Arrgh! Complete day wasted. [More luck today!] - Video

[Franco B]

I spent the whole of today wiring up the LEDs in my test CP for my cocktail which consisted of soldering resistors to 17 LEDs, daisy chaining the cathodes, running wires from the anodes, wiring up two 15 pin dubs and then soldering the wires from the d subs to the anodes.

I was really happy that I had managed to get it finished and just bought a bottle of wine to drink whist I started sequencing some LED animations. I had a look at the installation instructions for any thing to do with software installation and my eye wandered over to the wiring diagram...

To my horror I realised Ive completely ---fouled up beyond all recognition--- up and wired the LEDs as common cathodes  instead of common anodes

For some reason I had got it in my head that the LED wiz worked off a common cathode, doh!

This means pretty much all of my wiring today has been a waste of time. I can still use the wired d'subs but I'm going to have to completely redo all the LEDs in the CP.

To make matters worse, in a moment of panic I thought that the three LED Wiz enclosures I had made would be useless too. Its no biggy though, I just need to change my common ground connection to the USB 5v output and bridge it to the input.

Such a shame as was really looking forward to seeing the CP lit up at least 

Oh well, I'll take the panel into work tomorrow morning and rewire whilst my machine is running. Its a good job I had a look before connecting them to the PC too.

So lesson of the day kids, always read the instructions!

Well I think this wine is going to slip down a little faster now, I'm off to vent my frustrations on COD4.

[ChadTower]

That sucks, but take this lesson from it...

...next time drink the wine first.

[rackoon]

I cant count how many times I got a small bottle of vodka so I could have a few martinis later that night and started sipping on the bottle while building my cocktail cab and look at it the next day and think "WHAT THE HECK!" 
Somehow it looked good when I was doing it.

[Orclord]

That's what you get for being a wine drinker.....

 

[Franco B]

Well I did have a couple of Grolsch's whilst doing it (it is my day after all and bars were open sometime in the world at the time )

Mabye I should change it to wine 1st and beer afterwards 

[hypernova]

Coulda been worse...

My cab had 50+ LEDs.  I'd have screamed if I screwed them up.  It took hours just to prep the leaf holders to accomodate them.

[leapinlew]

Got all your fingers?

Always can be worse.

[FrizzleFried]

...or you could have plugged your LED's in to a 120v source like some other genius managed to do in here...

[patrickl]

...or you could have plugged your LED's in to a 120v source like some other genius managed to do in here...

Well for that mistake you can always try to blame someone else 

[Cakemeister]

Those little wires are a big pain, which is why I would have gotten the LED-Drive boards from Randy.

[Havok]

Well I did have a couple of Grolsch's whilst doing it (it is my day after all and bars were open sometime in the world at the time )

Mabye I should change it to wine 1st and beer afterwards 

But that way you'll get sicker!

 

[protokatie]

But that way you'll get sicker!

I thought the rule was:

Liquor before wiring; you get it in the rear

Wiring before liquor: You're in the clear

[Havok]

But that way you'll get sicker!

I thought the rule was:

Liquor before wiring; you get it in the rear

Wiring before liquor: You're in the clear

That explains the other day when I woke up in the garage, in nothing but my spider man underoos, in the fetal position...

 

[Franco B]

Had a little more luck today......

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bVVBy9DfG1o[/youtube]

(Excuse the sound, I had the radio on)

Really happy how its going to look, even happier it worked 1st time!

Ive got the ring round the joystick running off one LED Wiz (the rings of the other three joysticks will run of the same LED Wiz) and the other LEDs are running of a 2nd LED Wiz. Its great to see that both Wiz's are working together.

I haven't sequenced anything as yet, the show in the video is just of the ramp up/down feature of the LED Wiz's.

Now, time for some Vino methinks 

[clickhea]

looking good

[waveryder]

Amazing! Simply incredible. Amazing lightwork Franco. Definetly worth all that extra time soldering! I gotta get me one of those LEDwiz's. RandyT "get off yer ass" and make an electric ice balltop so I can order!!!

[Franco B]

Cheers guys.

Waveryder, any particular reason you want an electric ice ball top? I know you already have the same clear balltops as me, why not just use clear buttons and GGG diffusers?

(I am suprised Randy hasnt done a ball top to match the buttons though)

[RandyT]

(I am suprised Randy hasnt done a ball top to match the buttons though)

 

[DeLuSioNal29]

Yes, I'd love a LED ball top as well.  The only other option is to order the Slikstik one through Mameroom.  However, it cannot interface with the LED wiz.   

Randy, any plans on making one in the future?  Tell me now before I go and order my hard earned money on the Slikstik one.  I hope to order it this week.

~ DeLuSioNaL

[danny_galaga]

i wish i enjoyed drinking. except for the fact that you screwed up, it sounds like a good way to get things done (",)

[unclet]

Will you please post a picture of your LEDWiz enclosure you made?  I would like to mount my LEDWiz to something but would like some ideas .....

[Franco B]

With pleasure...

[Minwah]

Very nicely done

[Franco B]

Thanks, was a bit of a pain but they turned out quite nice. 

Here's a clip of a quick sequence I did yesterday.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BDW28IG7RQM[/youtube]

It looks much better when sped up slightly, ive found that when using the LEDblinky animator, it will only play the sequence up to a maximum frame rate of about 30 frames . However, onve you use the sequence in Mala etc it plays at full speed. 

[arzoo]

It looks much better when sped up slightly, ive found that when using the LEDblinky animator, it will only play the sequence up to a maximum frame rate of about 30 frames . However, onve you use the sequence in Mala etc it plays at full speed. 

Can you elaborate on the problem with the editor? It should play at the same speed as LEDBlinky running under MaLa.

[RandyT]

Randy, any plans on making one in the future?  Tell me now before I go and order...

The crystal ball says.....wait.


RandyT

[Franco B]

It looks much better when sped up slightly, I've found that when using the LEDblinky animator, it will only play the sequence up to a maximum frame rate of about 30 frames . However, once you use the sequence in Mala etc it plays at full speed. 

Can you elaborate on the problem with the editor? It should play at the same speed as LEDBlinky running under MaLa.

The animation in the video above is 32 frames long with all LEDs being on or off at some point and at a global frame duration of 10 milliseconds.  The LEDs in the ring are run off one LED WIZ (Device 1), all the other LEDs are run off another LED WIZ (Device 3), I haven't hooked Device 2 up yet as I don't have the LEDs wired.

When I run the whole animation in the LEDBlinky animator, the fastest I can get the sequence to run is at a frame duration of around 30. If I decrease the frame duration below that point, the sequence doesn't get any faster.

One thing I have noticed is that if I just run an animation of the chasing lights round the joystick (using a different .lwax) I can get the sequence to run much faster. I can see an increase in speed up to about a frame duration of 10, after that it does not seem to get any faster (not that I would want it to be).

In comparison, this is the same animation saved at the same frame duration of 10 and configured as the UI animation in Mala.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GwPkp8YLPV4[/youtube]

There are a couple of pauses as Mala and the game lists load but nothing major.

Is seems that with the LEDBlinky animator, the sequence slows down as it gets more complex.

I have attached both .lwax's to the post (the ring animation and the more complex animation) if that helps at all


Arzoo, while I have your attention you may be able to help me with a problem I am having.

Is it possible to increase the amount of Port Labels when using the Generate LEDBlinky Input Map tool?

I ask because I am using 3 LED Wiz's on my cabinet and there are not enough labels for all of the outputs. Ideally I would like to be able to create my own labels but I don't know if this is possible. The extra labels I need are for the diagonals on the joystick rings (P1UpRight, P1DownRight etc) for all four players. As far as I know you cant light the diagonals when selecting games to show its an 8-way game (as I think you can with 4-way, 2-way etc). I wish you could though.

 I also need labels for all the outputs from my other LED WIZ (Device 2) this one is going to be used to control all the LEDs on the cocktail top surface for a starfield effect (using the same plexiglass rod method as the joystick rings). For this I would like labels like Star1, Star2, Star3 etc.

Is any of this possible?

The crystal ball says.....wait.

RandyT

Shouldn't that be, 'The Electric Ice ball says.....wait

Edit: Ooops, forgot to attach the file.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Randy, any plans on making one in the future?  Tell me now before I go and order...

The crystal ball says.....wait.


RandyT

I hope it's soon.  I was going to order the other one this week.  Thanks for the info Randy!

~ D

[arzoo]

Franco B,
I'm not sure why you would see a difference is speed between the editor and player - they both use the same code. Are you using the editor on the same pc as the MaLa install? There are a lot of factors that affect the animation performance - changing intensity is always slower then just turning the LEDs on and off. I'd like to check out your .lwax files - can you email them to me?

As for the port labels - you can type anything you wish. The drop-down list is just a bunch of predefined labels.

By the way, the LEDs around the joystick look fantastic! Not sure how to solve the diagonals problem - maybe something I can do with LEDBlinky.

[Franco B]

I sequenced them and ran them on the same PC as I thought I may have problems if I transfered between PCs.

I am using quite a few intensity changes so that may me the cause.

Its not problem for me personally though, it runs fast enough in the editor to see what it looks like and it runs at full speed in MaLa which is the main thing.

Thats excellent about the port names 

If you could some how solve the diagonals problem that would be great! Thats the only thing I want to do but cannot at present. I downloaded the LEDBlinky Config app last night and I cant believe how much stuff you can do with it! Truly amazing! 

I zipped and attached the .lwax files to the previous post. If you cant get them from there give me a shout and ill email them to you.

Thanks for your help