The Three Goalie to One Conversion Kit

There is a solution now for those that want to go back to the good old days, at least for those of us with Shelti or Tornado Foosball tables (I can’t confirm that the kit works on all brands).  I bought the kit to be install on my Tornado Cyclone II, but it should fit any model.

The kit is fairly easy to install, probably took me 40 minutes total to install it.  The install process is this:

1. Remove all the players from one goal rod.  There should be three of them.
2. Slide the rod out and put all items that are required (rubber stoppers, goalie, then another rubber stopper) on the rod, then slide it back into the hole.
3. Start attaching the player and stoppers back to the rod.  Make sure that the player is facing the right way.
4. Repeat for the other side.
5. Bring out the 4 corner pieces
6. Place each one in a different corner.  You can use the double sided tape on each one to secure it to the table.  I found mine didn’t move even when not secured, so I haven’t used the tape for now.

That’s it.  Pretty easy overall.

The next question is, how does it play?  MUCH better.    At least to me.  I’m sure current tournament players would hate it.  For me though, it just feels right.  It’s supposed to emulating soccer and soccer doesn’t have three goalies, lol.

The kit is available here through my Amazon Affiliate link:

One Man Foosball Conversion Kit

If you’re interested in Foosball, I have other Foosball articles you might like:

Foosball Sound System

Tornado Foosball Guide

Removing the Broken Foosball Man

The men are held in place by roll pins on Tornado Tables.  Unfortunately these pins don’t screw or bolt in place, they’re hammered into place with a special tool.  That tool is available through my Amazon affiliate link below:

Tornado Foosball Roll Punch Pin

Without this tool, it will be much harder.  With this tool, you can punch out the old roll pin from the man.  When you do this, you have to make sure that you brace the rod under the man with a piece of wood so you don’t bend the rod when you’re doing it.  With the wood in place and the tool inserted in the pin, you can then gently hammer out the roll pin.

I made a video below to try and show how it’s done:

Replacing the Broken Foosball Man

Now is where you’re going to come to the realization that in order to replace one man, you have to remove all the men on the rod.  This is especially painful on the center rods that have 5 men to remove.  One thing also to note is that the foot on some of the newer players is slightly different than the older players.  I believe that when they came out with the new Tornado Classic, Sport, Elite, and T-3000 line they redesigned the foot slightly for better play.

If you’re replacing this man on a table that doesn’t have counter-balanced men, it might be a good idea to look into doing this since you have to remove all the men on that rod anyways.  Plus it’s not a very expensive upgrade.

Once you have all the men removed and all the new men slid on, it’s time to reinstall them with roll pins.  To do this, you’ll need the same wood block underneath the rod as before, along with the roll pin punch and a hammer.  Get the man aligned with the hole in the rod and hit the pin into the man gently until it is flush with the front.  Repeat this with all the other men.

I made a video to show how to do this:

If you have other questions about Tornado Foosball Tables, I would recommend checking out my Tornado Foosball Table Guide on my site.

Cleaning the Foosball playfield

The first part to clean is the playfield.  Usually this is filled with dust and other specks of stuff.  I’d first recommend vacuuming the table to get all of the loose particles sucked up.  Once that’s complete, the next step is use a liquid cleaner.

There are a couple schools of thought on this one, but I recommend just using plain old Windex to clean the playfield.  It cleans pretty good and won’t harm the laminate in any way.  If you have dirt that is particularly ground in and won’t come off, I’d recommend some Novus 2 cleaner to get it out.

Cleaning the Rods

The next part to clean are the Foosball rods.  The rods over time get kind of grimy due to the silicon lube picking up dust and drying out.  The first thing to do is clean the rods with a dry rag or paper towels to get all the dirt off them.  Once that is done, the next part is to apply some silicon lube to the rods.  You can get the lube through my Amazon affiliate here:

Foosjuice Foosball Rod Lubricant

It will make a big difference to those rods if they haven’t been serviced in a while.  In fact I made a video here to show the difference:

Cleaning the Foosball Men

Cleaning the foosball men is pretty easy, just clean them in the same way you cleaned the playfield.  A clean rag plus some Windex will clean them right up.

Cleaning the Foosball Balls

Depending on what kind of balls you have, they may clean slightly differently.  The really hard plastic ones can be cleaned with Windex or Novus 2.  They pick up dirt pretty easily and might take a while to clean.

Official Tornado Balls which are pink or yellow usually clean in a slightly different way.  Most people suggest one of two methods:

• Washing them in a sack in the washing machine
• Covering the inside of a coffee can with sandpaper and shaking with the balls inside.

Seems like the first one would be the easiest.  I wouldn’t wash anything with the balls that could either stain the balls or clothes the balls might stain.  After you wash them, you’ll set them out to air dry.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article on how to clean your Foosball table has been helpful to you.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  I plan on making an additional video that shows more details in the coming weeks.

I also have a Tornado Foosball Buying Guide that might be useful.

Basically, the way it works currently is that there’s a sound system that plays a constant crowd noise during the game.  It’s set to loop every minute or so but it could be changed to be longer if needed.  When goals are scored from either goal, a sound gets played.  Right now it’s just the same sound every time but that could be switched out to be different every time.  I programmed the system to only use the two tracks currently just to make it easier, adding more tracks would require some code changes.

Here’s the video:

Parts Needed for Foosball Sound System

Here are the parts that I ordered through Amazon Affiliate and Sparkfun:

Motion Sensors

Arduino Uno board

Sparkfun Audio board

Header pin kit

Wires for connecting

Basically, the way it works is the sensors linked above sense when the ball passes the goal.  The code on the board then plays the applicable sound from the audio board (one of 9 different sounds).  I have it looping through a background sound until a goal is scored, then it interrupts it and plays the goal audio.  The audio has to be 8 bit mp3, which is part of the difficulty.  I think after doing this version 1.0, version 2.0 would be using a better board with more advanced hardware.  The Arduino is capable of doing the job but the 9 sound limit along with the short delay between sounds makes it less than optimal.

I actually did a version with songs instead of crowd noise and I think it’s better overall.  However, I wasn’t sure if doing the video with licensed music would fly on youtube. I switched it to the crowd noise instead as a result.

If anyone is interested in doing this or wants more info, email me at gameroominfo@gmail.com.

For more information on Tornado Foosball Tables, visit my guide here:

Tornado Foosball Table Guide