STTNG ColorDMD

[mwong168]

I finally got my ColorDMD which I ordered back on Feb 8th when it was released. I was in no real hurry to get it and thought I could save $50 in taxes by having it shipped to Adriano's co-worker in Rochester who comes up to the Toronto office every few months. Things didn't work out but Adriano and Walt were able to swing by on their way back from Allentown two weeks ago.

The kit was packaged very well and came with everything you needed to do the installation except for maybe a few zip ties.

Removed the backglass and proceeded to remove the old plasma DMD by disconnecting the ribbon and power cable.

Here is probably the hardest part of the install which was removing the power cable and only because you have to go through the spaghetti factory of wires You can skip this step if you want as it will make putting back the original DMD easier should you decide to sell the ColorDMD off separately or else you can just mark it up to $6500 like the guy in London (http://london.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell- ... Z485127338) and you will be doing just fine.

Save all your old DMD mounting hardware once you remove the original DMD

Put the 1/4" white spacers first before the ColorDMD and then use the original 5/8" black spacers before the washer and nut. Also pay attention to the orientation I have mounted the ColorDMD or else you might have it installed upside down. The kit comes with a new ground wire but I just re-used the old one from the old DMD since it was already attached to the cab's main ground.

Using the harness supplied in the kit, locate the single connector on one end of the cable and plug onto the PWR pin out on the ColorDMD board. Then on your WPC power board locate J116 (lower left corner) and remove the existing connector and plug the ColorDMD there. The kit also comes with a Z-connector for you to piggy back the existing connector that was plugged on J116. You also have the option of not using this Z-connector and plugging the existing connector to the AUX pin out on the ColorDMD board.

I plugged the ribbon cable into the ColorDMD, double checked all my connectors and powered it on and success! (sort of)

When I say sort of I initially didn't have flippers when I started a game and turns out I was off by one pin by the Z-connector piggy back. Anyways, all was good afterwards and first game with my ColorDMD got me on the honor roll. I recently had all previous scores reset when I updated to the latest recommended ROM (LX7) as per the website. I also haven't had Adam over my place yet but will once I get my punching bag installed :lol:

The only other odd behavior I am noticing since the installation of the ColorDMD is with my right cannon. I don't know if it is opto related because it was working fine every since I got the game in January. Whenever a ball get fed to the right cannon, it would move and after you fire it would return to the home position. The flasher dome on it will still be flashing and game will be asking you to fire even though there is no ball in there. I would fire and see the coil kick out and then it is fine. I am going to quickly put the original DMD back in and see if the same thing happens as I know low voltage can cause games to do some weird stuff. The left cannon works like normal and haven't seen anyone on pinside report these symptoms on their STTNG. Most say their flippers are weaker and cannons move much slower after they installed their ColorDMD. Other titles like MM, TAF and WH20 seem to be fine but don't have as much shit packed into it like STTNG.

The working solution for STTNG seems to be replace caps and bridge rectifiers which might be old and weak. I plan on using a separate power brick to power the ColorDMD via service outlet anyways so this takes all extra load off the power drive board. I use wireless remotes to turn all my games on/off so when I turn my games off it cuts the power to the service outlet and vice versa when I turn it on. I will report my results in a few days and see if this fixes this minor issue.

I highly recommend this product for anyone who has a DMD in one of their games that is dying or dead. If you got a game that is supported by ColorDMD you might as well upgrade that display and take the old DMD to put in the other game.

-Mike

 

[DRANO]

Just got my WH2O and also have it for MM and TAF.
It's a great product... even if it is a bit pricey.

When you consider the fact that you now have a free DMD to use elsewhere, it does take some of the sting away.

 

[yellowmustard]

nice upgrade Mike!!!

 

[mwong168]

When you consider the fact that you now have a free DMD to use elsewhere, it does take some of the sting away.

Mad Amusements seem to still have stock of the old Plasma DMD's for $159.00 and BAA has them for $220.00. I think PBL had them for $250 too but they are out of stock at the moment.

http://mad-amusements.com/product.php?id_product=236
http://bayareaamusements.com/Merchant2/ ... I-128X32BK

If you have a DMD that is starting to gas out and not on Mad's shit list I suggest you order one soon. The alternative would be the X-Pin LED displays which come in various colours and start at $279.

 

[hippochrome]

NICE!

 

[movingpictures]

I've played AFM, TAF, and STTNG with colorDMDs.

In my opinion, Star Trek is the best of the 3.

Congrats Mike!

 

[paulohotline]

Hey dude, congrats on adding the colorDMD to your STTNG. This one is by far my fav and I am very happy with this mod. I would suggest doing voltage tests on Test Points 1-8 before you decide to connect your DMD to an outside power source. This will give you a good idea if your Bridge Rectifiers and Caps need to be repalced. I ended getting the header PINS and connectors replaced on J101 and J102 when I had constant reset issues on double tapping the flippers. I thought it was the BRs\Caps, but voltage tests showed my driver board in spec. No more resets, the only issue I cannot fix is the dimming on the GI when I use both flippers, I can live with that!

Here are my TP1-8 voltage test results on the driver board with the Color DMD installed and a few other mods: (Borg Plasma Mod, Laser Cannons, Mission Start Light, Borg Soldier Mod etc)
TP1 - spec 12v - test 13.4v
TP2 - spec 5v - test 5v
TP3 - spec 12v - test 12v
TP6 - spec 50v - test 69.7v
TP7 - spec 20v - test 20.5v
TP8 - spec 18v - test 14v - 17v

As well, This dude, Sam Verlander from Pinside also helped me troubleshoot another issue on my driver baord and an opto problem, he has an excellent video on testing and changing the BRs and Caps here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15eCu-Kfibg

Good luck!

 

[mwong168]

Thanks for the advice and link to that video Paulo. I haven't had a chance to test out voltages but I did disconnect the ColorDMD last night before bed and I get the same symptoms. I believe it has to do with the 16 opto GLM board I recently swapped out because prior to this my cannons were working just fine. I sold my original board to Dave Astill to help him out because his latest STTNG pick up was missing that and a few other boards. After I swapped the GLM board I played a few quick games and the game appeared to be behaving properly but I don't recall if I tried the cannons or not. Anyways, I was checking out some of the diagnostic led lights on the GLM board and noticed some were out.

I know the optos are working fine in the switch test and so are the home switches for the cannons so it is not like it does not know it's current location or state. So to recap my current issues and most likely not a result from installing the ColorDMD are:

1. Left cannon detects and pans to the right when a ball gets loaded but when you pull the trigger to fire the ball nothing happens. The machine automatically kicks the ball out of the left cannon automatically once it has reached the full right position.

2. Right cannon detects and pans to the left when a ball gets loaded and when you pull the trigger it fires the ball but once it returns to the home position it will say launch probe. It doesn't start panning to the left at this point and if I just pull the trigger the coil fires and then goes back to normal.

I called my friend Romeo who has a GLM board in his working STTNG but he had different led lights out on his game. Since he lives close to my work I might just take my board out and try it in his game after work on Tuesday or else if WARLOCK is around this long weekend I might go over to his place and try my board in his game. I'm hoping my GLM board will do the same in their game but figure might as well try this before I start tearing things apart under mine if I don't need to. I wonder if Rottendog makes one of these boards? :lol: :FP:

 

[mwong168]

I have had a few people send me some PM's asking how I hooked up my STTNG ColorDMD to it's own stand alone power supply instead of piggy backing off the WPC Power Driver board. I purchased a kit similar to this for $5-6 shipped from dealextreme.com and I broke SATA connector on the USB cable so had an extra power adapter brick with a 4 pin molex connector. You can get a similar kit from amazon for $10+shipping here or check you local electronics or computer store to see if they have it.

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Adapter-Con ... ly+Adapter

I had also had a few 4 pin molex to SATA connectors in my stash of wires and cables.

I checked the pin outs in the factory manual for J116 on the WPC Power Driver Board where the ColorDMD is supposed to plug into for the proper voltages. Now remember on the 4 pin molex connector red is 5v, yellow is 12v and black is ground.

I couldn't find my molex connectors and pins to make a wiring harness from scratch so I cut the existing ColorDMD harness. I cut off the SATA connector and then joined the wires from the two by twisting them inline, added a bit of solder and then heat shrink tubing. Again double check to make sure you don't have 12v and 5v mixed up and nice thing I noticed after the fact was the ColorDMD harness was color coded and the gray wire with a yellow stripe ended up being 12v and the other gray with no stripe was 5v.

I did a quick test and here is the ColorDMD running on it's own stand alone power supply with the game on.

I fed the power cable down the cabinet, hooked it up to the power adapter and plugged it into my service outlet.

I know what you are thinking and yes this means the DMD will be on all the time if the game is plugged into the wall even though switched off. I leave my games switched on and use these remote controlled power outlets to turn my games on and off so this works perfect for my ColorDMD.

I think there is a way in which you can modify the service outlet so that it only gets power when you physical flip the switch underneath. If I find out how I will add it onto my thread otherwise if you decide to go this route you can always open your coin door to plug or unplug your ColorDMD. I feel much better it is running on it's own power supply as opposed to putting extra stress on a 20+ year old power driver board. I think my previous issue with the right canon has nothing to do with the addition of the ColorDMD or the GLM 16 opto board I swapped in from dos.reboot because I tried it in my friend's game and it works just fine. I believe my issue might be related to the canon wiring loom which is not unusual for it to go bad from the many years of movement and stretching. My good friend WARLOCK happens to have a brand new set so I might just change them out and see if that helps.

Anyways, any questions or you want to come over and try my STTNG feel free to send me a PM.

 

[spikedbat]

Hey,

Do you know the pinout for the colordmd power connector?
Like which one is 12v and 5v?
Moving cDMD from IJ into a Metallica and i'm going to tap into the wire myself as I don't have the proper connector but i'm unsure of the pinout.