XPin DMDs - Confirmed compatible with the pinDMD board (with video)

[Aurich]

We've been wondering for a while if the LED DMDs from Xpin (product page) were compatible with Russ' pinDMD board. Someone was looking into it, but then seemed to disappear so I decided to investigate myself. Short answer: yup, compatible out of the box.

Now these are the 8x8 matrix style, so you're going to see the grid lines a bit, but it seems like those are what's out there these days if you don't figure out how to power a plasma board. One upside over the Vishay ones is they come in colors besides orange and red, I opted for a yellow/green one just to go with a different feel. It looks really green in pictures, it's more yellow in person.

These are based in the USA, and the owner Brett was super responsive and helpful. He shipped it the day my payment went through (Saturday) and it came today (Monday). I know there are other distributors, not sure if any are in Europe.

Not sure there's much else to say really, happy to answer questions if people have them. I'm probably going to start a build thread soon too. As I see it more options are only a good thing, DMDs aren't always easy to find in stock. Here's a quick video of it in action:

[Aurich]

Oh, I should note that the ones on that product page are not 5V, which we want for our cabinets. All you need to do is ask and he can send out a 5V version though. He's said he might add it as an official option if the demand is there.

[russdx]

That's great

will look even better with v2 with much darker / 16 shades and the full 60fps with 0 flicker

where do we order these boards from? / price?

Thanks

[russdx]

Ooops dint see the first link

[XPin Pinball]

XPin here! My thanks to Aurich for his verification. I will go ahead and address the ordering and availability. I haven't added any 5v versions of the DMD to my website yet, but they will be added. Until that time, you can place and pay for an order. I would ask that you follow up with an email indicating that you need the 5v version. For those of you outside the US, I have found that if you email me at [email protected], it is better because I will then generate a direct paypal invoice with appropriate shipping charges.

Feel free to email me any questions! I don't frequent this forum as often as others so email is the best way to get to me!

Regards, XPin

[Aurich]

I talked to Brett (XPin owner) last night, and he said he has a distributor in Germany. So looks like there is an option for European folks that's probably easier than ordering from the US.

Looking forward to v2 Russ! The flicker is really very minor, don't notice while playing at all, but if you focus on it you can just make it out. I did think too that there was slightly less contrast compared to the virtual DMD, your "much darker" sounds like exactly the solution.

[russdx]

the slight flicker on the dark shade on animations really bugged me on v1 so it had to be corrected on v2 which it has i also wanted much darker shades which v2 also has this new stm32f4 processor is great

The display routine is completely hardware timer interrupt driven now so its perfect absolutely no flicker even when getting blasted with 128fps. Cant wait to get v2 into production i even managed to make the pcb even smaller! lol and it uses a much better USB B connector, the usb mini is a bit to fragile for my liking.

German distributor sounds great our only option in Europe is pinLED at the moment.

[wowter]

received an email from xpin, the german distributor is going to be "best of pinball" , but they are closed this entire month, and also have not yet received stock. Ordering direct is the only option for the moment.

i also asked him what colors are available in 5v, and he referred me to the website, so i take it all colors can be shipped as 5v units.

edit: Russdx, you could always make the pindmd3 board larger, and attach some orange led segments to it.....

[Aurich]

i also asked him what colors are available in 5v, and he referred me to the website, so i take it all colors can be shipped as 5v units.

Yeah, anything can be 5V, so what's in stock is what's available. I had the same question.

[jasonsmith]

Aurich has helped me clear a couple things up with the X-Pin and after speaking with Brett I thought I would share them here so we have something to reference to.

In regards to connecting the X-Pin, it's quite simple and to quote Brett here is what he stated.

Looking at the back of the board at the 4 pin connector. ‘C’ stands for cut pin, ‘K’ is key pin, ‘G’ is GND, ‘5’ for 5v

CCKGG55C

No this is from the top down kinda, so here is a picture as we would be looking at it:

You don't need to connect to two sets of grounds and two sets of 5v powers, one of each is enough and as Brett suggested, use the outsides. So connect 5V | X | X | G

On a different note I wanted to confirm how the Test switch worked and a Data Cable MUST be attached:

The data cable must be plugged in. I rely on the clock pulses from the CPU. I substitute a '1' for all of the incoming pixel data.

So if your eager and try and use the Test switch without having a Data cable plugged in nothing will happen and you will not get excited

[Aurich]

Man, it gets confusing following topics across multiple sites.

Thanks for the official clarification on what we were discussing.

[jasonsmith]

LOL, I thought that would get ya.

[zeadlots]

Thread Resurrection. I was wondering if I could get a long term update on the Xpin DMD owners on issues, reliability,pindmd2, issues after nearly a year of use. Any Xpin 5v owners of any color please stand up!