King's Carpet Fix

[8270king]

I was running a service call yesterday.

The 6 & 8 lb. balls would not return on a lane with Humpback system.

The stiff Gates style carpet would not allow the balls to deflect the carpet edge, this caused the light balls to contact the upper edge of the ball door ring, not allowing them to enter the ball door.

My fix was to take a razor knife and cut 1 inch off the ball door side of the carpet 3/4 the length of the offending carpet.

The balls would fall in the ball exit easily after trimming the carpet.

I left some 1/4 of the edge of the carpet for proper tracking.

This could easily be fixed by using Vantage Premium carpets.

My opinion is to run the Gates carpet as long as possible.....when the edge frays.....replace with Vantage.

Jerry

[TheGMan143]

Re: King's Carpet Fix

That 'fix' works for kicker lifts, too. Any carpet that's too stiff to allow a light ball to deflect causes a problem. The soft Vantage carpets are a definite improvement.

[AmfPro]

Re: King's Carpet Fix

We had similar problems on kickers also. Boss had bright idea to trim the BDS edge with razor knife about 1 inch away. Worked good for light balls but sucked for mens 15 and 16lb league balls. With no carpet edge to aid the kickers in helping get the ball in the door, it meant some long nights of pushing balls in the door by hand. Once the boss saw the reult of his idea, it was never done again. You could always shim the common side for more pitch towards the BDS or try putting a weaker BDS front roller tension spring on, 1 that will barely get the carpet around with a 16lb'er

[ledgeviewmech]

Re: King's Carpet Fix

Originally posted by AmfPro:
We had similar problems on kickers also. Boss had bright idea to trim the BDS edge with razor knife about 1 inch away. Worked good for light balls but sucked for mens 15 and 16lb league balls. With no carpet edge to aid the kickers in helping get the ball in the door, it meant some long nights of pushing balls in the door by hand. Once the boss saw the reult of his idea, it was never done again. You could always shim the common side for more pitch towards the BDS or try putting a weaker BDS front roller tension spring on, 1 that will barely get the carpet around with a 16lb'er

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Have you ever tried using the Filler Field Kit [img]/content/btubb/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/eek.gif[/img] (originally designed for PBL to assist in activating the lift arm)It helps the ball fall into the ball door with greater momentum to help the kicker pull it in. Also, if this doesn't totally solve the problem, swap the kicker spring. You may try using the large Dist. stablizing spring in its place with little tension. The low tension helps the ball in the ball door, but the stronger spring helps pull the ball up the filler assembly to the belt.