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Hi there,

I'm tying to restore an Earth Satellite machine. My one is in quite a sorry state and the ball cups/ tubes are missing, so I am going to try to make these parts from scratch. I was wondering if anyone has one and could take a photo of the inside part of the ball cups/ tubes mechanism if possible please so I can base what I make on that? Also could anyone tell me what ball size the machine uses?

I am new to this and trying to figure out how to get it working.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards

Simon

Strewth! ……. Well done you and welcome to the forum.

I recently restored one, then sold it on.
The tubes are also the cups. The ends of the tubes protrude through the play field to catch the ball.

Each tube has a hole part way down its length to drop the ball into the correct gulley which runs at right angle to it. That leads it to the wedge shaped contraption that gauges where the feeler probe ends up and how many of the slides it shoves.
The tubes are held in place by a spring loaded bar that clamps down on the tube ends that don't poke through the holes.

Apart from that I'm useless, sorry.

BP

Found this picture, which may or may not be of help.

Thanks so much for both replies! Unbelievably helpful and should be enough for me to be able to make some thing similar. With regards to ball size, would it be just trial and error? I've tried a 1/2inch ball which is too small to trigger the mechanisms and one that is 9/16 inch which seems to be too big and getting stuck in the pins and holes. There's not much room in between those sizes.. I don't want to start adjusting stuff until I know I've got the right size ball in. So thought I'd just ask.

Cheers,

Simon

You might want to read below thread where 14mm was found better than 9/16 being slightly smaller

Fill 'Em Up, Many Happy Returns - ball sizes please?

Something as yet unmentioned is that these games came with 8 x spare tubes for customizing the games. Very simple and clever idea really. Though trying to get an owner to sell you their spares might be troublesome? And not quite enough to fill your game. Hopefully these photos help.

OK, thought about it and figured this would make your life pretty damn easy. Laid masking tape over the outside of an original tube and cut it out. Then added the holes for the other tubes, and the four side folds. So this is now a generic pattern you can print out and use for making any of the tubes. It was scanned so should still be life size, but just in case I added the sizes it should be once printed. I usually just print out my patterns on paper and then spray glue on the back of that and onto the sheet of alloy (or brass etc) and then cut and file it out.

Oh wow thank you so much for the replies!

That's a superb piece of work there Gameswat.

This website really delivers.
BP

Gameswat,

I've decided to develop a flying car. As you are well aware, I have no mechanical talent nor inspiration. Please have your plans for my car on my desk in one week.

J Peterson
Flying blind in USA.

John, I believe this has already been accomplished by an absent-minded professor who looked rather like Fred MacMurray in disguise, he did it with 'Flubber' by fixing the compound in a Model T Ford, it worked remarkably well and if I am not mistaken, the substance also greatly assisted a college baseball team by having some in their shoes - you surely must remember?

By golly, you're right, Gameswat. Cancel the request for the plans; send me a can of flubber.

J Peterson
Flubbie to you, Buster

Argue,

Well, flubber me gibbets. I need either new glasses or a new brain.

J Peterson
Flubbing it up in America

I'm hoping that if my moniker keeps getting thrown around like this that I'll soon be brokering some kind of Youtube type deal with Mr PM to get huge kickbacks from this site!?

John T. Peterson wrote: ↑Sat Aug 04, 2018 6:32 pm That's it. First, I can't tell time and now I can't do basic math. No more postings from mathematicians.....or Gameswat.

And could someone please inform JP that those flying plans were drawn up ready to go, but then I saw the above post and promptly had to throw them in the trash.

In case Simon the original poster hasn't made his missing tubes I notice there are some spare originals coming up for sale at the upcoming Coventry auction.

Neat Work GW

Well finally getting stuck into restoring my Earth Satellite and found I'm missing a few parts. The ball release piece has been removed from the shaft as well as from my the other giant Ruffler and Walker Allwin, What's my Line, both came from the USA and were deliberately converted to non coin-op so as not to break the law in the 1970's. It's obviously some kind of tubular arrangement that rotates when pulled by the wire that goes to the coin trip lever.

The Earth Satellite is also missing a spring loaded plate that sits on the rusty horizontal shaft above the missing ball release part. So could please do with a photo or two of these parts if anybody can help, many thanks.

I don`t have an Earth Satellite, but found this pic of a mech on my PC. Sorry I can`t be of more help.

Well damn Bryans - I think you might be building my skill set up way beyond its decent ability!?! Not much to glean from that small blurry shot sadly. Unfortunately it's pretty much only a very small group of us who take the time to post photos and info when needed by someone.