Day in the life of a Taito arcade worker

[gridrunner]

An interesting little documentary.

If anyone has any tips for actually winning anything from a UK arcade grabber I'd love to know about it, and so would my daughter!

 

[pubjoe]

I know they only give a firm (ish) grip a small percent of the time, which can be adjusted by the operator.

Once when I was a kid they put gorillas wearing boxing gloves in a crane game round here. They were easy to win as the claw could hook under their armpits and carry them even with the usual limp grip. My friend and I were so rich in boxing gorillas we were throwing them about like gorillionaires.

My tip is erm, aim for toys with grabbable armpits, preferable gorillas.

 

[Chihiro]

I watched this video the other day & found it interesting.

Cranes in the UK are on a percentage payout on the stuff I've set-up example a branded toy such as Paddington costs abound £7 but the machine has to take £30 before it pays out this an vary site to site often we set them on "tease" some are prize every time with the cheap stuff we had a "snip it" one prize at work but who knows what that was set too.

 

[Vamino]

If anyone has any tips for actually winning anything from a UK arcade grabber I'd love to know about it, and so would my daughter!

 

[Vamino]

This appeared in my feed too.

Pretty cool video.

 

[Spanky]

She's cute.

 

[neo-geo-mvs]

Was a good watch thanks. Watched a few more of his vids 👍

 

[gridrunner]

It's certainly a far cry from my memories of arcades in the North West in the Mid to late 80s, that's for sure! Especially the cleanliness

 

[bones]

Yeah, when the processor cranes 1st came out they had 2 circuits controlling the claw coil voltage. 1 controlled the initial grab which many operators would set near max so it lifted the toy up every time. Then the 2nd voltage took over after about 1 second and this was a fluctuating voltage that allowed the toy to 'slip' out of the jaws. The fluctuating voltage would turn to a max grab voltage once the operator set amount of cash needed had been reached. The voltage stayed at max until the sensor registering a toy dropping into the collect box had been triggered, this then restarted the process.
The only advice for winning on these is to find one where the win sensor isn't working resulting in permanent max grab( unlikely as newer machines monitor it). Picking toys as mentioned before with snagging points for the claws to get caught in. Other than that pick a crane with toys piled high and only grab close to the hole so when the claw inevitably drops the toy then it has a chance of bouncing/rolling down the hole.