We're still busy finding a solution for the DMD powering problem. Since the Bride doesn't have the proper voltages coming out of the transformer we thought about a lot of possible solutions:
First we thought we could get all of the 5(!!!) needed currents out of the existing boards on the bride. But soon it was clear it wasn't possible.
After that we found a schematic of a DMD Power Supply board which is used in Stern and SEGA pinball machines. But of course that board needed some exotic input power as well; which also wasn't available on the Bride :(
Because by now the use of a Plasma DMD in the Bride seemed almost impossible to do, we took a look at some Pinled displays... A Pinled display only needs +5V for power and of course this is a very common voltage in a pinball machine. But a Pinled isn't nearly as nice as a vintage plasma DMD. A video on YouTube showed the detail you lose when using a Pinled. Another issue was the price of a Pinled display. A pinled costs about 270 us dollars. With shipping and customs taxes added the price could be well over 300 us dollars!
At this point there seemed to be no other possibility then go for a Pinled... As a last resort we decided to send an e-mail to Clay Harrell (pinrepair.com). Clay is a real legend when it comes to pinball! Sooner than expected Clay send us an email telling us that another transformer (5610-12835-00) - used in a lot of DMD pinball machines (i.e. CFTBL, T2, WH2O etc) could power the DMD Power Supply Board. At the same time I invited a friend over (Guus) who knows a lot about electronics. He took a look at the transformer from the Bride and compared it with the transformer of the Creature. He too suggested to replace the transformer in the Bride with a newer one like the Creature to get the right voltages for the DMD Power Supply Board he suggested to put a DMD Controller Board in the bride; just for powering the DMD. A DMD Controller Board also has a power supply unit embedded in the board. This might be a more expensive solution, but this way we didn’t have to do anything special with the wiring, because the Bride had all the proper wiring installed for this Controller Board.
So all we have to do now is find a new transformer and a DMD Controller Board and hook it all up in the Bride. We didn’t found them yet, but I guess we’ll soon do!
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