DMD LED color display
Replacement of plasma's DMD
Economic substitute solution
for pumped or burned DOT.
All brands of pinballs
(Gottlieb, Bally, ... and many more).
Presentation
This time, this project is not from us ! we only built it and present here the result.
The original project PIN2DMD was initially distributed as open source, licensed under Creative Commons. Following the copyright infringement, the project now requires an activation key. This key is provided in exchange for a donation to a humanitarian Association.
This project is particularly interresting because it offers an alternative to scarce and expensive 128 x 32 DOT. Used LED panels also have many advantages: availability, standard connectors, no misalignment.
Equipment
The list is relatively small, it needs only:
- Two LED panels 64 x 32 (from China)
- Fixings
- 5v power supply
- STM32F4 card (ARM)
- Connectors, PCB + SD/SDHC & Wifi modules
Experiments & tests
Before embarking on the realization of the final module, we have made some tests with a simple Arduino. This helped validate the connectivity, the HUB75 protocol for controlling the matrices and 5 volt supply. The first tests showed a simple pattern on one or two planes (this type of LED panel is multiplexed 2 x 16 lines). Then, we have tested the color display on one, then two cascaded modules.
Connecting the STM32F4 board:
Engineer at work...
Start of PIN2DMD and display of the serial number:
Activation and trials with VPinmame
Once the key inserted and recorded on the SD card, the module can be fully used. The serial number is then replaced by the software version (v2.10 Colorprism here). The video signal can come from either the VPinMame emulator or from a real pinball machine.
PIN2DMD activated and trials with Dirty Harry on VPinMame.
