Author Topic: Glowing buttons (Read 12343 times)

SirPoonga · « **on:** March 21, 2002, 02:30:30 pm »

I know this was posted before, but I can't access search here!

Ok, it looks as if the best way to make glowing buttons on an arcade is to use Happ Ultimates.

Now, what is the best LEDs to use under this situation:
5v or 12v from a computer power supply.
6 buttons.

1UP · « **Reply #1 on:** March 21, 2002, 06:16:19 pm »

Actually, there's nothing wrong with using Happ horizontals, either.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #2 on:** March 21, 2002, 08:24:28 pm »

Well, I;m no electroics person, I more want to know how to hook up the LEDs, what types to get, etc..

On the button side, the hpp horizontal have no pace inside to mount a led like the verts do.

1UP · « **Reply #3 on:** March 21, 2002, 11:42:00 pm »

Quote

On the button side, the hpp horizontal have no pace inside to mount a led like the verts do.

Huh?

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #4 on:** March 21, 2002, 11:49:58 pm »

To calculate the resistor, just use R=U/I

For example, you have a LED that needs 3V and 30mA,
then you calculate 2V (for you want to draw 2V away from the 5V to match the LED-currency) and then divide it through 0,03 A (which appears to be the 30mA).
Voila, get a 100 Ohm resistor, and everything is fine. If it's to bright, you still can use a higher one, but I won't go to much below.

LED's won't get that hot before you kill them

1UP · « **Reply #5 on:** March 22, 2002, 12:08:57 am »

Quote

To calculate the resistor, just use R=U/I

For example, you have a LED that needs 3V and 30mA,
then you calculate 2V (for you want to draw 2V away from the 5V to match the LED-currency) and then divide it through 0,03 A (which appears to be the 30mA).
Voila, get a 100 Ohm resistor, and everything is fine.

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #6 on:** March 22, 2002, 12:25:25 am »

Oops, sorry, 1Up! I mixed it up, 66,66.. is right.

So it reads: R= 3V (how many volts you want to kill) / 0,03A (how much the LED draws)

So you get the next higher resistor, and everything will be fine.
Most LED want something like 2,2V, so I mixed it up while calculating.

Hope that helps!

1UP · « **Reply #7 on:** March 22, 2002, 12:48:19 am »

Yes, that makes sense! I should mention, though, that I ran 2 LEDs in the eyes of a hacked Terminator 2 toy on my desk at work for 2 years, using a 3 volt adapter at 500ma!

This was before I knew about using a series resistor. It didn't blow them out or anything, but I probably shortened the lifespan a bit... :-/

ErikRuud · « **Reply #8 on:** March 22, 2002, 10:52:58 am »

Yes, you can overdrive LEDs up to a point, but you will shorten their life.

I have a resistor calculator on my Illuminating Happs Pushbuttons Page

I t is at the bottom of the page.

As far as choosing LEDs goes, you want the brightest you can find. They usually have a rating that is expressed in mcd, (example 2500mcd). The bigger the number the better.

You can see in the photos on that page the ribs and hotspots that 1Up referred to. The hotspots are not as bad as the digital camera made them look.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #9 on:** March 22, 2002, 12:37:53 pm »

Quote

To calculate the resistor, just use R=U/I

For example, you have a LED that needs 3V and 30mA,
then you calculate 2V (for you want to draw 2V away from the 5V to match the LED-currency) and then divide it through 0,03 A (which appears to be the 30mA).
Voila, get a 100 Ohm resistor, and everything is fine. If it's to bright, you still can use a higher one, but I won't go to much below.

LED's won't get that hot before you kill them

Ok, speak english. What's R, U, and I?

SirPoonga · « **Reply #10 on:** March 22, 2002, 12:39:17 pm »

Quote

Yes, you can overdrive LEDs up to a point, but you will shorten their life.

I have a resistor calculator on my Illuminating Happs Pushbuttons Page

I t is at the bottom of the page.

As far as choosing LEDs goes, you want the brightest you can find.

ErikRuud · « **Reply #11 on:** March 22, 2002, 12:44:41 pm »

Series resistor is the resistor that goes between the power source and the led. It is in series with the LED.

You can use any plain 1/4 or 1/2 watt resistor from Radio Shack as long as it is close to the ohms that the calculator specifies.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #12 on:** March 22, 2002, 01:55:42 pm »

Quote

Series resistor is the resistor that goes between the power source and the led.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #13 on:** March 22, 2002, 02:02:46 pm »

Ok, what about making the player start buttons glow with the keyboard lights from the ipac?

I'm seeing two possible solution.
Put a led in the buttons and hook up normally to the ipac, OR hookup the ipac wires to a relay then to a more powerful led.

1UP · « **Reply #14 on:** March 22, 2002, 02:57:26 pm »

Quote

Ok, speak english.

1UP · « **Reply #15 on:** March 22, 2002, 04:36:28 pm »

Quote

So it reads: R= 3V (how many volts you want to kill) / 0,03A (how much the LED draws)

OK, so where does the amount of amps from the power supply come into play?

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #16 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:11:53 pm »

Quote

I think it's supposed to be R=V/I

Well, I'm pretty sure that it must be R=U/I worldwide, but maybe I'm wrong. It's the "Ohmsche Law" (that's a bad translation what it is called in german) and therefore it should be have the same letters everywhere. Anyway, don't ask me why there is an U, it doesn't match with any german word, too.

Ok, here we go. Funny, I wanted to tell you about the power supplies amps in a new post, but haven't got it for I was still at work that time.

1) It absolutely doesn't matter how much maximum ampere your adapter is capable off. If you got a 200mA-adapter, fine, it'll easily run up to 10 LEDS (when we go with 20mA per LED needed). You can also hook up only one LED, it really doesn't matter. If you get an 20A adapter, take a 20A adapter. Maybe it would have a big housing and some kind of hot, but you could use 1 LED up to 1000 LEDS, just like you want, no problem! You see, it's just a matter what maximum ampere strength it can bare.

2) In most cases there should be no problem connecting a LED directly to the IPC with the LED-harness-plug. Maybe ask Andy about it to be on the save-side, but the power needed of a blue or white-LED isn't that much higher then the normal LED's. I'm pretty sure that you won't need a relay to drive more powerful LED's, most relays might draw more power then a LED ever needs.

3) So, next step in the laws of electronic:

Okay, there are two ways to hook LED's together.
Just add the mA of all LED's you hook parallel together - for example, if you have three LED's each drawing 20mA, just calculate you have a big LED that wants 60mA-power.

You also can hook them together in line (myself would prefer the parallel route), than you just add the voltage needed. have three LED's that all want to have 2,2V, handle and calculate it as a big LED that wants 6,6V but is still happy with 20mA.
Get the point?

4) Your PC delivers many amps on the 5V-line (most probaly you'll take this), shall be about 5-6A, but don't nail me on that. When you open your computer case, it should stand there on it. Of course, the computer wants to have most of this power, but there is surely always enough to lit tons of LEDs. 1-2A should be no problem, so hook up a hundred LED's and then post us the picture

Oh, last but not least, to make your blue LED example happy, get a 47 Ohm resistor. Mathematically you would need a 40 Ohm, but this resistor value just isn't available.

If you got further questions, don't hesistate to ask!

SirPoonga · « **Reply #17 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:19:04 pm »

hmm, this is getting interesting...

All I want to do is replace two of the LEDs from the IPAC with white leds and put in a red button to make it glow. I still have no clue how to go about this as it seems there are tons of possibilities. What's the best way?

1UP · « **Reply #18 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:32:22 pm »

Quote

Well, I'm pretty sure that it must be R=U/I worldwide, but maybe I'm wrong. It's the "Ohmsche Law" (that's a bad translation what it is called in german) and therefore it should be have the same letters everywhere. Anyway, don't ask me why there is an U, it doesn't match with any german word, too.

AHA!

Shoulda known you were european! Always using commas (2,2V) instead of decimals (2.2V)! Anyway, according to the Radio Shack books, Ohm's Law is "R=V/I". Dictionary.com has it as both "V=IR" and "I=E/R"... Don't ask me where "E" came from! "V" makes more sense to me for Voltage, but why is current always "I"??

Many thanks for your help!

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #19 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:38:02 pm »

Quote

All I want to do is replace two of the LEDs from the IPAC with white leds

Ok, most likely they need something like 3,5V and 20mA.
As Andy stated, there are 5V coming from the I-pac, so you have to kill 5-3,5V = 1,5V.

R=U/I (Voltage/Ampere)

R=1,5V / 0,02 A = 75 Ohm. Get a 75 Ohm resistor for each of them, and put them in line with each LED. There is one flat edge on each LED, this shall be on the ground potential. The round edge in turn is the positive site. It doesn't matter on which side you put the resistor in.

I don't know where the resistors in Andy's LED-harness are located for I'm still waiting that he gets his joysticks & buttons in his store before I can order the Ipac.
If you got his harness and want to modify it, throw the resistors out, they are much likely to high and your white LED want work on optimum power.

I don't know which thread mentioned it, but as I read that some games like PacMan make this buttons flash, this is exactly the same that I'll do to to my player-buttons.
I never saw this before on my keyboard, it must really look cool to have this installed

1UP · « **Reply #20 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:39:42 pm »

Quote

All I want to do is replace two of the LEDs from the IPAC with white leds and put in a red button to make it glow.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #21 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:43:36 pm »

well see, do I need resistors or not, according to what I hear I can;t just replace the leds that come with the ipac.

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #22 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:45:29 pm »

Isn't there a resistor in his LED-harness?
Here is the harness-plug directly from Andy's site, hope he doesn't mind taking it to here:

Connect it this way and everything is fine. But see, the 220 Ohm resistors he uses are far to big for a white LED, so it may only have a dim light.

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #23 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:48:10 pm »

Just connect the White-LED's instead of his ones, and see how strong they lit.
If won't kill anything, it's just not the brightness you may want! I don't know where in his cable the 220 Ohm resistors are located, but replace them with 75 Ohm or something slightly higher, and you get optimum light.

Oh, and tell us how bright it goes with just replacing his LED's, I haven't experimented that much with white LED's!

1UP · « **Reply #24 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:49:47 pm »

Quote

I don't know where the resistors in Andy's LED-harness are located for I'm still waiting that he gets his joysticks & buttons in his store before I can order the Ipac.
If you got his harness and want to modify it, throw the resistors out, they are much likely to high and your white LED want work on optimum power.

Ah, I just noticed the ground wire on the harness has a piece of black heat shrink at the bottom, with something inside... I don't know if this is an inline resistor, or just where the 3 LED grounds are soldered together and the LEDs have built-in resistor chips. I'll wait for the answer from Andy so I don't have to cut it open...

Quote

I don't know which thread mentioned it, but as I read that some games like PacMan make this buttons flash, this is exactly the same that I'll do to to my player-buttons.
I never saw this before on my keyboard, it must really look cool to have this installed

1UP · « **Reply #25 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:52:13 pm »

BTW, the high-intensity LEDs are pretty bright without changing the resistors in the Ipac harness!

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #26 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:55:05 pm »

1up, did you use also white LED's, assuming you have this white 1up and 2up-buttons?

I'm thinking of giving blue LED's also a try, but with white it should look best, I guess?

1UP · « **Reply #27 on:** March 22, 2002, 05:58:20 pm »

Quote

1up, did you use also white LED's, assuming you have this white 1up and 2up-buttons?

I'm thinking of giving blue LED's also a try, but with white it should look best, I guess?

I tried white LEDs (2000mcd) blue (2600mcd) and red ones (800 mcd). All look great! I'm using blue for P1 and red for P2.

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #28 on:** March 22, 2002, 06:06:18 pm »

Sounds good, maybe I should make it similar as my CP-layout. Left player has blue buttons, right player purple-ones.
I always wanted to try these RGB-LED's, so it would be nice to have blue and purple light for the left and right player-buttons. If only Andy would come up with his joystick&buttons-shop, i could spare some shipping-costs. Don't know if his buttons are lightable though, but I can get them from Happ at any time later.
Well, still have to solve the monitor-problem before, but tomorrow I place the order for my radio shack.

ErikRuud · « **Reply #29 on:** March 22, 2002, 08:38:21 pm »

1Up,

To answer you amp question. The amp rating on the LED is how many amps it will draw, or how much load it will place on your power supply. The amp rating on a power supply, indicates the maximum amperage that it can provide. If your total draw exceeds the power supplies rating, you can blow the supply. Add up the amp rating of all your LEDs, and anything else that is in the circuit. If that number is greater than the rating on the supply, your supply probably won't last long.

The ohmage of the resistor would not be affected by the amperage of the circuit, the wattage of the resistor would be. Put a 1/4 watt resistor in a high amp circuit and it will burn up.

You would have to look at your power supply to know what the amp rating is. It is not standard across all PC's.

The resistor calculator script seems to be broken, I'm not sure why. Above the pictures is a link to Bill Bowden's site where I got the calculator from. His is still working, but It does give an error if the led voltage multiplied by the number of leds is greater than the total voltage.

1UP · « **Reply #30 on:** March 22, 2002, 09:16:20 pm »

Looks like I might just go USB so I don't have to run extra cables out thru the PC case. I have a powered hub that provides 500ma per channel, that should be enough.

1UP · « **Reply #31 on:** March 23, 2002, 02:11:01 am »

Regarding the Ipac LED harness, Andy says:

"Yes they are 5 volt LEDs with a built-in resistor. Max loading from the I-PAC is 10 Milliamps."

So we still need to use an inline resistor if we're to replace the LEDs. Unfortunately, most of the high brightness LEDs use 20ma, so they might be a bit dimmer than the ones with separate power. Should be good enough though, since they'll be blinking anyway.

Someone suggested before using a relay to drive a brighter LED. Well, transistors act as a solid-state relay, are smaller, cheaper, and don't click. I don't know if this is even necessary, but keep it in mind.

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #32 on:** March 23, 2002, 03:27:36 am »

Quote

Max loading from the I-PAC is 10 Milliamps."

So we still need to use an inline resistor if we're to replace the LEDs.

1UP · « **Reply #33 on:** March 23, 2002, 03:52:23 am »

You might be right, I could swear that he said they were 20ma before, but I lost that email...

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #34 on:** March 23, 2002, 04:12:07 am »

Quote

I could swear that he said they were 20ma before, but I lost that email...

If I wouldn't have come up with this RGB-LED, I'd surely connect them directly with the Ipac, as long as you don't need more 20mA, this can't be much of a problem.

Very offtopic, but me and my girl just managed to repair our water-filled Pronto-remote! Happy happy joy joy!

Guess we'll keep the cats that threw the flower-vase over it...

1UP · « **Reply #35 on:** March 23, 2002, 04:47:52 am »

Quote

If I wouldn't have come up with this RGB-LED, I'd surely connect them directly with the Ipac, as long as you don't need more 20mA, this can't be much of a problem.

What is a RGB LED anyway? I thought they made purple LEDs, you just can't find them at Radio Shack--gotta order them. I know www.ledtronics.com has them for sure...

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #36 on:** March 23, 2002, 05:07:42 am »

Quote

What is a RGB LED anyway?

It's a great toy for electronicans

An RGB-LED features a Red, Green, and two Blue-LED's integrated in a single LED. When you use a variable resistor in each of the three colors, you can mix up any color you want! They are a bit more expensive, around $3 I guess in your currency.

By the way, as you are all Happ-experts, you surely could help me before I place my orders there! (They seem to be the only ones having purple pushbuttons, so I'll have to take them)

I want to use these "PUSHBUTTON WITH HORIZONTAL MICROSWITCH".
Are they complete, or do I need the pushbutton wrench additional to fit them in wood with lexan? And how width is the contact of their microswitches, I need to know which cable-shoes I have to order at my local electronicstore. Are they the same used as on their competition-joysticks?

ddebuss · « **Reply #37 on:** March 23, 2002, 06:05:06 am »

You do not need a pushbutton wrench no matter what the material is.

Carsten Carlos · « **Reply #38 on:** March 23, 2002, 06:14:15 am »

Quote

I am not sure what you mean by Cable Shoes but I would guess you are referring to quick disconnect terminals

Good guess! Didn't know how you call them over there, but luckily you got what I mean.

Yep, than I have to order the 4,75mm type. I'll think about this wrench, anyway, this button-stuff isn't very expensive anyway, so why not to make it perfect.

Peeper · « **Reply #39 on:** March 23, 2002, 11:18:40 am »

Quote

AHA!


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