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I finally got fed up with the noise level in the back. Quick catch-up, I'm the head mechanic, but thanks to "life" I am only available to them at night. So, I'm the pinchaser, too, but I set out tasks for the B mech to get done during the day, P/M, etc.
So, most of the "thought requiring" tasks need to be done by me... on the fly. And I usually lose any and all sanity by the end of the night, if I'm stuck in back for the shift. Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually my babysitting nights, we have the best collection of problem bowlers on those nights it seems. I don't have any numbers to cite, but I can fully assume it's flat-out illegal to have any employee back there on those nights, I ~know~ those machines have hit 130db quite often. OSHA would not approve. If they were to show up and do an inspection on a Thursday night, they'd give us a couple signs (well, I'm sure we'd have to buy 'em!) stating "hearing protection mandatory". I've tossed a few ideas around in the past, but have never found a really good solution. With any effective hearing protection, you won't be able to answer any trouble calls, in which case you're basically useless back there.
Early this week, I picked up a set of 900 MHz headphones from Radio Shack. Good sound quality, they sound good, and they're the full-ear design. I can go in and out of the machines without losing signal, but I get some static hear and there. But they really don't do enough for actual hearing protection. I can turn off the sound, and just use them as ear plugs (so to speak) and I still feel like I'm in a rifle range. I tried running actual ear plugs, with the headphones over them. Have to crank the headset up a bit to hear calls, but that seemed to work ok, although somewhat uncomfortable. I'm going to try and find some better headphones, or see if I can modify these somewhat to keep the sound out better. Does anyone have any better ideas? The ultimate intention with this setup is quite deep, I want to run a sound mixer in the back room, with inputs for the DMX (cable music), CD, callback microphone, and a feedback microphone in the back room (to hear the machines through the headset, only at a much reduced volume, to hear a ball spinning, perhaps, or a turnpan jam, etc. Missed a few of 'em tonight since my ears were plugged
A major eye-opener for me came Tuesday night. Had the headphones on, with earplugs underneath. I was sitting at the bench behind lane 5, and I could feel my pantlegs moving from the sound pressure of a bowler on lanes 9 and 10! The car-audio nut in me thought that was pretty cool, but the quickly-losing-sanity part of me thought it really sucked.
So, this is gonna be an ongoing project, and I'll let ya'all know if I come up with something that works well. But if anybody has something that works great, I'd love to hear about it.
So, most of the "thought requiring" tasks need to be done by me... on the fly. And I usually lose any and all sanity by the end of the night, if I'm stuck in back for the shift. Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually my babysitting nights, we have the best collection of problem bowlers on those nights it seems. I don't have any numbers to cite, but I can fully assume it's flat-out illegal to have any employee back there on those nights, I ~know~ those machines have hit 130db quite often. OSHA would not approve. If they were to show up and do an inspection on a Thursday night, they'd give us a couple signs (well, I'm sure we'd have to buy 'em!) stating "hearing protection mandatory". I've tossed a few ideas around in the past, but have never found a really good solution. With any effective hearing protection, you won't be able to answer any trouble calls, in which case you're basically useless back there.
Early this week, I picked up a set of 900 MHz headphones from Radio Shack. Good sound quality, they sound good, and they're the full-ear design. I can go in and out of the machines without losing signal, but I get some static hear and there. But they really don't do enough for actual hearing protection. I can turn off the sound, and just use them as ear plugs (so to speak) and I still feel like I'm in a rifle range. I tried running actual ear plugs, with the headphones over them. Have to crank the headset up a bit to hear calls, but that seemed to work ok, although somewhat uncomfortable. I'm going to try and find some better headphones, or see if I can modify these somewhat to keep the sound out better. Does anyone have any better ideas? The ultimate intention with this setup is quite deep, I want to run a sound mixer in the back room, with inputs for the DMX (cable music), CD, callback microphone, and a feedback microphone in the back room (to hear the machines through the headset, only at a much reduced volume, to hear a ball spinning, perhaps, or a turnpan jam, etc. Missed a few of 'em tonight since my ears were plugged
A major eye-opener for me came Tuesday night. Had the headphones on, with earplugs underneath. I was sitting at the bench behind lane 5, and I could feel my pantlegs moving from the sound pressure of a bowler on lanes 9 and 10! The car-audio nut in me thought that was pretty cool, but the quickly-losing-sanity part of me thought it really sucked.
So, this is gonna be an ongoing project, and I'll let ya'all know if I come up with something that works well. But if anybody has something that works great, I'd love to hear about it.
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