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Hi all-

It's been a while and after building an arcade machine I'm now working on a digger. I purchased a mechanism off of ebay that needed some cleanup and fixing. The main spot that needs work is the coin mechanism and the assembly mounts at the two square ears brazed to the traveling shaft below the central turning shaft.

I also need to make a new chain winding spool as mine is not original and rides very high.

I've managed to get everything working beautifully as far as the mechanism goes.



If anyone can supply some nice pictures of the areas in need, I would appreciate it.

I don't recognise any of that geared mechanism or know what that video mech actually does? What machine and era does it belong to please?

I was just going to ask the same question???
Looks very good though...

That's what I get for posting while I was at work. Too little information on my part.

It's a '60s era carnival digger. The best example that I can find online is this: http://www.pinballrebel.com/game/tonka/tonka.htm
Unfortunately it does not have a good image of the mechanism that I'm looking for. I emailed the guy hoping that I could get a response, but that didn't work out.

The video of the mechanism is how the crane selects where it's going to drop. You'll notice that it goes to 5 different stops before returning to the start.
I believe that the original design was from the Erie Digger.

Here's a better video showing the full operation

Have you tried asking Jim Roller directly? https://www.jamesroller.com/vintage/
I have always found him to be a very friendly and helpful chap.

I've talked to Jim a few times, although I was looking for a second resource. Jim mentioned that he sold off all of his supplies and inventory and it sounded like he's getting out of the business. I'm in his queue of messages to tend to, although as he said, I'm moving a whole lot faster than he is...

I want to turn a new chain spool with a clutch built in to keep the crane from wrecking itself. I may just to into free form mode and start just building parts.

Here are some things I'd like to know if anyone has some information

Clutch material. What is typically used? The one in my mechanism is many layers of some dirty oily material that I'm afraid to clean up that it may disintegrate.
Chain material. The chain on this machine is beautiful, with perfect links and no joints. I need a longer length so I'm looking for a supplier.
Calibration. Is there any method of calibrating the mechanism? This position with the crane here, etc etc etc...

I sent a few questions in an email to a guy in texas that bough a pair of restored diggers from Jim Roller. His response was a letdown of, "I can't get to them. Contact Jim."

I've usually found a hard piece of oiled leather as a clutch in older machines. As for calibrating, the mech should tell you that itself with a little experimentation of adjustments and teeth positions. I always tend to try a bunch of possible variations to see what works best. Amazing how many times they've been reassembled incorrectly years ago, often barely working but not smoothly or sometimes correctly!

I figure that I'll keep posting information here as I find it for future users.

Here's a source for replacement chain: https://www.franklinartglass.com/shop/i ... hain/4268/

Back to this project after a few years off...

Unfortunately, I've lost my plans for the digger cabinet that I purchased from Jim Roller a few years ago. He no longer has them for sale on his website and I'm hoping he's still around answering emails. If I'm out of luck with him, does anyone have these plans laying around? Or would be interested in giving me some dimensions?

Thanks!

I have a couple of these mechs. I can probably help you out.

Any pictures that you can provide of cabinets with a ruler or tape measure on them for scale will help immensely.

I'm in the process of making a proper trip blade as mine didn't have the original.

Pictures that Jim Roller sent me years ago:





My recreation:

I'm watching your progress with interest but sorry I can't contribute. Erie Digger's are rare in the UK. I think I saw one cabinet and one mechanism over the years. Maybe Ddstoys will come to the rescue. Anyway - good luck!

Sorry mate, I went out to get you the photos but they're buried on a shelf well above my head and I’ll need a second pair of hands to help. I’ll try get them down on my next days off.

No worries. When you get there, you get there. I've got plenty of things to occupy me in the meantime. I'm trying to teach myself to use AutoDesk Inventor to model some of these mechanisms.

Side note: I got a response from my email the other day to Jim Roller:

I wish I could help you but, sadly, I have little to offer. I sold out everything I had pertaining to the mechanical diggers a few years ago and the buyer has died and I have no further way to know what happened to the materials including about 60 digger mechanisms.

It's really quite a shame, but I was really glad to see that Jim's still kicking. He also gave me the name of someone that may have a copy of the cabinet plans.

Mine looks to have a completely different setup than yours. Let me know if I can do any more.

Wow, it looks like there are many variations in trip mechanisms on these diggers. I've seen about 6 of them now. I'm going to have to figure out what will work with my setup. Mine is similar to what I posted above.

Thanks for the cabinet plans DD. They're pretty rough with a few errors in there. I'm going to model them up with some changes made and then I'll send you a set back. (in metric )

I’m not very smart but I can lift heavy things.

Heavy things always need to be lifted. No one can ever decide where they should be placed the first time, resulting in moving them around 3 or 4 times. That means we'll always need people to lift heavy things.

I'm hoping that I can fully document how one of these digger mechanisms works so that anyone can always get one up and running again, even if they need to fabricate a few pieces. Once I get this complete, there should be a good record here, with details of each part. I haven't done much 3D CAD in several years, but so far this is turning out pretty good.

Looking good so far. I can’t begin to understand how these computer drawings are done.

My older digger mech is different again. I might drag it down and post some photos of that if you like for reference.