ZeDMD 5.1.1 - massive changes from 3.whatever!

[clemon79]

Today I was doing some work on my cabinet, first time in a while, and I updated my DMD Extensions to 2.3, which appears to have gone fine. In the process I also updated the firmware on my ZeDMD to 5.1.1 in order to try to fix some shutdown issues, and discovered that the behavior has completely changed.

 

So I took this opportunity to finally get the ESP32-S3 flashed and working, and I do, and that's cool, now it's running off of that. But when I try to launch a table, the ZeDMD flashes to the logo screen and reads "USB CDC" in the corner instead of launching the DMD. Then it still cycles between the logo and the "powered by PPUC" screen, with the little spinny thing in the lower-right corner the whole time.

 

I saw that I should have the 2.3.1beta of DMD Extensions with a 5.1.x ZeDMD so I got those; no change. (Regular screen-based DMD is working fine.)

 

Straight up don't get what's wrong. Should my entries in dmddisplay.ini be changed significantly? Right now it's just [zedmdhd] and enabled=true and that's it.

 

Could use a little help! Thanks!

[PastorLUL]

Hi,

Did you read through the readme on the ZeDMD github repo? 

 

It's true that a lot has changed. Most if not all changes have been documented there, so definitely worth having a read after updating.

 

EDIT: It's important that you remove zedmd64.dll or serum lib files if you have any.

Edited February 3, 2025 by PastorLUL

[bobby0001]

Hello,

I have the exact same problem. With DMDext 2.3.0 and up to Zedmd 4.0.2 firmware no problem everything works but as soon as I update to 5.0 or 5.1.2 when I try to launch a table, the ZeDMD flashes the logo screen and reads "USB CDC" in the corner instead of launching the DMD. Then it keeps cycling between the logo and the "powered by PPUC" screen, with the little thing spinning in the bottom right corner the whole time.

[clemon79]

Okay, I've had a little time to beat my head on this, so here's where I am now. Still not working, but I know more. Built a nifty little button box to get around the settings screen, which makes things easier.

 

Yes, read through all of the readmes for troubleshooting advice. I have it flashed up to 5.1.2 now, with the necessary beta upgrades to DMD extensions. I'm on Win 11.

 

For a bit the problem was that VPinMAME wasn't even SEEING the ZeDMD. That seems to be fixed now according to the logs, but it still isn't working and Updater still doesn't see the device.

 

Posting my logs for my last test through VPinMAME. You can see it finds the device now and goes through handshakes, but screen stays black. (Huh, I thought I had a Serum for WCS.) I just ran a second one for Champion Pub, which is Serum. Same results. Thing resets to the title screen, and then black with spinning red clock.

WCSDmdDevice.log CPDmdDevice.log

Edited February 8, 2025 by clemon79

[clemon79]

Okay! I got it fixed, but I got it fixed by getting Wi-Fi working, and I don't know if that was due to the new firmware changes or what. At first through UDP I couldn't get the DMD to connect to my Wi-Fi, but finally I tried switching to TCP and it worked then, and I was able to switch BACK to UDP after that and the connection was still working, so I'm calling it a win. Latency is near zero over WiFi and it seems to recover gracefully from resets due to network blips or whatever, so I can recommend highly.

 

I assume as this point since it's getting all data over the network, I don't have to have it connected to the cabinet via USB, yeah? In theory so long as I'm able to power the panels and the ESP32 I could have this operating anywhere in the house, so I could take the (relatively low, but every watt counts) wattage off of the cabinet?