Arcade Collecting > Miscellaneous Arcade Talk

Building a Coin Op Crane Game

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IMMark:
Hi all,
I have been considering building a crane game for sometime now.  With a finished Mame under my belt, this may be next. 
I have two kinds in mind,
1. would be to take a modern "Tonka Crane" and fit it to work with hand cranks, as with the old time machines.
2. The other type would be the more modern overhead rail type, that would move via motors/buttons.
I just wanted to get input from the "experts"; you if anyone has done this, or thought about it?  Any ideas on making the inner workings, interfacing?
As always....Many Many hours of Happy Gaming!

Ixliam:
I don't think it would be too bad, just know that if you are the first one to do it, you will have a bit more added expense involved as you "figure things out" while your building it. If you have a good reason for wanting one (even if the reason is "because I want one"), then by all means give it a shot. I'm not familiar with the tonka toy, but I would think that one of the overhead style cranes would be easier to make.

But I do encourage you to go for it, I had some naysayers when I was thinking of building my own skeeball machine, but I went ahead anyway with it. Now I wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of UncleT taking dimensions and pictures of his, but the crane machine is just a box with a crane in it (nothing like a curved ramp). I've had to rework a few things as I built it, but that's part of the fun of doing it yourself. I know have a non-scoring functional skeeball machine. Just make sure you plan, plan some more, then plan again. Do that before you make that first cut in the wood, know what your going to do and how it will all come together. Good luck!

Brad

IMMark:
Hey Brad,
Thanks for the reply, I didn't think that I was going to get one.  As for the why, growing up we had a coin op version, probably from the 60's, wish I still had it, they sell for $1500 plus now if you can find them.  It ran on a timer (60 secs) to see how much you could load in a hopper.  Anyway it is just one of the game room additions that's still on the wish list; along with the Skeeball machine.  Is your Skeeball complete?  Or is that what you mean by "non-scoring
'  I thought that someone had posted a program that would take care of the scoring aspect??  If not drop me a line, I have some thought on building one.  All these great ideas and so little time and $$$$.  Thanks for the encouragement...that's one of the best parts about this site ;D

Ixliam:
What I meant by non-scoring is that I haven't finished that part yet. Randy sent me a test Keywiz to put on it and when he gets his software ready I will be able to put a monitor up there to show how it works. I have a circuit drawn out for the scoring, but I believe I am going to use a printer port interface and a custom program to run the scoreboard along with sound effects. Course this is just vapor ware at this point since I haven't built much on the circuit counter yet. Basically it will use a matrix to control the displays anode (if using LEDs) sing the TTL from the data lines for the lights and then the TTL from like ACK/STROBE/ETC to control the cathode. So for each light, it would kick on one data line and then the alternate line.

Brad

IMMark:
Sounds great,
I give you a  lot of credit, pretty big size project.  Will you post something when complete, would love to see it and really curious how the software Randy has will work.  Also something I though of, I know you are already past this, but as far as making the curved ramp, have you ever heard of curfing?  Basically, you take a plywood then cut lines in it maybe 2/3 of the way through and spaced anywhere from 1/2 inch to 1/8 inch apart, the result is a very flexible piece of wood with a solid top, you can then mount to maybe 3 support boards with the shape you desire.  For what it is worth, just thought that I would throw that out there.  I know what you mean about all the naysayers, but it isn't always just the price or how long it takes, sometimes like the mountain, you just have to climb it to see if you can. ;)

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