Pin2Dmd Real Pinball Support

[Rappelbox]

Ok, then please turn the data cable back in its original position.

Same ground means that you should connect ground of pin2dmd and ground of pinball so that timing is the same on both.

For testing you could also use other settings on pin2dmd e.g. WPC or WPC-s

[nikonesca]

Its the same thing in all WPC

[lucky1]

Seems to be a problem on your pcb or controller. You have a clock signal but no data, which leaves the screen black.

Check connection from PA7 to the pinball connector. 

[nikonesca]

Seems to be a problem on your pcb or controller. You have a clock signal but no data, which leaves the screen black.

Check connection from PA7 to the pinball connector. 

Thank You Lucky1 I test with an another shield and it's works!

[JohnnyPhantom]

Hi Lucky,

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!

I had already changed the cable around but did not check blue light. I changed it back again to make standard DMD run but after your suggestion I went again and changed the cable around, you can see it in my pictures below. After that it worked see images. Now just have to do a nice colorisation with the editor and its awesome.

I can build 2 of these for the price it would cost me to buy 1 standard DMD in Australia.

Thanks again.

IMG_2258.JPG

IMG_2259.JPG

IMG_2260.JPG

IMG_2261.JPG

Hey there, 

I'll be doing the same setup with that power supply in my Addams Family pinball machine, my question is, where did you plug in the power supply for the pin2dmd?

I was thinking of plugging mine into the service outlet in the bottom of the machine, but wont that mean the screen/power supply is always on? Whats the best way to power the power supply? Ideally I'd like it to power on and off with the machine when i flip the switch on the bottom.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Rappelbox]

I always supply some "power thiefs" with my sets. Don't know how they are called in English

I connect them after the main switch, just before transformer.

This way, your display is always switched on with the pinball

Greetings,

Dom

[beef279]

Here is my solution.

I took 100VAC on J605 from the display control board.

The 2 violet cables come directly from the transformer.

It's ok to enter 5A power supply and works fine.

https://postimg.org/image/9x1tpt9zl/
https://postimg.org/image/dutosym6p/

[beef279]

It' completely original dmd substitute. No modifications.

Just remove the original DMD and install the RGB display.

Pinball can return to it's original condition without problems.

[coyote]

I don't think I've posted here on the power, but this is what I made -

I made it so it'd mount to the display mounting screws, and is powered off from the transformer feed to the display driver board. It powers off when the game's powered off, and very easily removable/revertible.

[Rappelbox]

Looks pretty nice!

[jukedock]

In the next couple of days I will be setting up a Pin2DMD display on my real pinball (A Wpc95 Cirqus Voltaire).

What files should be on the SD card apart from the 'pin2dmd.key' file?

Does anyone have the files for CV already done that they could share?  It could be a good thread on here people sharing these. 

I am not a great programmer but I plan to eventually do my own colourization, I take it I have to 'dump' from my visual pinball? 

Thanks all

 

[tjc02002]

I'm planning on using J138 on the power driver board in my MM to get 12V power and use a simple 12v to 5v regulator(5-10A) to power the entire pin2dmd. ill let you know if that works well. Other similar accessories are using this as a source and based on my calculations it seems fine.

 

[jukedock]

You can run Pin2DMD directly off the power driver board of a WPC or WPC95 Bally Williams game - if you keep the brightness down.  Which to me was not a problem as above 15% to me is too bright on a real pinball..... 
Dont forget these displays are made for massive sign/TV useage, sometimes outside - so for our use a lower brightness is not an issue.  It pulls about 1-1.3 amps  in a normal pinball.

BUT what I did was use the power outlet in the mains switch outlet (labelled 'service outlet') and use the female outlet going into my 240-5v power supply.  You have to slightly rewire it inside the metal box to make it go live when the mains switch is used as by default it is live all the time.

Personally I would leave the pinball electronics as they are and not mess with them.  It makes it easier to put stuff back to stock as I certainly not use the 100v supply that usually goes to the DMD/sound board in a WPC95. 

By the time you build the 12-5v convertor board, you may as well order a cheap 5amp 5v supply.   Just my two cents mate.  I am sure it will be fine using your method but as those power driver boards are a few years old now, I would not want to put extra strain on them.

 

[marioc]

Hi,

I haven't been here for a while and have been running two of my Real pinball machines STTNG and TOM on pin2dmd version 2.01 for quite a while successfully.

I decided to set up my third unit and thought I'd use the latest firmware 2.33 and editor v1.0.21 build142.

I read before that the pallettes.dat file name is changed in this version to pin2dmd.pal.

The editor even warns you when you export your project. see this.

Well I have spent many hours pondering over why my latest unit would not work.

I tried many different SD cards. Different Shields, Different STM32 boards but even though I got the STM32 to indicate it was reading the SD card correctly, i.e. the appropriate LED was not lit, I could not make it run. If I took it back to an older firmware I could make it run.

Finally I just named the palates file pin2dmd.dat not pin2dmd.pal and it started to work, i.e. the blue led on the stm32 would flash indicating data was coming from pinball DMD controller. The DMD display showed the game data, however no palette switching was happening, looked like it was in VGA mode I think, so had 4 different colours , not 4 shades of the same colour like standard DMD.

I did this testing on my working TOM.

Is this editor/firmware combination working?

How did pin2dmd.dat work?

[lucky1]

To summerize , you say that when you have a pin2dmd.pal on your SD it is not working, right ?

Please attach your pin2dmd.pal for verification. 

[marioc]

18 hours ago, lucky1 said:

To summerize , you say that when you have a pin2dmd.pal on your SD it is not working, right ?

Please attach your pin2dmd.pal for verification. 

The DMD will not display pinball data until you rename the pin2dmd.pal file to pin2dmd.dat

The file is attached.

pin2dmd.pal

[lucky1]

This is strange.

I copied the file to my SD card and it came up with your custom palette without problems.
Tested in VPM and Williams mode. So it seems the file itself is not the problem.

Maybe a firmware upgrade of your ST-Link helps

To do this please update your ST-Link program to the latest version and then click
on ST-LINK -> firmware upgrade. 

[marioc]

Ok, will get the latest St-link I believe it is 4.0, I currently have 3.8.

The DMD displays that the STM32 has pin2dmd version 2.33 loaded.

Cant understand why renaming to pin2dmd.dat at least lets it run.

Will try later in the week.

Thanks for the advice.

[lucky1]

Because it doesn´t get loaded with the wrong name. The correct name is pin2dmd.pal.

I also would delete the configuration file of the device and configure it from scratch.

just use a clean SD for testing, with just the pin2dmd.pal on it. You should get visual pinball with 

your palette loaded.

[marioc]

18 hours ago, lucky1 said:

 

just use a clean SD for testing, with just the pin2dmd.pal on it. You should get visual pinball with 

your palette loaded.

That's the point, it should be WMS because its a real pinball not a virtual pinball.

When the file is called pin2dmd.pal I do see virtual pinball at the bottom of the DMD but obviously no Data from the actual Pinball machine is being accepted.

First HEX byte of the pin2dmd.pal file is 01, is that not WMS?

You said.

"I also would delete the configuration file of the device and configure it from scratch. "

Does this mean the board runs from a configuration that's been loaded into it NOT from the SD card?

That's making sense.

[lucky1]

pin2dmd.dat = configuration file

pin2dmd.pal = palette information

I think you are missing the configuration file.

Configure it using pin2dmd.exe

[marioc]

Wow, I've done this twice before and I still get confused.

I need saved on the SD card a pin2dmd.dat file that the editor can create with Palettes/Mode>create device file/wifi

and

A pin2dmd.pal file that the editor can create with File>export project.

So yes you are correct I did not have both files on the SD card at the same time.

Sorry to trouble you.

[marioc]

Hi Lucky,

maybe its me but I think there is an issue with the editor version 1.0.21 build 42.

If you use it to create a device file, i.e. pin2dmd.dat in device mode WPC it creates a hex file with the first byte as 02.

when this file is on the sd card the DMD display shows Stern SAM so wont work with the Real Williams Pinball.

From studying your original code way back in January I recall the first byte set the device mode.

When I manually changed it to 01 then put the SD card in , the DMD displays Williams and the Real Pinball output will display on the DMD.

Then the pin2dmd.pal file will control the palate switching.

[lucky1]

There have been a lot of changes in pin2dmd since the last release of the editor. It is currently beeing reworked.

[tjc02002]

Has anyone done any work to colorize an older style pinball machine(WPC95 or older)? Im talking about replacing frames/scenes and doing some serious color palette changes. Id really like to see something like this. Im going to attempt it but its just weird I don't see many examples of it. Id really like to see someone elses project to help me figure out how the editor works. thanks for any info.

-Tom