B – I – N – G – O and Bingo was his name-o!
I picked up this vintage bingo flashboard from a guy in MA who was cleaning out a huge collection of cool stuff from his house – vintage TVs, a puck bowler, radios, records – thirty years of collecting.
I had an idea of creating an LED matrix project when I spotted this bingo flashboard on Craigslist. A flashboard is where the bingo numbers are displayed after they are selected.
These huge flashboards, this one is 80 x 30 inches with 15-watt appliance bulbs were made for large bingo halls like at church or charity events.
Bingo is a game of chance in which each player matches numbers printed in different arrangements on cards with the numbers the game host (caller) draws at random, marking the selected numbers with tiles. When a player finds the selected numbers are arranged on their card in a row, they call out “Bingo!” to alert all participants to a winning card
– wikipedia
The first thing I need to do to this machine is replace the 80 15-watt bulbs with something more energy-efficient and cooler running like these 1.5-watt LED bulbs.
I also replaced the shoddy electrical cord with a new one.