Phonetek
03-05-2018, 03:37 PM
I was working on the scoring cameras and ball speed sensors last night. I thought they were pretty inaccurate but to my surprise they are a lot closer than I thought. We were working on the scoring cameras to make sure they were adjusted correctly and in focus. It's pretty cool really. We can pull them up on the monitor at the front desk and calibrate them on the lane.
If they are out of focus then they either won't work at all or give improper readings. We were having some random issues during cosmic when the black lights were on. We had one where the board went bad, the camera worked but the speed sensor didn't on the pair. On our cameras you focus them like the old days of a Canon AE-1 type camera. You spin the dial to focus it. You have to have one person turn the dial and one watching the monitor at the desk. When we found the best focus he put a dap of clear caulk on the dial to hold it in place so vibration won't throw it out of whack again. The previous mechanic didn't use the caulk so maybe that's why some were pretty far off.
With the speed sensor there is no real way to calibrate them, they are what they are. On each lane there are two sensors pointing at reflectors, the speed is measured by the time it takes the ball to go between the two reflectors breaking the beams. The sensors are at a fixed location on the board and cannot be adjusted, the reflectors have to line up or they don't work. There is a light that lights up on the sensor if it's not line up correctly. I had the mechanic standing down by the sensors with my cell phone and the ball speed app. When the ball got between the sensors he took the reading. We compared my phone with what the monitor said and they were very similar, just a .1-.3 variance between the two. I'd call that pretty darn accurate.
Some balls I rolled slowly down the lanes like a little kid, then normal and finally I launched them. I think the launching them is why I'm sore today. Normally I'd only do that on a 4-6 or 7-10 or big 4 split to get the pins to bounce. Fortunately I don't have to do it very often. Doing it 12 times was way more than I'm used to, good thing we don't have more lanes. The upside is I hit a high of 27.9 MPH at the sensors on the third lane. LOL Not bad for a skinny little runt at 46 throwing 16 lbs. That of course is the speed close to the pins, it does vary off the hand by a much greater margin as we discussed on here before. We only did it once at normal speed but it was 2.8 MPH difference from the sensors to off the hand with ball speed app.
If they are out of focus then they either won't work at all or give improper readings. We were having some random issues during cosmic when the black lights were on. We had one where the board went bad, the camera worked but the speed sensor didn't on the pair. On our cameras you focus them like the old days of a Canon AE-1 type camera. You spin the dial to focus it. You have to have one person turn the dial and one watching the monitor at the desk. When we found the best focus he put a dap of clear caulk on the dial to hold it in place so vibration won't throw it out of whack again. The previous mechanic didn't use the caulk so maybe that's why some were pretty far off.
With the speed sensor there is no real way to calibrate them, they are what they are. On each lane there are two sensors pointing at reflectors, the speed is measured by the time it takes the ball to go between the two reflectors breaking the beams. The sensors are at a fixed location on the board and cannot be adjusted, the reflectors have to line up or they don't work. There is a light that lights up on the sensor if it's not line up correctly. I had the mechanic standing down by the sensors with my cell phone and the ball speed app. When the ball got between the sensors he took the reading. We compared my phone with what the monitor said and they were very similar, just a .1-.3 variance between the two. I'd call that pretty darn accurate.
Some balls I rolled slowly down the lanes like a little kid, then normal and finally I launched them. I think the launching them is why I'm sore today. Normally I'd only do that on a 4-6 or 7-10 or big 4 split to get the pins to bounce. Fortunately I don't have to do it very often. Doing it 12 times was way more than I'm used to, good thing we don't have more lanes. The upside is I hit a high of 27.9 MPH at the sensors on the third lane. LOL Not bad for a skinny little runt at 46 throwing 16 lbs. That of course is the speed close to the pins, it does vary off the hand by a much greater margin as we discussed on here before. We only did it once at normal speed but it was 2.8 MPH difference from the sensors to off the hand with ball speed app.