LED-Wiz USB LED and Output Control Device now available. *Blinky lights*

[seanp]

Awesome.  The video looks great.  I've got the LED-Wiz lighting buttons, but haven't gotten motivated to do any animation stuff yet - your video may give me the impetus I need to get going!

[quarterback]

Fiber optic emitter for the side art lighting.
This will drive about 200 fibers that will come from inside the cabinet through holes on the side.  The fibers will be trimmed flush with the cabinet.

That's going to be HOT!   I've contemplated a 'star field' ceiling but I'm afraid it's one of those projects that I'll never get around to.  How much did your fiber optic setup cost?

[MikeQ]

The fiber optic emitter is a Supervision.

[markrvp]

That's cool.  You're a great dad.  I imagine Christmas is going to be pretty exciting.

[MYX]

Now THAT is a kids room. I have to imagine that if you want your kid to be highly creative, that is the kind of environment you put him in. We put a jungle theme in my sons room. He thought it was really cool when we did it. Now, I am not sure he even notices. I guess we will find out when he grows up.

[MikeQ]

Now THAT is a kids room.

[MYX]

Skycraft is great. I used to shop there while I was going to school. You can loose hours going through there. You can find everything from giger counters to diodes.

[MikeQ]

Are or were you in Orlando?  What school?

[MYX]

Full Sail. It is in WinterPark about a 10 minute drive from Skycraft.

[MikeQ]

Full Sail. It is in WinterPark about a 10 minute drive from Skycraft.

Yup.  Gary, the guy who owns Full Sail lives in my neighborhood.  I work about 3 miles from there by UCF.  I went to UCF after the military and like the area so I stayed.  I work for ATI.  We have a couple Full Sail guys working for us.  Full Sail has grown like crazy in the last couple years.  It has taken over the entire shopping center east of where it used to be.  Plus it still has the old facilities.

[MYX]

Gary Pratt?
Yup, They took out my favorite Mongolian BBQ place to build on to the school.
For as fancy as that place is, they could have left the Mongolian BBQ place and it would have fit right in. Part of their school is to learn how to make video games. They have their own arcade all set to free play. It is a way to cool off but still stay focused on the main objective.   

[MikeQ]

Gary Jones.

[MYX]

I was there 92-93. I went for sound. After I graduated I became a junkie for knowledge of sound and tech stuff. I was working at a church up till about 6 months ago. They more or less forced me to learn video editing several years ago. They needed a video about once a month. I took to it like (insert cliche here). It was everything creative I loved about sound, but visual. I am now the senior video editor for Primerica's TV station EPN.  They are part of CitiGroup.
I got a friend of mine interested in FS and he just started going there last month. This is how I heard about all the changes.

BTW I really have to thank Hunter Menning. He was the head of the studio Maintanence course at FS. He is the one who got me into electronics. I bet he would be all over this stuff. 

[markrvp]

ENUFF!!!   Light the fiber optics on the cabinet 

[MikeQ]

I've got to get the side art printed and applied first.  I'm not done with the art yet.

[mccoy178]

Sorry it has been so long since I've updated.  My grandmother passed away suddenly Sunday.  I have both control panels up and running.  I am still stuck using the basic program Randy provided and  I will have to wait patiently, as I have no clue on the programing end of things.  I will post some video of the Boston cabinet as soon as I get a chance.  I am currently setting it up in Easthampton, MA.  It's weird, because yesterday, I was in Southern Kentucky at the funeral and I live near Columbus, OH!  I'm a little road weary to say the least.  Mike, it looks freakin' awesome.  I can't wait to see more as it develops.  Sorry I can't be more help on the software end.  If you guys know anything about t.v.'s, take a look over in the monitor forum, as I am having a problem with the t.v. in the Boston cabinet.  It has the rainbow effect going on.

[MikeQ]

mccoy,

Sorry to hear about your loss.  Hope all is well.

What mame package do you run?  With a little work I could probably get my setup running on your cabinet.  It would allow me to make the thing a little more user friendly.  I have some code that is specific to my setup that I would need to make configurable.  My setup is based on Mame32.  Not sure you could use this or not.  I think some front ends are more mame friendly and don't like mame32.

I recently setup my system to only illuminate coin acceptors that are recognized by the game.  Donkey Kong for instance doesn't register anything dropped in coin2.   I setup my input parser to look for the supported coin doors.  The random flashing routine is also specific to my setup.  I'm in the process of creating a lighting queue and lighting sequences so things like the random routine are also configurable.

[MikeQ]

This thread has been going all over the place lately and I'm wondering if we should move off this topic so we don't pollute Randy's LED-WIZ thread.

Any thoughts from anyone?

[mccoy178]

The thread is fine I think.  Randy should make a statement in big bold letters on the first post and place all new major updates and software there.  Kind of like the mamemovie thread.  Only interested folks would then read all our stuff.  I would start a new thread about your software.  It seems to be something, that if made for universal use, would be of great interest. 

On another note, I am finally back in Ohio.  32 hours of driving in the past few days is enough to last me awhile.  I can't think straight right now, so I will respond with an intelligent thought in a day or two.  I need some sleep!

[Roughy]

I'm jumping in waaaaaaaay late here, and I apologize way in advance for any snafus I may/will make here.  I've been skimming through a bunch of this, and my interest in piqued as I'll be putting together most of my cab/cp this upcoming week and it wouldn't be too tough to make a modification now as opposed to then.

What I'm most interested in would seem to be simple to me:

All lights on while in the front end.  When the game becomes operational, only the lights that are for actual items that can be used will be lit.

Have I missed where this is/can be done?

Thanks for your patience.

[RandyT]

Here's a little Christmas present for the folks wanting to talk to the LED-Wiz from their own programs;

I just finished a little OCX for use with the Visual languages.  Usage is simple.  Drop the control onto your main form and set the "Command" property of the control to the command you want sent to the LED-Wiz.  No more clipboard control required if you can use an OCX.

The archive includes some updated docs and a very simple demo app in VB.

Download it here

As usual. let me know if anything is really out of whack.

RandyT

[MikeQ]

I'm jumping in waaaaaaaay late here, and I apologize way in advance for any snafus I may/will make here.

[MikeQ]

Here's a little Christmas present for the folks wanting to talk to the LED-Wiz from their own programs;

I just finished a little OCX for use with the Visual languages.

[Roughy]

I'm jumping in waaaaaaaay late here, and I apologize way in advance for any snafus I may/will make here.

[MikeQ]

I totally dig that--any way you'd be willing to:

a) share?
b) tell me what it "requires" to make it work?
c) tell me what you coded in?

Thanks--great stuff!

[Roughy]

Hrm...

Then, that begs the next question:

In theory, it sounds as if I should be able to run all of my LEDs through the LEDWiz and not have LEDWiz controlling anything at all.

Then, when LEDWiz gets some appropriate software that I can use, simply "turn it on" and let 'er rip and run as it's meant to, and in the meantime, everything simply lights up.

Make sense?  Worth the LEDWiz purchase risk even though it's not finalized?

[Wienerdog]

Download it here

Thanks, now I feel bad that I didn't get you anything!  I can't wait to play around with this...

Finish my cab... play with my LED-wiz... finish my cab... play with my LED-Wiz...  I can't decide.

[webgeek]

Many thanks to Randy for all the work he has put into this. I recieved my LED Wiz from him today. I've since wired it up to an RGB LED for experimenting. Many things have worked great, but I'm having trouble when I try to really get into it via code. First, I attempted to use the clipboard capabilities from C#. My code looks something like this (note that this is all badly hacked together for testing and then hacked more to take as little room as possible in here):

Code: [Select]

for(int r = 0; r < 48; r++) {
for(int g = 0; g < 48; g++) {
for(int b = 0; b < 48; b++) {
String command = "LWZ-RGB:1," + r + "," + g + "," + b;
Clipboard.SetDataObject(command, true);
Thread.Sleep(500);
}
}
}

I'm a server-side developer, not a GUI-guy so it's possible I've hosed something with my clipboard usage but it appears to be correct. Basically, this would throw an exception at some point due to the clipboard call. I believe it choked when the LED-Wiz software was reading the clipboard at the same time. I tried various delay differences, but it never really worked properly.

Rather then get hung up here, I just re-wrote the whole thing in Java. Looks something like this:
[code]
package com.testing;

import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class LedGlowieThingee implements ClipboardOwner

[RandyT]

Ok, the first thing is the clipboard.  You can't have it when something else is using it.  Instead of waiting 500ms between sending commands to it, check the status of the clipboard (with error trapping just in case) and only send a new command if the clipboard is empty.  The resident software empties the clipboard when it finds and acts on a valid command.  Your problems should go away after that.

Also, make sure the resident software isn't running when you are playing with the OCX.  They are mutually exclusive.

On the other hand, if you can, just use the OCX and skip the clipboard.


Next problem.

The Profile commands are primarily for setting up the outputs, not turning them on and off.  If you are looking for fast animation, use the state commands. 

You can use the "profile" commands for animation, but don't try to send them at the same rate as you would a state command.  The "profile" commands send 4x the data as the "state" command does.  And when ever possible, use the commands labeled as "most efficient" in the docs. 

The individual output manipulation commands are provided for convenience and will work great for fast and simple output manipulation.  But if you want to control the states and settings of every one of the 32 outputs with one fast command, stick to the SBA and PBA commands.

Also, "0" is not a valid brightness setting.  And if you set output 1 to a level of "20", don't forget to actually turn on the output so you can see it! 

This may sound a bit odd at first, but in doing things this way, you can send a profile down to the LED-Wiz that will set up all the buttons to be specific colors (or pulse settings) and then very quickly manipulate them with the simple and fast state commands.

Let me know if any of this helps your situation.

RandyT

[MikeQ]

Many thanks to Randy for all the work he has put into this. I recieved my LED Wiz from him today. I've since wired it up to an RGB LED for experimenting. Many things have worked great, but I'm having trouble when I try to really get into it via code. First, I attempted to use the clipboard capabilities from C#. My code looks something like this (note that this is all badly hacked together for testing and then hacked more to take as little room as possible in here):

Code: [Select]

for(int r = 0; r < 48; r++) {
for(int g = 0; g < 48; g++) {
for(int b = 0; b < 48; b++) {
String command = "LWZ-RGB:1," + r + "," + g + "," + b;
Clipboard.SetDataObject(command, true);
Thread.Sleep(500);
}
}
}


I don't use c# so I can't say for sure, but under WIN32 api, you must lock access to the clipboard before setting or getting data.

[webgeek]

Thanks for all the input everyone. The clipboard problem was simply that my code wasn't respecting any other programs access to the clipboard. I was able to fix it easily enough but I like the OCX more. Now that I understand that you have to enable the output first before you can use it, things are working great

My new OCX code executes this first (for one RGB LED):
LWZ-SBA:7,0,0,0,1

Then I execute this:
LWZ-PBA:20,20,20,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

This does what I expect now. Assuming I wanted to make my RGB LED from one color to another, it seems that I would be required to use profiles or am I missing something? Thanks for a great product and all the help!

Mike

[webgeek]

Doh! I take it back, at first glance, it seems to work but I'm certainly having problems still. Here is the OCX code:

Code: [Select]

LED_Wiz1.Command = "LWZ-SBA:7,0,0,0,1";
Thread.Sleep(50);

for(int r = 1; r <= 48; r++) {
for(int g = 1; g <= 48; g++) {
for(int b = 1; b <= 48; b++) {
LED_Wiz1.Command = "LWZ-PBA:" + r + "," + g + "," + b + ",1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1";
Thread.Sleep(500);
}
}
}
This KINDA works. Most the time, the LED has all of it's colors at the lowest setting except every couple of iterations, it will blink temporarily to the correct color and then go back to 1,1,1 (at least that's what it looks like). Changing the sleep delay has some impact but not that much and no matter what I set it to, it never works as I would expect. Anyone have any ideas with what I've got screwed up now? Thanks

Mike

[RandyT]

Forgive my ignorance to the language you are using, but are the integer variables r, g and b actually resolving to a string the way that is written?  And if so, are they coming through without extra spaces?

Also, by putting the thread to sleep, how is it affecting the rest of the code?  You may wish to re-write that using timers rather than stalling the thread.

RandyT

*edit*

I just knocked out a VB version of that program using the OCX and it works perfectly.  I set up the LED-Wiz command and RGB increments inside a timer with a 20ms interval.  Currently cycling through all 100,000+ color possibilities

*edit2*

Just modified the program to send a random number between 1 and 48 to each of the outputs at 15ms intervals.  Trying to push the OCX and the hardware.  Been working fine like this for the last 15 minutes.  Looks like 32 independently flickering candle flames. 

[Roughy]

Stop it until you're ready to share and let me do what I want via a GUI front end.

I want this damn thing so bad and hate you all.

(seriously, though... keep up the good work!)

[Edit]
Oh, and ummm... I'm kind of a design/usability guy.  I'm happy as hell to really help with a GUI for this type of thing.

[webgeek]

Gah! I'm still not having any luck at all. I re-wrote the OCX program a bit to use a timer instead of pausing the event thread. Still no go, the effect is the same. I then coded it up so I can actually flag which commands appeared to work and which didn't. Currently, it sends this command initially:

LWZ-SBA:7,0,0,0,2

And then when you push the "start" button, it kicks off the timer and starts sending random values (1-48) for the first three inputs. I have another button that I push to flag a command as one that appeared to work. This let me generate a list of good commands and bad commands. One sample run looks like this:

Good Commands
5. LWZ-PBA:3,34,5,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
11. LWZ-PBA:27,48,26,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
16. LWZ-PBA:44,40,36,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
26. LWZ-PBA:20,45,38,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
36. LWZ-PBA:13,11,23,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
41. LWZ-PBA:17,11,17,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
44. LWZ-PBA:43,42,29,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
-=-=-=-
Bad Commands
1. LWZ-PBA:17,20,21,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
2. LWZ-PBA:11,27,4,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
3. LWZ-PBA:32,32,9,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
4. LWZ-PBA:15,19,32,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
6. LWZ-PBA:19,34,40,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
7. LWZ-PBA:48,34,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
8. LWZ-PBA:26,12,37,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
9. LWZ-PBA:42,38,25,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
10. LWZ-PBA:21,29,46,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
12. LWZ-PBA:3,14,24,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
13. LWZ-PBA:31,37,29,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
14. LWZ-PBA:27,2,30,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
15. LWZ-PBA:29,22,27,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
17. LWZ-PBA:43,44,11,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
18. LWZ-PBA:22,44,31,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
19. LWZ-PBA:21,40,9,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
20. LWZ-PBA:32,17,37,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
21. LWZ-PBA:27,12,3,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
22. LWZ-PBA:12,37,20,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
23. LWZ-PBA:6,48,20,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
24. LWZ-PBA:30,36,46,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
25. LWZ-PBA:11,22,33,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
27. LWZ-PBA:11,47,47,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
28. LWZ-PBA:37,26,33,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
29. LWZ-PBA:35,6,4,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
30. LWZ-PBA:44,31,23,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
31. LWZ-PBA:15,48,20,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
32. LWZ-PBA:40,1,38,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
33. LWZ-PBA:27,17,33,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
34. LWZ-PBA:7,38,41,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
35. LWZ-PBA:17,14,8,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
37. LWZ-PBA:46,1,43,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
38. LWZ-PBA:19,21,19,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
39. LWZ-PBA:39,39,35,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
40. LWZ-PBA:19,25,31,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
42. LWZ-PBA:45,15,37,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
43. LWZ-PBA:27,20,21,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

The number to the left is what order the command was attempted. No, that number isn't being sent to the OCX. To make things more interesting, I went ahead and wrote another program that only sends commands that worked before and were flagged as such. No luck there either. The success rate was about the same. It doesnt appear that the specific values have any effect at all, it just sometimes works but usually doesn't.

BTW: This program is written in C# with .NET 1.1. Personally, I hate VB, but if that's what I have to use, so be it.

Randy, are you using VB.NET for your code? And if so, what version? I'm wondering if the problem occurs when .NET wrappers the ActiveX control...

Thanks!

Mike

[Edit]
Just noticed the VBP file under the OCX folder. I've gone ahead and let Visual Studio migrate it to .NET 1.1 automatically. Same problem. The PBA commands sometimes work and sometimes don't, just as before. Looks like the wrappering .NET uses for the OCX might be the problem. Sadly, I'm very inexperienced in this regard as I'm primarily a server-side developer (and not even in .NET ). Looks like it's back to the clipboard for me unless someone can shine some light on this. Thanks!

[RandyT]

Sorry Mike, I'm not sure what to tell you. 

I'm using VB6 and that little 10 min. program I wrote to approximate your code has been running without a hiccup for the last 7 hours.

Based on your numbers, it looks like 1 out of every 5 commands makes it through.  Why that is, I don't know.  Just for kicks, try the same program with a 5x delay from what you tested at last.  Any better success rate?  That shouldn't be necessary, but it might help to track down what the problem is.

BTW, I have heard that .NET doesn't do very well at dealing with OCX's or automatically porting code from VB6.  There might be solutions out there on the web, but I'm not a .NET person, nor do I expect to become one soon.

RandyT

[webgeek]

Well crap
I'm having no luck with the clipboard program either. Java can monitor when a message it put on the clipboard has been removed. I've got the program up and running so it does that properly. I can watch the LED Wiz control panel pull the commands from the clipboard properly and I still get intermittant results with the LED. I'm starting to think hardware problem of some sort...

As I can't get it to work properly in any language is there a way you can run one of these tester programs on your machine to see if it works? I can provide a tiny little .NET exe easily enough... I want to see if it's something on my machine (WinXP Pro) or .NET in general. You just need to have the framework installed and an RGB LED (or just three seperate LEDs) set up starting at output 1. Or I can provide a Java version for the command line as well?

Also, are you willing to provide the source-code for the OCX? I'd be more then willing to port it into .NET and/or Java directly? Once it's in .NET, it can be used with any of the .NET languages, which is a real plus. Thanks!

Mike

[RandyT]

Are you running the LED-Wiz through a hub? It may not like that depending on the hub being used.

Maybe we should take this to email, unless someone else wants to assist in troubleshooting.

RandyT

[webgeek]

Email it is. Thanks for all the help!

Mike

P.S. MikeQ: when you get your library finished, will you post it online?

[MikeQ]

I'm running through a hub and have no problems doing so.

Have you tried using standard monochromatic LED's and not RGB ones?