Illuminated Buttons Question

[Aidy22475]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to all this so I apologise if I get anything wrong or I'm posting the wrong thing in the wrong forum.

I'm going to be building a 2 player Bartop cabinet in the next month or so and need some advice/questions answering regarding the controls.

I understand keyboard encoders and wiring everything in but I'm lost when it comes to lighting up the blue buttons I'll be using. The buttons will be 5V LEDs and I know there exist encoders which can power the LEDs as well as translate inputs although these seem to only light the LEDs when a button is pressed. I'm after constantly illuminated LEDs while the power is going to the system.

I have seen the independent LED controllers but don't really want to go down this route if I can avoid as it will bring up costs and the features such as lighting LEDs with specific games will not function on the RetroPie frontend (that I know of...)

Any help at all would be appreciated

[Titchgamer]

If you dont want to use a board you dont have to but they do make life much easier!
You can use a power supply and wire them off that but you need to be carefull as i believe some require the use of resistors to make them work properly.

I recently fitted out my cab with ultimarcs ultra lux buttons wired to a pacled 64 and they work and look great!
Took a while to wire them all in etc but no faffing about with resistors etc just plug and play.
They are also programable to any colour etc you want if you use the RGB ones I had but you may need to connect the board to a pc to do this.

You can go further with them using LED blinky but it probably is not compatible with rpi (not sure)

Hope that some help.

[Nephasth]

I'm after constantly illuminated LEDs while the power is going to the system.

Skip the controllers and software. Wire directly to the power supply.

[PL1]

I'm after constantly illuminated LEDs while the power is going to the system.

Skip the controllers and software. Wire directly to the power supply.

Neph speaks truth.

Tap into a molex (red=5v and black=ground) and daisy chain them like this. (0.250" QDs)





If the LED doesn't light unplug/turn the LED holder 180 degrees.

You can buy pre-fab daisy chains from GGG, Paradise Arcade Shop, or other vendors.

you need to be carefull as i believe some require the use of resistors to make them work properly.

LED buttons have the resistor inside the LED holder.



As long as you aren't applying 12v (yellow wire on molex) to 5v LEDs, there is no need for an additional resistor.   


Scott

[Titchgamer]

Thanks for clarifying that for me

[Nephasth]

If you're unsure what color you want, go RGB with cheapo controllers.These are cheap enough that I used one on each button for a project I built for my nephew. He can change the color and/or animation for each individual button without software.