Connector J6 markes with "GND x V+" is the power input. On many pinballs, you can get either 12V or 18V DC from the power supply. Check your specific pinball circuit diagrams where to access this. You can also use a standalone power supply. Basically any voltage between 10 and 24V will do the job.
An 3A fuse should be used. If no LED panels are uses, even 2A might work well.
Before connecting the Raspberry Pi, test the power supply. The 3 LEDs below the fuse F1 should light up. If the fuse blows, the power supply polarity is incorrect. If the fuse is ok, but the LEDs still do not light up, the input voltage might be incorrect or missing.
The Raspberry Pi (any model with a 40-pin connector will do the jobs) will be connected to the 40-pin connector top-down. You should fix it with 10-12mm M2.5 standoffs and screws.
If you connect LED panels to the board, the connector J7 marked with "12V 5V GND" can be use to power these. Note that LED panels are usually not protected agaoinst wrong polarity and overvoltage. Therefore, make sure you connect to the correct voltage (usually these run at 5V) and polarity. Multiple LED panels can either be daisy-chained (if the option is supported by the LED panel) or connected individually to the LED panel data outputs HUB75 A/B. Basically any LED panel with a HUB75 connector should work, but configuration might need to be adjusted.
It is recommended to install the latest "Lite" version of Raspberry Pi OS. Using the Raspberry Pi imager, you can already configure your username, password and WiFi configuration. You should also enable SSH. Once the system has started and you can login via SSH, update the software
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade
cd
sudo apt-get install -y git
git clone https://github.com/pinballpower/code_dmd
cd code_dmd
scripts/install-software
cd src
./compile.sh
./program-pico.sh
You should see the message "RP2040 programmed sucessfully" when the script program-pico.sh s cript finishes.
Important notice: You won't be able to compile the software on a Pi with only 512MB RAM (like the Pi Zero or Pi 3A+). If you want to use it on a Pi like this, you need to do this step on a Pi with more memory.
cd
git clone --recursive https://github.com/pinballpower/code_dmdreader
cd code_dmdreader
./install-pi-software.sh
./compile-pi.sh
cd ~/code_dmdreader
./pi-configure
sudo reboot
If the RP2040 has been programmed, the pinball's DMD interface is connected to the DMD interface port and DMDReader has been compiled successfully, you can try to read frames from the DMD interface:
cd ~/code_dmdreader
./dmdreader samples/display-spi.json
You should get output like:
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.460452] [0xef7a8040] [info] [readconfig] using configuration file samples/display-spi.json
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.460748] [0xef7a8040] [info] [spisource] connect to SPI via /dev/spidev0.0, speed=4000000
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.461179] [0xef7a8040] [info] [readconfig] successfully initialized input type spi
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.461228] [0xef7a8040] [info] [readconfig] successfully initialized processor frameinfo
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.461406] [0xef7a8040] [info] [readconfig] no services defined
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.461519] [0xef7a8040] [info] [dmdreader] hardware supports 4 threads
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.465924] [0xef7a8040] [info] [frameinfologger] got frame 128x32 4bpp, checksum f8ad8505
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.483119] [0xef7a8040] [info] [frameinfologger] got frame 128x32 4bpp, checksum de229abc
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.515103] [0xef7a8040] [info] [frameinfologger] got frame 128x32 4bpp, checksum 4c5e37fa
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.563100] [0xef7a8040] [info] [frameinfologger] got frame 128x32 4bpp, checksum 5d465498
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.579095] [0xef7a8040] [info] [frameinfologger] got frame 128x32 4bpp, checksum e00cb1bb
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.611101] [0xef7a8040] [info] [frameinfologger] got frame 128x32 4bpp, checksum 0323c1c3
[2023-06-19 13:37:02.659096] [0xef7a8040] [info] [frameinfologger] got frame 128x32 4bpp, checksum ee178549
This shows that the system can read data from the DMD interface.
cd code_dmdreader/external/rpi-rgb-led-matrix/
make
sudo examples-api-use/demo --led-gpio-mapping=dmdreader -D 0 --led-rows=32 --led-cols=128
You need to adapt row and cols to the connected display. LED panel 1 (or both if daisy-chained) need to be connected to the upper of the two LED panel connectors
Have a look at LED panel configurations for known configurations for some LED panel types.
Great! The necessary hardware and software have been installed and are working. You can now go on configuring DMDReader for your specific use case. Have a look at the DMDReader documentation