Firebat138- Thanks!
Skeeball is wired up, playable, and we just spent the last two nights drinking loads of beer with our friends and rolling wooden balls. There are definitely some kinks to work out, but overall I couldn’t be happier with the machine so far.
I was on the fence about my speaker placement, but after using RandyT’s software I’m very happy that I went with two speakers. The sound is awesome.
First, I added that black mesh drawer lining stuff and it is absolutely amazing in terms of dampening the sound of the balls hitting the wood. The balls now travel through the machine very quietly. The little dome “wall protectors” work great for the two lowest rings… they knock the ball right into the hole every time. Originally I had planned on flattening them out into a donut-shape and putting a rivet through them to attach them to the rings, but the adhesive that they come with is very strong and works fine by itself. I first installed the bottom dome a bit low on the ring, and while it worked most of the time it would hold the ball inside the ring if it didn’t hit it fast enough. They both work great after just mounting them a bit higher.
The ball return now works flawlessly, although I wish I could say the same thing about the scoring. The balls trigger the buttons great… actually too great considering about 2 of every 10 balls double scores. I might be able to tweak this thing to death and finally get it registering correctly, but I’m thinking I may just bite the bullet and buy the switches with the metal arms. They are pricey, but I want something that works 100% of the time and pushbuttons don’t seem to be wanting to cooperate.
One big decision I’ve made after a weekend of Skeeball is that I am scrapping the ball release altogether. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that for what I am wanting to do with this machine, a ball release is fairly worthless and actually a hindrance in some ways. I don’t plan on putting a coin slot in it and the software counts the balls played, so keeping the balls from the players until a game is started doesn’t really serve a purpose. Also, I eventually want to make different game modes, and I don’t want to have a self-imposed limit of 9 balls.
After holding up the PVC net frame to the machine, I’m not even going to bother attaching it. It is REALLY fugly, and I don’t want to be drilling holes in this machine for a temporary solution. This week, I’ll begin designing/cutting the actual frame and attaching the net. In terms of other goals for this week, I’ve been putting off attaching the final bolts to the bottom ring (so it doesn’t look all warped and goofy) so that’s going to be on my to-do list. I also want to create the little sand pads that prevent the balls from bouncing out of the higher rings. Cutting the top covers for both sides of the lane is definitely a priority as well. The scoreboard needs a bit of tweaking for the printed graphic, and I need to create something to keep the whole thing closed (right now it only stays closed because it is a tight fit.) If anyone has any ideas on what I should do about the rounded edge on the front of the Skeeball machine where the metal for the coin slot and ball area normally are, I'm all ears. I don't plan on buying parts from an actual machine to put there, so I've gotta come up with something as a replacement and so far I'm drawing a blank.
We are planning on starting a weekly Skeeball league as soon as this is done and painted, and we've already got people wanting in. Overall, I'm really happy with this thing but there is still plenty of work to be done! More updates this week!