Inside Your Bingo
Ball Lifter

ball lift motor - see how the cam insures one complete revolution by closing the switch above the cam disk.

Almost all bingo machines have automatic ball lifters; that is, a motorized unit that raises each ball up to playfield level, instead of using a manual ball lifter as in most other pingames of the same period. The ball lifter unit also has a cam that operates a set of switches. One of these switches insures that the motor makes one complete revolution each time a ball is raised. Another switch provides the pulse to step up the timer unit in the backbox, which keeps track of which of the five regular balls are in play.

Attached to the playfield is a relay, the lifter start relay, and two switches connected with the ball runway (the channel running from the ball shooter to the top of the playfield through which each ball passes when first shot by the player). These devices and the ball lifter unit described above, are the heart of the game's ball control function.

When a ball is raised to the playfield it comes to rest on a wire rollover type switch, the runway switch. This switch energizes the lifter start relay under the playfield. This relay disables the raising of another ball until the present ball is shot. Once the lifter start relay is energized, it is held on by a normally closed switch at the upper end of the runway, the ball gate switch. When the ball is shot, and leaves the runway, it pushes up on the ball gate switch, momentarily opening its contacts, thus dropping out the lifter start relay. Once that relay drops out it re-enables the ball lifter motor, and the next ball is raised to the runway.