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Light Buttons with LED Hardware/Software - COMING SOON!!!
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TheGatesofBill:
I'll say that I'd test it, although I'm sure you have enough already.

Anyways, how about including some sort of source code / programming information so other people can make programs that take advantage of the button lights.
Ted_Striker:

--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on February 03, 2004, 10:56:01 pm ---
 id like to see this go a bit further with lighting support for games that output lights.  

 Discs of Tron used 2 sets of flashing lights above head, the internal artwork lighting turned off durring the title showing, and i think a few other lights could flash.

 Simularly, there were a bunch of other cabs that had light output controllers... like spyhunter - lighting the appropriate 'weapon' from under the artwork...

  Im  sure that a dev could work with you to help in getting that functionality to work with a device.

  Finally, a motor & cylenoid driver would also be usefull too.  For use in making replicas of mechanical games like pitch & bat's, pinballs, ice cold beer, ect... and even some video games - Force feedback, ticket output, ect.


--- End quote ---

In your board design (if you have the outputs) how about a few (3-4) relay contacts.  All of the above could be accomplished by just having some dry contacts.  Then in your software design, make a "plugin" structure.  So then all the great ideas can be accomplished after the fact without a redesign of the board.  If relay contacts were included, we could use them for triggering our illuminated translucent trackballs.  As long as the relays could be programed like the other LED's ( you said you are working on this) this could be a very cool and functional tool. I would recommend opto isolated relays so different power supplies independent from the board could be used.  Heck, I don't know how you are designing your hardware, but if you used relay contacts (or transistors or whatever), anything could be hooked up to your board, not just LED's.  And if a music pluggin or attract pluggin were created (as requested above) we could do cold cathode lights, marquee lights, etc... basically anything.  With a music pluggin cycling the lights, I can see the BYO jukebox guys latching on to this thing (myself included).  Maybe this is beyond the scope of your project but a larger product market is rarely a bad thing.  I'm really seeing this thing as really nice light controller, not just a "new Mame button thing".  I guess what I'm getting at in this long ramble is make the thing modular and flexible.  But hell you should know this crowd... if it can be hacked.. we will do it.  If it can't be hacked, we will hack it so it can be hacked :)...

Also, with all these bright LED's, please keep power consumption in mind.  Most of us will be probably powering this off of our pc power supply.  A ton of those "you can't look at them" LED's could suck some major juice even though they are LED's.  Also some of those super bright LED's require more than the standard 2V that generic LED's most commonly use.  A variety of LED's could make a driver circuit a bear.  So I guess a question is in order.  In your design will the LED's be included, will we be forced to use your LED's, or will we be able to use whatever LED's we have laying around? Or you may not be able to answer this until the board design is finalized.  

Whatever board design you come up with, I would like to see screw contact terminals for connections.  So we can make whatever wire length our cabinet requires (vertical, sit down, custom etc..).  Just like our good ole pal Ipac uses for buttons and such.
DinoRoger:

--- Quote from: Ted_Striker on February 04, 2004, 12:18:02 pm ---In your board design (if you have the outputs) how about a few (3-4) relay contacts.  All of the above could be accomplished by just having some dry contacts.  Then in your software design, make a "plugin" structure.  So then all the great ideas can be accomplished after the fact without a redesign of the board.  If relay contacts were included, we could use them for triggering our illuminated translucent trackballs.  As long as the relays could be programed like the other LED's ( you said you are working on this) this could be a very cool and functional tool. I would recommend opto isolated relays so different power supplies independent from the board could be used.  Heck, I don't know how you are designing your hardware, but if you used relay contacts (or transistors or whatever), anything could be hooked up to your board, not just LED's.  And if a music pluggin or attract pluggin were created (as requested above) we could do cold cathode lights, marquee lights, etc... basically anything.  With a music pluggin cycling the lights, I can see the BYO jukebox guys latching on to this thing (myself included).  Maybe this is beyond the scope of your project but a larger product market is rarely a bad thing.  I'm really seeing this thing as really nice light controller, not just a "new Mame button thing".  I guess what I'm getting at in this long ramble is make the thing modular and flexible.  But hell you should know this crowd... if it can be hacked.. we will do it.  If it can't be hacked, we will hack it so it can be hacked :)...

Also, with all these bright LED's, please keep power consumption in mind.  Most of us will be probably powering this off of our pc power supply.  A ton of those "you can't look at them" LED's could suck some major juice even though they are LED's.  Also some of those super bright LED's require more than the standard 2V that generic LED's most commonly use.  A variety of LED's could make a driver circuit a bear.  So I guess a question is in order.  In your design will the LED's be included, will we be forced to use your LED's, or will we be able to use whatever LED's we have laying around? Or you may not be able to answer this until the board design is finalized.  

Whatever board design you come up with, I would like to see screw contact terminals for connections.  So we can make whatever wire length our cabinet requires (vertical, sit down, custom etc..).  Just like our good ole pal Ipac uses for buttons and such.

--- End quote ---

In the current design it will be LED's only because we are designing a power supply that will be sold with the hardware. The chips are rated only to support a number of LED's. I am shooting towards a total of up to 74 LED support (super bright).

Also one of the LED banks will be for lighting the trackball and trackball button LED's when a game uses the trackball system.

From other posts there will also be a seperate LED for 4 and 8 way joysticks that you can mount near the joystick.

We are working on getting the sound activation and dance mode builder designed now.

In future products I will consider updating the board hardware to support any electronics. I have to start small write now because a lack of funds. If the L.A.M.E. hardware works out then I should be able to afford an investment in other hardware designs as you mentioned.

The board will have plenty of screw terminal banks. Here is what I was thinking for a count. Let me know if you suggest other #'s:

Button 1 = 4
Button 2 = 4
Button 3 = 4
Button 4 = 4
Button 5 = 4
Button 6 = 4
Button 7 = 4
Button 8 = 4
Button 9 = 4
Button 10 = 4
Player 1 = 2
Player 2 = 2
Player 3 = 2
Player 4 = 2
Coin 1 = 2
Coin 2 = 2
Coin 3 = 2
Coin 4 = 2
Trackball = 3
Trackball Buttons = 3
Pinball Left = 2
Pinball Right = 2
4 Way Joystick = 4
8 Way Joystick = 4
GROUND = 5

That would be a total of:
74 LED supports
79 terminal screws
25 Terminal screw banks
Pixelhugger:
Looks like you're planning on implementing the joystick lights. I was just going to second, third , fourth that. I'd buy it for that, and that alone. I want my cab to be playable by a complete newb without my constant attention. Since I'll have switchables, I'm definitely eager to use your system!! I LOVE the idea of having the joystick directions themselves light up - four lights around a when a 4way game is played, 8 for the 8 way on switchables. Just too cool. I suppose with the board you propose, I could wire in a micro-controller and stepper motor or actuator to switch the joys automatically, which is something I've been thinking about for too, too long. ;)

Thanks for your genius on this.
Lilwolf:
I wouldn't try to label them... and allow it to be done programmatically.

Why?

you will find more control panels with 12 buttons (6 for each player) then with a trackball.

And are you planning on having support for other programmers?  I would love to see the same program that sets the lights to create a custom controller.cfg file that actually sets them up.  But that is just me... I wrote my own frontend because I hate configuring each game.
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