Theatre of Magic LED advise

[Ads Nems]

I’m an avid pinball collector (7 in total) but don’t really get involved much with the repairing and tinkering side of things. Partly due to lack confidence but mostly due to not being good with my hands and not wanting to do and damage.

In any case I would like to have a go at LED’ing my TOM and would be grateful for advice on :

1. Which colours to get. (planning to buy some Comets)
2. replace all lights or just the lamps and leave the GI?
3. Should I get an LEDOCD board as well?
4. Are are of the lamps a bit tricky to pop out and replace?

Thanks Adam

 

[chris b]

Adam I am doing a Tom next week so I will give you picks or just call me

 

[chris b]

There are a lot of tricky ones in Tom side mounted ones you can either use bendy ones on wires or standard dome type ocd is good but a big expense personally I would fit them and see what you think before forking out for an ocd board the gold super mint one I did was fine within ocd

 

[Deleted member 2463]

I bought a OCD board for my ToM.

Complete waste of time.

Do the GI for sure as it’s a dark game and with comets it really brightens it up:






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Durzel]

Whether OCD boards are worth it to you depends on how bothered you are about how LED lighting works generally.

LED lighting is very digital looking - they come on, at full brightness, then switch off instantly with no fade out. There is no dim level with LEDs (without using OCD boards)

Some games are designed in a way that assumes the GI is incandescent, e.g. Funhouse slowly dims the GI during the multiball start. TAF is another one that springs to mind. With LEDs you would lose that, they would simply switch off at a certain point in the sequence, or not switch off at all. I couldn't tell you how much (or how little) ToM uses the GI or insert dimming as part of its design.

Some games will end up with ghosting (where some bulbs flicker when they're not supposed to be on) if you swap out incandescent bulbs with LEDs. OCD boards fix this problem, but so do non-ghosting bulbs - for a lot less money, and the latter doesn't work well with OCD boards (two things trying to fix the same problem). Something to bear in mind...

For what it's worth I've got both an LED and GI OCD board sat in a box waiting to be installed, but I don't feel like I'm in a mad rush to do it. I don't have a big issue with digital lighting though, and my TZ doesn't ghost at all anyway.

Regarding LEDs themselves - I'm very much in the "the positives far outweigh the negatives" camp. They are brighter, they use considerably less energy and produce considerably less heat. If they were a thing back in the 90s I have no doubt they would've been specced OEM.

I would definitely LED your ToM, including the GI, if I had it.

 

[MartinY]

Whether OCD boards are worth it to you depends on how bothered you are about how LED lighting works generally.

LED lighting is very digital looking - they come on, at full brightness, then switch off instantly with no fade out. There is no dim level with LEDs (without using OCD boards)

Some games are designed in a way that assumes the GI is incandescent, e.g. Funhouse slowly dims the GI during the multiball start. TAF is another one that springs to mind. With LEDs you would lose that, they would simply switch off at a certain point in the sequence, or not switch off at all. I couldn't tell you how much (or how little) ToM uses the GI or insert dimming as part of its design.

Some games will end up with ghosting (where some bulbs flicker when they're not supposed to be on) if you swap out incandescent bulbs with LEDs. OCD boards fix this problem, but so do non-ghosting bulbs - for a lot less money, and the latter doesn't work well with OCD boards (two things trying to fix the same problem). Something to bear in mind...

For what it's worth I've got both an LED and GI OCD board sat in a box waiting to be installed, but I don't feel like I'm in a mad rush to do it. I don't have a big issue with digital lighting though, and my TZ doesn't ghost at all anyway.

Regarding LEDs themselves - I'm very much in the "the positives far outweigh the negatives" camp. They are brighter, they use considerably less energy and produce considerably less heat. If they were a thing back in the 90s I have no doubt they would've been specced OEM.

I would definitely LED your ToM, including the GI, if I had it.

Non-ghosting LEDs didn't work for me (on older Bally/Williams such as TAF and STTNG) and a far cheaper alternative which definitely 100% works for ghosting is a ROM upgrade from @Paul with the non ghosting patch installed. Pre-1996 bally/Williams machines though...

 

[Durzel]

Fair enough. I've got very limited experience of other pins from an ownership perspective. I know TZ had an anti-ghosting update officially.

Sounds like the OP's best option would be to buy regular LEDs (not sold as non-ghosting) and see how he gets on. This would give him the flexibility to add OCD board(s) later.

 

[Deleted member 2463]

Hmm my ST:TNG must have a hacked rom as I put non ghosting LEDs in it without any agro. Will have a look.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Ads Nems]

Thanks for the tips guys. I’ll drop you a line Chris to get some tips off your current one.

 

[aaronhicksuk]

The "Anti-Ghosting" ROM update that was officially a part of the TZ 9.4H firmware is just an updated version of the Lamp Matrix software driver used in all later WPC games to work around an issue found with the ASIC in the earlier code. For those who are interested there is a thorough technical explanation of the issue here: http://www.edcheung.com/album/album07/Pinball/WPC_Ghost_Busting.pdf The Anti Ghosting update just patches the old ROMs to use the later Lamp Matrix software driver. I've attached the patch to this post if anybody wants it. It's obviously only useful to you if you have the ability to burn your own ROMs though.

 

[Durzel]

Fascinating read. I understood barely any of the details, but very impressive nonetheless. Shame Williams asked the guy to take it down though, but I suppose they have to enforce their IP copyright.