Here is a corner of 1 of the Cherry DMD displays. It does not matter who the manufacturer is: Cherry, Vishay, Dale or Babcock, they all work in all machines and they all exhibit the same symptoms of missing lines.
NOTE: If your display has ribbon cable instead of the wires wedged in between the glass and it's missing lines, that is most difficult (almost or near impossible without the proper equipment) to repair. In that case, buying a new display is a near certain possibility. The only way to fix missing lines on the newer DMD displays with ribbon cables is this. Go here: and click "Add to Cart" button. There ya go - fixed!
This on is the most closeup and detailed shots pictorials yet written on this website. Almost every single picture here is a closeup shot, as the work is painstaking and very detailed.
Here is another side. 2 lines will need to be dealt with in this corner.
Another detailed shot of the same corner with the outmost line out (circled). Why do they break? Age, manufacturing and most importantly playfield and machine vibration will cause them to break EXACTLY at the glass making soldering 2 pieces impossible. Yet, it is quite possible to repair it successfully. We'll show here how, but for now, let's see some more closeup shots.
On the other side, believe it or not SEVEN lines are broken!!! No problem, I love the challenge! So far I have successfully repaired up to 4 lines a few times, just 1 or 2 lines missing was too numerous to count. Cherry and Babcock displays seem to be breaking the most.
This corner has 4 of them broken.
If you do not have a steady hand - I dunno, this is a very precise work, shell out 125$ and buy your new DMD display from Pinball Life. If you can do really, truly, VERY PRECISE application of materials, have good eye-vision + hand coordination, can see small/tiny details, can apply stuff in a VERY TIGHT SPOT with no mistakes allowed, then you'll be okay.
Another corner with 3 of them broken RIGHT AT THE GLASS. That's what makes this repair so difficult, it is right at the glass, so there is virtually no room to work and you're left with small spot and nothing to work with whatsoever.
Since they are broken RIGHT AT THE GLASS, so there is virtually no room to work with whatsoever, the only solution is to fight for your working room however tiny. Like Beastie Boys used to say when they play pinball: "You gotta fight! For your right! To diiiiiisplaaaaaaaay!
So, we are going to make some room with a small drill tool, like a Dremel knock-off from China. If you have a Dremel tool, that's all you need, or if your wife or significant other has some kind of a nail fixing device, that's all you need. Who knows how or from where, but I have this box in my shop and it was only 15$ judging by the price label. Exactly what we need here.
Here is the device out of the box and ready to go to work.
Here is what we are working with. Bend the broken leads backwards so you have some room to work with. Also, keep in mind that these closeup shots are VERY deceiving. It just SEEMS here by looking at this picture that you really have plenty of room to work, but that's not the case. Anyone who has ever seen these displays up close and personal knows that this spot is indeed VERY tiny.
Anyways, bend the leads back and get to work. Go steady with the tool left and right between the glass. Chip the glass off too. There will be NO SHARDS flying at you, but rather glass will be powdery and sandy as the little grinding stone pulverizes it.
So, go steady, no jumps, no shaky hands and keep going at it back and forth. Blow some air at it to undust it and check your progress as you're plowing through it.
What exactly are we doing here? Why would we want to grind here? Well, since we have no room to work with, we have to GET TO THE OTHER SIDE of the broken lead. As soon as some of it shows (and believe me it'll be really small), you're in business. Ok, so we were at it for about a minute or two. Let's see where we stand...
Jackpot! We can see the other side of the leads. It's small, it's tiny, but it's there. That's as much as you'll ever going to get, but luckily that is pretty much all you need.
Another side.
Another side. They really don't give you much, do they. It was a faulty design nevertheless. I guess they never accounted for the vibrations and shaking of the whole machine while playing it.
I suppose if the display was always stationery like on a wall or something like that, not inside the machine being bumped, tilted, nudged, pop bumpers firing, flippers flipping, slingshots firing, moved from location to location etc... the leads would never break. So, it was an engineering flaw. Interestingly, in 100% of the displays I have seen so far - and I have seen a lot of them trust me, it is always the leads at the edges that are broken. Don't ask why, don't know an answer to that question.
Here is another shot showing the glass being worked with a tiny grinder. It looks funny on this picture for some reason like I am really butchering it, but it's actually not that bad at all. I guess it's because I used flash with my camera.
Here is another side showing the stuff we need. Tiny parts of broken leads on the other side.
And another side. Okay, now that we got them all, let's see how to fix them.
Here we got Silver Conductive Epoxy. This stuff is comparatively expensive, around 20$-25$, and 1 of them is more than you'll ever need.
So, what is this Silver Conductive Epoxy stuff then? It is highly electric conductive silvery paste (like a "liquid solder"). You mix 2 tubes provided together in a tiny amount. Mix it up and apply to the broken leads. So, 2 previously broken leads will be joined together. That's the theory behind it.
Use a drop from 1 tube and squeeze a very small amount. Then use a drop from the other tube, squeeze it together with the first and mix it up. You will need a toothpick, a small flat screwdriver (REALLY, REALLY small), or something else that is small and appropriate to apply it VERY PRECISELY over the broken leads shown on the pictures above. I used one of the smaller drilling bits that came with this drilling device.
Here we go. Take a deep breath and go at it. You need to do it in 3-4 minutes as the mixed Silver Epoxy will start to harden after that time and will be difficult to work with later on. So, good luck!
Wait 5 minutes and plug it in the game. Verify it works and the missing lines were repaired successfully. All good? Great! Turn the game off. Take it OUT OF THE GAME RIGHT NOW! We are not done yet. You have to let the Epoxy dry and strengthen the bond and you need to reinforce the bond.
IMPORTANT
Please keep in mind. You cannot let 2 broken leads touch via Silver Epoxy! All you want to do is join the broken traces. Since there isn't much room, there is a great chance to ruin the display by 2 leads touching each other if you put a big glob of Epoxy in there. Again, remember: 1 side of the lead touching the other side of the lead, nothing else cannot touch each other. So, VERY LITTLE of Silver Epoxy should be applied, just enough to get it going. We'll reinforce it later.
Ok, now we are in "we'll reinforce it later" stage from the above picture. We have sat 10-15 minutes doing other stuff and waiting for the Epoxy to harden. In the past, people would just do it up to this stage, verify it's working and then drop it in the game. That is not good because the joints will surely break again. Why? Well, Silver Epoxy is great at conducting electricity but it's sort of lousy at physically joining 2 leads together. I mean, I suppose it does have some bonding and gluing ability, but really not enough for what we are doing here... So... after the Silver Epoxy hardens, you need to drop a small drop of Superglue on the repaired leads. Why? To reinforce the bond. Epoxy is great at conductivity, lousy at bonding, Superglue is great at bonding, does zero for conductivity, so they help each other.
Put a small dap of Superglue on it, then let it sit another 15, 20 minutes. The repaired area WILL CRACK AGAIN and break the lines if you do not put Superglue there. That is a critical step unless you want to do all this all over again. When? Hard to say when and if it will break again. Superglue is there only to make sure you DO NOT have to do this ever again on that particular display.
Here we go. A closeup shot of the work so far. Notice how the leads with epoxy applied ARE NOT TOUCHING EACH OTHER IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. That's how you want it.
Another closeup.
Another closeup. This is probably the best photo in the whole pictorial as it clearly shows what needed to be done. It took me a long time to get this shot right and I drained the camera battery doing it and discarding other 30 or so photos that were too blurry, not showing enough detail etc... So, here is the king shot or the money shot.
I'm driving the point home again, I know I said "make them not touching" a lot here, but that's the whole point to a successful and very tricky repair like this.
Another shot showing a measly 2 missing lines being repaired. When I looked at the photo I noticed red lines on the display glass itself and I was puzzled as to what the hell is that? Then, I remembered I was wearing my Java (computer programming language) logo T-Shirt. That took me a few seconds with a puzzled and dumbass look on my face trying to figure out what the hell that is while staring at the picture...
Another great shot. It shows what has been repaired on this display (not showing the 4th corner, but you get the picture). This poor, friggin' display has been banged hard like a cheap hooker. I gave it a new lease on life. It's funny. It's not outgassing, it has no burn-in, the dots are really strong, orange and glowing, but the lines have been broken on all 4 corners and it went to shit... Well, NOW it's all cool and he's working happily.
That's it. This DMD display now has a new lease on life given to it. We see it now being tested inside the Creature of The Black Lagoon. We'll let it run for a few days to see if anything needs to be reinforced or redone then yank it out, but I am quite confident this display will be good to go for a very long time (relative term in display life).
That's it, THE END.
© TXPinball.com
Back 2 top of page
Back 2 Refurbishing tips
