Tuesday March 19, 2024

PS-12232-P16 Williams 11B/11C Pinscore LED Display Review

Company Info: Pinscore
Category: Pinball
Price Paid: $199.99 @ Marco Specialties
MSRP: $199.99
Rating: 4.5/5.0

Pinscore PS-12232-P16 Display


Reviewer: Wayne Eggert
Date: December 19, 2010

Introduction
This is a review of the PS-12232-P16 Williams 11B / 11C Pinscore LED Display.  Pinscore is one of the few manufacturers that is now making replacement LED displays for many older pinball machines.  Pinball machines commonly used gas / plasma displays that eventually either burn out due to the high voltage they use or "outgas" over the years causing them not to function at all.  Replacement gas displays are available, however only a few manufacturers of these displays exist and although replacement display glass used to cost $20-30 for a 7-digit alphanumeric/numeric display for example, the same display glass today cost $50 each.  The 16-digit gas displays are roughly $100-120 each.  You can see why Pinscore LED displays are attractive to pinball owners that already have one or two bad displays -- the LED displays will last much longer (maybe indefinitely) and in many cases are cheaper than buying two or more replacement gas displays.

The machine I'm working on is a Williams Diner.  It's a pretty neat machine, from the backglass to the playfield.  It feels somewhat like Williams Taxi -- but instead of picking up people in the taxi you're filling food orders for a diner.  Anyway, the top 16-digit display wasn't working.  A single 16-digit gas display is $100+ and there's no guarantee after it's replaced that the other display doesn't die soon after.  Plus there's some work involved -old display unsoldered, thru-holes in the board cleaned, new display soldered in.. which wouldn't be bad if a new gas display was cheap but it's not.


Packaging
I ordered the PS-12232-P16 display from Marco Specialties.  Their shipping costs aren't always the best, but I've made a handful of orders with them and each has arrived quickly & their customer service has been great with returns.  The Pinscore display comes in its own white box, sorta bland but it has the model number and Pinscore logo on it.  Inside, there's a flyer & one-page instruction sheet.  It's neat that the installation is so quick & painless that instructions can be fit on a single page.  Unfortunately I think I was supposed to get mounting hardware, but I did not -- so I have contacted them for it.  In the mean-time I used the original screws, washers, and some old pinball rubber sleeves as stand-offs.  **Update: Marco tells me that the new design does not come with mounting hardware and existing hardware should be used.

Pinscore Packaging

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pinscore Packaging

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