Bingo Flashboard protocol - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: ranthalion
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2019, 12:20:09 am
content: Is there a standard or known serial protocol for bingo flashboards?A local bar has asked if I would help them repurpose an old bingo flashboard. It seems to work when powered on, as it goes through a start up flashing sequence. Since the electronics all seem to work, I'm hoping to be able to control the board using its native protocol instead of replacing any of the internal circuits.I've contacted the company, but haven't received a response so far.

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2019, 06:46:04 am
content: A couple of ways you could do this.If you have the controller, you could use a scope and protocol decode to watch what each half sends to each other.You could take a look at the circuit in the display and see if it is perhaps something very simple like shift registers, or something more complicated that might require the scope.Perhaps search around and see if you can find a service manual as this might contain some schematics and may help you figure out the minimum circuitry you need to build to repurpose it.I wouldn't like my chances of a manufacturer sending me documentation unless I was a repairman. And anyway, reverse engineering is quite fun. 😊

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2019, 06:53:15 am
content: How did the bar control the board when they used it for bingo? Is that part missing?

author: ranthalion
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2019, 01:09:55 am
content: Thanks for the responses.The bar never had the controller. They inherited the display when they bought the building. It seems pretty unlikely that I'll be able to reverse engineer the protocol without that.The manuals for the flashboard actually do include something similar to a schematic for lights, and it seems like it may be basically a series of shift registers. It sounds like inspecting the circuit boards to recommend a custom replacement is the next step. It's just a pain to get to since it's hanging 15 feet in the air right now.

author: merccat
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 14, 2021, 05:40:29 am
content: Working on something similar. Fortunately I do have the controller but just starting to dig into it. From my research most seem to be pretty similar with only two major manufactures and minimal difference between them. In my case, I want to use the board as an art piece driven by something like an Arduino but of course I also want to preserve its original functionality as much as possible.I can confirm that there is one pin that carries the "game data", this would be the pattern, ball count and numbers lit... most likely this is all your going to care about.Here is where I'm at with it.- The signal from the controller just looks like an AC wave (60Hz) with an amplitude of 20V. My guess is the data is buried in this wave somehow and the higher voltage makes sense considering they had to run the data over pretty decent distances with basically standard flat wire.- On the flashboard I haven't traced the signal fully out yet but did find a nice clean data signal on the output end of an opto-isolator near the input. Here is what that signal looks like:- There is a data block approximately every 100ms- A data block lasts about 8ms- The data block seems to carry both a clock pulse  (likely to advance registers) and a value [High or Low] followed by , each lasting about 16.7us (microseconds).... This hypothesis also passes a smell test with the fact that 8ms/50ms (per block) = about 160 data points (light on/off).. and considering the board about 125 lights... which seems like a pretty close fit considering my time measurements are fairly crude.My best guess at this point is that each one of these sets (high, value, low) is switching one lamp on the flash-board (lights driven by quad darlingtons).So, at this point I'm pretty sure I can reproduce the data signal at the point of the opto-isolator but I'm still pretty lost on just how that is being sent over the AC wave... but also my oscilloscope isn't that great so I may just be missing the whole picture.Some more info... taking a quick survey I see the following chips in addition to the opto-isolator in the input/signal processing area of the board (again, haven't traced anything yet): A couple flip-flops, a couple binary counters, and a couple multiplex decoders. The rest of the chips appear to be the darlingtons driving the lights.

author: merccat
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 15, 2021, 02:29:23 am
content: Had a chance to look at one just like yours, it also had the startup self-test sequence. All in all it looked fairly similar in that the lights were still being driven by quad darlingtons divided up 4 to a letter (ie 4 quad's drive all the numbers in B). Didn't have much time as they were setting up and I just had to swap out one of the drivers to get them up and running but the overall design seemed simpler than my older model so it will be interesting to see what it's using at the signal input area. Next time I should be able to get a little more time with it.

author: rlboots
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 09, 2023, 04:39:11 am
content: This particular flashboard actually has an Intel microcontroller in it with the software in an external EPROM! If you get the Capital Presidential Manual (easily found online) it will have the board layout and some schematics. It will give the DIP switch settings. They cover several consoles. The Presidential is one of the oldest, Senator I don't know much about, and the Statesman is basically a Presidential with a verifier added.The 20 volt data swing is unlikely, the output of the consoles I've seen is RS-485 (5 volt swing) but not ground referenced so it would be easy to pick up 60 Hz (or 50 Hz) nastiness if you're not using twisted pair wiring.Input is either a 3-pin Jones plug OR a 6-pin modular phone connector. Unfortunately mine has the phone connectors and when you come out of a Statesman by modular connector they put out BINGO King format instead of Capital format (grumble).