It won't hurt to try the ROMs. Just make sure the orientation is correct(the small notch on the chip). It is possible that the ribbon cable that was put on during the shopping process is faulty, whether it is new or not does not mean it is good. Good luck with your problem!

What happens when you do a full DMD test from the game diagnostics?

There are (or should be if they aren't missing/lost) metal shims under that assembly you can move and adjust to level the bookcase with the playfield.

If your DMD display test ran fine at one point than your plasma DMD it's self is probably just fine. You are most likely looking at a communication, connection or chip issue. Like most say, try to remove and reseat your ribbon cables. Start with the easy stuff, you can remove the game chips and re install, or just make sure they are pushed into the sockets all the way. My DMD threw really strange hieroglyphics once till I reset the cables.

When removing the chips it's really easy to damage the legs, so if you have never done it before, just check that they are installed all the way in with a firm push. I had a System 11 game give me a fatal EPROM error tone from attract mode while I was in another room, I noted the error #, turned the game off and reseated that chip. Hot and cold causes expansion and contraction, so if you have the slightest bad connection, this could be a factor. My e prom error never came back.

If the height of your bookcase base is uniform all the way around (either too high or too low), than use the white adjuster nut and screw underneath the assy to bring it level to the playfield. It's standard thread, (left loose, Right tight) I'm having the same issue but my base is warped, one side is high, while the other is low. I have all new bookcase parts to go in when I do my playfield swap. I don't see shims under mine either.

Link to the locking nut:
http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8363-1

Great Plains Electronics has a ribbon cable set for TAF $20.00. I just bought a set myself.
Part Number: WPC-RC1-SET

I would reverse the ribbon from the display to the DMD controller first, as a bad ribbon cable will sometimes work ok in one way, but not the other. Just make sure on both ends the red line matches the "1". I would then reseat the other ribbon to the DMD controller, which runs all the way back to the CPU, reseat it everywhere. Possibly a bus line is getting pulled down somewhere and affecting this.

This sounds ribbon cable'ish somewhere.

Run a display test from diagnostics. You could have bad ram on the dmd controller.

What about reflow the solder on the pin headers for the dmd and the driver board?

The display test should report whether the RAM is OK or not at the end of the test. Shouldn't have to run it for 30 minutes.

Again reseat the main ribbon cable from all the way back to the CPU, make sure you align everything right. If that does nothing, I wonder if an ic on the dmd controller board has failed, and the logic is not being interpreted right there. It would be best to try swapping this with a friend's if you anyone.

Well, if I was in your shoes, one machine, no one else to help around me, no ability to swap DMD cards, given what you have done, I guess I would likely bite the bullet a buy a new DMD controller. They are like $90 US. uggg.

They are not worth sending out to repair, the cost in the end will surpass a new one. Your problem sounds like a ribbon cable issue, it does not appear to be though. Above that, if you are having no other issues, it sounds like something is corrupt in the DMD controller board logic. But it would suck if that wasn't it... I'm just not sure what else could cause this.

A couple other questions come to mind:

1. Why were the cables replaced originally? Do you have the others? Are the ones you have now in fact "new"?
2. Are you seeing any other issues, such as missing sounds, or distorted sounds? I believe the DMD animations are carried on he same bus lines via the same main ribbon cable from the CPU, which makes me think any display issues related to bad bus signals may be indicative through bad sounds as well.
3. Is there any corrosion on the DMD board, especially around the headers (male pins) for the ribbon cables?

It's a poor approach to recommend shot-gunning a new board, but again, given your situation, not sure what else to recommend.

Where did you get the machine? Are there any companies selling machines anywhere near you at all? If so, they may lend you another ribbon cable and controller board to test, possibly for a fee. That's the beauty of having multiples of the same system, you can quickly eliminate possibilities, and usually fine the culprit fast.

Check with this guy if you are looking for used working parts, closer than shipping from USA.

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/parts-for-sale-almost-full-offer-update-61

OK...this is an interesting one...Let's see a YT video of this.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

It sure looks like corrupted/overwritten memory to me. Def doesnt look lile the display itself has any issues. All the pixels light up. i dont know the machines architecture well enough to know where the animations "live" in memory. Is that on the driver board that someone suggested to try to replace? Also doesnt look like rom/code issue or it wouldnt work at all.

Did you happen to drop anything metal like a screw when working under the pf on the bookcase? I dont think id turn the game back on until you check and double check connections and anything you may have had loose when working on the bookcase. Good luck

Yes, that location calls for an 8A 32V NB (normal blow)

Given everything else you have tried, I would replace the 6264 RAM on the DMD controller board. They are quite inexpensive ($2.50 US) and could cause the problem you are having. Multiple pages of animation are pre-rendered in the RAM, then serially downloaded to the DMD. While you are at it, install a socket so that if you ever have to replace it again, it's a 10 second swap. Be very careful when removing the RAM device, as the traces are quite delicate in that part of the board. I typically cut the old chip out with very fine tip wire cutters, then heat each leg separately and pull them out. You can then simply remove the solder from each hole using good desoldering braid.

You will get this!

Jeff

Before you molest the DMD Controller board by replacing the RAM, return the game to factory configuration. Put the original style DMD back in the game. Let's see what it does then.

Next, I'd swap in a different DMD controller, or send the one that you have to a friend to test in their game. If you want to send it to me for checkout and repair (if necessary), I can take care of that. Drop me a PM.

FWIW, I've seen plenty of failed RAM chips on that board, but I've never seen a failed RAM pass the game's RAM test.

F114 fuses the lamp matrix 18V, and also the regulated 12V. You'd have no controlled lamps, and no switches, and the game should report an error on boot if that fuse is blown.

--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

Yeah, I wouldn't replace the ram either if the test confirmed a pass. I’m not sure myself if there can still be symptoms like this with a pass.

You are either going to have to send out to repair, buy another, or again, if there is any company near you (where did you buy it from?) that may loan/swap with you, or that you could bring your ribbon cable and DMD controller into, that's I think anyone can recommend at this stage.

I'm guessing mailing this from Australia and back, before any repair time may be more than just ordering another DMD controller from a local distributor. If it’s not the controller, you can always just sell this local and recoup your cost.

Nothing against Chris assisting, as he is great and knows his stuff, but you might want to weigh out the shipping costs vs buying. Chances are the HV section is likely in rough shape too, and could be an issue in the years to come, and buy would solve that possible future problem as well.

Gack!...you're right...shipping to-from Australia scuttles that option. Perhaps someone in Aus can help in the same way.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

BTW...I watched the entire video and didn't see much/anything wrong. Perhaps a few top lines.
Your THING lights seem to light in reverse order. Is that a Southern Hemisphere thing?
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

Oops. I thought that was the same video.
Yes...I can see the problems in the second vid.
I know just a very little bit about how Randy implemented the Color DMD.
The ColorDMD page notes this...

Game ROM Version: L-7, H-4, or LX-3*(Gold)
Language Mode: English
*LX-3 recommended for additional color animations

What ROM version are you running?
I'd still take the ColorDMD out of the equation for further problem diagnosis.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

I watched the first video. There are a couple of issues that I can see. The first is that your video appears to be missing the mid-level video intensities. I'm attaching two images below. One is a frame cap from your video. The other is the correct four-level video from the game.

This can only really happen if there's a problem reading or writing data from the video RAM on the DMD controller board. A bad RAM chip could be to blame, but given your other problems I think there may be an issue with the wide ribbon cables that run from the MPU to the DMD controller. You should make sure that these are aligned correctly on all boards with no bent pins.

Another issue is the THING lamp behavior. IIRC the game should start with the TH lamps lit and the others off. Then the lamps continue to light as the game progresses. Your lamp behavior appears to be reversed. I'm not sure what would cause this. It could be a separate issue with the lamp matrix.

Addams_FrameCap.png

Addams.png

I bet the lamp board just needs to be unscrewed and flipped over

Perform a lamp test and see which lamp/position registers for each thing letter.
If you have the regular game ROM's, I would suggest putting those back in too after you get the fuse replaced and the game is up and running again.
I installed the gold ROM's in my regular game and noticed some coil firing issues where the ball launches to the shooter lane, and firing issues with the swamp coils. I switched back and the coil issues went away.

I haven't seen this problem before and I'm not sure exactly what's tested on the video test.

Speculating, I would guess that the test just does a read/write to the video RAM. A read/write test may still pass if the problem is with a stuck bit on an address line (either from the MPU on on the DMD controller). So the problem may not be with the RAM itself but with a defective input from one of the wide ribbon cables.

A defective address bit could also be causing other problems. This is where I would check first. You should try reseating the wide ribbon cables at all connectors and check for any bent pins. If that doesn't help (and you can't swap boards) I would get a logic probe and test all the address/data bits to make sure they are toggling.

As for the video issue specifically. Here's some additional info that might help....
Video is sent from the MPU to the controller board in pages that are written to to different locations in memory. A hi-page and low-page combine to form the 4-level video images. The DMD controller repeatedly reads these two pages out of memory and sends them to the DMD. The hi-page is read/displayed twice. The low-page is read/displayed once.

It looks like the low-page is either not getting into memory or is not being read out correctly on the DMD controller.

Here's another thought...

Your game is showing a credit dot. What errors are reported when you enter the menus?

Using the Pinside map I see there is another Pinsider located close to you - Champs. His profile shows he has a Williams T2 pin. Could he or any other reasonably local Pinsider on the map assist you in doing a board swap check?

As from the start, this is really going to come down to trying to narror down which board/cable is the issue. There has to be someone around you available. There's quite a few Ausies on here, and yes I understand it's a large country, but still.

lol!

I'm not sure I'm clear on what you are intending to say here... you made your own ribbon cable? I thought you said the person that shopped it replaced them all with new? Regardless, the display issues were there before and after just the same?

I have a displayboard with exactly the same behaviour.
Also from a TAF.
I swapped a lot of chips (first was the ram) but had no success sofar.
I am curiuos for a solution to be found

In the meantime you can use the board in an early DMD game that only uses the high level dots like Gilligan or PZ.

Could the problem go as far back as the ASIC chip maybe?
They are still readily avail, and cheap.

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=2299

Interesting. I'd like a crack at that one.
Which chips did you swap? That'll give folks a head start.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info