EnerGI Maestro - GI LED Smoother for Data East pinball machines

The EnerGI Maestro is a custom circuit board that takes the 4 General Illumination (GI) strings that are normally controlled by a single relay (you all know the clicking in the backbox right?) and controls them individually via a microcontroller with solid state electronics and high speed PWM. This is important if you are running LEDs in your GI sockets.

What does this mean? Well for one, you have a lot of control over the brightness and ramp rate:

• Each GI String is individually programmable

• Set the maximum brightness for each GI string of LEDs

• Set the minimum brightness for each GI string of LEDs (you can elect for dim instead of fully off)

• Set the rise speed and fall speed for each GI string of LEDs (full range, from fast to a very slow, several seconds of rise/fall)

• Push-button control for easy programming on the fly

• Plug and play

No more seizure multiball! Slow those LEDs down. Kep them from extinguishing all the way to provide a more pleasant flash that saves your eyes and improves your gameplay. Make your LEDs act just like incandescent bulbs. Stop that backbox from flashing, and bring its brightness down. You can do any or all of these things and more!

Visit this Pinside Thread to read all the details, and see some boards installed in users' machines.

Still not sure what exactly it does? Take a look at the Video page for some before and after action shots.

COMPATIBILITY LIST

TESTED / CONFIRMED TO BE COMPATIBLE

Back to the Future

Hook

Lethal Weapon 3

Jurassic Park

Last Action Hero

Tales from the Crypt

Baywatch

Guns N Roses

Star Wars

The Who's Tommy

Batman Forever

Checkpoint

WWF Royal Rumble

Robocop

Torpedo Alley

Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle

EXPECTED TO BE COMPATIBLE

Laser War

Secret Service

Time Machine

Playboy 35th Anniversary

Phantom of the Opera

Simpsons

TMNT

Batman

Star Trek 25th

Maverick

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

POSSIBLY COMPATIBLE

High Speed

Grand Lizard

Road Kings

Pinbot

F-14 Tomcat

Fire

*NOTES:

• Guns N Roses has uncontrolled bulbs in the slings and lane guides; these are not controlled by the EnerGI Maestro as they are designed to be steady on

• The board is designed with LEDs in mind, but you can run some incandescent bulbs. Just don't run more than 50% incandescent or the board might get a bit too warm (conservative estimate).

• Any incandescent bulbs left installed will light slightly dimmer than before.

• The 455 incandescent blinker bulbs used in some back boxes (JP, TFTC, BTTF, any others?) can cause the other LEDs in that GI string to flicker a bit when they flash; it always did this a little, but is a bit more pronounced now. If the flicker is noticeable with the back glass installed, I recommend you go with non-blinking LEDs there.

• 455 blinker LEDs do not light up unless they receive full power. This means that with the board installed they basically do not work. I only tested with cointakers 455's; perhaps another brand might work?LED

• Some games have been found to have a few of the GI bulbs wired reverse polarity. Since the GI was originally AC this was no big deal. With the EnerGI Maestro installed the LEDs get DC so the very old style non "fully rectified" type won't work in these backwards sockets. To solve this issue, just use a newer style LED that IS fully rectified, which is basically any LED manufactured after 2010. You don't need ghostbusters or anything fancy; the nice cheap LEDs work great as long as they are fully rectified.