#Brunswick gsx pinsetter troubleshooting manual#
Pinsetting machines have largely done away with pinsetting as a manual profession, although a small number of bowling alleys still use human pinsetters. The first mechanical pinsetter was invented by Gottfried (Fred) Schmidt, who sold the patent in 1941 to AMF. Prior to the machine's invention, pinsetters were originally boys or young men ( pin boys) stationed at bowling alleys to manually reset pins and return the ball. In bowling, a pinsetter or pinspotter is an automated mechanical device that sets bowling pins back in their original positions, returns bowling balls to the front of the alley, and clears fallen pins on the pin deck. A bowler can request help from an attendant by pressing the reset button.The stated objects of the Brunswick pinsetter included controlling the rake (pin sweeper) when an off-spot pin was encountered-inhibiting sweeping unless a first-ball foul was detected. The missing pin prompts the arm to stay above the table instead of returning to its neutral position, which signals the sweep cycle to continue. This usually occurs because the table did not receive all 10 pins. RESET: At times the sweep bar may stall on the lane. An attendant must remove the pin, although a second bowled ball might knock it free, too. The most likely culprit is a pin that becomes lodged in the ball-return inlet hole, wedged under the return lever. LOST BALL: Occasionally a ball does not return to the bowler. Above: Subway Bowling Alleys in Brooklyn, N.Y., at 1 a.m., April 1910. Drunken patrons sometimes tried to hurl balls at boys who were stooped over picking up pins: “We learned to hop up quick onto the side wall,” Retseck says. “You really had to work fast, or the bowlers would yell at you, ‘Hey, get moving!’” recalls Paul Retseck, 84, who set pins in the 1930s for $1 a night in Michigan City, Ind. HUMAN TARGET: Pin boys reset pins before machines came along. So on your next trip to the lanes, if you are not compiling a marvelous score, ask for a peek at the mechanical marvels instead.
“I do five machines a day-four on Fridays.” He shows them off to enthusiastic patrons and says most proprietors will do the same. “It’s pretty much a constant job,” he says happily. Cove Bowling Lanes head mechanic DJ Marks must inspect, clean and lubricate each machine every week. Racks of spare belts, cams, rods, levers, oils and rags line the rear wall, looking like a cluttered auto repair garage. Twenty-four steel, wood and rubber pinspotter machines relentlessly chunk along shoulder to shoulder each one is about five feet tall, weighs about 2,000 pounds and collects, sorts and resets 10 pins in around eight seconds. More recently, a system of blacklights, fluorescent pins, laser beams, loud music and video screens has turned the ordinary routine into a dazzling late-night dance party promoted as cosmic, disco or “Xtreme” bowling.Ī visit to the back end of a typical 24-lane alley, such as Cove Bowling Lanes in Great Barrington, Mass., reveals a mechanical engineer’s paradise. In the 1980s cameras were placed between the lanes, pointed at the pins, and wired to computers that automatically calculated bowlers’ scores and displayed them overhead. What has changed most are the bells and whistles designed to expand bowling’s popularity. Machines did not appear until 1946, when AMF Bowling, Inc., now in Richmond, Va., introduced the first “automated pinspotter.” Brunswick Corporation in Lake Forest, Ill., later offered a competing “pinsetter,” and the two companies still dominate the market today with technology that is strongly reminiscent of the original. As the heavy balls crash into the wooden pins, hefty motors, conveyor belts, pulleys and cams clatter behind each “pit,” grabbing the wreckage from one collision while hoisting and arranging pins so they are ready for the next one.įor years pin boys stood at the lane ends, manually resetting pins and rolling the balls back to bowlers. A busy bowling alley might seem noisy, but behind the lanes the cacophony is significantly louder.
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