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A Mame machine in an antique buffet - USB probs solved (I think!)
drventure:
Well, I +tried+ to get video of this, but 3 tries and I still can't get it to come out so I'm giving up on that.
I was playing with my ELWire (I've got several feet left over) and thought it'd be cool to light my cp with it (to a degree anyway).
I rewired up my photocoupler circuit on a spare breadboard (I'd wired all this up once before but never actually hooked it up to me LEDWiz), and hooked it all up to my cab's LEDWiz.
Edit the animation and layout a tad, and lo and behold, I have ELWire that can pulse, flick on and off and animate exactly like any other LED on my cabinet, all controlled via my LEDWiz! It's really pretty cool to watch the ELWire fade in and out. Wish I could have gotten the video to work.
I think it'll make for a really slick looking downlight on the control panel. And now, I know I can completely control the "Nixie tube" letters that will hopefully make up my marquee. I could be very cool to make them animate in time with buttons or music in the game....
Hopefully, I can get a video of it once it's installed.
I'd sure love to see some sideart done with EL Wire. Seems like I recall someone talking about it around here, but never seen any pics...
saurian333:
--- Quote from: drventure on January 16, 2010, 08:40:22 pm ---Edit the animation and layout a tad, and lo and behold, I have ELWire that can pulse, flick on and off and animate exactly like any other LED on my cabinet, all controlled via my LEDWiz! It's really pretty cool to watch the ELWire fade in and out. Wish I could have gotten the video to work.
--- End quote ---
Sounds cool; hope you can get a vid to work at some point. :) That stuff looks like fun to play with.
Sideart would be interesting, if done right. I have a feeling it would be a fine line between looking very cool and just being a fugly mess. Maybe if one carved into the side of the cab, and set the ELWire into the grooves?
drventure:
Yeah, I'm seeing it as an inlay of some sort. one of those small one hand trim routers would probably work great for that.
I'm going to try my hand at some inlay myself. My dad has said I'm crazy to even try with this formica. I've got some left over so I can use it as a test (won't even think of touch my CP till I'm fairly sure I can pull it off).
I've got a brass plate I fashioned up to trim out my flight stick, but it would REALLY look best inlaid into the CP surface.
If that works, I may just have to strip off the stamped compass points I put on and do em in real brass ;)
saurian333:
--- Quote from: drventure on January 16, 2010, 11:14:53 pm ---Yeah, I'm seeing it as an inlay of some sort. one of those small one hand trim routers would probably work great for that.
I'm going to try my hand at some inlay myself. My dad has said I'm crazy to even try with this formica. I've got some left over so I can use it as a test (won't even think of touch my CP till I'm fairly sure I can pull it off).
I've got a brass plate I fashioned up to trim out my flight stick, but it would REALLY look best inlaid into the CP surface.
If that works, I may just have to strip off the stamped compass points I put on and do em in real brass ;)
--- End quote ---
I haven't worked much with formica myself, but I imagine it's a ---smurfette--- to keep from chipping and such. I wonder if you'd be better off hand-carving it somehow (not sure what tool would be best for that).
If you're referring to a "laminate trimmer," I just got one myself. $22 at Menards, works just as well as a router on smaller jobs. I used it to flush-trim my plexi to the lid of my cab, and it was PERFECT. (I'll be posting pics of that soon; getting close to the final stretch before I get my controls and computer.)
EDIT: I feel like I've been pimping out that trimmer a lot. I guess I really like it.
drventure:
Ok, finally got some decent video of the ELWire controller.
First a couple of shots of the board (yeah, I decided to be somewhat professional about it and actually solder things down vs just using a proto board :) )
Top of the board
The LEDWiz outputs (that would normally go to an ACTUAL led) go in the top connectors.
The ELWire AC voltage (from the transformer), goes in the side).
And the switched ELWire voltage comes out the bottom.
There are circuits to control 2 elwire segments, via 2 LEDWiz outputs on this one board.
Here's the back (no laughing at my soldering job ;)
And here's a little vid of it in action (hopefully, I've got the embed right)
All I've done with this is set it to the LEDWiz built in ramp up/down animation.
Not a huge deal, I suppose, but it's been fun working out the circuit. Technically, this circuit should be good to control any kind of ELWire or ELTape/panel you want.
I'm wiring up a few "Power coils" like the above, plus some downlight effects on the control panel itself, that'll all be controlled along with all the LED's via the LEDWiz.
Believe it or not, it's bright enough to see the pulsing even during the day, though it's definitely more impressive with the room darkened 8)
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