Wow. That was some over-complicated schematics for such a simple looking board; even the 1 or 2 coin setting seemed far from easy! Admittedly, I tend to steer clear of grabbing machines - too many rogue operators over-adjusting the claw sensitivity. Thanks again for the informative video :)
I think they optimize schematics for space rather than readability. Less paper that way. The schematic could likely be made far nicer to troubleshoot with if it organized for flow instead.
Remember when you said somebody is gonna need these schematics? I'm that guy got a Kramer crane claw machine 3 months ago uses the same board been looking for hours at least once a week even told myself I wish that guy From Joe's classic video games had a video on one thank you very much love your videos I'm sure I'll be able to get my claw working now
Omg Joe, this was one of the best indepth videos you've done on a machine! I have one of these Clean Sweeps with a joy stick doing the same thing, I could move the claw back and forth, but not down? Your channel helps me understand how to so much!
I think these scematics are Dutsch, VW Voorwaarts (Forward), ZW Zijwaarts (sideways), LG Lijn Gondel (Line Crane), MV Motor Voorwaarts (Motor Forward), MZ Motor Zijwaarts (Motor Sideways), Motor Gondel (Motor Crane). I hope this will help you.
Think should start database online with pictures of all the schematics as be good reference materials for all your followers brilliant videos still enjoy watching them and always learning something
That was some good circuit-sleuthing you did there, I've been in a similar situations where I've had trouble figuring something out only to realize, after I've pulled half my hair out, that the instructions are wrong.
yeah sometimes you end up spending a ton of time figuring it out, I kind of see it as fun so I didn't mind spending all day tracking it down, now maybe I'll understand the next one I work on a little better :) I feel pretty confident that any of them that take this relay board are simple enough to repair no matter what's wrong with them. Thanks for watching Fred!
I think I have only played a claw machine once when I was a kid, stuck in my money, positioned the claw and watched the damn thing cheat horribly. Never touched them again. I loved the coin pushers though and can vaguely remember a giant electromechanical horse racing game with flashing lights, moving horses and rows of coin slots for the different horses.
I could hear the gears grinding in the head with this repair :) You were almost about to say 'pinball repair' at the beginning of the video too :P Love all the repair videos that you do, I took a look at second hand non-functional claw machines a while back, here in Australia, even a dead one demands a stupidly expensive price of a good 1500AUD or more..... I feel like the best time to find these machines was back in the '80s and '90s when they got thrown out to the skip bin.
It kind of depends on the type, this type here is about the cheapest kind, the ones with a joystick are more desireable, I like these button ones though because that's the ones I remember and I like how simple the mechanics are, that's really neat to me (obviously, I filmed an hour long video fixing one, lol).... it's not uncommon for us to run across one pretty cheap to this day, I understand it's probably really different in Australia though. Over here though there are still many of them floating around, and they're usually broken, which means you get them CHEAP. Thank you for watching like always Ray!
So many memories of playing these Big Choices in the early 90's. A couple of places had the single ones like this one but the local arcade I went to had one of the two player ones with the back and sideways buttons. I used to get so excited when I would finally manage win something out of one haha
There used to be a row of these in Brighton "Palace pier" in the 80s-Bloody love this channel and you guys-always takes me back to my childhood !! Thank you for the video x
Hi Ron! As always, a fascinating repair, and I appreciate watching you work through your process... :-) This repair got me thinking (I really need to stop doing that... It frequently gets me in trouble...); I have a vague recollection of claw machines that predate this one that were mechanical in nature (used a crank (or cranks) to operate the claw mechanism). Have you ever had an opportunity to work on one of those? (I'd love to see the inner workings...)
The stop circuit seems similar to what's used in self-contained jack screws. When power is applied in one direction, the jack screw extends until it hits one limit switch. Then you reverse power and the motor turns the other direction until a different limit switch is hit. The diode on each limit switch allows power to flow around the limit switch even though it's tripped, when applied for the opposite direction.
I really enjoyed watching your repair of this machine. There was one at our local amusement arcade and I'd sometimes put increasing amounts of money in, over the years (that's inflation!). I think that I snagged one or two toys over a five year period. The machine was set so that the claw was so weak that if it so much as caught a hint of an object in the way, it would retract and reset. I always thought that there was a microprocessor running the show - I'm surprised to see that it's all diodes, relays and a triac. The machine was positioned at the entrance of the arcade so that it was hard to ignore. I expect that with the low price of the toys and the increasing fee to play, the returns must have been good.
Have you worked on any Challenger claw machines by Wedges & Ledges? That was the one at my local pizza parlor when I was growing up. I loved it. It had a really funky shape, but it was red like the Big Choice and Clean Sweeps. The thing I loved about it was that it really felt like a "skill claw" verses a regular claw machine. It had _three_ buttons so you could control how for the claw drops, when it clamps, and when to return. Wedges & Ledges also made my absolute favorite coin pusher (also called Wedges & Ledges) they had my local Chuck E. Cheese (which I learned was the _first_ Chuck E. Cheese location.) Wedges & Ledges coin pusher was cool because it was four players, 2 on each side, with a center wedge that would go back and forth between the two play fields. It was a lot of fun. With some skill, you could slap the coin arm and get a token to ricochet and knock some tokens off the edge without utilizing the wedge at all.
I've never even heard of them ! I wonder if it was more of a west coast thing? I've never seen one with 3 buttons, but the joystick cranes had a similar feature after awhile they may have stolen from them, I can't remember the name of it but basically you move with the joystick, then hold the button down to drop, if you let go of the button you can move some more.... that may have been some sort of legal work around to make it more 'skill' based, some jurisdictions outlawed all kinds of games, even pinball machines because they were gambling, lol Thanks for watching olepigeon!
@@LyonsArcade Wedges & Ledges is (was?) a California company. So yeah, it might be a west-coast thing. I do remember in the 1980s the argument over whether or not claw games were just gambling for kids. On the old-school machines (pre-Elaut), even after you set the non-payout claw strength, a skilled player could still win a plush every now and then through skilled play (hooking labels and tags, using swing techniques, or just a skillfully placed grab to wedge a claw into a hole, etc.) It's ironic considering all the _actual_ fixed payout games like Key Master, Stacker, and Barber Cut, stuffed with pre-paid Visa debit cards.
I wanted to give you an update on the board I was looking for, I searched eBay and bought quite a few of the chaser boards non working after I fixed one of the boards the other ones I bought I used the one I fixed as reference. I had to replace the ic chips and the transformers on all of them. the most sensitive component is the Mini three pin transisters on the board
It depends on how it's adjusted and which game it is, they had different ways of doing what they do. When I used to operate them for a company, the way we did it was make them juuuuuuust strong enough where you won 15% of the time. They had other ones that grabbed at one strength and then loosened it to another strength as it moved back towards home, this is before that though. Basically you had to make it not win everytime to pay for the machine and make a profit, but win enough that players would continue playing. If nobody won at the bowling alley and ran around with their new toy, nobody else would play the machine so you had to have winners, we tried to give away 30% of the money that came in (which came out to winning about 15% of the time).... Thanks for watching Frank!
@@LyonsArcade fascinating insight. Sort of works out the prize is worth about 2-3 times the "stake". In the UK prizes seldom worth the same as the "stake".....guess that's why these are dieing out.
WOW. I never realized these things were all discrete parts. I guess that's what you get in the 80s.. Today I'd replace that with an arduino (or similar) with a motor driver for each motor and do it all in software! It is impressive how this works!
The only problem with doing it with an arduino is you have to rewire the whole thing and then make specific code, much easier to just fix the board, thanks for watching Steve!
@@LyonsArcade Oh absolutely!! I kind of misspoke - I didn't mean it would be easier to retrofit an arduino into that thing (Wow.. those connectors alone would be tough!!) I just meant to say if I were to design that thing now, it'd be something like that. I guess I always assumed that being the same basic vintage of (for example) a Williams system 6 or something that those claw machines MUST have some kind of CPU!! Your video was awesome and educational!
I got what you meant... in fact I just messaged a mate saying exactly the same thing. It makes you thankful for Arduino, but at the same time, this is "beautifully simply complicated" when done with switches and relays.
Back in the '90s, when a claw machine was like 20cents a pop here in Australia, my cousin used to feed alllllll her 20cent coins into the things, the amount of stuffed toys she got out was incredible. These days, the claw adjusts its own sensitivity based on whether you stop the flashing light in the right spot, and they are anywhere from 1AUD to 5AUD per game (With 2AUD and 5AUD being the more common ones). You don't tend to see too many of them these days because of that. I've seen some fun ones in the rare arcade centres (gamezones these days) that we have here in Western Australia, they tend to have good prizes too, such as iPods, etc... but the win chance on those is obviously adjusted to account for the high prize cost.
There was generally two ways of doing it, the original way was like this one, the claw could be adjusted so the operator would make it just loose enough that you could win, sometimes, sometimes not. Then at the end of the week if people won too much % of the money, you make it sliiiiightly looser, until you get it at about 30% of the money being won back out of the machine (then you'd split the other 70% with the location... so the operator gets 35%, the location gets 35%, and 30% is used to buy the new stuffed animals). This was pretty fair. Some operators though would make it where you didn't win hardly at all, which shoots yourself in the foot because then nobody will play it. You have to win a little bit. The more modern ones work off the same basic concept they just automatically adjust it... and since they put such expensive stuff in them you NEVER win them because you have to play 1000 losing games to pay for the 1 winning game. These aren't any fun, mainly because the toys are too expensive. They should only put items they can buy for 2 bucks in the machine, then somebody can win at 50 cents a play, about every dozen plays or so....
@@LyonsArcade There's a 3rd way too, at least over here. When you move the claw to where you want, there's a row of LEDs at the top of the machine (or on the back of the machine) which is like a game of chance, 1 of the LEDs is for a stronger claw, another is for a weaker claw, another is for a bonus game, etc...
Well it depends on how you look at it, if the object of the game is to move the stick slightly back and then slightly to the right that wouldn't be much of a game would it, lol
I asked a guy what the trick was, he said the secret was to play just after they filled the cranes with stuff. This was a crane machine used to be at Denny's restaurants.
@Mr Guru Imagine filling the crane with very expensive items and accidentally setting the claw at the strongest setting and it was a machine with no payout rates and an hour later the most experienced claw machine players in the world were playing it all day until it emptied, and won like on every try! No profit for the operator if this happens!
I loved watching this not because I have one or because I want one or because I wanna fix one...but because I remember these big choice machines all over with the two buttons like that. And I do remember putting 2 quarters in one thinking id get two tries. Nope not how it worked. You move the claw ahead a shade and then wanna go a shade more? Nope thats it you move it over some and want it over a touch more maybe? Nope you let off the button thats it
We have some of the same problems at the shipyard. Much of the equipment that you are asked to troubleshoot either has some beat up schematics that are so faded out you can’t read them, or many of the machines are from the 40’s and 50’s, and they are not even in business anymore, so you can’t track any down. Or in some cases, you have a good set of schematics that are in good shape, but over the years, functions may have been deleted or modified, or some electrician was told, probably at 1:30 on a Friday afternoon, that the machine was needed, and to just “make it work “, and now some of the wiring was changed that are different from what the schematics say. Or like what has happened here, the schematics you have are a different revision……🙄 But, sometimes, even if it kicks your butt for a long time, when you finally beat the gremlin, and find the problem, the feeling of accomplishment makes it worth the effort in the end!😉
Yeah it's good to at the end of the day be able to stand back and see something that was broken and now it's working and you can physically see it! Thanks for watching John I appreciate your comments
I watch your show and i like the commentator.But you never show yourself.Even on your brother donnie videos.Its just funny to me.Keep doing your enjoyable videos. Peace!!!
I'm in the witness protection plan! Thank you for watching StarWars68, remember, I'm not the star of the show, the game is! We'll see you on the next one....
Interesting... after rearranging the "new" schematic for readability (it pretty much just showed the components in place on the board and even faithfully retraced the traces), I compared it with the old one. The only change was a diode moved to the other side of a switch, and the coin relay R4 is also now on the SW4 side of the 24V rail. If only they properly labeled the diodes though.
As far as I know there's no flooding or anything anywhere near here, we're in a pretty insulated location where we don't get a ton of damage from hurricanes, etc. We're about 250 miles in from the east coast and 1000 miles north of the Gulf :) Thank you Jeroen!
I only recently found this channel, started with a few of the arcade cabinet repair videos. Been thoroughly enjoying the videos. I am curious as to the failure rate of relays and solenoids are in games of this vintage.
To be honest the relays and solenoids don't fail very often, this one is 35 years old and we just cleaned it but it's still using all the original stuff! A lot of the time you can get away with using the original relays if you clean the contacts. Thank you for watching Kraft, we appreciate it!
We had one of the later crane models at our local Walmart in the late 2000's to early 2010's it had lots of flashy LED s and loud goofy cartoonlike sound effects.
The Harps (Country Mart) near me has one of these, to bad it wouldnt go out and the owner would sell it or give it to me xD I'd love to have one in my house xD
Hi, can you do a video on how to rewire the joystick? I took my action claw apart and now stuck on that part. I already tried and fried, so now I’m back to that part and reaching out for help…. Or if you can help with some pics and instructions anything, please and thank you!!!!!
Couple points: once a quarter drops through, it activates a small coil in the door that won’t allow a doing to drop thru and trigger a credit. It has a diverted on it. As I shared in a comment below, the lights are not “Working”. They hav been bi-passed. Looks a lot cooler with them flashing. The board for the lights should be mounted to the ceiling of the game. Reply back if you have questions on it and repairing it. Nice work!
Rich this is a Big Choice crane that did not have the flash board in the top of the cabinet, the Clean Sweeps did, which was made by a completely different company.
In episode 2 (I think)of the black Knight pinball repair. You said that since the rectifier just had two diodes. It could not be full wave rectifier. That is actually kind of wrong. You can create a full wave rectifier for a single voltage supply. If you use a center tapped transformer. However I have not seen it very often. I do not think it is a very economical use of a transformer. As it will require an extra secondary winding. Compered to what is needed when using a bridge rectifier
The capacitor helps to compensate for the inverse sine wave, which reads zero volts when converted to DC. So, you are only getting 30 positive pulses each second, 0 to 48 to 0 to 48 The capacitor holds the 48 during the 0 so you get a small drop, but not to zero, during the 30 places where there is no pulse
Actually a full wave rectifier will double the pulse frequency so you are getting 120 positive pulses per second. Same is true of a two diode rectifier with a center tapped transformer. Remember the base frequency is 60 cycles per second.
@@atschirner I would have to see the schematic and see the waves represented to see how this is possible Is it taking the cycle and reversing the negative side of the wave ?
JOES CLASSIC, I think the Right Button Diode was leaky which was making the Motor turn Right back not stopping all the way? It would be nice to know the sequence of events of how the switches work to know how the switches chain of command happens to get a theory of operation. You seem to know the order of events of how the switches should turn on and off. Anyway to explain the order of events of the switches it in the comment to learn from?
The reason you are seeing 31V instead of 24V is that the transformer is feeding 24V AC RMS, when the bridge rectifier converts that to DC is will peak out at about 33 Volts (or 31 in your case). If you put a load on, the voltage will drop.
Do you have these schematics available anywhere? I am trying to troubleshoot a machine that isn't dropping the claw after the move right button is released.
@Joe’s Classic Video Games In most cases the adults can’t either. We recently reopened are arcade after closing due to the pandemic and I have seen many customers both young and old having fun playing the arcade games or claw machines. Sometimes I’ll take a chance or two myself as well.
Sadly as a bit of an update, the store recently bulldozed the arcade and replaced it with an eyeglasses store. We still have three crane games left in the store. That’s it though.
Cool video just what I was looking for. Can you answer a question on this. What does it use for a power supply. Someone stole the one out of the one Im working on for a buddy.
They have a rheostat on the board to control how many volts go to the claw to make it weaker or stronger, which, when used right, works pretty good but if the operator makes it so weak you can't ever win it actually makes him LESS money because nobody will play it! You have to be able to win a little bit or nobody sees anybody winning. If you see somebody win something, you know it's possible and you'll spend 5 bucks trying to win what they won.
and plug them into each other and the last one into an outlet nothing like tripping breakers and risking an electrical fire because you listened to some bone head on the internet
@@haywoodyoudome each outlet, one stop into each, or run new 20 amp circuit for each. Just the convenience of having a strip closer that you can turn on and off from the switch would be nice, instead of reaching down to plug and unplug
@@ocsrc Yeah, I was just being a tool. He moves things around a lot so he'd probably be better off using retractable shop cords mounted from the ceiling every so many feet.
Very simple wiring for the buttons and lights. They must have made a ton of money off these. They would have been easy to build And they made a lot of money. The majority of the cost was the lightbulbs
We get them in a lot of times where the board has been slightly altered, I think they were just changing things on the fly and sending them out since the circuit was so simple...
Cool! a crane!!.... set it to liberal!.... they all should be set to that setting! :P because i always lose on those games :P i remember them with 2 buttons... !!
If AC is 24V or 48V, then the rectified DC voltage readings are correct because the sine wave peak voltage is much higher than RMS values used to indicate the AC voltage. It also could use all 4 new fluorescent tubes, the old ones are dead or dying_
I also remember when they first make the candy ones, ok made them, that were set up so if you somehow got no candy for your quarter it would let you play until you at least got something, man those were kinda lame you didn't have to time anything right
So it's confirmed....Grip of the claw is "adjustable"....played many as kid...could have sworn the things had a "open claw - on way to home" function . The tantalising travel back to the out hole , hoping the claw wouldn't let go . Was much of the game but not under the user control. I can see the skill in the aim, but often the "game" seems to be a lost even if the claw hits the target.
Sorry, my English, I'm from Brazil, I have a similar problem, my machine spends a while working normally, then in one move it lowers the claw to the prize and it doesn't go up anymore, the move ends but the claw doesn't return. the cart returns to the starting point but the claw does not go up. you start another turn with the claw down. Could someone please help me, I've already changed everything, motor, switch, cord and the problem continues PORTIGUES - desculpa meu ingles sou do brasil, estou com um problema parecido, minha maquina ela fica um tempo funcionando normalmente, dai em uma jogada ela abaixa a garra ate o premio e nao sobe mais finaliza a jogada mais a garra nao retorna. o carrinho a volta para o ponto inicial mais a garra nao sobe. voce inicia outra jogada com a garra baixada. por favor teria como me alguem me ajudar, ja troquei tudo motor, switch, cordinha e o problema continua
The only crane game that I've ever played that wasn't a complete rip-off was a candy crane game from the 90's that would let you keep trying until you got at least one piece of candy. All other crane games are pure cheating evil. I've warned kids not to play the stuffed toy crane game at the grocery store where I work.
awww sorry to disappoint you, I don't know what I'll do with myself. Please go watch somebody else's videos, I've found people who use the word "disappointed" are usually jerks who never enjoy a damn thing
I sent one of the marquee PCB's to Rayming PCB manufacturing in China and I paid to have them gather all the data for this board and I am awaiting a production cost quote I paid for reverse engineering work and manufacturing for 5 boards I am awaiting a quote for 100 units I have a schematic that they sent me for the board if you would like to have it maybe feature it in a video I could send it to you in a manila envelope. would that be helpful let me know have a great day.
Come on John come on man, just coz ol Hank didn't do it that way doesn't mean its wrong, I find nothing wrong with the footage Ron shoots hell, we should all be grateful he films it at all, he don't have to..we had Father's day here in New Zealand yesterday and all I got from my kid was a phone call but that's better than nothing 😁
boo to crane machines....only b/c at auctions they're pretty much the dominant thing now-a-days, very few older machines, some sit down drivers or standup gun shooters and lots of redemption machines.
Brings me back to the day.
They always remind me of the movie theatre, there was always one in the halls as you walked to the theatre...
Wow. That was some over-complicated schematics for such a simple looking board; even the 1 or 2 coin setting seemed far from easy! Admittedly, I tend to steer clear of grabbing machines - too many rogue operators over-adjusting the claw sensitivity.
Thanks again for the informative video :)
I think they optimize schematics for space rather than readability. Less paper that way. The schematic could likely be made far nicer to troubleshoot with if it organized for flow instead.
Remember when you said somebody is gonna need these schematics? I'm that guy got a Kramer crane claw machine 3 months ago uses the same board been looking for hours at least once a week even told myself I wish that guy From Joe's classic video games had a video on one thank you very much love your videos I'm sure I'll be able to get my claw working now
Very cool Paul I’m glad you saw this, let us know how it works out!
Omg Joe, this was one of the best indepth videos you've done on a machine!
I have one of these Clean Sweeps with a joy stick doing the same thing, I could move the claw back and forth, but not down?
Your channel helps me understand how to so much!
I think these scematics are Dutsch, VW Voorwaarts (Forward), ZW Zijwaarts (sideways), LG Lijn Gondel (Line Crane), MV Motor Voorwaarts (Motor Forward), MZ Motor Zijwaarts (Motor Sideways), Motor Gondel (Motor Crane). I hope this will help you.
This is a good explanation. Makes so much sense
Love the old Fluke meter, those things never die!
Yup best thing I ever bought
Think should start database online with pictures of all the schematics as be good reference materials for all your followers brilliant videos still enjoy watching them and always learning something
Amazing as always Ron!
Thank you gopooalready please!
That was some good circuit-sleuthing you did there, I've been in a similar situations where I've had trouble figuring something out only to realize, after I've pulled half my hair out, that the instructions are wrong.
yeah sometimes you end up spending a ton of time figuring it out, I kind of see it as fun so I didn't mind spending all day tracking it down, now maybe I'll understand the next one I work on a little better :) I feel pretty confident that any of them that take this relay board are simple enough to repair no matter what's wrong with them. Thanks for watching Fred!
I think I have only played a claw machine once when I was a kid, stuck in my money, positioned the claw and watched the damn thing cheat horribly. Never touched them again. I loved the coin pushers though and can vaguely remember a giant electromechanical horse racing game with flashing lights, moving horses and rows of coin slots for the different horses.
I could hear the gears grinding in the head with this repair :)
You were almost about to say 'pinball repair' at the beginning of the video too :P
Love all the repair videos that you do, I took a look at second hand non-functional claw machines a while back, here in Australia, even a dead one demands a stupidly expensive price of a good 1500AUD or more.....
I feel like the best time to find these machines was back in the '80s and '90s when they got thrown out to the skip bin.
It kind of depends on the type, this type here is about the cheapest kind, the ones with a joystick are more desireable, I like these button ones though because that's the ones I remember and I like how simple the mechanics are, that's really neat to me (obviously, I filmed an hour long video fixing one, lol).... it's not uncommon for us to run across one pretty cheap to this day, I understand it's probably really different in Australia though. Over here though there are still many of them floating around, and they're usually broken, which means you get them CHEAP. Thank you for watching like always Ray!
So many memories of playing these Big Choices in the early 90's. A couple of places had the single ones like this one but the local arcade I went to had one of the two player ones with the back and sideways buttons. I used to get so excited when I would finally manage win something out of one haha
Yeah most people had a love hate relationship with them, LOL Thanks for watching lennymutt!
There used to be a row of these in Brighton "Palace pier" in the 80s-Bloody love this channel and you guys-always takes me back to my childhood !! Thank you for the video
x
Thank you for watching Saskia glad you enjoyed it :)
@@LyonsArcade Always enjoy your content guys !! :) x
Thanks for making great videos. I've been watching some of the older pinball ones and I love it!
Thank you Brian I appreciate you watching :)
I remember playing this machine in a number of local arcades when I was a kid :D - wicked cool video, thanks :D
❤️ I new ya would fix it that was so easy a big 👍 from me keep them coming Frank Great stuff 👏👍😊
Thanks Wey Aye Man Joe we appreciate it :)
Whoa! Unexpected eye candy!
Thank you for watching Oval Teen!
Hi Ron!
As always, a fascinating repair, and I appreciate watching you work through your process... :-)
This repair got me thinking (I really need to stop doing that... It frequently gets me in trouble...); I have a vague recollection of claw machines that predate this one that were mechanical in nature (used a crank (or cranks) to operate the claw mechanism). Have you ever had an opportunity to work on one of those? (I'd love to see the inner workings...)
I've never repaired one of those they were much more simple, pretty cool antiques, I'd love to run across one. Thanks for watching Dave!
The stop circuit seems similar to what's used in self-contained jack screws. When power is applied in one direction, the jack screw extends until it hits one limit switch. Then you reverse power and the motor turns the other direction until a different limit switch is hit. The diode on each limit switch allows power to flow around the limit switch even though it's tripped, when applied for the opposite direction.
Good videos when getting stoned ! Great narration voice ! Lol
Don't forget to grease the tines properly for effortless slippage of many a stuff animal for years to come! Haha. Great video.
Awesome stuff..cheers
Thank you for watching Chris!
grr those claw games, coin stealers back in the day.. lol..great to see how it all functions for sure..
I always felt cheated when I played this and I NEVER won a prize. Now, the claw strength pot makes sense and confirms my suspicion... Cheers! S
Now you know! Thanks for watching Suad!
I really enjoyed watching your repair of this machine. There was one at our local amusement arcade and I'd sometimes put increasing amounts of money in, over the years (that's inflation!). I think that I snagged one or two toys over a five year period. The machine was set so that the claw was so weak that if it so much as caught a hint of an object in the way, it would retract and reset. I always thought that there was a microprocessor running the show - I'm surprised to see that it's all diodes, relays and a triac. The machine was positioned at the entrance of the arcade so that it was hard to ignore. I expect that with the low price of the toys and the increasing fee to play, the returns must have been good.
Love the video great work. Thanks for sharing. Personally I like these old claw machine simple.
That wire on the claw is the wire off a cordless shaver
I have bought enough of them to recognize it
ha that does look just like that type of cord!
Have you worked on any Challenger claw machines by Wedges & Ledges? That was the one at my local pizza parlor when I was growing up. I loved it. It had a really funky shape, but it was red like the Big Choice and Clean Sweeps. The thing I loved about it was that it really felt like a "skill claw" verses a regular claw machine. It had _three_ buttons so you could control how for the claw drops, when it clamps, and when to return.
Wedges & Ledges also made my absolute favorite coin pusher (also called Wedges & Ledges) they had my local Chuck E. Cheese (which I learned was the _first_ Chuck E. Cheese location.) Wedges & Ledges coin pusher was cool because it was four players, 2 on each side, with a center wedge that would go back and forth between the two play fields. It was a lot of fun. With some skill, you could slap the coin arm and get a token to ricochet and knock some tokens off the edge without utilizing the wedge at all.
I've never even heard of them ! I wonder if it was more of a west coast thing? I've never seen one with 3 buttons, but the joystick cranes had a similar feature after awhile they may have stolen from them, I can't remember the name of it but basically you move with the joystick, then hold the button down to drop, if you let go of the button you can move some more.... that may have been some sort of legal work around to make it more 'skill' based, some jurisdictions outlawed all kinds of games, even pinball machines because they were gambling, lol Thanks for watching olepigeon!
@@LyonsArcade Wedges & Ledges is (was?) a California company. So yeah, it might be a west-coast thing. I do remember in the 1980s the argument over whether or not claw games were just gambling for kids. On the old-school machines (pre-Elaut), even after you set the non-payout claw strength, a skilled player could still win a plush every now and then through skilled play (hooking labels and tags, using swing techniques, or just a skillfully placed grab to wedge a claw into a hole, etc.) It's ironic considering all the _actual_ fixed payout games like Key Master, Stacker, and Barber Cut, stuffed with pre-paid Visa debit cards.
I sure love these big red cranes, but man they're heavy!
I leave 'em on their wheels :)
Those solid state relays are nice. I remember when they were all electro mechanical
When I work on the jukeboxes they always have those old school electro mechanical relays in them....
I wanted to give you an update on the board I was looking for, I searched eBay and bought quite a few of the chaser boards non working after I fixed one of the boards the other ones I bought I used the one I fixed as reference. I had to replace the ic chips and the transformers on all of them. the most sensitive component is the Mini three pin transisters on the board
Is that what a full strength grab looks like? I swear when i seen them played, the claw never grabs that good. Good job on finding all the faults.
It depends on how it's adjusted and which game it is, they had different ways of doing what they do. When I used to operate them for a company, the way we did it was make them juuuuuuust strong enough where you won 15% of the time. They had other ones that grabbed at one strength and then loosened it to another strength as it moved back towards home, this is before that though. Basically you had to make it not win everytime to pay for the machine and make a profit, but win enough that players would continue playing. If nobody won at the bowling alley and ran around with their new toy, nobody else would play the machine so you had to have winners, we tried to give away 30% of the money that came in (which came out to winning about 15% of the time).... Thanks for watching Frank!
@@LyonsArcade fascinating insight.
Sort of works out the prize is worth about 2-3 times the "stake".
In the UK prizes seldom worth the same as the "stake".....guess that's why these are dieing out.
WOW. I never realized these things were all discrete parts. I guess that's what you get in the 80s.. Today I'd replace that with an arduino (or similar) with a motor driver for each motor and do it all in software! It is impressive how this works!
The only problem with doing it with an arduino is you have to rewire the whole thing and then make specific code, much easier to just fix the board, thanks for watching Steve!
@@LyonsArcade Oh absolutely!! I kind of misspoke - I didn't mean it would be easier to retrofit an arduino into that thing (Wow.. those connectors alone would be tough!!) I just meant to say if I were to design that thing now, it'd be something like that. I guess I always assumed that being the same basic vintage of (for example) a Williams system 6 or something that those claw machines MUST have some kind of CPU!! Your video was awesome and educational!
I got what you meant... in fact I just messaged a mate saying exactly the same thing. It makes you thankful for Arduino, but at the same time, this is "beautifully simply complicated" when done with switches and relays.
Back in the '90s, when a claw machine was like 20cents a pop here in Australia, my cousin used to feed alllllll her 20cent coins into the things, the amount of stuffed toys she got out was incredible.
These days, the claw adjusts its own sensitivity based on whether you stop the flashing light in the right spot, and they are anywhere from 1AUD to 5AUD per game (With 2AUD and 5AUD being the more common ones).
You don't tend to see too many of them these days because of that.
I've seen some fun ones in the rare arcade centres (gamezones these days) that we have here in Western Australia, they tend to have good prizes too, such as iPods, etc... but the win chance on those is obviously adjusted to account for the high prize cost.
There was generally two ways of doing it, the original way was like this one, the claw could be adjusted so the operator would make it just loose enough that you could win, sometimes, sometimes not. Then at the end of the week if people won too much % of the money, you make it sliiiiightly looser, until you get it at about 30% of the money being won back out of the machine (then you'd split the other 70% with the location... so the operator gets 35%, the location gets 35%, and 30% is used to buy the new stuffed animals). This was pretty fair. Some operators though would make it where you didn't win hardly at all, which shoots yourself in the foot because then nobody will play it. You have to win a little bit.
The more modern ones work off the same basic concept they just automatically adjust it... and since they put such expensive stuff in them you NEVER win them because you have to play 1000 losing games to pay for the 1 winning game. These aren't any fun, mainly because the toys are too expensive.
They should only put items they can buy for 2 bucks in the machine, then somebody can win at 50 cents a play, about every dozen plays or so....
@@LyonsArcade There's a 3rd way too, at least over here.
When you move the claw to where you want, there's a row of LEDs at the top of the machine (or on the back of the machine) which is like a game of chance, 1 of the LEDs is for a stronger claw, another is for a weaker claw, another is for a bonus game, etc...
love your videos in the netherlands
I remember these things used to pick up toys when I was very young then one year I went back to the arcade and I swear they rigged them all.😁
Well it depends on how you look at it, if the object of the game is to move the stick slightly back and then slightly to the right that wouldn't be much of a game would it, lol
I asked a guy what the trick was, he said the secret was to play just after they filled the cranes with stuff. This was a crane machine used to be at Denny's restaurants.
@Mr Guru I KNEW IT
@@burner9147 SO DID I
@Mr Guru Imagine filling the crane with very expensive items and accidentally setting the claw at the strongest setting and it was a machine with no payout rates and an hour later the most experienced claw machine players in the world were playing it all day until it emptied, and won like on every try! No profit for the operator if this happens!
I loved watching this not because I have one or because I want one or because I wanna fix one...but because I remember these big choice machines all over with the two buttons like that. And I do remember putting 2 quarters in one thinking id get two tries. Nope not how it worked. You move the claw ahead a shade and then wanna go a shade more? Nope thats it you move it over some and want it over a touch more maybe? Nope you let off the button thats it
We have some of the same problems at the shipyard.
Much of the equipment that you are asked to troubleshoot either has some beat up schematics that are so faded out you can’t read them, or many of the machines are from the 40’s and 50’s, and they are not even in business anymore, so you can’t track any down.
Or in some cases, you have a good set of schematics that are in good shape, but over the years, functions may have been deleted or modified, or some electrician was told, probably at 1:30 on a Friday afternoon, that the machine was needed, and to just “make it work “, and now some of the wiring was changed that are different from what the schematics say. Or like what has happened here, the schematics you have are a different revision……🙄
But, sometimes, even if it kicks your butt for a long time, when you finally beat the gremlin, and find the problem, the feeling of accomplishment makes it worth the effort in the end!😉
Yeah it's good to at the end of the day be able to stand back and see something that was broken and now it's working and you can physically see it! Thanks for watching John I appreciate your comments
I watch your show and i like the commentator.But you never show yourself.Even on your brother donnie videos.Its just funny to me.Keep doing your enjoyable videos.
Peace!!!
I'm in the witness protection plan! Thank you for watching StarWars68, remember, I'm not the star of the show, the game is! We'll see you on the next one....
Interesting... after rearranging the "new" schematic for readability (it pretty much just showed the components in place on the board and even faithfully retraced the traces), I compared it with the old one. The only change was a diode moved to the other side of a switch, and the coin relay R4 is also now on the SW4 side of the 24V rail. If only they properly labeled the diodes though.
These claw machines should take the money directly from your pocket. 😋😋😋😋
That wouldn't be as fun :) Thanks for watching Thorn!
Hey Ron and Joe...i hope you and your family are ok? (with the floods and such)
As far as I know there's no flooding or anything anywhere near here, we're in a pretty insulated location where we don't get a ton of damage from hurricanes, etc. We're about 250 miles in from the east coast and 1000 miles north of the Gulf :) Thank you Jeroen!
I only recently found this channel, started with a few of the arcade cabinet repair videos. Been thoroughly enjoying the videos. I am curious as to the failure rate of relays and solenoids are in games of this vintage.
To be honest the relays and solenoids don't fail very often, this one is 35 years old and we just cleaned it but it's still using all the original stuff! A lot of the time you can get away with using the original relays if you clean the contacts. Thank you for watching Kraft, we appreciate it!
We had one of the later crane models at our local Walmart in the late 2000's to early 2010's it had lots of flashy LED s and loud goofy cartoonlike sound effects.
The Harps (Country Mart) near me has one of these, to bad it wouldnt go out and the owner would sell it or give it to me xD I'd love to have one in my house xD
They're pretty popular people really wanna buy 'em... I've sold every one I've ever owned, lol Thanks for watching Semparo!
The premise for today's 3D printers!!
Nice repair on that relay board, same kind of relay are used in AUX driver boards on sys11 in pinball machines they are called DPDT relay
18:30 - I think that the LG is the label for the lamp (cross in the circle) - is this a light on the grabber?
Hi, can you do a video on how to rewire the joystick? I took my action claw apart and now stuck on that part. I already tried and fried, so now I’m back to that part and reaching out for help…. Or if you can help with some pics and instructions anything, please and thank you!!!!!
Couple points: once a quarter drops through, it activates a small coil in the door that won’t allow a doing to drop thru and trigger a credit. It has a diverted on it. As I shared in a comment below, the lights are not “Working”. They hav been bi-passed. Looks a lot cooler with them flashing. The board for the lights should be mounted to the ceiling of the game. Reply back if you have questions on it and repairing it. Nice work!
Rich this is a Big Choice crane that did not have the flash board in the top of the cabinet, the Clean Sweeps did, which was made by a completely different company.
A 3.2V 25mA white LED and a 1K 1W resistor will work with 28VDC to light the buttons.
Thank you dablak0l!!!!
In episode 2 (I think)of the black Knight pinball repair. You said that since the rectifier just had two diodes. It could not be full wave rectifier. That is actually kind of wrong. You can create a full wave rectifier for a single voltage supply. If you use a center tapped transformer. However I have not seen it very often. I do not think it is a very economical use of a transformer. As it will require an extra secondary winding. Compered to what is needed when using a bridge rectifier
If you can’t get or don’t want to use 28v lamps you can make a simple voltage divider to make an approximately 5v or 12v supply for the lamps you have
@5:38 this looks like a typical 3D printer setup with the end of stroke switches and all :)
ofc i ment limit switches :)
The capacitor helps to compensate for the inverse sine wave, which reads zero volts when converted to DC.
So, you are only getting 30 positive pulses each second, 0 to 48 to 0 to 48
The capacitor holds the 48 during the 0 so you get a small drop, but not to zero, during the 30 places where there is no pulse
Thank you
Actually a full wave rectifier will double the pulse frequency so you are getting 120 positive pulses per second. Same is true of a two diode rectifier with a center tapped transformer. Remember the base frequency is 60 cycles per second.
@@atschirner I would have to see the schematic and see the waves represented to see how this is possible
Is it taking the cycle and reversing the negative side of the wave ?
@@ocsrc Sort of. Here's one of many RUclips videos to help explain: ruclips.net/video/EkHch86UXpY/видео.html&ab_channel=TheOrganicChemistryTutor
JOES CLASSIC, I think the Right Button Diode was leaky which was making the Motor turn Right back not stopping all the way? It would be nice to know the sequence of events of how the switches work to know how the switches chain of command happens to get a theory of operation. You seem to know the order of events of how the switches should turn on and off. Anyway to explain the order of events of the switches it in the comment to learn from?
The reason you are seeing 31V instead of 24V is that the transformer is feeding 24V AC RMS, when the bridge rectifier converts that to DC is will peak out at about 33 Volts (or 31 in your case). If you put a load on, the voltage will drop.
Thank you Blacque!
Notorious for broken wires
I'm looking for the schematic that you were using in this video. please help
Do you have these schematics available anywhere? I am trying to troubleshoot a machine that isn't dropping the claw after the move right button is released.
Email me and I can send them to you
There’s an arcade in the store I work for that has 9 crane machines in it. They’re mostly just common ones though.
I think they still make money out of them, kids can't resist :)
@Joe’s Classic Video Games In most cases the adults can’t either. We recently reopened are arcade after closing due to the pandemic and I have seen many customers both young and old having fun playing the arcade games or claw machines. Sometimes I’ll take a chance or two myself as well.
Sadly as a bit of an update, the store recently bulldozed the arcade and replaced it with an eyeglasses store. We still have three crane games left in the store. That’s it though.
Where can I get a replacement motherboard? I got this exact model and it need complete repair.
They haven't made them in 35 years, your only option is to find a used one on Ebay or fix it yourself.
Cool video just what I was looking for.
Can you answer a question on this. What does it use for a power supply. Someone stole the one out of the one Im working on for a buddy.
24/48 volt Ac?
I read somewhere where it was a simple 2 output 110 in - 24/48 ac out. ???
Wish you played it more than once
Used to build those at Dynamo.
Very cool man! We always liked the Dynamo stuff....
Ron, you need to trademark "Big weird connector"
hahaha that's what it looked like to me :) See you on the next video Chris!
I always wondered how these work. It seems like the claws don't have enough grab to hold on once you grab the prize
They have a rheostat on the board to control how many volts go to the claw to make it weaker or stronger, which, when used right, works pretty good but if the operator makes it so weak you can't ever win it actually makes him LESS money because nobody will play it! You have to be able to win a little bit or nobody sees anybody winning. If you see somebody win something, you know it's possible and you'll spend 5 bucks trying to win what they won.
Wish you played it more than once
Easy to fix, just make sure the claws won’t close all the way
My wire broken in claw mech and wouldn't close , and need a better design for it . Mine is the same mech as yours.
Yeah they break a LOT sometimes the plunger hits them when it goes up too and makes it worse... .
I want to buy one of these just to keep my stuffed animals in 😁
It would be good to keep your stuffed animals in :) Thanks for watching!
Interesting video.. I understand a bit more how they work…not that I could fix them 🥺
"The Claw is our Master...."
the connectors on the main board / card look to be 1980 military Amp edge connectors
Thank you Theodore!
I picked up a 12 outlet strip that is about 8 feet long
You should get a couple to put along the floor and walls to plug in your games
and plug them into each other and the last one into an outlet
nothing like tripping breakers and risking an electrical fire because you listened to some bone head on the internet
@@haywoodyoudome each outlet, one stop into each, or run new 20 amp circuit for each. Just the convenience of having a strip closer that you can turn on and off from the switch would be nice, instead of reaching down to plug and unplug
@@ocsrc Yeah, I was just being a tool. He moves things around a lot so he'd probably be better off using retractable shop cords mounted from the ceiling every so many feet.
Very simple wiring for the buttons and lights. They must have made a ton of money off these. They would have been easy to build
And they made a lot of money.
The majority of the cost was the lightbulbs
We get them in a lot of times where the board has been slightly altered, I think they were just changing things on the fly and sending them out since the circuit was so simple...
My daughter blew me away when she stepped up to one of those machines and won first time…
Also the claw should cycle if the carriage homes properly
On this one it pulls in the entire time it's coming back and then opens at the end, it doesn't do it again after that.... thank you for watching Cain!
How do I get in contact with you for info on how to adjust my smart industries clean sweep machine?
Cool! a crane!!.... set it to liberal!.... they all should be set to that setting! :P because i always lose on those games :P i remember them with 2 buttons... !!
Ahh... Booker T & the MGs! Sah-WEET!
Get you a mess of Green Onions!
If AC is 24V or 48V, then the rectified DC voltage readings are correct because the sine wave peak voltage is much higher than RMS values used to indicate the AC voltage. It also could use all 4 new fluorescent tubes, the old ones are dead or dying_
Sw 1 “wire’s broke”(and the claw coil).
Great work mate so how do it make it drop the prize every 10 or so times :)
Is there a version of this board that uses Optocouplers instead of mechanical relays for increased reliability
That looks almost like 1st generation SCSI connector
It may be!
I also remember when they first make the candy ones, ok made them, that were set up so if you somehow got no candy for your quarter it would let you play until you at least got something, man those were kinda lame you didn't have to time anything right
So it's confirmed....Grip of the claw is "adjustable"....played many as kid...could have sworn the things had a "open claw - on way to home" function .
The tantalising travel back to the out hole , hoping the claw wouldn't let go .
Was much of the game but not under the user control.
I can see the skill in the aim, but often the "game" seems to be a lost even if the claw hits the target.
If the game was just to line up the claw over a toy that wouldn't be much of a game would it?
@@LyonsArcade game of skill vs game of chance....
Kinda simple but not easy to troubleshoot
Sorry, my English, I'm from Brazil, I have a similar problem, my machine spends a while working normally, then in one move it lowers the claw to the prize and it doesn't go up anymore, the move ends but the claw doesn't return. the cart returns to the starting point but the claw does not go up. you start another turn with the claw down. Could someone please help me, I've already changed everything, motor, switch, cord and the problem continues
PORTIGUES - desculpa meu ingles sou do brasil, estou com um problema parecido, minha maquina ela fica um tempo funcionando normalmente, dai em uma jogada ela abaixa a garra ate o premio e nao sobe mais finaliza a jogada mais a garra nao retorna. o carrinho a volta para o ponto inicial mais a garra nao sobe. voce inicia outra jogada com a garra baixada. por favor teria como me alguem me ajudar, ja troquei tudo motor, switch, cordinha e o problema continua
I think that may be the most crooked machine I've ever seen!
@7:17 ah, yes because you need to move forward just a tiny bit to go sideways.... no?
The only crane game that I've ever played that wasn't a complete rip-off was a candy crane game from the 90's that would let you keep trying until you got at least one piece of candy. All other crane games are pure cheating evil. I've warned kids not to play the stuffed toy crane game at the grocery store where I work.
Some people like gambling in them :)
Bridge rectifiers take ac and turn it to dc.. if anyone was lost by calling it a bridge
LG = Logic Gate ?
Maybe but there's no IC's on it...
Yodelayheehoo
I'm proud to be an okie from Muskogee 😷, a place where even squares can have a ball
Kinda disappointed that you did not wire the directional buttons back, if memory serves well these also should be flashing. (24v bi-metal lamp)
awww sorry to disappoint you, I don't know what I'll do with myself. Please go watch somebody else's videos, I've found people who use the word "disappointed" are usually jerks who never enjoy a damn thing
@@LyonsArcade Wrong I did enjoy your snark comment.
And I did say Kinda, So whatever.. not everbody has English as their main language.
I sent one of the marquee PCB's to Rayming PCB manufacturing in China and I paid to have them gather all the data for this board and I am awaiting a production cost quote I paid for reverse engineering work and manufacturing for 5 boards I am awaiting a quote for 100 units I have a schematic that they sent me for the board if you would like to have it maybe feature it in a video I could send it to you in a manila envelope. would that be helpful let me know have a great day.
Please buy a tripod ;)
Please go watch somebody else BarnDoorJohn you're going to be continuously disappointed, go watch somebody else with better quality.
@@LyonsArcade I'm not disappointed and love the content. I'm just dizzy now, but that could also be due to watching too much RUclips.
Come on John come on man, just coz ol Hank didn't do it that way doesn't mean its wrong, I find nothing wrong with the footage Ron shoots hell, we should all be grateful he films it at all, he don't have to..we had Father's day here in New Zealand yesterday and all I got from my kid was a phone call but that's better than nothing 😁
boo to crane machines....only b/c at auctions they're pretty much the dominant thing now-a-days, very few older machines, some sit down drivers or standup gun shooters and lots of redemption machines.