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

[MikeQ]

Email it is. Thanks for all the help!

Mike

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

I'll give it directly to Randy.  It will be his property to do with what he wishes.

[webgeek]

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

Good thinking, I just gave it a shot. Sadly, I'm getting identical behavior with a run-of-the-mill red 5mm LED (and proper resistor of-course). Thanks for the suggestion though.

Mike

[MikeQ]

I think my problem is due to some circuitry that creates the color transitions.  Your RGB LED's aren't driven by such circuitry.  It was a long shot but probably worth ruling it out.

[webgeek]

I don't know if this helps at all, but the intensity inside the LumAura control panel doesn't really work consistently for me either. If I click the slider for intensity (the up and down arrows) it updates once for about every five clicks. This is almost identical to the behavior I see when I try and control the intensity with code.

Mike

[webgeek]

Ok, an update... It appears that the problem I'm running into is related to my machine itself. All the code I posted earlier works perfectly on my other computer. Thanks for all the help!

Mike

[MikeQ]

I bet Randy would be interested in knowing the specifics of this machine.  Working in the PC hardware field, I see issues like this a lot.  It is usually with integrated motherboards and a lot of times is a chipset issue.  It would be good to come up with some commonalities and differences between the two machines.

Could it be a USB 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 issue?  Do you know if both systems have the same USB version?

Do the two machines have the same OS? 

Do they have the same Service Packs?

Are they machines both Intel/AMD based?

What are the chipsets in the two machines. 

Certain VIA chipset/motherboard combinations have know USB issues.  Some of these issues can be resolved with patches to the bios.

[webgeek]

Randy has been working with me a bit to track it down. The machines are more different then they are alike. Other then both being Intel, that's about it. Thanks!

Mike

[MikeQ]

Does the problematic one have a VIA chipset?

[Wienerdog]

Let me know if there are any .NET/VB related questions, I can help out with any of that.

[webgeek]

MikeQ: No, neither of the machines use a Via chipset.

Wienerdog: Thanks for the offer but I should be ok on the coding front. Once I got past the hardware problem, everything started working perfectly. Now I'm working on getting RGB LEDs to use true RGB values. So you can go into Photoshop, pick a color as either hex or r/g/b values, and the LED will attempt to match it. I've got it taking the luminosity differences of the LED elements into account as well but it's still not done yet. Ultimately, I'm hoping that you can do something like this:

RgbLed led = RgbLed(startingPin);
or
RgbLed led = RgbLed(startingPin, redLum, greenLum, blueLum);

then set the color like this:

led.setColor(redColor, greenColor, blueColor);
or
led.setColor(colorAsHex);

I will also be implementing some fade capabilities.

led.fade(colorAsHex, duration);

Still lots of experimenting necessary to get this all working. I'll probably get something up and running this weekend. Might be tricky to make the correct color curves to match the RGB colors and if anyone has experience with this type of thing, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

Mike

[loadman]

And as for myself Im going to have to convince my wife that I need all new translucent buttons and this thing.     

Maybe Not? I used standard Buttons but inserted the very bright LEDS in them and they look great.  I Think anyway. They come with MaLa Hardware from Genmany but I'm sure you could aquire these bright LEDS elsewhere.

[MikeQ]

www.lsdiodes.com
or
www.superbrightleds.com

My control buttons are all translucent but my player 1/2 are standard white micros from happs.

[steptoe]

Firstly, what a fantastic inovation, well done Randy.

And to all the people working on all the various aspects well done, id say the community is following the thread very closely as i am.

Now

where you guys up too, im selling my cab just so i can build another and light it up like the 4th of july. I just hope i can do it all, im not to bad at the electical, but the software side of things could be difficult as i have no idea. Anyway keep up the good work and please keep us posted.

CHeers Step

[ScottMcC]

This relates to something I

[MikeQ]

This relates to something I

[MikeQ]

Firstly, what a fantastic inovation, well done Randy.

And to all the people working on all the various aspects well done, id say the community is following the thread very closely as i am.

Now

where you guys up too, im selling my cab just so i can build another and light it up like the 4th of july. I just hope i can do it all, im not to bad at the electical, but the software side of things could be difficult as i have no idea. Anyway keep up the good work and please keep us posted.

CHeers Step

I'm trying to make my software solution generic so that someone with no programming knowledge can just make a config file and everything will just work.

Problem is, I don't want to have to support a custom version of Mame to do so.  I'm looking at ways I can make my lighting software a standalone utility that interfaces with Mame.  Even supporting the utility will be a pain though.  It take time/money to do so.  Unfortunately no one wants to pay for software these days so supporting a custom Mame utility will probably end up being a loosing proposition for me.

[Roughy]

I'm trying to make my software solution generic so that someone with no programming knowledge can just make a config file and everything will just work.

Would you be willing to work with someone on this?  What I'm getting at is that I work in usability--something a lot of these apps (not pointing the finger at anyone) seem to neglect a little bit and require a learning curve that folks who aren't very immersed find a bit... awkward and/or challenging.

Anyway.  Offer's on the table to help with this thing, if it's possible.  Hell, I'll help out any of these things...  (for the most part.  and no, I'm not building your website, either)

[SirPoonga]

Problem is, I don't want to have to support a custom version of Mame to do so.  I'm looking at ways I can make my lighting software a standalone utility that interfaces with Mame.  Even supporting the utility will be a pain though.  It take time/money to do so.  Unfortunately no one wants to pay for software these days so supporting a custom Mame utility will probably end up being a loosing proposition for me.

What do you need to know from mame?

[MikeQ]

I'm trying to make my software solution generic so that someone with no programming knowledge can just make a config file and everything will just work.

Would you be willing to work with someone on this?

[Roughy]

The problem isn't making it usable.

[MikeQ]

The problem isn't making it usable.

[MikeQ]

Problem is, I don't want to have to support a custom version of Mame to do so.

[Roughy]

Say you have this controls panel

SlikStik Illuminated Joystick mapped to Arrow_up, Arrow_dn, Arrow_left, Arrow_right
Six buttons mapped to A,B,C,D,E,F
Analog spinner
Analog trackball

Your config file would look like this:

LED-1

[SirPoonga]

Problem is, I don't want to have to support a custom version of Mame to do so.  I'm looking at ways I can make my lighting software a standalone utility that interfaces with Mame.  Even supporting the utility will be a pain though.  It take time/money to do so.  Unfortunately no one wants to pay for software these days so supporting a custom Mame utility will probably end up being a loosing proposition for me.

What do you need to know from mame?

I need to know the default input port mappings.  Mame has XML config files for the control mappings but these only exist if the user modified the defaults.  The defaults are hardwired via the machines input port code.  If you look in the driver code for a specific game (say asteroids) you'll see a bunch of macros calls:

PORT_START_TAG("IN1")
PORT_BIT(0x01, IP_ACTIVE_HIGH, IPT_COIN1)
...
PORT_BIT(0x40, IP_ACTIVE_HIGH, IPT_JOYSTICK_RIGHT)

These macro's actually write a function that hardcodes the default values for a particular driver.

I love the way I have things setup on my cabinet now but can't see this being a practical solution for most people since it would require me to provide a version of mame.  I have made it very friendly and generic.  All one has to do is make a config file that maps controls to LED output #'s on the LED-WIZ.  Once this is done, you fire up mame and any game you start will automatically light the controls that it uses.

One of the great things about my setup is that when you pop up the controls dialog in mame and make changes to control mappings, you see the changes made instantly on the control panels lighting.  You couldn't get this with a FE or any other approach.

What would be really great is if mame had a plugin infrastructure that allowed an outside utility to access mame data structures.

As a side note too, I've hooked up some code to fire a solenoid from the LED-WIZ as well.  This will allow me to do a Qbert knocker.  I haven't built a relay circuit yet but the code is in place and right now when Qbert jumps of the cliff, my lights all flash.

It sounds like you are making johny5 but for LEDs   That's a hint.

Ok, I will come right out and say it.  You have all the information available from mame.  First, the macros in the driver are not hardcoded mappings, as in hardcoded to keypresses.  They are just "hardcoded" to a constant.  For example.
PORT_BIT(0x40, IP_ACTIVE_HIGH, IPT_JOYSTICK_RIGHT)
That means the bit at 0x40 of some port of some chip that is being emulated handles joystick right on the real machine.
So, you need to know what keypress is joystick right, for this particular game.  You have this info.  If the person uses ctrlr files you use those, if not you can use the "cfg" files which are in the same xml format as the ctrlr files.  These are created when a game is first played and contain the control info.  Ctrlr files will override this though.  If the file doesn't exist mame will create the file with default, so you know if the file doesn't exist to use mame defaul mappings, which happen to be in the mame.cfg file (this is where the general mappings are stored, I believe). 
Ctrlr files have a heirarchy to them.  if you put in an entry for neogeo it will affect all neogeo game.  But if you also have an entry for mslug mame will modify the neogeo entry with the mslug.  So if the neogeo sets coin1 to 3 and player 1 button 1 to T ... then mslug entry sets button 1 to W ... then mslug will use 3 for coin since its parent overwrote the defaults, but use W for button one as it override its parent.
Again, this is what johnny5 does, along with adding in controls.dat info for better accuracy, to display a control layout graphic.

[SirPoonga]

Hrm.  Maybe I should start thinking about a documentation project?  (Man, is that a stupid thing to volunteer for!)

You mean http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu ?

[Tiger-Heli]

Hrm.

[SirPoonga]

Hrm.  Maybe I should start thinking about a documentation project?  (Man, is that a stupid thing to volunteer for!)

You mean http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu ?

My thoughts exactly!!!

Oh yeah, and http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli

[Tiger-Heli]

Oh yeah, and http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli

[MikeQ]

It sounds like you are making johny5 but for LEDs

[SirPoonga]

I'm not familiar with Johnny5.  If something like this already exists then for my own use, I still would rather have the code reside in mame though.  I want to be able to do in-game stuff both with lighting and knockers as well as having the lighting on controls be updated in real time.   I'm not real interested in doing an FE so I'd probably leave the config file parsing to the FE people.  Although I do plan on making my mame32 interface a lot prettier.

Johny5 is a program that creates and displays a pic based on the controls of a game.  See http://fe.donkeyfly.com or the software forum.

What you just described sounds like glitter's LSE.  I wonder where he is on that, haven;t heard form him.  He's making a communications protocal for inside of mame to talk to outside stuff.

[MikeQ]

I'm not familiar with Johnny5.

[RandyT]

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the "LSE".  I might be wrong, but I'm thinking he lost interest, considering his last visit to the board was over two months ago.

Hang in there, Mike.   Even if you made everything the way you wanted it and released it into the wild, I'm sure a lot of folks will find plenty of value in it.  Maybe someone else will be interested in picking it up where you leave off.

RandyT

[MikeQ]

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the "LSE".

[SirPoonga]

The releasing into the wild part is what scares me.  Then I'll have to release a new rev each time mame updates, host a website, and so on and so on.

That's the annoying part.  That's why I stopped working on my mame hacks.

I've heard of Johny5, but only have a vauge idea of what it does.  Doesn't it create a graphic of your control panel with labels for what controls get used?

Johnny5 does what I described earlier.  It takes info from controls.dat and mame to accurately produce a picture of your control panel, all labelled with the labels the real machine used.
Tiger-Heli has some nice pics.
http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/johnny/

I was just saying what you are describing sounds like an LED version of johnny5.  But you will also have the ability to do stuff like the qbert knocker.

Yeah, not sure what's going on with LSE, glitter hasn't been around.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?action=profile;u=7242;sa=showPosts
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=37834.msg344665#msg344665

[RandyT]

Hang in there, Mike.   Even if you made everything the way you wanted it and released it into the wild, I'm sure a lot of folks will find plenty of value in it.  Maybe someone else will be interested in picking it up where you leave off.

The releasing into the wild part is what scares me.  Then I'll have to release a new rev each time mame updates, host a website, and so on and so on.

Maybe I used the metaphor incorrectly, but when I think  of "releasing something into the wild", it doesn't belong to you anymore.  You never have to see / feed it again

I got my C API up and running last night.  I'm not using the clipboard interface anymore to run my cabinet.  I need to clean things up a bit, do some testing and put it in source control. Once done,  do you have use for the source or do you just want the DLL to distribute or both?

Whatever you want to offer will be great.  That will mean at the end of all this, there will be a DLL and an OCX method for low-level communication.  Can't ask for too much better than that.

Thanks again for your efforts,

RandyT

[SirPoonga]

I got my C API up and running last night.  I'm not using the clipboard interface anymore to run my cabinet.  I need to clean things up a bit, do some testing and put it in source control. Once done,  do you have use for the source or do you just want the DLL to distribute or both?

Whatever you want to offer will be great.  That will mean at the end of all this, there will be a DLL and an OCX method for low-level communication.  Can't ask for too much better than that.

I am looking forward to this too.  I still want to make a simple controls.dat interface
Yes Randy, I will be ording soon

I do have a question about the LEDwiz which I think came up before but I can't find the answer.  If I get one now, as it is beta, when a final product appears will there be an upgrade?

[RandyT]

I do have a question about the LEDwiz which I think came up before but I can't find the answer.  If I get one now, as it is beta, when a final product appears will there be an upgrade?

The hardware is no longer beta, despite what the site says.

Now that there are ways to talk to the hardware directly, I won't stall it for the high-level resident app.  Once there are a few practical applications like those mentioned in this thread, the resident app probably won't get a lot of action anyway.

I expect the resident software to be in beta for quite a while, but the hardware is final in it's current state.

RandyT

[MikeQ]

Hey Randy,

I added key variable speed control to my panel tonight and can now run my lights so fast it will cause seizures.

[Silver]

Apologies if this is covered, but I've not been keeping up to date on recent LED stuff....

Can I ask is there any software/setup that currently works with an FE to light buttons used in a particular game (and stays lit as you play the game - I presume this is normal though)? I've seen videos of this working (I think) but they seem to custom coding.

Or is it a case of waiting for one of these dll/ocx's to be released and supported by an FE?

[MikeQ]

[quote ]
If the person uses ctrlr files you use those, if not you can use the "cfg" files which are in the same xml format as the ctrlr files.