297 replies to this topic

[DedRok_V]

Do you have the knocker hitting against the wood or
do you have it hit steel plate.
Nothing beats the old school steel knocker hit.

[DedRok_V]

Now if my power supply board would show up for the TV, I'll be able to finish things and assemble it properly (rather than have the topper on a chair next to the machine, and a cheap little LCD TV for the backglass, and my backglass display as my playfield).

Youre missing out.... wait til you have the big screen running.
Awesome just doesn't cut it.

[Darkfall]

i had a look at your m/b it only has 1 pci x16 slot wouldn't that be a problem?

Totally missed this question. No, it doesn't cause me a problem - I only use one video card, since I only run 2 displays (the dual 46" setup).

Now if my power supply board would show up for the TV, I'll be able to finish things and assemble it properly (rather than have the topper on a chair next to the machine, and a cheap little LCD TV for the backglass, and my backglass display as my playfield).

Youre missing out.... wait til you have the big screen running.
Awesome just doesn't cut it.

I know! I totally miss the larger display. Especially since the backglass is squished on the smaller stand-in display (I'm too lazy to fiddle with my settings), so my backglass image is about a foot tall and 2 feet wide. Heheh. It's playable, though, and has been lots of fun while I wait for my part.

Do you have the knocker hitting against the wood or
do you have it hit steel plate.
Nothing beats the old school steel knocker hit.

I have it hitting the side of the cabinet on the inside, right into the wood. It sounds right to me - a loud snap, with emphasis on "loud". Heheh.

[Flying Dutchman]

Man .. don't I just love the idea of having a fullblown Backglass showing including the Grill graphics!
I might re-consider my 3-screen setup to swap into a 2-screen again!

Thanks again for sharing Darkfall!

Cheers,
FD.

Edited by Flying Dutchman, 07 September 2011 - 12:11 PM.

[DedRok_V]

I keep putting it back together to play it, so i'm never going to finish.
I'm thinking maybe I should have routed in a 50" BG now.

[Darkfall]

My new part arrived today. Checked it against the old part, looks the same. Woo! Screwed it to the mounts, plugged all the wires into it, turned the TV on and...Shit. No go! It just makes a high pitched whine like it did with the previous (wrong) board I bought. My god, have I blown something else out on the TV with my Frankensteining of the "wrong" board, putting parts from my broken board on it to make it work?

All in despair, I thought, "Damn. I'm gonna have to take this to a repair place and get them to figure out what I did to it." Bleah!

Eyeballing, I thought, "You know, that damn grey ribbon cable at the top doesn't seem to looks right. It's all bent weird, but it fits into the connector ok, and won't fit in the other way, so it has to be right, right? And yet, it seemed to want to fold over once, rather than be bent into the fucked up shape it's in now to get it into that connector."

I decided to eyeball my photos from my forum posts here - ah ha! There's one with the TV leaning against the wall in the background. Can I zoom in enough to see the cable? I can! And hey, I was right - it IS supposed to just fold over once and go in!

I run back downstairs, try my damnedest to stuff that stupid cable into the connector the other way - just won't go. What the hell is Philips doing??! *grumble grumble*.

Upstairs I go, get the original (broken) board, look at the connector. Saaaay...It's real close, but different. Just enough to let you plug the cable in the other way. Once again, WTF is Philips doing?!?

Downstairs again, I bust the edges off the connector on the new board, stuff my cable in the way it is in the photo, and voila! It works! Holy crap!

Weird that Philips would use a slightly different ribbon cable on just one model - the other two boards had the other connector. Why would they do that? Dumb dumb dumb!

Anyway...It's working. The emotional stress has worn me out. What a rollercoaster this TV has been! I'll put the TV in tomorrow (after I modify the cross brace that broke the original board, of course). I'm so happy it works. $630 (plus taxes) rescued and two 2 hour drives to the border to get parts salvaged *laughs*.

[bladexdsl]

I'm thinking maybe I should have routed in a 50" BG now.

Anyway...It's working. The emotional stress has worn me out. What a rollercoaster this TV has been

lol i would have given up, smashed the tv and gotten another one

Edited by bladexdsl, 09 September 2011 - 05:49 AM.

[Darkfall]

Anyway...It's working. The emotional stress has worn me out. What a rollercoaster this TV has been

lol i would have given up, smashed the tv and gotten another one

I considered it, then decided that it was all just crazy nonsense - that there had to be something screwed up with that ribbon cable. It was bent around a corner all stupid-like, and I didn't remember it being like that. If I hadn't remembered that, I might have done exactly what you describe.

[bladexdsl]

lucky you had a spare tv to pilfer the part from i wouldn't have had that option.

[zebulon]

Hot glue that ribbon in place so you don't have to worry about it coming back apart.

Glad to hear you got it sorted out (although I was thinking I might have had a lead on an easy fix tv.... )

[Darkfall]

lucky you had a spare tv to pilfer the part from i wouldn't have had that option.

I didn't. I had to order the part I needed. It was pretty obvious which part was the problem, given it was a cracked board from the heat sink getting caught while sliding it into the cabinet.

Hot glue that ribbon in place so you don't have to worry about it coming back apart.

Glad to hear you got it sorted out (although I was thinking I might have had a lead on an easy fix tv.... )

The cable sits on there pretty good - it was just the edges of the connector preventing me from getting it onto the header. I might throw some glue on it anyway, just in case some eventful nudging wiggles it loose *grin*.

You had a lead on a TV that would have been able to replace this Philips 46"?

[zebulon]

lucky you had a spare tv to pilfer the part from i wouldn't have had that option.

I didn't. I had to order the part I needed. It was pretty obvious which part was the problem, given it was a cracked board from the heat sink getting caught while sliding it into the cabinet.

Hot glue that ribbon in place so you don't have to worry about it coming back apart.

Glad to hear you got it sorted out (although I was thinking I might have had a lead on an easy fix tv.... )

The cable sits on there pretty good - it was just the edges of the connector preventing me from getting it onto the header. I might throw some glue on it anyway, just in case some eventful nudging wiggles it loose *grin*.

You had a lead on a TV that would have been able to replace this Philips 46"?

Nope....thought I had a lead on a Philips 46" that needed an easy fix..........yours

[Darkfall]

lucky you had a spare tv to pilfer the part from i wouldn't have had that option.

I didn't. I had to order the part I needed. It was pretty obvious which part was the problem, given it was a cracked board from the heat sink getting caught while sliding it into the cabinet.

Hot glue that ribbon in place so you don't have to worry about it coming back apart.

Glad to hear you got it sorted out (although I was thinking I might have had a lead on an easy fix tv.... )

The cable sits on there pretty good - it was just the edges of the connector preventing me from getting it onto the header. I might throw some glue on it anyway, just in case some eventful nudging wiggles it loose *grin*.

You had a lead on a TV that would have been able to replace this Philips 46"?

Nope....thought I had a lead on a Philips 46" that needed an easy fix..........yours

Ooooh! Haha. You're SOL on mine, I'm afraid. I'm keepin' it!

[Darkfall]

Got my fixed display into the machine today after taping the edges black with electrical tape and notching the cross brace on the cabinet so I didn't break the display's power board again.

I got my wires all cleaned up on the side with the bulk of the wiring, too. Also got a diode on the replay knocker - it didn't seem to be causing any issues without it, but I put one on it anyway.

I also mounted my "work light" on the underside of the cross brace and put in one of the microswitches for the back door that will turn them on when it's opened. I'll put a switch on the bottom door and coin door, too.

My next step is to make a few brackets to press the playfield display up tight against the top edges of the slots and install them, then slide the Sharp into the backbox position and make some brackets for it, too - then I can slip the backbox head over the display and screw it down, then mount the topper. I'll slap the glass plastics into their slots and mount the side rails, too. Everything will be fully functional and in place and playable as it's meant to be. I expect to have that done this week.

All that'll be left then is artwork and glass...and eventually a shaker motor (I couldn't bring myself to shell out $300 for a motor and dual H-bridge at the moment - though I'm sure I will eventually. I have assigned an LEDWiz output for it, so it's ready to go with some simple wiring when the time comes.

I have noticed that the Philips display is way brighter than the Sharp. I really like it better as the playfield display. The Sharp has this goofy auto-adjusting brightness crap that you can't turn off. It makes me nuts. I hate it on the upstairs 52" Sharp (that I use for a TV), too. I've tried a couple of times to disable it, and there is an option in the menus that looks like it should, but it doesn't seem to do much. The display will go quite dark if you have a black background, and visibly brighten up if you open a window or two. It's trying to be smart to get the best black levels, but all it does is make the display too dark if you only have a small area that isn't black. Being in the backbox with 30% of the display being black, it'll have some impact, but not enough to matter. The playfield display is the critical one - so I'm glad the Sharp is moving to the backbox.

I'll get new photos this week. Maybe even some video, too. Almost there (again!).

Edited by Darkfall, 12 September 2011 - 06:51 AM.

[maxxsinner]

Looking forward to seeing some more pics Darkfall.

[DedRok_V]

Thats great news. Glad you sorted it.

With the sharp, it seems to adjust to the light so if you in a dark room it changes.
If you turn on a light it changes.

Phil might have some insight, he is the expert after all.

I personally like the sharp, couldnt get a good enough picture on the samsung.
Sharp doesnt seem too dark, but you are right, it is a lot darker.

[zebulon]

If you blackout the photosensor eye, the display will go to bright mode and stay there. Have you checked the menu? There may be a setting to turn off the room sensing.

[Darkfall]

If you blackout the photosensor eye, the display will go to bright mode and stay there. Have you checked the menu? There may be a setting to turn off the room sensing.

I thought of that, but there's two different things going on. One is the ambient light sensor you mention, and the other is an adjustment based on what's on the screen. If the screen is full of white, it'll crank the backlight up full blast. If the screen is all black, it cranks the backlight way down. The problem is, if you have an all black screen with just a small white window open, the display remains so dark that the small white window is hard to see properly.

The Philips doesn't seem to have this problem - it leaves it's backlight constant, like most displays seem to. There doesn't seem to be a way to disable this feature. I've crawled through the menus and turned everything on and off, and nothing changes it. I went through all of this with the 52" upstairs, too - which is where I first ran into the problem - and couldn't solve it there, either. Movies that are dark (horror, for example) are just about useless on the Sharp. You just can't see what the heck is happening, because the screen goes SO dark - then bright as all get-out when the scene moves to something brighter.

I'm sure Sharp figures this is a good feature, but I think it's crap *grin*. It'd be a WAY better feature on an LED driven backlight, since it can then control what areas of the display it does this - when it's dimming the whole display based on some average calculation of the entire screen, it sucks.

[zebulon]

Gotcha....if you do a search on the model number and "service menu" you might come up with the means to calibrate the screen and/or disable this feature.

[DedRok_V]

Or better still PM Phil (player1), he knows that stuff backwards.

I dont seem to have as bad a problem as that.

I cant black out the sensors, cause I unplugged it all after setting it up, and the 42" I use for the tv plays movies fine.

Edited by DedRok_V, 14 September 2011 - 03:22 PM.