wound itself in the wrong direction on the spool after going past the "end" cycle and was pulling the claw back up but spooling the wrong way and caused me hours of trouble shooting.
 Post a few more pics and if its the same as i have i can take close up pics of mine to show any incorrect positions of stuff.Also check your belts and make sure their in good shape and not dry rotted or slipping and that the guide rails are free of rust and smooth,all problems i ran into with mine.And the big dial,yes,it is the claw strength.

[the13bats]

Hye Jason,
There is basically nothing on the net about these you were ever more lost than me with no make or model, I found one fellow who has like 4 but his got ruin in a flood.

I might have posted this in hast, besides the coolness of you finding one like yours....after the post I removed the rectangle bracket repaired the stud that got pulled out cleaned and reinstalled it and it works just fine, the right winding of the string was important and mine tried your trick of winding the wrong way, but I knew that issue from working on my old crank diggers.

On my super scooper you deposit coin and the back arrow lights, it goes out when you hit the back button and stops when you stop pressing it, then the right button lights, same thing it is done when you stop pressing then it automatically goes down to try for a prize and returns to the prize dump hole.

I played it 8 or 10 times no issues, well, I will have to replace the string soon it's badly worn at the top and the lamp up inside there has a bad ballast but I will sub that out for some funky LEDS or even neon I have around.

I had the rheostat all the way one way and the scoop never closed all the way the other way might snap a finger off, lol....so I have to find a happy middle,
I really love this design, so simple, the power supply is a huge overkill, I really wonder what year they came out, I am guessing late 70's early 80's with no IC chips it's just darn cool to me, more fun to work on for me like old pinball.
Newer cranes have all kinds of settings for the clamping even during one game these super scoopers really have a sweet skill factor to them being the same each time,

I don't think I will putz with it modding it anytime soon but it might be cool for the claw to open and close slower not snap open snap close.

Cheers,
P.
( Bats )