Scoring sensor - Sensors that detect standing pins and sends it as scoring information to the scoring system.
The track is normally below the lane, although earlier pinsetters (both mechanical and automatic) have above-lane tracks similar to those of older manual lanes. The ball lift is designed to separate the ball from the fallen pins in the pit, and does not send pins into the ball return track. Ball return – removes the bowler's ball from the lane's pit and returns it to the bowler via the ball return track, located between paired lane beds, back to the ball return unit at the heads of the lanes.It may be within or part of the table, or above and/or behind the table.
The designs of automatic pinsetters vary, depending on each company's hardware implementations, and on a particular bowling sport's playing rules and specifications.
While many pinsetters have a manual reset button in case the pinsetter does not automatically activate at the correct time, other types have no automatic tracking of the state of the game – especially in candlepin and duckpin bowling sports, which use smaller balls – and are manually activated. While humans usually no longer set the pins, a pinchaser, or in slang "pin monkey", is often stationed near the equipment to ensure it is clean and working properly, and to clear minor jams.īeginning in the 1970s, modern pinsetters were integrated with electronic scoring systems of varying sophistication. Pinsetting machines have largely done away with pinsetting as a manual profession, although a small number of bowling alleys still use human pinsetters.
The first mechanical pinsetter was invented by Gottfried (Fred) Schmidt, who sold the patent in 1941 to AMF. Prior to the machine's invention, pinsetters were originally boys or young men ( pin boys) stationed at bowling alleys to manually reset pins and return the ball. In bowling, a pinsetter or pinspotter is an automated mechanical device that sets bowling pins back in their original positions, returns bowling balls to the front of the alley, and clears fallen pins on the pin deck. The stated objects of the Brunswick pinsetter included controlling the rake (pin sweeper) when an off-spot pin was encountered-inhibiting sweeping unless a first-ball foul was detected.