We did this last year & darned if we don't find ourselves in the Christmas spirit again this year! Got the OK with Robin to have another VERY MERRY GIVEAWAY contest! And who can argue with some free stuff?

very_merry_giveaway_2016.png

If you've bought anything from PINITECH *ever* or you're a new customer in December, you've got everything needed to enter the contest.

This year, let's get a little crazier. More prizes right off-the-bat and an option to convert to website credit for other PINITECH branded mods and gear. Hopefully we'll have more than the 14x entries we did last year. If not, once again the odds will be incredibly good -- which is fun too

CONTEST RULES
One entry per person (ie. multiple posts will still count as a single entry).

You get an entry in one of the following ways:

1) Post a festive picture of something you purchased from PINITECH in-use. Add some holiday decorations, or a Christmas card in the background, take a picture with Santa or your dog dressed up as Santa, use Photoshop to create a winter scene.

OR

2) **NEW FOR 2016** Use the meme generator at http://www.memebetter.com and create a funny (or serious if you want) meme with something from PINITECH in it. Try to keep it somewhat clean lol. I have no idea how this one might go over, but could add a bit of fun.

Example:
deckthepug.jpg

OR

3) Post a comment about something you bought from Pinitech (ie. a diagnostic tool and how it's helped you troubleshoot, etc). Good comments are welcome. Bad comments should of course be heavily sugar coated

WINNER SELECTION
Winners will be selected at random the end of the drawing either via a random-number generator or the old "papers with names tossed into a hat" method. You have until end of day on 1/8/2017 to enter. Winners will be announced within 1 week from the end of the contest.

ELIGIBILITY
Anyone that has purchased anything from PINITECH may enter. New customers are also welcome to enter (ie. anyone that purchases anything in December). Winners will be verified via name as having been a past customer. So no shenanigans or you'll be disqualified and a new winner drawn!

PRIZE(S)
Three prizes will be offered this year.

• MAIN PRIZE - Assembled 64 Switch Matrix Tester w/ assembled wire harness of your choice
  (or you can convert that to $120 credit toward any "PINITECH" brand tools or mods)
• 2ND PLACE PRIZE - 64 Switch Matrix Tester PCB Kit + 1x unassembled wire harness of your choice
  (or you can convert that to $60 credit toward any "PINITECH" brand tools or mods)
• 3RD PLACE PRIZE - 2x 6264 NVRAM
  (or you can convert that to $30 credit toward any "PINITECH" brand tools or mods)

ADDITIONAL PRIZES MAY BE ADDED
If more than 30 entries are received I'll add a 4th place prize, if 40 entries are received I'll add a 5th place prize. Most likely the additional prizes will be smaller items like 1X NVRAM. Generally will try and keep it to about a 1:10 ratio in being able to win something since I'm a fan of good odds for contests. So the more people that enter, the more prizes that will get added.

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
Several reasons. I'm in the Holiday Spirit and wanted to do something nice for past customers -- all the awesome people that have supported PINITECH over the years. I like giving back when I can & keeping it fun. It's also great hearing from customers that I otherwise might not here from since a lot of orders go out without hearing a blip from anyone, so this allows for a fun way to get some feedback.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Pinitech!!!

CURRENT LIST OF ENTRANTS FOR THE CONTEST

Below is a list of people that have entered the contest.
Will update this list periodically as more entries are received.

1. dasvis
2. Billc479
3. Cheddar
4. RoyF
5. e_lectro
6. tomtest
7. Billy16
8. Davidh8390
9. j_m_
10. boscokid
11. CRWgxp
12. jwinn1812
13. bbriese
14. shirkle
15. maffewl
16. emsrph

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http://www.pinitech.com - "Pinball Inspired Technology"
Kits, upgrades and test equipment for pinball machines

I like your style with that tree in the background

That's actually a great example of a display to convert. Even if the display fully worked, it has obvious burns on the segments as seen in your photo since some segments are almost black. You can also tell just looking at that.. the 100s digit has fatter segments when compared to the 1s digit. Odds are even if they're fully working there will be some noticeable differences in the segments when lit up. Easy to pick out displays that shouldn't be donors.. digits will be crisp looking, no burn marks at all, segments from one digit to another will all be the same width... basically lightly used or brand new glass. Those ones should not be sacrificed... ones like yours, heck yeah!

lol. Woohoo 1st meme of the thread! Nice wreath there too!

She's just holding it like a pencil! Hopefully it's not actually plugged in..

Ouch! That's rough! Funny picture and story though!

I'll get you a replacement mailed out free of charge. Happy Holidays!

I think instead of bumping I'll just create some memes

Had to do this one..

santa_meme (resized).jpg

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM PINITECH!!

cat-little-kitten-has-christmas-spirit (resized).jpg

Haha awesome! I missed the Santa hats my first take of those pictures. Very creative!! Thumbs way up!

I like the spirit! Except it needs more cow bell!

Er.. wait, that's not it. It needs more Pinitech! But if you give it some cow bell too that'd be even better!

Rules for the meme's:
"**NEW FOR 2016** Use the meme generator at http://www.memebetter.com and create a funny (or serious if you want) meme with something from PINITECH in it. Try to keep it somewhat clean lol. I have no idea how this one might go over, but could add a bit of fun."

Since this is a very serious contest I have to take my own rules very seriously. Otherwise people that followed the rules start wondering why rules even exist -- questioning the meaning of life & their very own existence. Do they exist? Does anything exist? Are we in the Matrix? So you can see.. it gets pretty heavy quick, all because I couldn't uphold rules

Glad to hear it! I have had a lot of positive feedback on those conversion kits & have seen / felt the excitement from people. Truly great this year as one of the biggest rewards in creating things is seeing people excited. Someone recently told me the conversion displays were probably their favorite new product of 2016! Stuff like that makes my day

I'm glad to have created something different. Considering it took most of the first few quarters of the year to make happen & I almost cancelled the project a handful of times due to some technical and financial reasons before the BETA test, it's just been so rewarding to see people enjoying them and have them go over as well as they have. Many thanks to the early BETA TESTERS that took a chance, as much as I did -- and helped assure myself and others that the whole crazy idea could work. Thanks to everyone that purchased a kit so far & thanks for everyone that's taken a picture of their completed displays in games so others could get some ideas. It's been great being part of something that's been helping colored displays gain more acceptance in Classic Bally/Stern games -- and watching it all unfold. I share everyone's excitement seeing new pictures of games with colored displays in them. Hoping to fill up the RETROFIT GALLERY in a big way in 2017 so that it's very easy for everyone to see what alternate colors look like in many of the titles out there. When you get all your displays done, don't forget to submit some pictures for the gallery.. running monthly drawings for some FREE nvram and there's a ton of way to be able to gain multiple entries or continue entering in future months.

Did you decide on which colors to go with on Globetrotters? I have yet to see anyone mix-and-match different colors, but some games probably wouldn't look bad like that. Red and Green for Christmas!

Cool, your order shipped today! I see what you meant by wooden dowel (via a recent post), that's some ingenuity there in a temporary fix hehe. I agree, the PIGGY DEUX should fix you right up Let me know how it goes via PM or in the Piggy Deux Thread once you get the boards!

Depending on the color filter being used, the segments will be more visible or less visible. Darker color filters will hide them a bit more. If using the WHITE digits as WHITE then a grey/neutral filter will help both tone the display brightness down some (since without a filter the WHITE can be fairly bright) and also hide the segments a bit.

The segments being more visible when unlit / off just comes with the territory with led displays and happens with any display set. Grey/neutral filters are really the only "answer" to hiding segments a bit more when off, but that comes at the cost of dimming the display and may also make the color appear a darker shade. Plasma displays definitely get a point here since when unlit the segments aren't a bright white or yellow. Might take some experimenting to find what's acceptable to you.

Last couple of days for this contest! I'll be doing the drawing early next week and announcing winners so they can decide on their prizes.

Also just to let everyone know, I've been a bit under the weather the last week and that's put me further behind than I was expecting.. so it may take a week or so after names are drawn for me to get prizes out this year. This is also why shopping cart links are down for most items on the website and I'm a bit behind on answering emails. So bear with me Prizes will go out ASAP once winners are selected.

Winners Drawn! 16 people entered, 3 survived!

Names were printed and folded up, shaken around a bunch and then chosen by my lovely wife.

And the results are below...

contest (resized).jpg

Thanks to all that participated!

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http://www.pinitech.com - "Pinball Inspired Technology"
Kits, upgrades and test equipment for pinball machines