Buddabing's LED controller

[Buddabing]

Pardon the newb question, but in order to hook up LEDs to this board will I need the resistors too (a la shawnzilla's offering) or will the board take care of all this?

-Steve

No resistors will be required. The board will put out 24 mA max per LED.

Are you sure???

Most LED's operate off of 2.1 V.

[Crazy_Mack]

I know there's been plenty of talk about getting the player 1 and 2 start buttons to light, but I'm curious if any logic will be in place to implement the player 3 and 4 start buttons?

[gl.tter]

I know there's been plenty of talk about getting the player 1 and 2 start buttons to light, but I'm curious if any logic will be in place to implement the player 3 and 4 start buttons?

Hopefully yes.  The more games I experiment with, the more complicated things are getting.  For example, I just noticed that in Galaxian, the player1 and 2 lives counters swap when the players swap!

[Gamecab]

Just an update - Buddabing has given his BuddaBlessing (tm)  to the 40 LED driver board's PCB design.  I have just placed and order for the test boards and expect everything to arrive in about 2 weeks.  I expect to have the production boards ready to run very shortly after that.
When the test board is ready I will be more than happy to post the pics and results on the gamecab website, along with ordering info and all the rest.  I am sure that Buddabing will also post his results here and on the GameCab website too.

Gotta run

Thanks again!!

Charlie

[CJK]

Woo hoo! Can't wait!  :-)

-- Chris

[richms]

Will this allow dimming or just switching of the LEDs, also, are they direct driven or matrixed?

[Buddabing]

Will this allow dimming or just switching of the LEDs, also, are they direct driven or matrixed?

There are 16 brightness levels. They are direct driven, not matrixed.

[Chris]

Will this allow dimming or just switching of the LEDs, also, are they direct driven or matrixed?

There are 16 brightness levels. They are direct driven, not matrixed.

Did support for four-lead tri-color LED's get in there, or do we just wire them as three separate LEDs?

--Chris

[Buddabing]

Will this allow dimming or just switching of the LEDs, also, are they direct driven or matrixed?

There are 16 brightness levels. They are direct driven, not matrixed.

Did support for four-lead tri-color LED's get in there, or do we just wire them as three separate LEDs?

--Chris

They have to be wired as three separate LEDs.

[Popcorrin]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before but with buddabing's led controller and shawnzilla's clear transluscents it will now be possible to not only light up the buttons used by the game but with multiple colored led's in each button I don't see why we can't light up the button with the correct colors.

[Chris]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before but with buddabing's led controller and shawnzilla's clear transluscents it will now be possible to not only light up the buttons used by the game but with multiple colored led's in each button I don't see why we can't light up the button with the correct colors.

[Popcorrin]

Cool!  I thought maybe it had.  Has anything been done to implement the functionality?

[gl.tter]

Cool!

[Popcorrin]

It's a project started by SirPoonga to properly list what controls are used by each game.   There was a need for it mainly due to the fact that the info output by mame is incorrect a good part of the time.

[Popcorrin]

http://fe.donkeyfly.com

[gl.tter]

http://fe.donkeyfly.com

That was my next question, thanks.

[Tiger-Heli]

It's a project started by SirPoonga to properly list what controls are used by each game.   There was a need for it mainly due to the fact that the info output by mame is incorrect a good part of the time.

Partly due to the fact that MAME output is incorrect.  Also b/c even if it is correct, MAME tells you
"This game uses Button 1, Button 2, and Button 3."  Controls.dat tells you "Button 1 is FIRE, Button 2 is GRENADE, Button 3 is SUPER ZAPPER".

Also, gl.tter, you should brush up on the threads on Johnny 5 and CPmaker, which use this file to display what buttons on a CP are used by a game.

I think the light engine would have to use a similar approach to do what Popcorrin (and I) would like.

[markrvp]

Here's a request:

In Pacman & MsPacman, when you eat a power dot and the ghosts turn blue, I would like the button & joystick LEDs to flash in random patterns (to mimic the chaos of running ghosts).

[MrTroy]

When are these things going to be avaible

[gl.tter]

Also, gl.tter, you should brush up on the threads on Johnny 5 and CPmaker, which use this file to display what buttons on a CP are used by a game.

I think the light engine would have to use a similar approach to do what Popcorrin (and I) would like.

Here's the approach I've taken:

MAME sends which controls (MAME input codes) are enabled by a particular game to the light driver.

[gl.tter]

When are these things going to be avaible

Well, I'm out of action with a tooth infection at the moment, but I hope to get back to it fairly soon.

[gl.tter]

In Pacman & MsPacman, when you eat a power dot and the ghosts turn blue, I would like the button & joystick LEDs to flash in random patterns (to mimic the chaos of running ghosts).

From the LSE point of view, you would need to find the memory address that signifies the ghost change & set this up in the watchpoint (.dat) file.  This will send a signal to the light driver.  That part is already possible.

It's then up to the driver to provide the effect, and let you associate it with the signal.

[Tiger-Heli]

Also, gl.tter, you should brush up on the threads on Johnny 5 and CPmaker, which use this file to display what buttons on a CP are used by a game.

I think the light engine would have to use a similar approach to do what Popcorrin (and I) would like.

Here's the approach I've taken:

MAME sends which controls (MAME input codes) are enabled by a particular game to the light driver.  The driver can then choose to light up all the controls used by game.

For this to work, the driver has to supply some mechanism to map lights to controls (usually a text file).  So for example, you edit the file and say 'light 1' is under hardware button X (ie. MAME input code XXX).  That information is then enough to light up the controls used in a game.

That's the basic mapping support I would expect most light drivers to implement.  However, drivers could go much further, and for example could let you associate 3 light outputs with an RGB LED.  They could then allow you to set colours in various ways, either using a global scheme, or even schemes for each game.

So I think the best places to set colours is in the driver control->light configuration file.

BTW, I'm working on a driver that does all this and much more.

It also needs to take into account the controller mapping for the particular game. 

Example - Let's say I have buttons mapped as

   4 5 6
   1 2 3
7

For classic game I use the lower row of buttons, but for Neo-Geo, I use 7, 4, 5, 6.  So for Neo-Geo, Button 1 = V, Button 2 = L Shift, Button 3 = Z, Button 4 = X.

Either the LSE or the driver needs to know how I have this mapped so it lights buttons 7, 4, 5, 6, instead of 1, 2, 3, and 4.

[gl.tter]

It also needs to take into account the controller mapping for the particular game.

[2600]

Also, gl.tter, you should brush up on the threads on Johnny 5 and CPmaker, which use this file to display what buttons on a CP are used by a game.

I think the light engine would have to use a similar approach to do what Popcorrin (and I) would like.

Here's the approach I've taken:

MAME sends which controls (MAME input codes) are enabled by a particular game to the light driver.  The driver can then choose to light up all the controls used by game.

For this to work, the driver has to supply some mechanism to map lights to controls (usually a text file).  So for example, you edit the file and say 'light 1' is under hardware button X (ie. MAME input code XXX).  That information is then enough to light up the controls used in a game.

That's the basic mapping support I would expect most light drivers to implement.  However, drivers could go much further, and for example could let you associate 3 light outputs with an RGB LED.  They could then allow you to set colours in various ways, either using a global scheme, or even schemes for each game.

So I think the best places to set colours is in the driver control->light configuration file.

BTW, I'm working on a driver that does all this and much more.

I thought Buddabing was taking care of this, but haven't been following in depth.  One thing that would put a slight wrinkle in your logic is this scenario and it's pretty common.

I have button 1 wired up next to my 8-way, 4-way, and let's say trackball.  They are all mapped to the same button.  Either by configuration or parsing of controls.dat I would want the appropriate button lit for that game.
i.e. When playing centipede the button next to my trackball, Donkey Kong the button next to my 4-way, and for 8-way games the button next to my 8-way.

Just something to think about.  The controls.dat is the reason I'm getting this, the rest is just icing for me.

 Although, I think the rest is harder to implement, but it is pretty cool what you've been able to do.  gl.tter I know you've posted some info on how you are discovering and figuring out some of this, have you thought about posting more info on this and how the other guy(Dr. Romz?) figured out his stuff?  I thought you had mentioned he took a different approach.  Obviously, I'm not talking about your implementation more of how you used MAME to figure out the signals.

[gl.tter]

I thought Buddabing was taking care of this, but haven't been following in depth.

[2600]

Actually, I thought Buddabing was doing this since he has basically a controls parser and it's right up his alley.  Plus I thought he mentioned.  Sorry just talking to myself on this one. 

As for the button mapping, I think I may have confused you.  In my example all of those are physically connected to let's say the '7' key.  In your example LSE mapping you said light one goes to button '7'.  I would have three lights going to '7', but I wouldn't want every '7' to light up.  Does that make more sense or do I need to go reread your posts?

[gl.tter]

Actually, I thought Buddabing was doing this since he has basically a controls parser and it's right up his alley.

[2600]

Exactly and yes this is pretty common.  I believe most people who have an additional 4-way do this, every slickstick controller, and more.  I added the additional trackball just to make you think a little more and didn't hardcode it to 2 instead of one.

[markrvp]

Hang on - are you saying that you in effect 'share' encoder inputs between several controls?

[Tiger-Heli]

I think making each control light separately depending on the game is outside of the scope of your project.  Anyone wishing to use the LSE would probably need to redo their wiring to fit.  There are simply too many variations of control panels to try and make a product work "right out of the box" for each one.

I wouldn't give up on that yet - but it will depend on how the driver's get defined.

For example, let's say the 4-way and 8-way joysticks are connected to the same encoder inputs.  MAME won't know which stick I use, but it does know (from controls.dat if not from -listinfo) whether the game is 4-way or 8-way.

There should be some way to put 4 LED's around the 4-way (numbered 1-4) and 8 around the 8-way (numbered 5-12), and tell the interface board to light LED's 1-4 for 4-way games and light LED's 5-12 for 8-way games, without re-wiring the panels.

But it's hard to tell how this is all going to play out.

[gl.tter]

Argh, just lost my reply.

Thanks for the info guys, I'm still new to the scene and assumed encoder inputs are never shared.

Saying that, the signals are fine - basically you need another set of instructions in a driver's light map file, specifying your panel layout.  The driver can then work out which light to trigger.

For example, let's say the 4-way and 8-way joysticks are connected to the same encoder inputs.

[Popcorrin]

That's the basic mapping support I would expect most light drivers to implement.

[gl.tter]

So correct me if I am wrong.

[Buddabing]

So correct me if I am wrong.

[CJK]

I know it contributes in no way to the technical discussion going on here (which is somewhat over my head), but I just wanted to thank both gl.tter & buddabing for their work on this amazingly cool project -- one which will be used by many, if not most, of the folks here on BYOAC!

Guys like me (lots of ideas but few electronics skills) really appreciate guys like you!

-- Chris

[posicat]

I just found this post, almost by accident today.  I'm very interested in this controller for my computer case (It's for the case mod, but I play mame!)

Put me on the list as :

2. I'll buy it if it's not too expensive
1b. Controller capable of controlling 40 LEDs
2b. Just the populated circuit board

I did have a question however about 4-lead RGB LED's, these have a common ground line, will these be possible for use with the controller.  From what I can tell the ground is what varies for the controller not the +5v side.  I'd hate to scrap the LED's I already have.

Posicat

[Buddabing]

I just found this post, almost by accident today.

[posicat]

Hum, that might complicate things a little bit, I'm sure I can figure something else out.  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished project, and the price. 

I imagine I will pick one of these up, as I was going to spend the summer designing the same thing with a PIC chip.  I'd be happy to keep the free time and spend some money

Also, you might want to look into alternate markets for these boards, I can see them fitting into more markets than just MAME consoles.

• Model Train layouts (to control building lights, and even sky-lighting effects for sunrise sunset.
• Case Modders, being able to control 40 individual LED's would make them smile (It will me)

Those are just the first 2 that came off the top of my head.  I'd love to see a serial or even USB model of these controllers, my Linux machine has a 6 port-serial controller.  I could decorate a whole christmas tree with individually controllable LED's.

[Buddabing]

I'd love to see a serial or even USB model of these controllers, my Linux machine has a 6 port-serial controller.