That's How I Roll! (Skeeball build)

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thatpurplestuff:
Thanks for the great ideas, everyone. I'm seriously looking into motors for the ball return now (I never would have thought of a windshield wiper motor... thanks SavannahLion!), although I'm not ruling out solenoids altogether. I hit some snags last night that I'm still trying to fully understand tonight. My scoring area has kinda looked "off" to me for a while now, meaning that my 50 and 100 rings look like they are too far apart when I compare them with pics of actual Skeeball machines. Also, when my scoring area is placed in the frame of the Skeeball machine it seems too long and will actually interfere with the ball return unless I modify the frame to accomodate it. It rests far too high when I placed it according to the measurements, and overall there is something just plain wrong with it.

I'm REALLLY hoping that the entire problem lies on me misreading unclet's measurements. When looking at his sketch, I think I may have confused a dimension that lies within the 38" rectangle to be a dimension added on to the 38" rectangle. If that's the case, then I just need to recut my score area to be 38" long instead of 42 3/8". It looks like that will make it fit correctly in the frame and also fix the distance problem between rings. Again, I'm really hoping that's what the problem is because otherwise I have no idea what I messed up.

Also, just wanted to publicly thank unclet for being so helpful throughout this build. I've been emailing him with questions for a while now and he's always very helpful and fast to respond. Thanks buddy!

No real progress made today, but I'm hoping to get some things sorted tomorrow.

thatpurplestuff:
Ok, a really quick update. As you can see from the attached photo, my scoring area was too long and therefore made all of my dimensions for the ball return, scoring, etc out of whack. After looking at the measurement pics again, I thought I knew what I did wrong but wasn't sure. Unclet was kind enough to confirm the correct dimensions, so tonight I bought some more wood and cut the new scoring area. After placing the new piece in the frame, it looks great and it appears that everything will line up perfectly. Things are back on track... more later!

wooowman93:
Aren't you scared of balls flying everywhere and then BOOM there goes your 60" TV

thatpurplestuff:
wooowman93- Haha I don't have a tv that big, plus I'm gonna build a net for this thing.

Like usual, I didn't get as much done today as I thought, but I began the layout for the marquee scoring area and drilled holes / inserted lights to shine down on the playfield. I got the ramp material cut, finally attached the hop ramp permanently, and cut misc border trim for the machine. The main thing that I got done was the goofy mouse-trap looking area underneath the scoring area. Yes, those are pushbuttons there and yes I have tested them extensively and they actually work really well. I was gonna get those tripwire switches, but I've got a ton of pushbuttons collecting dust so I figured I'd see if I could find a way to use them. The ball return is still a mess and I'm still tinkering with pieces of wood trying to find the most simple way to get the scored balls and the missed balls to both end up in the same place. Hopefully I'll get that done, attach the marquee and monitor, and bolt the rings on tomorrow. We'll see if I get that all done, but if I do that means that except for a net this thing will be a functional yet still very ugly Skeeball machine.

unclet:
Looking good.

Interesting use of pushbuttons to keep score. I might try to retrofit my Skeeball with pushbuttons next time my existing switches no longer work. Using a pushbutton instead of the metal arm switches will save me a lot of money on replacement parts and most likely will never have to be replaced. Cool idea.

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