Looks like there is another option to help reduce the annoying sounds on the Data East machines:

https://www.pinballlife.com/rottendog-data-east-buzz-buster.html

This one appears to have status LEDS for all the voltages.

Baahaha. Nice.

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I do love the progress of pinball mods on pinside. They always start DIY, then get simplified until someone packages it nicely for the folks that just want plug and play. Then we all know what the final step, this is not a buck booster now its the Buzz Buster and it has an... LED! No mod is truly complete till it has an LED.

Glad that Rottendog board got posted - made me look into the issue a bit more and led to finding the OG White North board! Gonna pick one up for my Simpsons to see if it helps with some of the noise issues I'm seeing.

If you look further back to around post 520 both boards get their roots from that inline power adapter. They just have different implementations of it.

I decided to buy this board to see if there was any difference on my Robocop from the White North board. Bad news, Rottendog didn't take early sound cards into account, which contain those wire filters next to the power port. The Buzz Buster doesn't even fit.

Yup, I stopped making them as the buck boosters that were available had dubious reliability. When they worked, they were great!

Dubious indeed. One of the ones I had went up in smoke quite literally.

Just put in an order with Pinball Life for the new ones!

This is why we chose to make a custom board. Less parts to fail, no potentiometer that could potentially fry someone’s board if it drifted or somebody adjusted it, and we could control the quality of the parts.

I’m sorry for not mentioning sooner that the rotten dog board would not fit on early soundboards. I feel like I had an obligation to say something when I noticed its shape. That’s part of the reason why ours is shaped the way it is.

I want to ensure everybody that more money does not mean more better when it comes to this issue. This is why we’re not charging $70 for our board. And why we initially refused to deal with a vendor who kept trying to get us to raise the price. This is also the reason why we kept the part count low to keep the costs low. For how this circuit works you can most definitely buy a two dollar boost/buck and wire it up like the original ones in this thread, or pay $68 more for one soldered to a $3 custom pcb with LEDs.

Keep in mind the design of our/this board/idea is very simple, only the +12 V line is used in the circuit. Everything else is simply a pass-through. The only way to completely remove any buzz or hum is by switching to a pinsound board.

Also some news on our end, we’ve added Flippers.com and Retro Arcade Specialists in the UK to our list of vendors. We’ve also opened up international sales on our own website. We’ve got a few options for shipping and competitive rates via Canada Post. However we are still looking for an Australian vendor so we can get them into the hands of you pinheads in the outback, quicker and cheaper.

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Not exactly. Many people have completely removed the (buzz/hum) by installing a dedicated small switching power supply for the sound card. That was a sure way to clean up the sound before people started using the inline power adapters.

No need for a Pinsound.

I have only had time to do a quick test, but so far I am impressed. IT went from annoyingly obvious to barely audible. Thanks for a great product!

My sound is definitely more clean - now I just need to find a solution for flasher buzz and I'm in business!

Installed the White North buzz killer in my Data East Back to the Future. Certainly lowered the buzz and I think I notice a slightly cleaner sounding audio but that could just be me. When I initially boot up the game it loudly buzzes at first but I guess it just takes a minute for the adapter to kick in.

That sounds like an issue on your power supply. Remember, our board is VERY simple, there is no warm up time, or processing needed that would give it time to “Kick in”. I’d maybe investigate the 12v line with your meter. Glad you’re enjoying the board though. ☺️

I tried the White North gadget. It barely helped and the machine made a very loud pop through the speakers at boot up with it installed. I do think it's possible I have a faulty one and have been emailing with White North. I have now pulled it and went the AC/DC 12v/5v converter route mentioned elsewhere and the buzz is all but gone... Noticable now only barely in a completely quiet room and this machine had a particularly bad hum before.

Super easy to install... Tapped into 120 after the switch and wired it to the convertor then just ran wires to the soundboard for the DC. I can't recommend this route enough... The hum/buzz is now even less than my Data East machine with a pinsound and that one is pretty quiet.
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I honestly believe that we really wanted the White North board to be the end solution as it’s plug and play and very user friendly. Unfortunately it just hasn’t worked out that way for some. I was an early adopter and made this post like a year ago and it just kinda went unnoticed. I believe others are starting to have the same moderate results I did.

Woa I must have missed this solution. Where can I find more info on this mod? The White North gadget helped only some, but buzzing is still too audible in my opinion.

Ok did some digging and here is the fix posted 5 years ago. Basically powering the soundboard off of it’s own dedicated power supply, pulling power off the line after the pinball machine’s power switch, and before the transformer.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/data-east-speaker-noise-ideas-for-a-cure/page/6#post-3701727

Good job. Glad it work out. I have one suggestion. Your power cable looks under stress, I would advise with coming up with some slack and perhaps a strain relief cycle clamp, or possibly shift the supply down a bit to create some slack. If left like that it could crack the pins down the road.

Oh yeah, it's already secured. Just had it like this while I was testing, thanks!

I guess this only solves the speaker hum? Will it cure dmd buzz?

I did this on my R&B several years ago and the hum is barely noticeable like really it’s gone my Hobbit hum is louder !
I bought two white north just incase I buy any DE in the future but have never installed them so can’t comment on them .

Not sure. I have a ColorDMD so that fixed it. I'm not sure what running clean power to the dmd would do. My guess is that it wouldn't fix it since I don't think that is ground loop related... just guessing tho.

This thread has gotten so big it’s hard to find anything. Would you mind referencing the post for the converter?

I did some digging and found tons of info starting at post 250 but, it’s too deep in the weeds for me. Sorry I’m a ChemE not a EE. Is anyone offering something “off-the-shelf” or with at least enough details to DIY this.

You must have missed my post just a little up the page!

Yeah see his post above. I also solved the loud volume when all the way turned down. That solution is in the main data east club thread. Curious, what would you pay for a kit that was close to plug and play? You would have to open the electric box that has the 120vac coming in and tap into that line (easy w wire nuts), then mount the convertor in backbox (or whatever else you want). The rest would be pre-built and plug and play. I'm considering batching some of these out.

I tried the White North solution over the holidays and my Robocop still hum's pretty loud. I had a computer power supply installed but had to manually turn it on or off and had 0 hum with that. I was hoping the 40.00 spent on the White North solution would have made the hum at least close to the computer supply solution but no go.

As a general FYI: We've been seeing some mixed results with our board (White North Retro) and the odd rotten dog power supply lately. Most notably poor output from the RD boards adversely affecting the 12v line to the soundboard. Which is not something even our filter can solve for. Also, if your stock PSU is in desperate need of a rebuild that's something that only a discrete power supply for your sound board (or a PSU rebuild) can solve.

The filter is only good in limited cases. The problem is much more complex when analog and digital supply voltages are not isolated properly on the soundboard itself, which is a huge design flaw with Data East products.

I think the board that was suggested was $58 alone?
I think a maximum would be 1/2 of a pinsound which is like $250. So $125. Even that would be hard to swallow for me cause I’m usually playing with other pins playing so sound quality is already low.
So somewhere between $57 and $125 I guess?

I think if someone made them and charged $80+ shipping it could be worthwhile. I paid about $45 for the convertor+ the smaller parts I already had. I'm sure a similar device could be found for cheaper and get total parts under $30. White North should just switch to this! I may look into it... Not to get rich but it's needed and would be a fun project.

Having a silent machine is so nice!

Pinsound price is more than that btw.

Haha. Yeah I just checked. Even at $250 I couldn’t justify. $400? No thank you.

It’s a hard balance. Using cheaper parts may lead to inferior results. But I’d imagine you’d get more takers at $40 than $80-100. At the $80+ price point it’d have to be a proven solution not a “maybe”.

I know I certainly can figure this out. It just comes down to time. Maybe if I stopped posting and just did it, I’d be done already…

Well, I wouldn't say "limited" cases. In the last year based on our sales (over 600 units globally) with the feedback we've gotten its been a VERY small number of cases (5) where the board did little to nothing, (which was always fixed in conjunction with a PSU rebuild). An even smaller number (3) of cases where the user installed the board with the cable upside down (frying their sound board)... we've since key'd them to further prevent that. And 1 single case where our board was faulty. I'm pretty happy with those numbers.

Someone on another thread had good luck with disconnecting the existing wiring from the sound board to the volume pot. The long wires pick up noise like an antenna.

The other person wired in the pot right next to the board with short leads. My JP has more noise from the switched lamps than the 60 hertz hum. This is after I replaced the caps on the power supply.

It depends on the game for Pinsound. I've got a Data East Jurassic Park and Pinsound is absolutely worth it imo. The alternate soundtrack available completely changed the feel of the game. It's amazing. For my Lethal Weapon not worth it... I actually like the stock sounds more (I swapped my pinsound over to it to try).

I personally would have paid $80 to have the hum eliminated now that I have silence. It would only make sense to sell them at even that price if a bunch of kits were batched out at the same time.

I'm doing this on my Bally Atlantis with a system 11 soundboard tonight actually. I'm pretty sure the buzz is coming from interference to the pot. Definitely worth trying but was not the case for my Data East machine.

Chance has been great following up with me about my White North Board btw. We are still working out troubleshooting on mine.

Chance, have here been any changes to the board on this recent batch? Even a substitute supplier for one of the components?

Thanks! No, nothing that could cause any kind of reduction in quality or operation. Changes have all been cosmetic (well, and keying the connectors).

I would agree, not knowing your numbers. I just know that there are multiple causes for the various noise problems, and not all those are easily determined from the online conversations. One type would be dot matrix display noise, in which case there can be noise emitted by the speakers (which your filter could address) and then noise emitted from the display itself, in which case a soundboard filter would not correct. Defects such as damaged output transistors are probably not remedied with a power fix. I thought the problems were more varied, but it seems a majority are supply power related. Anyways, it is always good to have products that help the pinball community. Good work!

I think many of you are forgetting the original fix for this. To buy a small power supply, I used the mean well rt50b (about $40) . You mount it wherever you want, tie it into a switchable 110 so it turns off. Then run wires to the connector that supplies power to the sound board and disconnect the old one and tuck it away. I think it's ground, +5, 12, and maybe -12 0r -5, I forget, but it's somewhere in this thread. It's not that difficult. I've used this method many times and it always worked.

I've tried the white north, an amazon generic buck boost, and a separate power supply. The white north and the generic buck boost completely sent my Rocky and Bullwinkle into a frenzy. Mpu went nuts. All sorts of chaos. On my Baywatch, they white north worked somewhat, the amazon one worked then sent the sound board into a complete tizzy (began making jumbled noises).

The isolated power supply worked best. I tap into the DBA harness power wiring, and run a new connector up the backbox through the wiring harness tube. Worked on both. Dead silent, and didn't interrupt the DBA wiring harness.

Hi and hope all is well on your end. You wouldn't by chance have any pictures of the power supply ( or where you got it) and how you tapped into the "DBA" ( not really sure what that is). I'd love to knock out the noise on my Checkpoint.

All the best,
Robert

What PSU does your R&B have? And has it ever been worked on?

For clarification we developed the WNR board using my personal R&B&F.

vid1900 was it Eastern Promises? Solid film.

Hundreds more on the way…
Now shipping world wide.
http://whitenorthretro.ca/

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