That apron thing is awesome.!!!!!!!

That apron LCD is stunning!

A few more pics of a resized custom background image and some different colours:

2013-03-27_11.43.55.jpg williamsgreen.jpg williamspurple.jpg

Where would one be able to get one of those?

http://www.drpinball.co.uk/

The installation instructions PDF on that site won't download. Bah.

That projector is epic great for Halloween in front if the house whilst playing taf
And the idea of colouring each pixel on each frame is worth it on any game that's the thing that CDMD lacks

That apron LCD is absolutely brilliant! It'd be perfect for my sister-in-law who can't seem to bring her head up to watch the DMD to learn the current mode situation.........ever.

And don't get me wrong about all the patent stuff. Nothing would please me more than being able to do my own coloring of animations for certain games and specific animations I feel are the "wrong color" from ColorDMD and share them here. I truly believe this to be a brilliant product and this kind of stuff SHOULD be open source.

I also believe that almost any mod I want to do, I should be able to make for myself. This falls into that category completely. I'm a huge supporter of this Extender project, I just want to make sure he doesn't get shut down before his product gets its chance to really shine!

I'm a huge supporter of this Extender project

Yeah, me too. I take it you ordered one then?

Heres a few picd showing another background:

2013-03-27_20.15.14.jpg 2013-03-27_20.14.33.jpg

So the apron thing displays the image on the DMD of just a static custom image?

You can place any image around the output text of the DMD extender. The image (dracula logo, and love never dies below it) is stationary, but the text is displayed and animated just like on a standard DMD.

Very cool gadget I can see a few very good applications for this. NF apron looks amazing very nice work. I also like the projector idea as done on the TFTC.

How much for the Apron "DMD" kit?

It's not a kit. That's something someone did with one of his DMD extenders.

Impressive use of the extender on the apron, but I have my doubts on what it looks like with the lights on. I'm sure it can be worked into something that looks nice, but I'm guessing, like many of my past dates...it looks better with the lights off.

Is it a distraction at all to have it there Russo? I can't help but think i would get distracted by it if it was there on my machines.

I imagine that would make the game a lot more fun for me. I hate looking up to see the DMD. Given a preference I'd move the real DMD down there on a lot of games.

Theres no distraction for me, in fact i really like it where my eyes are. Perhaps moving it over to the right hand side would be that little bit better but i havent tried that as yet.

Someone else mentioned to me that it may be possbile to use a splitter so you could use twin monitors in both score card locations. Still yet to try that, but sounds like it could work.

How it looks in the daytime is the same as night really. Mostly just looks like someone placed a mini screen directly over the scorecard location. Of course, you could try other screens (not many out there that fit as nicely and cost as little as this one does) and make the install look much better (i.e: flush fit into apron) but this would require some modification to the apron and i like my mods to be 100% reversable.

You could always decase a mini monitor like this and make your own surround for it (incorporating boulders for wh20, daggers for Shadow, Trolls for MM...etc...) You could take it further by making custom monitor surrounds that tie in with flashers for that 'in your face' effect or simply to draw attention to the monitor when in a certain mode/feature.

2013-03-29_00.00.00.jpg

Love the idea of a flush mounted apron LCD with a custom bezel. Flashers on the apron, though... that would be uncomfortable. There's a reason flashers tend to be at the back half of a playfield.

I bet this would look cool in the back of the playfield like CV. Of course you'd need a different size monitor, but I always like the placement of the DMD on CV. It makes it so easy to see all of the animations and scoring when you are playing.

Perhaps flashers would be too much yeah, but how about a simple larsen scanner type setup that ties into the flasher circuit with some lower brightness leds?

Theres no reason you couldn't build smaller screens into features already on the playfield (TZ TV mod with dmd info from the extender? - if you can find one small enough that is)

I'd have to see it to grasp why, I guess. The idea of additional lights on the apron isn't grabbing me. IMO flashing lights should be reserved for gameplay information. If it were tied to some delivery of information to the player it might work.

Monitor on the apron is brilliant. If not a kit now let me know when it is available.

I believe David is planning on an apron kit of some sort but i'll leave him to explain that as i dont want to steal his thunder. For now, a few more pics:

2013-03-31_15.47.17.jpg 2013-03-31_15.52.09.jpg tealpurple1.jpg tealpurple.jpg

The apron display is great. I want one.

I stand corrected. The apron display looks good even with the lights on. I figured it was a bulky frame with a bundle of wires and mess everywhere. I was guessing that is why all of the pics were super close ups of the screen with the lights off.

It looks nice and tidy. With a bit of work and possibly a plastic frame or something to pop in the card holding corners...it would look factory.

Can you give us the reference of your small monitor ? Anyone with suggestions for monitors which could be an even better fit ?

"that's neat !"

Okay the apron DMD is freaking awesome!

colored dots for No Fear raises my interest level in No Fear,
ohh how I'll own one again and soon.

I showed the DMD extender project to a friend of mine who is a pinball professional. He found the idea very interesting. He immediately asked if he could put some ads on this apron screen. It could be nice if we could alternate the DMD with some other pictures or videos.
Maybe your software could detect the game over mode through the raspberry GPIO ?
If your design is open enough your DMD extender could be customized to replace a lot of other mods (Creature holo replacement, color DMD, in playfield custom small screen, etc...).

I really hope you don't mean advertisements.

yes I meant advertisements for his company like renting a pinball machine for party or week end. I think it is good for the product if professionals are interested in it. I don't suggest that all of us put ads on our beloved machines... but the more versatile the product is the more it will sell.

But the idea of ads on a machine on location makes a lot of sense, esp if the operator gets a cut. If it helps ops put more machines on location that's a good thing.

viperrwk

There is already room in the DMD scroll for text ads.

This is not serious You can't do advertisement with 2 or 4 lines of text which appear maybe once every minute on the DMD... and even less try to convince people to not do drugs

Having worked in the technology media business for over 25 years I can say you need something that is connected, supports standard ad formats and can be pushed to a wide audience easily. This project is a long way from that but has the potential. Sorry to say that programming individual DMDs on individual machines does not have that potential.

viperrwk

Pretty much agreed. I'm just sick of being bombarded with advertisements every place I look. I mean *every place*. I really don't like the potential for replacing attract mode on a game with attract mode for an advertiser.

I totally agree with you on that. I personally live in the countryside far from the cities and their advertisement pollution and I don't watch TV. However I think it would be good for the product if it can please operators as well as enthusiasts.
I wouldn't put ads on the aprom DMD but maybe a slideshow of digital apron cards or maybe even videos of various shots, video tutorials, some episodes for DrWho or even an entire movie for movie related pinball machines...
There is quite a lot of possibilities if the design of the product is versatile enough with input from the pinball machine.

I hear you and completely understand.

But I would prefer a game on location with an ad in attract mode than no game on location at all.

And at least there are no ads here on Pinside - yet.

viperrwk

The logical conclusion is probably that the Ad Stream is the only maintained part of a lot of games. The game sucks, the rubbers are broken, one flipper is dead, but hey it's still showing ads consistently.

Any ideas about adding Stern games to the support list?

This would be awesome.

That is probably true.
Of course you could tie it in that if the game has an operator alert it shuts the ad stream down and doesn't turn it back on until the alert is cleared. Advertisers don't want to be associated with a crap product.
Unfortunately, I doubt this would ever happen.

viperrwk

Too bad the only commercial 4 LCD I'm aware of is 43" diagonal.

That would make a hell of a topper.

Arcade near here has a red large Sega format DMD as a topper for a Stern Spiderman. It's pretty sweet.

Very cool concept, well done! I can see this being a really nice tool to have for tournaments and such, or if you just want to show off how badass you are at pinball.

Would be neat if this slotted in place of the translite, displayed the normal translight background when in attract mode and a magnified score while playing. Monitor size restrictions would make this difficult...

As far as i am aware, David plans on updating the extender to allow rolling images in the header space. I'm sure he will be able to explain this further, but he is still working on the apron screen solution at the moment.

You can make an image and have that image above and below the dot matix output right now. No reason you couldn't place an ad in there if you so wished.

Currently, the extender also works without the need for the original dmd to be connected. This opens up the further possibility of using a laptop screen or similar as a dmd replacement if you so choose.