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

[johnnysmitch]

Anybody get one of these up and running/implemented into a cabinet yet? I'd really love to see the results!

[MikeQ]

Anybody get one of these up and running/implemented into a cabinet yet? I'd really love to see the results!

Almost.  Got my board yesterday.  I'm waiting on an order of 100 LED's.  Should be here any day.  I had a couple of LED's lay around and hooked them up to test the board last night.  I'm coding up a Mame32 extension to light LED's based on a config file per game.  I'm going to illuminate the buttons/joystick that each game uses.   I'm trying to finish the whole project before x-mas.

[mccoy178]

I have the board and finished wiring the resistors to the led's.  I am waiting on artwork, as I only want to take the buttons out one more time, then put the led's in.

[johnnysmitch]

Awesome, I can't wait to see how it works out for you guys.  I'm hoping to start buying parts after christmas (when I actually have money again) for my next project... gonna try another unique one.

[MrTroy]

This thing isn't idiot proof. I'm trying to figure out how to even start wiring this thing up. I take it it's not as simple as wiring the ground and the number. There's the U5v and X5v that has to do something right?

[MikeQ]

The X5v is an input for external power (like power from your PC molex 5v tap).  The board comes setup so that the USB power is going into the X5v.  You can hook up your resistors to either X5v or U5v.  The resistor gets hooked up to the anode (long leg) of the LED and the cathode short leg gets hooked up to one of the 32 connectors.

[mccoy178]

I'm putting it out on the line.  I have my leds ready, the cp is completely wired except for the leds.  I am waiting until I receive the cp overlay from MameMarquees before I hook up the lights.  You all have until Wednesday, then I'm unvailing it in all its glory!

[MrTroy]

The X5v is an input for external power (like power from your PC molex 5v tap).  The board comes setup so that the USB power is going into the X5v.  You can hook up your resistors to either X5v or U5v.  The resistor gets hooked up to the anode (long leg) of the LED and the cathode short leg gets hooked up to one of the 32 connectors.

So what's the ground for then? Is that for just using the X5v or the U5v?

[RandyT]

So what's the ground for then? Is that for just using the X5v or the U5v?

Did I forget to send you a hardware doc sheet or did you order before we had it ready?

The diagrams show how everything is used.

Drop me an email if you need one.

RandyT

[MikeQ]

The X5v is an input for external power (like power from your PC molex 5v tap).

[MrTroy]

Ahh... So thanks Randy for sending me the sheet. I got home and started playing with this thing. Oh man there's so many things I want to try. It's a shame the ONE machine I finished doesn't need blinking lights> I'll find a use for this one.

[MikeQ]

Well, I've got Mame32 talking to the LED-WIZ now.  When I select a game from the menu, the LED's that light my Joystick knobs, translucent buttons, trackball and spinner will now show what controls that go with each game.

Here is a demo video (3mb):

[mccoy178]

That looks pretty freakin' cool!  I'm building both control panels tonight, just waiting on the artwork.   All sixty of my solders worked!  I'm not much for it, so I'm pretty happy.  I didn't have the fancy Radio Shack thing there though.  I had to slice a molex extension and jerry rig something to test them.

[quarterback]

Here is a demo video (3mb):

Linky no workie, even if I reverse the backslashes to forwardslashes

[MikeQ]

what do you get?  It works for me and others?

[quarterback]

what do you get?  It works for me and others?

If I click on your link, I get a pop up window that says:

Code: [Select]

home.cfl.rr.com\mikeandmiranda\led-wiz.wmv could not be found.  Please check the name and try again.
If I reverse the backslashes and make them forwardslashes, I get:

... well, now I get the video     Previously I got a "file not found" (or something like that) web page.  But with the forwardslashes, it's working for me now.

[MikeQ]

Cool.  I'm hooking this up to mame32 now but my goal is to hook it up to a front end of some sort.  I need to find a front end I like that has source available.

[MikeQ]

Posting some pics/video of progress:

Here is the control panel showing what buttons are used for each game.

I'm scrolling through:
Asteroids
Donkey Kong
Joust
Missile Command
Omega Race
Virtua Fighter

/************************/
 
/************************/







Control panel wiring before adding the LED-WIZ



Next, I need to drill a couple hundred tiny holes in the sides of the cabinet and install end firing fiber optics.

[mccoy178]

Mike, that looks freakin' great!!!

[mccoy178]

This is so depressing.  I can't even begin to explain how upsetting this is.  Look at the time of this post.  I have just been sitting here thinking about it since my last post.  I have no thoughts right now.  Just disbelief.  There should be some hall of shame for stuff like this.  Once I saw that thread asking about it halfway up this page, I knew there were problems.  Big problems.  I am so sick right now, I don't know quite how to put it into words.  Since I can't just cuss outloud, I'm stuck to just sit here and brood over this.  Oh well, on to other topics.

[MikeQ]

Ya, I think it is wired backwards. 

The way I did it was a with a common +5 going to a resistor then the LED, the ground then goes to the LED-WIZ input.  You don't hook anything to the ground on the LED-WIZ power.

/\/\/\ = resistor
O      = LED


    | ----------/\/\/\/-----O-----------|
    |                                             |
    |                                         |-------------|
    -----------------------<- +5--- | LEDWIZ   |
                                              |-------------|


If you wire the resitor to the cathode, the circuit will work too.

In your picture of the LED wiz, I notice you don't have anything attached to +5.  You should be able to attach your black wire to +5 and turn all the LED's around so black is on the long leg.  You don't need to move the resistor, just leave it on the red wire.  Just swap black and red on each LED.  Current can only flow through an LED in one direction so just reversing ground and +5 won't work.  The LED's need to be turned around.

[mccoy178]

I woke up and I have renewed energy!  I'll be reporting back after awhile.  It shouldn't be that bad to fix.

[MYX]

GU CAN DO IT MANG!    <-- that is a picture of determination.

[mccoy178]

Success!!!  It is the most wire on something since the first rockets, but it works.  I'll explain more later.  I have an entire second one to have done tonight!!!  I'll try to throw some video on here a little later.  It is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell I wear my emotions on my sleeve?

[MikeQ]

Hey McCoy,

I replaced my coin door lights with LED's and wired them to my LED-WIZ.  Now when you select a game from the menu, the coin acceptors fade on and off.

[MYX]

Hey MikeQ, on your spinner, I noticed that lights came on. Did you just put the LEDs under the overlay? Is there color over that part? I know that cameras never due the actual justice. How bright does the spinner look in reality?

[MikeQ]

Hey MikeQ, on your spinner, I noticed that lights came on. Did you just put the LEDs under the overlay? Is there color over that part? I know that cameras never due the actual justice. How bright does the spinner look in reality?

Yes, I drilled holes before putting the CPO on.  I then inserted the LED's in the hole and used hot glue to hold them in.  All the LED's I'm using are blue, 5600mcd.  They show throught the CPO very well.

[MYX]

All the LED's I'm using are blue, 5600mcd.  They show throught the CPO very well.

Do you know what the angle rating of the LEDs were. I found blue with a extremely high mcd that were 30 degrees. If a semi lit room is the 1 LED enough?

Mccoy178: How is it coming?

[MikeQ]

I'm using 5100mcd blue that have a viewing angle of 25deg.  They work well for both the button illumination (leaf holders) and the under CPO lighting.

[MikeQ]

Success!!!

[MikeQ]

RandyT,

I don't know if your still following this post or not but we really need a direct API!!!! 

I'm running into problems make lights blink fast while mame is running.  Mame apparently grabs a lot cycles and prevents the LED-WIZ clipboard poll-er from emptying the clipboard.  I have a timer that fires every 250ms and sends an LWZ-SBA to the LED-WIZ.  These appear to get backed up and I get stuck in my routine that waits for the clipboard to empty.  While I'm stuck, the next timer fires and boom, corrupted stack.

The clipboard is a nice way to get stuff up and working quickly but doesn't seem to offer the flexibility of a direct API.

Other than that I'm very happy with the LED-WIZ.

[RandyT]

RandyT,

I don't know if your still following this post or not but we really need a direct API!!!! 

I'm running into problems make lights blink fast while mame is running.  Mame apparently grabs a lot cycles and prevents the LED-WIZ clipboard poll-er from emptying the clipboard.  I have a timer that fires every 250ms and sends an LWZ-SBA to the LED-WIZ.  These appear to get backed up and I get stuck in my routine that waits for the clipboard to empty.  While I'm stuck, the next timer fires and boom, corrupted stack.

The clipboard is a nice way to get stuff up and working quickly but doesn't seem to offer the flexibility of a direct API.

Other than that I'm very happy with the LED-WIZ.

The sequence should go like this:

Enable timer
timer fires
disable timer
send LED-Wiz command
Monitor clipboard until empty (with an additional timer if necessary, disabling when done)
repeat

You shouldn't have any problems if you use this logic, but MAME will probably take precedence.  If you are already doing this, I don't understand how a timer is firing when it shouldn't be.

I will look into a simple API, most likely with just a couple commands that mirror the most direct ones from the software, and try to send you something within the next day or so.  But in the meantime, try the above and see if that does any better.

RandyT

[MikeQ]

Ya, stupid mistake.  I was working on this without enough sleep.  I fixed this late last night first my mutexing the timer callback so I couldn't get into the function if I was already in it.  Then I resorted to killing the timer.  Once this is working, I still have the problem that mame doesn't seem to allow the polling to happen very often.  I'm not able to blink things very fast.  Very fast being 5-10 times a second.

A simple interface in a couple days would be great.

[RandyT]

Ya, stupid mistake.  I was working on this without enough sleep.  I fixed this late last night first my mutexing the timer callback so I couldn't get into the function if I was already in it.  Then I resorted to killing the timer.  Once this is working, I still have the problem that mame doesn't seem to allow the polling to happen very often.  I'm not able to blink things very fast.  Very fast being 5-10 times a second.

A simple interface in a couple days would be great.

This is because the timer in the version of the software you have is polling only 10 times a second.  I have increased this polling frequency in the version I am currently working on.

I'll keep you updated.

RandyT

[MikeQ]

So I abondoned (for now), doing flashing stuff during a game.  However, I have it coded up now to do flashy stuff while sitting at the mame32 menu and this works well since nothing else is really going on.  If anyone is interested, I'll post video.  I'm not sure how much people are interested in seeing this stuff.

[MYX]

I'm not sure how much people are interested in seeing this stuff.

Bring it!!!!!

You are one of the pioneers for the rest of us. 

[markrvp]

Yeah, everything for these right now is custom, so nobody else knows how to do it unless you show us.

[MikeQ]

Well, I just found out something you don't want to do.

Don't take pictures of the underside of your control panel if you have optical 360 joysticks.  Each time a took a picture, Windows made an angry noise.  After the last picture, windows started freaking out.  It was beeping at me and my menu selection in mame32 was bouncing all over the place.  When I tried to reboot, the keyboard was dead.  I had to turn the system off.  It took me a minute to realize the flash was somehow affecting the joysticks in a bad way.

Luckily, after rebooting, everything worked.

[MYX]

It took me a minute to realize the flash was somehow affecting the joysticks in a bad way.

DO IT AGAIN!!! DO IT AGAIN!!!!!

[MikeQ]

Here you go:

******* 4MB VIDEO **********
Take note of the coin acceptors at the bottom

***************************


LED-WIZ upper left corner.