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REVIEW - PIN2DMD display RGB LED Colour from Pin-display.ch

Pick Holder

Pick Holder

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5Years
Joined
Jul 18, 2016
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Location
Bournville, Birmingham.
In the past I have used the PIN2DMD displays sold by Pinballsp on here (before he went to his own software) and also ordered from German gaming supplies (the order did not complete).

Before I start - please do not order these from Germany Gaming Suppliers. I think the chap who runs it is on this forum! Just google this company and you will see why. I did order a Pin2DMD off them, after a few days PayPal refunded me....

So other than ordering from the USA and getting hammered for import duty, I asked on the visual pinball community for recommendations and found these:

PIN2DMD – Pinball Display

Neuste PIN2DMD Hardware mit farbigen Dateien. Color Files Liste immer Aktuell. Color Display for Pinball Flipper Flipperautomat.
pin-display.ch pin-display.ch
To cover myself (and the price was identical) - I ordered from eBay.

Items for sale by sprayer150669 | eBay

Shop eBay for great deals from sprayer150669!
www.ebay.co.uk
He assured me he was nothing to do with GGS which is also a bonus.

This time last week (9pm on a Sunday) - I ordered and payed for the item. I was kept informed all the time and Thursday morning it arrived to me, extremely well packaged. It came fully activated as well. Pinball SP used to leave them unregistered and it was a 10 quid cost on top.

Workmanship is good. I did handle the PCB with grease on my hands - this is my error not the manufacturer.

Beauty is these work in visual pinballs and real ones.

Basically for £250 you can have something that is pretty much the same as colordmd.

NOW THE BUT LINES:
You can not load colordmd files into this display.
Files are made for real pinballs and and virtual ones. But sadly you have to pay for these (between $10-25 depending on the author).
You can do your own colourisation using a tool online, or install a custom palette of either 4 (for Bally Williams) or 16 (for stern tables).

I could film one of these but using an iPhone camera you can not seem to capture how good they look.

The machines that have ready made files for are:
ATTACK FROM MARS, CREATURE, DEMO MAN, FISH TALES, GODZILLA, INDIANA JONES, LETHAL WEAPON. MED MADNESS, MONSTER BASH, RIPLEYS, ROYAL RUMBLE, STAR TREK TNG, STREETFIGHTER, MARIO, TALES ARABIAN, TERMINATOR 2, ADDAMS, GETAWAY HS2, SIMPSONS PP, SOPRANOS, WORLD CUP SOCCER 94.

IMG_8981.jpgIMG_8982.jpg

They also do the large Data East displays.

Well recommended.

Any questions feel free to message me. and I am not linked to this seller. I am not getting paid for this.
 
ALSO - Worth mentioning - can be installed in Star Trek (Stern), Family Guy,, AC/DC, Waking Dead, Metallica and another couple of newer Sterns but you have to upload a 'patched rom' into the machine as well as putting one small file onto the micro SD card in the back of display.
 
Do you get the SD card with it? Also, how do you get all the files you speak of? These displays always confused me with the multitude of options available which is the only reason I never bought any.

I just want colour on my pins for cheapness dammit.....lol. Great review by the way. Considerably cheaper than colordmd certainly piques my interest.
 
@Rus121
You get the SD card supplied with it. This also stores the registration/activation code, so I always take the SD card out and copy the pin2dmd.key file using a USB card reader.

The colourisation files can be obtained by contacting the people who did them direct, links are supplied on his site or on visual pinball forums. For instance the AFM one is $25. For that you get two files you copy to the SD card (again - via your PC and using windows explorer or finder on a mac). Some files are free.

Modern sterns need the eprom information "patched", then you put that file onto a USB stick and install it the usual way into the machine. An addition file will also need to be put onto the SD card. These are free to obtain.

When you get the display, the seller will install files for you if you send them to him, but believe me it is not difficult.
 
Good find, he has the 128x16 option on his site too and a load of pre-coloured game files (https://pin-display.ch/files/). I guess this approach is made practical now with the EVO boards being available populated from the likes of pcbway.
 
Do you know if the colour for WCS94 is complete, as on my Virtual Pin it's incomplete and glitchy?
Also is Whitewater available for real Pins as I have it for my Virtual Pin.
Theatre of Magic was also being worked on. Do you know if it's available yet?
 
@astyy - yeah - he is a good find. I wouldnt give German Gaming Supplies my money! Found Rafai very easy to deal with, he answered all my questions.

@Andypc
WCS94 - do you have the latest version? Files get updated a lot.
Everything listed on his ebay listing is a REAL PINBALL FILE and up to you to contact the author via the link on his site and purchase. They are not quite the same files for a real pin than a vpin.
With ToM its best to contact the author directly, some people will send you the real pinball files free - others charge.

You can also do your own colourisation to any game.

Pin2DMD Forums

vpuniverse.com vpuniverse.com
 
Thanks. One more question. How are they powered? Do they need any modifications or do they drop straight in using the existing wiring?
 
I have a couple of pins running on these DMD's and I am very happy with them. I just set them up using 4 preset colours and works well on my TOM, TZ and recent SS. Have not bought any colourisation files yet as none of my pins have been completed yet

@Andypc You can tap into the voltage from your backbox, but I have one running off a PC power supply running off 240v
 
They need 12v

Ive seen a few of these installed and in my view you are better off sticking to the standard DMD. Of what i’ve seen they are nothing like ColorDMD...
 
Interested to know why Neil. How do these compare vs normal ColourDMD and the LED ColourDMD? Are the not as bright or vivid or is it an issue with the dot size?
 
It’s the colorisation- its just not anywhere near the quality of ColorDMD. For the money I just don’t think its worth it but I realise ColorDMD isn’t cheap, personally though if I didn’t have the money I’d save until I could afford a ColorDMD rather than buy this.

Neil.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
I have used some of the more recent colorisation files on my Virtual Pin and they have been much better than some of the early ones. Which ones have you seen?
 
Medieval, Star Trek and i think ToM.

If they are better put some YouTube’s up!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
I agree ColorDMD is a better more modern product and you have a couple of options to the look of the pixels. However, it depends on what you are after, I am not a massive fan of full colour and images that look to modern as this is not how a 90's pin was meant to be and that's what I like, so this pin2dmd with 4 colours setting works for me, life would be boring if everyone liked the same things.
 
How does the TAF one compare to the colour dmd one? I’ve always thought that one wasn’t in the same league as some of the later colorisation
 
I had one in my TAF. @M4carp then had it. I wasn’t impressed. And I believe he subsequently sold it as well. It was better than nothing which is what I had!! To be fair though I never tried the colourised files just the standard four colour palette. Also, if you had it on full brightness, it was close to how I would imagine an atom bomb flash to look. It would also stress the 5v or 12v or whatever it used and cause resets.
This never happened on the dimmest setting though.
I’d be interested to see a proper colourised example though.
 
Old one of ST I think it looks better than the colour dmd one (colour dmd one seems to be coloured for the sake of colouring it that make sense ?)

The colour dmd guys have a bigger pool of talent to draw from but the pinballsp is getting ore support all the time..

 
The attack from mars and sttng colorization files are just as good as colordmd @Neil McRae - you probably only seen the old way of coloring them. Things have moved on.

They now run off 5v guys. You can plug you wpc plug into a header.

Also it has a 12-5v step down.

You can run of either.

Again. A lot of people are commenting on old versions.

The EVO board is different.
 
BigIan said:
Old one of ST I think it looks better than the colour dmd one (colour dmd one seems to be coloured for the sake of colouring it that make sense ?)

The colour dmd guys have a bigger pool of talent to draw from but the pinballsp is getting ore support all the time..

Click to expand...

Pinball sp no longer makes pin2dmd

He has his own color system that is not compatible.
 
Spandangler said:
I had one in my TAF. @M4carp then had it. I wasn’t impressed. And I believe he subsequently sold it as well. It was better than nothing which is what I had!! To be fair though I never tried the colourised files just the standard four colour palette. Also, if you had it on full brightness, it was close to how I would imagine an atom bomb flash to look. It would also stress the 5v or 12v or whatever it used and cause resets.
This never happened on the dimmest setting though.
I’d be interested to see a proper colourised example though.
Click to expand...

You need to change your rectifiers and caps then.

Never had issue.
 
I fitted a 192x64 PIN2DMD in my Baywatch last week, overall impressed would be my opinion.

I bought it on eBay from sprayer https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/sprayer150669/m.html Rafal was fantastic to deal with, it arrived very quickly and superbly packaged. VERY simple to fit, I like the fact that it used the original 4 pin molex connector that the plasma display used for the supply, it really was just a straight swap, thee was also a 12V supply input on the board but this is apparently for VPin applications.

Chris.
 
taz turbo said:
I fitted a 192x64 PIN2DMD in my Baywatch last week, overall impressed would be my opinion.

I bought it on eBay from sprayer https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/sprayer150669/m.html Rafal was fantastic to deal with, it arrived very quickly and superbly packaged. VERY simple to fit, I like the fact that it used the original 4 pin molex connector that the plasma display used for the supply, it really was just a straight swap, thee was also a 12V supply input on the board but this is apparently for VPin applications.

Chris.
Click to expand...

Hey @taz turbo - thanks for your addition to the review. Have you had the colourised files added?

Another +1 to this seller.....
 
Pick Holder said:
Hey @taz turbo - thanks for your addition to the review. Have you had the colourised files added?

Another +1 to this seller.....
Click to expand...

Yes, all colourised, and looks great :thumbs:

Rafal was a true gent to deal with, my few questions always promptly and accurately replied to.

As you say though, those fruit based phones just cant video or really picture the results that well, lots of scan lines that the eye can't see.

Chris.
 
Does it accept the higher voltage from the plasma input and step it down?

Just ordered one :-)
 
Hello Fans of colored DMD`s
My Name is Rafal and i`m the guy from pin-display.ch.
I live in Switzerland near to Germany, thats why i can send from Germany for the EU and those who maybe soon ar`nt in the EU any more ;)
At first i thank @Pick Holder & @taz turbo for there review/feedback.
My opinion to the Pin2DMD: this is a community project from pinball fans around the world. It should`nt be compared with the colordmd witch sells there display exclusive and professionally.
But the Pin2dmd community does`nt have to hide anymore. The tools for the Pin2DMD (Pin2DMD Editor), the firmware and the artists are geting better everyday. With the Evo Boards all fits perfectly without any problems and all is on one board. I`m allready flashed with the quality from projects like STTNG / Indiana Jones & Flintstones.
Every day the artists are doing progress on new tables but also on refurbishing exisiting files thanks to the better tools.
My plan was/is to make the project bigger and better by selling finished DMD`s and showing a platform where all files come together. Till now its looking great, my website brought a bit more energy to the artists because they have direct contact to the customers. There are some guys (witch are also mentioned here in the forum) who sell the display with the files, without informing the artist.. Thats Sh** for both sides because the customer has no idea where to get colorfile updates and the artist does`nt get his deserved appreciation.

@Andypc thx for your order, i sent your dmd today with dhl, you should have received the trackingnummer. Please dont give it the high voltage (+110V) The Pin2DMD is very happy with 12V ;)
With every order i give 2 crimpterminals with the DMD, where you can get the power, you can see here. In the future i will offer adaptercabels for wpc and data east.
With my DMD you allways receive 2 Crimpterminals, powercabel, micro SD, USB Card reader and my support.

So thanks again for the kind words, if you have any questions or suggestions: bringt them in :cool:
At the moment it will maybe take some time for me to answer because i do this all privat, i`m having a hard time at work and "irony on" and my girl loves pinball "irony off" :rofl:

PS: the Pin2DMD can also be used as single color display as replacement for defective DMDs without any colorfiles.

Greets from Switzerland
Rafal
www.pin-display.ch

Edit: Here a video from my LW3
 
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I was sure that was the case and they need 12V or 5V, but had seen a couple comments that seemed to suggest otherwise. Can someone do a guide with some pictures of the best way to connect the power cables in the back box of a Williams and a Data East without hacking the machines wiring?
 
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