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Ordering EVO PCBs at chinese manufactures questions and help


lucky1

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3 hours ago, lucky1 said:

I would also resolder all connection on the DC-DC converter circuit and see if that solves the problem there. Start with the 5 pins of the XL4015
and see what happens.

Hello,

I try to resolder DC-DC converter but nothing change.

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6 minutes ago, lucky1 said:

What you see is the Standard VGA Palette, which means either your Colorization is not loaded or the device is not activated.

You're right, I make an error with my id number, I add a zero. ??

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  • 1 month later...
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Hi Lucky1,

First thank you for the wonderful job you have done with pin2dmd.

I am placing an order for some of the EVO PCBs and I just wanted to confirm with you that all the components in the BOM file will work on a real pinball machine as well.

Also I read that you still need to solder the power connector for the display, is this still relevant on the latest pcbs?

Thank you!

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1 hour ago, Skylersz said:

Hi Lucky1,

First thank you for the wonderful job you have done with pin2dmd.

I am placing an order for some of the EVO PCBs and I just wanted to confirm with you that all the components in the BOM file will work on a real pinball machine as well.

Also I read that you still need to solder the power connector for the display, is this still relevant on the latest pcbs?

Thank you!

I've ordered over 100 EVO PCBs. All but two have gone into real pins. No issues. You may want to exclude one item from the BOM, that would be the SAM power connector circled below, just to avoid confusion. You want to use the connector in the bottom right area to power the display. I'm not sure what you mean about soldering power connectors. The only soldering required are the power connectors (red/black wires with white connector) that go to the actual LED panels. You will need to build a power harness to tap into the headers inside the back box of the pin or you will need some type of external power supply.

 

image.thumb.png.e5cbf900dc8ed2d0bbf1a7fac0a8084b.png

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On 6/3/2020 at 2:13 AM, dzorbas said:

I've ordered over 100 EVO PCBs. All but two have gone into real pins. No issues. You may want to exclude one item from the BOM, that would be the SAM power connector circled below, just to avoid confusion. You want to use the connector in the bottom right area to power the display. I'm not sure what you mean about soldering power connectors. The only soldering required are the power connectors (red/black wires with white connector) that go to the actual LED panels. You will need to build a power harness to tap into the headers inside the back box of the pin or you will need some type of external power supply.

 

image.thumb.png.e5cbf900dc8ed2d0bbf1a7fac0a8084b.png

Hi dzorbas,

Thank you for the information. I'm new to all of this and had got some mismatched info from someone local here that has never used them in a real pinball. Turns out they were using an old shield with components that were missing to run in a real pin.

I've got the harness/wiring ready to connect to the header of my power driver board as specified.

The soldering part for the red/black wires with the white connector that go to the LED panels, I see they plug into the panels in your picture above (one on each side) but the other end of that cable I can't see in your picture. I assume it connects to the blue connector that is to the left of the 12V DC power input connector?

Finally, I have been looking for the panels to buy on Ali express and there are so many different options. Lucky1 referred me to a certain place but they have many different options such as brightness levels etc. I see a lot of people say that they never go to the full brightness that the panel is capable of so I was thinking of just getting the lower end ones as long as all the rest of the parts are the same in terms of quality. The one I am looking at is a P2.5 64x32 with 1600 brightness. The higher ones are 2000 and 2400 but I am not sure I need those. 
Do they all ship with the power and signal cables or is that extra as well?

Thanks again for your time, I really appreciate it.

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The image below might clarify things for you. There are eight solder pads on the front side of the board for the power connectors for the LED panels. No need to run any other power wires to the panels. When you order your panels they should come with a couple of flat ribbon cables (signal cables) and a power harness. You can cut the white connectors with the 4 wires off the harness as you only need a couple of inches of wire. Strip and solder the wires to these pads.

As for the panels, if you are using Aliexpress, look for the ones being sold by Coreman. Up until now, I have been purchasing the ones with the higher brightness but I grabbed a set of the lower brightness panels as a test and threw them in my Judge Dredd. These have a much more usable brightness. You can turn them up to 80% and they are plenty bright. With the other higher brightness panels, I leave them down around 25-30%. Anything more than 50% and they start to blind you. These lower brightness panels also draw less current which is a good thing. I exchanged a few messages with Lucky1 and he didn't see a reason not to use them. They are also quite a bit cheaper than the other panels. What I can't tell you for sure is which panels I'm getting, I just know they are the lower intensity. I deal directly with Coreman so I just told my contact to send me the same panels as the test panels I received.

Hope this helps. Feel free to ask me more question if you need any other info!

 

image.thumb.png.a8c647f315b481bfac2d665b5b1d67fb.png

 

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Hi dzorbas, that makes total sense now. I haven't seen an actual picture of the front of the unit before! Thank you for that.

Yep, Lucky1 pointed me in the direction of Coreman so that's who I am going with. It looks like their lowest brightness panels are about roughly half the brightness of the highest ones. So if you never go above 30% then these should be fine. 

Thank you!

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Hello everyone

I need help... I sent my order to PCBWay for the 128 x 16...

They had lots of questions on the BOM... I tried answering best I could.

When I received the order back lots of issues I think...

in particular was:

  1. they didnt have the EPROMs... so I have no eprom for the 27010 slot... is this REQUIRED?
  2. they also soldered the power connector on the top upside down...
  3. I dont know but the 470/1933 chip may be facing the wrong way... it has 2 pins...
  4. The ZIF Z80 CPU in the correct orientation

Need verification if I have to:

  • Is the ZIF chip in the correct orientation for pin 1
  • reverse the 470/1933 chip (unsolder/resolder) or is it fine
  • Do I need the 27512 eprom for this to work... if so which is the correct EPROM as I see a lot of them at 28pin versus 32 and such.
  • I can fix the power connector pretty easily...

 

 

 

Thank you

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20200605_223608705_iOS.jpg

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4 hours ago, JimmyZ said:

Hello everyone

I need help... I sent my order to PCBWay for the 128 x 16...

They had lots of questions on the BOM... I tried answering best I could.

When I received the order back lots of issues I think...

in particular was:

  1. they didnt have the EPROMs... so I have no eprom for the 27010 slot... is this REQUIRED?
  2. they also soldered the power connector on the top upside down...
  3. I dont know but the 470/1933 chip may be facing the wrong way... it has 2 pins...
  4. The ZIF Z80 CPU in the correct orientation

Need verification if I have to:

  • Is the ZIF chip in the correct orientation for pin 1
  • reverse the 470/1933 chip (unsolder/resolder) or is it fine
  • Do I need the 27512 eprom for this to work... if so which is the correct EPROM as I see a lot of them at 28pin versus 32 and such.
  • I can fix the power connector pretty easily...

Thank you

1. The EPROM is game specific and needs to be taken from the original plasma display board
2. power connecter is wrong and needs to be fixed
3. The "470/1933 chip" has no orientation. It is a inductor.
4. ZIf socket seems o.k. Pin1 of the Z80 needs to point to the right towards the eprom. Check the arrow on the silkscreen.

Please also check wether the solder jumpers SD1 SD0 etc in the lower middle of the board are closed

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thank you @lucky1 for the insight!

I will get those fixed

EPROM - For now.. I wanted to connect this using as a realdmd to a digital pinball machine running Visual Pinball - do I still need the eprom?

For the wire harness 9 pin - what is its name so I can find its matching unit online?

Clarification:

I wanted to use this Pin2DMD for Visual Pinball and Future Pinball only... is this still do able without the EPROM?

is there anything else I may need?

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@lucky1

appears the boards are not assembled right

it powers ok (green light) but when I connect the mini usb nothing is acknowledged on the PC my guess is something is wrong with the board or their assembly :(

again this was pcbway 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm having some trouble with PCBWay, I ordered 10 assembled boards about nearly 1 month ago. last week they said they had some problems with the PCB boards,  there were some scratches but they would remake them. They remade the PCBs but there was still some scratches, and they said the scratches will not affect the use, I asked for photos and then told them to proceed as they say it will not affect the use.

photos of scratches attached:

Now they say:

Hello, Sorry for the delay. We found some problems with the board. Please look at the picture. These holes are not covered well. Because the size of these holes is too large, it is not good to cover them even if they are produced again. Please confirm whether they are acceptable. If not, it is suggested to change the hole to 0.3mm for re-production. Please advice, thanks.

It looks like the heat transfer holes under the voltage regulator, can I say it is acceptable? 

What do they mean that they will not cover?

 

1.jpg

2.jpg

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Hi guys, have had a question from PCBway regarding the components, making sure they are all correct and the right way up, soldering is good etc. If anyone could have a look that already has done these and give me some guidance that would be great, thank you.

 

IMG_20200620_142124.jpg

IMG_20200620_142137.jpg

IMG_20200620_142116.jpg

IMG_20200620_142130.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Hey guys, got my boards from PCBway and have set the board in DFU mode, Dfusedemo sees the board and I can select the dfu file but when I go to upgrade it just freezes the program. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Edit: swapped to a different PC and is working

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I just received my EVO boards. I have loaded the firmware and all seems to be working correctly except that the board does not seem to use the pin2dmd.fsq and pin2dmd.pal files that are loaded onto the SD card.

I am sure the SD card is working as I loaded the upd file and on reboot the boards showed "updating"

The board is not yet activated, does it need to be activated to use the colorization files?

Edit:

Answering my own question, I just received the key - thank you lucky1. Activating the board fixed the problem. As far as I can tell the board ignores the colorization until it is activated.

Edited by SteveNZ
answered own question
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