How I botched ColorDMD install and broke my DE Star Wars

Could be a short? Could be just timing? To much power draw for color dmd? Either way it sucks.

#3 6 years ago

JIM

Dkjimbo

Pinside member

Where do I even start troubleshooting this??

#4 6 years ago

BUZ

Buzz

Pinside+ Frequent

Replace everything that blew up and possibly that coil first. Look everything over and make sure you didn't accidentally get something together. Check how you hooked up the dmd. Power on with power to dmd isolated and see that you fixed everything back to normal. Then power off and plug in power to the dmd and see what happens. Best of luck.

#5 6 years ago

JIM

Dkjimbo

Pinside member

But somehow the colorDMD triggered all this so replacing transistors and coils and fuses won’t really solve anything...unless it was a total freak coincidence that after the colorDMD install the whole thing went haywire and those issues are not related to the colorDMD? The game was playing perfectly moments before...and the game wouldn’t boot after the color dmd install so the problem is more than just whatever high power issUe blew all those fuses...just makes no sense...

#6 6 years ago

UUG

minnesota13

Pinside+ Frequent

12y 61,650 1,474

What Buzz indicated:
The way forward is to replace all of the blown fuses. Replace any blown transistors and burned coils. Get the machine working again with the original DMD.

You didn't accidentally mix the two three pin molex connectors at some point in your install putting 12V onto the DMD driver board?

#7 6 years ago

AAA

pintechev

Inactive member

11y 91,300 4,437

OP
Quoted from Dkjimbo:
But somehow the colorDMD triggered all this so replacing transistors and coils and fuses won’t really solve anything...unless it was a total freak coincidence that after the colorDMD install the whole thing went haywire and those issues are not related to the colorDMD? The game was playing perfectly moments before...and the game wouldn’t boot after the color dmd install so the problem is more than just whatever high power issUe blew all those fuses...just makes no sense...

You changed the configuration of the game. Changed connectors, etc. reach out to ColorDMD for ideas.

#8 6 years ago

RBP

Dmod

ColorDMD

San Clemente, CA

16y 105K 1,878 7 23

Sorry to hear you're having trouble. It's unlikely the problems were caused by the ColorDMD display itself, as the display only runs on 12V and would not cause problems with 5V logic (booting) or solenoids/lamps running on other power supplies.

The most likely problem is incorrect installation of
(1) the wide data ribbon cable that runs from the CPU to the Whitestar DMD controller board, or
(2) the 2-pin cable that provides 5V power to the Whitestar DMD controller board.

Incorrect connections at the Whitestar DMD controller can cause problems with communication over the 5V data bus that affect both booting and CPU control of the solenoids and lamps.

#9 6 years ago

BUZ

Buzz

Pinside+ Frequent

Please post back when everything is running and good. These types of threads really help a lot of others on here. I hope you get this fixed soon and remember we have all been there and know how horrible it is to try and make your pin better and it goes south.

#10 6 years ago

LER

Lermods

Lermods Pinball Co.

11y 201K 10,858 58

I literally finished installing a color dmd on my tftc just a few minutes ago, no issues. Only things I can think of are you installed the ribbon cables backwards. The power supply connection is keyed so it can only go in one way, but maybe you bent a pin installing it, mine was pretty tight. Recheck all your work, make sure nothing got pinched, etc.

#11 6 years ago

JIM

Dkjimbo

Pinside member

Update!! The game is once again operational. After replacing all three of the blown fuses and doing a couple of very fast power cycles to determine which coils were locked on it turns out that a total of four we’re locked on. Three of the pop bumpers and the drop target bank reset. All four of those are run by transistors on the CPU board and all four of the tip 102 transistors were shorted. Three of them were on the same connector and one of them was on another connector. None of the small pre-drive transistors were affected and nothing on the power driver board were affected. None of the coils were locked on long enough to burn up and all of the diode’s checked out OK so no need to worry about those parts.So, what did I do wrong? Well the color DMD rep Hit the nail on the head when I first installed the color DMD I had reversed the five volt connector which apparently sent shockwaves through the entire system and did a fair bit of damage but thankfully nothing that isn’t easily repaired with parts on hand. Big lesson learned on this one! Sometimes it’s the simplest things that can cause the biggest problems. I had no idea that reversing the power connector on the DMD control board could literally blowout so many things on the CPU board. I depleted my on hand supply of tip 102 transistors but all is well now in Star Wars land and the color DMD looks amazing! Thanks everybody for your help and Encouragement. I am super impressed with how the LED color DMD looks and I’ll plan to pick up a few more for my other games

#12 6 years ago

BUZ

Buzz

Pinside+ Frequent

Sweet.

#13 6 years ago

JAY

jyeakley

Pinside+ Frequent

13y 115K 1,417 73

OP
Quoted from Dkjimbo:
Update!! The game is once again operational. After replacing all three of the blown fuses and doing a couple of very fast power cycles to determine which coils were locked on it turns out that a total of four we’re locked on. Three of the pop bumpers and the drop target bank reset. All four of those are run by transistors on the CPU board and all four of the tip 102 transistors were shorted. Three of them were on the same connector and one of them was on another connector. None of the small pre-drive transistors were affected and nothing on the power driver board were affected. None of the coils were locked on long enough to burn up and all of the diode’s checked out OK so no need to worry about those parts.So, what did I do wrong? Well the color DMD rep Hit the nail on the head when I first installed the color DMD I had reversed the five volt connector which apparently sent shockwaves through the entire system and did a fair bit of damage but thankfully nothing that isn’t easily repaired with parts on hand. Big lesson learned on this one! Sometimes it’s the simplest things that can cause the biggest problems. I had no idea that reversing the power connector on the DMD control board could literally blowout so many things on the CPU board. I depleted my on hand supply of tip 102 transistors but all is well now in Star Wars land and the color DMD looks amazing! Thanks everybody for your help and Encouragement. I am super impressed with how the LED color DMD looks and I’ll plan to pick up a few more for my other games

Nice! Enjoy!

#14 6 years ago

LER

Lermods

Lermods Pinball Co.

11y 201K 10,858 58

OP
Quoted from Dkjimbo:
Update!! The game is once again operational. After replacing all three of the blown fuses and doing a couple of very fast power cycles to determine which coils were locked on it turns out that a total of four we’re locked on. Three of the pop bumpers and the drop target bank reset. All four of those are run by transistors on the CPU board and all four of the tip 102 transistors were shorted. Three of them were on the same connector and one of them was on another connector. None of the small pre-drive transistors were affected and nothing on the power driver board were affected. None of the coils were locked on long enough to burn up and all of the diode’s checked out OK so no need to worry about those parts.So, what did I do wrong? Well the color DMD rep Hit the nail on the head when I first installed the color DMD I had reversed the five volt connector which apparently sent shockwaves through the entire system and did a fair bit of damage but thankfully nothing that isn’t easily repaired with parts on hand. Big lesson learned on this one! Sometimes it’s the simplest things that can cause the biggest problems. I had no idea that reversing the power connector on the DMD control board could literally blowout so many things on the CPU board. I depleted my on hand supply of tip 102 transistors but all is well now in Star Wars land and the color DMD looks amazing! Thanks everybody for your help and Encouragement. I am super impressed with how the LED color DMD looks and I’ll plan to pick up a few more for my other games

Nice! reversing the connector means you sent power through the ground, that will blow things up.

#15 6 years ago

JAY

Phat_Jay

Pinside+ Frequent

7y 111K 2,309

In light of facts, you might want to change title to something less accusatory of colordmd imho.

#16 6 years ago

YZF

yzfguy

Pinside+ Frequent

12y 146K 11,175 7

Quoted from Phat_Jay:
In light of facts, you might want to change title to something less accusatory of colordmd imho.

I was waiting til the end of this to post this very thing!

#17 6 years ago

JIM

Dkjimbo

Pinside member