low voltage question

[jatindall82]

My son plays for a baseball academy where they have their own complex. Batting cages, pitching lanes etc... They have 3 Iron Mike pitching machines that are controlled by a card swiping system. The cards are purchased at the front desk and scanned at the computer to put money on the cards. The customer then only ha to swipe at the cage and hit the "on" button to start. The Iron Mike machine has a circuit board on it to control how many balls are thrown per swipe. The owner, knowing I am an electrician, asked if it were possible to bypass the card swiping. Thus leaving just a push button to tell the machine to turn on. I have not in my field of work ever done anything with low voltage wiring, but using common sense I told him that it shouldn't be to hard and I would check it out for him at a later date.

My question is basically does this sound like an easy fix? Finding which wires are sending the on and off signal? Quite possibly even labeled on the circuit board?

Very vague question I know. Just wondering if anyone had any idea or maybe even had worked on something similar.

 

[JFletcher]

Dunno, but istm it may be easier to 'load' a card to a huge amount of 'money' and run the machine that way than change the wiring, or maybe change the # of balls thrown per charge from x to ∞; the programming to run it "free" may already be there.

 

[iceworm]

... Finding which wires are sending the on and off signal? Quite possibly even labeled on the circuit board?

Very vague question I know. ....

Just a suggestion: I'm a big fan of looking at the BOOK. If they don't have one, maybe call the company, see if they have service literature.

ice

 

[milldrone]

My question is basically does this sound like an easy fix? Finding which wires are sending the on and off signal? Quite possibly even labeled on the circuit board?

.

I see at least two different styles of machines on Youtube. One of the styles has just a pitching motor drive. If it's one of those then all you have to do is energize the pitching motor.

The other style (that I was able to find) had an auger drive as well. The auger motor would need to shut off when there is a ball in que.

If there are any other styles they would also have to be assessed.