I really don’t like Bowling on these AMF’s cause the ones I bowled on are junk poorly maintained 82-90 XL’s and it pisses me off every time our League Night, they had several Lane Calls almost everyday even during Open Bowling or downtime. I’ve bowled on GS-92 Pinsetters at my past shopping mall bowling center before it was burned down and they were decently fine than any mechanic thinking GS are junk. Well to me GS is a great machine cause it had the advantages such as Zero Deadwoods, Zero Scoring Errors with no inaccurate Camera Based Scoring, Automatic Pin Selecting and my favorite is the Set Button to recover your 2nd Ball Pin Combination incase pins fell on 2nd Ball which every time our League had that happened and its a huge deal on AMF that we wait for a minute than on GS for only a few seconds. Worst of all our League had no choice but to accept the reality after that GS-92 center was gone and we have only one left which is an AMF Bowling Center in another shopping mall that barely works with 82-90 XL’s (that I mentioned earlier) and its worse than GS Pinsetters. Our League needs a new Bowling Center soon and if it does happened, it better be Brunswick. My only hate on AMF is their machines can’t withstand Poor Maintenance than Brunswick does incase they’re in Poor Countries and also some parts aren’t great as Brunswick have like the spotting tongs, I could see the fingers on AMF are thinner than Brunswick’s thick ones but it can’t grip well. The Ball Door on GS has a better design than the Ball Door on AMF that it acts like a flap door than a paddle going back and forth. The GS Pin Holders has the grippers that grips the pins well than on AMF with the Cups cause if they’re loose (even by a hair) the pins will wobble or fell. That’s based on my personal experience Bowling both of these machines and I could see the difference on both sides of the aisle, sure proper maintenance is the key but if you’re a League Bowler like me, dealing with Poor Maintenance is hard even worse incase that there’s no other center bowl at but just left with one.
GS are more advanced on a technical level and thats why theyre more expensive to buy and operate on a per lane pair basis. as you say most of the issues you have are purely down to poor maintenance practices by lane techs who have not been adequately trained. GS machines have their issues when poorly maintained.. its just as a bowler you don't see them. I was lucky enough to end up an AMF certified technician so had the advantage of manufacturer based training which greatly improved the reliability of the machines I maintained. End of the day its each to their own. Not that it matters because one day it'll all be those crap stringsetters!
@@HotAxleBox Well not only mechanics were barely trained but management don’t care at all which is typical for crappy corporate bowling centers. I bowled at SM Bowling center (Lanang branch) which was the same corporate center with the AMF’s I’m talking about and they had 3 Lane Men and they’re all over the place, none of them won’t stay in the back and even during our League Night that only 1 person is in the back is in charge of watching the 8 out of all 16 Lanes we bowled on. These guys are such a mess, at least Synthetic Lanes were treated really great which I love that over Wood Lanes but still their machines act so bad. Unlike when I bowled at NCCC B3 with their 24 Brunswick GS-92’s, there are 5 or 6 Lane Men with one of them is the mechanic, half of them are in the front and back and that’s good especially those GS-92’s sometimes would blackout. Even tho no proper maintenance were performed in the first place, at least they’re trying since that place is an active Tournament House made for Sanctioned, random corporate and school tournaments and besides only few problems I experienced on GS. They even hired a group of men to try to fix their machines and it’s nice, I doubt would ever see that at SM with their AMF’s, not even AMF Puyat (Philippines AMF distribution company) would lift up a finger at SM. As for String Pinsetters tho, I don’t have to worry about that yet because no Southeast Asian Bowling Centers would adapt to that crap. In my country (Philippines) that I only seen Strings in Arcades with short Lanes and I would laugh cause that’s really deserving instead of a full house Bowling center.
Mr AMF 82-90XL a job I miss! The XLi's had not too long been out when I was sent on the AMF Tech course. Even worked on, 82-45! A couple years on GS96 too.
AMF is still in the dark ages. Why don't they design some new machines? Like, PROPER new machines. Not just upgrades of a 50 year old model. They could connect them to the internet, have them automatically e-mail frame-meter reads to the front desk, frames per stop, quantify the data, recommend maintenance or provide maintenance alerts, provide a mobile app for their technicians to notify them (because big f***ing shock, mechanics have phones), provide diagnostic data on timings of sensors, voltages and real time information to a mechanic from the comfort of his workshop. They could spot that broken wire intermittently dropping voltage before it causes an outage or see the motor brakes are worn before an full stop happens. And they can use off the shelf computers for all of that. My point is, a $30 PC has more power than the stock computers AMF and Brunswick machines use. You know, they still charge over $1000 for a GS-92 pinsetter, a 27 year old computer that thinks in megabytes! They are taking the piss out of their customers. They HAVE to give us a proper cheap upgrade that at least uses the Raspberry Pi or an Arduino board, and they can still charge for their oh-so-complicated 300 lines of proprietary software and license per lane, but at the same time, allow bowling alleys to also use x64 Intel CPUs, or better yet, ARM computers that they can choose. Have they never wondered why bowling proprietors never buy from them anymore? It's because they still have the same machines 60+ years later. Their machines are almost the same design as their original conception in 1963! It is NOT an upgrade! We live in an age of robotics and computers and AMF gives us the traction engine of bowling.
I sort of agree with you but I also dont. Having been a bowling technician in previous jobs, AMF Certified too, the cost of such live monitoring would make the machines much more expensive to buy as youre talking about programmable logic controllers, feedback loops, digital IO etc. Something such a basic machine really doesnt need. Think about it, if you implement such a system you have to decide if a faulty feedback would put the machine into stop or would it be a passive failure? The first being that you'd more than likely find many more frames per stop and the latter? Whats the point of having a feedback loop if it will be left broken? These machines take a huge pounding every single day so having sensitive electronic components mounted in the vicinity of them will undoubtedly lead to more stops. Mechanics do have phones, but how many are willing to use their own devices? I know I wouldn't as if it breaks then I'm the one who has to pay for its replacement. I left the industry not too long after the 82-90XLi machine came out, that was a massive advancement in machine control, are you aware of the differences on such a machine? I managed to get the machines I worked on up to a very good level with a basic cleaning and maintenance schedule. I cant remember the actual figure as it was over ten years ago but I think it was somewhere in the realms of 1600-1800 frames per stop. Stop meaning a simple ball or pin jam right up to a bigger failure. This obviously doesn't include intentional damage such as balls hitting the sweep. I take it you are a technician at a bowling centre, how long have you been doing it for? I'd be interested to hear what the latest developments are considering I've been out of it for over ten years. I also worked on Brunswick GS96, GS98 and GSX for a few years. I have to say that AMF were my personal preferred machine to work on having worked on the 82-45, 82-70 and 82-70XLi. Also, sorry for the late reply. I wanted to give you a decent reply so waited until I came on the PC.
@@HotAxleBox Hey, i would like to ask what upgrades the XLI has? I atleast know the table doesn't come down on a strike, but i don't know the other upgrades. I know Brunswick machines but don't know almost anything about AMF
@@Pyry300 it was such a long time ago I worked on them that I struggle to remember. From memory, the spot table is pressed steel instead of cast aluminium. The chassis is of PLC type and has many different functions and fault information available. Pin bin/shuttle arrangement was changed to reduce pin jams. Think there was a modification to the distributor and well although I can't remember what. They also could come with a full interlocked safety guarding system. Table and sweep motors were also upgraded to encorporate encoders for digital positioning, too. As I say, was over 11 years ago I did it now.
