Rottendog has discontinued the production of these boards.

Board number A-20516-50059 (for Champion Pub).

Now, there's one for sale on ebay for $2,999.00. I am not kidding:

ebay.com link: NOS Bally Williams WPC 95 Pinball Machine Audio Visual Board New Free Shipping

Where would I find a replacement for this board? Why is it that nobody's producing them?

Thanks for your input and knowledge. Cheers.

So you're telling me that a $5000+ Bally or Williams game can be turned into an expensive paperweight just by having this board go bad???????

Thanks ForceFlow. It says harness available "very soon". It's promising, but not yet available. Still though, awesome option. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks for the link!
Hm. Step 4 in the picture that shows how to install the new board, still shows the original AV board being used.
Am I missing something?

Product page still says "(you must keep your original and functionnal AV Board)".

Sure. I got that from your previous post. It's just that the pinsound web site has conflicting information eh? They say that soon they will have a solution that completely bypasses the original AV board. Then you get the adapter that's available on their web site, but the original pinsound board product page still says you need the original board...

GET IT TOGETHER Pinsound, jeez.

So what would be a good choice for a "WPC DMD driver board" for Championship Pub ? You guys have a preference?

AH!

MAD Amusements, is that you!?

OK, so in summary, to completely remove your bad WPC95 Audio / Video board and still have sound:

Order this for WPC95:

https://www.pinsound.org/shop/index.php?id_product=19&controller=product&id_lang=1

Which will automatically include this in the price once you select your WPC95 game in the dropdown list:

https://www.pinsound.org/shop/index.php?id_product=20&controller=product&id_lang=1

You must then buy this to drive your DMD (since you'll be removing your whole A/V board):

http://www.rottendog.us/DMD089.html

Is this correct???????

Pas de probleme! Merci beaucoup d'avoir ecris ici dans cette discussion. J'espere bien pouvoir acheter votre produit tres bientot.
C'est tres interessant votre carte.
Merci encore.

I thank you, Sir. This is a well formed, very educational post.

I was not buying in the '80s. When I see a game I might be interested in, I always hit web sites to make sure parts are somewhat still available. It never occured to me that such an important board, which is shared with STTNG, was rare.

Pinsound releasing their product as a full board replacement for the A-20516-500XX board is huge news then... HUGE.

It's about to get less sad when Pinsound is done re-vamping their web site. That's assuming Pinsound will have the SD card with the sounds for those machines though... Obviously if there's no Pinsound recorded sounds for your game, well, you'll be stuck just the same.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

I am buying the Pinsound board now. Woot!

pinsound board arrived, with their brand new wiring harness! got the dmd089 board at the ready too. installation to proceed within the next few days...

20170504_074456 (resized).jpg

new dmd board installed, right next to the new pinsound board. need to do some cable management, but it looks nice.

dmd089 board works in totally replacing the wpc95 av board!

as i write this, the pinsound board is extracting the sounds zip file that i copied on the usb thumb drive... I'll report later!

20170506_083601 (resized).jpg

WPC89 DMD boards are plentiful. I count this solution as way more than "interim". I call this the supreme solution, as I do not mind installing a DMD089 board. With the sticky posts that Pinsound supplies with the kit, it's a breeze to install. Both boards are mounted on these sticky posts. Easy as pie.

Update: On the first board-boot, I waited a couple hours for the ZIP file to be extracted. I rebooted the whole machine and there it was, sounds! Note that I had to reboot in order to make the sound package "engage".

I have to re-wire my speaker connectors, so in the meantime, I am running Pinsound via line-out to a JBL speaker (you know, the portable bluetooth kind). SOUNDS GREAT!

Well, cheap in a sense that a used "Williams WPC95 Audio / Visual Board" goes for A LOT these days, if you can find them.

Here's an example that's just nuts:

ebay.com link: NOS Bally Williams WPC 95 Pinball Machine Audio Visual Board New Free Shipping

Yes, you read it right. $3,000.

Indeed!

This is HUGE people. This is revolutionary. If you own a game from the list below, you are NO LONGER bound by the proprietary and unfixable Williams WPC Audio/Visual Board!

You are free!!!!

Bally / Williams WPC 95

Congos
Attack from Mars
Safe Cracker
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Scared Stiff
Junk Yard
NBA Fastbreak
Medieval Madness
Cirqus Voltaire
No Good Gofers
The Champion Pub
Monster Bash
Cactus Canyon

(not to mention all the amazing features the Pinsound board offers ya!)

There you go. My complete replacement solution costs $504.80 (for both boards, shipping/tax included).

It's not "cheap", but when your $5000+ machine is crippled by a bad A/V board, it's a life saver.

Longevity of the Pinsound boards are still to be determined. But with a brand new DMD089 board, I'll bet another decade of trouble-free service will be added to the machine, at the very least.

Right?

Careful there.

The harness "kit" that Nicolas Manaud (one of the founding brothers) sent me was not yet available directly on their web site. We've exchanged emails and he made sure to send me the correct harness, because he read this forum thread.

They are working on their web site and updating harness kit selections on there. I haven't checked, maybe it's up on their web site already.

EDIT: The new harness kit is a harness that cleverly splits the main J605 connector. It's cool. You can see it in the picture I posted above, with my 2 new boards on the table)

I do. But sending the board away is also a gamble. Correct me if I am wrong, but if it's the sound decoding engine chip on the board that's the issue, you're screwed because nobody has them anymore.

So yes, I am also impatient, but the truth is that I didn't want to send the board away, hope for the best and pay more than half the cost of the new solution in this thread. I don't like to gamble, and I hate having my machines down for months at a time...

Additional note about the Pinsound harness: It also included 2 new ribbon cables.

EDIT: Last night, I've heard a DE Star Wars with the Pinsound board. Real orchestral music (John Williams). Holy crap it's awesome. The sound effects are just amazing.

Could I please ask you for a list of techs that you trust?
I'll send the board away to have it fixed, either for a backup or for someone in/around Denver that can use it.
Thanks!

I think they have them aplenty. I'm just not sure their web site is up to date.
If you need it now, order from the pinsound web site and add a note or email stating your intentions.
Nicolas actually reached out to me to confirm that I needed this new harness.

Note: Pinsound ships from France, which is close to you. Ordering on their web site was the cheapest option for me, here in the USA.

Correct. It's fantastic!

Well, *IF* I am correct, you should be able to light up the DMD with the DMD089 without the pinsound board at all (guys, correct me if I am wrong).

Well, stop right there when this happens. You need to be able to extract the ZIP file on your PC first (to confirm it's not corrupted and/or bad). There's no other tricks. The ZIP file needs to be good for sure. Also, try another USB stick. Please note that I have read on other posts that you need a clean 5volt supply to the Pinsound board in order for the USB stick to mount properly.

I'm no expert, but to me it sounds like power and connector issues. Make sure your ribbon cables are good and tight (and installed the proper direction!). Make sure your molex connectors are conducting power properly. One pin that doesn't work, and it's all off, know what I mean? I had to reseat mine after jiggling them from the normal install procedure.

Another thing to try, Pinsound came with new ribbon cables, correct? Try those, and then try your old ones.

Also, you ordered the WPC-95 conversion kit, correct? It includes new ribbon cables, and a bunch of other cleverly-split cables, as well as a Z-connector (splitter) for the power delivery to the DMD board. The latter much be connected properly, or the DMD089 will not get any power at all!

Keep me posted.

EDIT: Post #34, look at the picture. I am talking about "J138 (splitter, use Z-connector if needed)". You'll need the included splitter. J138 is on the game's main driver board. You split that power coming out of it, and route it to the DMD089 board.

There are several posts about this. I think it's the "decoder/encoder" chip (cpu) that you cannot find anymore. Some old tech from yamaha or whatever company. Something to do with the sound decoder.

Broken glass eh? Wow that sucks. Sorry to hear that.

Now about your 12 volt issue. The Pinsound board requires it. If you go on the Pinsound web site:

https://www.pinsound.org/hardware-manual/

It will list and detail the red LEDs that should be on when all is well. Make sure all LEDs are lit. LEDs are:

5 volts logic, 3V3 logic, 12-18 volts power, 10 volts power and 5 volts analog.

I would imagine that any irregular power to any of these power buses would result in erratic behaviors...

If that's the 12v you need to supply to the Pinsound board, well, that's an issue?

I am not familiar with the boards of your game. I imagine you could feed 12v to Pinsound from anywhere?

well that could be an issue. system running led should blink like crazy when a game is in progress. it blinks when the pinsound board receives sound data.