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TZ - G.I and LED OCD boards worth it?

Durzel

Durzel

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A friend of mine is in the States for a few weeks, so was debating about getting the G.I. and LED OCD boards for my TZ and getting them sent to him (the Euro suppliers are daylight robbers)

I bought it with a full set of LEDs already installed. I have changed the flashers to LEDs now, and will be doing the clock shortly.

I can see how games like Funhouse and TAF benefit from G.I. fading during multiball, but the demo videos of TZ with the LED OCD board don't look that amazing tbh.

I can see how it would help with ghosting, but I don't get any ghosting now. When testing the G.I dim levels the LEDs don't change brightness and don't turn off, even at level 1, which would suggest to me that I don't have anti-ghosting bulbs (correct?) and would therefore benefit from the G.I OCD board... assuming that TZ actually does something obvious with dimming in the first place?

Anyone with TZ and one or both of these boards care to comment on whether it's a night and day difference? Cheers :)
 
All my BWS machines had both, GI OCD was only really noticeable in a few (AFM, TOTAN, SS, MB) Led OCD cards are great though, makes lighting look super smooth. I prefer the led GI's to slowly pulse like incandescents too.

Biggest night and day difference though was a LED ocd in my LOTR. It was like a cheap disco beforehand.
 
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Thanks both. As you say worst case I can sell the boards on. Might as well see what all the fuss is about. :cool:
 
Durzel said:
Thanks both. As you say worst case I can sell the boards on. Might as well see what all the fuss is about. :cool:
Click to expand...
Yeah, led-ocd makes a difference regardless, I struggle to look at a machine without it now. GI ocd, it does depend on the code used on the machine (ie. lights out, some sections, etc) but having them fade/pulse is nice.

Depending on results, you *may* sell the GI OCD, but i'd be surprised if you sold the led-ocd. I'd be even more surprised if you didn't order more :)
 
TZ does GI dimming, during the powerfield battles and when the powerball’s out. “I want it back” dims the right GI string, which you’ll currently be missing out on. Also when you get a Jackpot.

GI OCD is much more subtle, because GI dimming is not so key to the gameplay like inserts are, but it’s all OCD really - which is why most people can live without both.

I sent you 2 links for Pinside (on Pinside). Have a read through.
 
Just a contrarian viewpoint here ......

I bought a tz with leds in. Then a shadow with leds in. I then put leds in my taf and Funhouse. I got the usual problems of ghosting, the throw of the gi was not quite right. Some inserts looked totally the wrong colour. There was a loss of dim lighting effects. I then bought a bk2000 with leds in and the game gave me sinus pain/ minor headache due to the strobing.

I had to take them out of my bk2000. And when i did, I put clean bulbs back in and I actually preferred the look of the thing as it was originally designed.

So when I bought and workshopped my ss and ft, I just went with with clean incandescents and clean inserts. This made a massive improvement and I am not minded to put leds in a game ever again, and I strip them out of games when I workshop them

With my Dialed in, the leds make sense as they are multicolour, so you get beautiful iridescent light shows that sweep across the pf. But in 90s titles, I don't think leds are worth the time, money, messing about. In 70s and 80s games leds usually look plain wrong

Essentially, people are going to a lot of trouble trying to create the effect of the slow start and stop of a traditional filament bulb whilst avoiding ghosting. Do remember that incandescent bulbs are generally filthy in pinball machines. Years of dust and nicotine. The inserts are also invariably a quite dirty too

Just clean a few bulbs (isopropyl alcohol) and inserts, and contrast with the ones you have not touched. The improvement you get might surprise you and be enough
 
Just digging this up.. I bought both LED and GI OCD boards, which my mate has now delivered to me. Looks like there are a lot of connectors, which is making me anxious already :oops:

On the basis that I don't get any ghosting at all already, would it be a fair assumption that I have non-ghosting bulbs in my GI and inserts already, and therefore these boards aren't going to work as well? I have the 9.4H ROM, which as I understand it has an "anti ghosting patch"..

Thanks in advance :)
 
There are instructions on Herg's site (and hopefully on paper provided), and they're very easy to follow. Configuring beyond the stock settings is initially a little confusing but makes sense with some experimentation. I wouldn't bother in this case - totally unnecessary to get it working.

You currently have no ghosting with the patched ROM, but that doesn't mean you have anti-ghosting LEDs. The patch may be hiding it with basic LEDs.

Are you asking if it's still worth installing them? If so, the answer is yes as LED OCD does more than stop ghosting. Controls brightness, smooths on/off cycles, etc.

If you don't want to install them... that's your call. The 'OCD' in the title is quite pertinent & only for those affected. However, if you decide to proceed, start with the LED OCD board first as it's the most immediate effect. I doubt you'll notice the GI board much unless you know what you're looking for!

By the sounds of it you should just buy some 'definitely not anti-ghostig LEDs' and install them to be super sure. Flog the ones you take out....
 
Thanks :) I'm going to install the boards, but not having a frame of reference is going to make it difficult to know whether it's working correctly or not - if that makes sense. I know that non-ghosting LEDs will work, but that the dimming of them will be less controllable than actual non-premium LEDs that would normally ghost without the OCD boards.

I guess what I'm asking is - once the boards are installed, how can I know if the LEDs I already have installed in the GI and inserts are non-ghosting or not? Will it be obvious? Will I be able to perform some kind of test that will confirm it?
 
The only way to really definitely tell for certain is to buy a couple of the 'definitely not anti-ghostig LEDs' from somewhere and install them somewhere obvious (in the door inserts, or inlane GI, for example)... Then compare!

You can do various tests as I’ve described before, but some from the creator are found here:
http://ledocd.com/usage_led.html

My tip: Install it first, then connect to your laptop via USB, then come back here when all that support stuff might make more sense in front of you ;)
 
As ever you are the voice of reason :) Best to get it installed and actually working and then see what's what...

One last dumb question - looking at that usage guide, it seems (obvious really) that you can choose which game you're using it with. I assume this is something I'll need to do straight away once installed, as it'll have generic settings until I choose a game profile and "send" that to the board?
 
The drop down game list simply makes the standardise lamp matrix, common in all the WPC games, more useful by mapping inserts to something human readable and useful. So instead of “row 6, column 4” or whatever, which is in all games, if you choose Roadshow that’s actually more usefully labelled “light special”, or on Twilight Zone it’s “mini playfield right”.

I think you need to choose a game before you can connect, for some reason, so try doing that first.

You don’t send the TZ-specific lamp matrix to the board, you just send some settings about how you want it to work inside a TZ. And only if you make some changes beyond default, which case you do need to save changes back to the board. You could take it out and put it in RoadShow and it’d still work, but you might want to tweak the lamp matrix settings for that particular usage scenario.
 
Ok that makes sense. I'm aware that with the GI board the default settings are for strings 4 and 5 to be "Always On" (for WPC95 games), the guide talks about changing that after install.
 
Durzel said:
Ok that makes sense. I'm aware that with the GI board the default settings are for strings 4 and 5 to be "Always On" (for WPC95 games), the guide talks about changing that after install.
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I did for Congo. Easy to change and play about with.
WPC89 has all 5 strings dimmable, controlled by the game, so leave it game controlled for the way it was designed.

WPC95 only had 3 dimmable strings, so he’s added (some might say restored) a nice extra feature there for 4 & 5 to follow 1 to 3.
 
I put LED-OCD in my ToM and honestly couldn't tell the difference.
 
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