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paulscade - First Build - MAME - Blastoff!
Martijn:
nice workaround. btw did you test if there will be light bleeding through the speaker holes? because i see the marquee light is just above the speakers
Benevolance:
Did you need to use a special router bit to cut metal? Or was it just a regular carbide pattern bit? You've given me an idea of how to make my marquee holder. Thanks.
paulscade:
Martijn:
There's no light bleeding through any of the mounting holes, etc. for the speakers.
BUT... as an extra added bonus....
The light does backlight the red speaker diaphragms making them glow red. It's not something that I expected... but it looks cool. So cool... I considered adding extra lighting to make them really glow (just considered... I probably won't really do it.... yet).
Benevolance:
I didn't need to cut any metal. I cut down the plastic marquee retainers first.... then mounted them to the angle iron. In the photo, it may look like they were cut while attached... but that's because of my precision measurements. ;D nah... not really... it's about 1/16" off but that didn't matter.
Benevolance:
Heh. The plastic looked like it was metal in the photo.
I'm intrigued by your dimmer switch for the trackball. I bought the Electric Ice trackball, too. I'd like to do the same thing myself, but I know very little about wiring electronics. I have a few questions if you don't mind?
The red wire that goes into the first terminal of the switch is the 5v that you pulled that from the USB board that's on the trackball itself, right? And the second wire in that pairing goes...where, exactly? Regarding the ribbon cable for the lighting module, wires 2-4 go into the switch. The regular 5v just plugs into the green block?
What is the green block beneath the red switch? It looks like the red switch part might 'plug' into the green block beneath it? If that's the case, are the wires going into the red switch or into the green block?
The blue block in the top left is a resistor? It doesn't look like it's connected in any way to the circruit? Is that the case or is there a connection underneath?
paulscade:
Benevolance:
I've updated the schematic that I posted to include pin numbers. This should clear it up a little.
Where to start....
The green block is just a 16 pin socket. I wanted to be able to replace the switch if it broke... without having to resolder the wires.... so I used a socket.
The red block is a simple switch (x5 but I only needed 4; switch 5 is unused). The switch plugs into the socket. I could have wired directly to the switch but I would have had the issue above.
The blue block is a variable resistor. It has 3 connections... one for each end of the resistor... and one for a wiper arm. I used 2 of the 3 connections... one end... and the wiper arm (which provides for the varying resistance).
Yes, the red wire comes from the +5 pin on the trackball interface. The little header pins on the trackball interface provided for an easy way to tap +5 and Ground. The white wire is the ground. I needed both.
If you have a look at the schematic....
- The red wire comes from the TB and connects to one side of switch 1 (opening switch 1 lets me turn it off completely)
- The other side of switch 1 connects to one end of the resistor
- The wiper arm of the resistor provides the 5v back to the LEDs (in other words... the wiper arm is connected to pin 1 of the ribbon cable coming from the TB.)
(at this point the LED's all have power but none of them turn on because there's no ground.)
- each of the remaining 3 wires from the trackball ribbon cable are connected to one side of each of 3 switches (switch 2, 3, and 4).
- The opposite side of switches 2, 3, and 4 are all connected together along with ground (the white wire from the trackball interface).
Make sense... or add more confusion?.... :dizzy: