LED-Wiz / EZ-Lights Wire Harness and a Newb

[rcosner]

"Pretend for a moment that I don't know anything about metallurgy, engineering, or physics, and just tell me what the hell is going on." ~ Peter Venkman

Hi there, I just got my LED-Wiz, and EZ Lights wires in the mail today. I switched out 90% of the buttons on my XArcade Tankstick with ones that include LEDs... and thats about where I am. I want to hook this up using only USB for power since I dont have alot of buttons to light and I have absolutely no idea what goes anywhere, the buttons with the LED's dont even indicate + or -.  I am just starting to mess with this stuff so I dont know all the electronics lingo.

I'm looking for just a simple, "this plugs into this" guide, pictures would be nice.  In laymans terms preferably.

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

PS. I know the Tankstick is lame, I am just getting my feet wet by messing with something thats already working and seeing if I can take it apart and put it back together and have it still work after I am done.  One day I will put together a nice 4 player control panel, but we all have to start somewhere.

[Dekieon]

I just looked up the EZ Lights harness and it has black and red wiring. black is your ground, red is your positive.

LED's are diode, which only allway electricity to flow in one direction. Since the buttons aren't showing you which is plus and which is negative. If you have a multimeter, you can use it to test the let's to see if you get signal through it or now, if not, then switch the leads around. once you get flow take take of which is positive and which is negative.

If you don't have a multimeter, then you just hook one led up and see if it lights, if it doesn't then you have it backwards, so switch it around. hooking an led up backwards won't hurt it.

[PL1]

Welcome aboard, Rcosner.

I'm assuming you have LED buttons like this.



When you break it down, it looks like this.



From left to right, there is a microswitch and LED socket, LED holder, button body, spring, plunger, diffuser that rests in a depression on the top of the plunger and is held down by the translucent cap.

The microswitch works just like the switch in the tankstick button and is wired the same way.

The daisy chain ground goes to the common terminal on the bottom of the switch, and the input to the encoder connects to the NO -- normally open -- terminal.

The LED socket terminals hang down like stirrups on either side of the microswitch -- easier to see them in this photo where the microswitch has been removed from the LED socket.



To keep the wiring consistent and easy to remember, I connect the terminals on the side with the larger black plastic tab to black wires / ground. (the side on the bottom of the picture above)

The red wire / operating voltage connects to the other terminal. (the side of the socket on the top of the picture above)

If the LED doesn't light up, just unplug it, turn it 180 degrees, and plug it back in.


Scott

[rcosner]

Ok that part is easy enough, and thank you. I wont be afraid of hooking that particular piece of the puzzle up wrong. My main concern is where to connect the wires that come from the LEDs in the buttons to the EZ-LED board so that I dont melt it, myself, or my computer. The big scary warning they put on the bubble wrap indicating how they arent responisible for damage to your equipment sufficiently scared me into requesting help.



All the bundled wires, I am now ok with. See the 2 black and red ones with the little clamp down leads at the bottom of the pic? Where do I connect those to on the EZ-LED board below.

[matsadona]

If you want the buttons to be lit individually you can't use that harness. Well, only half of it.
Not a fancy schematic, but you should get the message.

And remember that USB can only provide 500mA in total. Each LED should be approx 20-30 mA, and the LEDWIZ itself would require some too.

[rcosner]

Ok, I think I get it. I'm only going to be lighting about 14-18 buttons so it should be ok. Is there anywhere to buy the correct wires premade or am I going to have to make them myself? I see what you mean about the harness wires, I guess it kind of defeats the purpose of the LED-WIZ board.

[PL1]

And remember that USB can only provide 500mA in total.

Minor clarification:  USB spec says that a powered USB hub port can provide 500mA.


If you are using an unpowered hub port, that it is limited to 100mA, though many hubs can exceed that spec.



Scott

[Worthing Gooners]

There is no way on earth that i could work this out for myself but here goes a question.

Is it possible that for each individual game the buttons that you can use for that  game light up & the ones that are not used stay unlit?
For example you are not scrambling around trying to find the "smartbomb" button in defender amongst a group of 6 buttons?
( If this has already been done i can only apologise at my noob status ignorance..... )

[shponglefan]

There is no way on earth that i could work this out for myself but here goes a question.

Is it possible that for each individual game the buttons that you can use for that  game light up & the ones that are not used stay unlit?
For example you are not scrambling around trying to find the "smartbomb" button in defender amongst a group of 6 buttons?
( If this has already been done i can only apologise at my noob status ignorance..... )

I believe LEDBlinky software does this (disclaimer: I haven't actually used it myself).

[yaksplat]

LEDblinky does this very well.  And if the buttons have RGB led's then they will light up to the original colors that were on the games.  For example, 1943 will light up two buttons, red and blue.

[Worthing Gooners]

Superb.
Thanks for the knowledge fellas...

[rcosner]

Well I must be an idiot or I somehow bought 90% non-working LED buttons. I took that harness and hooked the pos to +5 and black to ground and tried hooking all the lights up for a simple always on configuration for a test run. For some reason, only 2 of the 13 lights I had hooked up lit up. The 3rd one in the chain and the last one in the chain. By coincidence, the first one I manually tested, with the 1st connections in the chain, ended up being the 3rd one...  I can't imagine that 11 of 13 LEDs are bad?  I got these from Paradise Arcade. I also tried it with these



But that was a lost cause.

I realize the LEDWIZ is meant to make the buttons be programable and do all kinds of crazy ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, but I am just trying to take baby steps here to just get the damn things on and am falling flat on my face.

[PL1]

Per the last line of this post, have you tried unplugging and turning the LEDs around?

Since two are working, you probably just have the polarity reversed on the rest of them.


Scott

[matsadona]

I am assuming that these LED buttons have an internal resistor, so you need to connect them in parallel...

[yaksplat]

did you accidently plug them in series?

[rcosner]

Ok so it turns out that they aren't all set with the + / - on the same sides. I figured they would be. I got most of them working except for 2.  These are numbers I can work with. Thank you guys for all your help.