Hey all!

I am looking to build an Arduino "DMD Snooper". I am thinking an Arduino microcontroller connected onto the data cable between the pinball mobo and the DMD itself, where it can pick up the traffic going from the pin to the DMD and analyze it.

The main goal of this exercise is that I want to use the Arduino to be able to tell me if a specific pixel, or group of pixels, have signal to be turned on from the pin or not.

For example, some straight-forward pseudo-code:

IF DMD_POS(X, Y)=TRUE THEN
'DO STUFF, FOR EXAMPLE TURN ON THE ARDUINO UNO BUILT-IN LED.
END IF

I am quite confident in the arts of Arduino, but I cannot for my life understand how the DMD gets its data from the pin, or the layout of the signal (and pinouts). I have searched a lot on the internet and not found any specifics.

I have come across inventions that touches on what I am looking to do in some kind of devices that display DMD output on a PC Screen. This is doing exactly what I am looking for: Snooping the DMD signal, but it does'nt tell me how. I am not interested in doing such an advanced unit like a "screen-replicator" either, just want to check pixels.

I am a bit surprised a project like this hasn't already happened. If it has and I have missed it please do feel free to point me in the right direction.

My first business of order is to understand the DMD. If any of you have any specifics, please let me know.

Cheers!

Ah yes, the shades of the dots I forgot about. Good point! I guess that property isnt interesting tho, atleast not at this point for a first version. I'll just stick to find out if the pin thinks a particular dot should be on or not, no matter the intensity.

Until more information present itself, Ill start by measuring the wires somehow.

Cheers!