Best and worst brands of redemption machines ?

[GuidoTorpedo]

I have to disagree with using the term "quality" and elaut in the same sentence.

Remember the Mega Crane, Gift Box & Candy Man cranes? Biggest piece of craps on the market at the time. I had over 50 new elaut cranes on my route back in the day and just about every one crapped out within three to six months due to the poor wiring. Cost me a lot of time, travel and money. They sucked so much that Betson had to buy most of them back from us. Plus it did not help that it took months to get the parts from overseas.

The industry is dying and everything is getting copied in China. This is affecting the quality output from some of the strongest makers in the industry as they have no choice but to value engineer future games to compete with the pressures of sagging demand and the Chinese knockoffs.

The reality of today's amusement industry should be which manufacture sucks less....

I just bought an Easy Touchdown, made by Smart 2 years ago. Couldn't justify pAying 8500 2 years ago, so I just paid 2k for it. The game looks neat as shit, but man, Smarts tech support sucks ass. Biting my nails a little.

Mike

 

[coinopdirect]

I just bought an Easy Touchdown, made by Smart 2 years ago. Couldn't justify pAying 8500 2 years ago, so I just paid 2k for it. The game looks neat as shit, but man, Smarts tech support sucks ass. Biting my nails a little.

Mike

Smart gave in as they could not fight the China crap and is now re branding (or having manufacturer-ed to their specs)some of the China cranes. Pirates chest is basically made in the same factory as the Toy Soldiers.

Smart's tech guys are normally pretty good considering they do not have much experience with the newer and imported equipment.

Not really a manufacturer (although they control Raw Thrills) but Betsons tech department is absolutely the worst I have ever dealt with, especially the Baltimore branch.

It is what it is these days.

 

[mwade109]

Colorama pushpin removal

Hey Mecha, you mention in your post to get rid of the conductive pushpins in the colorama.... what do you use in place of them? I just picked up a 2 player one and two of the pushpins are worn quite a bit and as far as I know, I have to buy 16 of them at Betson @ $156.74 kinda pricy for a small brass piece brass!

mike

I had to get into the redemption stuff out of necessity, cause no one else in my family remotely possesses any know-how to tinker with any of this stuff besides me. 4 years ago I was thrust head-on into it and the opening weekend for us was akin to the opening of Disneyland.. I have more experience to throw back at it now.

Bromley:
we had a Whirlwin, what a gigantic piece of shit. we dumped it at an auction last year. I'm only faced with a 4-player Colorama, and I often get asked by people at work "didn't you just fix that?" a lot. it's a lot like working on a car. protips: don't drop the plastic bubble, it cracks very easily (had an extra from a 2-player, fortunately); always have dielectric grease on the metal rings; and GET RID OF the conductive pushpins if they're worn away too badly, they will RUIN YOUR LIFE. other than that, I love Colorama.

I genuinely believe we all need to contribute repair logs on all of these to help each other out.

 

[dogcow]

What is your guys opinion on rainbow cranes? odd to see they are not represented here.

 

[coinopdirect]

What is your guys opinion on rainbow cranes? odd to see they are not represented here.

The older ones (Classic Series with the black trolleys) are not very reliable.

The New Gen (Silver Trolley) work great and are easy to work on with one caveat - There are some versions of the New Gen that were made in China when Coinstar owned the company. These are absolute trash.

You don't hear much about Rainbow since they were bought out first by Sugarloaf, then Coinstar and now National Entertainment Network due to them mostly selling / manufacturing for in-house sales.

Overall I have had good experience with them.

 

[neopolss]

Who do i contact about the firmware update for kings castle? I need it.

 

[QBall]

Who do i contact about the firmware update for kings castle? I need it.

I recently ordered the firmware update from Betson after getting the part number from
Family Fun. When I talked to Family Fun it sounds as though you could order the part directly from them if you don't want to use a distributor. Their parts department is at 708-598-3720.

On a side note, dont make the same mistake I did of ordering the King motor at the same time. Family Fun shipped the chip unprotected in the same box with the motor. I spent more time re-bending pins and soldering on a few broken ones then I did installing the chip and replacing the motor!

Quentin