I have this love/hate thing going on right now with my machines. I decided to pick up a Rottendogs PDB to have as a spare/temp board so I could take my time with other repairs as they come up. The original still works, but it needs a little TLC and some repining.

Anyway, I swap in the new RD PDB ... and notice I'm getting ghosting on other LEDs on the same row in the matrix. Ghosting may not be the right term, but in this context I'm meaning lamps that should be off are glowing slightly. For example, on my ToM, 56 (Start Illusion) lights fine, but then 66 Safe Escape ghosts. 66 causes 76 Illusions to ghost, and 76 causes 86 Shoot Again to ghost. This happens on every row -- 14 causes 24 to ghost, 24 causes 34, etc., but not necessarily every lamp. (The LEDs are Cointaker non-ghosting.)

Naturally I thought it was the RD board as I didn't recall seeing this before. I pull it, swap the original back in. Turns out the ghosting is still there, but much fainter and barely noticeable.

So, not sure if this is a short, a diode, or other issue. I've bookmarked a few pages that discuss lamp matrix troubleshooting, but because I'm seeing this across so much of the matrix, not quite sure where to start. Any tips?

Good info, thanks!

OK -- here's what I observed. Each row test seems fine, but the column tests show the problem -- for example, with Col 6 on, many of the lights in Col 7 are very dimly lit. If I go into the single lamp test, testing for example 62 will have 72 glow.

One oddity I noticed (and placement here made this easy to spot, might be others I can't find) -- I'm seeing the shoot again #86 LED light and flicker dimly when -any- column is selected, but NOT any row (other than the row it is on, which turns it on). Not sure what that points to (if anything)...

Thanks all --

I spot checked the diodes and did a continuity check -- all seemed ok from what I tested (not thorough, just spot checked looking for anything obvious). Most of the lamps are on PCBs, so I unplugged those and no change.

Gundam -- will try that, but did something similar and no luck (plus, it's with both driver boards).

Is a certain amount of ghosting normal for LEDs in these WPC machines? With the original board in there, it is so dim through the inserts I never noticed it. But with the RD board, it's a bit brighter and more noticeable.

I've got Cointaker Premium non-ghosting LEDs in there, so wouldn't think they would ghost. I was thinking of an LED OCD to reduce the harshness a little, so maybe I should just go for it.

Update... Thought it would be a good idea to verify these were non ghosting LEDs and long story short, they aren't. I asked cointaker and got a quick reply. I didn't realize that was an upgrade option, as the main site has the ToM it I ordered listed as premium non ghosting, but guess I ordered from their older site that didn't have them listed as non ghosting. Great. Time from LED OCD.

Thanks everyone, and herg my order has been placed (and shipped already too ) ....

In the end will probably work out best that the cointakers aren't non-ghosting -- and for anyone who stumbles on this post, be careful of which site you are on -- the new or old one -- when ordering from cointaker to make sure you're getting ghosting or non-ghosting ... it can get confusing.

Despite the ghosting, I had a couple complaints about the LEDs being a bit harsh on the machine and why I was considering an LED OCD prior to finding this ghosting issue. I had put some softer, frosted LEDs in the GI where directly visible but it didn't make too much of a difference. This should fix things up nicely!

Yep, I decided to get the GI OCD as well ... by the way, herg, I ordered the GI OCD a few hours after my LED OCD order (might as well go all in, I figure), and noticed you refunded the shipping on the second. Classy. Thanks

For a few of the GI LEDs that were directly visible (about 8 or so), I put in frosted LEDs so they don't seem like freakin' laser beams. But I think having them at 85% brightness (give or take), plus making the flashing a bit smoother for GI effects will help. We'll see! If I'm lucky they'll get here Saturday and I can swap them in over the weekend.