Willaims Getaway DMD Issue - Any Ideas?

tophatne1

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I have had a Williams Getaway High Speed 2 for about 10 years.

The DMD was not working when I purchased it.

This week I decided to try and get it up and running. Previous research led me to believe that my non-working DMD issue was cause by a burnt out WPC-089 DMD Controller board.
Well, I installed the new board and still no picture or any activity on the original Williams DMD. I've double checked and reseated every ribbon cable and connector to all the boards in the pin head....

I acquired a working DMD display that I was told was a compatible replacement for the original. It's a Dale Electronics- VISHAY- Plasma - apd-128g032

I decided to see if that worked with the new board. This time there was some activity.
With both the power connector and the ribbon cable connected to the controller board and the display there is still no picture. But, if I remove the ribbon cable from the display I do get some random leds to light up.

I would like to try is to replace that 14 pin ribbon cable to see if anything happens but I don't have one at the moment and would need to order it.

Please watch this video of this. If anyone has any ideas as to why this is happening please let me know.

Video of Dale Vishay DMD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K90OQmV1UA

Video of original Williams DMD doing nothing with new Controller board included in the spirit of providing visuals of everything I just mentioned.

Thanks everybody!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPWGfruKktc
 
you do have all of the ribbon cables on the MPU board in the right places & connected when doing this?
you don't mention it but i take it that the game is booting up and you are able to start & play a game just the dmd is out? cause it looks like none of the data/enable signals are reaching the DMD
 
The game boots up and plays fine without the dmd lit up.

Fairly positive the cables are all lined up ana snug. I doible checked that.

Unfortunately this is my only pin so I can't swap out parts.

I'll order a new ribbon cable and see if anything changes.

Thanks for all the input so far.
 
I overhauled one a couple years ago, pulled the DMD board and half the solder on it was toast. it was kind of a miracle it worked at all. but then I put it all back together and had nothing. there was some power plug I forgot somewhere. don't have the game anymore, but I would go over everything and make sure you got the power plug.
 
I decided to see if that worked with the new board. This time there was some activity.
With both the power connector and the ribbon cable connected to the controller board and the display there is still no picture. But, if I remove the ribbon cable from the display I do get some random leds to light up.

The fact that the display goes blank when plugged in says it may partially working - display getting cleared. The act of unplugging of the cable is loading random crap into the display's shift registers which is what you see.
FYI - it is never a good idea to plug and unplug connectors like this with live power. Consider the source from the WPC DMD board is mostly 74HC series components. These parts are very easily damaged and one or more of them could now be bad.

But like others mentioned - suspect the cheapest fix first --> the DMD cable.
 
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