It is normal for the LED to work when there is a column out. I fix these stern led dmd's with new blocks. Whenever there is a break in the complete column, they will stay on during normal displays.

Interesting, though it breaks my brain.
I'm a bad LED. So every other LED in my row will light up at all times. But if you run an animation over me - I light up just fine.

Another case of that makes NO sense to my layman's brain, but right in the "That's just the way it is so don't worry about it" file it goes.

I suspect a bad/intermittent ribbon cable connection on one pin.
Just a guess on my part, based on the test and such.

Well, back for more.

Bought a replacement power supply on Amazon to see if that would sort things out. Same specs (I believe) as the one that came with ddebuss's kit - he gave it a thumbs up anyway.

Swapped it out and turned the clock on and... somehow I'm a little more confused.

So - last week. I reached to turn on the clock and saw a single LED lit at the bottom a column despite the clock being off. This had happened before. Turned the clock on and yep - faint vertical line lit up with a single LED out.
This is the picture from last week. The lights were on in the room.
047e5432aae03e941613ef1a8aad2c6027d57bf5 (resized).jpg

Today with the new power supply - I plugged the clock in and BOO - a single LED at the bottom lit up again.
IMG_8253 (resized).JPG

Turned the clock on and, well. The column is lit up as I expected, but it's considerably more faint.
This picture was taken with the lights in the room off and I can still barely see it. If it weren't for the single LED being lit when the clock is off, I'd never even notice or think to look. The picture barely shows it at all.
IMG_8257 (resized).JPG

Weirder still - and this is where I hope someone here can say "Oh - this is clearly what's happening...."
I almost missed this oddity and ended up manually setting the clock to 4:09 just to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, but.

Today's very faint line? It's NOT the same line. It's one over. Last week it was the 2nd column from the right in the 0. Today, admittedly faint as can be, but it's the 3rd row in.

Out of curiosity I just swapped back to the original power supply and the lit up line is still really really faint and it's the 3rd row.

So what the heck is going on? I assume I can rule out the power supply being the issue? Per other suggestions, while waiting for the new PSU I did reseat both connectors on the DMD a number times and they all seem as tight as can be. I also redid the two wires that feed into the screw down connectors on the RUNDMD board and they're nice and secure.

What to try next? I do happen to have a spare 14 pin ribbon cable, but it's a bit different than the one currently in the clock.
I have one of these:
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/036-5260-00
whereas one side of the cable on the clock is soldered directly to the RUNDMD board.

Further ideas?

Edit - oh yeah. For what it's worth, that single LED at the bottom that stays lit when the clock is off stays lit even when the 14 pin ribbon cable is disconnected. No idea if that's pertinent or not.

Edit again - OK, the above isn't quite right. If the clock is off, a single LED in that row will stay lit, but it will vary if I remove/reconnect the ribbon cable. I've now seen the top LED remain lit and what appears to be one more or less in the middle of the column.

Are these available in the us? I tried to order from the main website and it kept telling me my address was invalid

Replace the panel.

Sadly cheaper said than done, but of course that may just be needed.

Have a word out to someone I know with some spare DMDs. Will try swapping panels when I can.

for the life of me i can not find the dip setting for changing the colors on the rundmd white
anyone have a color chart?

found it! posted for future reference

color selectable dip-switch settings:
on-off-off-on-off-off = red
off-on-off-off-on-off = green
off-off-on-off-off-on = blue
on-on-off-on-on-off = yellow
on-off-on-on-off-on = purple
off-on-on-off-on-on = teal
on-on-on-on-on-on = white

on - up, off - down

I reflashed my SD card because it kept freezing and now I get this! You guys think the SD card is shot ?

952EF046-0357-4BD8-92D4-10F568DBD2B0 (resized).jpeg

Try a fresh one, then you will know.

Ordered from Amazon, will update

Ty

Same thing is happening! I can’t get rid of the lines on the initial boot up

Are you in the correct display mode?

I am not sure, is there a sequence of buttons I have to press or a special way of powering on & off

Just finished one for my game room, it’s nice

D8AE6D19-EB83-4119-AEAE-37083CB8EAC0 (resized).jpeg

yes.

The instructions sheet goes over it I think:

https://www.bostonpinballcompany.com/instructions/Run-DMD_v3.48_Menu_Navigation.pdf

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right…….nm…

Hoping someone can help me please, I have a problem I can't solve. I purchased new acrylic clock kit frame from a user here on Pinside, with a view to build a clock for my friend.

I went ahead and bought the RunDMD board along with ordering the LED panels from AliExpress....

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32707954744.htmlspm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.65144c4dlcyH3L .

Unfortunately the LED panels are slightly too big to fit the acrylic frames and the mounting holes don't line up. I've been through all the LED panels on AliExpress, but cannot for the life of me identify compatible panels. Basically there are 3 types available, 320 x 160mm, 256 x 128mm and 160 x 80mm and none appear to line up with the mounting holes in the acrylic panel as described below.

Attached is a photo of the acrylic frame with the following dimensions. Does anyone know which type of LED panels fit these frames?

Acrylic panel measures = 662mm (26-1/16") x 181mm (7-1/8")

the distance between hole centres on the red line = 130mm (5-1/8")

the distance between hole centres on the yellow line = 218mm (8-9/16")

the distance between hole centres on the green line = 288mm (11-5/16")

the distance between hole centres on the blue line = 127mm (5")
c85b44b1639e69b473fd9a2b78d28970c5ece4dd (resized).jpg

drill out the mounting holes?

dremel is your friend on these custom clocks.

I should have added to my original post that the 320 x 160 LED panels are just slightly too tall to fit between the standoffs that support the front and back acrylic panels.

The next size down, the 256 x 128 LED panels would fit if new holes were drilled, but it seems like a waste of space behind the acrylic panels.

Is there another size LED panel better suited to these dimensions?

I'd ask the person you got the frame from which panels they used to design it. There's at least a chance you'd be able to find a match.

This frame appears to be ideal for a P5 display

Having built more than a couple of these looking at your measurements I'm thinking this frame was designed for a matrix style DMD (not SMD) due to the hole layouts. This means Red only or Red/Green/Yellow modules. Most of the vendors have stopped selling Matrix modules in favor of SMD RGB modules. Like someone else suggested you may want to drill your own holes.

P2.5 = 160 x 80 x2 = 320 x 80 display
P3.0 = 192 x 96 x 2 = 394 x 96 display
P4.0 = 256 x 128 x2 = 512 x 128 display
P5.0 = 320 x 160 x2 = 640 x 160 display
P6.0 = 192 x 192 x4 = 768 x 192 display
P7.62 = 244 x 244 x4 = 976 x 244 display

Not totally related but I felt this might be useful to the people interested in these displays. Key message is order extras/spares...
When you order 2 similarly sized panels at different times it's not a sure thing you will get the same thing. That's why when I order panels I order as many as I may want including spares... Here are a couple examples.
1. For different orders of the same part from the same vendor you may not get the same hole layout even though the panels are the same size. I ordered the same part from the same vendor 1 month apart and got panels that were physically the same sized but completely different hole layouts. 2 months later I again ordered the same part and ended up getting hole layouts that matched my first order.
2. You may not get the same LEDs. I've ordered a couple batches of panels over a year. Fortunately the holes lined up good but the LEDs were different so the white color was different on one type of panel compared to the other. I ended up with a spare module from each batch and built a display out of it only to find the white color on the left panel didn't match the right panel. For that reason one my personal displays is a "misfit". Most of the LED panel suppliers will actually tell you that they are not guaranteed to be the same and that you should order spares for future replacements at the same time.

All fixed and looking beautiful! I have updated the SD card with a new one and following instructions. Thank you Reno

79A0D4CF-C497-497D-A498-3B39AAF05E0D (resized).jpeg

You're welcome!

Thanks for the detailed information ddebuss much appreciated. I did try that option, unfortunately I wasn't able to get the information needed.

What exactly is a matrix style DMD? A regular DMD as found in newer Stern machines? Or an older style LED panel, prior to the SMD style you've listed above?

I did buy two 320 x 160mm LED panels as per the link below, however the width of those panels is slightly too large to fit between the standoff posts that secure the front and back acrylic panels of the clock.

Identifying the right size isn't easy as none of the listings for the LED panels on Aliexpress contain overall actual dimensions that also include hole spacings. Perhaps it would be easier to buy new acrylic panels suited to the 320 X 160mm SMD panels? Anyone know where to buy thesein the USA? I'd prefer to utilise the existing acrylic panels, but the costs of buying & shipping LED panels may actually be more expensive.

This is very good information, infact some of the listings on Aliexpress state similar advice.

A matrix display is made up of LEDs attached to an modules (usually 8x8) then these modules are soldered to a PCB. The Stern LED DMDs are an example of the Matrix style. An SMD is one big panel where the LEDs are mounted right to the PCB.
Matrix (your frame is likely designed for a panel like this - 304mm*152mm = 308 x 152 display) : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1000001509144.html?spm=a2g0o.store_pc_groupList.8148356.4.625f2afbWVinGN
SMD: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1000001188219.html?spm=a2g0o.store_pc_groupList.8148356.14.67e5444fiJnMK4
Look closely to the matrix panel and you will see the black outer and the inner mounting posts. The panels your displays were designed for are likely not the same as this although you can't trust the photos.

The link in your earlier post isn't working.

I don't think I've ever seen the hole pattern listed so they can ship whatever they happen to get in. I can custom cut an acrylic frame to any hole spacing you have. PM me for details. To order a custom cut frame kit see https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1167-gameroom-mods/02382-medium-rgb-led-clocks-displays-and-frame-kits. Here's a link to some of the other DMD accessories I have available. https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1167-gameroom-mods/04742-dmd-accessories

Adafruit sells some panels. They probably publish the hole spacings. Not sure if Digikey, mouser, or any of the other electronics suppliers would have them. You may get lucky with ebay but they will likely not have hole spacing listed and all too often they are coming from China as well.

Lastly I have a lot of stuff coming in to do a run of displays including a bunch of panels in transit from China. This includes 100x P5 modules (to make 50 displays), 14x P6 modules (to make 7 displays) and 36x P10 displays to make some very large displays. I will probably post details on ordering here once I get some built out. I won't list them for sale until they are ready to ship.

My Run-DMD sits proudly in my living room but I wanted a clock for the basement and wanted something ‘newer’. Put this together, randomly plays videos from Spike2 games… well actually any mp4 you put on the card… but for this purpose Spike 2 games .

Running a Raspberry PI, with Chromium in Kiosk mode and some JavaScript and CSS. Pretty simple.

Any chance of getting a write up on how you did it? I'm more than happy to contribute for your time.

Shoot... I started another thread and meant to update my post with a link to it... I put the code on git, so anyone can take a run at themselves. I think the details are pretty clear on the git page but if they're not, let me know, happy to help more.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/spike-2-lcd-clock

I now have quite the collection. I also have parts to make a P3 display but I can't get it to work so it's not in there... Tempted to order a couple P8 panels for myself so I have the whole collection!
From top to bottom in the photo
- Pinball (p2.5) DMD (Single color) - 15.0"W x 5.25"H x 1.75"D
- Small (P4) RGB Run-DMD Clock/Display - 21.0"W x 6.0"H x 1.75"D
- Medium (P5) RGB Run-DMD Clock/Display - 26.0"W x 7.0"H x 2.00"D
- Large (P6) RGB Run-DMD Clock/Display - 31.0"W x 11.0"H x 1.75"D
- Jumbo (P7.62) RGB Run-DMD Clock/Display - 39*.0"W x 15.25"H x 2.00"D
- Giant (P10) Yellow Run-DMD Clock/Display - 51.5"W x 14"H x 1.75"D (+ Message - Prototype pictured is 51.5"W x 20"H x 1.75"D)

I have a bunch of displays and parts ready to ship. Not sure if I'll put them up for sale now or wait until I get back from vacation late this month...
Pinball DMD kits - Been shipping these for a while but running low and not sure if I will restock.
Medium (P5) RGB Clock/display - Run-DMD White versions - 11 ready to ship
Medium (P5) RGB Clock/display - Programmable versions - 10 ready to ship
Large (P6) RGB Clock/display - Run-DMD White versions - 2 ready to ship
Giant (P10) - I will take special orders for pickup in Atlanta. PM for details - Hard to ship... The prototype pictured is not perfect but I don't have time to redo it until early October.

Pinball DMD Frame Kits - https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1167-gameroom-mods/02128-pinball-dmd-acrylic-frame-kit
Medium RGB Frame Kits - https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1167-gameroom-mods/02382-medium-rgb-led-clocks-displays-and-frame-kits
Complete RGB Displays - https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1167-gameroom-mods/05352-medium-large-rgb-led-clocks-display
Misc DMD Display accessories - https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1167-gameroom-mods/04742-dmd-accessories
20210914_125109 (resized).jpg

So I’ve had a run Dmd clock since the 2019 batch that was getting made pretty regularly. It’s on 24/7 no issues. It’s has been in my pin room.

I’ve also had a National 13 pull cigarette machine for a while. While it’s been a cool looking art piece and gives some nice ambiance lighting in my family room, it offers not much functionality unless I get some gum or candy in there for the kids, and even then, meh. I was sitting in the family room on the laptop or ipad, and it suddenly hit me this could work and be kinda cool.

Pics show it all. Thinking I might change to white color to match the ‘cigarette’ color lighting. I’m also gonna have to swing by a window tinting joint for some scraps for blocking out the edges from the light bleed for the internal cigarette machine lighting, but what do you think?

669C1ED9-72C7-47F8-889A-E8731D50942E.jpeg

I have the Run-DMD ver b with HUB08 from 2015 that worked up until about a year ago. It just flashes lines now. I tried re-flashing the B134 image to various SD cards with no luck. Anyone have any suggestions ?

HUB08 (resized).JPG

PXL_20210925_171305935.MP (resized).jpg

Run-DMD (resized).JPG

try a new power supply first.

I had a similar problem and a new supply fixed it

Tried that. No luck.

Did you go thru the screen configuration sequence on initial power up?

Tried that. No luck.

It's totally unresponsive. The lines start on the right and move left

I had that happen.

But it finally stopped after fooling around with the screen settings and a new power supply.

I even bought new screens and a new controller.

The ribbon cable maybe but I wouldn't expect that for an older display. Does the controller go into the slow blink scan sequence.

Just 4 dots starting at the right side and extending to the left slowly.

There is a light on the Run-DMD controller. Is it blinking fast, slow, or once a second?

I have an early run, any way I can upgrade to have a remote? Sucks getting the ladder out for time changes

Oddly the remote never worked very well.

Too much interference from the displays and controller.

I mean, it works sorta, but not well.

I have 2 of them and once in awhile i can get it to sorta work.

Might have been better as an infrared system.

Shoot a message to Limpan . The at one time had an EXP-REMOTE that if they still have may be what you are looking for. Like pinballinreno said they aren't amazing but I find it useful enough to make it worthwhile. Fresh batteries and patience can make a difference.

There are directions to update the firmware to include functionality you may be missing, but if the board doesn't have an IR receiver on it or apace to solder one then you're going to be out of luck... I'd contact run-dmd directly to find out your best path forward.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/run-dmd-the-most-amazing-clock-ever-released/page/28#post-5964291

Woohoo! Today I finally put together a Run-DMD for myself. Thanks to Gameroommods for making it relatively painless and NullFlavor for the used DMD only 6 minutes from home.

IMG_3959 (resized).JPG

I have three used and working Dmds but they’re all the high voltage kind! I didn’t realize. Is there a way to use these with a run dmd? If not, Anyone want a 3 for 1 trade?

No, only the "non-plasma" DMDs will work.

They will work BUT you also need the high voltage supplies that run the plasma display. This is probably not practical.

Anyone on here have a spare non plasma?

I went to the run dmd site and seems they are all sold out? Anyone know where I can get the board. Would love to make one of these thanks