PINLED IN THE UK

Story dated September 28, 2005 and updated September 27, 2005.

In a new distribution deal, PinLED's range of replacement LED displays and circuit boards are now available in the UK.

Pinball Palace, the Margate, Kent based company behind the Pinball Extravaganza Show will stock the full range of low voltage displays for Williams and Bally games from System 3 through to WPC and for many Data East games.

In recent months PinLED have been revealing their new range of Williams WPC replacement boards produced using many surface mount components.

The first is the Fliptronic replacement board.

Designed as a straight swap for a faulty type 1 or type 2 Fliptronic board, PinLED's design simplifies the design and addresses the weak points of the original. This board is not yet available but should be very soon.

Next is the Dot Matrix Controller board.

Because the board operates at high voltages some components are prone to failure and overheating so piggy-back boards have been used to circumvent the failed components. PinLED's board redesigns the circuit and vastly reduces the number of ICs used in the manufacture from 33 to just 2.

The troublesome high voltage stage is all new and there is also the facility to vary the display voltage to reduce wear on new displays and prolong the life of older ones. This board is available now.

The last of the trio is the famous Power Driver board

The scourge of many game owners, this is the board most frequently at fault when a problem occurs in a WPC game. This new design replaces the solenoid/flasher driver transistors with MOSFETs which should be able to withstand a short circuit long enough for the fuse to blow before the device is damaged. Fuses all have LEDs to indicate their condition and there are much thicker board tracks to carry all that current.

Although using bridge rectifiers - a frequent point of failure - the circuit incorporates a soft start system to reduce the inrush current at startup and reduce stress on the bridge rectifiers.

This board is not yet in full production and the design may change to use a switch mode power supply instead to further reduce heat build-up.

So these are plug-in replacements for the most problematic WPC boards and now Pinball Palace will be selling them in the UK. They should have an on-line store available on their website shortly.


UPDATE

Pinball Palace have set up a website specifically for the PinLED range.  It is available at www.pinballdisplays.co.uk and includes the ability to buy online.  The replacement WPC/WPC-S power driver board should be available in November.

 

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