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Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s

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Re: Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s

#11

Post by dimator »

section33 wrote: post #2

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 triggering laser-light shows and such with the DMX controller. Eventually, I want to allow a customer walk up to the lane, tap to pay and start bowling immediately, too. Kiosk-ize bowling alleys, yknow? I'm pumped. So much room for activit…

This sounds like such an amazing adventure, good luck I'm sure it will be a huge success!

Re: Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s

#13

Post by tclancy »

Cheiree wrote: post #3

Hi, What you accomplished here sounds interesting, both from an entrepreneurial point of view and also from the engineering side. A good, nice, detailed technical write-up of what you achieved here would be very interesting. Maybe a Hackaday.com blog entry, too? Put it on GitHub? Have fun :)

Agreed, this put a smile on my face for the day. What a cool thing to do in the specific and also in the more general sense of fighting back against “Bowling Alone” for your community.

Re: Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s

#14

Post by starky »

That is awesome. I worked at a bowling alley as a mechanic in high school (Brunswick A2) and got a sense of how stupid expensive the replacement equipment was. At one point another employee spilled their coffee over the keyboard used to control the score-keeping system, apparently the replacement was something like $400. What fancy proprietary keyboard did you get for that $400? The keyboard cable replaced with a phone plug.

Re: Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s

#15

Post by Polizeiposaune »

section33 wrote: post #2

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 triggering laser-light shows and such with the DMX controller. Eventually, I want to allow a customer walk up to the lane, tap to pay and start bowling immediately, too. Kiosk-ize bowling alleys, yknow? I'm pumped. So much room for activit…

How are you handling bowling shoe rental?

Re: Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s

#16

Post by kachurovskiy »

I'd make all ESP32 controllers the same - same ready-made PCB, plug-in terminals for the controller and screw terminals for inputs and outputs. ESP32-S3 has enough of IO to handle an absurd variety of tasks. You can have at least 40 ESP32s on the same WiFi reporting data within milliseconds of the event and taking commands via HTTP APIs. Firmware updates are easy over WiFi, too. You can probably have the same firmware for all of them with precise logic configured via the HTTP API. Works well for me in https://github.com/kachurovskiy/nanoels - albeit with just 1 ESP32 per machine :)

Re: Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s

#18

Post by vikbez »

Lol, nice! It depends on what you mean by "owning a bowling center," but it looks like there are at least two of us into this :D

I bought a really old fully mechanical (and automated!) mini bowling lane. It works without a CPU, except for the score display, which originally used a 1970 Intel D8749H (MCS-48)!

Just like yours, the only thing that turns this machine on is a single relay :D On my model, I also get feedback on the pin status and a "ball received" signal, so I can trigger the scoring.

I dumped the firmware and replaced the display PCB with a more recent DIY PCB with an Arduino that speaks a modern, documented protocol. It's now compatible with ScoreMore software, and I can do a lot more with it.

Here are some pictures and more info on the Bowltech forum (you should post your stuff here too!):

* https://www.bowltech.com/forum/small-scale-bowling/small-sca...

@vik8 on discord if you need :)

Re: Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s

#19

Post by holoduke »

It's nowadays so easy to create your own custom esp32 thing. I used to control a home battery installation. Used it on a old Landrover defender where we added a complete dash unit with digital gauges. Used it for controlling a Zigbee 12v switch to activate sprinklers in a garden. In combination with Claude one can create an entire setup in a couple days. Before I was sometimes spending a week on the lcd drivers alone.
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