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TAF - fitting a Pin2DMD Colour display question

Nilos

Nilos

Registered
Joined
Sep 4, 2022
Messages
82
Location
Sutton, London
Hi guys,

I'm looking at buying a new pin2DMD colour display for my TAF.
Would this fit?
www.ebay.co.uk

Pin2dmd , flipper pinball Dot Matrix remplacement Bally williams sega stern | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Pin2dmd , flipper pinball Dot Matrix remplacement Bally williams sega stern at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.
www.ebay.co.uk

Also, is it just plug and play, I mean does it need any additional driver board or is anything else I would need to be aware of?
The auction says something about a license file and a colourization file.
If this is the right part, is it easy enough to install the files and get it up and running?

Thank you,

Nilos
 
Nilos said:
Hi guys,

I'm looking at buying a new pin2DMD colour display for my TAF.
Would this fit?
www.ebay.co.uk

Pin2dmd , flipper pinball Dot Matrix remplacement Bally williams sega stern | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Pin2dmd , flipper pinball Dot Matrix remplacement Bally williams sega stern at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.
www.ebay.co.uk

Also, is it just plug and play, I mean does it need any additional driver board or is anything else I would need to be aware of?
The auction says something about a license file and a colourization file.
If this is the right part, is it easy enough to install the files and get it up and running?

Thank you,

Nilos
Click to expand...
Pretty much plug and play as long as the one you buy comes with the required power lead for your pin, some don't. Most will have the activation code already sorted, otherwise you need to get this form software creator, around 20 euros I think, best buying a display with this already sorted. You then need to buy the colour files from the creator in the form of a donation, around 20 euros. You can get TAF here https://vpuniverse.com/forums/topic/3746-the-addams-family-colorization/), you then put these files onto a micro SD card that plugs into the display.

Best to buy from the link sent by sharps as you can get a display for TAF with the license and colour files already set up ready to go
 
Caveat emptor/buyer beware - GGS reputation around the web is sketchy to say the least. I don't have an alternative, just saying you should do your research before you hand over any money.
 
Yeah don't order from there. I had to claw my money back last time.
 
Nilos said:
Hi guys,

I'm looking at buying a new pin2DMD colour display for my TAF.
Would this fit?
www.ebay.co.uk

Pin2dmd , flipper pinball Dot Matrix remplacement Bally williams sega stern | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Pin2dmd , flipper pinball Dot Matrix remplacement Bally williams sega stern at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.
www.ebay.co.uk

Also, is it just plug and play, I mean does it need any additional driver board or is anything else I would need to be aware of?
The auction says something about a license file and a colourization file.
If this is the right part, is it easy enough to install the files and get it up and running?

Thank you,

Nilos
Click to expand...
I don't think these ones are supported any more.
 
Thank you everyone for the advices.
There is much else available from what I can see.
Some sites in US, but they are very expensive.
I'll check if there are any reviews on the GGS supplier.
I would have thought I would find more choice to be honest, given that these DMD colour display work on a list of pinballs, not just the TAF...
Let's see, perhaps I didn't look hard enough
 
I am the owner of GermanGamingSupplies and yes, some of the reviews are really bad. I can't and won't deniy it.
I think i shipped more pin2dmds then most people believe and i don't care anymore what others say :D

The ebay item seems legit but is another custom board and if you face issues with it you won't get much help from others as no one knows that stuff except from the seller.
Whenever possible, try to get evolution boards. Yes, even from me if you like. Unfortunately the new batch did not arrive yet so i won't have them available for another week or so.
Just ALWAYS make sure you get such stuff from businesses and not from quick buck hunters/ pseudo group-buys where you get ripped off by your "friends" from the forums.
 
Nilos said:
Thank you everyone for the advices.
There is much else available from what I can see.
Some sites in US, but they are very expensive.
I'll check if there are any reviews on the GGS supplier.
I would have thought I would find more choice to be honest, given that these DMD colour display work on a list of pinballs, not just the TAF...
Let's see, perhaps I didn't look hard enough
Click to expand...
i got mine of here, brand new reg and tz files ready to go from this site, as did 6 others for about £220 delivered . I've also got the addams family gold, i just got the file from NetzZwerg from vp universe for £18...as a donation for his hard work, its very good. yes there is a shortage of the pin2dmd, i need a few more. i would say the evo version is great, very bright , personally i think better than the colour lcd.. just hold tight for a week or 2 to get from a good seller.
 
Rappelbox said:
I am the owner of GermanGamingSupplies and yes, some of the reviews are really bad. I can't and won't deniy it.
I think i shipped more pin2dmds then most people believe and i don't care anymore what others say :D

The ebay item seems legit but is another custom board and if you face issues with it you won't get much help from others as no one knows that stuff except from the seller.
Whenever possible, try to get evolution boards. Yes, even from me if you like. Unfortunately the new batch did not arrive yet so i won't have them available for another week or so.
Just ALWAYS make sure you get such stuff from businesses and not from quick buck hunters/ pseudo group-buys where you get ripped off by your "friends" from the forums.
Click to expand...
can you pm when you get stock please, need another evo and a batman forever, thanks
 
I didn't realise I could get an LCD rather than LED for the TAF.
I'd guess an LCD is probably a better choice.
I see some you guys guys adopted that option:

TAF - THING LED board mod (to use ColorDMD LCD)

Hi all, There's a guy on Pinside who looks to have created a pretty slick THING LED board to allow a ColorDMD LCD to be fitted in its normal position (thus allowing the back panel to be opened without dropping the speaker panel)...
www.pinballinfo.com www.pinballinfo.com
What would you recommend?
 
Nilos said:
I didn't realise I could get an LCD rather than LED for the TAF.
I'd guess an LCD is probably a better choice.
I see some you guys guys adopted that option:

TAF - THING LED board mod (to use ColorDMD LCD)

Hi all, There's a guy on Pinside who looks to have created a pretty slick THING LED board to allow a ColorDMD LCD to be fitted in its normal position (thus allowing the back panel to be opened without dropping the speaker panel)...
www.pinballinfo.com www.pinballinfo.com
What would you recommend?
Click to expand...
The LCD one is from another brand called colordmd, they do both LCD and LED. They are much more expensive currently at 440 on this UK site. Generally the colourizations on this brand are better, but I believe the colour on the pin2dmd for TAF is pretty good. I have 7 pin2dmd and I have chosen pin2dmd based mainly on price, saying that I paid below 150 for mine, just shows you how prices have gone up
 
AlanJ said:
ColourDMD LCD in my TAF - fantastic! Plug it in and it works outta the box - no ****ing about with licence files and all that crap.
Click to expand...
Did you have to mess around with the THING led light board?
I read some guys had to adjust the thing board as it didn’t fit anymore although the newer version seems to be accommodating that better.
Where did you get yours from?

Thank you
 
The pin2dmd on the top of this page is incredibly old technology. They wont take the latest firmware.

I have probably owned 20+ pin2dmds over the years and they are okay. The best results I have had is fitting them in Stern games.

It seems in Bally/Williams they dont seem to work 100%

Plus if you want to take one out of a game and put it into another you have to buy another 20 euros worth of files, which is a rip off (virtual pinball guys dont get charged for the files).

If you can only afford £200 - get a pin2dmd. Activation and colour files could cost you another £40-50 on top.

Or just buy a colordmd, and if you want to swap it into another machine later - download some new files for free.

Color DMDs are twice the price of pin2dmd but are much easier and always work.

The best place for pin2dmd's is in virtual pins.
 
Pick Holder said:
Or just buy a colordmd, and if you want to swap it into another machine later - download some new files for free.
Click to expand...
Didn't realise you could change them - I thought they for whatever you get them for and that was it. So I could put the one I have in Roadshow into TAF ? (though its got gold ROMS - and in not even sure I would wanna since I got the gold colour files for pin2dmd i'm pretty happy with it. Course I got my pin2dmd s/h(
 
HomerRamone said:
Didn't realise you could change them - I thought they for whatever you get them for and that was it. So I could put the one I have in Roadshow into TAF ? (though its got gold ROMS - and in not even sure I would wanna since I got the gold colour files for pin2dmd i'm pretty happy with it. Course I got my pin2dmd s/h(
Click to expand...
The colorfiles for colordmd are on the website to download for free. You just put them on a USB stick and shove it in the display.
 
HomerRamone said:
Didn't realise you could change them - I thought they for whatever you get them for and that was it. So I could put the one I have in Roadshow into TAF ? (though its got gold ROMS - and in not even sure I would wanna since I got the gold colour files for pin2dmd i'm pretty happy with it. Course I got my pin2dmd s/h(
Click to expand...
I changed from pin2dmd to colordmd with gold roms in my old TAF and it was much better I thought.
 
Pick Holder said:
Plus if you want to take one out of a game and put it into another you have to buy another 20 euros worth of files, which is a rip off (virtual pinball guys dont get charged for the files).

If you can only afford £200 - get a pin2dmd. Activation and colour files could cost you another £40-50 on top.

Or just buy a colordmd, and if you want to swap it into another machine later - download some new files for free.
Click to expand...

You always say this but it's not strictly true.

Some artists choose to charge for their work, but some don't (myself included). The quality of the free files varies for sure, some of them are in my opinion, quite honestly, ****e. But without getting big headed, with the exception of DemoMan I believe my projects are on a par with - and in some cases better than - the ColorDMD offering; see STTNG using Okuda palette, or something as obvious as the 3d glasses lens colour in CFTBL.

Your claim that PIN2DMD real pin files are a rip off because vpin users get the files for free doesn't really work. By this argument, Williams & Stern (for example) are also rip off merchants, because the vpin users don't pay for those equivalent files, so how come we get charged £thousands for a real machine? Total rip off amiright!?!

As an artist who has spent hundreds or thousands of hours creating the rip off binary files, I am well within my rights to charge whatever I want for them, for real or virtual. There is an "unwritten rule" that the vpin files must be provided for free, but no artist is under any obligation to do so. Additionally, as you are well aware the vpin world is living on sketchy ground as far as IP rights goes, so the less profit being made the less attention directed towards and a better the chance the community can survive. Would you prefer that the artists start charging for their vpin work as well? If so then I can have a word with them, I am sure most if not all will be happy for the extra income - I don't think we all realised there was an appetite for this, thanks for the idea!

"download some new files for free.". As statements go, this is accurate, the files are freely available for downlaod, but they are not "free". Look at the price difference between ColorDMD and PIN2DMD - a substantial part of the additional cost for ColorDMD is, without doubt, paying for the artists work for their entire library of projects. If you sell enough displays at £200 excess, then you can easily offer all your files "for free" because they all get paid for by the excess included with all your display sales.
 
slippifishi said:
You always say this but it's not strictly true.

Some artists choose to charge for their work, but some don't (myself included). The quality of the free files varies for sure, some of them are in my opinion, quite honestly, ****e. But without getting big headed, with the exception of DemoMan I believe my projects are on a par with - and in some cases better than - the ColorDMD offering; see STTNG using Okuda palette, or something as obvious as the 3d glasses lens colour in CFTBL.

Your claim that PIN2DMD real pin files are a rip off because vpin users get the files for free doesn't really work. By this argument, Williams & Stern (for example) are also rip off merchants, because the vpin users don't pay for those equivalent files, so how come we get charged £thousands for a real machine? Total rip off amiright!?!

As an artist who has spent hundreds or thousands of hours creating the rip off binary files, I am well within my rights to charge whatever I want for them, for real or virtual. There is an "unwritten rule" that the vpin files must be provided for free, but no artist is under any obligation to do so. Additionally, as you are well aware the vpin world is living on sketchy ground as far as IP rights goes, so the less profit being made the less attention directed towards and a better the chance the community can survive. Would you prefer that the artists start charging for their vpin work as well? If so then I can have a word with them, I am sure most if not all will be happy for the extra income - I don't think we all realised there was an appetite for this, thanks for the idea!

"download some new files for free.". As statements go, this is accurate, the files are freely available for downlaod, but they are not "free". Look at the price difference between ColorDMD and PIN2DMD - a substantial part of the additional cost for ColorDMD is, without doubt, paying for the artists work for their entire library of projects. If you sell enough displays at £200 excess, then you can easily offer all your files "for free" because they all get paid for by the excess included with all your display sales.
Click to expand...
Agree, Some fantastic colour files out there for pin2dmd and for the small donation some ask, it it is well worth supporting these creators. As pin2dmd is half the price this allows me to have more in my collection as I can't justify or afford the 440 quid per machine or be bothered in swapping them around my pins. Keep up the good work
 
Al of the colourisations I've got for my pin2dmds are on par if not better than the colordmd equivalent. Often they have made better choices on certain scenes.
The exception might be Junk Yard (and that's just because I think the devil being red looks odd when he's orange on the artwork 😄), where we're gonna swap our only colordmd out of AFM and put into JY and then use the pin2dmd in AFM.

£20 is nothing considering the work that goes into them.
 
Ok, thank you guys for the comments and advices.
So, I gather that the difference between the pin2dmd and the other 2 choices (colour DMD LED or Colour DMD LCD) is down to cost ,of course, colour depths and the additional factor of having to add license/design files bound to the a specific game.
Although like you guys say, look wise, some design files for the game can be actually really good and sometimes better than other types of displays.
I only need to buy one, I don't own many pins, but although I could opt for an LCD colour DMD, I gather that even the LCD will show the image in 'DOTs' maintaining the classic feel of the TAF 90's game but with colours. The LCD doesn't seem to display images with smooth curvy defined edges (like a modern pin would).
So the LCD would only give me a slightly better colour depth in some instances vs the pin2dmd or colour dmd LED (all depending on what colours have been applied to those design images on the graphics card ROM).
On the downside, by reading around, on the LCD is the ghosting background light when playing in the dark (being really OCD or picky really) , so I would see a faint light coming through on the black parts.
I'm new to all this, so this is what I understand of these types of display.
 
Nilos said:
Ok, thank you guys for the comments and advices.
So, I gather that the difference between the pin2dmd and the other 2 choices (colour DMD LED or Colour DMD LCD) is down to cost ,of course, colour depths and the additional factor of having to add license/design files bound to the a specific game.
Although like you guys say, look wise, some design files for the game can be actually really good and sometimes better than other types of displays.
I only need to buy one, I don't own many pins, but although I could opt for an LCD colour DMD, I gather that even the LCD will show the image in 'DOTs' maintaining the classic feel of the TAF 90's game but with colours. The LCD doesn't seem to display images with smooth curvy defined edges (like a modern pin would).
So the LCD would only give me a slightly better colour depth in some instances vs the pin2dmd or colour dmd LED (all depending on what colours have been applied to those design images on the graphics card ROM).
On the downside, by reading around, on the LCD is the ghosting background light when playing in the dark (being really OCD or picky really) , so I would see a faint light coming through on the black parts.
I'm new to all this, so this is what I understand of these types of display.
Click to expand...


"The original ColorDMD LCD display uses a high-resolution, low-voltage, LCD screen to provide a full color replacement for the game's original screen. All displays support six different rendering modes including high-resolution upscaling to fill the space between the dots. The LCD provides excellent uniformity of dot size and spacing, regardless of intensity."

I have 2 LCD colordmd's one set as XL dot's and the other with 'hi-res upscaling'.
 
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