PIN2DMD – RGB LED Dot Matrix Display

$310.00

A FULL COLOUR LED Dot Matrix Display for Virtual and Real Pinball – pictures don’t do them justice!
Now featuring the new Evo Boards with updated firmware.
Nov 2021 – Item temporarily unavailable. Due to shortages in certain components their costs have skyrocketed to the point where we are no longer comfortable simply raising the price, so we’ve decided to discontinue sale of the PIN2DMD until the situation improves. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Clear

Please note that due to the global chip shortage, we’ve had to drastically increase the price of our PIN2DMD units to simply cover costs. The main chip used on these boards has jumped in price nearly tenfold since the start of 2021!

This unit uses a 128×32 pixel RGB Dot Matrix Display panel, mated up to some very clever hardware and software developed by the PIN2DMD project. The end result is a full colour DMD unit ready to be installed and used in your Virtual Pinball machine. They can also be used as a direct replacement in REAL Pinball Machines!


Works in Windows with the following software:

  • Visual Pinball/PinMame
  • Future Pinball (using “DMD Interceptor” DLL)
  • Unit3d Pinball
  • Ultra DMD
  • PinballX / XDMD
  • Pinball FX2 (using DMDEXT utility)
  • The Pinball Arcade (using DMDEXT utility)

The DMD unit comes mounted to a frame ready for installation into your cabinet. The interface circuitboards are pre-configured and mounted to the back of the frame with all wiring in place. So literally all you do is plug in the power supply that’s included with the DMD, connect its USB cable to your PC, then copy some files to your PC from the supplied CD and away you go.

ADDITIONAL PURCHASE REQUIREMENT:

In addition to the purchase cost, you will need to make a “donation” of 10 Euro to the PIN2DMD project to receive an Activation Code to unlock the firmware installed into the unit. This is an anti-piracy measure they’ve had to put in place and the fee is referred to as a donation, with all proceeds going to charity.
We’ll have you do this once your DMD unit is assembled and once obtained, you send us the Activation Code File. This enables us to fully test your DMD unit before packing it and sending it to you.


What’s Included – Virtual Pinball:

  • A Fully assembled and pre-configured RGB DMD Unit
  • 12v Power Supply
  • CD containing instructions, Activation Code File, PIN2DMD utility and other assorted support files

What’s Included – REAL Pinball:

  • A Fully assembled RGB DMD Unit pre-configured to work in the machine of your choice
  • 12v Power Supply
  • SD Card containing the unit’s Activation Code File and associated colour palette file(s)

IMPORTANT NOTE:

PIN2DMD is an open source project that relies on interest from the Virtual Pinball community to continue expanding. So by all means become involved and help to grow the project!

PIN2DMD Colour Palettes are being created by members of the pinballing community as an ongoing process and whilst the focus is mainly on VIRTUAL Pinball, many of the projects are adapted so they are also work REAL Pinball machines.

The creation process is very time consuming and whilst some authors are happy to make their palettes available for free, others will charge a small “donation” to help compensate for the time they have invested. We consider this a small price to pay for the outstanding work they do and at the end of the day you have a full coloured PIN2DMD that costs about half that of its main competitor!

The main source for these colour palettes is www.vpuniverse.com where there is a forum section dedicated to PIN2DMD Colourisation projects. For you convenience we have include a list below of both Free and “Donation Required” titles – if your machine isn’t listed then don’t despair as we can still create a “Generic” palette. See below for more info on those.


Free to download

The following full colour palettes are available for download without additional cost. To simplify the process we will include all the necessary files as part of the configuration of your PIN2DMD unit.

  • Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
  • Austin Powers
  • Creature from the Black Lagoon
  • Flintstones, The
  • Gilligan’s Island
  • Godzilla
  • High Speed II, The Getaway
  • Indianapolis 500
  • Lethal Weapon 3
  • Roller Coaster Tycoon
  • Terminator 2
  • Scared Stiff
  • Star Trek Next Generation
  • Star Wars (Data East)
  • Street Fighter II
  • Super Mario Bros.
  • White Water
  • World Cup Soccer

Donation Required Palettes

For any of the following you will need to get in contact with the individual author (via VPUniverse) to arrange a donation, upon which they will supply you with the relevant file(s). Each title in the list is linked directly to its Project Thread at VPUniverse – just click on the one you want to be taken there. You’ll need to join the VPUniverse forums before you can message the author, but this is a painless process.

Once you have the file(s), just forward them to us so we can pre-configure your PIN2DMD unit.

Please understand that these palettes are created by members of the pinball community and are not commercial products, so authors cannot guarantee that their colouring will be perfect. Most of them are pretty darn close, though!

From author NetzZwerg. Donations of $25 USD per title.

From author MydknyteStyrm. Donations of $25 USD per title.

From author Hazurdous. Donations of $25 USD per title.

From author cb3.Donations of $25 USD per title.

From author vbobrusev. Donations of $25 USD per title.

From author Endprodukt. Donations of 25 Euro per title.

From author President. Donations of 25 Euro per title.

From author pinovogel. Donations of 15 Euro per title.


Stern Colourisation Projects

Stern SAM and Spike system titles work differently in that a patched bin file needs to be installed in the actual game, 2 colour files loaded onto a micro SD card on the PIN2DMD unit.

You will need a PC based program called Pinball Browser to patch the bin and you will also need to fabricate have to build a serial cable. Read about it here: Pinball Browser Software.

There is much discussion about this process on the Pinside forums and we encourage you to read up on what others have done: Pinball-Browser: Customize your game!


Generic Palettes

If there is no full colour palette available for your desired machine, or you prefer a simpler looking display, we can create a generic colour palette for you. Traditional DMDs are only capable of displaying 4 separate brightness settings of a single colour, which are 0%, 33%, 66% and 100%. Each of those can be replaced with an RGB code, so instead you could have 4 different colours e.g. 0% = Red, 33% = Blue, 66% = Yellow and 100% = Green. Now that combo probably wouldn’t look the best, but hopefully you get the idea!

These palettes are very simple to create, so if you are not happy with the initial colours we will provide you with the PIN2DMD utility that runs on PC with which to create your own replacement palette(s) to try out.