strange cup issue

[clutchplate]

Helping out a center that is known for dropping pins all the time throughout the entire house. Pin just falls forward out of cup as its spotted. I put on a new cup and problem is gone. Visually the cups look fine but the adjusting bolts at the bottom of cup are fully tightened yet the gap is correct. I helped out at this center a couple of years ago and we started replacing cups as needed. I am now at a point that I told the owner we are going to start on lane 1 and change all the original cups. My question to all of you is has anyone ever seen this type of problem with cups and there is no apparent rhyme or reason

[Carl D]

The old spotting cups may be 'twisted'. Lay them face down on a flat, hard surface, put your hand on them and see if they 'wobble'.

[Tablejam]

If the adjusting bolt is all the way tight yet the gap is still too wide its possible the tips of the cup where you measure the gap have spread apart. It could also be twisted as said, run into a few of those myself.

[mechanic8230]

After market cups? I never had any luck at all with them.

[Tablejam]

Helping out a center that is known for dropping pins all the time throughout the entire house. Pin just falls forward out of cup as its spotted. I put on a new cup and problem is gone. Visually the cups look fine but the adjusting bolts at the bottom of cup are fully tightened yet the gap is correct. I helped out at this center a couple of years ago and we started replacing cups as needed. I am now at a point that I told the owner we are going to start on lane 1 and change all the original cups. My question to all of you is has anyone ever seen this type of problem with cups and there is no apparent rhyme or reason

Missed that part about the gap. Well it may be a little twisted or it's a cheap knockoff cup.

[Rep]

Never had that issue with the cup gaps but I've pulled NUMEROUS cups that dropped pins intermittently. Cups were not warped nor did they show ANY signs that anything was wrong at all

[MarkyB]

Never had that issue with the cup gaps but I've pulled NUMEROUS cups that dropped pins intermittently. Cups were not warped nor did they show ANY signs that anything was wrong at all

And i've had the same cups go back into other lanes in other pin positions that work flawlessly. Sometimes its a combination of things that tip it over the edge, worn pinspots, a slightly out of shape yoke, tilt left to right front to back on a table, and possibly other table hardware, that one cup just wont have it. So long as a different cup works fine on it all should be good, i certainly wouldn't throw them out till they have been proved to be garbage elsewhere too, as you might have an underlying problem that is masked by a 100% solid cup.

Or of course the cup is just rubbish and a manufactuning blem

[L8ndeb]

Had that problem on lane 16 this morning. The cup looks brand new. I loosened the adjusting bolt at the bottom to where I could turn the bolt by hand, and the problem disappeared. I'm wondering if having the bolt tight has a tendency to twist or mis-align the cup? Don't know, but it started to set the pin normally.

[lafarge jr]

ok so just playing around this morming i took a normal brand new cup with a bolt and checked the gap and sure enough it was correct so then just decided to tighten bolt and it closed the gap then reopened the gap again as i got the gap closed and put more tention on the bolt. i bet that all the cup bots are so tight that its doing the same thing in that center and its springing the cups. just an obsevation from today hope it helps.

[clutchplate]

On a lane with a bad cup, removed bolt and problem was the same. Decided to remove the cup liners and problem went away(at least for today). I started removing cup liners across the house, machine is a little noisier when shuttleing pins but pins slide right into the cups. The reason for removing liners is to let the pin sit in the cup a little deeper. So far so good.