Scrolling LED displays

[RamjetR]

Hi all,

I've been playing with a couple of cheap Scrolling LED Name Tag displays that I got from a local electronics store for $5AUD each. Cool little afternoon project I thought would be to reverse engineer the software that it came with, write a new version in AHK and interface it to my arcade cabinet to display information such as the ROM/Game running, Insert Coins, Credits etc etc

Now that it's running with my AHK code... What I can display on it is almost limitless... although the onboard firmware will only accept text (no graphic EQ stuff) but a fun little project non the less.

Mine is a Serial RS232 connection and has storable message banks to allow updating and stand alone display without needing to be connected to a PC. The button battery that comes with it should be able to be removed and ran from PC power with 5V or 3.3V from the PSU.

Anyhow... thought I'd share this with everyone and see if people use scrolling displays like this and have ever thought of using a cheap name tag for their project.

Sorry for the video lack of narration... but it's the visual effect your interested in I'm sure.





Ramjet.

[griffindodd]

This is great! So can you send game information text to the display in real time?

[Trip]

We have a lot of fun with this type stuff in christmas light displays.  Look up LED Triks.

[RamjetR]

Yeah I can send anything I want to it at any time. Since I have some code monitoring the Model 2 emulator, I can get alot more information out of that than I really need. But for the visual effect on a cabinet, I thought it would be cool to play with.

My cabinet isn't a faithful restore rather more of a wrecked cabinet turned into a racing cab which also plays Model 2 games. So I don't have any issues strapping something like this to it for fun and practical racing information.



looking up LED Triks now

[RamjetR]

We have a lot of fun with this type stuff in christmas light displays.  Look up LED Triks.

Oh WOW! I didn't know about LEDTriks... and my girlfriend is xmas MAD! so she'll love that. Hours of fun!

[griffindodd]

Do you know of any larger displays similar to this that are as economical, maybe up to 12" wide?

[Trip]

Oh WOW! I didn't know about LEDTriks... and my girlfriend is xmas MAD! so she'll love that. Hours of fun!

Yeah doityourselfchristmas.com is a good site to check out a lot more stuff for computerized christmas lights.  Since the move I have gotten out of it a bit, but I use to have 2 Renard 64s and 3 Renard 24s going for 200 channels of blinkey flashy christmas light goodness.  Just got too expensive with power and not being able to get as good of deals after christmas on bulk lights cause of the economic crash and walmart not ordering as much around me. 

Plus, I was never that good at synching my lights with music because I am not artistic in the slightest and my wife had no interest in learning to synch.

[Acids]

Hi all,

I've been playing with a couple of cheap Scrolling LED Name Tag displays that I got from a local electronics store for $5AUD each. Cool little afternoon project I thought would be to reverse engineer the software that it came with, write a new version in AHK and interface it to my arcade cabinet to display information such as the ROM/Game running, Insert Coins, Credits etc etc

This looks interesting indeed.   where did you get these from??    $5 AUD    Australian Dollar?

[RamjetR]

Hey,

I got mine from www.prime-electronics.com.au and yeah, $5 australian

They are more of a electronic component wholesaler than a store really... mainly servicing industry repair centres, but they just happened to have a bargain bin full of these things.

I'm pretty sure most of them out there are RS232 serial driven, although there may be some USB versions which will need their own reverse engineering. But a quick google will show other hacks for different types of them. But for an afternoon of buggering around at work, I had fun turning something gimmick'y into something useful.



Ramjet