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Light Buttons with LED Hardware/Software - COMING SOON!!!

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Lilwolf:

I found a board that handled 64 leds back a while ago.. but it was pretty !@# expensive! 

I can't wait to see what you come up with... But why build it into your mame build?  Control.dat + a middleware piece or just another app would really be better don't you think? 

Also be nice for non-mame emulators.

Buddabing:


--- Quote from: quarterback on March 22, 2005, 11:30:16 am ---
--- Quote from: Buddabing on March 22, 2005, 09:59:40 am ---I'm also considering an optional upgrade to 40 LEDs which will allow the bling bling strobe effects on that fancy control panel for which I can't find the link.
--- End quote ---

Is this it?

That's the ArcaLux

--- End quote ---

That's it. It was pretty cool, but $600.  :o

If I were to sell these, it would be much less.

In addition to MAME I would create a middleware application to control the LEDs.


versapak:

Did the original project actually hit a road block and die, or did

Popcorrin:

Buddabing I was wondering if you were going to design the software to light up led's for the joystick directions?  That way if a person was to place 8 led's around the joystick he could use your software to light 2, 4, or all 8 of the led's to signify whether the game is 2, 4, or 8 way?

If this were implemented I think a person could also use that feature along with a slight modification to the led driver board to automatically switch modes on Groovy Game Gear's 49-way joystick usb interface making a cabinet even more user friendly.  If you aren't familiar with the 49-way interface there is a description here.   http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,32747.0.html

Trimoor:

To get past the limitations of available I/O lines, wire the LEDs in a matrix.  Most of you think of ghosting and blocking when you hear the work "matrix", but if done properly, and it works quite nicely.

The classic PIC16F48 has 13 I/O lines, giving you a 6 x 7 matrix.  This can control up to 84 LEDs.  Yes, 6x7=42, but remember that LEDs are diodes: if you reverse the polarity of the current, you can light a different LED.  Bipolar LEDs do this.

To solve the ghosting problem, you must scan the matrix.  This means only one row and column are activated at a time.  Before you go on about flickering, it would be doing this at 1-2 MHz.  Take a look at your monitor.  It's only scanning at 60-100 Hz.

The drawbacks of the matrix is that there is no common ground.  Every LED must have two wires leading to the controller.  It isn't too hard to do, but it takes longer.  The wiring harness can make this simple for users, but it might be rather expensive.  The controller board would have 84 pairs of header pins (like the kind on a motherboard power switch header), and the user would have 84 little jumper cables.  These cables would have a PC connector on each end, matching the header pins.  The two wires would be different colors to indicate polarity.  The user would plug one end into the board, and the other onto the LED (the pins happen to be the same type as the header pins, albeit a little longer.)

As for cholin's (my) idea, it would still work, but it would be a horrible rat's nest under there.  The best way to do this would be to implement the LED controller on the same board as the keyboard encoder.  That way, the LED controller would "know" what was being pressed, and act accordingly.

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