Can you tell me which set of instructions to follow for installing on Tommy? I don't see Data East on the website. I also noticed a small extra board that came in the box with the colorDMD that does not look familiar. I have installed several colorDMD's on SAM, Whitestar, WPC, but this is my first going into a Data East. Thanks for any and all help!

Thanks very much! I did not see those on the website.

Thanks for the info. I think colorDMD really needs to update their website. From the frontpage if you click on support, then hardware installation, there are only instructions for WPC, WPC-95, Whitestar, and SAM. The ONLY place you will find a link to these Data East instructions is on the screen where you add the dmd to your cart. AND, you will only see the link if you scroll down below towards the bottom of the page.

Here is the wording on the order page:
*** Installation in TOMMY requires additional tools and permanent modification to the speaker panel. Please review all installation instructions before ordering! ***

But you can easily never see this when ordering.

I'm not super excited about permanently modifying the speaker panel, but I will have to in order to get this installed. It doesn't look too difficult, just a surprise I didn't see coming. I have nothing but good things to say about colorDMD. This is the 5th one I've bought. Just a little better info on the website would be helpful. Thanks!

Man, I having a time with this Tommy colorDMD install. I emailed them directly but thought I would see if anyone here has an answer. I loaded the Tommy ROM from their site, successfully because the display screen shows Tommy 3.0. The display works but everything is displayed in monochrome, no colors.

I would like to personally thank Randy Perlow for the quick response and solution to this issue with Tommy. In a matter of hours he diagnosed the problem and sent me another version of the code which worked great!

Installing this into Tommy was no simple matter. I wish I had taken pics of the install but I did not. You need to be handy with a Dremmel and have a variety of bits to make this work. Apparently Tommy can have either a wooden or a plastic speaker panel. Mine has the plastic speaker panel. I followed the instructions from a few posts above. Here are my notes to get a good clean install.

1. Dremmel out the large portion at the top as shown in the instructions.
2. You do not have to cut off the fifth mounting screw. It will simply unscrew from the plastic.
3. You must elongate the four mounting holes in the metal LCD bracket. Without doing this you cannot get the LCD screen to drop down past the plastic frame at the bottom.
4. You can just re-use the four large white plastic washers, rather than use the 1/4 inch plastic spacers that come with the DMD. This will get the LCD screen a mm or two closer to the plastic screen.
5. If you follow these details you can get the LCD screen just as close to the window as the original DMD was. I would say it is less than 1/2 inch away from the window.
6. You will have to remove 3 of the GI bulbs in the backbox light board, otherwise there is not enough clearance to re-install the speaker panel with the taller LCD display.

Just an FYI, this was nothing like my previous four installs which were AFM, LOTR, Met, and Tron. But it was well worth the effort because this display is fantastic! The colors are very bright. I really like the blue shades during the skillshot and video mode. I love details like the Christmas mode being done mostly in Red/Green. The blue/white on the Data East logo during attract mode is sweet. I only have this one pic to share.

20160507_190218.jpg

Yes, that's the one.

Congrats! It's really not that bad. I think anyone who can work on and repair pinball machines can handle this install. Just know going into it, this will not be the typical 20-30 minute colorDMD install. I spent most of a Saturday afternoon on this. The results are well worth it!

Also, in the link above the guy mentions drilling new holes in the LCD mounting bracket. I found that I only needed to slide the display upwards by about 2-3mm, that is why I opted to just elongate the holes that were already there.

They all use the smaller 128x16 dmd, which it appears the Bill Paxton machine uses as well.

http://shop.pinled.de/product_info.php?cPath=7_54&products_id=30

Good Lord. If GOT is soon I think my wife would kill me. I've bought two colorDMD's in the last 6 weeks!

Don't forget GnR has been done. Also Apollo13(Sega) has been done. But I agree, Tales from the Crypt would look awesome. I also vote for LW3.