Led blinky issues: updated with new problems

[aldub516]

Hey guys. So im down to some minor details on my panel, and todays endless project was getting ledblinky to work with gameex. Up until now, i had problems but have indeed gotten it to work, now i just need to tweak settings. My main problem is, it seems that whenever the leds start running, especially in test mode, they act as inputs somehow and my pc goes crazy.. tons of folders start opening up, things get deleted, opened closed, played, unplayed, and i have to unplug both the usb for the ultimate i/o and the led power plug in my pc. Its wierd how they affect each other, as if the leds are making the ipac inputs activate and get stuck..Am i doing something silly and not realizing it? maybe missing some sort of ground wire or something? If i go into ledblinkyconfig, and hit "test" to test some leds or animations, everything just starts going beserk. Cant find anything on this type of issue.

[dkersten]

I ran into something very similar when I had my UIO on a usb hub.  If it is, move it to an internal usb port and see if that fixes it.. it did for me..

[aldub516]

sadly, the ipac is plugged directly into a usb port. It sucks because its seriously hindering my ability to program and use the leds.. Before i know it my computer is opening files, deleting random things, and just showing as if tons of buttons/inputs are being pressed..

[dkersten]

is your 5v source high enough current?  I had the EXACT same symptoms, but it was low usb voltage (or not enough current rather).. you aren't using another internal usb to provide the 5v are you?

[aldub516]

There is only 1 usb plug on the ipac, and then 1 plug for power which runs into the computer connector inside (Sorry for lack of terminology). I dont think it can be a power problem because i can test each led in animator editor.. and when they feel like it, they will blink like in attract mode for hours on end. It just seems when i actually try to program them or run them, every thing goes haywire.  I could open up animation editor and power on all the leds and leave them lit no problem. Im just wondering how the led inputs/outputs  are ending up acting as keyboard inputs

[AndyWarne]

Can you ensure you are using the latest firmware if you are using an I-PAC Ultimate I/O.

There is a link on the product page on our site, drop me an email if in doubt.

andy@ultimarc.com

[aldub516]

I did indeed update the firmware as soon as I recieved the I/O. Its just frustrating as it does a lot of random things like open folders and deletes things, I need to jump up and pull out the usb and power plugs. Ill work on it. Its a new realm of learning for me with leds

[mgb]

Is it the ipac ultimate, you are using?
I have never used one but a few things to still run through:
Are you sure you're wired correctly ? Are cathodes, anodes and diodes correctly situated?
I would think testing through powering your leds through something other than the usb port would be a worth while test as weird things can happen when you bog down the usb power buss.
Are you sure setup is correct?
You should either send pics and what not to Andy, or post them here

[aldub516]

so an update: It seems i resolved the problem. I rewired everything, and for NOW, it seems to be working, although im having wierd issues. It seems buttons 1 for player 1 and 2 stay lit, and also display incorrect color. If i set them to red, they turn blue and such. Kind of weird. I also cant seem to get it running with gameex, but these are all things i will figure out and wont bother asking for help on. I will ask one question though.. i cannot seem to create a mame.xml file. I have 2 list.xml files since i made 2 game lists, but i know those arent the same as mame.xml, therefore i cannot direct ledblinky to the mame.xml. I tried all the command line tricks, and nothing. Any advice now for mame.xml creation? hoping this clears up some of my led blinky problems


**EDIT** Would just renaming my list.xml that i ended up with to mame.xml make sense?

[dkersten]

ledblinky gets the color from mame, so whatever button you have keyed in your input map combined with whatever key that is assigned to in mame is going to determine the color and when it lights.  Often I had issues with buttons lighting up when I used a non-standard key and it was the same key as mame showed for like p3 button 4 or paddle dec. or something in mame.. it is best to go through all players in the mame setup (in game) and clear every control you don't have a specific controller or button for.  Also make sure you don't have those buttons set to your FE controls and have your LEDBlinky set to light the FE controls.. that will override your animation too.

you don't NEED mame.xml, you can use colors.ini and I think control.dat.. If control.dat says there are 5 buttons and colors.ini sets only the first 3 to certain colors, the last 2 will light and be white. 

[AndyWarne]

so an update: It seems i resolved the problem. I rewired everything, and for NOW, it seems to be working, although im having wierd issues. It seems buttons 1 for player 1 and 2 stay lit, and also display incorrect color. If i set them to red, they turn blue and such. Kind of weird. I also cant seem to get it running with gameex, but these are all things i will figure out and wont bother asking for help on. I will ask one question though.. i cannot seem to create a mame.xml file. I have 2 list.xml files since i made 2 game lists, but i know those arent the same as mame.xml, therefore i cannot direct ledblinky to the mame.xml. I tried all the command line tricks, and nothing. Any advice now for mame.xml creation? hoping this clears up some of my led blinky problems


**EDIT** Would just renaming my list.xml that i ended up with to mame.xml make sense?

Can you ensure, in WinIPAC V2, in the config tab, "Enable high current drivers" is not checked.

Andy

[aldub516]

it is not. but i seem to have worked out the "problems" and now seems i just need to play around with it. I cant explain what caused everything to go crazy before, but since i rewired i had no problem. No i assume any problems i have are merely setting and such.. While still aggravating, its all in the fun of learning new things.

[aldub516]

Ill continue to just update this with my led blinky problems.. Problem at the moment is still player 1 button 1 and player 2 button 1 stay lit. They will flash with an animation, but anytime the cp isnt doing anything, such as now in windows, those 2 stay lit. Further more, those 2 buttons lights do not correctly correspond to the right colors. When im in led input config, i can scroll down button by button to make sure each led ls lighting up in the red, green, blue order. No matter what port/button is selected, those 2 buttons always stay lit.  But heres what happens, right off the bat, P1 BUTTON 1 lights up blue, magenta, yellow, as opposed to rgb.. its colors are all messed up. Now, The whole player 2 side of the CP is wired to the 2nd side of the ultimate ipac, ports 49-72. ALL of those buttons, the red and blue are switched. I am sure i have my wires correctly inserted in the sleeves, and they are all with yellow on the +, and the RGB wires in the correct order. That is problem 2. Problem 3, is that the result is that the setting to make the game play buttons light up is giving me very wrong output. My settings to my knowledge are correct.. Below is a picture of ultimate mortal kombat 3. When loaded, the following buttons light up, even though all 6 should light up on each side.

COIN
PLAYER 2 START
P1 BUTTONS 2,4,5,6
P2 BUTTONS 2,3,4,5,6

AND THE MIDDLE LED IS 4 WAY BUT RUNS TO P1 BUTTON 2 AS WELL.

Im new to led blinky, so im sure i have one thing off, thats setting everything else off. If i can provide any debug or logs, please me know which, and how to find the correct ones. Led blinky is my last real trouble shoot going on.

breakdown:
p1 b1 and p2b1 stay lit, always, as well as dont correspond to R,G,B colors.

all of the 2nd side leds are switching red and blue. hypothetically i can switch all the wires in the black sleeve on the pins, but thats just not right?

game control output is WAAY off, probably resulting from above.

Thank you as always, im making crazy progress on the machine. Below is the image of what shows up lit while running UMK3..which apparently is the only time both button 1's turn off...

[aldub516]

small update. When I restart my pc, as soon as it powers on, the panel leds start their own fade in animation, with each button turning on one by one, all red, looks great!..but I cant say i exactly programmed that as far as i know, and as soon as I open an config app for ledblinky, im back to those 2 buttons being lit and everything else off. Its like they "idle" in white unless im doing something to make ledblinky work..

[AndyWarne]

small update. When I restart my pc, as soon as it powers on, the panel leds start their own fade in animation, with each button turning on one by one, all red, looks great!..but I cant say i exactly programmed that as far as i know, and as soon as I open an config app for ledblinky, im back to those 2 buttons being lit and everything else off. Its like they "idle" in white unless im doing something to make ledblinky work..

That is the default attract-mode script which is programmed into the I-PAC Ultimate I/O board (which you can customise if you wish). This stops as soon as any control is activated.

I would suggest to troubleshoot, test every LED using the PacLED64 utility which can be downloaded from the link on the I-PAC installation page on our site. That way you can check everything is wired correctly before moving to software issues.

Andy

[aldub516]

everything should be wired correctly, as they all correspond correctly as i run down the list of ports on blinkyinputmap.. But still p1 button 1 (ports 1-3) and p2 button 1 (ports 49-51) are not lighting up the correct colors. Those 2 buttons are my current problem. They stay lit white while "idling" ex: doing things in windows, and they will not light up in the r-g-b order when i test each port. Im wondering if for some reason the first 3 rgb ports on each side of the ipac ultimate have some default setting?

EDIT: As i was typing this, i realized that although I HAD previously unchecked enable high output option in winipac, it somehow re enabled itself. After that, the p1 b1 fixed itself and it now displaying the appropriate color per coinciding rgb port.. Now the entire other half of the boards side is still switching red and blue.. This is becoming tedious lol. Any suggestions?

DOUBLE EDIT: And ladies and gentlemen, although I clearly figured it out and probably did not need to clog up my own thread, i realized my issue with the other half of the board, and someone may have the same issue one day. Each side of the ipac board has its set of ports for the led outputs. Except on each side, the black sleeve needs to be flipped, as the +/yellow wire side is reversed on each side of the board. I did that fine the first time. What i didnt account for, was when programming in LED Blinky, i was continuing the copy paste trend of red green blue, red green blue, all the way down. Only on the 2nd side of the ipac board input, because its flipped, they should be programmed blue green red. Either im extremely stupid for this to begin with, or its a fairly meager mistake that could drive someone else crazy. My issue was in the ledblinky input map..

[dkersten]

as you set ledblinky input map, it lights up the channel, so you should always have things hooked up when programming or you run into stuff like this. 

[CitznFish]

DOUBLE EDIT: And ladies and gentlemen, although I clearly figured it out and probably did not need to clog up my own thread, i realized my issue with the other half of the board, and someone may have the same issue one day. Each side of the ipac board has its set of ports for the led outputs. Except on each side, the black sleeve needs to be flipped, as the +/yellow wire side is reversed on each side of the board. I did that fine the first time. What i didnt account for, was when programming in LED Blinky, i was continuing the copy paste trend of red green blue, red green blue, all the way down. Only on the 2nd side of the ipac board input, because its flipped, they should be programmed blue green red. Either im extremely stupid for this to begin with, or its a fairly meager mistake that could drive someone else crazy. My issue was in the ledblinky input map..

well, just so you know, i was making the same mistake and found this thread. It's all good now, thanks for posting this.