Paul A. Romsky Jr. - Shuffle Bowler
This is an 8 foot United/Williams 1961 Shuffleboard table that I updated to a more contemporary look. My wife found it on Craigslist for $200!
It came with schematics and a manual which I studied for two days before venturing into the forrest of relays, steppers, and motors.
The machine was constantly resetting. I found a seriously mangled Scoring Relay. It looked like someone dropped the door on the relay, nearly smashing it. Fortunately, I was able to bend it back into shape and straighten out the contacts - this stopped the constant resetting.
The pins were also constantly resetting; this was caused by smashed relay contacts on the Pin Reset Motor Cam. Again, I was able to bend the contacts back into shape.
The Pin Reset Motor winding forms were cracked and held together with zip ties, but the coil wires were intact. I used some 5 minute epoxy to fix the forms. It looks like someone pulled the table out from the upright case and dropped the rear edge of the table on the case (right on the motor windings). This is what may have bent the contacts on the Pin Reset Motor Cam as well.
Now that the pins were properly reset, I found that the 1 Pin would never stay down. This turned out to be distorted contacts on the Pin 1 Roll-Over Switches. After fixing that, I could not bowl a Strike, this was hard to find but it turned out to be a contact in the complicated Relay Bank that was not making contact.
Dirty contacts were keeping the Scoring Drums from properly resetting - that was easy to find.
At this point, the game was playable. I cleaned all the relay switch contacts, roll-over switches, and set-up units. I found a swapped wire in the Molex connectors that someone added - this caused two Flash Mode lights on the table to light up out of sequence. I lubricated all the shafts with special pin ball lubricant and graphite powder. I also cleaned all the lamp sockets to eliminate intermittent operation.
The game has settings in the back that allow for continuous free play (no coins needed) - all you have to do is manually advance the Credit Counter to non-zero and set all the option switches to Single Coin Mode. This was great! I didn't have add a switch for 25 cent credits.
I had to reverse engineer the Coin Unit on the front of the table. It has a factory connector, but it is not shown on the schematics (in fact, none of the orignal connectors are shown on the schematics - I guess to simplify the huge one-page schematic!). The Coin Lock Out Relay was disconnected (appaerenly because it was buzzing) - I fixed the buzzing and reconnected the relay (not really needed when using One Coin "Free Play" mode). The Credit light was not comming on, that was just a bent contact in the Coin Counter.
It all works perfectly now. I spent about 24 man hours to get it all going (not long at all). My wife and I did not like the original indian stenciling on the upright case so we repainted the entire table using textured paint. This gave the whole cabinet a fresh clean look that was still retro, but added depth as well.
Below are some photos and a short demo video of the Shuffle Bowler table.
Shuffle Bowler - Original Scoring System and New Textured Paint
Shuffle Bowler - Powered-Up
Shuffle Bowler - Sanded Textured Paint Close-Up
Shuffle Bowler - Pins Close-Up
Shuffle Bowler - Back Glass Close-Up
Shuffle Bowler - Controls Overview
Shuffle Bowler - Main Cabinet Controls
Shuffle Bowler - Pin Controls
Shuffle Bowler - Scoring Drums Actuators
Shuffle Bowler - Relay Bank
Shuffle Bowler - Player Extra Ball Logic
Shuffle Bowler - Motor Control Relays
Shuffle Bowler - Function Relays
Shuffle Bowler - Set-up Stepper Logic Units
Shuffle Bowler - Coin Box
Shuffle Bowler - Scoring Drums Flip Down Access
Shuffle Bowler - Cabinet Front Access
Shuffle Bowler - Demo Video
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