Arachnid Cricket Pro 650 and 670

[Scorpion]

Our seniors building needs 2 boards to handle the 12-16 players we have twice a week, however, I'm finding the cost for 2 top of the line boards, plus shipping, plus tax to be getting fairly expensive. So as an alternative I was wondering if anybody has had experience with the Arachnid Cricket Pro 650 or 670 board?

[Adams]

I sympathize with your quandary and I know this isn’t an answer to your question, but... You can get two Blade 4 boards for less than the price of one Arachnid Cricket Pro 670 on Amazon. Would your facility allow steel tip darts or are you limited to soft-tips because of potential legal liability considerations, insurance requirements and all the rest of those fun-hating, party-pooping things?

[Scorpion]

I sympathize with your quandary and I know this isn’t an answer to your question, but... You can get two Blade 4 boards for less than the price of one Arachnid Cricket Pro 670 on Amazon. Would your facility allow steel tip darts or are you limited to soft-tips because of potential legal liability considerations, insurance requirements and all the rest of those fun-hating, party-pooping things?

Yes, unfortunately we are limited to soft-tip darts. And I would say that our soft-tip darts has been so successful since we started almost 9 months ago (12-16 people twice a week) primarily due to the electronic scoring of the boards.

I had hopes of getting a pair of DartsLive 100s or Dartman Smart boards but that's up to around $660 CDN with shipping and tax.

If something like the Arachnid Cricket Pro 670 was reliable, it might be a good alternative ($440 complete for a pair).

I still have to meet with our people to discuss the DartsLive 100s at $660 - I haven't given up on that completely yet.

[Adams]

That limitation is a crying shame, but I hear you about the electronic scoring. That “soft tip is OK but steel tip isn’t” insurance company policy is what’s held steel tip darts in bars down to a minimum in the US for decades now. Oh, well... that’s life. Good luck with your soft tip darts.

[Scorpion]

BTW the Arachnid 670 is similar to the 650 but with the choice of a split bull or both inner and outer at 50.

[0ldjoblo]

Our seniors building needs 2 boards to handle the 12-16 players we have twice a week, however, I'm finding the cost for 2 top of the line boards, plus shipping, plus tax to be getting fairly expensive. So as an alternative I was wondering if anybody has had experience with the Arachnid Cricket Pro 650 or 670 board?

As far as the Arachnid boards go,,, the consumer grade "Pro" boards with the regulation size 15.5 inch surface all use the same "square hole" type plastic segments,,,that have been the the same as the arcade versions for 20 years or better,,,They are very tough and reliable,,,up to 20 gram darts should be fine,,,I would stick to 18 gram to be even safer,,,,

As far as the electronics goes in these boards,,,, depends on what your looking for,,,,Is cricket the main game ,, or do you play 301-501-701,,,,,do you need 4 player scoring ,, a big display to see the score ,, a big red button that is easy to push,,,,,

The reason for my long rant is ,, I found on ebay free shipping for these Arachnid Cricket Pro 450 for US $81.99 a piece,,,

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Escalade-Sports...3cf8b1de1d

I am not saying this is the board you should get,,,,it is just an example of a durable board from Arachnid that might fit the bill if the display suits you,,

[Scorpion]

What we would need for games is Simple Cricket, Regular Cricket, 301, 501, Single-Out, and Double-Out. I notice the Arachnid 450 has only a 90 day warranty while the 650 and 670 boards have a one year warranty, which would lead me to believe the 650 and 670 are more durable. What I need most of all is durability.

[Marked Out]

I have the cricket pro 650, it is a very durable board. I've had it for a couple years now, and haven't had any problems so far. Like mentioned above, the bull on it is split, with no option to change it to 50 for the inner and outer, which if your group is used to scoring 50 points per bull in an 01 game, may cause some grumbling.

[heinsmd]

I am with Marked Out. The 650 is a good board and is durable. I have had mine for 7 years and have not broke a segment on it. I throw 18 gram darts. The one draw back is the split bull. If that's not an issue for you I would go for it.

[Scorpion]

After many hours of investigating for reliable replacement boards and with the input from DartsNutz Forum members, we decided on purchasing a pair of 670s.

Oddly enough, I've only found a couple of retailers that sell Arachnid boards in Canada. The key online retailer that had been recommended and who had been listing the 670 on their website was F.G. Bradleys, but they ended up replying to our intended order "We have discontinued the 670" and "we don't even deal with the supplier anymore".

Now Amazon.ca lists the 670 and 650, but as many Canadians know the prices there are often very overinflated and in this case they are almost double what F.G. Bradleys had been asking. F.G. Bradleys price had been around the same as the regular U.S. price converted to Canadian ($180) while on Amazon.ca the 670 lists at $316 CDN, a colossal rip-off (on Amazon.com it lists at $163US).

By chance I found that Walmart.ca recently started to carry some Arachnid models online. The 670 isn't listed but the 650 is but in a confusing way - they posted the same picture on there webpages for both the 650 board ($199CDN) and the 650 free standing cabinet model ($399CDN), but they used the free standing cabinet 650 picture for both models.

Since we actually play soft-tip with the split bull, it didn't really matter whether we got the 650 or 670. Since Walmart.ca ships these for free, Walmart's price is about the same as it was at F.G. Bradleys with shipping.

Since I know of no other retailers in Canada selling the 650 or 670, our last hope was Walmart so I ordered a pair of 650s. I should receive them in a week or so.

[Scorpion]

Our two 650s have arrived, been installed, and are being used by our members.
(We had been using a pair of Viper 777's - see my review in Dartboard Reviews)

The 650's do have a couple of oddities LOL:
- the inner and outer bullseyes are free to rotate
- the digitalker chip says "tingle" instead of "single" which ends up sounding like "bingo" to everyone's ears
Also just to note:
- the 2 mounting screws supplied are made of very soft metal and bend easily
- it would be nice to have a "Lo-Lo" volume setting
- the 650 has 25/50 split bull only.
- uses AC adapter only, no battery

BTW the two 16 gram dart sets included are real darts with separate stems and flights, not just junk.

So far we have been very pleased with the 650s.

[Dan203]

I have a 650 which I just took down to install a Gran Bord 2. The 650 was alright, but had some flaws. The split bull was the biggest issue. I was practicing for league, which uses full bull, so I had to always press the bull again to register the right score. But in some cases it didn't work out right and situations where I would have busted I end up not busting with no way to back out the score and fix it. (bounce out removes the score, but doesn't reset the turn so there is no way to bust and remove the combined score of all 3 darts) There were also a lot of dead spots on the board that didn't register. I also got a LOT of bounce outs. I tried a bunch of different tips, but I was bouncing out at least 30% of the time, maybe more. So far the Gran Board doesn't seem to be as frequent. It was also very loud. Even on the lowest volume setting it was loud enough that my wife would complain if she was trying to watch TV in the next room. (she also heard it as "bingo") Not to mention the board itself was loud every time a dart hit it. I've only had the Gran Board for a day, but so far it seems to be worth the investment.

[Scorpion]

Two-year update on the Arachnid Cricket Pro 650.

The physical material of the actual scoring face segments has stood up very well.  From time to time the outer bull won’t register a score.  On another thread someone found this could be due to mold flashing on this segment.

The scoring LED display area is protected by only a very thin plastic covering which was penetrated by a stray dart.  After this event we reinforced the display area by covering it with wide clear plastic tape (the type used for greenhouses).

Over the last few months we’ve had trouble with the Start Game/Next Player button on one of the boards and it failed completely this past week.  When you think about it, this button probably gets 100 times more pushes that any of the other buttons.  Suspecting that this was going to happen I ordered a few momentary contact switches months ago from Ebay and successfully replaced the switch.

The Start Game/Next Player button switch is definitely a weakness in these dart boards.  For any other users of this board who have a dozen people using them for 2 hours every week you may be interested in the fix.  So for you technical types here’s all I needed to do:

-        After removing the back, I noticed that 3 of the back panel mounting posts where the circuit board was also mounted had bulges at the top keeping the circuit board from being removed.  With a Dremel tool I cut away the bulges (this plastic could also have been removed with sandpaper).
-        Since the switch in question S1 was shorting, it had to be removed completely from the circuit board.  By putting some tension on the switch body and repeatedly touching each of the 4 soldered points with a low wattage soldering iron (25-40 watt) I was able to pop it off.  (I did have solderwick but no flux so the wick wouldn’t work.  Care must be taken not to apply too much heat as the foil tracks on the circuit board will lift.)
-        The switches on the circuit board are DPST but only one side of the switch is actually used making it function as a SPST.  The switches I ordered on a hunch were only SPST, hoping that they would work since at the time I didn’t want to take the board apart.
-        The momentary SPST switches I had ordered are of the panel mount type needing a ½ inch hole.  I used a wood blade bit and drilled the hole above the speaker grill and mounted the switch.
-        I used some light speaker wire to connect the switch to the functional side of the switch tracks on the circuit board.
-        I reassembled the back and it works fine.
-        I made sure I didn’t disturb the round plastic sandwich behind the single/double/treble segments.  Having taken one of these apart once before on the Viper 777 boards, I didn’t want to mess with the chance for alignment error.

EDIT: DPST = double pole, single throw; SPST = single pole, single throw

[Scorpion]

I just corrected a timing error in my previous post. It is a two-year update rather than one-year. The two Arachnid Cricket Pro 650 boards were purchased in the Summer of 2015.

The first year we had these boards we had 14-17 players playing twice a week. In the second year of using these boards we had 12-14 players playing once a week. Considering how much these boards are used, the relative ease in which I was able to fix the Start Game/Next Player button switch, and in comparison to the boards we had previously; so far these Arachnid boards are working out quite well for us.

Keep in mind however, if I wasn't able to fix the Start Game/Next Player button switch, I would be singing a different tune.

[Knarlylama]

I realize I am years late to be of help but I would add that I have owned a mocel 670 for just over a year purchased from darts.com and it's the nicest board I've owned yet. I've had several but mostly cheaper ones purchased from the local K Mart before the store closed.
I do get some bounce outs but believe operator error more than board problem.
I use it @ 6 - 10 hrs a week with no problems. Has been an excellent board and I love it.
I have 17g- just over 20g darts that work fine. Ive had many different tips and broken quite a lot of the stiffer , more brittle ones. Removal can be a bit tough because they are held in place so well. A flush break or recessed I've had best luck using a tiny drill bit with low speed drill. I've tried the push through method but only get tighter.
Also a shout out for darts.com. Excellent customer service and have a decent selection of everything.