FREE - Game: AGE, Elaut, Smart, Kramer, Drew, Hollywood, Grayhound Cranes & Parts

bungelowbill

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I have finally decided to part with my cranes and parts. I have a number of trolleys for the Elaut and Smart cranes. I also have some working circuit boards and wiring harnesses for the Smart crane. There are also non-working AGE, Elaut, Smart, Kramer, Drew, Hollywood, Grayhound Cranes. I have about 10 non-working AGE candy crane boards. There are about 5 AGE trolleys that appear to be complete. There are 3 AGE trolleys that are not complete. There are 3 AGE power supplies that appear to be working.
I was an operator many years ago and now it is time to clean out my garage.
I also have some circuit boards, TMNT, Simpsons, Crusin USA, Primal Rage, a 35" cabinet with monitor, a 19" monitor. I may have to hold on to the monitors until I sell the boards. That way I can demonstrate that they work. When the boards are gone I can sell the cabinets. Before I forget I also have two slim Crane changers. They need DBAs.

I can get you pictures if you a truly interested.
I'm not looking for much money on these things. I'd like to find someone who can put them to good use.
 
I have a Smart Gen 6 Candy Crane that needs the harnesses to the claw control board and the display board. Have you got those? I've been begging smart for these harnesses, as they do sell them, but their customer service makes Wal-Mart look like ICE.
 
I have Smart Candy Crane too, I think mine might be Gen 5? Not sure it's old though. Yeah, I replaced the coil was burnt out so I replaced it with something that fit in the claw... It was working for a bit but it burnt out again. I am guessing I either need a different coil or need to just retire this crane? If you got the parts to bring her back cheap I might consider it...
 
I have Smart Candy Crane too, I think mine might be Gen 5? Not sure it's old though. Yeah, I replaced the coil was burnt out so I replaced it with something that fit in the claw... It was working for a bit but it burnt out again. I am guessing I either need a different coil or need to just retire this crane? If you got the parts to bring her back cheap I might consider it...
Gen 5 has the rheostat knob at the corner of the board. Gen 6 board is about twice the size, and the claw strength is controlled by a separate board.
 
I might be wrong, but if the wiring in the trolley is the same then even the old boards should work.

If the pinouts between the board and the trolley are the same they might just work. I'd have to look at the schematics to see.

By the way - it looks like Smart went to using semi-conductors instead of relays and CPLDs instead of microprocessors. I have a bunch of old boards and one much larger board like you mention. Maybe it is a 6th gen.

Sometimes the boards get re-designed because of DMS (diminishing material supply) issues. Sometimes the engineer that designed it left, retired, passed away, etc. and the next board uses a different design such as processors, semiconductors, ICs, etc.

As for coils - check the resistance of the coils. Try to get them to match. Some coils are 12V, some 24V, some 48V. A 48V coil should have a much larger coil resistance than a 24V coil.

a 48V coil with 48 Ohm resistance limits the current to 1 Amp (48/48 = 1). The 24V coil would need a resistance of 24 Ohms to limit the current to the same 1 Amp.

Here is the claw crane coil from Retro-Arcade, sold by Holland Computer. It is rated to be used from 24v to 48V, resistance is 24 Ohms, 1.5 Amp, 2200 turns of wire (I don't know gauge of wire). It seems like there are two windings on the coil. The instruction say to connect the yellow and blue wires together and the red and white wires together. I'm guessing you are wiring two coils in parallel. I don't know if the resistance of each winding is 24 Ohms or if wired together is 24 Ohms. If there are two separate winding then they could be wired in series or parallel you put the windings in series you get a coil for 48 Ohms.

Lets look at the data for a common relay, the Omron G2R series. A relay with a 12V coil has a coil resistance of 275 Ohms and a current rating of 43.6 mA. The 24V variant has a coil resistance of 1,100 Ohms, a current of 21.8 mA. The 48V variant resistance is 4,170, current is 11.5 mA. Notice the resistance changes for each voltage rating.

The resistance of the coil will limit the current in the coil. If the coil resistance is too low the current will be too high and it will burn up. Another reason coils burn up is because the claw doesn't open up. If the claw doesn't go Home the claw wont open. Then the coil over heats and burns up. I know that you already know that, but I thought I'd repeat it any way. By the way - ask me how I know. Haha I had a claw on location and the gantry got wedged (probably from kids shaking it). The claw didn't go home. That was a smelly service call. Also make sure your wheel belts are working so that the trolley moves nice and straight.

So too much current in the coil or never staying on too long will burn it up.

I hope I am explaining correctly.
 
Yeah, that was a pretty good explanation.

I'm reasonably sure that I have a gen 5 based on the comments here and what I've been told by Smart Ind. Support.

This is the coil I used to replace the one in the coil. https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/CS-1121
It says it has 37.8 ohms of resistance. Not sure If I measured it or not when I got it? I'm not sure if that's right or wrong, but the one I replaced in the crane (which was also burnt out) had some markings on it that led me to the CS-1121 coil. So maybe both were the wrong specs? Or maybe there's a deeper issue that's causing them to burn out?

I am very close to just selling the crane and cutting my losses. it will never be profitable if I need to keep buying coils or spend a bunch of time on it.
 
I was looking at the coil from Marco. It is 3050 turns of 27 AWG wire. The 27 gauge wire is small and it's what really limits how much current should be used.
I just did some "Googling" and it looks like the claw coil voltage is 48V, so with 37.8 Ohms, the current should be limited to 1.28 Amps. The ampacity for 27 AWG is: 1.7 Amps chassis wiring, .288Amps for power wiring. It has about 169 Ohms of resistance per 1000'.

I just measured a claw coil on one of my cranes. It measured 148 Ohms. At 48V the current should be limited to .32 Amps, which is close to the .288 Amp ampacity rating for power wiring, according to the chart on the American Wire website.

When your coil burned up, did it smoke or just open up? If it smoked it may be due to overheating which leads me to believe that the claw was energized for too long. If the coil just opened up it may have been too much current due to too low of coil resistance. The small 27 AWG wire would act like a fuse and open up the electrical connection.

When it comes to making money buying/selling cranes it is almost impossible. Just think of it as another hobby. I have lots of cranes and parts and I'm going to be selling them really cheap. I'll lose money, but I want other people to use and enjoy them.

If I come up with other information let me know.

Please let me know if my info is helping you. I don't want to waste your time.
 
I just realized after looking at the Gen 5 schematic. Check the current limiting resistor for the claw strength. Also check the claw strength rheostat.
I'm wondering if you can add resistance in series to limit the current. The problem with that might be there wouldn't be enough strength in the claw.
Maybe you can speak to a technical person at Marco. Maybe the coil he is selling is for a different generation pcb.

Let me know what you find out.
 
Thanks @bungelowbill and yes the info is helping. I think I am leaning off towards keeping the crane and getting it working again. You're right if I try to sell it as is I will probably only get $50 for it.

I think that the coil burnt out because the claw got caught on the wiring harness. possibly making it so that the jaws couldn't close?

I think the coil I got was wrong. The examples you are giving are helping a bit with the math behind it. The claw was kind of weak, so the rheostat was adjusted to the max strength setting. I need to take a trip to one of my locations where I have 2 of these cranes running and they haven't gone down... I will take a look at what coils are in those claws.

I didn't actually ask anyone about the coils from marco... I just ordered one that fit inside the claw. Lesson learned. I did ask Smart support, but they said that crane is so old they don't sell parts or support it any more.
 
I measured three more coils and they were each about 165 Ohms. I see that there is a CS-1148 coil available in addition to the CS-1121 coil from Marco. Marco also sells the CS-1148 for $29.95. Moneymachines.com sells it for $39.95. They describe it as a Smart Crane Game Machine CS-1148 Claw Coil. I didn't see any specs on it, and couldn't find specs. Maybe they will tell you if you contact them.
 
I'd ask a tech at Marco just to make sure.
By the way - I have a bunch of Smart crane parts that I'm selling. If you are interested let me know. I'm not in the business anymore and I have too many parts.
 
ok, yeah I'd be interested in some of the stuff that is for 5th gen cranes. I have 4 of them right now... so it would be good to have some spare parts I think.
 
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