Amusement devices: games – Surface projectile game; game element – Ball games
Patent
1995-10-30
1998-06-23
Chiu, Raleigh W.
Amusement devices: games
Surface projectile game; game element
Ball games
A63F 702, G01V 308
Patent
active
057694168
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a metallic body detecting apparatus for detecting metal bodies such as pachinko balls in a pachinko ball (Japanese pinball) machine.
TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
It may become necessary to detect the position of a metallic body within in a determined area, particularly in a plane area, for example, to detect a moving path of a metallic body moving in a plane area or when metal bodies are distributed in one area, to detect their distribution pattern. A specific example of the former is to detect a moving path of game play media in a gaming machine.
With some gaming machines, a player moves a metallic body, such as a metal ball, within a specific space set in the gaming machine and may or may not win the game depending on the destination of the metal ball. Pachinko ball machines are typical of such gaming machines; with a pachinko ball machine, a player plays a game by dropping a metal ball called a "pachinko ball" into a space sandwiched between parallel planes in which a large number of obstacles are located.
A general pachinko ball machine has a base board for providing a space within which pachinko balls move, a glass plate spaced from the base board at a given interval to cover the base board, and a propelling mechanism for propelling pachinko balls into the space provided by the base board and the glass plate. The pachinko ball machine is set up so that the base board becomes substantially vertical. The base board is formed with a plurality of winning holes which the player causes a pachinko ball to enter for a winning game play, and through which the pachinko ball is discharged from the base board, and an out hole into which pachinko balls that have not entered the winning holes are finally collected for discharging the pachinko balls from the base board.
A large number of pins (nails) are set up substantially perpendicular to the base board in such a state that they project from the base board as far as the diameter of a pachinko ball, and they form obstacles with which pachinko balls dropping along the base board frequently collide, causing their direction of motion to fluctuate. The pins are located on the base board in a distribution pattern determined so as to guide pachinko balls colliding with the pins toward or away from the winning holes while causing the direction of motion of the pachinko balls to fluctuate.
By the way, winning game play conditions at each pachinko ball machine need to be managed at pachinko ball parlors having a large number of such pachinko ball machines. That is, personnel of the pachinko ball parlor need to identify machines having an unbalanced or abnormal path of pachinko balls so as to replace or repair them. For example, if machines at which it is easy for players to win game plays are left as they are, the pachinko ball parlor suffers a great administration loss; such machines need to be located. In contrast, if the pachinko ball parlor contains machines at which it is abnormally difficult for players to win game plays, the pachinko ball parlor will lose their customers; such machines also need to be located. Also, while players play games, personnel of the pachinko ball parlor need to identify any players performing such illegal operation as guiding pachinko balls with a magnet, etc.
A conventional metallic body detecting apparatus for such purposes is described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.Hei 2-279186.
In this publication, a pachinko ball detecting apparatus is disclosed. The detecting apparatus has a metal sensor called a sensing matrix comprising a row of transmission coil group in which transmission coils with continuous transmission units like open rings are arranged in one direction and a reception coil group in which reception coils with continuous reception units like open rings inductively coupling with the transmission units are arranged in a direction crossing the row of transmission coil group. The metal sensor is connected to a controller for sensing whether or not a metallic body exists at each overlapping po
REFERENCES:
patent: 5388828 (1995-02-01), Takamoto et al.
patent: 5405143 (1995-04-01), Takemoto et al.
patent: 5509654 (1996-04-01), Takemoto et al.
Handa Shigeru
Kawashima Kazunari
Takemoto Takatoshi
Chiu Raleigh W.
Kabushiki Kaisha Ace Denken
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