Prevention is a great cure for headaches

I have been on both sides of a technical call for a Lane Machine. Many years ago as the mechanic with 100 people staring at his backside and a phone against his ear hoping the person on the other end can save my day, and now as the person who is just as anxious to help you fix your problem and hopefully be the one to save your day. Two key things I have learned in my most recent years are many of the calls received after hours could have been prevented or corrected long before they became a headache and too many people don’t have even the minimal amount of spare parts needed for their Lane Machines. Hopefully by the end of this, we can save you from having to deal with headaches that always happen at the most inopportune times.

Head Bars

The head bars are a commonly overlooked part on a lane machine.  The head bars should be lubricated to ensure the oil and cleaner heads can move without restriction.  If the head bars become dry, or worse yet begin to rust, this can lead to head errors or blown fuses, or worn head blocks which cause oil or cleaner to go in places it shouldn’t.  A good rule of thumb is to lubricate both the cleaner and oil head bars with a thin coat of oil every time you change the cleaning cloth.  This is also a good time to make sure both your oil and cleaner head are in alignment.

Connections

It is always a good idea to inspect the wiring and plugs on your lane machine at least once a quarter.  This can, in most cases, catch a problem before it becomes a headache.  Key areas to inspect include the connections at high amperage points.  I always like to inspect the connections for the vacuum motor, drive motors, cvr, and buffer motor. If the connection is discolored or has a burn mark on it, change it and take a look around to determine why this could have happened. Carbon build up in motors as well as worn brushes can wreak havoc on not only your battery life but your connections as well.

cushion roller

The cushion roller is another commonly overlooked part of a lane machine. The common consensus when a call comes in regarding a cleaning issue is the squeegee blades are the problem. In reality, the cushion roller does most of the heavy cleaning on your lanes, while the squeegee just picks up remaining liquid. The easiest way to check the condition and functionality of your cushion roller is too look at your cleaning cloth when you change it. I like to unroll 5 feet or so of the take-up roll when I remove it from the machine and look at the lines of dirt on the roll. If the lines are spaced fairly equally, and they are straight across the entire roll, then your cushion roller is in good shape. If the lines are wavy, thick in the middle and light on the outside, or disappear the last 3-4 inches on each side, then you likely need to replace your cushion roller and the out of bounds people are complaining about may be relevant.

motors

Inspecting your motors regularly can be critical in keeping your lane machine running efficiently. I know this is not the easiest task to complete, but I can assure you its much less a hassle when its on your time table vs when your lane machine decides not to run. Inspecting your motors regularly for oil leaks will prevent major downtime in the future. Both the Drive Motors and Buffer Motor are work horses and over time the seals in the motors can become fatigued. Finding oil around the case of the motor is a key indicator a seal is failing and should be changed before it causes a major issue. Also, inspecting your motor brushes yearly will not only allow you to blow the carbon from your motors decreasing amp draw and helping you with the above “connections” task, but it will also save you from having to accomplish this task 20 minutes before league starts.

Volume checks

I cannot tell you how many times I have done an onsite rebuild or had a customer with an issue and needed to do a volume check, only to hear “I don’t have graduated cylinders”. If you are reading this and your stomach drops a bit, call your distributor the first chance you get and order them. In a perfect world, we would do volume checks before every run of the lane machine (this is how Kegel does it at events). The world isn’t perfect. Checking your oil and cleaner volumes once a week is a good practice to get into however. I always suggest picking a day a week to do a little extra cleaning on the lane machine, run a test clean on a pair, and check all your volumes. My focus for the purpose of this article is the cleaner volume check (on machines so equipped). Checking the cleaner volume once a week will allow you to have plenty of time to determine when you need to change your Norprene cleaner tubing. Over time this tube will fatigue and your cleaner volume will begin to decrease. Checking this regularly will give you plenty of time to see the issue and change your tubing before your bowlers notice.

Chains

Lubricate your chains once a quarter with a light coating of chain lubricant. Non-lubricated chains do not travel well on sprockets, which in turn wears out the sprockets, which then leads to a variety of issues and long troubleshooting sessions.

Foul light covers (walking lane machines)

There are two things that become very important with foul light covers.

1. Make sure they are secure. A walking lane machine cannot correct itself if the stationary part of the bowling center it is correcting itself against isn’t stationary.

2. It is also very important that the lenses are on your foul light covers. This call comes in a few times a month, and I am sure happens even more often that that. The lane machine needs to use the whisker to steer on the lane and the lens cover is missing from the foul light cover. The gets stuck in the hole where the cover should be and now the lane machine looks like it got harpooned in a bad sequel of Mad Max. The machine continues to drive, turning sideways until the foul light cover breaks free or the whisker snaps off. Either scenario creates extra work for you at the worst possible time.

Spare parts

There is really no need to break the bank on this one, but a small amount of spare parts to prevent headaches is more beneficial than a full pill box. When we (Kegel) do events, we carry the basics. This includes 2 of every fuse in the machine, 1 of each type of relay in the machine, one of each plumbing fitting, spare tubing, filters, and belts . This will pretty much get you through most common occurrences. There is nothing more frustrating than knowing what the problem is and not having something as inexpensive as a fuse on hand to fix it. I have personally done events where the control desk has turned on a pinsetter while I am running lanes and blown a drive motor fuse. I have been the person who forgot to latch the splash guard and blown a head drive fuse. Things happen and as I stated earlier, the world is not perfect, but we can keep small problems small by having these few small items on hand.