GI OCD Boards (for general illumination)

A Comet Pinball exclusive, our GI OCD boards are specifically designed to solve the issue with jittery LED lighting in games that use fading effects in the general illumination. (These boards do not address a similar issue with inserts, however we have a separate line of OCD boards for that purpose.)

The subtle fading in and out of general illumination is pretty neat when you have incandescent bulbs, but can be really gross with LEDs installed. Pinball LEDs have a difficult time fading smoothly from bright to dim because they change brightness much more quickly than an incandescent. The games weren't designed to send signals frequently enough for smooth transitions with LED bulbs.

Our GI OCD boards will eliminate the choppy steps between different levels of brightness, restoring the soothing transitions and fading effects that your game was designed to dazzle you with.

The most notable offenders are games like The Addams Family, which uses extensive fading effects of the general illumination when the magnets are active. You'll also notice this choppiness during attract mode and bonus countdowns of other 90s Bally/Williams games. If you've gone into the settings to turn off "allow dim illumination", then you'll notice an improvement with one of our GI OCD products.

If you purchase one of these boards, we recommend using bulbs that are not advertised as non-ghosting (which you were probably doing anyway in your GI). The non-ghosting bulbs will thwart some of the advantages of the OCD board, so stick with the standard bulbs.

The video below shows this effect with inserts, but we hope to replace it with an updated video showing GI benefits.

These products work great right out of the box without any customization and the vast majority of people choose to go that route. However, if you want to get picky, you can tweak the levels of each brightness step, of each individual bulb, but to do so, you'll need a Mini-USB to USB cable (male to male). Most people will have one of these laying around (most commonly used in charging electronic devices), but if you don't, you can purchase one from us.

Here you'll find more detailed technical support.

WPC89 / WPC-S / WPC95 detailed compatibility list.

Data East / Sega / Stern detailed compatibility list.