It's Nigel Tufnel's clock. Duh.

Wife is asking for Xmas gift ideas and I've always wanted to put one of these together.

Limpan - any timeframe on when more MK2 kits will be in stock?

Alternatively - I'm not against the Edge or Edge white, but need handholding on sourcing the appropriate displays.
At the same time, I have no idea what the difference between HUB08 and HUB75 is. Am I right in that the HUB75 are RGB and can that you can select different colors? If that's the case and you want to be able to change colors - is there any reason to go with HUB08 over HUB75?

Last but not least - anyone with experience ordering from aliexpress able to post links to HUB75 and or HUB08 panels that would work?
Edit: or Amazon? I'm sure it's all coming from China regardless, but I do like Amazon's return policies should something go wrong.

Edit again - I think all my non-MK2 questions became moot. Just got offered a free Stern DMD from a friend that did a Color DMD swap.

My wife is cool and creative in a USPS delay inspired pinch.

ECAABEFB-B875-4575-9105-C3150815AC90 (resized).jpeg

Well, my wife kicks ass, but not enough to know to get me a Run DMD kit without having it pointed out. So I knew it was coming, and considering the USPS issues all over the place - knew that it might not be here on time. Momentary confusion at worst followed by "Awww, I woulda just put a note in a box cause I'm lazy."

Postman came through. Assembly going fine. One hiccup though. Assembled outside of the frame to test things. Made all the connections, plugged it in and immediately started up.

But...
135564528_433621764346287_7845539609367191283_n (resized).jpg

Any ideas on the far left vertical row? I assume it's just an issue with the DMD itself (got it for free - not losing sleep here.) but thought I'd ask before moving on.

Worst case scenario - black sharpie over that row? Thin strip of electrical tape?

edit - any chance this was an issue with flashing the SD card? Happy to re-do that if it could help. Pic is just the clock, but the animations are playing just fine.

edit2 - Well, I reflashed the SD card as well as two others that I had laying around. Issue happens with all three. If it makes a difference - the single led that's off in the picture does work and light up if it's used in an animation, and the others in that row do alternate between dimly lit and brighter as needed.

Will set things aside for the night despite really wanting to put this together in case there's a solution other than just blocking that row off. At least it's the very edge!

Thanks for the info. (as well as the kit) I wasn't very clear. The issue is that that row is on ALL the time, other than that one in the middle. But it's not dead - it does turn on and off as animations hit that edge of the display. Basically - that row is on as in that picture at all times, cycling on and off as animations pass over that row.

Edit again - just googled a bit and from what I've now read, you understood entirely. pretty tell tale sign of a dead led then? Weird, as I do see that pixel come on when animations pass over it, or sure seems like I do. Will send a PM about possibly replacing the module.

I'm either absolutely snake bit, something's horribly wrong with my DMD panel, or something's going on with my rundmd board itself.

Long story short(ish)
Got a rundmd and frame kit for Xmas. Used old donor DMD from a friend's AC/DC.

Had one dead pixel on the very left edge right from the start. Was on the edge, so I just covered it with electrical tape. Easy fast "fix"
A week later, I had another dot go out and ended up with a lit line on the right side of the display.

Eventually ended up ordering a couple replacement modules from Marcos and had a friend solder them in for me. Worked great.
Now roughly 2 months later - with the clock running maybe 4-5 hours per weekday (It's on my desk in my office) - yet another line is starting to light up.

Perhaps just horrible coincidence, but the odd thing - even when powered off - the LED at the bottom of the affected row stays lit. This is actually how I knew something was up this time. I reached to turn on the clock and saw the lit LED. Power it on, and yep - faint line starting.

The 2nd row that went out back in Jan:
kcL4CBH (resized).jpg
And when powered off:
cujkP4J (resized).jpg

This morning's bad omen:
188257877_528437601500041_4037944954933428792_n (resized).jpg
The unsurprising result that I expect to get worse over the next week:
2021-05-21 (resized).jpg

At the time the 2nd LED went out I was told that that should be a pretty rare occurrence. With a 3rd one a couple months later and this weird behavior with the constantly lit bottom LED - I'm assuming there's just something wrong. Discussed briefly with the friend that soldered in the modules for me in March.
Screenshot (resized).png

I readily admit that my knowledge of how these things work is nil, so any ideas where to start? Unfortunately I don't have another panel to connect for any sort of testing.

Bad panel? Bad RUNDMD board? Bad luck?

Thanks for the response. Not the answer I was expecting, but even I can replace a power supply.

Thanks for the idea. Brings up another thing that seems odd to me that may be entirely normal.

In each of the three times I've had an LED out - the vertical row containing the LED lights up as expected. However, when an animation runs on the clock - the dead LED does in fact light up when it's supposed to.

Ran the test sequence for the clock:

A bit hard to see, but the current bad row is just to the left of the cord running behind the clock. The dead LED is towards the top - 8th or 9th LED from the top.
As you can see though - it definitely lights up as the test sequence passes over it.

If this info helps diagnose at all - cool.

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.

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.

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.

Well, I'm back again.

Don't expect anyone to remember my issues, but if you're inclined:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/run-dmd-the-most-amazing-clock-ever-released?tq=&tu=Beatnik-Filmstar

Long story short - my clock has repeatedly had issues with dead pixels resulting in lit vertical lines. DMD modules replaced twice, fixing the issue briefly only to have new lines go out within a week or so. Power supply replaced to no effect. Single pixels remaining brightly lit even when the clock is off. When I last posted, the final suggestion was to just swap DMDs.

Which I eventually did a while back but life got in the way and things sat for the past couple months. I finally assembled the clock this week and brought it to work. Things seemed great for a couple days. Just got to work, clocked turned off but of course - once again I came in to one bright pixel lit even though the clock is off. I turned it on and as expected - one vertical line faintly lit up yet again.

Would really like a working Run DMD. Any new eyes on the thread have any suggestions? I don't really expect a replacement after a year plus, but I'm having a Hell of a time accepting that it's anything other than a bad Run DMD board. Every other component has been replaced at this point and the issue continues to happen.

Been using the micro SD card that came with it. There's no way to use a full sized card that I can see - the slot itself is micro SD card sized.
IMG_9420 (resized).JPG

In my case - the animations aren't corrupt at all. Everything runs fine. To my knowledge I've not had any power outages at any point while using the clock. Something is killing dots in the modules on the DMD itself. I've not had the clock run for more than a week or so at a time without having a dot go out eventually.

While it sucks to see that someone else appears to be having the same issue - I'm a little glad to see this to make me feel like I'm not going insane. I'm an absolute layman at best, but I fail to see how using a microSD card vs a full size card (which I have no way of plugging into the board) could make a single pixel light up even when the clock is turned off.

Out of curiosity I just removed the microSD card and plugged the clock in. The latest random pixel lights up immediately. If I turn the clock on it displays the time without any animations (as expected) and the line containing the single lit pixel lights up.

Well at this point I've swapped out individual DMD modules twice, the ribbon cable, AC adaptor and then finally swapped DMD panels. Replacing the modules and entire panel "fixed" it temporarily, but here I am with another dead dot and a vertical row lit up on my clock that somehow sends power to the display when turned off.

The only thing I haven't replaced is the board itself. Not only do I not have another one, but they're not available on the site and frankly I'm really not inclined to buy another if they were.

I suppose I'm pretty much just venting at this point, so my apologies to anyone reading this. Just wanted a cool clock and appear to have gotten a lemon.

Individual 8x8 modules replaced twice. Then swapped to an entirely different panel.

I probably have one laying around. May as well give it a go. Though I'll eat my hat if a micro SD card is somehow responsible for the panel receiving current while the clock is turned off considering that it happens when there's no SD card inserted at all.