237 replies to this topic

[russdx]

Aurich would need to confirm this, if you disconnect the dmd power does it still try and draw current through the pinDMD interface? does the dmd try and light up? / does the pinDMD little square lpc2103 get hot?

[jasonsmith]

Ultimately this would only be an issue if the DMD is powered OFF and the pinDMD is powered ON? If the whole works is off then no big deal??

[Aurich]

Nope, fine to stay connected.

[russdx]

Ultimately this would only be an issue if the DMD is powered OFF and the pinDMD is powered ON? If the whole works is off then no big deal??

correct

looks like its fine either way though which is good to know

[Aurich]

Actually I guess I haven't tested it fully the way you mean Russ, since I'm powering the DMD from the PC's power supply right now, so if the PC is off the DMD is off. I haven't disconnected the wires though. I'm having trouble even envisioning the scenario you're concerned about actually occurring.

Either way, with my setup, the PC is off, the pinDMD's little red light is on, the DMD is off and has been for days, and the pinDMD board isn't warm.

[russdx]

if the little red light is on its still getting some power hehe, and if its not getting hot sounds like the xpin dmd's have be designed correctly

[jasonsmith]

I think if you had the DMD powered by an external PS that doesn't turn off with the PC that may create the situation. I have a real old PS so powering the DMD off of it may be a stretch, don't know how many watts it uses. Curious though, where is your pinDMD getting power from, is it not connected to the PC as well. Is your PC sleeping leaving the USB ports active for waking purposes maybe.

[Aurich]

Is your PC sleeping leaving the USB ports active for waking purposes maybe.

Yeah, I assume so. It's obviously not an issue, so not worrying about it!

When I turn the PC on the DMD wakes up with the last image that was on it before I shut down the PC, so I imagine the pinDMD is remaining state aware with whatever power it's pulling from the 'off' PC.

[russdx]

If its remembering last image its stayin alive (just) this is not a problem.


Its only pinLED tht seams to draw current all other displays are fine

[jasonsmith]

Aurich would you be able to provide a pic of how you have connect the molex power to the back of the X-Pin, being just 4 pins coming out the back I'm not sure which way is up and which is down etc. The board doesn't show what is what either other than the pin numbers 1 - 4

Thanks

[Aurich]

Yeah, it's like this, if you're viewing the board's back, with the XPin logo on the lower right, there are 4 pins like so:

|||| (logo), so call those 1234.

Put your 5V hot on 1 and ground on 3.

I just have bare wires electric taped on ghetto style right now while it's sitting in my test station.

[jasonsmith]

Okay, thank you. I'll probably do the same ghetto work while I test it out as well

[rockyrocket]

Wow! very well done.

[jasonsmith]

Yeah, it's like this, if you're viewing the board's back, with the XPin logo on the lower right, there are 4 pins like so:

|||| (logo), so call those 1234.

Put your 5V hot on 1 and ground on 3.

I just have bare wires electric taped on ghetto style right now while it's sitting in my test station.

Just another quick question Aurich. I powered it up as you suggested but I don't have a pinDMD yet. My goal was to power it up and hit the test button to make sure all was well but I can't get it to test with just power connected. Once connected I get 7 vertical lines, 1 then a few blocks of space then 6 kinda even spaced lines. 

 

Is this normal, are you able to test without a pinDMD connected? Does it need more connections than just 5v and ground? Why would all four pins still be left in there?

 

Sorry, that was more than one question

[Aurich]

Just tested for you. The test button does not work when not hooked up to the pinDMD, even with the power connected. So I would say you're fine and that's normal. Sucks to have to be patient to really find out though!

[jasonsmith]

Thanks for testing, the suspense is killing me. I just wanna see the board the light up, it's gonna look so cool. 

[russdx]

im not surprised the dmd doesn't do any thing without the pinDMD they are basically just a bunch of shift registers with some row counting logic, without the pinDMD giving it the row scan clock and the row reset signal and the latch signal and so on the display aint gonna be doing any thing lol. i think all that test button will do is hold the dot data signal high to simply just light the whole display so you can check for dead pixels easily. but for it to work the display needs all the other active signals working or it aint doin shit hehe

[Aurich]

FYI Brett (XPin owner) confirmed what Russ was saying above.

Edited by Aurich, 09 December 2012 - 06:24 AM.

[russdx]

ah cool good guess then lol

[aupton]

This is awesome! Totally blown away. I just signed up for the PinDMD2 - I'm totally in if there's a way to use it with both Pinmame and Future Pinball. It doesn't look like the FP table authors need to do anything if I understand correctly ? This piece of middle-ware is magically capable of figuring out where the DMD code lies with in FP ? I'd love to learn more about how it works.