Hello,

somebody calling me from here in order to jump from sofa to PC

Few answers, as said by Wayne, my tester doesn't force any segment or digit at any moment therefore no risk to damage either LED or Plasma display because it's compatible with all aftermarket LED displays, even the ones with low resistance.

Last weekend I decided to get rid of a pile of old zaccaria damaged displays and I used my tester to test them and detect was was wrong.
In few hours I tested more or less 30 displays and recovered/repaired something between 10 and 15 of them.

the testing goes so quick when you know what to look for that you really save a bunch of time.
On bally is even easier because you only have one IC and in most of the cases if you have no data it's the 4543 to be replaced otherwise it's the plasma display itself or some transistors when segments/digits missing.

Now coming to the main question, unfortunately I cannot tell you how reliable are those boards on Ebay/Internet because "shame on me" I never had time to test them, I even have one waiting on the desk since more than one year. Maybe I'll test it soon... but do not forget that you need quite poverfull power supply in order to step up from 20v to 200v

So you would wonder how do I test them?
I have two test benches for Zaccaria and therefore I have the Zaccaria power boards which provide me with the 170v current needed for both Zaccaria and Bally.

Now let me be honest with all of you, some of you know how much time we can spend in inventing/developing some test boards (Wayne???) and how few of them are sold around and that's one of the reasons why I never wanted to invest more in finding an external power source for HV, just because I have literally no more free time for this and the hours I would need for it wouldn't be paid off by sales.

Last thing, since Cheddar just came up with this topic and the shipping fees, I'm happy to give a 10$ discount off the shipping fees for the ones here who want to get one tester V2, but this will require some delay in shipping as I won't be able to ship them before Monday the 11th of February.
You can PM me in case of interest.

That's all for the moment, hope I could answer some of your questions.
Gianfri

_________________________________________
Pinball Solutions
www.pinballsolutions.eu
LED displays for Zaccaria, Bally/Stern, Williams/Data East and much more... visit our website.

Fantastic, I don't hide the fact that a feedback on those steppers would be really apreciated.

gianfri

Normally 7 working day starting from today

Well, logistic is quite a mess over here.
In Europe we have different postal services for each country and different tariffs too.

I'm therefore obliged to juggle (is it the correct word?) from one service to another in order to find the correct option for national, international, intercontinental shippings.
Shipping to France doesn't cost the same as shipping to Germany nor Italy or UK.
Then you have USA, Canada and Australia where each one has different tariffs too and different delays.

Australia it's quite long to deliver, Canada is ok unless they decide to go on strike like in December, two customers were waiting for more than one month to get a parcel.
US is ok, in general it takes one week as I said, I can follow the tracking and it's more or less like that.

So to answer the question, for Intercontinental I only use National postal services around Europe depending on size, weight and destination

And yes, I have been informed that USPS has increased the postal fees over there which is not a good thing.

It works!
Thanks Cheddar!!!
You motivated me and tonight I tested my voltage stepper which was sleeping on my shelves since ages.

12V regulated to 165V

here it is:

In the picture you have a defective display with 4 working digits.

Now good night from Europe!

20190131_013232 (resized).jpg

Yes, that's the one

Thanks Dayton for your picture, looks nice and of course it perfectly fits the US market!

Additional test with Bally 7D display

20190201_164453 (resized).jpg

If you talk about the stepper then -> ebay
If you talk about the tester then -> PM

Yes, I got the notification!
7 working days was respected

Hi guys,

I would avoid using 200VDC as they are normally working with 170-180VDC

I think also che some glasses are getting old enough and this could also indicate that they are getting tired and cause those effects.

Thanks anyway for feedback.
Gianfri

I think you have already got the answers but in general, with any kind of tester like this one:

- you don't need to have an alive machine to test one or more displays;
- you can confortably sit in front of your test bench and do test + repair without standing up and down to go back to the machine;
- in case of nasty short or damages you avoid killing you working machine;
- when reparing a display you need to switch it on several times before having it good, this means connectiong it to the pinball machine as many times as;
- this tester runs a series of tests which are intended to confirm that all digits and segments are ok, in a normal machine you have to power on, wait, move to tests program, etc etc.;
- this tester goes straight to the point.

Now, before having it, I was doing exactly like you said, but I was tired of using my machines as test benches, keeping them constantly open and looking hugly.

Getting your feedbacks and positive comments makes me really proud because it looks like I produced something really useful not only for myself.

Hi Bob,

I'm assembling the new testers after my Easter holidays, I'll ship it to you in the next days.

Regards
Gianfri

Hello all,

I think you can find several models with several budgets.

this is working in my bench and it's quite cheap:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/DC-DC-8-32V-To-45-390V-High-Voltage-Boost-Converter-ZVS-Step-up-Booster-Module/32900346733.html

Thanks man!

Having people happy makes me happy.
It's a nice feeling when you realize that something you have produced is finally helpful for the others.

Thanks for your feedback and have fun!
Gianfri