Thanks for the overall list. Bummer that Dr Who was abandoned. If the existing files are still out there can they just be pulled into the current editor as a starting point?

Still lots of other great games on the list.

All right - I'm about to update my firmware. Reseating the connectors did not resolve the issue.

I'm still on 3.1 or so, but it looks like there's a 4.14 update which just got pushed. Now to refresh my memory about *how* to update! Hopefully that fixes my issue - this is really aggravating. I had run the previous firmware for a year or so before, so I think this might be something else. But I'll try it first!

If that doesn't work, I'll hook up a DMD and see if the issue is on the A/V board.

I'm assuming it's an EVO board. Download the pin2dmd.upd file from here:

https://github.com/lucky01/PIN2DMD/blob/master/firmware/latest/EVO128x32_EVO128x16/PIN2DMD.upd

Copy the file onto your SD card, put it back in the display and power it up. That should take care of the update.

awesome! thanks so much! that's really simple

Firmware updated!

Sadly, this did not fix the issue. It's like the DMD gets overwhelmed and fizzles out, then I just see some random dots on there. Could it be a bad SDCard? Does any temp data get written the card itself?

I'm going to try a real DMD before I make any other changes.

Trying a different microSD card isn't a bad idea. You should just be able to copy over your license file and then the latest colorization files in case there are any updates to those. Some microSD cards are questionable at best. Definitely worth using a name brand card from a reputable retail channel. There are a lot of fakes out there.

Would be interesting to know if the PIN2DMD firmware does writes to any NV storage in the chips (other than config time) and if it needs to write to the microSD card during normal operation.

I've been using the same card the whole time - but it's a non-name brand - totally unmarked, so who knows what type of memory is used. I've got a free card but it's a category 3. Should be fine, but We'll see.

I have the SDCard installed, but I will remove and restart.

I forgot to mention if I push the "reset" button on the Pin2DMD, it goes back to normal, but in a few minutes the problem returns, so that is why I think maybe it is not the Williams A/V board.

I am experiencing something similar with the TZ beta on a real pin. This EVO has been working flawlessly in the game with no SDCard for 17 months but when I insert the colorizations on the SDCard, the display works for a short period of time (with the correct colorization) and then fizzles out and turns black. Pressing the reset button restores the display but then it dies again a few seconds later.

I have tried at least 4 different SDCards, 4GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and they all do the same thing. Tried V4.00, V4.09 and V4.14. Also built another EVO board and it does the same thing too. The display cable is new too. And as soon as I remove the SDCard then the display is perfect again.

Also tried two different game firmware versions, 9.21 and 9.4H. With 9.21, the display seemed to last much longer before going blank, with 9.4H, it goes blank within a few seconds. I had applied the "anti-ghosting" LED fix to these firmware versions but I can't imagine how that would effect this. Have been working with the TZ colorization author and we are stumped at this point.

Curios if others have seen this too. I am thinking this is a bug with the new 64 colorizations but it seems I am the only person seeing this. Thanks!!!

I experienced this behaviour with an Xpin DMD controller. Additionally the Pin2DMD (different generations v3, v4 and EVO) would not recognize the machine's signal when powered on. I had to switch off and back on to make it "catch" the signal. I now reverted back to the priginal DMD board and problem solved. Currently have a PinSound DMDLux coming in and will see if that is better ...

Thanks for the feedback. My game has the original DMD controller. Without the SDCard and colorization, it synchs perfectly every time and works flawlessly. A local friend built 10 of these for his games and they all work perfectly too. The TZ colorization is a new 64 color format which was added in V4.00 so I am wondering if there are any other 64 color colorizations out there which work perfectly, or if anyone else is seeing this issue too. The TZ developer has not had any other reports from beta testers like this so there are TZs which work fine too.

The EVO is such an awesome design - thanks Lucky1 to you and your team for sharing it.

Man, I just priced out a batch of 5 and about died. They are really jacking up the price on the STM32 chips because of lack of availability. Hopefully they come back down in price soon.

My immediate thought with this was that maybe the colorized frames are taking more power and the power supply can’t keep up and it’s resetting the board?

This sounds almost exactly like what I am experiencing - although this is for my original Monster Bash and I don’t believe it uses the 64 colorization since I was previously on firmware 3.x

Weird issue! Could this possibly be a power issue? I don’t have any other mods on this game but if the power dips below 5v will this mess up the Pin2DMD?

Thanks lucky1 for continuing to support this amazing upgrade!

How are you powering the PIN2DMD panel? Are you connecting it to a 5V supply or to a single 12V supply?

I have mine connected to just the 12V power only. Before putting it in the game I tried powering it up on the bench with a 12V supply and was pleasantly surprised to see that it didn't take a lot of current to run the display with 12V.

5v - I have an external power supply I can try as well.

Sorry, my mistake - I have an external power supply. I haven't looked at the machine in a while. Looks to be 12V.

lucky1 I am powering this with 12V so this is using the onboard 12V to 5V buck converter regulator. The crash is very consistent and repeatable. With TZ FW 9.21 it would crash every time I enter the power playfield. With TZ FW 9.4H the crash occurs during the attract screen "Twilight Zone" build. It feels like a FW timing issue when it looks up the colorization on the SD card it is somehow mis-sequencing and then the display goes blank. With no SD card, the display has been flawless for about 15 months in this game. I am also running 0.52.

The one thing that might be unique to my game is that it has the anti-ghosting update to the game firmware. I built that years ago when switching to LEDs. It was a program which was applied to the factory HEX file which updated the lamp matrix section to fix the ghosting issue.

https://emmytech.com/arcade/led_ghost_busting/

Thanks again for the AWESOME support and sharing this design!

lucky1 I'll attempt to grab a dump file later today. This game also has (homemade) Stadium LED lighting connected to the same 12V power connector. I tried disconnecting that to eliminate the load and that does not change the behavior. Also, this game has a new "Pinball Basement" MPU in it but that design is identical to the original WPC 89 MPU (they licensed the original GERBs from PPS from my understanding).

As a control you may also want to try one of the original ROM images vs a patched version to rule that out as a variable too.

9.4H should not be patched, and OEM/Original.

Thanks for verifying this Coyote - now that you mention it I recall the patch program indicating the ROM did not need to be patched. So only 9.21 must have had the patch applied.

lucky1 I captured a failing data log and sent it through EMAIL. Also send you my beta PAL and FSQ files for comparison.

Thanks!

I thought of the same thing too - but now that Coyote points out the patch was not applied to 9.4H that that may not be a needed test. Thanks for the input.

Hi Lucky1

Bummer...

I borrowed a second pin2dmd from a friend and that fails in the same place too. So far I have tried (4) different SDCards (4, 16, 32 and 64 Gb), V4.09, V4.14 and V4.10 firmware and game firmware 9.4H and 9.21. The game firmware does change the crash scene - with 9.4H it crashes within seconds in attract mode so I can never play a game, with 9.21 I can get past attract mode and it crashes when entering the power field.

The only other thing I can think of is some compatibility with the timing on my DMD board - it is original to the game (have owned this title since the late 1990s). It works perfectly without the SDCard and had previously worked perfectly with the plasma display. Do you know if the DMD board scan rate can vary from game to game? I am wondering if the scan rate is faster on my game than others and it is exposing a timing issue within the pin2dmd firmware. I have 8-channel Saleae Logic which I can use to capture the signals if you think that might help in debugging this.

Thanks!

My testing with several different SDCards had the same results as well: the colorization crashes the Pin2DMD process.

I found that if I remove the SDcard and the Pin2DMD just goes back to default colors with no enhancement, it does not crash. It looks quite ugly! But it does stay working

This is exactly what I see too. Remove the SDCard and pin2dmd works perfectly! Install any of 4 SDCards and it crashes. What title are you seeing this with and do you know if it has the new 64 color implementation? Are you running original DMD and MPU boards or replacements? Thanks!

I only tried 3 different cards but same exact results for all. This is for Martin Knoppe's brilliant Williams Monster Bash colorization.

I do not believe it is using the 64 color implementation. How cool would that be though!

since this is a WPC95 game, it's using that combined A/V board, which is an original. MPU also original. Since the Pin2DMD works flawlessly without the SDcard inserted, I do not think it is an issue with that board.

I did not do this, I will try it!

I did exactly this with V4.14 and it fixed the issue!!! The root cause is that the PAL storage was somehow set to RAM and it needs to be Flash for these newer 64 color colorization files. MANY THANKS to lucky1 for his help, he debugged my trace logs and reproduced this problem and traced it to the PAL storage setting.

Unfortunately this seems not to have fixed my issue. I'm going to try downgrading to a previous firmware; I know this worked flawlessly before, so hopefully this is not a hardware issue.

No, it seems quite random. Sometimes it is during the Wolf Man animations, sometimes Creature, etc. It never happens during attract mode, always during a game. Is it possible the Pin2DMD can’t keep up with what is being required of it and crashes?

I removed the SDCard and put on the “white” LED setting and the display runs flawlessly, so it is definitely something with the SDCard interface or code. I tried to downgrade my firmware but can not find previous versions.

Send me your email via PM and tell me which one you want.

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Not sure if this helps at all, but my TZ 9.4H with stock display card, Pin2Dmd 4.11 firmware and colour files version 0.52 has never crashed.
But - my TAF L7 with Rottendog display card, Pin2Dmd 4.08 and colour files version 2.2 has "blacked out" about 3-4 times since the rebuild a month ago and 40-50 games in it.

That's awesome! Does someone sell the panel to house the larger display? Or does one need to fab one of their own?

nm, found it here: https://vpuniverse.com/forums/topic/5348-pin2dmd-evo-hd-upgrade-to-256x64-resolution/

It seems to me that STM components had a big spike in prices. do EVO boards support activation and operation of the old STM32F407VGT6 chipset? is it possible to use these chipsets? thanks

Just picked up a Goofy Hoops made by Romstar (Capcom). Does anyone know if the 256x64 display would be a good replacement?