Viewing profile — section33

I plan on taking some soon. I actually had some video I was recording when my ESPNow mesh went haywire the other day (antenna came loose from the pinsetter node)

Hi everyone! I'm the ESP32 Bowling guy from a few weeks ago, back with a technical write-up and a repo link. Since my last post, I've received -tons- of support and encouragement f…

Oh totally. I actually thought about exactly that. I'm basically thinking "this -will- fail at some point, so when it does, I want to be able to replace a failed unit very rapidly.…

Yep, USBC. You're exactly right, they do have pretty precise requirements for sanctioned league play. But casual 'open' bowlers don't care about that stuff for the most part. So if…

It can, yeah. For that reason, I only allow myself or Brunswick-certified mechanics to touch our pinsetters. We run old Brunswick A2s that were built in an era where 'safety' was p…

I did a capitalism, but I messed it all up!

Sorry, I'll have a blog up soon. Wasn't sure there'd be any interest! That link is so weird... it's definitely referencing this HN post, but those codeblocks in there... That's an …

No, but he is within driving distance from us!

Believe it or not, cameras are exactly how the existing system works. I can do it now with OpenCV, but I've thought about looking into doing the same thing with mmwave radar instea…

My original, handwritten post was 5600 characters. I used claude to truncate it down to the 4k limit. I assure you though, I had initially gone off on an extremely detailed diatrib…

You're not wrong, though I will say that I haven't forgotten it's a social space. The social aspect is why I bought it in the first place. In my mind, the kiosk terminal is there f…

Oh yeah. We even have one lane pair the auto-scoring isn't working, we just can't assign most people to either lane. The machines themselves work fine, and we do have a way to bypa…

Same here. We're running Brunswick A2s that are just ancient, and they're buggy... but I wouldn't trade them for strings if I had them given to me, honestly.

We're holding pretty steady at $3400-ish / month on open bowling alone. No leagues yet, no snack bar yet, no beer yet. It's not FAANG income by any stretch, but it's doing -so- muc…

I love it! I actually looked at integrating with scoremore myself, but once I crossed into hardware world, I still couldn't get over how much fouling alone cost. $750 / unit and th…

Not that I know of! My market research shows something like < 3500 remaining bowling proprietors in the US, down from 12k in the 60's. I think the lack of alternatives is just a ma…

Totally - we've got notifications wired in though, so our counter instantly knows "lane so and so needs such and such shoe sizes"

We just charge a flat rate with shoes included. We do $5 / person or $25 for a whole hour for larger groups. Wanted to take some of the advanced calculus out of the price of bowlin…

Right now I'm working on adding LED + DMX DJ light control - I kinda want to be able to order LED strips to "chase" a ball as it goes down the lane or back up the return. I plan on…

I might be the only SRE on Earth with his own bowling center. It's a more in-depth gig than you'd think. My family and I bought an abandoned 8-lane bowling center in the rural mid-…