Wiring GGG ledwiz and multiple leds

[Farmboy90]

I am posting this here since the powermamae users seem to be the only ones using the new led-wiz and rgb drives from RandyT.

I would like to know if it is possible to wire multiple buttons (say 5 for example) to the same output on the led-wiz?  I am trying to reuse outputs since the 32 on the led-wiz is not enough for my 16 buttons.

I realize the buttons that are wired together like this are all going to blink/look the same.  That is fine.  I am just wondering if it is as straight forward as splicing the output wire from the led-wiz 5 times and running those to each RGB drive for each button.  Is there a resistor change or a power issue?

[Brewser]

I would like to know also. I have been thinking about buying this setup but I can't figure out what I would need. You say 32 inputs is not enough for 16 buttons, that doesn't make sense to me. I have about 22 buttons that I would like to light. What would I need to purchase to do this? Also I don't want to solder so is there a solution for this as well? confusing....I just need it all laid out and easy to understand.

[Farmboy90]

Brewser,

I will be doing some wiring with this setup tomorrow for a buddy of mine, so I will have concrete answers then.  However I *think* I have it figured out.

Each RGB drive can take up to 3 inputs (R, G, and B).  You don't need to use all the inputs, but you won't get the full color spectrum if you don't.  This might be fine for your setup.  For example you may only want the reds, blues, purples, etc.  In that case you would only wire the R and B inputs of the RGB.  If you wanted them to be green and green only, you would just wire the G part.

So....  for FULL color spectrum you need 3 outputs of the led-wiz.  One will go to the R on the RGB drive, another for the B, and finally another for the G.  That is why I said the one led-wiz with 32 outputs is not enough for my friend with 16 buttons.   He wants all of them to have full spectrum color.  At a minimum he would want a 48 output led-wiz to accomplish this.  Even then, all 16 buttons would cycle the same and be the same color since they would all have to share led-wiz outputs.  Since they don't make 48 output led-wiz boards, he would ideally need two of them.

Now if you got all that, let's talk other connections....

It is possible to splice off wires from the led-wiz so multiple buttons can be powered by one output.  You do just that - splice the output wire from the led-wiz and run the splices to how ever many buttons you want powered by it.  I think there is a limit of 15 per output, but that is FAR FAR more than you would need obviously.

So I think I can tell you exactly what you need if you tell me how you want these buttons to work.  Do you want all 22 buttons to have full color spectrum and run independently of each other?  If so, then you need 66 outputs, or three led-wizs.

However what might be better (I assume you have a 2 player panel), is to have the P1 buttons and P2 buttons all match - in both color and their "cycleness".  That means those 12 buttons can reuse the same 18 outputs (again if you want full RGB support) , leaving you with 14 other outputs for the remaining 12 buttons.

It all depends on what you want from a look and functionality standpoint.

Think about it, post here, and I will try to help more.

[Farmboy90]

Oh, and there is a no solder solution here.  Just plug and play type stuff, so no worries there.  RandyT made it nice an easy for us.  The solution is expensive but sweet.

[Kremmit]

Maybe Mike & Randy should ask Saint for a "LED Wiz Support" forum. 

[mccoy178]

Everything seems correct up there.  One concern for the time being is that multiple ledwiz support is not yet available.  That was a big decision(that and $55 a pop), in my decision to go with just single colored leafswitches instead of the rgb board and electric ice button from Randy.  I wonder if Randy realizes how many of those suckers he could sell if the software existed to back it up?  I am refering to multiple ledwiz support.

[Farmboy90]

Is this still true?  I thought for sure you could have up to 4 led-wizs.  RandyT added multiple led-wiz support because of the high demand.

[mccoy178]

It may be.  I was under the assumption it was not.  I thought I was keeping up with the news.  Dang it.

[MikeQ]

The LUMA control panel doesn' support multiple devices.  However, PowerMAME can for controls lighting.  You just need to modify the ledwiz.cfg.  The second device will need entries in the LEDWiz.cfg file starting after 32.

[Farmboy90]

The luma aura control panel blows.  How come you can't change anything from level 48?  Or maybe you can and I am just dumb.   

The only way for me to see all the colors is to manually type them in the ledwiz.cfg and load a game.  I will probably just write a quick app with 3 sliders (one for r g and b) and interface with Mikes dll to change the colors.  This way I will know what settings I want.

Not sure why the lumaaura thing doesn't do this though.

[Fat-Johnny]

Or maybe you can and I am just dumb.   

You said it, not me   

When in LumAura, you press the little gree button to turn the LED on/off.  If you right-click on the little green button, you get a sub-menu with a slider bar that adjusts intensity from 1-48.

See how easy that was?
FJ

[Farmboy90]

Ok, I know I am slow.  But I did try this.  I tried everything I could think of.

Now I need to get back over to my friend's house to "double check" what I did.   

Thanks!

[Brewser]

It all depends on what you want from a look and functionality standpoint.

Think about it, post here, and I will try to help more.

I have a 2 player CP with 7 buttons per player. I also have 5 Astroids buttons on the top of the CP and 3 buttons for the trackball.
I could go the same color for all buttons. It would be cool to only light the buttons needed for each game and change the color of the ones that are not needed (if possible). It would be cool to be able to change any of the buttons colors at anytime so I think the full spectrum would be the best solution for the 7 buttons for each player.
The asteroid buttons, P1 buttons, & 1 trackball button are all hooked together for single player buttons. The 2nd & 3rd button on the trackball is used for the mouse buttons.
What would you suggest?
Thanks for your help.

[Farmboy90]

I have a 2 player CP with 7 buttons per player. I also have 5 Astroids buttons on the top of the CP and 3 buttons for the trackball.
I could go the same color for all buttons. It would be cool to only light the buttons needed for each game and change the color of the ones that are not needed (if possible). It would be cool to be able to change any of the buttons colors at anytime so I think the full spectrum would be the best solution for the 7 buttons for each player.
The asteroid buttons, P1 buttons, & 1 trackball button are all hooked together for single player buttons. The 2nd & 3rd button on the trackball is used for the mouse buttons.
What would you suggest?
Thanks for your help.

Well first let me make sure my math is correct.  You have a total of 22 lightable buttons?  I don't have quite enough information yet, so let's play out a couple of scenarios. 

Scenario 1 - You care more about colors than you do about individually controlling each button.

If you make this concession you can drastically reduce the number of outputs needed by the led-wiz.  In this case you can tie the player 1 buttons to the player 2 buttons.  So give full RGB to all 7 of the player 1 buttons (for a total of 21 led-wiz outputs).  Splice those off to the correspsonding player 2 buttons.  So you still have only used 21 led-wiz outputs and you have full color to all 14 player buttons.  The only thing is that the P1 #1 button and the P2 #1 button will be the same color and blink the same way.  The same holds true for the P1#2 and P2#2 buttons, and so on.  This would leave 11 led-wiz outputs for the remaining 8 buttons.  The Asteroid buttons and trackball button that are tied to the P1 buttons can be spliced off as well so that those also match all the time.  So now you are left with 2 buttons and 11 led-wiz outputs.  Obviously you can do whatever you want at this point since you have more outputs than you need.  I would probably wire up some of the asteroid buttons separately and not marry them to the P1 buttons though.

Scenario 2 - you care less about color range and more about individual control.

First off, to individual control all these things is not so easy.  My understanding is that you need to create these lighting sequences on your own.  Perhaps in notepad or some other arcaic and arduous means.  If you aren't a programmer and don't use the dll api, then this would be very painful in my opinion.  That said, you have endless possibilities here.  I would still splice the P1 and P2 buttons off of the same led-wiz outputs.  I personally just like this look the best and think it makes the most logical sense.  If you do this, and say knock down the color spectrum to only those colors that can be created with two colors, then you would only use 14 outputs on the led-wiz.  You would then have 18 more outputs and only 8 buttons.  At this point the possibilites only grow.  You can use your imagination.

I think scenario #1 is the way to go if you don't want to buy another led-wiz.  The concession made there I don't even consider that much of a concession.  I personally would want the player buttons to be doing the same things all the time.

Oh, and as far as lighting up the buttons used by the game - I believe powerMAME does this by default, for free.  I believe MikeQ built this into the code already.  The buttons that are not used do not get lit up.